In Which The Shortest Distance Between Two People Is A Story.

Young James Potter led an enchanted career at Hogwarts, but all was not so simple for those in his immediate circle. The Sorting of First Year students in 1971 was lengthier than in current times, in those few years before the Pox decimated entire generations. There were, however, few surprises. House affiliation tends to pass along in Pureblood families, with only new alliances between branches yielding any new traits in the children of such marriages- and, of course, the Muggleborns, whose affiliation is unknown. Lily Evans, for instance, could not have suspected she would Sort to Gryffindor, though contemporaries recall her as forthright, honest, and kind, traits which could have led her to Hufflepuff as soon as Gryffindor, and as the top student of her year she could well have been a Ravenclaw. James would never have been anything but a Gryffindor, and indeed quickly became the tastemaker of that House, emerging as a leader and adventurer nonpareil. Though he frequently lost points for Gryffindor in various acts of mischief, he made them up in his classes, natural talent placing him at the forefront of his peers- not unlike his father Fleamont Potter.

No, the true shocker of 1971's Sorting was Sirius Orion Black. The heir of the Ancient and Noble House of Black could have expected nothing other than to continue his family's ancient allegiance to the line of Salazaar Slytherin, to which Blacks had been admitted time immemorial. (See Chapter 19 for a full genealogy.) According to observers, Sirius Black- then a small boy, fey of feature, thin with neglect- approached the Sorting with grim determination.

'Marched right up to the Hat, as I recall it,' said Lympeta Bagshot, niece of the great historian Bathilda Bagshot, and a third year in 1971. 'Of course everyone knows the Blacks- half the Wizarding World's related to the Blacks. Should've been straight into Slytherin, no interruptions. But he's one of the first of the kiddies to go up, isn't he, and he marches right up there and sits on the stool, and then it's quiet for the longest time. And he's scowling so deep I thought he'd set the Hat on fire, I did, but then finally it calls out "Gryffindor". You should've seen the Slytherin table- half of 'em near fainted at the news. Lucius Malfoy thought it was a joke. Started writing an owl home straight away- biggest news of the decade.'

'I admit most of us were awful to him at first,' regrets Sebastian Belby. 'Thought he was a spy, or a- well, you can guess what sort of language the Purebloods were using. Total outcast.'

'Troublemaker,' recalled Hortense Addams. 'First week alone he started a fist-fight in the Great Hall with a Slytherin.'

'Started?' Rhys Davies disputes that description. 'More like ambushed, and by half the bloody House. Poor kid spent the night in the hospital wing- broke his nose and his arm, cursed him half senseless. And they didn't let up after that, not after old Slughorn took ten points off anyone who participated. They just got better at hiding it. He'd come to class limping, or bleeding, or they'd lock him in some broom cupboard or empty classroom. Pitched him into the Lake, once. That first term must've been awful for him.'

But Black soon found himself a defender. Second-year Remus Lupin was in something of a low himself, having returned from Christmas break anxious and depressed after the death of Abluth Masterson. One can speculate that Lupin, a sickly child, may have passed a few hours in Black's company in the Hogwarts infirmary, perhaps striking up a conversation, sharing dark secrets, exchanging woes. Whatever the case, Lupin took an interest in the younger boy. Soon they were seen together between classes, then sitting together in the Library, even eating meals together in the Great Hall. It seems to have been Lupin's influence which brought James Potter to the party.

'Well, as I remember it, James had got himself behind in History of Magic, and Lupin was the assigned tutor,' Squala Rioux, prefect for Ravenclaw, mused. 'Lupin was tutoring half the school, actually- deathly dull subject. Anyway, Potter would've got to know him there. Lupin was a gentle sort, quiet, didn't have a lot of friends even in his own House. On the face of it you wouldn't expect them to get on, but maybe that was part of the intrigue. James was surrounded by people who thought the world of him just because of his name. Lupin didn't buy into any of that, and he made it known. You had to earn his respect. I suspect James found that a challenge, and there wasn't a challenge he didn't want to best.'

As for Black? 'Well, he had no-one on his side but that Hufflepuff bloke,' shrugs Belby. 'Getting Potter to even talk to him was a coup. But it wasn't long before they were everywhere together. By second year they were sharing a dorm. Third year Black took his holidays with the Potters. Then one year he didn't go home at all- the Potters adopted him in all but name. I heard he was disinherited, but his brother still talked to him, so maybe not.'

