Chapter Seventy: Try Again

Hogwarts was infamous for being a rumour mill—rumours had abounded about what had happened beneath the school at the end of first year before Harry had even regained consciousness. As he was famous, a disproportionate amount of Hogwarts's rumours centred around him.

This explained how everyone in the school already knew—before even the end of the first week—that he and Ron were at odds with each other, somehow. It was the first long-term fight that they had over anything important—the first lasting dispute. No one could pinpoint the causes, or when it had started, or exactly how Hermione factored in—she seemed unfortunately easy to slot into a multitude of roles. It was some reassurance, that no one knew what the fight was about, but poor Hermione was called a great many unflattering things as a result. This put pressure on Harry to forgive Ron, to cut off fodder for the rumours, and it put pressure on Ron to put pressure on Harry.

That may have been why Ron kept seeking him out to try to get Harry to talk to him, but it probably wasn't. Thor had never seemed terribly aware of any gossip, ill-will, or mockery that was directed towards him. Ron was, surprise, surprise, no different on that front. That just meant that all of his attempts to speak with Harry were earnest attempts to reconnect. And maybe he was right; maybe Harry was reluctant to say "bygones", without some ready impetus to force his hand.

Malfoy was good for nothing if not as an impetus. He was quite pleased with how poorly Buckbeak's trial went. By all accounts that Harry or Hermione could get hold of, it was a mockery of a trial—a farce. What had all that time and research been put in for?

Hagrid was so distraught that he hardly seemed aware of what he was doing, moping through his classes in a daze. Very little of that was the knowledge (if it had reached him) that Sirius Black was innocent. The Ministry was, in its usual inept manner, putting off deciding upon a trial date until "The Hippogriff Affair" had been settled. He and Hermione set to drawing up plans for the appeal with a will. Harry doubted that they would work.

And meanwhile, here was Malfoy, gloating. And Harry had, loath though he was to admit it, given him rather a lot to gloat about. Buckbeak was old news that Malfoy repeatedly dredged up; perhaps he was justifiably concerned that Gryffindor would crush Slytherin in the final match of the season. Or it might have been that he'd noticed Harry's bad humour, and feared for his own life. But probably not that, or he wouldn't have done what he did.

It was a death wish to challenge Thor in any real duel, and the Malfoy-Weasley feud was well-known in the Wizarding World, with bad blood going back generations. Ron, further, was in rather a state, still, about everything that had happened, particularly with Harry not speaking to him. The confession, furthermore, had had the odd side-effect of lifting the burden of responsibility from his shoulders, by quite a bit, which meant that he exhibited less restraint in general, knowing full well as he did that Harry, left to his own devices, could generally take care of himself.

All these things, taken together, were a recipe for disaster. Tensions were high anyway, and Malfoy, who could be counted on to stir things up when they were about to boil over, decided to gloat. And, although Harry, who had broken at least three of Malfoy's wands, all told, was right there, Malfoy had no second thoughts about taunting Ron. About Harry not speaking him. Doubtless stirring some rather old, very bitter memories, now that Harry knew to look for such a response. The implication was clear: Harry and Ron were on the outs, so Ron was on his own.

Harry, as if he didn't care, stood back and watched. He was very well aware of how well Thor could defend himself, and he could hold his own in a wizard's duel, too, judging by the destroyed clearing in first year. Harry realised, now, how Ron could accidentally set someone on fire…why every time Ron lost his temper, it seemed to manifest in the same way. Electricity. Sparks. There was a figure he'd read, somewhere, about what percent of wildfires were started by lightning. Really, it was a remarkable display of restraint on Thor's part that Hogwarts and the Forbidden Forest hadn't burnt down by now. There was no need to worry about Ron.

But there was a deeply engrained habit, which it was possible (if difficult) to ignore, to watch, at the very least. To be ready to intervene, as Harry knew that he would, if it looked as if Ron needed help. Such as, say, when Crabbe and Goyle got involved. Hufflepuff was the house of fair-play. Slytherin was the house of opportunism. It was as predictable as it was inevitable.

It was Ron who picked the fight, of course, because if there were a continuum of how easy it was to goad someone into a fight, Harry would be somewhere in the middle, on the hard side, and Ron would be far on the easy side, with Malfoy in between.

