A/N: Happy New Year, everyone! Here is a brand new, freakishly long chapter... I won't comment on that part since I seem to be chronically suffering from long-chapter disease. For those who didn't notice it, I posted the long promised Fred/George outtake on my profile a few weeks ago - feel free to check it since you won't be seeing much of George in this chapter...
8 September 1997
"That chicken's already dead, you know? No need to stab it further before you eat it."
"Hum?" Izzy mumbled distractedly, her eyes watchfully glued on the staff-table, where the Carrows happily sat.
Ginny huffed as her best friend apparently prepared herself to stab the chicken leg on her plate once more. Before she could do it, though, Ginny snatched the fork away from her hand with a quick move that finally seemed to catch Izzy's attention. "Stop staring at them," she demanded in a whisper. "Or at least try to be less obvious about it."
"I don't trust them."
Ginny snorted. "I'd say nearly no one here does but they're not all staring. Just eat your dinner, will you? You're making me nervous."
She groaned. "I've lost my appetite… I always seem to when they're less than two-hundred feet away."
"Well, then get ready to starve yourself to death because they're going to be around a lot," Ginny pointed out.
Izzy groaned again as she snatched her fork back from Ginny and used it to take a bite from the chicken on her plate.
"You know, you've been acting awfully sulky lately," the redhead observed.
"Everyone's sulky these days," Izzy replied dismissively. "You're sulky."
"No, I'm pissed. I'm pissed because the bad guys are in charge and I'm pissed because the good guy," my guy, she added in her mind, "is being chased like a criminal and has a bounty on his head." She was even more pissed because she hide from anyone just how much she cared for Harry or else no doubt they'd use her against him. That was something she wasn't willing to let happen in a million years. "But you, you're sulky."
Izzy huffed. Well, of course she was sulky. She'd only been back to school for a week and so far it had been pretty crappy. Why? Because Hogwarts wasn't Hogwarts anymore. Not really. She'd been warned about that several times before she'd come, mostly by her parents, and she couldn't say she hadn't believed it. Of course thinking of it was nothing like living it.
She couldn't have really predicted a state of coldness and dampness in the air all over the castle mainly during the morning thanks to the Dementors that patrolled the hallways at night. She couldn't have predicted that now they would 'enjoy' two hours of torture every day in the shape of Dark Arts and (now mandatory) Muggle Studies, where the Carrows preached the most disturbing crap she'd ever heard in her life.. She couldn't have predicted how miserable her mother and all the other teachers would look as they were forced to teach their newly-reviewed syllabus matching the 'ministry's new views'. And, finally, she couldn't have predicted herself and most of the oldest Gryffindors having to talk nightmares out of their first-year housemates nearly every night because of the things they were shown and told by the Carrows during class.
And, of course, to top all that was the fact that that, even though her mind was full enough on its own, it always seemed to find the time to get itself overthinking things that had no business coming up in a time like that. Like certain kisses shared on certain train platforms with certain redheads… She still hadn't gotten any closer to figure out what it had actually meant but, Merlin's pants, she was just setting herself up to lose her mind anyway. Why couldn't a kiss be just a kiss, as mind-blowing as it might have been? Why couldn't she stop thinking of it every night before she went to sleep and every morning before her mind had actually woken up?
"Look, I've got a lot in my hands too," Izzy found herself saying at some point. "And… well, I guess that makes me frustrated. And being frustrated makes me sulk. And sulking just frustrates me more… it's a vicious circle, Ginny. I can't help it."
Ginny huffed. "Well, as much as I like you, that's getting to my nerves. You need something to channel that frustration into – something other than sulking. Like… networking," giving her look that clearly said networking didn't actually mean networking. Well, in a way it did, only it was strictly applied to extend the number of members in the DA.
Getting it back on track was still a work very much on progress, seeing as so many members had graduated, been banished from the school as Muggle-borns or were currently on the run for different reasons… Rebuilding the old Defence Assotiation turned into Dumbledore's Army was never going to be easy – their only hope was that the nastier the Carrows got (and they were bound to get nastier), the more people would be willing to join in. It had been that way during Umbridge's reign – Izzy was sure it would be the same now.
"Girls," Neville greeted them quietly just as suddenly appeared, taking a seat opposite from them.
"Hey, where have you been?" Ginny asked in a concerned whisper. "Dinner's started being served nearly an hour ago."
"I got held up," he stated, carefully looking around to see if there were any students around who could overhear them. As it happened, there weren't – even with attendance made mandatory, only now did they realize just how heavy the weight of Muggle-Borns was in the schools' student body. Only the Slytherins had anything close to a full table these days. "Listen, I ran into Nick… you know, Nearly-Headless Nick. He told me a few things you both might be interested in."
"What?" Izzy whispered, mimicking the low tone he'd just taken.
Neville looked around once again, that time also to check if anyone was observing, which didn't seem to be the case at the moment. "He said he heard this conversation between Amycus and Alecto this morning by chance – said he had to tell one of us right away because he knows we're still on Harry's side and figured we could do something about it."
"Wait, so it is about Harry?" Ginny questioned anxiously. "What did they say?"
"Shh…" he said, urging her to loser her voice. "He said… he said he heard them mention a thing or two about something important that Snape's keeping in his office – something apparently You-Know-Who wants to keep away from Harry. Badly."
That same thought hit the two girls at the same time: could the thing in question be a Horcrux? Could they have a Horcrux so close to their reach inside the school? "Did he catch what it was?" Izzy asked, glancing again at the Staff table and noting vaguely, before her eyes landed on the Carrows, that her mother – who'd been sitting by McGonagall's side just before – seemed to have left dinner early. She wasn't the only one, though, as many teachers often avoided spending much time around their darkest co-workers. That time, even Snape seemed to be gone.
