Remus Howled.
It was with a great sense of vindication that Sirius Black felt the last thread of the animagus wards start to flicker and weaken. The careful culmination of months of toiling doggedly was finally coming to fruition. He knew he wouldn't have time to rest once his job was done, perhaps a day at most before the alarm was raised and he was found out of his cell and returned, perhaps even kissed. He shuddered at the thought. After hearing that phrase banded about for the past decade, Sirius wasn't sure he could ever let someone kiss him again.
Hah, there you go Padfoot. You've got to make it out of here alive before you can do any kissing, let alone avoid one. The idea of making it out cheered him somewhat, and he bolstered his courage, turned his weather-beaten face back towards the blustery entrance of his cell and wriggled the last thread free of its hold on the rusted bars. Quick as a flash, Sirius gripped his wand, transformed into Padfoot, squeezed through the bars, and sprinted down the draughty corridors towards the entrace. His heart was thumping in his chest so violently he felt it was going to burst through his ribcage, and he was very glad his emotions were dampened somewhat as a dog, or he was sure he would have collapsed with nerves by now.
As quietly as he could, Padfoot slunk closer to the guard station at the entrance to the prison. Luckily for him it was Cartwright and Dawlish on duty, which meant they were far more involved in playing gobstones and fleecing each other out of sickles than they were diligently guarding the prison. He huffed silently at their confidence in the mediocre wards, but appreciated that for what felt like the first time in his life, the incompetence of Ministry protocol had worked in his favour. Not wanting to linger and risk his luck running out, the convict waited for the gobstones to reach a critical moment, and then dashed to the apparition point as they exploded, covering Dawlish in a fowl-smelling yellow liquid.
It took only a second for the man to transform and apparate to the safest place he could think of, somewhere he could recover well-hidden and alone until he was well enough to find the traitor Pettigrew. Something inside him knew it would be empty, as if he had already escaped and been there before. Perhaps Azkaban had broken something inside of him, made him a seer or something. In his fervour, Sirius ignored the little voice in his head telling him his life was already different from his future memories. He landed, slightly winded and in dire need of re-growing his splinched little finger, in his extremely dusty bedroom at Grimmauld Place.
Augusta Longbottom sat opposite an extremely distressed Remus Lupin in her second parlour at Longbottom Manor, and was debating whether slipping some firewhisky into his cup of earl grey would stop the infernal shaking of his legs inside his corduroy trousers. He had been sat clutching the blue china cup for over twenty minutes, and they had yet to get past the usual pleasantries. She was not a patient woman at the best of times, and was trying her damndest to wait for the man to speak lest he change his mind and leave without telling her what she felt may be vital gossip. It was another ten minutes of terse silence before she broke her vigil of understanding and snapped at the man.
"Right Mr. Lupin, out with it! You are obviously close to death trying to keep this secret buried within you, and as the Lady of an Ancient and Noble House, as well as your current hostess, I command you to spit it out and get it over with."
Remus Lupin smiled nervously at her, unused to the demanding nature of wizarding nobility after spending so long apart from them. It was only for Harry's sake he was interacting with wizards at all. Unsurely, he thought it best to lead with the biggest news, even if that was not what he originally arranged to talk about. "Peter Pettigrew was the Potters' secret keeper, and Dumbledore covered it up."
Augusta Longbottom stared at him. Her mind whirring, she continued to stare at him for over a minute. The werewolf twitched. "I beg your pardon, could you repeat that?"
"Dumbledore knew Pettigrew was the secret keeper for the Potters, but he let Sirius take the blame. He knew, Augusta I know he knew. I have proof. All this-" The man choked back his tears, the words sticking in his throat. "All this time, and I thought he had, he had," Remus whispered the words brokenly, "I thought he had betrayed them and he hadn't he was good, he was innocent, he was truthful." Fat tears leaked out of his scrunched eyes, his cold tea spilling out onto the polished parquet floor of the parlour. "He told me he didn't do it, Madame Longbottom, and I didn't believe him. It should be me in there, not him. It should have been me, I betrayed him when I didn't believe him. He didn't even get a trial, for goodness sake. I would have known that sooner if I'd have stuck around to check! But I hid like the coward I am. Oh, Madame, I don't know what to do."
Augusta Longbottom was shocked to say the least, and wished she had dosed them both with firewhisky, liberally. In truth, she had never been fond of Sirius Black, traitor to his family as he was. But she couldn't stand the thought of an honest wizard residing in the same awful place that had killed her cousin, Barty Crouch, Jr. That bastard had deserved his fate and the thought of his death brought her great satisfaction, family traitor that he was. She understood completely how Lupin would be at a loss, what with the Supreme Mugwump being the very man responsible for this injustice. It would take a great deal of skill to manage the situation to her advantage. Augusta had been a Slytherin in her school days, something that had brought her a lot more negative scrutiny than she would like. She had great admiration for Gryffindors like her son, and more recently her grandson, but she knew well that they lacked the subtlety needed for a delicate situation such as this.