Insult Mr. and Mrs. Weasley? Check. Insult Gryffindor House in general? Check. And then, the question, "What's the matter, Weasley?" Malfoy drawled. "Trouble in paradise? I don't see Potter jumping to your aid, as he usually does,"

Did he? Harry hadn't noticed that, but it was possible. He'd assumed, before, that Ron was only human, and…. Harry shook his head, to focus on the fight that had just begun. Malfoy had pushed the one button sure to set Ron off—the complicated mess that was recent events, recent revelations, and the fact that Harry wasn't speaking to him.

I caused this, Harry thought with what might almost be considered awe. He watched the fight closely, but when the fight expanded, when Malfoy had managed to manoeuvre Ron into a position, with his back to Crabbe and Goyle, and Crabbe or Goyle (did it matter which; it wasn't as if they were individuals?) aimed a thicker-than-usual wand at Ron's back, Harry intervened, almost automatically. He could have chosen to remain out of it, and that knowledge was enough for him.

"Incarcerous," he said, pointing at the offending slytherin, as ropes shot from his wand. He turned to the other, and cast the spell again, for good measure, before turning back to Malfoy, who was rounding on him. He stuck his left hand in his pocket, aiming straight at Malfoy with his right. "I think you may have misunderstood the situation, Malfoy," he said, in a level voice. "Gossip is only rarely true, after all. Now, why don't you remove yourself from our presence, before you lose another wand."

He gave Malfoy his friendliest smile, and Malfoy paled, taking a step back, and hastily stuffing the wand he was clutching away. Somewhere behind him, a member of the audience laughed. Harry paid them no mind, his gaze fixed on Malfoy, who was backing away, as if that would help protect him.

"My father will hear about this!" Malfoy cried, as he prepared to turn tail and run. It was all Harry could do not to reply that he should be more worried about Ron's father. Harry kept smiling, as Malfoy backed off, with his hand, level and steady, following Malfoy's movement in his retreat.

"Just like old times, I suppose," he said, slipping the wand at last back into its holster, and turning to Ron, beaming. Ron stared, which was perhaps an understandable reaction, given that this was the friendliest Harry had been to him in months. Or perhaps even years?

"You…defended me," he said, frowning as he puzzled it over. Harry's smile faded. He blinked. Stared. The stare swiftly turned into a glare.

"What, and you thought that I wouldn't? I don't believe you. Oh, ye of little faith!" He walked over to Ron, ostensibly to make sure he wasn't hurt, and whispered, "I, too, swore an oath, and I swore it first. And I, not you, was first to break it. I would think that you would not have forgotten that."

Then he turned and left, before Ron could formulate a proper response.

If things were different from how they had been before, perhaps it was not a bad thing at all. There was a certain understanding between Harry and Ron—or Loki and Thor—that had never been there before—or perhaps not for a very long time. Hermione seemed able to tell immediately when they had come to an understanding: she'd looked from Harry to Ron and back, and burst into tears. "You're so stupid!" she sobbed, and Ron, seemingly on reflex, reached out to her, ignoring Harry's raised eyebrows.

"Hermione," he began, but Harry was already saying,

"I'm so stupid?" His level of incredulity was difficult for him to believe. Really, Hermione, where was this coming from?

"You're both the biggest, proudest, most idiotic idiots I've ever had to deal with," she cried, throwing her arms in the air. "You've spent the past two weeks fighting for no reason at all, as far as I can tell. What is wrong with you two? Are you sure you're not related, somehow?"

That was too much for Harry. He didn't want his mind to go off on a tangent about nature versus nurture, and just how much of your personality carried in through reincarnation, of all things. "Quite," he said, with some acerbity. Families were a sensitive subject for him on any side of the equation. Most equations didn't have three sides, but what could you do? "I suppose I'm technically an adopted Weasley, if that counts."

"Not technically," said Ginny, beaming at them, looking up from her homework. Harry raised an eyebrow at her, and she blushed and looked back at her homework. He shook his head. Ginny was inscrutable and a headache at the best of times. "It is rather odd that Ron seems to have more in common with you than with the rest of us Weasleys, though."

She seemed to be considering the matter instead of her homework, tapping the feather of her quill against her chin. Harry stared at her. Does this mean that she noticed that connection that neither of us did—with no knowledge of the background reasoning behind it, and on her own? He seemed to have underestimated Ginny. In his thoughts, she still seemed to be the girl whose lifeless body he'd had to revive in the Chamber of Secrets, last year. And perhaps he'd spent too little time discovering who she was when she wasn't the damsel in distress.

Harry frowned, glancing down at his feet, and shoving his homework for Divination aside. "Now, I think you're both making far too big a deal of this," he said, glancing around the table at them. "And, I am not an idiot."