In truth, Sirius was disinherited, though not irrevocably. However, he did decline to return to his parents, who declined to prosecute the Potters for his return. There was no formal adoption, but it was widely believed that Black's allegiance to the Potters represented the possibility of a new branch of the Ancient House, and he regained in reputation and marketability what his Gryffindor rebellion had long appeared to endanger. Proposals of marriage into Pureblood families began to trickle in, then flood- and, it was rumoured, there was something of a bidding war between families Light and Dark as to who would get him at what price. But Black was never publicly attached to any young lady of marriagable age, and maintained his happy bachelorhood into his early twenties.

'Of course people gossiped about it,' Lympeta said. 'Always together, weren't they? Even after James married that Muggleborn girl. They said Sirius was in love with James. I don't know it myself for fact, but I own it looked odd.'

'Potter, queer? Would've been a scandal, a disaster,' gasped a clearly delighted Timothy Cattermole. 'Him the only heir and all. Everyone knew a couple of obvious pillowbiters in school, and one day they turn up married with children. If they had a piece on the side, it was for Vice Corps in Magical Law Enforcement to worry about, wasn't it? Half those laws are still on the books, even if they don't put men on trial for it much anymore. But fines? The Ministry gets half its operating budget on fining the Purebloods for various perversions.'

But in fact Black did strike out on his own, not quite six months before the wedding of James and Lily. He quietly paid for a flat in the South Downs, a charming Victorian rowhouse at a short walk from the beachead. Though no records support this, his neighbours recalled that Black had a flatmate- one who paid no rent, perhaps on account of the difficulty he faced in maintaining work. Remus Lupin must have loathed being a charity case for his wealthy friends, but nevertheless he took advantage of their generosity. He was sacked from a low-level Ministry job in '79, provided supply teaching at a Wizarding primary in Kent, served as morning shift manager at Flourish and Blott's for some months, but employment never seemed to last in those days. Lupin was known to be ailing, and my investigations have determined he spent nearly two months in hospice care at St Mungos in 1980, evidently raising the concern amongst his friends that he might, in fact, never recover. Black was at his side to the detriment of his own employment as an Auror Corps trainee, twice reprimanded for missing muster. Then, quite of a sudden, Lupin's employment problems seemed to vanish- as did he. There is, in fact, no record at all of Lupin's whereabouts between February of 1980 and November of 1981, when he was hauled before the Wizengamot to testify his own innocence in the murder of the Potters.

Where was Lupin? What was he at in this mysterious absence from the increasingly dangerous lives of his closest friends? And, if there are indeed innocent answers to those questions, then why was Lupin's testimony before the Wizengamot sealed under the highest level of secrecy by order of the Chief Warlock? What did Lupin know about Black, and why was he not allowed to share it with the Wizarding public?

~Rita Skeeter, excerpted from Harry Potter and the Hand of Prophecy


In all the excitement, Harry had rather forgot he was due a visit from his Head of House.

Minerva McGonagall came knocking at the door Harry's third day at Beddgelert. Harry himself was unaware of this, as he and Sirius had gone into town for ice creams at Glaslyn Ices and a leisurely hike through the hills on their way back. Sirius spent much of the hike in dog form, romping with abandon, darting off after birds and rabbits and tackling Harry from behind til Harry was quite covered in dirt and determined to get the best of his godfather. He had his chance as they crossed the river, or at least thought he had- they both emerged from his attempt soaked to the bone in freezing water, grinning sheepishly at each other. They squelched their way home shivering merrily, and arrived home, conquering heroes, to be immediately banished to the kitchen by Professor Lupin, where they wouldn't drip on the carpet.

'I never in all my life will understand where you find all this mud,' Lupin complained to Sirius, who grinned from beneath the shaggy straggles of his hair and accepted his scolding with an odd contentment. Then again, that might be because Lupin was busy with Harry, who was forcibly stripped down to his underthings and attacked with a fluffy towel. Lupin scrubbed Harry dry with brisk efficiency. 'Are you conjuring it?' Lupin went on with faux-irritation, swadling Harry in the towel so tight his bones couldn't chatter anymore and then spooning a mouthful of Pepper-Up potion into him without so much as a by-your-leave. Harry squawked as heat flashed up his limbs and steamed out his ears. And squawked again when he looked over Lupin's shoulder and found Professor McGonagall standing there with Harry and Sirius near starkers in a puddle and-

Oh, God in Heaven. Harry could just absolutely die. Tonks. His face reddened all over again, and he waddled for the cover of the stove as fast as he could with Lupin trying to dry his hair. 'I'm not dressed!' he hissed, fatally humiliated, but Tonks only laughed brightly.

