Disclaimer: Characters and situations all belong to JK Rowlings, not me. Caius the raven belongs to Draqonelle, who has kindly allowed me to borrow him (Vesta McGonagall is hers too). She also owns the Remus-in-the-closet incident, Caligula Snape, and young Sirius's boggart. In addition, I got the name Polaris Black for Sirius's sister from someone else's fanfic, but I can't remember whose (her character, however, belongs entirely to me and Draqonelle).
Posted by: Elspeth (also known as L Squared)
Ships: Professor Sinistra and an adorable black dog, hopefully hints at a future Snape/McGonagall
This is officially the longest chapter yet. Hurrah for having a computer in one's dorm room—who needs sleep?
Chapter Six: In Which Sinistra Discovers Lupin's Dark Secret and McGonagall Hits Snape.
Claire Sinistra paused in front of the door to Remus Lupin's quarters. She knew he was an intensely private person, almost as reclusive as Severus, and would probably not appreciate her coming to his rooms like this, especially not so late in the evening, but she truly did need to speak to him, and he hadn't been in the teachers' lounge or his office.
She knocked lightly on the door, and when she received no answer, pushed it open and peeked inside, knowing that it was rude, but unable to stop herself from checking, just in case.
She felt her lips curving into a smile as she spied the two forms lying in a heap before the fireplace, dimly illuminated by the still glowing coals. Then she noticed that the sleeping canine was much lighter in color than Snuffles was, and that the man with one arm wrapped securely around a furry neck had much darker, longer hair than Remus. With a pang of cold horror in her stomach, she remembered the lunar tables she had chalked on the board for the fifth years only that morning. And let out a shrill, involuntary scream.
The wolf let out a yelp and jerked to its feet in an instant, ears up and fur bristling. Claire stood in the doorway, frozen in terror. Oh god, he was going to eat her. How could she have forgotten the full moon? How could she have been so stupid? Maybe he wouldn't attack her if she stayed still.
As the echoes of Claire's scream died away, the man began to stir as well, pushing tangled black hair out of his face and blinking confusedly at the petrified Claire.
"Moony? Wa's goin' on?"
Claire took a closer look at him, sprawled on the floor with the werewolf crouching protectively in front of him, and screamed again.
"Sirius Black!!"
Instantly, her wand was out and pointed in his direction (why, oh why hadn't she brought it out even earlier, when she had first seen the wolf, instead of shrieking like an idiot and waking them both up?).
"Don't move," she ordered, trying to make her voice sound low and threatening instead of merely terrified. "I will hex you. Remus, get out of the way."
"Claire!" Black yelped, attempting to rise to his feet but freezing in place when she fired off a stream of sparks that barely missed him. Her hand was shaking so badly it was a wonder she didn't set the carpet on fire. The wolf whined miserably, and placed itself even more firmly within the line of fire.
"I said, don't move. I don't care how Remus got you into the castle or what you're doing here, I'm not going to let you get away with it. Remus, I said get out of the way!" What was Remus doing? How much of the situation was he, in his transformed state, capable of understanding? Did he know who she was, understand what she was saying, or did he merely see her as a threat to Black? And why the hell was he protecting the murdering traitor in the first place? What the bloody hell was he doing letting an escaped dark wizard into Hogwarts, into his very room? Sleeping with him?
"Claire, no, you don't understand." Black was now fully awake, eyes wide and face pale with fear and horror at being caught. "I'm innocent, I've been hiding. Dumbledore knows I'm here, he'll tell you." He was speaking very fast, almost stumbling over his words in his haste to convince her. He always had been a bad liar. Good at trickery and conniving, yes, but he'd gone completely flatfooted when caught out face-to-face.
"Liar! If the Headmaster knew you were here he'd turn you over to the aurors in a second, you miserable traitor."
The wolf began to growl.
"No, I swear, he knows I didn't do it. You've got to believe me! I've been here all term and I haven't hurt anybody. Look, I'll show you!" To the wolf: "It's okay Moony, calm down, I'm going to show her."
And then suddenly Black was gone, and Snuffles stood crouched in his place.
