Title: The Unkindest Cut of All:
Pairing: Sirius & Remus friendship, vague allusion to Remus/Tonks.
Rating: PG-13 for nudity and gratuitous humour at the expense of Sirius' nuts.
Setting: The summer after 4th Year. Sirius, Remus, and others are all in at 12 Grimmaud Place, Bellatrix Lestrange and the other Death Eaters have escaped Azkaban, but that's not widely known, and the Dark Lord's only engaging in minor skirmishes.
Disclaimer: The Harry Potter universe isn't actually mine. It belongs to a very nice British lady who kindly lets her fans play in it. J.K. Rowling, my sincerest apologies.
Muses: This is a very silly fic that came up as a result of a friend reading another fic in which Padfoot was referred to as an 'it'. "Neutering him is positively unnecessary!" cried my friend (Or something like that.) in a fit of grammatical horror. Myself, being of a very dirty mind, promptly started snickering and wondered if neutering an animagus would have any interesting effects. Later, another friend heard the tale, and promptly ordered me to write about it. So, Sdrana, Teza, this is All Your Fault.
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It was a constant, thought Severus Snape, right up there with Flamel's Seven-and-a-Halfth Law of Alchemical Conservation, that Sirius Black would find some way to tick him off.
He mused that today was comparatively minor in the scheme of things, at least, as he stalked his dark and sinister way through the dark and sinister halls of 12 Grimmauld Place. (He had to admit that, for all the myriad faults of the owner, the house was perfectly designed with regards to stalking through the halls, and the billowing of his robes caught the light from the torches just so. Black, uncultured as ever, was constantly entertaining thoughts of how creatively the house might be leveled to the ground once the Order no longer needed it.)
Black had been out on a simple mission for the Order, monitoring and assessing Death Eater baiting of the populace of Muggle London. Make-work, as far as Severus was concerned, but the bloody great galumphing Gryffindor had been only too happy to be let out the door. And because the specific case had involved glamour potions, it had fallen to him to handle the debriefing.
Oh, goody.
He turned a corner, and unwarily let his hand brush a tapestry, featuring wizards on horseback hunting down Muggles like so many Colonial English on an Indian boar hunt. The consequences were instant and immediate, and took the form of a particularly vicious doxy attached to the second knuckle of his left index finger and apparently intent on working its way up to his wrist. The subsequent fit of swearing, hopping about the deserted corridor like a fool, and frantically patting through his pockets for the vial of antivenin he'd taken to carrying once the wretched little pest's neck had been snapped (With a satisfying sound rather like twisting apart one of Molly Weasley's roast chickens.) quite threw off the excellent stalk he'd gotten going, but more dangerously carried him far enough along the corridor that he was at Black's room without overhearing anything at all from the other side of the door.
And so it was that Severus Snape opened that dread portal upon a scene the likes of which he hadn't seen since Lucius Malfoy's bachelor party and that very pretty Muggle boy that everyone had pretended not to see in the company of the groom-to-be:
Sirius Black's lily-white arse stared back at him, the man bent over and his robes hiked up. And just to one side of him was one Remus J. Lupin, werewolf, wand in hand and prodding it at Black's nether regions with an expression of consternation on his face.
"Crups? You're kidding me. We had one here when I was a teen, and Bellatrix used to delight in taking it out for walks and setting it on Muggle boys who came to chat her up, not that I know what any of them saw in her, but the entire point of that story, besides dredging up the memory of my dear, mad family member busy rotting away in Azkaban one celblock down from mine, is that a crup will go mad with rage at the sight of a Muggle, not curl up all cute and puppylike and then wait to turn on them 'til they get home. No waiting, with a crup."
Sirius was rather pleased with that rebuttal, settling back in his chair in the recently reconquered Only Slightly Evil Parlour (As opposed to the Highly Evil Parlour on the second floor, and the Soul-Suckingly Beige Parlour two hallways over.) and folding his arms over his chest. Of course, about ten seconds later he was bored with that posture, and hopped up to go pace around the edges of the room, prodding at a Hand of Glory that hadn't been removed yet and barking a satisfied "Hah!" at managing to jerk his hand away before it could latch on.
