Chapter 39: Meeting in March
By the end of February Sirius was back in Hogsmeade. Calamity had been against it, but she was called back to America for a month or so after the Second task was completed. With her gone, and Moony off doing whatever it was he needed to do, Sirius had no one to stop him with their rationality.
So, on the very day he was to meet Harry, Ron, and Hermione in his hideout, a large black dog could be seen (if you were looking for one) digging through the trash for the most recent daily prophet. He knew he had to meet Harry, Ron, and Hermione soon but also knew he wouldn't be down in the village again for the next day or so. He'd have to kill two birds with one stone. Whenever he spotted an image he hadn't seen before, he would pull the paper out from under whatever horrid trash was on or around it and stacked it with the others. Deciding he had as many a she could carry, he took them all in his mouth and headed cautiously out of the alley.
He trotted down to the stile at the end of the lane where he had told Harry to meet him. He placed his paws on the bars to raise himself and see better. Then he waited.
Sirius knew Calamity would be horrified to know that he was so close to the village and Hogwarts. She also wouldn't appreciate that he had snuck into the forest and retrieved Buckbeak- but he needed a fast escape in case of the worst. From what she had told him about the Yule Ball, the state of the world was looking more and more dodgy. The papers weren't any more optimistic. Even if he read in between the lines (which one had to do with that Rita Skeeter woman) he still couldn't find any good news.
Despite this thought, Sirius still felt his spirit soar when he saw the trio walking towards him down the lane. He could smell the bag of food from his spot and felt his mouth start to salivate.
"Hello Sirius," said Harry when they reached him.
Sirius sniffed the bag eagerly, then turned and trotted away from them towards the foot of a mountain, which they would be climbing. They were not the best climbers, Sirius saw when he took a moment to pause for them to catch up about half way to their destination. Still, a good hiding spot shouldn't be too accessible, so this meant Sirius had chosen wisely.
When they finally arrived to his dimly lit cave Sirius transformed back to his human form and took the papers from his mouth.
"Chicken," he said. His voice was more hoarse than it had been before. He must have been spending more time as a dog than he realized. Harry didn't seem to notice, though his emerald eyes rushed over Sirius' thinned form with a worried look before passing him a bundle of chicken legs and bread.
Sirius wanted to assure Harry that all was well and that this was the look of a successful man on the run for more than a year, but he couldn't think of how to say it. Instead he said, "Thanks. I've been living off of rats mostly. Can't steal too much food from Hogsmeade; I'd draw attention to myself."
Sirius could tell from the reluctant grin on Harry's face that he had not said the right thing. Blast, he thought. Moony and Calamity are better at this.
"What're you doing here, Sirius," asked Harry. Merlin he looked like Lily or Calamity with that worried face. Sirius felt a pang of pride for the boys concern while also a stab of longing for his friends who were away. He tried to win over Harry's anxiety with a confident grin.
"Fulfilling my duty as godfather. Don't worry about it, I'm pretending to be a lovable stray!" Sirius could imagine Moony or Prongs rolling their eyes at this and replying that Sirius Black was never lovable a day in his life. Harry did not say anything, just pushed his glasses up concerned. "I want to be on the spot. Your last letter... well, let's just say things are getting fishier. I've been stealing the paper every time someone throws one out, and by the looks of things, I'm not the only one who's getting worried."
"What if they catch you? What if you're seen?"
"You three and Dumbledore are the only ones around here who know I'm an Animagus," Sirius said with a shrug.
Ron was looking over the Daily Prophet collection that Sirius had indicated. He nudged Harry and handed one over. Harry pushed up his glasses scanning the article quickly, his eyebrows furrowing and raising as he read. Sirius gave the two a moment to plot as he took a bite of bread. He was just pondering a way to lighten the mood a bit before they got into the heavy business he needed to discuss when Hermione brought him back to the conversation by saying, "getting his comeupance for sacking Winky, isn't he? I bet he wishes he hadn't done it now- bet he feels the difference now she's not there to look after him."
"Hermione's obsessed with house elves," Ron muttered, but Sirius barely paid him any notice.
"Crouch sacked his house-elf?"
"Yeah at the Quidditch World Cup. There were some people causing a riot," said Harry launching into the story.
"I read about that," Sirius said.