Neville shook his head before speaking and reclaiming Izzy's attention. "No – he said he'd keep on eavesdropping on them and Snape to try and find out but so far all he knew was what I've just told you. Apparently, the Carrows don't trust Snape to keep it safe even though You-Know-Who apparently does. They're pissed he didn't give it to them instead."
"Makes sense – they will never be any love lost between them and Snape," Ginny pointed out.
He nodded. "I figured Nick was reliable since he's always been on our side. I'm not sure how risky it is for him to be eavesdropping for us but it's a good thing he is. What do you reckon they were on about? A weapon of some sort? It has to be, right?"
"Maybe," Izzy mumbled. But, right now, she was hoping for a Horcrux – she really wanted to destroy one of those. She wasn't sure why in particularly since she wasn't quite certain about the 'how' in the equation anyway but she really wanted to.
"Well, it's pretty clear what we have to do," Ginny declared. "We need to figure out what it is… and then we need to get our hands on it."
Neither Izzy nor Neville disagreed with that one. Both of them knew that anything Voldemort wanted so badly to keep away from Harry, weapon or otherwise, was bound to be useful to him or to them. Given the item in question was on what they classified as their territory, it was up to them to take care of it, a risk they had to take.
When a few late students showed up a few moments later and occupied the seats right by them, the three decided to leave that matter for the moment, allowing it to be discussed at another time. With that settled, Izzy and Ginny left the Great Hall not long after, unwilling to spend any more time in the same room as the Carrows than they had to.
As Neville stayed behind finishing his dinner and chatting with Seamus Finnigan and a kid named Derek that was one year below them, the two girls made their way up the main staircase. With the echo of their footsteps as the only sound they heard aside from the voices in the increasingly distant Great Hall, they were reminded of how empty the hallways were – no one really wanted to be wandering around at that time of the day in case one of the Dementors decided to show up early for their post-curfew rounds, which had happened before.
Upon reaching the first floor, though, the silence was tainted by the sound of a pair of hushed, tense voices coming from the adjacent hallway. Familiar voices.
"Is that…?" Ginny started to ask.
Izzy nodded before her friend could even finish. It had taken her less than a second to identify the voices as her mother's and Snape's, which wasn't something she was very happy about. What that bastard wanted with her mother was something she couldn't imagine… "Come on," she urged her friend, nodding towards the corridor in question – either it was fuelled by curiosity or concern, she simply couldn't help wanting to figure out what that tense little conversation was about. A conversation taking place in a public area of the castle, of all places – how very much out of character for Snape, who barely did anything out of his office these days. For a moment, she wondered if that fact had anything to do with the secret item allegedly hidden in there…
Step by slow step, each carefully taken as to not produce any noise that could echo on the castle's stone walls, they made their way closer to the voices, which got clearer as they approached until finally settling right around the corner from the talking pair, strategically out of their sight.
"… couldn't tell because you don't know or because you don't want to share?" Snape's voice was asking
"Because I don't know," their heard Mia replying in a quite frustrated tone. "As I've already told you."
There was a sigh followed again by Snape's voice. "It seems rather odd, wouldn't you say? That she wouldn't share her plans with you, her best friend."
"I'd call it smart, actually," Mia pointed out, her tone much less annoyed that time, as if she was enjoying having the chance to say that. "It seems quite obvious that questions would be asked after her daughter didn't show up at Hogwarts – I assume that by not saying anything she meant to avoid placing me in the awkward situation you're trying to create right now, Severus. But I don't imagine you'd understand how a good friendship works since you seem to have such an awful history in that matter."
"Mind your tongue, Amelia," Snape replied, sounding tenser at that moment than Izzy had ever heard him. Clearly her mother knew the game she was playing. "I don't appreciate having you channelling your husband's distasteful behaviour in my school. I imagined someone of your intellect would have gotten that from my dismissing him."
"Your school," Mia repeated. "You know, I've always heard that Hogwarts was faithful to those who are faithful to it. If I were you, I'd really oppose the notion of 'faithfulness' to what you've been up to lately and take some conclusions of my own."
"I'll take your advice under consideration," he replied dryly. "So, I suppose that's all you have to say about Ms Harper's situation."
"That's all I know," she stated. "Of course, if you doubt my word, you can always call me in for an official questioning and fetch some Veritaserum like you did last time."
Snape let out a bored sigh. "Veritaserum, Amelia, is a very hard potion to brew. It has rare and expensive ingredients that should not be wasted in every little matter. I'm sure you know there are a few dozen families in this situation."
"Yes, I do wonder why," her mother told him in a dry tone. "Well, you'll have to excuse me for the night – I have classes to prepare."
And with that, as the headmaster stiffly agreed and his steps started to come their way, Izzy and Ginny looked at each other in a panic, realizing he was seconds away from finding them there. 'What do we do?' Izzy mouthed to the redhead who scratched her head.
It was too late to try and sneak back to the stairs unnoticed, Ginny quickly concluded. At least without making noise. If only they had an invisibility cloak… but they hadn't. She supposed that only left them with another possibility. "Follow my lead," she whispered before taking a breath and stepping right into Snape's path, nearly crashing into him. "Oh, sorry, Professor, didn't see you there," Ginny said, trying to sound surprised by his appearance.
Snape frowned at her and then at Izzy, who promptly appeared behind Ginny. Her heart was racing as, at a distance, she could clearly see her mother standing in front of her office looking at them with a disapproving look on her face, as if she just knew they'd been eavesdropping… Of course Mum knows, she thought. She always did.
