Sirius Black's POV

It was precisely a week later, on the dot to the minute, when I showed up again at the Bureau of Information and Security. I'd been hard-pressed to find yet another bottle of Polyjuice Potion, but I'd finally managed to get my hands on two more bottles through none other than Mundungus Fletcher. He ripped me off, the old bastard, but I needed the Polyjuice Potion badly enough that I didn't care to argue.

Hiding under my Cloak, I managed to take some hair from Raylynx's next-door neighbor as the poor lady was watering her begonias.

Standing before the lady at the front desk, I said simply, "I've come for the requested documentation."

"Ah, yes," she said, her eyes lighting up. I thought she would be annoyed with me for making her break protocol and secure not just the information, but the documents themselves. I knew that my demand was unreasonable – after all, dealing in the black market could only be a sustainable trade if she didn't get caught. Hence, the strict policy was to never take the actual documentation itself – only to steal the value of the information itself.

But she seemed accommodating enough as she said, "Come with me. The… services you demand of us require you to come into our office, so that we may discuss terms."

"Fine," I said.

Stepping out from behind the counter, she turned and led the way down a long hallway of black marble walls. Then, at the end of the hallway, there was a flight of stairs leading down.

I lifted my eyebrow, but I figured that she was leading me to the most secure room in the building, the place where she dealt with the most high-risk black market transactions.

I followed her down the stairs. She opened the door and motioned for me to go inside first. I stepped inside the lightless room. The door clicked shut behind us, and everything became pitch-black.

I hastily put my hand inside my cloak and gripped my wand, but the next moment the lights flicked on.

The lady seemed to rummage around at a desk in the corner of the room for a minute before pulling out a document.

She walked over to me and handed it over. "Here. Your document. You know, I expect to be paid handsomely for this."

"I know," I replied, as I took the folded-up piece of paper from her.

I took a deep breath. Then, with trembling hands, I folded it open.

It was indeed an official document. The name: "Regulus Arcturus Black" stamped at the very top. His identifying factors were printed out below his name:

Parents: Orion Black (DECEASED) and Walburga Black (DECEASED)

Siblings: Sirius Black (DISOWNED; CONVICTED FELON; FUGITIVE-IN-HIDING)

Birthday: June 25, 1961

Hair Color: Black

Eye Color: Blue

Education: Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

But what did it matter? What did it matter what his "identifying factors" were – when it was all stamped over in red ink by the word: DECEASED – AGE 18; 1979.

My hands began to shake. I could barely read the paper I was holding in front of me. He's really… He's really gone.

Suddenly, the witch in front of me moved very quickly. She snapped her wand up to my face and cried out, "Stupefy!"

I barely ducked my head in time. The spell shot through the air, right where my head had been only half a second before.

With a loud growl, I leapt towards her and grabbed her wrist in my hand. "What d'you think you're playing at?" I yelled angrily. With my free hand, I quickly stuffed the document in my cloak pocket and drew out my wand. She was still thrashing about, but she wasn't strong enough to get away from me. I grimaced, hating the feeling of having to hold her down. But god damn it, why had she tried to Stun me? I pointed my wand at her. "You've given me no choice," I told her. "Stupe-!"

But just then, a completely unexpected voice sounded out from behind the desk, crowing victoriously, "Stupefy!" The Stunner collided into me, and I collapsed to the floor, unconscious.

Jasper Riley's POV

"Did you sell Sirius Black anything that would help him to disguise himself?"

"You've been asking me questions for near a week and I haven't cracked. What makes you think today's the day?"

"Well, because there's going to be a day where you do crack, Mr. Krawley, I assure you. And today seems as fine as any other day for you to break," I replied.

Tarren Krawley looked up at me, highly amused. "You speak well, kid, but your head's as empty as the rest of them. The only information I'll give is the information I can afford to give."

"It may still be of value to me," I replied honestly. "Now, let's try again. Mr. Krawley, we've searched your premises. You seemed to specialize in selling disguises. Would you agree with that statement?"

"Go fuck yourself."

"Well, that wouldn't be of any use to anyone," I replied easily. "Including you. You know, I'm your only chance of lessening your sentence – in short, of getting out of here alive. Your current sentence assures that you will die without ever seeing the light of day again."