"So we went into the forest to get out of the way and stay safe and I couldn't find my wand. Then we heard a voice and the dark mark appeared. All these ministry officials surrounded us and tried to stun us, but luckily we ducked. They hit Winky though and pulled her out. She had my wand and the last spell had been the spell to create the dark mark. Crouch was furious. Apparently he had told her to stay in the tent, just like he told her to stay in the top box for him. That's where we first saw her, even though he never showed up."
Sirius didn't realize that he had started pacing, but he suddenly found himself standing and doing just that.
"Let me get this straight: you first saw the elf in the Top box. She was saving Crouch a seat, right?"
"Right."
"But Crouch didn't turn up for the match?"
"No. I think he said he'd been too busy."
Sirius was silent in thought. It was certainly strange from the very beginning: Only deatheaters knew that spell to create the sky symbol and Voldemort had definitely refused to let house elves into his ranks- werewolves and giants were useful, but he couldn't use a house elf for anything. But why would Crouch even need someone to save his seat? He was so high up in the ministry that certainly it was assumed he'd be there.
"Harry, did you check your pockets for your wand after you'd left the Top Box," asked Sirius.
"Erm...no. I didn't need to use it before we got into the forest. And then I put my hand in my pocket, and all that was in there were my Omnioculars. Are you saying whoever conjured the Mark stole my wand in the Top Box?"
"It's possible."
"Winky didn't steal that wand," snapped Hermione in a tone that made Sirius feel as if she had said this statement over and over.
"The elf wasn't the only one in the box. Who else was sitting behind you?"
"Loads of people," said Harry thinking hard. "Some Bulgarian ministers...Cornelius Fudge... the Malfoys..."
"The Malfoys! I bet it was Lucius Malfoy," Ron declared, but Sirius doubted that. Lucius and Narcissa sully their prominent hands by stealing a wand, especially one belonging to the boy-who-lived? Much too direct for them, Sirius thought. Simply not their style.
"Anyone else?"
"No one," said Harry.
"Yes, there was, there was Ludo Bagman," Hermione reminded him.
"Oh yeah..."
"I don't know anything about Bagman except that he used to be Beater for the Wimbourne Wasps. What's he like?" Sirius tried to make a mental note to talk to Calamity about looking into the character as well.
"He's okay," said Harry. "He keeps offering to help me with the Triwizard Tournament."
Sirius paused looking at Harry, but really looking beyond Harry. "Does he,now? I wonder why he'd do that?"
He had been talking to himself more than Harry, but Harry replied, "says he's taken a liking to me."
"We saw him in the forest just before the Dark Mark appeared. Remember," said Hermione.
"Yeah, but he didn't stay in the forest, did he? The moment we told him about the riot, he went off to the campsite," Ron said.
"How d'you know? How d'you know where he Disapparated to?"
Sirius let them bicker for a moment as he retold the story to himself in his mind, sifting through the details with his own memories, trying to figure out what it could mean. He wished Calamity and Moony were here to talk with about it. Get more details that he might be missing after being locked away for twelve years.
"When the Dark Mark had been conjured, and the house elf had been discovered holding Harry's wand, what did Crouch do," asked Sirius.
"Went to look in the bushes, but there wasn't anyone else there."
Typical Crouch.
"He'd want to pin it on anyone but his own elf... and then he sacked her?"
"Yes! He sacked her, just because she hadn't stayed in her tent and let herself get trampled-" Hermione said heatedly.
"Hermione, will you give it a rest with the elf!" Ron said.
Sirius disagreed. There was something off about this elf situation. It escaped any explanation that Sirius could think of. There was something there, but he'd need to think about it when the teens had left.
"She's got the measure of Crouch better than you have, Ron. If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals," said Sirius running his hand over his unshaven face thinking hard. "All these absences of Barty Crouch's... he goes to the trouble of making his house-elf save him a seat at the Quidditch World Cup, but doesn't bother to turn up and watch. He works very hard to reinstate the Triwizard Tournament, and then stops coming to that too... It's not like Crouch. If he's ever taken a day off work because of illness before this, I'll eat Buckbeak."
At his name, Buckbeak looked up from the chicken bones, made a sound, and went back to ignoring the humans in his cave.
"D'you know Crouch then," asked Harry.
Sirius' face darkened. "Oh I know Crouch alright. He was the one who gave the order for me to be sent to Azkaban- without a trial."
