A mangy black dog with a bad case of fleas and a couple of fresh looking bites wanders through Little Whinging on high alert, the lack of people making it nervous. This is the last clear location the bond seemed to be coming from. Once he recognised where he was, a memory tickled the back of his mind that Lily's sister lived here. It had been becoming easier to think about things from the past, although it was still only the worst memories that were easily accessible. Once he'd made sure that the pup was safe he could hunt down the traitor.
Sitting down abruptly to scratch at a particularly viscious flea bite, he listened out and couldn't hear anything. His hackles raised unconsciously as he couldn't even hear people talking or walking about in shops. He could smell that there had been a few people moving around recently, but it was as if all of the muggles had just disappeared. Following his instincts he prowled low to the ground as he made his way through the shadows and hedges of the estate that Privet Drive was on. Once he reached number 2 privet drive he felt like something was watching him, and an oppressive weight. Unconsciously he started to growl as his ears lay flat against his head and his tail dipped down, every step he took forward tense and coiled ready to flee at a moments notice. He crept round to the back of the house and jumped over the waist high fence between number 2 and number 4. Crouching down behind the flowers the sense of being watched didn't abate, so he circled around to the shed, making sure to keep a clear view of the back of the house while also being on alert for who ever could be watching him. Finding nothing behind the shed, he carefully made his way over to the back door he was about to change back to human when a voice that sounded familiar spoke from behind him.
"Padfoot there is no way you are coming into my house like that."
Yelping his instincts have him turning around and barring his teeth at… Lily?
"Are you even listening to me, I've seen this form often enough to know it's you. If you don't change back in 5 seconds I will douse you in cold water."
Carefully shifting back, he looks up as though he's looking at a ghost in more than one way.
"Lily?"
"Yes Sirius, who else do you think I could be, the tooth fairy?"
"Lily, it's really you. But you died?"
"Not quite, I sacrificed my self and my magic in order to protect Harry. Voldemort's killing curse just did the job of severing my soul allowing the ritual to work."
"But you're here."
"You can thank a meddling old academic for that. But enough of that. Strip and leave your clothes over there. Then carefully go into the house and have a long bath. I'll have some clothes brought over, then you can answer some questions. Such as where on earth have you been for the last 11 years?"
"Azkaban." That one word was filled with such loss and despair it pulled Lily up short.
Lily's tone immediately takes on a soft and understanding tone, "Go have your bath, you're safe here as the Ministry has no Jurisdiction here anymore. I'll have a couple of guests when you're finished or shortly afterwards, I won't let them take you away, but they will need to hear your story. Go on, the back door is unlocked."
Sirius carefully put the newspaper he'd saved from the prison inside the backdoor before doing as Lily had asked. Then he trudged wearily upstairs to find the bathroom, not even paying attention to the house-elves that were watching Sesame street in the front room as he passed. His head spinning with thoughts that he thought he'd left behind at Hogwarts. Woodenly he drew a bath, needing to keep it warm as his body was unused to the heat.
Once he got in, he started shaking uncontrollably as the simple luxury of having a bath did more to make him believe that he was no longer in Azkaban than the 3 weeks he'd spent making his way down here.
"It's ok, you're safe here, everything will work itself out. It's ok to let go."
Lily's presence kneeling beside him in the bath and whispering to him was his undoing and he broke down and started to cry. He didn't notice when Lily left to ask the House-elf matriarch if she would be able to replace the dirty water with clean water. He didn't notice when the doorbell rang and then people came in through the back door, and the low murmur of voices as they spoke to Lily. He barely registered an hour later when soft and gentle hands washed and gently trimmed his hair and beard and washed his body while the flash of a camera went off occasionally.
He was numb as they helped him out of the bath and lead him downstairs and gave him some hot soup, bread and water. He was then led gently upstairs to a soft and comfortable bed, tucked in and passed out.
Lily watched concerned as an old friend looked more like a zombie than a human. Once he was asleep, she turned to the people that had been looking after him.
"Will he be ok?"
The mental heath nurse turned to her, "Tomorrow? Who knows? In six months, a year, probably. In five years time? He'll still have nightmares, but he should be mostly healed."
"What happened to him, as he seemed fine when he went up to the bath."
"He's suffering the aftereffects of prolonged emotional stress, coupled with the effects of coming down from it too quickly. Combine that with the fact that he's obviously malnourished from the state of his skin, nails and eyes. It could have killed him."
"What will happen to him now?"