Seated stiffly on the edge of an overstuffed ottoman, Snape watched Black bounce around like a Labrador puppy who'd gotten into an energizing potion, and restrained his fingers from wrapping themselves around the throat of the irritating escaped convict only by the strongest application of self-control displayed by a wizard on record. Typically, Lupin sat off to one side, smiling gently beneath that fiddly little mustache of his and doing absolutely nothing to control his erstwhile best friend. There would be no help from that quarter, and so the potions master pinched the bridge of his nose, and tried again, grating out further explanation.
"Black, if you would be so good as to sit down for longer than it takes for another synapse to fire in what little of a brain you've been left with, I shall attempt to explain in words of one syllable for you -- For Merlin's sake, man, stop poking at that!"
Black had made a return to the Hand of Glory, and looked up with an intensely irritating expression of rakish innocence that had every female from Nymphadora Tonks, who, as a cousin, ought to know better, to Molly Weasley, who, as mother to the demons in student form known as the Weasley twins, really ought to know better, chuckling indulgently and turning a blind eye.
Snape sighed. And then delivered the rest of his briefing in a flat monotone, eyes fixed resolutely on a dozing portrait of Iphegenia Wyndham-Black, 1714 - 1929, painted in the latter years of a century-long battle with Creeping Spattergoit.
"A combination of heavy-duty soothing spells and the Confundus charm would be a likely way of ensuring that the dear little puppies remain suitably docile in Muggle hands until such time as they've been properly passed through to new homes. Jack Russel terriers are a popular breed, and so a single breeder might end up placing dogs in homes from one end of the island to the oth--"
There was a heavy crashing noise off to one side, accompanied by a snicker from Black. Snape began playing mental connect-the-dots on Iphegenia Wyndham-Black's face.
"As I was saying, from one end of the island to the other. Professor Dumbledore has decided that, in light of the fact that there seems to be a potion-based glamour of previously unknown type being used to conceal the forked tails of the crups, as well as his own belief, not mine, that we should protect Muggles stupid enough not to check their breeder's background, and to save the poor doggies who will be swiftly put down by the Muggle RSPCA... that we should make off with the next litter of crup puppies and bring them here for study." There were no more crashing noises coming from Black, indicating interest. Apparently the typical Griffyndor heroic idiocy also extended to the welfare of small, fuzzy animals.
"Now, the earliest weak link in the distribution chain is when the puppies take their trip to a Muggle veterinarian for, ah, vaccinations and sterilization surgery..."
Absently, all three wizards in the room gently crossed their legs and looked uncomfortable at the thought.
"So, since you have been whinging about being trapped indoors and out of the way, Black, this particular assignment falls to you, owing to certain talents of yours. Lupin, depite your disinclination to handle Black in his human form, you will be posing as the owner of a very large black dog who's being checked into the veterinary clinic's kennel service while you go out of town for a few days. Are there any questions?" Snape's tone did not encourage them, and Black didn't seem inclined to ask anyways. "Good. The crups are due to arrive the day after tomorrow, so you may wish to leave now."
Snape took his leave of the drawing room, where Lupin and Black were engaging in puerile jokes revolving around collars and leashes, and took himself down to the small potions laboratory he'd had set up in the cellar, intent on concocting a headache draught.
On his way back up, he was bowled over by a shaggy black dog romping his way down the stairs and skidding to a halt on the cold tile of the entry hall. Sirius reverted to human form just long enough for the downed Snape to watch him fling back the curtain covering the late, unlamented Mrs. Black's portrait, and announce "I'm going OUT, you daft old bitch! Out!" An impetuous kiss was planted on the picture, startling her to the point that it was a full minute after Snape had gotten to his feet in an empty entry hall that the portrait managed to start screeching anew.
He went to go check on his headache draught.