"Miss Weasley and, of course, Miss Black," Snape said in a stiff yet paced tone. "What, may I ask, are you two doing here on your own? I believe dinner is still being served…"
Ginny gulped. "We left early. We needed to have a word with Professor Black," she lied, nodding at Mia who just sighed. "About a pair assignment she gave us."
Snape didn't look so convinced. "An assignment… On what subject?"
"Witch-burnings," Izzy quickly supplied.
"Interesting," the older man said dryly. "Well, I suggest you make it quick. Curfew will be on in less than thirty minutes and believe me when I tell you that you won't want to be walking around these halls then." The tone of his voice was somewhere between the one of a warning and the one of a threat, something that only served to make both of them, as well as Mia, more nervous.
"Don't worry about them, Severus. I will personally escort them to their tower before curfew," Mia assured him from where she stood, promptly turning to the two students. "Girls, if you wouldn't mind," she said, opening her office's door and urging them in.
Both of them gladly excused themselves after that, sparing the headmaster a short look and a mumbled 'good night' before they walked away towards Mia. By the time they stepped into her office and she closed the door, their hearts were already going back to their usual paces.
"What was that all about?" Izzy asked her mother. "Elizabeth went on the run?"
Mia sighed, not quite finding it in her to give her daughter a well-deserved eavesdropping-is-rude lecture. "Yes," she simply responded. "She did."
"Did she tell you she was going to?"
She shook her head. "She only sent me a message afterwards through a friend," Mia said, allowing Izzy to put the pieces together with the presence of Kingsley Shacklebolt at King's Cross a week before. She's wondered what that had been all about. "But don't think it said that much. She just used it to apologize for not saying goodbye and assuring me she was safe. She said she couldn't bear the thought of sending Evie into a school the state Hogwarts is in, even if I was going to be here. Can't really blame her," she added with a sigh. How often she wished she'd done the same with Izzy…
"No, we really can't," her daughter mumbled, occupying a seat by Ginny's side on the sofa her mother kept in the office. "I think she did the right thing."
"You think so?" Mia asked, raising her eyebrows. It just seemed ironic that, after the long campaign she'd put up in order to go back to Hogwarts Izzy would so easily support Elizabeth's decision.
"Well," Izzy replied, easily guessing what her mother was thinking, "there's a big difference between me, a fifteen-year-old girl who knows how to defend herself, putting up with Snape and the Carrows and an eleven-year-old girl who still doesn't quite know how to use a wand doing the same herself."
Mia sighed. "I suppose I should be glad you can at least understand that," she mumbled. "Anyway, we can only hope they won't get any closer to finding her than they are now."
"Doesn't it strike you as odd that Snape was just asking about this now, when school started a week ago?" Ginny couldn't help asking. "Wouldn't it be more effective if he, the Carrows or whoever's in charge of handling this started investigating right when Elizabeth's daughter didn't show up?"
"Well, I imagine they didn't really know she was supposed to start school this year until now. There seemed to be some problems when it came to cross-referencing the students who were supposed to come and the ones that really came."
"How so?" Izzy asked.
Her mother sat down on a chair by her desk. "It's complicated, honey. The records of students' admissions are kept in a magical book that can only really be accessed by the school's rightful headmaster," she explained. "As it turns out, the book doesn't quite recognize Snape as such because he wasn't the deputy headmaster before or named as a successor by Dumbledore."
"Which would make McGonagall the real headmistress," Ginny guessed, receiving a nod in return.
"It took them a few days to figure that out and Minerva stalled some more after they did. After they finally made her give them the records, there was also the fact that, as Snape wasn't recognized as headmaster, the rule saying that Muggle-Borns aren't admitted in the school anymore was basically ignored by the book. I imagine it took him a while to tell Muggle-Borns apart from the rest on that list since it's just a meaningless title in the first place. In any case, this gave the families on the run a considerable head start."
"At least they got that much," Izzy mumbled.
Mia nodded solemnly for a moment. "Well, girls," she said suddenly, "I think it's time I take you up to your dorm. We don't want to get too close to curfew time."
"Wait," Ginny said. "We were hoping… I was hoping you could tell us you have some news about… about Harry." Mia was, after all, their only source of credible news these days when the newspapers were completely under the ministry's thumb.
Her boyfriend's godmother sighed. "I'm afraid I don't have any, Ginny. But you should see that as a good thing," she told her hopefully. She had to believe that herself or else she'd go mad, Mia thought. "It must mean that whatever he's doing, he's doing it well enough not to give himself away."
Ginny pursed her lips together for a moment before nodding, noting that was really the only thing she could really do about that matter. Grin and bear it – the world couldn't know how upset she really was.
"What about Dad?" Izzy asked from where she sat.
Mia looked down sadly for a moment. Merlin, just how badly did she hate being away from Sirius. From her babies. "I talked to him this afternoon. He's still a little… overwhelmed by your brother and sister – looks like he hasn't slept in a week," she said with a pang of guilt in her heart.
Izzy smiled a little, part of her amused upon imagining her father's state. He was always a moody racket when he was sleep-deprived and that was rarely intentional, which only made it more hilarious to see. Of course, her amusement vanished just as soon as the image of her parent's farewell at Platform 9 3/4 crossed her mind… he must be feeling pretty miserable at the moment. "I'm sure he's still pulling it off," she mumbled, for the sake of comforting her mother.
Mia sighed. "I know. But handling children their ages feels like a bit of an impossible task sometimes. He told me Lulu had come by a little while ago to take them for the night, though – I imagine he must be long gone into dreamland by now… He sent his love, by the way," her mother continued. "And asked me to remind you of your agreement," she added, part of her vaguely curious about what such agreement was all about. She'd always noticed how they had those little things – secret agreements, private jokes – that made them closer than she'd ever dared herself to hope back when she was the one handling two kids on her own.
