There have been seven Animagus in the last century.
Registered Animagus, that is.
Actually, there have been several hundred Animagus in the last century. The thing was, none of them were registered.
There was a very good reason for this. The only people who would ever register themselves as an Animagus were doing it simply for the sake of doing it, gaining the mastery and the prestige of being able to turn into an animal at will.
As you would expect, those types of people were rather rare.
Another type of person were those who legally made themselves Animagus by working for the Ministry. However, they were not registered, as it would ruin any advantage they might have against potential enemies. In certain areas (The Unspeakable Department, for one) it was almost a requirement to be one, and many Ministry workers who were thinking about or had become an Animagus, as long as they told their superiors about it, were allowed to stay unregistered.
The next type was not quite as legal. This type had become an Animagus for a specific reason and were not about to give up the advantage just because of a few pesky laws. It was a bit more rare than the Ministry variety, but, still, it happened. They generally were not discovered except by close friends, and as most of these were not doing it for any particularly harmful reason, they remained illegal and unregistered. Well, okay, maybe Rita Skeeter had harmful intentions, but notice the most.
The third type of unregistered Animagus were criminals through and through and were Animagus solely to help them commit crimes. These were almost always discovered and reported after a few years and were not very common at all. Although how to become an Animagus was common knowledge on the street and most people, if they had a couple years, could do it, most criminals did not have a couple of years to spare for intensive training. Not to mention the fact that most criminal Animagus were caught. After all, few real animals try to rob stores and mug people...
Harry Potter wasn't an Animagus at all. But his godfather, Sirius Black, was, and Harry had just started learning. He'd wanted to since he was roughly five, but Sirius refused to teach him until he was twelve. By Sirius's reasoning, Harry would have to wait until the age the Marauders themselves had started the process, and he would also be learning almost the same way, which is to say he would be foregoing all the helpful potions and other little aids out there and simply desperately hoping it would work, and after roughly a year, trying it out.
Fun, fun.
~*v{o}v*~
When Harry practically tumbled out of the fireplace, Sirius was waiting for him, in a very cheerful mood. "Harry! You need to practice your Animagus stuff, you know, you're late again." He was trying to look serious, and failing miserably, unless, of course, you count his general state of affairs as looking Sirius, and yes, I'm very punny.
Anyways, Harry, on the other hand, looked fairly serious. "Snape caught me." He said the moment he fell out, smiling a bit oddly. "And then I told Dumbledore everything and promptly Obliviated him."
Sirius stopped dead, and looked absolutely starstruck. "W..What?" He stuttered dumbly.
Harry repeated his slap-dash explanation.
Sirius abruptly collapsed into a conveniently placed armchair. They had armchairs all over the house, courtesy of Sirius, as he claimed he never wanted to sleep on a floor again, even if he had partied drunkenly all night and didn't even retain the strength to open a beer bottle. Not that Sirius Black would ever get drunk and party, nuh-nuh, nope, no way that was happening. Especially with an innocent child in the house.
"Okay." Sirius said, after several minutes of awkward silence, in which Harry fidgeted uncomfortably. "Okay. Umm...Just call Remus, kay? I know he's at Hogwarts* , but just...call him." Quietly, when Harry had drifted away to make that call, he whispered, "Great. We're screwed."
Harry, of course, had actually been lingering, and heard him. "Nuh uh!" He yelled. "I'm good at Obliviate!"
Sirius rolled his eyes, but it was true. Sirius had decided right off that one of the spells they were going to need, living their lives of danger and suspense, strangely like an adventure book of some sort, was Obliviate, and Harry could perform it in his sleep. Literally. As a final test, Sirius had snuck up on him while he was asleep on the makeshift bed of straw that was actually in a barn (they were in the Switz mountains, a bit lost, and there wasn't much else available) and he had Obliviated his godfather sleepily without even waking up, or at least waking up only very briefly, as he was snoring immediately afterward.
Still, who knew if a twelve year old's (a very skilled twelve year old, but still a twelve year old) Obliviate would stand up to Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts and cartloads of other things, and the only man Voldemort is afraid of?
Although we all know that that is not true. Voldemort is definitely also afraid of a snotty-nosed second year dropout that isn't even technically a second year because he never went to school that had never officially defeated anyone except other snotty-nosed brats his own age(s).
Oops, forgot one Tom Marvolo Riddle. He's just so unobtrusive and forgettable, ya know?
~*v{o}v*~
Albus Dumbledore woke up after a light nap in the corridor to the frantic yelling of his MediWitch, Poppy Pomfrey. "Albus? Albus? Are you okay? I discovered you ten minutes ago, I think Severus has been in an accident too, he keeps on raving madly about Harry Potter and-"
"Poppy!" The Headmaster interrupted. "I'm fine. Severus is not crazy, I'll explain later. For now, I really must go to my office. I will let you administrate to me later." He added, as the nurse looked rather murderous that he was going to be leaving.