Sir Connolly spoke up, "No matter what, he's not going to be extradited to the UK Ministry of magic. We've seen enough evidence on his body that the treatment he suffered in the Ministry prison is cruel and inhumane, thus our own laws won't allow it. The ministry has been pressuring us to issue an arrest warrant for him, and list him as armed and dangerous. We didn't find a wand on him, so I hardly think that he's armed, dangerous probably before tonight, but I have a feeling that I'd rather die than go back there as well."
"That's a relief. What about tonight?"
"If it's ok, I'll be leaving Clara and Rupert here so that if he has any trouble before morning, they're both squibs that we sponsored when they showed up on the streets at 11, so we're good for the statute. The two police officers with me will be taking turns outside in case they need help. I'm not going to put cuffs on him until we've interviewed him and got his side of the story."
"If it's not a secret, why haven't you issued a warrant yet?"
"After some very enlightening meetings between the Prime Minister, the Magical Minister, and the head of the DMLE, we discovered that there has been a history of procedural irregularities in the court system. Since then we've made it a procedural point to request the same level of proof of guilt for cross border warrants as we'd require for various middle eastern countries. As this is an escaped convict, we went through our DMLE Liaison to get the file, and all they have on record is the arrest record and inmate registry. We have submitted a request to the Ministry for sufficient proof of guilt before we issue the warrant. Given how corrupt they seem to be, I'm half holding out hope that they manufacture a transcript so that we can take them to the ICW."
"Thank you for being so candid."
"It's not as if you're going anywhere, so you're hardly a security risk. On top of that you're likely to be a permanent fixture here, so it's in our best interests to keep you on side."
"Still thank you."
───────── ೋღ :hpefd: ღೋ─────────
Sirius woke up the next morning feeling confused and as if he was floating. His skin still itched, but it was the healing itch of existing sores, not the itch of new bites. Someone had obviously cast a cushioning charm on the bed in his cell to give him a false sense of hope. Some of the sadistic bastards did that occasionally and then kept the dementors away until the charm was just about to wear off. He was also confused as to why he was waking up human. Maybe he'd died and this was the afterlife.
Eventually, nature made itself known, and he forced himself to open his eyes, and then stopped as the memories from last night rushed back all at once. The clean white ceiling and wallpapered walls along with the paisley print on the curtains and the matching quilt that covered him told him that there was no way he was in any wizarding establishment.
Climbing out of bed, he has to catch himself as his legs buckle beneath him. His occlumency working overtime to keep him on an even keel, his mind shunting from one thought to another to another. Was Harry OK? What was he going to do about Peter now that Lily was around? How did he get into bed? What happened to him last night? All these thoughts and more went through his head as he staggered to the bathroom. Once he'd relieved himself he slipped into the much simpler mindset of the Grim and padded silently downstairs on four feet.
Lily appeared at the foot of the stairs just as he got there, "Good morning padfoot, if you want breakfast you'll need to be human I'm afraid."
He whined.
"I know it's easier like that, but you have some people that want to talk to you."
His ears went flat and he started to growl.
"Don't be like that, they've already guaranteed that you're never going to be… extradited was the word they used… to the British Ministry of Magic."
"No matter what happened in the past. You. Are. Safe. Here."
"He put his nose on the floor and whined."
"That look only ever worked on James."
Huffing he stood up onto two feet and leaned against the wall for support.
"Come on, they're in the dining room as the House-elves will be using the TV soon."
"House-elves, TV?" His voice felt scratchy from disuse, why didn't he notice that last night?
"Oh, yes, according to Harry, Petunia introduced Ceeley to children's daytime TV as a way of introducing her to education. Ceeley told one of the elf Matrons and she brought a few elflings to watch and see how they got on, now we have around 20 elflings here every day watching children's TV and counting along, or reading out the letters as they're shown."
"But how? Your sister…" He coughed for a bit before starting again.
"Your sister was about as magical as a house brick."
Before he could sit down with the other people already at the table, Lily said, "If you look out the back window, you can see my ward stone just floating there. I don't know how you missed it when you came in. But when I first awakened it was only a standard ward stone. They're roughly circular, around six inches across and made from granite for those of you that haven't had a magical education."
"Wha… How?"
"Petunia's wife let off so much magic that I was forced to turn my ward stone into that just to not explode. Also, Petunia is at least as strong. But for now sit down, eat and have something to drink before you pass out." She said in the tone of voice she'd used to cow all four of them after school.
"Yes Lily."