That point seemed particularly important to clarify. Without his intelligence, what did he have?

The night of January Thirty-First was, of course, much more interesting than it had any right to be. Harry approached the cottage door with some misgiving. He wasn't sure what he ought to say, or whether it was even a good idea to bring up recent events, or to try to pretend that nothing were different.

He stopped outside the cottage door. He'd have to tell her, eventually. He was even on speaking terms with Ron, again. He'd adjusted. Maybe.

He knocked, waiting for her to answer before turning the handle, and opening the door a crack, before pausing. He seemed to be putting this off for as long as possible. But the truth was: he didn't even know how he'd react around her, anymore. Everything seemed so…different. He seemed so different. Could so much have changed in only a month?

He opened the door, and stepped into the exact same cottage that he remembered, careful when stepping over the rug he'd once tripped over, certain that she wouldn't be in the living room after being stuck there for so long. He glanced in that direction nonetheless. No, she wasn't there.

He wandered through the house, instead of calling out to her to ask where she was, precisely. It was alarming, how unchanged it seemed. A real house would have items misplaced, moved, added, thrown away. But this house, as if frozen in time, remained as it had been when he'd first seen it. He'd spent most of his time in the living room, or the outside garden. There were still entire rooms that he'd never seen. If they'd changed, he would never know it.

He started when a gentle hand landed on his shoulder. "What's this? Nostalgia?" she teased, with a fond smile. "I have never seen you wander this house alone."

And she was no different.

"Not nostalgia," he corrected her. "Perhaps curiosity. What lies in the basement?"

She frowned, something sparking in her eyes. "You should not seek it out, my son. Every place has its dangers."

"Yes, I remember," he said, sticking his hands in his pockets. She narrowed her eyes, studying him.

"Has something happened? You seem different."

A sharp, bitter laugh, one of many. Her brow furrowed as she continued to watch him.

"My world has been turned on its head, upended. Buckbeak lost his trial; Gryffindor defeated Ravenclaw; I found Thor; Peter Pettigrew has been caught."

Her eyes widened with each statement, until they were so wide that part of him wondered how they remained in their sockets. An inane thought.

"…I see," she said, enfolding him in a hug. "Much indeed has happened since last we met. And Thor…." Wistful longing accompanied that aborted sentence, and Harry squashed any inclination towards jealousy before it could be born.

"I gave Pettigrew no quarter. I remembered what you had said. And I can no longer humour my old delusions. That should please you."

She stroked his hair, fingers gentle as they parted it. She was crying. He didn't want to know why; he didn't ask. Perhaps, someday, he would regret that, too.

"You will not die again, Mother. Thor and I will protect you, as we should have, then."

It was not yet a promise.

Sirius Black sent in his signature to allow Harry to go to Hogsmeade, but, as his case was ongoing, Harry wasn't officially allowed to go, yet. Still, the fact that he'd already been, combined with the knowledge that he would go again once Sirius was cleared, made it easier to bear when he was told that he would have to sit this Hogsmeade visit out. He dutifully promised to stay on Hogwarts grounds, and not to try to sneak out.

He decided to go see what Professor Lupin was doing, and perhaps practice his Patronus Charm. Professor Lupin had, understandably, been distracted of late.

"Ah—Harry," he said, when Harry knocked on the door. "Just a minute…ah, yes, a Hogsmeade weekend, but I don't mind some company."

He was rambling. Harry looked around the room. He had no idea where the trunk was when they weren't practising. Presumably, somewhere where an innocent first year wouldn't stumble across it. But he would have expected to find it in Professor Lupin's office, and it wasn't here.

This was a pity. He hadn't had a chance to even try the Patronus Charm since that fateful night when everything had changed. He could feel it now…access to much deeper reserves of power and magic than he'd previously supposed that he had—all the strength he'd given, sequestered off for access to only one specific part of his mind. It was exactly the stupid sort of thing that Sirius would say typified intelligent people. But the point was that he wanted to see, now that he was no longer in denial, what he could do. And he wanted to study the true Patronus Charm, again, as he had parseltongue, last year.

"I don't mean to intrude," he said, looking around Professor Lupin's cluttered desk. Lupin looked tired, but seemed to have much more energy than usual. This was odd, because it was almost the full moon.

"You will be pleased to hear that preparations for Sirius's trial are going well," he said, with a genuine smile. "I can't thank you and Ron enough for uncovering the truth—all these years that I thought that I was the last of the Marauders, and now I realise that there is still another left…it was quite lonely, all alone with my memories. But listen to me go on like an old man. What can I do for you, Harry?"

