At long, long last, more! I'm truly very sorry for the delay but between this, another story you'll be seeing soon –it's just one piece and all but finished, so don't worry -, school starting again, and trying my best to learn how to drive it took way longer than expected. Hope you enjoy it!
Since it has been so long, a brief refresher; in the last part, Harry was left with the Weasleys, Sirius, Remus and Jenny captured five Death Eaters and turned them over to Dumbledore, who's now heading the Ministry as well as Hogwarts. Dumbledore had special assignments for Sirius and Remus; Remus is to meet with a Death Eater who's willing to perhaps switch sides, and Sirius' task is yet to be revealed. The story opens with Remus about to meet the Death Eater….
Remus glanced down at his watch, sighed, and picked up his glass. It was almost noon, and he'd had only three hours' sleep the night before. His eyes flickered around the bar of the Leaky Cauldron; he had a table to himself, and had been nursing a drink for three-quarters of an hour. He hoped his contact would show up soon.
Dumbledore had been able to give him very little information about the woman he was supposed to be meeting, except that she would make contact with him between eleven and noon, at the Leaky Cauldron. From there, he'd be playing it by ear.
A shadow fell across his table. He looked up and froze.
"Mind if I join you?" the woman asked. He was unable to answer, staring at her with deep loathing. His hand had gone to his wand as soon as he saw her face. She noticed that.
"I see you remember me." She sighed. "But listen for just a moment, please. I asked to have you come-"
"You?" He stared at her, realizing. "You're the person I'm supposed to meet?" She nodded. "Sit down," he said in a low voice. "And explain exactly why I should trust you, Reesa. The last time I saw you you had been captured by the Ministry for spying. And that was more than fifteen years ago."
"I know," she said sadly. "I was so young then. I won't pretend that I didn't know what I was doing, but you have to understand… but you won't, will you? You'd never be able to see why I had to do what I did… so I won't try to convince you."
"Enough of this talk," he said roughly. "You really want to help the Ministry?"
Reesa nodded. "I'll do what I can," she said. "But I'm afraid of the Death Eaters, Remus. I want to get away from them."
"I'll tell Dumbledore that," he stated. "Now, do you have any information for us?' he was well aware of how cold his voice sounded and how harsh his face must look.
"Nothing until I have some guarantees," she said just as firmly – but Remus noticed that she looked a bit paler than before and wondered if she'd expected to find him an easier target than this. Did she think he still cared for her? She was wrong if she did. His hand was still on his wand as he rose. "We'll get in contact with you."
"No. I'll be here a week from now, at eight in the morning." Her voice was still firm and the paleness was gone from her face. "You can tell me then what your answer is – and don't send anyone else. Do you want my help or not?" With that she too rose, turned her back on Remus, and walked off. Remus watched her out of the room before heading more slowly for the fireplace.
~~
When Remus got back to Privet Drive, he could hear raised voices inside Number Six. He groaned aloud and hurried up the steps. Jenny and Sirius were arguing again, obviously. The words were not distinguishable. He opened the door and ducked inside. They were both in the living room and neither seemed to notice Remus come in, as their argument did not cease or slacken.
"No, I don't think you can take care of yourself!" Jenny was saying. "Look what you did this afternoon, you're supposed to be dead, you know. Dead men don't go around threatening Muggles!"
"I owed that to Harry," Sirius growled. "Besides, Dumbledore asked you to keep writing your articles – and why didn't you tell me about that?"
"I never got around to it," she stated. Remus did not want to walk into the middle of their fight. He'd done that once or twice before and hadn't enjoyed the experience. He didn't want to eavesdrop, but they were hardly giving him a choice. Jenny was continuing. "And I can write just as well while I'm traveling around with you as when I'm sitting at home worried to death that you'll be captured or injured or worse."
"Some way you have of showing concern! You nearly knocked me out five minutes ago!"
"With a pillow? I never thought that Sirius Black, the famed Gryffindor Beater, would be afraid of a pillow." Her tone was highly sarcastic; Sirius growled something in reply but Remus didn't catch it. He was glad and only wished he couldn't hear any of this argument; he was embarrassed to be listening at all. Again Jenny's reply pulled him quickly from his thoughts. "Oh really? Well, I should hope-"
"So you want to come along?" Sirius sounded amused now. "You don't even know what Dumbledore wants me to do, and he told me not to tell anyone."