"That's what you think," he spat at me. "But they're coming for me. You mark my words. They may hate ol' Tarren, but they can't do without him." He grinned.

I fell silent, listening intently. Whenever people became prideful or afraid, they became apt to give away pieces of information. All I needed to do was to feed his ego and encourage him to talk.

"Can't do without you…" I repeated thoughtfully.

"You think you're the only one I'm talking to?" Tarren sneered at me. "No, mate. Even though you're keeping me in this god damned jail cell, I still hear about what's going on. In fact, I wager I know better than you what's going on out there."

"I wager you do, too," I said quietly. I studied him carefully as I said, "And if I'm not mistaken, there's something that you know that I don't which is making you particularly happy."

"Aye," he said, and his lips split open in a victorious grin. "Let's just say – there's going to be a dead body on the market soon, and it'll fetch quite a pretty price. But you know who I think will bid highest for it?"

"Who?"

"You lot. The Ministry." He threw his head back and laughed. "In the end, the black market's biggest client is always the government – the petty, inept government. You lock us up for show, but you would be helpless without us. Remember that, boy. You remember that when you sentence me."

"I will." I got up and left the cell. The guards, Emmeline Vance and Sturgis Podmore, both of whom had been waiting patiently, stepped forth to take Tarren back to his cell.

"I got him today," Sturgis told Emmeline. Yesterday, as Emmeline had taken Tarren back to his cell, Tarren had spat in her face and called her a number of choice words. Emmeline had been professional enough not to reply, but it had obviously left her feeling disgusted.

I began to step outside of the room when Emmeline said, "Wait. Jasper."

I looked back at her. "Yes?"

"What are you going to do?"

I paused. "I don't know, exactly. Not yet."

"But he said there could be a dead body on the market tomorrow…" Emmeline said worriedly. "And I don't think he was lying."

"No, I don't think he was lying either," I agreed. "But worry isn't going to get me anywhere. I've got to think about it."

"Can I help in any way?" she offered.

"I don't know yet. If you can, I'll let you know," I assured her.

She nodded. "Take care, Jasper. This is all starting to feel very dangerous."

"Yes. You take care, too."

As I made my way back to my office, Roslyn's words floated into my mind: "You're pathetic. Shall I take pity on you and give you a hint? After all, we're light years ahead of the Ministry at this point."

My feet slowed. The pieces of the puzzle began to come together.

Sirius Black had been the one to come and ask my sister for information on Regulus Black.

I'd been so distracted by this piece of intelligence that I'd completely missed the obvious reality staring me in the fact.

My sister had been the one to tell me that Sirius Black was back in London, but my sister, of all people, had a great incentive to capture Sirius Black for herself. The Selwyn family name had long since fallen out of grace. Gone were the days when we had a bottleneck grip on the information black market, and gone were the days when our services to Lord Voldemort ensured us status and riches.

But if my sister was the one to capture Sirius Black, she could easily start a bidding war between the Ministry and those who remained faithless to the Dark Lord… And whichever way she went, she would make sure to demand protection from the loser. Roslyn was clever that way. She always had been.

Tarren had told me that there would be a "dead body" on the market soon. This most likely referred to Sirius Black, unless I was missing something. That meant that Sirius Black had been captured, and by now I had quite a shrewd idea of who had captured Sirius Black.

After all, she'd told me herself: "All of your efforts are already shot."

"Damn it, Roslyn," I muttered under my breath, and then I took off, running out of the Ministry building. I couldn't take back-up with me, not if I wanted to keep my sister out of jail.

I Apparated to the front of the Bureau of Information and Security. I dashed in.

The man working at the front looked up in alarm. I recognized him as my father.

His face distorted in displeasure when he saw me. "You've no right -!"

Sorry, Father, I thought, as I raised my wand at him. "Petrificus Totalus!"

My spell caught him in the shoulder and he froze and fell over.

I ran past him, all the way to the end of the hallway. I dashed down the stairs, and pointing my wand at the door, I shouted, "Alohomora aperiris!"

I had grown up learning all types of magic for picking, breaking, and confusing locks. I had never been as good as my sister, but I'd still mastered the basics. As children, we used to practice on this very door. So, it was no surprise to me when the door responded to my spells and slammed open.