Harry sat down in the chair on the other side of the desk. "I thought that we might practise the Patronus Charm," he said, pretending that he didn't see Lupin's slight frown.

"With the dementors leaving, there seems to be little need—"

Harry gave a sharp, bitter laugh. "You don't know my luck, professor. Trust me, I will encounter them again, and I will need to be prepared."

Professor Lupin glanced at him, his expression suddenly strangely guarded. "Well…well, alright, I suppose. I'm not properly prepared for such a lesson today, however—I wasn't even expecting you to visit."

Harry cocked his head to the side, glancing around the room. He could believe that. At least he could tell when Professor Lupin was lying, although that was not quite as useful a skill as he'd previously believed it to be.

"I've been thinking about that spell a lot," he said, looking down and away, as if lost in thought.

It was true that he'd given the spell quite a bit of thought. He didn't know what it was, what it was made of, but he sensed that the way it was usually used did not tap into the spell's true potential. He remembered his suspicion that love could be used as an alternative to happiness in the casting. But if he could see it cast, he could take apart what comprised the spell. With those components….

"Then, just show me the spell again," he said, and Professor Lupin's brows furrowed in perplexity.

"But you already know the wand movements—you've cast the spell successfully before. You can't have already forgot—"

Oh yes, I think you will find that I can, he thought, but did not say aloud. Saying such things would not bring him closer to his goal. Instead, he leant forwards.

"I am clearly missing something in my spellcasting. Show me again."

That strange air of camaraderie encouraged Harry to behave quite differently from usual around Professor Lupin, who, seeming to feel that same ambiance, reacted atypically to Harry's erratic behaviour. It was as if they were friends, hanging out and practicing spellwork—as if Harry were one of the Marauders, or Professor Lupin were…hmm, Hermione? He didn't fit in the role of Ron….

It was as if they were equals, when the truth was far more complicated than that. The truth was a cage of barbed wire, but at least it wasn't biting him, for the moment.

Perhaps, now that he was back in Hogwarts, Professor Lupin was nostalgic and retrospective, thinking back on his childhood with fondness, letting some of his old habits creep back in, letting himself be influenced by friendships whose breakage surely lay in the future, forecast, and not the past. Rather than scolding Harry, or lecturing, or even sending him away, Professor Lupin pointed the wand at the door through which Harry had entered, and said, "Exspecto patronum!"

Harry watched, seventh sense wide open, analysing the structure of the spell, the substance of it, the way it created a lure—a burst stream of the very emotions that dementors naturally consumed, but in a form unpalatable to them.

Because it was divorced from its originator, the original memories were protected. What emerged from the patronus was the raw emotion itself, untethered, its strength born of the strength of the memory, and the will of the caster. Once cast, the patronus existed independently of its originator, fed by the unidirectional memory substance, attuned with the mind of its creator, until it returned to be absorbed back into the caster's body, or dissipated, returning in a less physical way to its point of origin.

Mother's love was somewhat similar—but the sentiment and substance of her protective armour was more than only love. There were other things mixed in—a desire to protect, grief, purpose. In some ways, Mother's armour was stronger than the Patronus Charm; in others, it was weaker.

Harry watched as Professor Lupin's slightly vague Patronus—mistier and less substantial than Harry's stag, it was nevertheless identifiable as a wolf—returned to its master. Professor Lupin reached a hand out to it, and the white substance that made up the Patronus flowed, invisible, back up his arm and into his body, aiming for his heart.

Harry thought of Mother, thought of how she had sheltered him, lost sleep over him, died for him, shielded him from the dementors, fended off the mantra when Ron wasn't there to protect him. Crystals of negativity lost in the matrix of positivity weakened the strength of the spell. Harry sifted through his own thoughts, through the energy he was focusing into his wand without consciously realising it, and suppressed the bitter memories that would weaken the spell. Then, he cried, "Exspecto patronum!", and watched as the bright light of a full-fledged patronus erupted from it, each prong of the antler distinct and clear, eyes visible as a slight darkening in the face.

With no foe readily apparent, it walked over to Professor Lupin, who stood frozen to his seat, looking rather paler than usual. He was shaking and crying, and seemed completely unaware of Harry's existence. A cord of energy connected Harry to the patronus, feeding it energy in a continual stream, in a way that almost reminded Harry of Riddle and the diary, last year.

"Prongs?" asked Professor Lupin, with wistful longing painfully raw in his voice.