'Speed things along a bit?' she suggested, and tossed something. Lupin caught it out of the air- his wand. 'Freshly released from custody. They wanted to impound it, you know. Evidence. I convinced them a Priori Incantatem was sufficient for the case.'

'I thought it was a goner,' Lupin said, giving his wand a familiar caress before flicking it at Harry. Harry's hair wrung itself dry in a blast of hot air. 'Thank you, Nymphadora.'

'Yeah, Nymphadoooora,' Sirius echoed with sickeningly sweet tones. He, too, seemed a bit shy under the scrutiny of a woman old enough to be his grandmother and another younger than him by ten years, hugging his towel close about his thin torso, weedy legs poking out very pale and knobby-kneed. But his grin was cheeky as ever, with a hint of rosy blush in his face. 'Any chance of getting my wand back?' he asked hopefully, as Lupin dried him with the same charm and summoned clothes from the laundry. Sirius shrugged into one of Lupin's jumpers quickly, knotting his towel at the waist.

Tonks looked genuinely regretful. 'It was destroyed,' she told him, biting at her lip. 'On the other hand, once you're cleared, you'll be allowed a new one.'

Sirius scrubbed a hand through his ragged short hair. 'Suppose it's not all bad. It was a hand-me-down from Uncle Musca. Never did like me all that much- the wand or my uncle.'

Lupin had fetched Harry clothes as well, and Harry took advantage of the momentary diversion of attention to dress hastily. He couldn't prevent another flush as Tonks winked at him, emerging, but his voice was reasonably steady when he greeted the women properly. 'Hullo, Professor. Tonks. Er... what are you doing here?'

'Primarily, ascertaining that I've been near a week worried for nothing,' McGonagall said drily. 'You might imagine my surprise, Mr Potter, to discover you were not, in fact, with the Dursleys.'

'Oh.' Harry had been working very hard to think absolutely nothing of that entire debacle, aided and abetted by Sirius, Professor Lupin, and Mr Lupin as well, who had all joined Harry in a bit of pretending they were at a holiday reunion, untroubled by the circumstances which had merited it. 'I'm really sorry. I didn't think.'

'The fault isn't yours, Harry,' Professor Lupin forgave him. 'It's entirely mine.'

'And you've gone and apologised so piteously I have no choice but to accept.' McGonagall eyed Lupin sternly, but softened to smile, just a bit, at Harry. 'I would like to speak to you privately, if you're quite ready, Potter.'

It was to be a short visit, and much more congenial than it might have been at the Dursleys. Harry showed the professor his room- Lupin had found him a trunk of old things to decorate it for his own, and Harry had just yesterday added a poster of the Holyhead Harpies, purchased in town at an off-license that served both magical and Muggle customers. Glynnie had given Harry books that had once belonged to her own son, and so he had a shelf of Hardy Boys mysteries, a pile of comic books- Harry had grinned at those, recalling the remarkably persistent rumour that Harry Potter had been secretly trained up by Batman to fight crime abroad- and a dog-eared copy of Grimm's fairy tales, amongst others, but what lay open on Harry's bed was Rita Skeeter's unpublished manuscript. He gathered the parchment sheets into a rough pile and hid them away in his desk. He saw McGonagall note it, but she didn't ask, and he didn't tell.

Instead she sat in his chair, sweeping the long hem of her robe beneath her elegantly, and she folded her hands on her lap and looked him eye-to-eye. She said, 'I hope you're happy, Harry.'

He sank onto the edge of his bed, rubbing his palm over the old brass knob on the footboard. 'It's all right, isn't it? For me to be here?'

'It is, if it's what you want.' She cocked her head slightly, sunlight from the window catching at her glasses and reflecting, not letting him see her eyes. 'It is what you want, yes?'