"Right," Izzy mumbled. The one about her trying not to do something terribly stupid while at the school… "Well, tell him to worry about his own side of the agreement because I'm just fine with mine."
Mia sighed. "I'll let him know. Well, shall we get your dorm now or not?"
Izzy nodded, getting up as Ginny did the same. "Let's," the brunette said. "Last thing I'd want is running into a Dementor on our way there."
That had, to put it simple, been the busiest week of his life. Not theworst – even though at times he'd thought it had been pretty close, Sirius admitted – but no doubt the busiest.
He'd known, of course, ever since he and Mia had decided she needed to go back to Hogwarts in order to keep an eye on Izzy that his job of handling the two little ones back home would be demanding. Logically speaking, by acting as a single parent he'd have twice the work when it came to parenting than when Mia was around. Oh, he'd been wrong… so very wrong.
He wasn't sure how… he wasn't even sure why but somehow those kids – his so-adored little kids – managed to make him feel like he was caring for at least a dozen of them. There was feeding, changing, bathing, dressing, playing, drawing, chasing… and that was, of course, leaving out the endless wailing fits Mary had grown so fond of lately and Alex's newly-restored fits of over-activeness. And when two or more of those overlapped… oh, it was a hair-pulling, teeth-clenching, gut-wrenching nightmare. It was during those times that he'd find himself wondering what the hell he'd been thinking every time he'd bugged Mia about having more kids in a possible post-war universe… Often he'd even consider taking a trip to St. Mungo's, either it was to get himself fixed or to check himself into the mental ward.
He loved those kids to death but, Merlin's pants, they'd be the death of him.
Ironically enough, though, it was all that insanity that kept him sane through Mia's absence because, without her around, the kids were really all he had to focus on. They were all he had to occasionally make him smile and all he had to make Mia smile over. There was always a funny story or an interesting situation to share with her during their daily two-way mirror conversations, either it was Mary finally mastering her crawling or Alex drawing all over his sister when Sirius had turned his back from them for a minute or two. He supposed he should count himself lucky for that, at least.
Still, being thankful didn't keep him from rejoicing when, the previous afternoon, his mother-in-law had shown up announcing her intentions to kidnap his kids for the rest of the day and keep them through the night. He'd slept for no less than eighteen hours straight then – roughly as much as he'd slept in total through the six other days of that week – and would've done so longer if a certain annoying little creature hadn't kept him from achieving that.
"Master," the squeaky little voice said, shaking him awake.
"Gway," Sirius mumbled against his pillow.
The lack of clarity of his sleep-filled voice allowed Kreacher to ignore him, instead continuing with the shaking. "Master need to wake up now!" he insisted.
Sirius nearly growled. "No, what 'Master' needs to do is to kill you and thrown you at the bottom of the Thames," he stated, removing his head from the pillow for a moment just so he could glare at the house-elf.
"No, you need to get your arse out of that bed and get dressed because it's already past eleven in the bloody morning!" he heard a familiar voice – certainly not Kreacher's – commanding.
He turned around to face the person in question and frowned. "Tonks? What the…?" Where had she come from? And why was she there, standing in his bedroom in the middle of the day?
His younger cousin rolled her eyes. "Hurry up, will you? This is important!"
"What's…?" he paused. "Is it Moony? Is he…?"
"What? No! He's fine and probably on his way since I've just sent him a patronus."
"Then wha…"
She sighed. "It's Harry. Now get dressed – I'll be waiting downstairs." And, with that, she walked out of his room, followed by a rather concerned-looking Kreacher.
In his stead, though, Sirius just stood there for what had to be a full minute. Harry? She was there about Harry? he questioned himself several times, having trouble jumping to the part when he started asking himself about why. When he did manage to get there, quickly realizing there was little to no chance she was bringing good news, something snapped in him and he got to work. He wasn't quite sure what the world record for the least time spent getting dressed was but later he'd wonder if his achievement right then and there didn't make him a contender for it. Either way, in the midst of all the hurry he certainly hadn't noticed the fact that he was wearing mismatched socks and a shirt that was far too light for the current weather. He didn't care – all he did care about was reaching downstairs and finding out what on earth his cousin had meant by 'It's Harry'.
He found her pacing in the drawing room as Kreacher sat nearby, furiously polishing a silver candlestick. He vaguely noticed her hair was longer than usual that day, bright auburn and arranged in a messy ponytail. When she did notice him there, she raised her eyebrows.
"Well, I see you woke up fast after…"
"Please don't tell me he's been caught," he interrupted her. "I beg you. Please don't tell me that."
Tonks let out a breath. "Look as far as I know, he hasn't been caught. And I'm not just saying it just because you're asking me to. It's, well, it's sort of complicated but I'm pretty sure I'd have heard by now if he'd been apprehended."
"Then what the hell is going on?"
The metamorphagus walked over to the couch and took a seat on its arm. "Okay, before I tell you anything, I just need to point out that I didn't actually see what happened so this is mostly hearsay and there may or may not be a detail or two that's not actually accurate…"
"Okay, okay, just get to the point will you?" Sirius told her.
She huffed. "Fine. So… er, it appears Harry may have been to the ministry this morning."
Sirius looked at her in disbelief. "What do you mean by 'may have been to the ministry'?"
Tonks scratched her chin for a moment. "I mean… er… look, it's hard to explain, so let me start from the beginning: someone impersonated three ministry officials this morning and managed to get themselves into a Muggle-Born trial. There, let's just say they caused a whole lot of havoc, attacked Umbridge in the process and made a run for it. As I said, I wasn't actually there but a few people at the ministry's employee entryway saw them right before disapparating and most of them said… most of them said that Runcorn's face – that's one of the blokes who was impersonated, real bastard, by the way – shifted into Harry's right before they vanished. You know what that could mean…"
"Polyjuice fading away," Sirius mumbled, receiving a nod in return. "You think it was really him?"