Claire felt herself go pale with horror. All term! He had been here all term! Voldemorte's spy, lying in wait to betray Dumbledore and the light side again, as he had done fourteen years ago. And all term Remus Lupin had been covering for him. "This is Snuffles, I got him out of the pound…" "Claire, meet my dog Snuffles, I picked him up over the summer..." Oh god, and she had petted him. She had played with him and fussed over him. She had rubbed that filthy murderer's miserable traitorous ears!!!
A moment later, Snuffles had been replaced again by Black, who was gazing at her with the same soulful, supplicant eyes as the dog. How could she have ever thought him charming and good-looking, thought his illegal animagus form lovable and cute?
"You slimy, evil, lying traitor!" In her hot, betrayed anger, Claire didn't know if she meant Remus, Black, or both. "I trusted you, and you've been lying in wait the whole time to betray us to You-Know-Who, worming your way into our affections, letting us think you were one of us when you were really a servant of the Dark Lord!" Was she speaking to Remus now, or to the Black of fourteen years ago? It didn't matter—the accusation would serve for both. "I touched you! I can't believe I actually touched you! I let you put your head in my lap!" She felt violated just remembering it.
She was backing out into the hallway now, the wand in her hand forgotten. Desperate to put some space between her and Black, between her and the werewolf, now revealed to be just as dark and untrustworthy as all its kind. Severus was right.
"I can't believe I let you lick me!!"
^_~
Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil had been slipping silently (or at least, as silent as they were capable of being) past the end of the hall leading to the teachers' quarters, on their way back from a stealthy late-night run to the kitchens, when a loud, angry voice stopped them in their tracks.
"You slimy, evil lying traitor!" shouted a woman who sounded a lot like Professor Sinistra. The two girls froze, crouching down behind a convenient suit of armor.
"Oh no," Parvati breathed. "We're caught. She'll see us for sure."
But Sinistra appeared far too preoccupied to so much as notice the two Gryffindors in their metallic hiding place. Her voice rose louder, shouting accusations that made the two girls' spines creep.
"…betray us to You-Know-Who… a servant of the Dark Lord!"
Lavender had gone white. "A Death Eater, Parvati. She's talking to a Death Eater. Oh God, oh Merlin, there's a Death Eater in the castle!"
But it got worse. Sinistra began shouting other things, terrible things, things that made Parvati blush just to hear them. "I can't believe I let you lick me!" Sinistra screeched, backing out of Lupin's room into the hallway. There, framed in Lupin's doorway, was the tall, thin shape of a man. The Death Eater!
Lavender and Parvati fled, taking with them only the fleeting image of a gaunt silhouette and long back hair.
They ran frantically through the halls, skidding to a halt in front of the Fat Lady to gasp out the password—"OWLs," chosen by Hermione—before bursting into the Gryffindor common room.
"Professor Sinistra has been having an affair with a strange, scary looking man!" Lavender announced frantically. "We saw them! And he's a traitor and he's serving You-Know-Who!"
Harry, in the middle of a game of wizards' chess with Ron, froze, the rook in his hand held motionless in the air over the board. A horrible scenario had leaped into his mind.
"Oh no! It's Sirius!"
"Yes, we know," Lavender cried. "She was letting him lick her!"
"What if she's pregnant!"
"Who was he?"
"We didn't see him that well," Parvati admitted. "But he was really scary, all tall and thin with long black hair; he looked just like a Death Eater!"
Two terrified first years in the corner by the door jumped to their feet and dashed out into the corridor, in search of Professor McGonagall. Five frantic minutes later, they finally ran her down outside of the teachers' office.
"Professor, professor, Lavender and Parvati saw Professor Sinistra in the hallway and she's been having an affair with some scary dark-haired death eater man and Parvati thinks she's pregnant!"
"Jennifer, what on earth are you talking about?" McGonagall demanded rather impatiently. "Slow down, I can hardly understand you."
"Lavender and Parvati came into the common room and told everyone that Professor Sinistra was in the hall on the second floor fighting with a man," Jennifer babbled nervously.
"Yes, Lavender said she was having an affair with him!" the other first year chimed in. "She was calling him a traitor and a supporter of You-Know-Who."