But the inhabitants inside cried out loudly.

Instead of bursting in mindlessly, I quickly hid myself, pressing my back against the wall just beside the open door. I was certainly going to be outnumbered here, and I needed to use my head if I was going to get out of here alive.

Sure enough, the two people inside of the room came scurrying out, wands drawn, as they looked for the intruder.

"Stupefy!" I shouted, catching the first person to come out with a Stunner straight to the face.

I didn't waste any time as I immediately pushed the Stunned person out of the way and physically grabbed the second person to come. I roughly slammed that person against the wall.

She cried out loudly.

I froze when I realized that it was my sister.

My eyes fell to the floor and I realized that I had just Stunned Lucius Malfoy.

Kicking Lucius out of the way, I dragged my sister inside the room, shutting the door behind us.

She tried to curse me, but I immediately Disarmed her. Her wand went clattering on the floor.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" I growled at her, not letting go of her.

Her nails clawed at my neck and face, and finally, she slapped me hard enough to make me see red.

"Incarcerous." Thick black ropes sprouted out from the end of my wand and wrapped themselves tightly around Roslyn's body. She fell to the floor, squirming.

"Stop fighting the ropes," I told her. "You know they'll only tighten."

Suddenly, Roslyn's eyes widened. Despite the ropes covering her mouth, she managed to scream loudly.

I turned around just in time to see Sirius Black, who had taken advantage of my diversion to free himself from the ropes that bound him, had leapt off of the chair Roslyn and Lucius had tied him to and punched me squarely in the face.

For a moment, my vision went blank and my ears rang in a disturbingly high-pitched frequency.

Sirius quickly reached down and grabbed my sister's wand off the floor. She screamed again as she saw me stagger and saw Sirius point her wand at me.

Just then, the door burst open again. Lucius Malfoy ran in, and this time, he was not alone. I recognized Crabbe and Goyle.

"It's him! It's really Sirius Black!" Crabbe burst out, stunned.

Sirius breathed heavily as he held his wand up and backed away from the newcomers. He was in terrible condition. He was bleeding everywhere and barely seemed able to remain standing. But his wand hand seemed steady enough as he pointed it at Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle.

Malfoy, upon seeing me, shouted out, "Subdue the Auror!"

Startled, Crabbe and Goyle turned to look at me.

"Well, well," Goyle snarled, "if it isn't the disgraced wolf child of the Selwyn family."

"Maxima Bombarda!" In that split second that Goyle had used to taunt me, Sirius had thrown a destructive spell at all three of them.

Predictably, the three of them instinctively scattered, leaving the doorway clear.

Sirius ran for it, and so did I.

We both sprinted up the stairs, but we were closely followed by the three men.

Spells blasted out from behind us.

I piled Shield Spells behind us, which kept me from being caught by Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle.

However, it also protected Sirius, and it allowed him to get ahead of him. If it wasn't for my being delayed, I would have caught him in a heartbeat. He was limping forward as fast as he could, but it was at a pitiful pace.

However, my hands were a bit full with three furious Death Eaters at my heels.

Still, by a combination of purely defensive spells and some good old-fashioned dumb luck, I managed to make it out.

But by the time I raced past my still-Petrified father and out of the Bureau, Sirius Black was nowhere to be seen.

"Damn it!" I cursed. I couldn't believe that I had let him get away, after over a year of chasing him. I'd seen him with my own eyes, and yet, he'd managed to slip away yet again – in large part, thanks to me. But I couldn't ponder on this for too long, as another one of Malfoy's Stunning Spells shattered the window in the front door of the building and barely missed my shoulder. With a frustrated growl, I Disapparated away from there.

Raylynx's POV

To my surprise, just after classes ended, Professor Moody decided to come and pay me a visit.

"What are you doing here?" I asked him.

He snorted. "What, I'm not capable of a friendly visit?"

"Well, you tell me," I replied cheekily.

"I dragged myself up here to you because you weren't at breakfast."

"Woke up too late," I admitted easily.

"Well, what do I care whether you eat breakfast or not? But, you are late in coming to see me," he replied grumpily. "I rather thought you cared more about the Potter boy."