"And what has Regulus said of the matter?" She tried, thinking it best to see how the House of Black wanted to handle the injustice before she put in her two knuts. Lord Regulus Arcturus Black cut a charming yet undeniably formidable figure, and she had no desire to oppose him on such a monumental matter.
"Regulus?"
Augusta amended her previous thought. Gryffindors were not just unsubtle, but downright stupid. "Yes, Regulus. The Lord Black? Sirius' brother and last of his family? Surely you remember him? Even as discombobulated as you seem to be, you went to school with him you foolish man. What have you filled your head with the past decade, lacewing flies?"
Remus frowned. "I know who he is Madame. But Sirius is disowned, he left home and hasn't seen his family since. I didn't think Regulus would want to see him, or even care. They hated each other."
Augusta muttered under her breath and a house elf appeared, clutching an enormous bottle of firewhisky in its spindly little arms. She poured both herself and Remus some very healthy measures, clutching her tumbler like a life-line. She had her work well and truly cut out for her. "Anything else to add, Mr Lupin, before I decide it would be prudent to take a bath in calming draught and seal myself away from the tomfoolery you seem to be exuding as of late?"
"Well, Madame, that wasn't actually the reason I originally wrote to you. The real cause of my letter is that I have reason to believe that Dumbledore orchestrated the removal of Harry from the wizarding world and into the hands of his abusive muggle relatives due the existence of a prophecy. I never knew the exact words of the thing, but I know Dumbledore believed it could have been either Neville or Harry to complete it. He now of course believes it is Harry, but there is suspicion enough to suggest that he has made himself chosen magical guardian of both boys in order to ensure their cooperation in the matter should Harry fail. I confirmed he was Harry's guardian unlawfully and he had also stolen 8,000 Galleons from Harry's trust vault before I removed him, but I thought it prudent to warn you he may have tried similar tactics with Neville and you, Madame."
Augusta was enraged, but also felt relief wash over her. Of course she was Neville's magical guardian, she wasn't stupid enough to entrust the appointment to take place via anyone else other than herself and her own lawyers. She honestly wondered at how any of these men had made it to adulthood, oblivious as they clearly are to the loopholes available to those wise enough to look for them. Much to think about. "Thank you, Mr. Lupin, for your honourable intentions regarding this matter. I believe I have enough information to keep this matter well in hand. I will owl you when I have learned more in regards to Regulus Black's position on his brother, and will hopefully have the matter resolved by the time Neville and Mr. Potter step off the train at Yule."
It was a thoughtful Remus that left Longbottom Manor that day. Finally, it seemed as though someone knew what to do. Hopefully, it wouldn't be long before his beloved Padfoot could return to him, and he could start the long road of begging for forgiveness from the man. Oh Prongs, if only you knew what kind of shit we're in without you.
The warmth of the common room fire wrapped around Harry like a blanket. It was almost midnight, and the room was empty save for some older students grilling the numerous Head Boy portraits for knowledge about the Transfiguration N.E.W.T. they would be taking in May. Currently, Regulus Black was talking widely and disparagingly about the lack of information available on animagi and how the practice should be more widely taught and therefore more widely regulated. Midway through his scathing comments about the dangers of mandrake leaves, the painting was visited by what looked like another, older version of himself who murmured in is ear. Head Boy Regulus swore violently and disappeared from the frame with his counterpart, leaving Harry rather curious and the seventh years mildly upset at their incomplete notes.
Harry turned back to his book, his mind filled with fanciful and quite ridiculous reasons why a painting would know such amazing swear words, and muggle ones at that. Even Other Harry appeared unsure at the origins of some of the words, and he had a prolific and extensive knowledge of almost all swear words in existence, which made Harry quite popular entertainment with the other first years, especially Blaise Zabini. The book Harry was reading was on wizarding genealogy and was an excruciatingly boring explanation to the bloodlines of all of the well-known Houses in Great Britain and France. The book contained mainly pureblood Houses, but there were a fair few who counted as half-blood too, especially as the book updated itself magically with each wedding and birth that occurred in these families. Despite the book's long-winded and slightly racist explanations for the amount of special abilities or squibs in each family, Harry felt compelled to read it to completion to help find the proof he needed for Draco.