"Yes, and we don't know who it was but Parvati saw him and he had dark hair. And she said Professor Sinistra had been letting him do all sorts of really gross things to her, and that she might be pregnant. And that means she must be in love with him, and Lavender said he was a Death Eater, and she must have been letting him into the school, and that means there must be a Death Eater inside here right now and Professor Sinistra knows him, and we're scared to go to Astronomy tomorrow."
Through this narrative, McGonagall's expression had been gradually shifting from complete puzzlement to comprehension and growing outrage. Death Eater, hmm? And seeing Sinistra? Her mind began jumping to heated conclusions, temporarily forgetting that Lavender and Parvati were not precisely Hogwarts' most reliable source of information, especially at second hand. Claire Sinistra would never let an outsider into Hogwarts, but then again, perhaps she wouldn't have too. Perhaps there were other, more likely candidates for her mysterious "dark-haired" lover much closer at hand…
At that moment, Snape appeared in the doorway of the teachers' lounge, obviously curious as to what all of the fuss was about.
McGonagall's face went white with rage when she saw him.
"Severus!" she bellowed, hitting him openhanded across the face. "How could you!?!"
Snape stood frozen in shock, one hand touching the livid red mark on the side of his face. "Minerva, are you insane?"
"I might ask you the same thing. Claire Sinistra indeed. And fighting in the middle of the hallway. Do you want to expose everything? You two," she turned back momentarily to the Gryffindor first-years, "go back to the common room. You," she grabbed a still stunned Snape firmly by one bony wrist "are coming straight to the Headmaster with me."
As Minerva hauled a now vehemently protesting Snape—"Let go of me, you infernal woman!"—off in the direction of Dumbledore's office, the now thoroughly horrified first years slunk back to the Gryffindor common room, accompanied by Lee Jordan, who had been hovering about the end of the hallway acting as a lookout for the Weasley twins—busy "decorating" Snape's classroom while he was out of the vicinity—who had been privy to the whole scene, and was now in transports of ecstasy.
"She hit him," he kept repeating. "She actually hit him. How cool is that? I think I love her. Hey, everybody," he announced dramatically as the three of them reentered the common room. "Professor McGonagall just bitch-slapped Snape!!"
And the rumors grew even further.
^_~
"Jelly Slugs," Minerva McGonagall snapped at the stone gargoyle that marked the entrance to Dumbledore's office Snape had by this point given up struggling, but resembled a volcano moments away from erupting.
"Headmaster, you won't believe what I've heard…"
"I don't know what she's maundering on about…"
"Right in front of the students…"
" I think she's been spending too much time as an animagus; it's starting to interfere with her mental processes…"
The two of them spoke overtop of one another, trailing off into an awkward halt when they realized that the small, cluttered office was already filled with people. Grouped around Dumbledore's desk were Claire Sinistra, a large grey wolf, and a barefoot, dark-haired man who seemed to be clad only a pair of somewhat shabby looking muggle sweatpants.
"YOU!" Snape shouted, spearing him with an accusatory finger. "I might have known you'd be mixed up in this somehow. Every time something happens to me, it's connected to either you or Potter!"
"Minerva, Severus?" Dumbledore inquired mildly, ignoring Snape's outburst, "is there a problem?"
"Albus," Minerva said, in a slow, overly controlled voice, her previous indignation forgotten. "That's Sirius Black."
"Yes," Claire said, in a very tired-sounding voice. "He knows. We were just discussing that."
"I'm afraid it's a very long and complicated story." Dumbledore smiled ruefully. "Much too long to explain the entire thing right now, so I will stick to the essentials. Sirius, as I have already told Claire, is innocent. The Potters apparently decided to use Peter Pettigrew as their Secret Keeper instead."
"But that would mean…" Minerva's voice trailed off. If Black had not been the Secret Keeper, then he would not have known the Potters' location, and it would have been impossible for him to betray them to Voldemort.
"It was Peter who was the traitor," Sirius spat from his position by the fireplace, where the wolf—probably Lupin, she realized—was standing protectively between him and the rest of the room. "Little Petey, with his 'Oh, I'd be happy to be the secret keeper, Sirius, what a good idea'. Bastard. I should have known there was a reason his animagus form turned out to be a rat."
"Animagus?"