Out, out, out! Freedom! The streets of London were his! His to ramble, his to claim, his to stride out across in the company of a friend once more. And if he had to roam said streets on four legs instead of two, well, what of it, and a dog could get away with stunts that would leave his human self in the clink for indecent public behavior. And in any case, that stunt with the Muggle girl on the hood of the Lord Mayor's car after seeing the Clash live at that ratty underground club, well... he'd been on the piss, and she'd been tripping on acid and thought the fact that he was a wizard was intense. And that was just the Seventies for you. No, thought Snuffles to himself, you couldn't beat London in the early summer.
Scrabbling along with the feel of hard sidewalk under the pads of his feet, it occurred to him that the only thing that could make this outing would be...
Harry. Some godfather he was turning out to be, stuck mouldering in Number 12, and Harry stuck with those bloody Dursleys, and God knows Petunia was probably taking out years of jealousy of her sister on him, and he couldn't be there because of the treachery of one bloody rat that he should've eaten if he'd thought of it, and...
A low growl rose from the large dog, frightening a mother and her children who were passing by, and Remus was crouched at his side in an instant, a hand resting atop his head as he murmured that "There's nothing that you can do right now. Arabella and the others are keeping an eye on him, and he'll be with us soon enough. Put it out of your mind for now, Padfoot, and just enjoy London and the scenery."
Man and dog held each other's gaze for long moments, until at last Sirius lowered his head and let the murderous rage bleed out of his muscles to simply stare fixedly at cracks in the pavement for a time.
"There." spoke Lupin, causing Black to lift his head and catch his friend giving a nod of his head towards one such bit of scenery, a tall, toned, leggy woman in her thirties, in that wonderful Muggle invention of the halter top. Twin looks of male approval were exchanged, both of them rather canine, and the werewolf and the animagus continued their promenade towards the veterinary clinic, walking distance from Grimmauld place and the rest of the Wizarding District, no doubt to spare fastidious Death Eaters from too much immersion in the Muggle world.
And so Sirius tried, cocking his head to glance back at Lupin at the other end of the lead now and again, and trotting along with his tongue lolling out the side of his mouth. Black fur really was a colossal bitch to deal with in the heat. They turned down a sidestreet where a fire hydrant happened to be open, and a good three dozen children were shrieking happily and diving through the spray.
The dog glanced back and took another surreptitious look at his master, gathered himself and, with Remus's despairing "Siri-- Don't do it. Don't even think about it, don't--" echoing like sweet music in his ears, took off at a run through the water, barking joyously and wagging his tail, and laughing to himself at the sounds of Remus trying not to swear for the sake of the children.
A single mother of just the right age was leaning on a garden fence and laughing at his antics while scoring quite high on the classic ratings scale. Another idea occurred to him, and he shook himself dry with as much water angled towards Remus' tweed suit (And when had he started wearing suits like that anyways? And that poofty little mustache? ) as possible and gamboled them both over to her, frisking and waggling and playing the I'm A Nice Doggie card to the hilt. Degrading a little, you might say, but he was willing to bet that Remus hadn't properly touched a woman in years... although he'd caught on to the fact that his friend always seemed to turn up right in time to catch hold of Tonks' elbow and steady her whenever his dear, clutzy cousin managed to trip over her own feet in his presence. A little friendly intervention was called for.
Twenty minutes later, in a conveniant alleyway right on the outskirts of the commercial district holding their destination, Sirius leaned up against a building, and insouciantly lit a cigarette from a match struck across his knuckles. "You know you had fun." he opined with a lazy smirk and a few puffs of smoke.
A dripping Remus J. Lupin sputtered at him from where he was trying to time a drying charm to be unobserved by Muggle passerby. "I did not. I am dripping wet, smell like dog, no thanks to you, ended up stammering in front of a very attractive Muggle woman, and have a bruise on my arse thanks to someone who I will not name here deciding that it would be the height of comedy to trip me with his leash. She had to help me up!"