Harry turned away, acutely aware of how personal the experience was. After a moment, the stag trotted back over to Harry, antlers lowered, already beginning to dissipate at the edges. Harry's energy felt not at all drained, despite how much he knew that it usually siphoned off. Patroni were a massive drain on energy. It took great focus and energy to cast the spell properly to begin with, and then even more to sustain it. Harry was sure that most wizards would be lucky to hold it for more than a few seconds, that quite a few could hold it for five minutes or so, but it would drain them dangerously deep, and that only a very few—including Dumbledore, doubtless, could maintain one for longer.

There was silence for a minute. "Well done, Harry," Professor Lupin said at last. He sounded strained, and less sincere than usual. Tired, as if it were draining his energy to the level of casting a patronus, merely to speak.

Harry sighed. "Thank you, Professor," he said, glancing over in Professor Lupin's direction with a small smile. "Shall we see how it fares with an actual dementor?"

Professor Lupin was a bit more obliging to Harry's goals than perhaps he ordinarily would be. He led Harry to the staff room, which was, at the moment, empty, revealing the chest that held the boggart. It was covered in protective spells to keep the monster in, and to try to discourage the curious (or saboteurs?) from opening the chest themselves. Probably, it was just to keep Snape from "accidentally" getting rid of Professor Lupin's "pet project".

Professor Lupin looked as if he might be having misgivings, possibly questioning just why he was doing this to begin with. He'd never been here at Hogwarts to know how Harry's year usually went. Nevertheless, he cast a levitation spell on the chest, and they headed back to his office. Harry offered to help carry it, but Professor Lupin seemed to think it would be better if he "saved his strength" for the impromptu lesson. Not knowing what he could say that would change Lupin's mind without spilling the entire story, Harry only followed.

There was always an abandoned classroom in which to practise spells at Hogwarts, but they sometimes took some time to find. Even though this was a Hogsmeade trip, it was a Saturday, and first and second years still had classes. Doubtless, Professor Lupin had always somehow either been incredibly lucky, or ensured beforehand that the classrooms that they used were unoccupied. On short notice, they had to use his office.

He quietly shut and locked the door, lest Professor Snape take it upon himself to deliver a batch of Wolfsbane Potion early. Not that Professor Lupin told Harry this; Harry just assumed, because it seemed to make sense. There was almost a sense of wrongdoing to the whole process, as if it were illegal to ask for or offer tutoring. It put Professor Lupin in a far more casual mood—and he was never exactly strict, anyway. He'd earned the reputation of the "cool teacher" within a week or two of his arrival. This all served to create an atmosphere of casual wariness that reminded Harry of…well, himself, and Sirius Black. It was not the most conducive environment for creating a Patronus, which meant that it was ideal for practice—at least at the level Harry was attempting.

Enter the dementor. Harry began to realise one of the downsides to acknowledging the truth: always, before, he'd used that part of himself that he'd considered strong as a barricade. Before the dementors could access the most central part of his soul, they'd had to try to get past Loki—which was not the easiest thing in the world to do. And, in turn, Loki's memories had been hidden, suppressed, under the entirety of Harry's. But with the recent upheaval, Harry, while finally whole again, nevertheless now had no second line of defence.

He pulled himself up off the floor, his own screams still ringing in his ears, irked that he'd managed to be sidelined by the obvious problem, and shaking from the impact of pain and memories last visited in nightmares two-and-a-half years ago. He suspected that, life being unjust as it was, he was now more susceptible to mind control, too, and that it would take far less than before to drive him into mantra-born madness.

He shared none of this with Professor Lupin, instead only dragging himself to his feet by exerting an absurd amount of force on an inoffensive desk chair. Halfway to his feet, with his arms draped across the soft wood of the seat, he turned to Professor Lupin.

"Again," he said. He thought that he didn't sound quite like himself, and Lupin's startled hesitation confirmed it.

"Harry, I don't think—"

"I was not expecting that memory, before. Now, I am. Let me try again." Ah, yes, the uncommon edge of steel in his voice, that usually had Hermione, even, frozen like a rabbit. He pulled himself to his feet the rest of the way. He was swaying, as if he'd lost far more energy than, in truth, he had. A part of his mind, still trapped in that cold metal room, disbelieved that his feet could support him.

"Harry, I don't think—"

"Let me try again," Harry demanded, and then, catching himself, added, in a voice much subdued, "please."

Professor Lupin, looking as if he did this only with the greatest reluctance, turned back to the chest. "Ready, now, Harry?" he asked, voice thick with worry.