He swallowed hard, and put up his chin. 'Yes,' he said. 'I just... I don't know what happens next. Does everyone have to know?'

'No,' McGonagall conceded reasonably, but she moved her head again, away from him, with a sigh. 'In fact I think both privacy and security are served with a relatively high level of secrecy, something you clearly have no difficulty maintaining. But there is someone who will need to know.'

'Dumbledore,' Harry said softly.

'There's both a long and a short explanation for it, and you may find any or all of his reasons unfair, untrue, or inapplicable to the reality you have lived since your parents were killed.' McGonagall hesitated. 'Some of his reasons I will tell you plainly I agree with, and some I never did, but I didn't argue hard enough against him, to your detriment. For that, Potter, you have my sincerest apology.'

'I don't know what you could've done, Professor.'

She let that pass with only a nod of acknowledgement. 'But in truth, Harry, I think the Headmaster cares a great deal for you. He waited a long time for you, you know. I won't ask it of you, but I will hope you consider that before you meet with him again. He's a good man, and if he takes certain choices on himself he ought not to, well... consider who else might make them if he did not.'

Harry picked at the seam of his trousers. 'Yes, Professor.'

'Well.' She smiled at him, rather wearily, he thought. 'The rest of term will be something of an anti-climax, after what you've been through, but I can't exempt you from exams. My hope is you will find a return to normality a boon to your marks. You were on your way to an Exceeds Expectations in Potions, you know.'

'Snape told you that?'

'Professor Snape,' she said, straining the title just slightly, 'and he did, with a certain chagrin. I don't know why he's surprised- your mother was a dab hand at Potions, and James wasn't all bad, either.' Her smile became a smirk. 'On the other hand, Mr Potter, your work in Transfiguration could stand a bit of polish. The exam will test your ability to cast the spell, not just your ability to achieve your desired end. Your technique is behind where it should be.'

It was Harry who hesitated now. 'Professor...'

'Yes?'

It was on the tip of his tongue, to tell her about the way he'd killed Quirrell. That hadn't been a proper spell at all- that hadn't been his desired end, either. He'd called fire, and he'd got it, but a fire so strong it had destroyed a man in moments. And he'd cast the not-spell with the hand that had touched the unicorn's blood.

But it was too much just now. He didn't want to think about it yet. He forced a smile. 'I'll do my best,' he said.

'I expect so,' she said, but she was smiling still, and he knew it was all right.

Tonks stayed, even after McGonagall left, and an open bottle of wine and a big dish of treacle with custard had several spoons in it when Harry rejoined them in the kitchen. Harry was presented a spoon of his own, and it was pleasant and relaxing to sit with Tonks on one side and Sirius on the other, grinning as they volleyed teasing insults at each other in an escalating contest of silliness that had Lupin rolling his eyes and shaking his head at them.

'They're cousins,' Lupin told him, topping off the wine glasses to empty the bottle and giving Harry a cola from the cold cupboard. 'Regulus always had a sharp tongue, too. It must run in the blood.'

'Good reason to be glad I'm only halfsies,' Tonks stage-whispered to Harry with an exaggerated shudder. 'Imagine being a full Black! Yikers.'

'I thought you said Draco's a cousin too?' Harry asked.

'His mum and my mum are sisters. Andromeda and Narcissa Black.'

'My cousins,' Sirius said. 'Although Dromeda's the only one worth speaking to in the lot. Ancient and Noble bollocks,' he told Harry, who stifled a giggle with a guilty glance at Lupin. 'All that Pureblood nonsense'll rot your teeth. Inbred nutters, all of 'em. At least you've got Muggle blood to dilute the poison, Tonks.' He dragged his spoon through the dregs of custard and licked it clean with relish. 'If there's one good thing out of all of this, it's getting to watch the line die with me. I'm taking the Blacks to their grave and doing it with pride.'

'You aren't going to have any kids?' Harry wondered.

'Never much wanted 'em. I want you,' Sirius said hastily, though Harry forgave him with a shrug. 'No, I do, Harry. But it's different than what I always thought I'd- you know, I thought I'd get married off to some Pureblood twit with no thought in her empty little head but popping out a new generation so the money has somewhere to go. Best thing I ever did was get myself disinherited, but even that's been undone. Maybe I'll take the Potter name, too, eh? That'd send my bitch mother rolling in her grave.'