"I don't count, I'm your wife. And yes, I'm coming along, wherever it is."
"I really won't be gone long, and I'm sure everything is really fine," Sirius said. "There's no need for you to come." There was a pause, and then Jenny, in a very different voice, said,
"The last time you said those words and left, I didn't see you again for fourteen years." Her voice broke at the end and Remus heard small choked noises, like the breathing of someone who's trying not to weep. Then that stopped too and there was silence for a long moment. Remus had had enough. Clearing his throat, he stepped into the living room. He stopped short in the door. Whatever he had expected to see, it wasn't this; Sirius and Jenny were in each other's arms, locked in a tight embrace. Neither noticed Remus for a moment.
"Moony!" Sirius said when at last he did notice Remus. "You're back soon. Did it go well, then?"
"Perhaps," Remus said.
"How much of that did you hear?" Jenny asked pointedly.
"A bit," he admitted. "Sirius, what did you do this afternoon?"
"Just spoke to that uncle of Harry's," he said lightly. Jenny rolled her eyes.
"He threatened to turn the Dursleys into frogs if they ever so much as spoke roughly to Harry again." She held up her hand, ticking off Sirius' offenses on her fingers. "He let them know who he was." She folded down another finger. "He sent a horde of Cornish Pixies through the garden, trashing the place, where any Muggle on the block could have seen. So the Dursleys are hiding in their house, afraid to leave, and their garden's a mess." She smiled at this, apparently unable to help herself. "I tried to tell him how stupid that all was but he wouldn't listen to me; maybe you could get through to him, Remus."
"You do realize you're dead, right?" Remus asked, turning to Sirius. "And that terrorizing Muggles is against the law?"
"Well, if I'm dead they can hardly arrest me," Sirius said, grinning. "Come on Moony, lighten up. They had it coming to them."
"So that was half the argument," Remus said, looking back at Jenny. "What was the rest?"
"Dumbledore's sending me on a mission for him," Sirius said quickly. "A secret mission and I'm not allowed to tell anyone –not even you –anything about it." He glanced quickly at Jenny who was frowning again.
"I'm going too," she declared.
"No, you're not. Dumbledore would have my head."
"Well, you don't have to tell him," Jenny pressed. "I'm certainly not spying for Voldemort!"
"Wait a minute, Jenny," Sirius said, holding up his hand. "Let's hear what happened with Remus first."
Wearily, Remus began his story. They both looked shocked when he told them that his contact had been Reesa.
"I thought she was in prison!" Jenny said after a minute of silence.
"I knew she wasn't in Azkaban… thought perhaps she'd been banished or was dead." Sirius looked grave. "Have you been to Dumbledore yet?"
"Of course, just after I left the Leaky Cauldron." Remus frowned slightly. "He agreed with me that it could be a trap but says we must take the opportunity in case it's not. So I'll be meeting Reesa again soon, I suppose."
"That's not right," Jenny said firmly. "Can't they get someone else?"
"She won't meet with anyone else." Remus knew some of his puzzlement showed on his face but didn't say anything else, leaving his friends to wonder the same things he did. Why was Reesa doing this? Did she genuinely want to help? And why him, why not any of the other people working for Dumbledore? "What about you?" he asked instead. "When do you leave?"
"Tomorrow," Sirius said. "And I really shouldn't have told you even that, it's so secret, but you certainly aren't going to broadcast it anywhere."
"Of course not," Remus said quickly. "Now, if you two don't mind I'm going to be going home now. I've got about a day until the next thing I have to do and no doubt the roof is falling in by now."
"Sure you won't stay to dinner?" Jenny asked.
"No, I'm sure." Remus stood. " I just came by to let you know how things went."
"All right then, Moony."
When Remus had gone, Jenny turned back to her husband and smiled. "Sirius, I've decided that if you don't want me to come with you that's fine." Sirius looked relieved but she held up a hand. "But I will be following you anyway. So you can decide for yourself which you want."
"Jenny, this mission is absolutely top secret," he began. "Dumbledore's trusting me with a lot here."