"Sirius, as well as being innocent, is also, as Claire discovered earlier this evening, an unregistered animagus," Dumbledore continued. "He, James, and Peter all were, as it turns out."
Minerva felt a sudden surge of pride. She knew from first hand experience just how difficult becoming an animagus was; it had taken her years of study to achieve it. James Potter and Sirius Black had been two of her most talented students, but she had had no idea that their skills had been this great.
"Even little Peter? I never would have imagined…" But then, she would never have imagined him a traitor either. No wonder Sirius had been driven to kill him. Still…
"Sirius, did you have to destroy the entire street when you went after Peter?" Minerva asked. "All those muggles…" Claire nodded her agreement, setting the miniature silver models of Saturn in her ears swinging.
"I didn't," Sirius protested. "That was Wormtail too. Sneaky little vermin set off the explosion himself, then turned into a rat and ran away."
"Then that wild story Harry told at the end of his third year was true after all." A thought suddenly occurred to her, and she rounded on Snape, her earlier annoyance with him returning. "And you told the entire school that the child was under a confundus charm! Severus!"
"Well, how was I supposed to know Black was telling the truth in the Shrieking Shack? What should I have expected him to say? 'I did it. I'm guilty. Take me away?'"
"Er, yeah. He did kind of miss the part where Ron's pet rat turned back into Wormtail." Sirius offered. Then he grinned. "That was after the three thirteen year-olds had knocked him unconscious." Next to him, Lupin managed what looked remarkably like a lupine version of silent laughter.
Snape favored the two of them with a venomous glare. If looks could kill, that one would have had the power of twelve avada kedavras.
"But what are you doing at Hogwarts?"
"Yes," Claire chimed in. "That I would very much like to know."
"Patrolling the grounds to keep the Death Eaters out, of course." Sirius grinned again, tipping his head slightly to one side in an unmistakably canine manner.
"You're Snuffles," Minerva guessed. "I should have known. Then it was you who was in the infirmary with Harry at the end of last year. You should have gone ahead and bitten Fudge, the imbecile."
"Trust me, I wish now I had. Blithering bloody idiot, with his 'no reason to suspect that You-Know-Who has returned.' How did he get elected? Who voted for him?"
"Now, I'm sure Cornelius would have made a perfectly adequate Minister of Magic during a time of peace," Dumbledore put in, ignoring Sirius's muttered four-letter commentary and Minerva's sniff of disdain. "But let us return to the matter of you and Severus, Minerva. I believe there was some problem?"
Minerva felt her face heat. "Two of my Gryffindors came to me with a most disturbing story pertaining to Claire, claiming she had had a lovers' quarrel with a tall, dark-haired man whom she accused of being a Death Eater. I can only assume now that they overheard her talking to Sirius, but at the time, I thought…" she let her voice trail off.
Snape was regarding her with a look of outrage, Claire with one of mixed amusement and horror. "You mean you assumed that Severus and I… That we… Wait, do you mean to say that students saw me arguing with Sirius?"
"Well, you were kind of loud."
"Shut up, Snuffles. From now on, you can get someone else to rub your belly."
"What a shame," Snape said dryly. "The two of you seemed to enjoy it so."
Claire flushed and looked down, giving the skirt of her robes a jerk. "I thought he was a normal dog. It never occurred to me that he could be an animagus. I thought he was just some poor, half-starved mutt that Remus had picked up in an animal shelter somewhere."
"I am not a mutt." Sirius looked offended.
"Well, you certainly look half-starved. I can see your ribs." She gestured toward Sirius's bare chest.
"If you'd let me put on a shirt before dragging Remus and me down here, you wouldn't be able to."
"Sorry."
"Oh, don't apologize," Snape said. "I've lived my life filled with rapt anticipation at the thought of seeing Sirius Black's chest hair."
Sirius looked as if he was about to snarl something equally sarcastic in return when Minerva, her attention drawn to his bare torso by Claire's comment, interrupted him.
"Sirius, those look absolutely horrible," she said, looking at the series of scars scattered over his chest and arms. "What on earth are they from?"