She let out a long breath. "I can't say for sure. I mean, it could be just hysteria with them imagining it – Merlin knows I've heard my share of rubbish from witnesses – but there were nearly a dozen of them swearing it, which makes it very unlikely… And that kind of statement – Harry Potter walking into the ministry – well, let's just say that's not something you'd want to spill out without being really sure these days… The ministry was already denying it by the time I left to come here but my guess is that it's just wounded pride – it's pretty embarrassing having Harry fooling them all so easily. I'd say it might actually be him."
"Merlin," Sirius mumbled as he started pacing around. "But why the hell would he do that? What was he thinking? What could possibly be worth the risk they just took? I mean, you said they attacked Umbridge but I just can't picture them infiltrating the bloody ministry only for the sake of roughing her up… she's just not worth it."
"Well, if that was their purpose, I wouldn't say they'd done a really good job," Tonks observed. "I mean, they basically just stunned her – I could name you in the next ten minutes a hundred much-better ways for them to kick her bitchy little arse."
"Phew… I could come up with twice that myself in half the time," Sirius replied easily. "So, okay, they probably didn't go there just to lay it on Umbridge. But they had to have some purpose. I mean, Harry's not so brainless or so pompous that he'd even consider infiltrating the ministry just for the hell of it. He's definitely not that reckless." Harry was, thank Merlin, not like him, Sirius considered. And the only things valuable enough that he could picture Harry breaking into the ministry for were clear in his mind: a friend in need or a Horcrux. Somehow, he was leaning towards the second that time, not having heard of any friend of him mysteriously goinf missing aside from Muggle-borns that had gone on the run…
"Well, I guess you'll have to ask Harry about it next time you see him," Tonks said dryly.
"Yeah, well, I doubt that will happen anytime soon," Sirius mumbled. "So, they got in and out fine, right? That's what matters."
"Er…" the metamorphagus mumbled hesitantly. "About the way out… so, apparently Yaxley – you know Yaxley, big bad Death Eater – grabbed a hold of one of them just as they were apparating."
"What? And you're just saying that now?" Sirius shouted in disbelief as Kreacher let out a little panicked squeak from where he sat, promptly dropping the candlestick he was polishing.
"Well, there was no point in getting you to freak out earlier. I mean, we haven't the palest idea of where they went, so even if we wanted to help them, we wouldn't be able to. Besides, if Yaxley had caught them, I'm sure we'd know by now. It took me close to an hour to manage to get out of the ministry with all the mess going on in there and still there were no news of him. Do you have any idea how badly those Death Eaters want to get into You-Know-Who's good graces? Pretty badly, let me tell you. Yaxley wouldn't have waited a second before bringing him in."
"So, what are we just supposed to do? Wait and hope?"
"I guess. Look, I know it doesn't feel right but there's really nothing else…"
Kreacher let out another strangled squeak, that one catching their attention as it was much louder than before.
"For Merlin's sake, what's wrong with you?" Sirius asked the house-elf in an annoyed tone.
He didn't respond, though, instead just looking very oddly at him and then at Tonks. His lips seemed to be attempting to move but he was clearly not succeeding at it.
"Oh, great," Sirius muttered dryly. "Lovely time for him to lose his marbles for good…"
"No," Tonks mumbled, standing up from her sitting position and approaching Kreacher, kneeling in front of the chair he was occupying. "He wants to say something. Don't you?"
Kreacher seemed quite unable to say anything, his eyes on Sirius as if he was expecting something from him.
"Well, what is it, then?" his master asked, approaching.
"K… Kreacher… Kreacher can't…"
"You've been ordered not to tell something, haven't you?" Tonks asked before turning to Sirius. "I've seen this happen before to house-elves I had to question. Means their masters ordered them to keep something a secret."
"Their masters? I'm his master!" Sirius pointed out.
"Not the only one," Tonks replied. "Mia, Izzy… Harry. They're your family, therefore their orders to Kreacher are also binding. Not as binding as yours, though."
"So what? I just order him to spill it and he will?" Sirius asked, glancing at Kreacher, who gave him a look that made it seem like he was asking – begging – him to do so. The little bastard actually wanted to share whatever he was holding on to. "Well, then? Spill it, Kreacher."
The house-elf let out a breath of relief before speaking. "Kreach…"
The sudden sound of the doorbell ringing interrupted the old elf's words and made Sirius swear under his breath.
"Oh, come on! Now?" he complained
"That's probably Remus," the metamorphagus announced as she motioned to stand up. "I'll let him in for you. Just go on, the two of you – don't let us keep you. I'll be right back." And, with that, she walked out of the room, yelling at the visitor to 'keep his trousers on' when they rang a second time.
"Well, you were saying…" Sirius told the house-elf, sitting down on the sofa right by his chair just as he found himself alone with him in the room.
"Kreacher been helping Young Master Harry," Kreacher stated in a mere whisper that seemed to stun his master.
"What? How?"
"Young Master call for Kreacher's help the week after he leave. Kreacher been looking after him and friends ever since."
So that was where he'd been disappearing to all those times, it occurred to Sirius. Sneaky little bastard. "And how… how has he been?" he couldn't help asking.
Kreacher hesitated before responding, as if he didn't quite know what to put things at first. "Young Master been busy. He miss family," he added. "He take some time to get used to being away from home. Ask about Masters every time he see Kreacher."