'Harry,' Lupin interrupted gently, 'I've remembered I've got trunks upstairs of old things from my school days. I thought you might like to go through them- I'm sure I've some things from your parents, old notebooks, some letters, that sort of thing.'

Harry recognised a subject change when he was Bludgered with one. But it was getting dark outside with the look of oncoming rain, which meant no further adventuring today, and so he nodded agreeably. That, and Lupin immediately invited Tonks to join them, with supper at the other end of it, and anything that would keep her around a while longer was good with Harry.

So they trooped upstairs- and upstairs and upstairs to an attic Harry was sure the small cottage shouldn't physically have, but that was magic for you- and into a sloping room littered with the detritus of generations. Harry stopped to peer at a very old rocking horse, cracked wood and peeling paint not concealing the love it had had over many years; there was an old child's crib on rockers, low to the floor and with a mobile of glass figurines perched over it. Lupin gave it a spin with a fingertip as he passed, and said wryly to Harry, 'Can you believe I was ever small enough to fit in that?'

'No,' Harry said, and the adults laughed.

'This was your mum's?' Tonks had found a dress hanging from an open wardrobe and pulled back the dusty sheeting. It was a wedding dress- or, well, a wizarding interpretation of that, anyway. White witch's robes, beaded at the bust and puffy sleeves, with velvet flowers sewn on everywhere and a train of bright satin that pooled out in a wide circle when Tonks fanned it out across the floorboards. Harry came to her side to look, trying to picture the woman from Lupin's painting in it. She had been very small- considerably shorter than Tonks, almost as short as Harry- and he could have spanned the tiny waist with his two hands. 'She must have been beautiful in this,' Tonks said, throwing a smile over her shoulder.

'My father certainly thought so.' Lupin took another bundle down from the peg, and revealed his father's wedding robes. Sirius burst out laughing on seeing them, and Tonks, groaning, pretended to be blinded. They were an eye-searing shade of green in crushed velvet, accented in orange houndstooth. 'I think my Da and Dumbledore have the same tailor,' Lupin said, and Sirius laughed all over again.

Their search was lazy and willingly distracted by Lupin family history. 'Why do you have so many books?' Sirius complained more than once, as they hefted crate after crate of hard-bound tomes from the shelves.

'Just because you never learnt to read,' Professor Lupin retorted, unruffled, as he discarded yet another trunk. Harry glanced up from his cataloguing of the last seven boxes. The newest batch looked like textbooks. 'Ah,' Lupin said then, a tone of triumph, and strained on the tips of his toes to get at a box crammed back high beneath the eaves. 'Here we are.'

It hit the floor with a thump and a whuff of dust. Lupin cleared the top with his sleeve, peeling back a strip of Muggle tape that had long lost its sticky. Harry came to crouch by the adults as they bent over it. Tonks had a chuckle right off, liberating the item on top- a Hufflepuff banner, Class of '77. 'You kept this?' she wondered, unfurling the nubby felt. The golden yellow hue had faded, but the lettering was still crisp.

'Kept more than that.' Lupin handed Harry the next item, a Hogwarts diploma, simply framed in plain pine. A graduation notice. Marks for something called NEWTs- Harry was not at all surprised that Lupin had been an exemplary student, a column of proud 'O's marching down the parchment. Several editions of what appeared to be a student newsletter, The Warty Hog, advertising various clubs and goings-ons. Lupin tapped an article about a girl named Lily Evans, and Harry gasped to realise it was his mother. She had won a prestigious scholarship for a school in Sweden to study Charms for a Mastery.

'My parents lived in Sweden?'

'Just Lily,' Lupin said, standing to retrieve another box from the closet. 'Eighteen months, wasn't it, Sirius? She came back quite the sophisticate, travelled and experienced and Continental. And she had a French boyfriend, hadn't she, what was his name...?'

'Etienne,' Sirius guessed. 'Arnaud? Yves? Something with a vowel.'

'It sent James into a tailspin. It was all well and good for him to date other people, you see, but Lily? He'd always rather thought of her as his.'

'Oh I like that,' Tonks said tartly. 'I hope she corrected his misconception.'

'At once, and loudly,' Lupin agreed. 'But she must have enjoyed his attempts to win her back. The boyfriend went home to France in record time, and a year later James and Lily were married.'