"D'you want the complete rundown?" he asked, raising an eyebrow inquiringly. "Okay, this one," he indicated an old crescent-shaped bite mark on his shoulder, "was Remus—no, don't pull your ears back like that and go all guilty on me, I was asking for it, and lycanthropy's not contagious to someone in animagus form. These," he waved a hand at the shiny-looking burn marks on his upper arms, "are from a motorcycle accident. This one's Remus again. That's from a bludger. That's a cutting curse from when I was an auror. The nose is another bludger, plus Arabella Figg's bloody cat, and that one"—here he pointed across the room at Snape's nose—"was James Potter's left cross."
Snape reached up to knock his hand aside, then grabbed the other man's wrist and turned it over, revealing a thick, ragged gash of scar tissue.
"I see you left out a few," he sneered. "Next time, do the rest of us a favor and cut lengthwise."
"I would have, if I'd had a knife." Sirius snatched his wrist back and wrapped his other hand around it protectively.
Snape's eyebrows went up. "If you didn't have a knife, then what the devil did you do that with?"
Sirius looked as though he were wishing heartily that he had never spoken at all. "Teeth," he muttered, not meeting anyone's eyes. "They confiscate sharp objects in Azkaban."
"Oh my God," Claire breathed, echoing Minerva's thoughts perfectly. Snape was staring at Sirius in a kind of horrified fascination. Lupin pushed his nose against Sirius's hand, making a faint whining sound.
"Stop looking at me like that. I wouldn't do anything like that now; I have Harry to take care of."
"Good luck," Snape said, breaking the uncomfortable silence. "If you're trying to keep Potter out of trouble, you'll need it. Now that we've had this touching little reunion, can we all retire to our respective quarters for the evening? I have essays to grade."
Minerva seized on the chance to change the subject. "We'll need something to tell the students. Who knows what sort of rumors are floating all over the school by now?"
"I can imagine some of them." Snape gave her another unpleasant stare. "I think you owe me an apology."
"Severus, I really am sorry about that. I shouldn't have hit you, especially not in front of the students."
Dumbledore, who had been looking rather concerned, now appeared to be trying to conceal a smile.
"Oh my, I can see that we will have some explaining to do. Don't worry, I'll have come up with a suitable story by breakfast time. For now, just make sure the students know that there are most certainly no Death Eaters in the castle."
"I'd better go and see Harry," Sirius said. "He must be worried frantic by now." He turned into Snuffles, a swift, smooth transformation—obviously the result of years of practice. Now that Minerva thought about it, Snuffles did look an awful lot like Sirius, with that shaggy black hair and those great, pale blue eyes.
As the three teachers and two canines filed out of the room, Snape turned to Lupin and said: "Come down to my office tomorrow, one you've changed back." Minerva noticed that even while addressing the werewolf, he was careful to keep on the far side of the hallway, with at least one person between them. "I'll give you all the potions you need." And with that cryptic comment, he turned and swept away up the corridor, vanishing into the shadows.
^_~
Thank you to all my reviewers:
Leigh, Lovechilde, Milkyweed: Here you go, the next chapter, with a healthy serving of Snuffles angst.
Anoni: Glad you liked the Microsoft line too; I couldn't resist putting it in.
Tiger Lily and Kaylin: Look out for the next installment; it will have more Draco in it.
Draqonelle: Don't scold me about the Death Eater ceremony; it was all your talking about Greek tragedy that gave me the idea in the first place.
Rosie Thorliefson: Thanks, I'm glad you liked the Draco/Lucius relationship—it's going to pop up again later.
Heather Granger and Twinnie: I have Snape nailed? Yea! He, Remus, and Padfoot are three of my favorite characters, and I'm trying to do them justice and keep them from getting too OOC.
Taracollowen: Is this slash, did you mean? Nope, sorry (what was the red herring?)
Ozma: Thank you. The scene with Snape and McGonagall was incredibly fun to write—one of my favorites. Caius is fun too—that's why I stole him from Draqonelle. I wish my pets could be that smart.
Kit Cloudkicker: Yep, I'd like to strangle him too (except then I'd have to touch him).
Next up, Chapter Seven: In Which Several People Have Second Thoughts, and a Woman Talks to a Mirror.
At long last, we meet Polaris Black, the mystery woman who's in all the disclaimers but has yet to appear in the actual story.