"Right… and what he exactly did he need your help for?"
"Young Master worried that dirty thief Mundungus Fletched would never be found. He want Kreacher to help so he could get bad locket Master Regulus took," Kreacher explained.
"And did you?"
He nodded. "Kreacher found him in dirty little hole in Leeds and brought him to Young Master. Thief confess he stole the locket but said he sell it. To bad woman in the Ministry – the one that sack Masters from Hogwarts when Young Master Alex was still a baby."
And so the puzzle started to make sense. "Umbridge. They went to the ministry to steal the locket back from her."
He received a nod in return. "Kreacher didn't like plan – offer to steal it himself. Young Master say 'no' – he say it be too dangerous," the house-elf promptly stated, looking rather disappointed that he'd had no choice but obeying. "Kreacher worried about him and friends now."
"They're probably fine," Sirius mumbled even though he wasn't fully sure of that himself. Why the hell was he bothering to comfort Kreacher or all people… er, house-elves? he wondered as he heard Tonks making her way back with Remus in a tow…
"… perfectly understandable why I'd think this was about the baby. You sent me a Patronus calling me here for 'an emergency'! What was I supposed to think?" Remus was saying as he followed his wife into the room.
"I don't know. All I know is that these days I can't sneeze without you wanting to haul me all the way to St. Mungo's. You'd think I was terminally ill instead of pregnant."
"I'm just looking out for you, Dora. I mean, you have a history of… well…" he said, hesitating right there at the end, recalling that mentioning his wife's proneness to being clumsy might not be a good idea at the moment.
"A history of what exactly?" she asked, narrowing her eyes.
Sirius cleared his throat from where he sat, rescuing their attention from the impending fight. "Guess who's been in contact with a certain godson of mine for the past few weeks," he said, nodding at Kreacher.
"Harry? Is all this about Harry?" Remus asked, looking at Tonks rather confused.
"Shush," his wife said, elbowing him. "I'll explain later – in the meantime try to catch up on the conversation," she told him before looking at Kreacher. "Do you know where Harry's hiding? Because he might need our help. You know you can trust us."
The house-elf hesitated for a mere second, looking between Sirius, Tonks and Remus before nodding. "Kreacher does. But Young Master tell Kreacher not to tell anyone."
"Oh, come on," Sirius said, frustrated. "You wouldn't have made that whole squeaking act so I'd order you to spill it if you were so set on following exactly what Harry told you to do. Besides, I can only see one of two things happening here: either they do need our help and will be thankful when we show up regardless of what orders you broke or they actually don't need our help and, odds are, they're about to move from wherever they are now, given Yaxley has followed them there. The last thing I'd want to know would be something that could hurt Harry if, Merlin forbid, Death Eaters could get it out of me. Unless," he added, "I really thought he needed me to. I may be a crappy master but I sure as hell like to believe I'm not a crappy father or godfather," he said very calmly.
Kreacher looked at him rather oddly. Of course he would never, ever grace Sirius with saying that out loud but these days he didn't quite see him as a bad master. He wasn't a great one either like Mistress Mia, the Young Masters or Master Regulus but Kreacher had found himself growing to respect him, if not as anything else, as an opponent of sorts – the world wouldn't be right if they were nice to each other, Kreacher firmly believed. But still, he had to admit Master Sirius was ten times the master his father had been before him. Ten times the master and a hundred times the father, he admitted. "Young Master hiding in parents' old home."
"You mean Lily and James's old place here in London?" Remus asked, receiving a nod in return before he turned to his wife and his best friend. "That wouldn't have been a bad choice. It's where the Order used to meet – Dumbledore set up wards worthy of fortress-status."
"You mean aside from all of us, Snape included, being secret-keepers to it since he died?" Sirius observed.
"Yes but, as far as Snape knows, the place is abandoned," Tonks stated. "Besides, Mad-Eye told me long before he… you know… he told me he'd set up a number of enchantments over there just in case. Not sure what he meant by that but I'm positive he'd have made sure Snape would stay out."
Sirius couldn't help thinking that made some sense. "Well, regardless of it being a good choice for a hiding place or not, I guess we should get going now. We've wasted enough time. As for you," he added, looking at Kreacher. "Go to Lulu's and tell her to keep Alex and Mary a little longer because I'm not sure how long this will take. And then, stay there until I call you back, you hear me?"
From where he stood, Kreacher scowled but, unable to question the order, disappeared from the room with a light 'pop'.
"Someone didn't look too happy he didn't get to join us," Tonks observed.
Sirius huffed as he started walking over to the door. "Did you actually expect me to go on a potential rescue mission with an old grouchy house-elf in a tow?"
The metamorphagus chuckled as she followed him, hitting her husband's arm lightly. "Aw, look at that, Remus. He's actually starting to care about Kreacher's well-being," she told him cutely, for Sirius's frustration.
"Am not! Shut up," he muttered. "He'd just… he'd just get on the way!"
"Get on the way… excuses," she replied, rolling her eyes before hitting her husband's arm once again. "Tell him, Remus."
The former teacher let out a long huffing breath. Sometimes it was like having two bickering children when his wife and best friend got together – he supposed, in a way, that might be a good way to ease him into parenthood… "Can we please focus on the task here, please?" he requested.
"Yes, let's focus on the task, thank you very much, Moony," Sirius gladly replied, shooting Tonks a narrow-eyed glare.
It didn't take them any more than five minutes to reach the Covent Garden georgian neighbourhood Lily and James Potter had lived in before their exile to Godric's Hollow. Looking at the building they had once called a home brought back many memories of happier times, as it always did… however the time for reminiscing was not the current, Sirius recognized as he led the way up to the porch, already covered by the house's wards. No sound came from the inside of the house but, then again, the wards had been designed to guarantee so – either there was a battle or absolute silence inside, no one could tell without going in.