'Have you still got those exceedoes?' Sirius asked, jumping to his feet to hunt through the wardrobes. 'It was half Muggle, half Wizarding,' he told Harry. 'Then men all wore Muggle and the women had proper robes and things. Huge uproar, made all the fashion pages, bloody headline in The Prophet.'

'Tuxedo, and I think I have got it, actually, but not in there, that's all my parents'. Maybe...' Lupin sorted through an upright trunk beneath the window. 'Oh, Pads, look.'

'What?'

'Do you remember this?' Lupin turned to display it across his chest, spreading one arm wide to show it to best advantage.

'Cool,' Harry said reverently.

'Ohh, wowzer,' Tonks agreed. 'That's yours, Sirius? What a dish.'

Sirius blushed a bit at that, but put on a bit of a strut crossing the attic to Lupin. 'This old rag? Clean forgot about it.' He dragged a fingertip over the fringe that strung the length of the arm. It was a motorcycle jacket, leather and suede, tasselled and beaded with big brass studs, the thick belt buckled with an enormous union jack. 'I did look pretty good flying in that,' he admitted.

'Flying?' Harry asked. 'Like Quidditch?'

'Even better, little man. I had a flying motorbike. Worked on the enchantments for that thing for ages, didn't we, Moony? You remember my first flight?'

'I remember fetching you out of the tree,' Lupin said pointedly. Tonks sniggered.

'Well, I got better, didn't I,' Sirius shrugged. 'You want to talk about a cool ride, kid, that bike was the coolest thing in chrome.'

'Wait, a flying motorbike?' Harry hopped to his feet in his excitement. 'But I remember that! Sort of, at least. Hagrid said he took me on a flying motorbike when I was a baby!'

Sirius snapped his fingers. 'Hagrid has my bike! Well, not for long. He'll have kept it up, I bet. Wouldn't let a beauty like that go to rust.'

'No, but he has probably fit it out for a sidecar sized for dragon eggs,' Lupin muttered.

'Dragon eggs?'

Harry giggled. 'Norbert! It's a long story. Hang on- if Hagrid has a flying motorbike, why'd we need Charlie Weasley to come get Norbert on brooms?'

'Not many petrol stations en route to Romania that can service magical motorbikes,' Lupin explained. 'Not to mention what Hagrid might have tried to pick up for the return trip. Here.' He unzipped the jacket and gave it a good shake. 'Put it on, then.'

'Me?' Harry looked to Sirius for permission, and Sirius nodded, grinning. Harry slid his arms into it, and Lupin settled it onto his shoulders. Tonks whistled appreciatively, and Harry felt his face flaming. It was far too big on him, of course, the sleeves hanging well past the tips of his fingers and the fringe dragging on the floor unless he held his arms out rigidly, and it creaked stiffly and hung heavy on him, but it was definitely the coolest thing he'd ever worn. Tonks took a swipe at his hair, mussing it more than usual.

'Wicked,' she pronounced with a wink. 'You're gonna be a real ladykiller in a coupla years, mate.'

As if he needed the reminder. That deflated him a bit; Tonks had, after all, just seen him near naked in the kitchen, and wearing a bigger man's clothes probably didn't do much to make him seem grown up and sophisticated. A tad disgruntled, Harry shed the jacket, and held it out to Sirius instead. 'You now. Let's see it proper.'

Sirius donned it with a practised shrug that pinwheeled his arms smoothly, popping up the collar and brushing down the lapels in one continuous flow. He added a sauve flip to his hair, with a rakish grin as it flopped smoothly over his brow again. Lupin chuckled at this posing, and helped him zip it up tight, buckling the belt for him and tugging the hem into place at his hips. 'You old dandy,' Lupin said, and leant in to kiss him.

It sucked all the air out of the room. The moment Lupin realised what he'd done, unthinking, his face paled rapidly. Sirius, too, went still, his eyes falling to his bare feet. Tonks looked rather shocked, then rather thoughtful. No-one said anything- Harry wished with all his might someone would just say something, because the silence was deafening.

'I- left the kettle on,' Lupin croaked, and he left without looking at anyone.

Sirius bit his bottom lip so hard it emerged white. Brash and a little too loud, he said to Harry, 'Reckon that's a surprise.'