"Yeah. And she gave you her telephone number."
"I don't have a telephone!"
"So? It's the principle of the thing."
Sirius' face was a study of pious innocence and outrage so laughable when paired with the tattoos, mussed hair and general air of the disreputable that the two friends looked at each other for a frozen moment, and then cracked up entirely.
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As stakeouts went, this one wasn't so bad. Sure, the kennel could have been a little larger, and the antiseptic smell was making his nose threaten to up and leave town whenever the surgery door was opened, but he had a nice dog bed, a full bowl of kibble in which the main ingredient was not rat, clean water, and even a little squeaky hippo and a knotted rope bone to amuse himself with.
Of course, the human side of him was rather bored by all this, and inclined to start wandering down paths of thought that it ought not to wander, like how kennels could look an awful lot like prison cells, but to make up for that, there was a steady parade of pretty, intent young women, all no doubt planning on becoming veterinarians themselves, fussing over him. Far too young for his tastes, with most of them only being in their fifth or sixth year if they'd been at Hogwarts, but even in a purely platonic sense, there was nothing like being the center of attention for an entire herd of females.
It was evening and the girls had gone home for the day. He'd just settled on the dog bed, groomed and cosseted, for a nap with his head on his paws when a new scent entered the back area of the clinic.
Dry and dusty, ancient and unsettling, the sort of scent to send a tingle up your spine, be you on two legs or four. It spoke of times long past, and rightfully so, of chaos and twisting powers, of the absence of light and the destruction of life. Dark Magic.
Concentrated, too, and tinged with the brittle, stretched smell of insanity, all tied on to a scent that he'd know anywhere... and had known. Toujours Pur, and she was among the purest and the most unbalanced because of it. Bellatrix Black-Lestrange, his first cousin.
She had been beautiful once. Lucius Malfoy had fought a wizarding duel to have her as his bride, before losing to the sly and deadly-quick Rudolphus Lestrange and settling for the lesser light of Narcissa. (Something the vain blonde had never quite gotten over, he fancied.) She was anything but a beauty now, features taut and skeletal and her movements, once like dark dancing, now uncomfortable and stiffened, as if expecting the floor to come alive at any moment and swallow her up. Sirius more than half wished that it would. The Muggle escorting her didn't seem to notice, however, and he suspected a charm cast on the sly.
Dressed in a Victorian-era gown, she was towing a large basket of sleeping puppies on a trolley behind her.
He had to force himself to keep from growling as she wisped closer, and instead slunk as close to the bars of the kennel as he dared, head cocked to one side and listening.
"I'm to leave these here in your care, the master commands it, and his will shall be done or all your lovely blood will run across the floor." she informed the veterinary assistant with the utmost solemnity, and he knew then how mad she was. Nearly a decade and a half in Azkaban, with only the knowledge of her own blood-guilt for company, and a husband who'd slipped into catatonia within weeks. Bellatrix had always been the strong one. But what was she saying now? Her voice had gone soft and absent, addressing an unseen audiance of old ghosts and old memories, rather than the assistant, who he could see starting to slip free from beneath whatever charm she'd laid on him while lucid. Not the Imperius Curse... he doubted she was steady enough to manage it, even if Avada Kedavra was sometimes strengthened in the insane.
"Run, like little kitten's feet, all bright and warm. Such blood, you Muggles have. It flows and flows, mixed, weakened so that it spills so easily. And you spill it so easily amongst yourselves, and you have tried to spill ours... weaken it... dirty, filthy little mudblood!" burst from her in a sudden rage, as the assistant, still enthralled but nervous in spite of it, veered away and pressed as firmly against the kennel wall as he could manage. "You crawl atop my sister and you sire your perversions to set a trap for us. The pure. Tojours Pur. Always remember that, Bellatrix, for you are a Black, and the Blacks do not mix with Muggles!"