Reaching for his wand, he tapped it on the lock once to gain entrance. For a short moment he wondered if the wards would still let him in but then the sound of a click rendered his doubts useless. When he tried to push the door open, though, he found it quite hard to move.
"Need a hand, Padfoot?" Remus asked him as he saw his friend struggling.
Sirius didn't refuse it. "I think there's something blocking the door on the other side," he mumbled.
"Blocking the door?" Tonks inquired in confusion as her husband joined Sirius in trying to push the door open. "There are far more effective ways to keep a door closed…"
"Well, there's definitely something blocking this one," Remus mumbled as he and Sirius combined efforts in pushing the door, eventually getting it open a few inches but finding it hard to do much more. No sound whatsoever came through the open door.
"Hang on," Tonks said, moving towards the door. "I'll go in and move whatever's on the other side – it must be in some weird position or something…"
Remus cleared his throat as his wife tried to squeeze through the narrow opening. "Dora, I don't think…"
"Oh, shush, will you?" she replied rolling her eyes just a moment before realizing she actually couldn't pass through. Oh, come on… she thought. "Alright, maybe another push wouldn't hurt," she mumbled in frustration, realizing she wasn't so skinny anymore. The kid wasn't born yet and it was already putting her in awkward situations… a promising start for baby Lupin, no doubt.
"Maybe," Remus replied, a look that clearly said 'I told you so' on his face.
The metamorphagus glared as she stepped away from the door. "Hey, don't you give me that look! This is your fault, in case you'd forgotten," she stated.
"It always is," Sirius mumbled to his friend. "Especially when their back hurts or when they can't get up or when they're giving birth… I'd start reviewing my shied charms now if I were you."
"Oh, go on and you might need to use one just now, Sirius," Tonks promised.
Remus cleared his throat. "Let's just…" he mumbled, nodding at the door.
Another session of pushing the door, granted them a few more inches, that time enough for the metamorphagus to pass and clear the way. As soon as she got in, though, they heard her yelp.
When Sirius's eyes met Remus's, he knew they had both simultaneously entered panic-mode. "Dora? What's going on? Dora?"
"… didn't kill you!" they heard her saying from the inside. "Okay, okay… seems like it was just one of Mad-Eye's charms. I'm fine aside from a quasi-heart attack. Merlin, even dead the bloke still scares the living daylights out of…Well, hello, Yaxley," her voice suddenly said, as if she'd just spotted him.
A second moment of panic hit them both on the outside. "Dora, get out of the way. We're blowing up this door!" Remus yelled.
"No, don't! He's knocked out cold," she declared to their relief. "Seems alive, though. Let me just levitate him somewhere else and get this junk out of the way."
As they anxiously stood outside for what seemed like endless minutes, they heard the sound of steps and heavy furniture being moved around inside the house until Tonks finally opened the door, allowing them both in. And, just as they did, they spotted Yaxley's unconscious form laying discarded on the floor a few feet away.
"Well, looks like they handled this well enough," Sirius thought.
"It doesn't seem like there was a big struggle or there would be more broken things," Tonks stated, "My guess is they apparated with him and blasted him away, taking some furniture on the way and knocking him out."
Remus nodded as his eyes remained suspiciously on the unconscious Death Eater. "I take it Harry must be gone by now. The house seems empty, although I guess we should do a search just in case. Padfoot, you want to take the upper floors…?"
Sirius shook his head. "Nah, you two go on. I'll look down here and keep an eye on this one," he stated, nodding at Yaxley. "In case he decides to grace us with presence of mind."
"Oh, I hit him with a stunner right when I saw him," Tonks pointed out. "He was out already but I figured it wouldn't hurt."
He nodded from where he stood, promptly watching as the two walked off to the nearest staircase, already bickering over the fact that Tonks insisted they should split for the search, while Remus replied that they should stay together supposedly for the sole reason that he knew the house better than her, which she didn't seem to buy.
By the time their voices faded away, Sirius had already placed yet another spell on Yaxley, that one consisting of a full-body bind, and had moved down to the Lower Ground Floor to sweep it first. He found nothing of major importance neither in the kitchen nor in the large sitting room just outside of it that the Order used to occupy for their meetings. That was enough to convince him to move back to the ground floor, where he found Yaxley still knocked out and bound.
Moving on to the reception room, he found three makeshift beds made up near the sitting area, which led him to believe Harry, Ron and Hermione must've been sleeping over there. There were clear signs of their daily routines around but personal items were close to none – they probably kept those permanently packed just in case.
What caught his eye, though, was the small pile of old items laying discarded near one of the beds. Things Harry likely had found around the house… mementos of his parents' lives: an old Gryffindor Quidditch Team Captain badge that had once belonged to James, a jewelled little hair ornament he recalled seeing Lily wear sometimes, an old photo-album going back to a few years before Harry had even been born.
He couldn't help smiling at the specific page the album was opened on as he picked it up – a photo of his eighteen-year-old self with a younger Mia right next to James and Lily during a dinner party meant to celebrate Judy Potter's birthday. Merlin, it seemed like a lifetime ago, he thought… he and Mia had moved in together just months before and Lily and James weren't even engaged yet. It was a simpler time back then. Turning the page, he had to chuckle at the number forty on the birthday cake – a private joke of him and James. Judy Potter's fortieth birthday might have been long past by then but they constantly swore to her – especially when they were trying to suck up – she'd started aging backwards from the moment she'd turned fifty, which, by that logic, would have put her back at forty that very birthday. Merlin, he missed her – he missed them all.