"Ready, Professor Lupin," he said, but he waited until the fake dementor had left its confines, once again, to reach for the power tangled up with his mother's love. His mother's love, without the armour. He remembered the night he had pulled her from the Mirror, how warmth had stolen up his arm in response to the chill he'd spread even into the mirror. The warmth traveled down his arm, as the dementor inhaled.

Unwilling to take any risks this time, his mind-soul a jumbled mess as a side-effect of recent efforts, anyway, he charged the wizarding magic of the patronus with the other kind of magic. The resulting patronus was so bright that Professor Lupin gasped and covered his eyes, and Harry himself had to look away. Maybe he'd just charge it with the Star Preserver spell, next time.

"That…what was that?" he heard Professor Lupin say, but his voice was distant. Harry pushed forwards, driving his patronus towards the fake dementor. It backed off, seeking for the safety of the box, and he realised that, as a being that fed off of fear, a boggart was much like a dementor. A net of connections and interrelationships seemed to reveal itself between the two. "How did you do that?" Professor Lupin was asking. He'd said quite a bit that Harry hadn't heard, focused as he was on boggarts and dementors and patroni. Now, hearing Professor Lupin's voice, he came back to himself.

"What? Oh, I'm sorry, professor; I was just thinking. Boggarts and dementors are quite similar, aren't they?"

He walked over to Professor Lupin, his stride reduced to a sort of awkward shuffle amidst desks, where Lupin had fallen. He held out a hand to help Professor Lupin up, and Lupin took it, with a wry smile.

"That was quite some patronus," he said, still looking distant and a bit shaken, with a dash of Harry-is-an-anomaly thrown in. Harry hated that look, the look that said that Harry was a freak, different, possibly even a delinquent, but Professor Lupin's seemed to be the variety that thought that Harry, if strange, was nevertheless a good kind of strange, a sort of marvel to gawk at when he wasn't looking. And even that look faded away into contrition when Professor Lupin realised that Harry had seen it.

"I'm sorry. You were just…." Professor Lupin trailed off, unfortunately, leaving no clue as to where that sentence would have ended. Instead, he reached into a pocket, and pulled out a slab of chocolate, which he proceeded to set upon a desk, and then take out what looked to be at least a decade's worth of frustrations out on it. Harry watched, thinking that he might want to take a step back. Professor Lupin handed over several thick triangles-that-should-have-been-squares, and took a few, himself.

"And I have something else," said Professor Lupin, back to his easy, cheery voice. "For a job well done, although I must say I can't approve of you pushing yourself so hard. I would have thought that recent events, such as falling off your broomstick, would have encouraged you to take the risks of overexposure more seriously. And I have been quite an irresponsible teacher, humouring you."

Harry had the sense that Professor Lupin was trying to temper whatever reward he'd already intended to give Harry before they'd gone down this road with a hefty dollop of guilt, but the lecture washed right over him. Few people were capable of making him feel guilty for anything he'd done, and he had far too much experience with the guilt tactic to fall so easily for it, himself.

"Thank you for the lesson, Professor," he said. "I don't think I shall need more. I think I've got it, now. But it seems that there was something that you'd already decided to talk to me about."

Professor Lupin paused, frowning, perhaps at Harry's lack of response. "Ah, no. Well, I thought I'd speak to you about Sirius Black a bit. They moved him out of Mungo's at last, although they're still gathering evidence for the trial. He wants to see you, but Dumbledore has insisted that he wait until you've finished school for the year. You can continue sending letters, however."

"St. Mungo's is the 'secure centre' in which the famed mass-murderer Sirius Black is being held?" he asked, incredulous. Professor Lupin shot him a look of what seemed to be trying to be both humour and reproach. It succeeded rather more at the former than the latter.

"They didn't want everyone knowing where he was before they'd had a chance to clear things up—especially not the press, that horrid Rita Skeeter, you know—" He didn't. "Telling the public that he was in a well-guarded facility set their minds at ease—and he was well-guarded, but by aurors, not dementors, and they were there to protect him, not the public. Pettigrew is being held somewhere quite different. You know, Sirius has a cousin who's an auror. She volunteered for the responsibility…."

He had a slightly-dreamy expression, until he remembered where he was, and shook himself. "And I thought we could have a bit of a toast—to justice served at last, and victory of Gryffindor over Slytherin—not that I'm supposed to take sides, as a teacher—"

"Don't worry," Harry said, rolling his eyes. "I won't tell anyone that you have opinions."