'Er,' Harry said, but really he was thinking that it wasn't, in fact.

Sirius thrust out his chin like a boy bracing himself to throw a temper tantrum if he didn't get his way, but his eyes were begging. 'Can you be okay with it?'

Harry considered his answer carefully. 'I want you both to be happy,' he said at last, and thought he'd got it right, because the vulnerable shadow left Sirius's face in a blink, and his shoulders slumped in relief.

'Thanks,' Sirius mumbled, and shed his jacket into a heap atop one of the book crates. 'Don't know if it will or won't, you know, if he'll- he won't, I mean, that was an accident, I'm sure, just... you know, eh?'

Harry didn't, particularly, but maybe it wasn't just wizards who were afraid to name things. Maybe it was just how people were, and that he could understand very well. 'Yeah,' he said.

Tonks blew out a big sigh. 'Well,' she said, 'if your mum wasn't rolling in her grave before, she sure is now.'

Sirius guffawed, and everything was all right again, at least for the moment. Still, everyone seemed in silent accord that the best thing to do was give Lupin, at least, a little space, so they all stayed in the attic for the next couple of hours, digging out the rest of the boxes and finding some of the momentos they'd originally gone looking for. Harry read several postcards his mum had sent Lupin during her mastery abroad, all of them chatty and familiar and full of tales of the places she'd been and interesting things she'd read. There was less of that sort of thing from his father, but Sirius said James had been pants at letter-writing and anyway they'd all been together all the time, what was the use of writing anything down? So from James it was all tickets to Quidditch games, magazines of the sort Harry hadn't been allowed to see at Crowhill, featuring 'wicked witches' and something else Harry didn't quite get to read before Tonks, muttering, snatched them away, and a large amount of tricks of the sort the Weasley twins trucked in, which sent Sirius into a raft of tales about pranks pulled on Slytherins. That topic filled an epic hour at least.

But at last there was nothing for it but to go downstairs. It was nearing the dinner hour, and Harry at least was starving, but Sirius made it no farther than the upper storey bedrooms before he found an excuse to go elsewhere- 'Put some pants on, you wanker, wanderin' about in a towel,' Tonks hollered after him, but once they were at the ground level she said she wanted to see the sunset, and went the long way through the front door which wouldn't put her facing west even, so it was clearly just a gambit to be shot of an uncomfortable conversation. Harry allowed himself to stand dithering in the corridor a moment, but only a moment. There was no good in shirking this.

Professor Lupin was sat at the small table in the kitchen, staring into his interlaced fingers. He started when Harry bumped into a chair. 'Oh,' he said. 'I'm sorry, I meant to do- how do you feel about chicken tonight?'

'I like chicken.' Harry took a glance at the kettle. If it had ever been on, it had surely not been for a long time. It was quite cool when he touched a finger to it. And nearly empty. 'Would you like a cup of tea?' he asked, carrying it to the sink to fill it.

'Oh. Yes, thank you. That's kind.'

Harry carried the kettle back to the stove and lit a burner for it. 'Umm... milk and sugar?'

'Just milk, please.' Lupin was working himself up to something, and it came out through clenched teeth in a taut whisper. 'I'm sorry you had to see that.'

'I... why are you sorry?'

'It's not my- intent- to- do anything- that would make you uncomfortable or-' Words Lupin had clearly spent the past hours chewing over to death, emerging as if he had to force his tongue to shape them. 'I don't want anything to change your opinion of Sirius.'

'Oh, no. It didn't, I mean. I mean- I guess I hadn't thought of that, exactly.'

Lupin formed a curse with his lips, looking away with a grimace. 'Well... you don't have to. Think of it. It was my fault. Just- mine.'

'I don't...'

Lupin's hands clenched hard on the tabletop. 'Whatever you've heard is- people say awful things, I'm more than aware of that, Muggle attitudes aren't exactly progressive, wizards are even more hidebound, I don't- Sirius is-'

'I don't mind, Professor.'

'It just shouldn't affect your judgement of Sirius's fitness as a guardian. If he were to adopt you, I'm certain he-'

'Millicent Bulstrode's going to ask me on a date.'

'-won't be- what?'

'A girl. If I go out with a girl, you won't be upset?'

Lupin blinked. 'Of course not, Harry.'

'Exactly,' Harry said. 'There's nothing to be upset about.'