Sounds of footsteps came from the stairway, followed by his friends' voices.
"We found nothing upstairs," Tonks announced loudly, appearing behind Sirius as he turned, followed by her husband. "Well, other than that the place is much bigger than I thought."
"Lily and James were planning to raise a big family here," Remus said a bit sadly. "Never really got the chance…"
His wife pursed her lips together for a moment, clearly distraught at the thought. "Well, I'm sure one day Harry will put this place up to good use with his own family."
No one really added anything to that. It was nice thinking – believing – in a better future, even picturing it, but that was something so… distant at the moment that they couldn't really allow themselves to explore it further at the fear of everything ending up horribly wrong.
"We need to figure out what to do with sleepy pants over there," Sirius declared, nodding at the unconscious Death Eater behind the pair.
They turned around too, looking at him. "What do you suggest?" Remus asked, having no clue of what to do with him.
"Well, we can't just release him back on the streets," Sirius pointed out. "That's a nasty creep and there are more than enough of those out there these days." There was only one place where he belonged and that was, without a doubt, Azkaban – unfortunately, that wasn't an option since the prison just happened to be under their sides' control.
"What, then?" the werewolf questioned. "We hold him hostage for Merlin-knows-how-long? Unless…" his face turned grim. "You couldn't be suggesting…"
"Of course I'm not!" Sirius immediately said. "We're not like them. Maybe he deserves worse than being killed but I'm not going to be the one tainting my hands with the blood of an unarmed man. Not sure where we could stock him away from the streets, though…"
"Well, maybe you won't have to," Tonks said. "I know this one spell… it's hard to explain how it works – I guess you could call it a long-term, pretty powerful confounding hex. But, anyway, let's just say it will probably render him out of commission for a while, enough that, even if he was out there, he'd be completely useless."
"A while?" Sirius asked suspiciously.
"Somewhere between eight months and a year," she specified. "Depends on a lot of things. I've heard of cases it lasted more than eighteen months."
"And when you say out of commission…" Remus mumbled.
"I mean padded-room-in-St. Mungo's out of commission," she specified.
Sirius gulped. "Well…"
"Where on Earth would you learn a spell like that?" her husband found himself unable not to ask.
She blushed, something she rarely did. "Look, Mad-Eye firmly believed that sometimes when the law can't do its job, it's up to us to handle the justice part of the picture. He taught me some stuff just in case…. Listen, if you'd rather we find another way to deal with that slime, I'm open to suggestions but it's not like this spell will actually physically hurt him or make him permanently loopy, not that he even deserves that courtesy…"
Sirius nodded. "Well, in my opinion, if anything, this sounds like quite a merciful solution for him, which is far more than he deserves even though it would solve our problem," he stated before turning to Remus. "What's your say in this Moony?"
The werewolf looked thoughtful for a few moments before saying anything. He seemed to be organizing the pros and cons in his mind. "Fair enough," he ended up saying. "I'm sure he's done much worse to others in his run as a Death Eater than that spell ever will."
"So, what, Tonks here does her massive confounding thing and then what? We can't just leave him in this place," Sirius pointed out.
The metamorphagus shrugged. "We could take his wand and dump him in a park or something. Even if Muggles find him, I'm sure they'll take him to a nice little loony bin."
Remus and Sirius looked at each other for a moment before shrugging too. "Sounds like a plan," the latter agreed. "Okay, you do your thing, Tonks. And don't forget to obliviate him in case he gets his marbles back too soon somehow."
She gave them a short nod before approaching Yaxley and getting to work. The spell itself seemed quite complicated, requiring a long enchantment and very specific wand movements. In the end, a blue light shot from the end of Tonks' wand, shining through the Death Eater's head as if it was empty. When they woke him up for a few seconds in order to make sure everything was in order, they got a very unusual rant about random things like cauldron cakes, pink hippogriffs and love potions – yep, Sirius thought, whoever ended up finding that one would have a field day, either Muggle or Magical.
"Well, there goes my fun for now," Tonks announced, putting her wand as well as Yaxley's away in her pocket after having stunned him again. "Here I was hoping to get a fight out of this to keep me in shape now that I've quit."
Remus turned his face to her suddenly. "You quit?"
"Don't look so surprised – you've been yakking for weeks about how dangerous it was for me to work at the ministry and, to be honest, there was nothing there to make me stay since I've been anything but an auror since You-Know-Who took over. I was just waiting for a sign to come and I guess what happened today was enough. Besides, soon enough it will get far too hard to hide the fact that I'm pregnant and I don't want that reaching the wrong ears."
"What will you do now?" Sirius asked.
She shrugged. "Dunno. Maybe I'll help with the Order for now – I've been in contact with Kingsley and he has some plans to get Muggle-borns out of the country. After that, I guess I'll hang out at the joke shop a lot. Also keep my mum some company while Dad is away on the run – maybe I'll even let her teach me how to knit." She groaned. "Merlin, I feel bored already."
"There, there," her husband said, patting her shoulder. "You'll be fine."
"Hey, if you want to get busy, I've got two little monsters at home who just love to make me want to pull my own hair, one of whom just happens to be your only godchild. I'd be more than happy to share them," Sirius offered.
She chuckled. "I might actually take you up on that one."
"Please do," he said, already pulling up his sleeves as he eyed the unconscious Yaxley.
"Well, so I guess we're done here," Remus mumbled, looking at the unconscious Death eater on the floor.
"Yep," Sirius agreed. "Time to take the trash out, then."
A/N: Well, I hope you liked it. I needed to incorporate a lot of plot elements in this one so I can get to a little time jump soon. Hope it didn't feel too rushed. Well, feedback is always welcome - review!
Anne