"Oh..alright." Madam Pomfrey said, after pondering for a minute. "But you have to promise to tell me then."
Albus simply nodded and got up, heading for his office.
As soon as he got there, he sat in his chair, fingers steepled.
It was an interesting predicament. Albus was fairly sure he could easily unravel the Obliviate, but he preferred to figure things out without that benefit.
Harry had not block Obliviated, simply eliminated the contents of the conversation, suggesting he was rather good at the spell. Hmm...what did he know about Harry Potter?
Albus began calculating. First, he knew the general "Boy-Who-Lived" spiel, and the Sirius Black drama that came afterward. And that was where he needed to concentrate.
The Sirius Black drama... Harry certainly hadn't walked off by himself, it was certain that it had actually happened. The oddest thing about the whole event was that Sirius had gotten through the blood wards, which prevented any wizard with ill intent for any of the inhabitants from passing through. And the fact that he had not attacked the Dursleys at all was odd, in fact, he had posed as Muggle himself!
He had puzzled over this before, but now that he had more information, he was pondering on the only theory (other than pure insanity) anyone had been able to puzzle out.
Was Sirius Black innocent?
If you were running with that theory, the only way he could have given away the Potter's location was that he was tortured..or he hadn't been the Secret Keeper at all. The first option was more viable, but Hagrid sweared up and down that Sirius had not looked tortured at all.
For the sake of possibility, then, assuming Sirius had not been Secret Keeper. The only two other options were Peter Pettigrew and Remus Lupin, as the Potters would not trust anyone else enough to give their safety. They were close to a few other Order members, yes, but not quite so much. And Remus was doubted at the time...
Keeping this in mind, and thinking about what had happened after that night-Hagrid had said Sirius had departed looking murderous, hadn't he? Then he had apparently tracked down Peter Pettigrew-to finish the job-and...
Wait. Could it be possible? Had Peter been the Secret Keeper? It made sense, a lot of sense, except for the dead thing. Sirius was going to avenge the Potters, possibly, and then..Peter had publicly accused him, cut off his finger, and blown up the street, probably escaping somehow.
And Sirius was left to laugh at the irony.
Albus was almost inclined to faint yet again.
How had no one figured it out before now? However unlikely, wasn't this the type of thing the Ministry was supposed to prevent? The lack of trial had seemed good at the time. Everyone had trusted Sirius. Everyone. The apparent betrayal left no one to plead for fairness, even the most avid justice seekers.
They had all been so very wrong.
And now...they were back, they most likely had fled to some foreign country for a while. They had been living somewhere, living off the money in their collective vaults (which must certainly be worth many thousands of Galleons) perhaps having contacted someone, perhaps not. Did Remus know of them? Suddenly Dumbledore was almost certain he did. Remus had been reluctant to take the job, not something Albus had suspected would happen at all. It had made no sense at the time, but now he realized he had probably been protecting Sirius and Harry. Perhaps he would question the man later.
The only remaining question was how Sirius had escaped. The Unspeakables supposedly had many theories, and Albus himself had a few crazy ideas, but none seemed to fit. Now he knew Peter had probably known the same magic-he had assumedly escaped too, after all-and Peter had never been the most powerful wizard. Hmm. Another clue, perhaps. Of course, if he broke the Obliviate, he would almost certainly know, but for now he had a healer after his blood and a werewolf to confront. He would puzzle that out later.
~*v{o}v*~
After frantically convening with Remus for several minutes, Sirius and Harry settled down to wait. Or more like Sirius settled down to frantically mutter things and occasionally bark questions at Harry, and Harry settled down to look around the room, half expecting someone to jump out of the wall.
Nothing happened.
Nothing continued to happen.
Finally, after almost an hour of very tense silence, Harry ventured, "Siri, we should probably go to bed."
Sirius glanced at him, wild eyed.
"We should!" Harry insisted. "You're all tense and everything, and so am I, and we're both going to spontaneously combust if we wait any longer." He was looking at Sirius with big, innocent eyes. Or at least, what counted as innocent when you didn't know him.
Sirius stared for a minute, then muttered, "Alright."
As expected, both headed off to bed.
~*v{o}v*~
Remus Lupin was not having a good day.
Understandable, really. First, his best friend had given him panicked call about one Albus Dumbledore, and practically the second he canceled the floo connection, said person walked into the door.
And began interrogating him.
Seeming to already know about...well, everything.
Which should make things a good bit easier. However, Remus had been the DA teacher for years now, and he knew was very, very good at bluffing. Yes, if he knew everything, they might even be better off than before.
But Remus didn't know.
Suffice it to say, Remus Lupin was not having a good day.
*See? If you haven't reread that section, you have no idea what I'm talking about.
And I'm sorry! I should of found a better place to end, further on, but I've been writing this for forever and I just got tired of it.