"Which is exactly why you should take me. Now, listen to me a minute. I already know you're going abroad and as a Muggle; that's what that stupid little passport thing is for, and the plane ticket you left inside while you were yelling at Vernon Dursley. The thing is, Voldemort's agents may find out that you're not dead and be looking for you, but it's not likely they'll be looking for us both. A little bit of disguise and we'd be just another vacationing Muggle couple. Nobody would suspect anything."
Sirius just looked at her; he could not help but admit that her plan made sense. "What about your articles, though," he persisted.
"I'll write them and post them back to the Prophet." She smiled more broadly. "And does that mean you've accepted the inevitable?"
"I suppose so," he said. "I just hope Dumbledore doesn't find out…"
~~
Heathrow Airport was very crowded, full of Muggles rushing about like mad carrying suitcases, laptop computer cases, purses, portable CD players... almost anything. One man seemed to be trying to check a crate of chickens, saying they were his pets and he'd never leave them with anyone while he was gone a whole two weeks. There was so much confusion that Sirius, who had absolutely no idea what he was supposed to actually do in an airport, didn't stand out much.
"What are we supposed to do with our luggage, carry it?" he asked Jenny. She frowned and put down her bag, pulling a book from her purse. It was A Wizard's Guide to Muggle Travel, Fifteenth Edition. She flipped to the index, ran her finger down the list of words, and turned to page seventy-five.
"Large items are to be checked through," she told him. "Like what that guy is doing with the chickens."
"Our stuff isn't in crates, though," Sirius pointed out.
"Neither is theirs." She nodded at a whole family of Muggles. The mother was chastising the harried looking clerk ferociously. "-What do you mean we've got too much luggage, have you ever tried packing for a whole family for two weeks?" She had two children and a rather henpecked husband with her. "You're almost as bad as the cab driver, he wouldn't even help us carrying our bags in!"
Jenny turned her attention back to the book. "It says not to put anything too important, like your wand, in the luggage you're checking through because the Muggles have a tendency to break stuff – or it might actually be baggage gremlins, the book isn't sure. We have to keep our passports with us, though, and the tickets too – do you have those?" Sirius nodded. "Good. All right, we'd better get our bags through then…" She looked doubtful, but Sirius grinned.
"Come on, if Muggles can do it it can't be that hard," he pointed out.
"Yes, I just wish we could go in a more, well, normal way."
"Dumbledore wants me posing as a Muggle," he reminded her. "And a trans-Atlantic broom flight is just out of the question." He picked up the luggage and hauled it to the clerk.
After a brief fiasco in which the luggage clerk insisted they were going to Romania, not America, they were allowed to leave their bags and continue into the terminal. Sirius was mildly interested by the metal detectors.
"Bet Arthur Weasley would love to see these," he remarked.
"Sirius, don't attract attention to yourself," Jenny warned as they searched for their gate. "This is blasted confusing. How do all these Muggles know where they're going?"
"That's it." Sirius pointed to a gate where a large throng of people was already congregating. They joined the crowd without attracting any notice.
When they finally were allowed to board the plane, they found that the seats they had been assigned were in a row of three; the aisle seat was to be occupied by someone else. But time passed and the plane began to fill and their seatmate did not appear; it seemed that he was going to miss the flight. At almost the last minute, however, not thirty seconds before the boarding doors were closed, a young man wearing a garish red, white and blue t-shirt rushed down the aisle and collapsed into the seat. He closed his eyes and seemed to ignore the world around him.
It wasn't until they were airborne that he opened his eyes and looked at Sirius and Jenny.
"Oh, hello," he said in an American accent. "Seems we're to be seatmates then. My name's Bob, I'm from Delaware." He offered a hand. Sirius, who was seated beside him, shook it as best he could in the confines of their seats. "Sir – Cyrus," he corrected himself, remembering that Dumbledore had gotten him the passport and tickets under a false name… his own being both not at all a Muggle name and too conspicuous. "And Jenny, my wife."
"Ah." Bob took off his glasses and polished them on his shirt. "So you're English then… it must be amazing to really live here. I'd never been anywhere before, but I thought, hey, you're only young once… and I'm going off to college this fall, so I might as well go now." He stopped and took a deep breath, then hurried on. "My dad actually paid for the whole trip as a graduation present. I've been all over Europe this summer, did everything. I suppose you've seen it all since you live here."
"Perhaps not quite all," Jenny said but Bob took no notice and just plowed on.