Despite his prickly exterior and strange backwards beliefs about muggles, Draco had become a very good friend to Harry. Narcissa Malfoy, Draco's mother had sent Harry a magical magnifying glass to help him read, making the words he hovered over appear in a more rounded and clear font which he found helped a lot. His concentration still wasn't amazing, but between the magnifying glass and the notebooks and pens Remus had sent him for doodling in Harry could muddle along quite nicely. Draco had somehow also appealed to past Head Boy Herbert Burke, who had agreed to teach him, although not Harry, the read-aloud spell Remus used once his magical core was strong enough. This was estimated to be around third year, but Harry appreciated the sentiment all the same. Theo and Tracey had tried to look the spell up for similar, more easily performed charms once Remus had sent it them, but they found them all too difficult. Daphne had also tried to cast a read-aloud spell she had heard of, not wanting to be outdone by the others in her year, but managed to create a Howler version of her Astronomy textbook so potent that echoes of 'AURIGA THE CHARIOTEER' and its stars could be heard ringing through the library for hours before Professor Flitwick had been found to jovially cancel it. Madam Pince had not been best pleased with them.
Harry was having trouble proving that muggles were of equal intelligence and value to Draco and by extension Pansy, Theo, Daphne, Crabbe, and Goyle. The latter two were not of much concern to Harry, as he had barely said a word to them in months, but the other purebloods were eager to see if Harry could really do it or not. Harry had written to Lady Malfoy to give his thanks for the magnifying glass, and from what he could garner in her cryptic reply, she was also looking forward to hearing his evidence. At first, he had named all of the muggles he knew had made large discoveries that the wizarding world relied upon, such as Ptolemy who first catalogued and named the constellations, or Cristofori who Remus had told him invented the piano, but had been dismayed to learn that these were both wizards. Next, Harry had tried to read some Shakespeare to them, picking Hamlet for what he thought was one of the more easily understandable plays. That had backfired on him when Theo had admitted his grandfather's cousin had murdered his brother for the title of Lord Nott, so wasn't actually that entertaining to the boys.
Finally, he could not believe how stupid he had been. Hermione! He would ask Hermione what she loved best out of her muggle life, as Harry's hadn't been very good before Remus and he didn't really know much beyond his own house and village as it was. Hermione had told him she could speak French and had been on holiday lots of times, so maybe she would have some better ideas. He'd been ignoring her accidentally too for the past few weeks, as he had been absorbed in trying to keep up with his schoolwork, solve his reading problem, and solve Draco's challenge. Neville would talk to him, but Ronald in their house had been wary of him being a Slytherin, which was another reason to avoid his Gryffindor friends. He would seek her out in the library tomorrow morning, and they would work on the problem together.
Albus Dumbledore was upset. Since Harry was removed from his Aunt's house, his vault access had been cut off, Harry had been sorted into Slytherin, and the young boy was doing a rather remarkable job at avoiding him. He had even heard from Dirk Cresswell that Lupin had managed to unseal James and Lily's Wills, although the man had not been clever enough to find out whether the man had collected the money he was owed. Probably, he thought, I have never met a werewolf that wasn't dirt poor and desperate for gold. He had initially thought having a werewolf in Hogwarts would lead the man into his service, making his job to stop Voldemort that much easier. He had been pleased when Sirius and James had taken to him so fiercely, but he hadn't accounted for how devastated the man would be to be separated from them. Even Pettigrew had been close to the werewolf, and though Dumbledore hadn't thought them close it still deeply affected Lupin when the man had, as far as he knew, died.
Dumbledore had known of course that Black was innocent, but he hadn't expected the man to kill Pettigrew as revenge for James. Sirius Black was deserving of Azkaban for that, in his opinion. He had disrupted his plans, and no amount of wrangling had saved them. Dumbledore had planned for Black and Lupin to come to him, distraught, and cast themselves into devotion and servitude to Dumbledore. Instead, Black was in Azkaban and Lupin had left the world of magic completely as far as he could tell. Until now.
It has to be Lupin, Dumbledore mused, not for the first time. Lupin's sudden guardianship of Harry confirmed it. Remus Lupin was the time traveller, and he had come into the universe to claim his Potter money and stop Dumbledore looking after the boy. He must know about the prophecy. The thought left him cold. If Lupin knew that Harry must die, it would make sense for him to protect Harry so ferociously, both as service to James and to keep the money flowing into his meagre vaults. Remus Lupin must be eliminated, and Dumbledore needed a drastic plan if he was going to succeed. He hated to see magical blood spilled, but then again, did a werewolf count? It's for the greater good. I'm sure the Wizengamot would understand my position. He is dangerous, after all. He hoped Lupin had his affairs in order.