He saw the moment Lupin understood his meaning. Lupin inhaled, just a bit, and shut his mouth. He nodded, and again, the way he did sometimes, and clamped his hands together. 'Thank you,' he mouthed, without quite any voice behind it, and nodded again.

The kettle began to whistle. Harry hooked it off the burner, and made up a cup rather than a whole pot. A pinch of leaves and a splash of milk, boiling water poured over it. He set the cup at Lupin's elbow.

'Wait,' Lupin said suddenly. 'Who's Millicent Bulstrode? How old is she? Since when are you dating? I thought I had a few years yet before I had to worry about that.'

Harry scratched sheepishly at his hair. 'Er, well, I could use a bit of advice about that, actually.'


With the Potters dead, Pettigrew murdered in the midst of some dozen Muggles, Black imprisoned, and Lupin suddenly thrust into the public eye as the whole of the Wizarding World demanded answers, the disappearance of infant Harry Potter was not immediately noticed.

It was, in fact, this reporter who first raised the question of Harry Potter's safety in the wake of You-Know-Who's defeat. Where had the blessed child been taken- and, indeed, who had taken him? The Wizengamot demanded an investigation, voting nearly unanimously to instigate a formal enquiry under the auspices of the Auror Corps, but the trials for alleged Death Eaters began less than a month after that fateful Halloween night, and other news dominated the broadsheets for a time. Some assumed Harry Potter had only been removed to some secret hide-away to ensure his immediate safety, and he would emerge to be greeted as a hero within a few weeks, a few months, a few years. The more conspiracy-minded believed he had not, in fact, survived at all- that the Boy Who Lived had succumbed to the Killing Curse alongside his parents. His whereabouts took on the quality of a myth, or something even less substantial than a myth- stories about sightings in the mountains of Tibet were as fanciful as pictures of a dark-haired boy seen walking the streets of Salem, North America, or Hong Kong, or Mumbai. Harry Potter might well have gone down as other such fancies as Muggles walking on the Moon, as improbable and unprovable as the imagination could conjure.

But for those who continued to believe Harry Potter was alive, some few remained convinced he could not be far from British shores. Where better, after all, to hide this most precious boy than where he could be watched over? Where better to hide him than in a country well and truly pacified in the wake of evil's final destruction? The abrupt departure of Lupin for the Continent raised eyebrows amongst those who thought he might take guardianship of the child, but on taking a post at Beauxbatons, the premier French magical academy, Lupin would have been hard-pressed to hide the existence of a child in the small suite he was afforded as part of his room and board at the school. Lupin did venture away from the school periodically, but a preliminary report by an Auror who allowed me to review case notes on the promise of anonymity is proof that Lupin's movements were, indeed, monitored, and it appears Lupin merely returned home to his father, Lyall Lupin, whose own well-being began to decline. Neighbours in their remote Welsh village confirmed they often feared they'd visit to discover one or both Lupins dead in their beds, both of them in such precarious ill-health. With the younger Lupin clearly in no condition to care for a child, the location of Harry Potter might indeed be known to him, but there appears to be no proof of contact in the years ensuing. Lupin eventually quit the long-distance comfort of Beauxbatons, returning to Britain to vanish into the wilds of Muggle England. Until very recently, one could have safely assumed Lupin, destroyed personally and professionally, succumbed to the loneliness of tragedy and faded into nothing but an historical footnote.

Until recently, that is. Could it be that Lupin was merely wise to the enquiring minds of his fellow wizards, and bided his time til the furore and fuss had definitively passed? Could he have been so patient, so cool-headed, so sure that interest in Harry Potter would indeed fade, that he could take the risk of joining young Harry in hiding, the better to protect him? Or- one hesitates to make such a bold accusation, but... could it be possible that Lupin had bided his time so well not to protect Harry Potter, but to take control over his fate? He who has the Boy Who Lived would have untold influence over the Wizarding World, and Lupin, a penniless half-blood with nothing left to lose, may well have decided it was time to trade up. In the next chapter, dear reader, learn how Remus Lupin took advantage of the chaos of his old mate Black's daring escape from Azkaban to finally make contact with Harry Potter, and take control of the greatest destiny of Wizardkind.

~Rita Skeeter, excerpted from Harry Potter and the Hand of Prophecy