While he was eating, one of the men spoke up, "I'm sir Connolly and I work for the M department of Her Majesty's Government. You are currently in the new magical district of Little Whinging. It has been recognised by the ICW as a separate entity to the Ministry of Magic due to their failure to abide by the treaties they signed in the 17th century. While you are here, and to the best of our ability in what you call the muggle world, you currently have political asylum from the MoM. While we're eating breakfast, I would like it if you would tell us how you came to be in Azkaban, as the reports that we've received from our counterparts have been lacklustre. We will record it so that the only time you may need to go through it again is in court if it comes to that."
"I am the oath bound godfather to Lily's child Harry. That means that I know when he's in danger. That evening, my magic was feeling unsettled, so I went to check in on Peter their secret keeper. When he wasn't at his home, my magic went haywire. I apparated to their home in Godric's Hollow, when I arrived there were signs of a spell battle. The door had been blown off, and I could just make out someone lying just inside the door. Hurrying in, I met Hagrid walking out cradling Harry. I asked him for Harry as I'm his godfather, and was the rightful guardian for him given Lily and James were dead. He refused, saying that he'd been told to take him to Hogwarts. My thoughts then turned to Peter, and I felt so angry that he'd betrayed them that I left Harry in Hagrids care and left."
"Are you prone to bouts of anger?" Connolly interrupted.
Lily spoke up, "He wasn't when we were at school, irrational behaviour, like sending Snape to a werewolf's den on a full moon. But not anger."
"I didn't know you'd heard about that. And that wasn't irrational, it was giving him the same chance he wanted to give you and a few of the other girls in our year. I overheard him boasting to some of his Death Eater mates a day or so before that, and of the conquest's he'd already had with his potions and a well placed obliviate."
"Before we get too far off track, I think we've established that you're not prone to irrational anger. Would you continue please?"
"It took me a few days, but I finally found Peter."
Lily burst out, "But Harry was placed here the next day!"
"Thank you for that Ms Potter, this helps us to establish a timeline. Please continue Mr Black."
"He managed to give me the slip a few times, but I finally cornered him on a street somewhere. There were some muggles around, so I kept my wand concealed and told him he was under arrest. I think he hit me with the laughing hex before I could do anything else, and before I could counter it, he cut of his finger and shouted at me 'You killed them, you betrayed them'. He then cast a blasting hex behind himself before turning into a rat and escaping. The hex seemed to be more powerful than it should be, and it sent me flying. As I got the spell cancelled, and got to my knees I realised he was right. It was my fault that they died, if I hadn't insisted on switching secret keepers it would have been me, and my magic would have killed me before I gave up the secret. So I was laughing and crying that I'd killed them when I was hit with a stunner."
"What happened after that?"
"I woke up in my cell in Azkaban, and the guard spat on me and said something about enjoying time traitor. A few days later Bella, Crouch, and the Lestranges were brought in for torturing the Longbottoms into insanity."
"Thank you Mr Black. That has been very informative, Mrs Potter would you mind if we asked you some questions later in order to preserve Mr Black's state of mind?"
"Certainly."
"As you are going to be living here, I thought you might like your pick of either number 2 or number 6 privet drive, they're the houses to either side. As this is Harry's house, and is usually full."
Sirius asks, "Where is Harry?"
"He's in Egypt with Hermione, Daphne, Dudley, and the Lovegoods. She popped in briefly last night, to say hi and drop off a present for me. Apparently Ginny found something in the Pyramids and they wanted some extra help examining other structures in Egypt to see if there were similar things. They did see if Minerva or Karen were available, but they're in the middle of training a load of warlocks, and can't take the time at the moment as their schedule is too full."
"Who's Karen, and for that matter who are the other people you mentioned?"
With that the conversation devolved into the general chatter of catching up. Sirius found out that until his mental and physical health was signed off he'd be restricted to Little Whinging. During that time he would be expected to undergo counselling and learn how to live in the non-magical world. They also asked that when their ambassador had been selected he'd train them in wizarding customs.
───────── ೋღ :hpefd: ღೋ─────────
Harry was having fun, they'd just found a veritable cache of ancient artifacts in Hatshepsut's temple where the solstice light would shine. There were 12 white clay tablets and he'd been given one to have in Hogwarts, two were going to be kept in Egypt, one in Muggle Egypt and the other in Magical Egypt. The rest were being loaned out to different Magical governments to display. It was great that he was able to travel to all of these different locations as it made it easier to get around and see the sights. They'd even been made honorary members of the Library of Alexandria after they found a second layer to the Library that had a multitude of tablets dating from Sumer, including a few that suggested that Enheduanna was a Magi as well a marked priestess of Inanna. He wasn't sure, but he thought he'd seen the Headmaster in the Library too, but he'd been too busy to go and say hello.