"Take the castles, they're superb… racks and torturing devices, and holes where they poured boiling lead on invaders, and then places where they burned people for being heretics and witches. Amazing! Have you been to many castles?"
"Oh, one or two." Sirius couldn't help grinning, wondering what this burbling young Muggle would think if he knew that he was talking to two people who not only had lived in a castle but had also studied witch burnings with a rather –different – perspective. He didn't bother to point out that witches were usually not burned in castles, anyway, but in village squares and such where everyone could see.
Bob's effusiveness wore thin very quickly. He just kept talking and talking. And talking. He didn't even seem to notice that his 'listeners' were glaring at him in a way that would have made someone who knew them better –say, Snape – feel rather nervous. Finally, after an eternity, he got up to use the restroom. Jenny and Sirius looked at each other.
"Do something," Jenny pleaded. "It's only been twenty minutes and I'm ready to kill that Muggle."
"I could do that," Sirius began, grinning. Jenny rolled her eyes and began to rummage through her purse. After a moment she pulled out a bottle.
"Slip a few drops into his drink," she said. "Just a sleeping potion…. I wasn't sure that we'd be able to sleep well on this trip, since we'll be five hours off. It won't hurt him, but don't give him too much."
"Since when have you brewed potions?" Sirius took the bottle but looked surprised.
"Oh, come on, you can get this anywhere, and I can brew potions. I just don't – oh, here he comes."
Bob continued his narrative from where he'd left off. "When I was seven, now, my family moved to our current home from Tucson, Arizona. It…"
Another eternity later the drinks cart came by. When Bob was going through his bag to look for photos of his pet lizards, Sirius slipped the potion into his drink. Bob didn't notice; he drank his Coke quickly and launched into the sad saga of Pete and Phil, the lizards who ran away when he was ten. Halfway through their escapades, he suddenly fell forward, unconscious.
"Good, it worked," Sirius said. "I was beginning to wonder."
"Rather too bad; I was wondering what tragic event he was going to tell us about next." Jenny grinned and put her sleeping potion back into her purse. "At least I can hear myself think now."
Hours later, the plane began to descend upon Dulles Airport, just outside of Washington, DC. The weary travelers all disembarked – except for Bob, who was still snoozing. "Must have given him a little too much." was all Sirius would say when Jenny pointed this out to him.
~~~
Remus stretched and groaned. He glanced at the clock; six in the morning. He sat up as the recollection of what he had to do today flooded back to him. He was to meet Reesa in two hours, find out what she wanted and what she'd do to help them. Another groan escaped him, and he wondered if Sirius' task was any easier. At least he wouldn't have to deal with –well, Reesa. Remus wonder whether Jenny had accompanied Sirius the way she'd wanted. One of her articles had appeared in the Daily Prophet the day before, arguing that now was not the right time to be attacking the Ministry. A lot of people had been very upset when the truth –as they saw it – about Sirius had come out, and there was a lot of anti-Ministry sentiment right now.
An owl rapped on the window, and Remus let it in. It dropped today's paper on his head. He unrolled it and began reading articles, smiling at a few, and frowning at the majority. Then he noticed that the owl had also dropped a letter on the floor and he picked it up eagerly. It was from Sirius.
Dear Moony – this is just to let you know we're here and everything went just fine. I thought perhaps you'd manage to see Harry off at Platform Nine and Three-Quarters? I'd wanted to, but it'll be impossible, I'm afraid. If you do go, please tell him I'm sorry I wasn't there to see him off and that I'll do my best to be alive again by next summer so he won't have to go to those relatives of his (Jenny says to add that she doesn't think they'll dare take him back after the, er, conversation I had with them.)
Anyway, hope to be back in England soon. Hope everything's going fine there.
Padfoot.
Remus couldn't help grinning as he read the letter. So Jenny had gone with Sirius, and it sounded as if they hadn't landed themselves into too much trouble. That was good to know. September 1st was tomorrow; he'd make sure to get to King's Cross to see Harry off. But right now he had to concentrate on meeting Reesa. He sighed, folded up the letter, and finished getting dressed.
TO BE CONTINUED
(Of course)
Disclaimer: Everything from the Harry Potter books is, well, from the Harry Potter books, which were written by J. K. Rowling, of course. That's all hers and I'm just borrowing it…
More to come soon, I promise. Ah, review if you liked it, and even if you didn't.