"What do you mean?" I said, suddenly frowning.

"Well, the obvious answer to keeping the boy alive is to put our heads together and figure out how the hell we're going to get him through this Tournament, isn't it? And yet, you've been mum since his name came out of that cursed Goblet."

But as Moody spoke, his magical eye fell over the many books scattered all over my desk. As he read the titles, he frowned and said, "What's this you're up to, lass?"

He flipped over several of the books and carelessly threw them to the side as he went through them.

"Merlin, Moody, stop throwing them about. You'll dislodge my bookmarks," I told him.

"Stop whining." To my surprise, Moody's voice was extremely serious as he asked me, "What do you mean by all this?"

"What do you mean 'what do I mean?'" I asked, confused by how intensely Moody was scrutinizing me with his magical eyeball. "I'm trying to get Harry out of the magical contract created by the Goblet, of course."

Moody seemed to be debating what to say to me. His hand was clutching his staff rather tightly.

"Mad-Eye?" I said weakly. "What's wrong?"

"You're going backwards, Kingsley," he said quickly, his voice taking on a nervous tic. For a moment, I thought his tongue slithered out of his mouth, but it was quicker than a blink, and I realized I must have imagined it. "You should be focused on the upcoming task. The Goblet's done it's job. It's gone out now. What's the point of going back to it?"

"Because," I replied, "it's the source of the contract. Take away the binding obligation, and none of the tasks exist anymore – for Harry, that is."

"And while you're delving into this obscure branch of magic, you're leaving Potter completely unprotected," Moody pushed back, almost angrily. "You don't even know what the first task is."

"I do," I replied quietly.

Moody paused. Then, he looked up at me. Suddenly, he was much calmer. "Do you now?" he wondered.

I nodded.

Moody pointed his wand over his shoulder. The door slammed shut with a loud bang! Moody turned to me and demanded, "What is it, then?"

I looked up at him from my seat and said quietly, "Dragons."

"Dragons?" Moody's remaining human eye widened. "Dragons, eh? Well, then, the question becomes – how do we get a fourteen-year-old boy to defeat a dragon?"

I shook my head. "I think that's the wrong question to ask. No wizard can truly win against a dragon…"

"That's completely unhelpful," Moody grumbled.

"The task isn't going to be to defeat the dragon, Moody, come on," I said. "Dumbledore would never allow for a dragon to be killed."

"That's true."

"So, the task will be to evade the dragon, don't you think?" I said. "That's what we need to focus on."

"Hm…" Mad-Eye suddenly gave me a grim smile. "I've underestimated you, Kingsley. You're not half-bad at thinking this stuff out. I guess I understand better why you were Champion…"

I snorted. "If that's your idea at a compliment, I'm honored, Mad-Eye."

"But what do we do?" I asked Moody. "How do we get this information to Harry? Dumbledore's a judge. He can't just go prancing about giving Harry information. Which leaves you and me."

"Not you," Moody said, shaking his head at me. "You're too close to the boy. Everyone will be quick to suspect."

"I don't care if I get heat for helping him."

"I know you don't care. The concern is that he will get heat for receiving help."

I fell silent, thinking about what we could do to get this information to Harry without being too obvious about our breaking the rules of the Tournament.

"You know what? There's a Hogsmeade trip coming up," Moody grunted. "I'll feed the idea to Hagrid. My bet is that Dumbledore will enlist Hagrid's help once the dragons are actually here – feeding them and taming them and all that. Hagrid could show Potter without actually telling him, thus technically leaving the three of us Professors just short of breaking the rules."

"That would work," I agreed. "And it might be good for Harry to see the dragons beforehand. It'll be dizzying the first time he sees them, but it's better than seeing your first dragon in the flesh on the day of the task."

Moody nodded. "That's settled then."

Then, he pulled out a folded-up newspaper from the inside of his cloak. "Have you seen this?" he asked me, holding up the Daily Prophet.

"Today's Daily Prophet?" I recognized. "No. I usually get it in the morning at breakfast…"

Moody threw it atop my desk and said, "Well, have a look," before he hobbled out, leaving the door open behind him.