"What," said Ron and Hermione together.
Sirius explained who Crouch was during the first war: how the confusion and chaos brought out the worst in him, how he authorized the use of unforgivable curses, how he was next in line to be Minister, until his son was caught with some Deatheaters who had talked their way out of Azkaban. Then he explained about Crouch's son. To this day Sirius couldn't say if the boy was innocent or not, but boy could he cry and scream. Until he fell silent. Something about his silence was different than the others. It had hit Sirius worse than them- had forced him to shrink away from the bars and into the corner with his poetry. There was a long silence after Sirius finished.
After the teens left Sirius lay on the cave floor thinking in the darkness. The silence was nice. No one appreciated silence, Sirius had decided. He certainly hadn't until he went to Azkaban. There he was usrrpounded by shrieks and cussing and the sounds of his own memories. He hadn't had a single moment of silence. Now that he was free he felt cozy and warm in the silence.
He thought about the Yule Ball that Calamity had told him had Snape been curious about what her father had told her? That did seem odd next to Harry's story of Karkaroff pestering Snape. What had he shown Snape on his arm? That might be the Dark Mark, but why would that matter to either of them now? And how did this all fit in with what Calamity had heard from her father?
Sirius rolled over onto his stomach and pulled a newspaper closer to him. With a soft pop a black dog appeared in his place. It was easier to read in the dim light if he was in his dog form. He picked up the newspaper and moved to the sliver of light coming in from the moon. Sirius flipped through the paper, scanning for anything new. No new information about Bertha Jorkins. Nothing out of the ordinary at the Triwizard Tournament. Nothign new with Crouch's health. Sirius paused at the start of an article outlining Bertha Jorkin's last whereabouts. The word Albania stood out like a beacon.
Albania, again, thought Sirius. He wanted Calamity to come back from America. Not only because he'd love to sleep on a bed and have more consistent meals, but because she was the only one who could make out the connection in Albania.
Sirius used his paw to flip the pages to finish the article. It didn't have much left to say: nothing new. He was about to put it away and try to get some sleep when a picture caught his eye. He moved his face closer to clarify what he was looking at. At first he thought he was seeing thrings, but with his nose almost pressed against the paper he could clearly make out Calamity with two others (one witch and one wizard) holding awards.
New awards for top Healers without Borders Founders
The Healers and mediwizards in the World renouned Healers without Borders program come from an array of countries including England, China, America, and Nigeria. Despite their diverse backgrounds, they work as one unit to rebuild hospitals for magical and muggle communities around the world, often with the help of muggle communities who have no idea they are working peacefully with Wizards. The three remaining founders were given the Presidential Humanitarian Awards by the American Congress of Magic. The award ceremony was especially heartwarming as it fell on the anniversary of the death of Jaden Scott, the only founder not pictured. Jaden Scott was killed by friendly fire in an area suffering from the Second Sudanese Civil War when the program was rebuilding hospitals and delivering supplies.
"We usually go in pairs with the muggle tour guides," explained Clara Erza-Mahoney, Scott's widow who has since gone back to her maiden name. "But in this case we knew the muggles were already nervous and adding any more people or perceived weapons would have heightened the anxiety. It was honestly a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Jaden would be honored to received the award, though he wouldn't think he deserved it. He would always say that there are always more people we can help, so we can't stop now."
An investigation of Scott's death found that no magic was involved and that he had not been holding his wand when the bullet (a metal piece from the metal wands muggles use) made contact with his temple. Two of the three muggles that he was with were also injured.
Sirius looked back at Calamity's smiling face, holding the medal as lights flashed around them. Every so often the images would put the wards under their arms and shake hands, then lift the medals again as if they had been instructed to do so. Sirius sat watching the image for a long time, his mind humming with all the information he'd received today.
Of course, he would never have forgiven himself if Calamity had stopped her life when he went to Azkaban for his life sentence. He was suppose to die in there. If Crouch had his way, Sirius would never have escaped. Still, to find out that she had lived her life without him- had gotten married- felt strange. Why hadn't Moony told him? Why hadn't Calamity told him?
"Bloody hell, she was married," Sirius said out-loud.
Buckbeak paused in his chicken bone chewing to look at Sirius. He gave a snorting noise and went back to what he was doing. It wasn't exactly the response Sirius was looking for.
A/N: Don't forget to review!