I sat up and unfolded the newspaper. The words "Harry Potter: Hogwarts TriWizard's Champion" blared out on the front page.

"Merlin," I cursed softly as I read the article.

In true Rita Skeeter style, she had disrespected every single person she had written about in the article.

Fleur and Viktor's names only appeared on the last line of the article, misspelled, and then poor Cedric hadn't been mentioned at all.

The rest of the article, over seven pages long, were all "quotes" from Harry, such as:

"I suppose I get my strength from my parents. I know they'd be very proud of me if they could see me now…"

"Yes, sometimes at night I still cry about them, I'm not ashamed to admit it…"

"I know nothing will hurt me during the tournament, because they're watching over me…"

I would bet my left kidney and all of my fingers that Harry had never said these things in his entire life, much less to a journalist he'd never spoken to before.

I shook my head at the absolutely ridiculous article. I started to set it down when suddenly, someone stormed angrily into my office.

I looked up and to my utter amazement, I found Lucius Malfoy walking into my office of his own accord.

"Kingsley," he spat out at me, flinging the door shut behind him. "I've a few words to say to you."

"Well, unfortunately, I do not share that sentiment," I replied, standing up quickly. "Get out of my office at once."

Lucius sneered at me. "Will you still be so bold when I reveal to you what I know… what I have?"

He thrust a slender piece of wood onto my desk. It rolled around on the top of my desk, but I instantly knew what it was.

My heart leapt into my throat. I tried to control myself, but I suddenly trembled.

Lucius' mouth curved up into a wicked smile. He stepped closer to me and hissed, "Look at you shiver, Mudblood."

I grasped the wand tightly in my hand. In a low, tight voice, I whispered, "How… did you come by this?"

"That's not important," he said haughtily, reveling in the fact that I was clearly trying very hard not to crumble before him. "If you ever dare to take points away from my son ago or force him to read things like Muggle fairytales, your precious little felon will pay the price for it – with his head."

"Lucius. Answer me," I demanded. "How the hell did you come by the wand?"

He smirked arrogantly at me, lifting his head to look down at me. "How do you think? Are you so ignorant that you can't even put two and two together even when I've handed you the evidence directly?"

"Answer me," I hissed furiously, raising my wand at him.

He tutted at me. "So foolish… Isn't it obvious? We've captured him. You can buy his body on the black market tomorrow morning."

My mind went dark.

Taking advantage of my completely disarmed state, Lucius shoved the head of his cane hard into my shoulder, pushing me back roughly into my seat. He spat on my desk, and then turned around and left my office.

I breathed out. Sirius…

As soon as Lucius left, I raced up into my living quarters. Shutting and locking the door behind me, I immediately threw some Floo Powder into the fireplace.

"344 Aspindal Lane," I murmured, and then I stuck my head into the flames.

My eyes watered slightly as I felt like someone had wrapped an extremely warm muffler around my neck and ears.

I coughed and blinked as my home's living room came into view.

Frantically, I called out, "Sirius?"

There was silence.

"Sirius?" I called out, more loudly this time.

Still – nothing.

My heart sank. I can't just go through! That would trigger the transportation indicator on the Floo Network…

I growled in frustration. "Sirius!" I shouted out one last time, begging for him to come out.

But there was only silence.

I wrenched my head out of the fire. I quickly pulled on my cloak and stowed my wand away in my cloak. Then, I dashed over to my door and tried to pull it open, forgetting I had locked it. Cursing, I hastily unlocked the door, yanking at it like a madman. I didn't notice when my elbow jostled the top of Quincy's tank, moving the glass frame open.

As I raced out of my room, Quincy jolted awake. He blinked his eyes open as he saw me run out of the door. Leaping to his six feet, Quincy thought he felt a bit of a chilly drift blowing along his back. Looking up, he noticed that there was a sizeable gap between the two panes of glass that usually kept him inside the tank… He hissed excitedly, and then, with a magnificent leap for one as small as he was, he managed to get his little webbed fingers onto the edge of the open tank and get himself up and over. He plopped onto the floor and scampered off, drawn towards the strange green flames in the fireplace that were just about to flicker out. He launched himself into the fire – and then came whizzing out of the fireplace on the other side – straight into the Kingsleys' living room.