Ah. Ted Tonks, he supposed. Gentle Andromeda had always been Bella's favourite, even if her expressions of love consisted of picking her first as a target for new curses she'd discovered, and, later, treating her to long diatribes about the state of the Wizarding world, while he, Sirius, had been busy slipping out for weekends in Muggle London. Bella was looking agitated, he could only imagine what effect being in the middle of so many Muggles was having on her. He waited to see if he felt any sympathy for her situation and found none. Not entirely unsurprised and only a trifle remorseful at the loss of that little shred of his humanity, he forced himself to wait and listen through her ramblings and to resist the urge to come bursting out of his kennel and shake her to get to the point of it all, the mad ravings reminding him too much of Azkaban and triggering all sorts of urges to flee. Gryffindor courage, hah.
She was muttering now, and he could only catch snatches of it. "... must stand it... for the Master. I must, I must... must... filthy, stinking Muggles... ... their hands... hands everywhere... I must... my test." One of her hands twitched, and she withdrew her wand from her sleeve, tapping the end to her temple and murmuring something. A black-tinged aura surrounded her for a moment, and when it had past, she straightened and was herself again, haughty and controlled. "Come here, you fool." she ordered the assistant, who remained huddled on the edge of the room.
A sharp noise in her throat preceeded the barked command of "Obliviate!"
She paused to make sure the spell had succeeded and wiped clean the damage of her little outburst, and then immediately launched into her orders. "These five puppies are to be placed in the best of your kennels. They are to have their required surgeries tomorrow morning, and they will be retrieved by my agents an hour after the last one is completed, and they should be vaccinated as well. We have paid good galle-- pounds in exchange for this. Now, see to it." she stated, and then turned on her heel and stalked off with a swish of her hundred-years-too-old skirt. His mother couldn't have pulled off the lady of the manor bit any better.
The quintet of dozing crups was installed in the pen next door to his, a final pass was made by the assistant, who was muttering things about a few pints being needed, and then the lights were dimmed, the security cameras that Tonks had told him how to identify were turned on, and then there was, if not quiet, at least an end to noise beyond the occasional dog's bark or crying cat. He waited until his nose told him that the clinic was empty bar one lone receptionist waiting to take emergency calls, and then went to the back door of his kennel to transform back to himself again.
A doglike shake of his now human shoulders, and he was reaching for his cigarettes and matches when another Muggle device, the smoke detector, sprang into mind. Despite memories of Lily laughing her head off after he'd tripped the Evans family's for smoking in the house, he couldn't for the life of him remember what one of those looked like. So, no reestablishing his addiction tonight, it seemed. Anyways, there were the crups to rescue. He ventured a pat of the nearest of them through the kennel bars, and smirked contentedly as it responded by whining and scootching sleepily closer to him. But, to business, and let's see if he could remember how to work... what is it that Tonks had pressed on him?
A sell phone. Although he wasn't quite sure what, exactly, selling things had to do with a telephone that could fit folded in his hand, and didn't seem to need wires like everything else Muggle and elecronic, she assured him it would work. Flipping it open, he stared crosseyed at the keypad, and then pressed the two buttons she'd assured him would put him through to her. "Ruddy lack of fireplaces...!"
The phone was picked up at the other end. "Tonks?"
"Argh! Molly! Molly! The Muggles, they've managed to find their own way to enchant things. Molly? Come see this. And, er, hang on a moment, Tonks should be along."
Ah, Arthur. There was strange static on the lines, sometimes snatches of music, other times birdsong, and once or twice, something he was sure was Gobblydegook. Magical interference from the other end of the line being inside 12 Grimmaud Place, it appeared, since the numbers on the keypad were slowly changing positions and colours, but nothing too severe. After a while, and the sounds of Tonks fending off a curious Arthur Weasley, there was a laconic "Wotcher, Snuffles. Found 'em?"
"Don't call me Snuffles, Nymphadoooora," he bantered back reflexively. "But yeah. Get a car 'round the back, and I'll have them ready for you. Five of them... and I found someone here I didn't expect to see--" But then the line went dead. Glancing at the sell phone, he snorted at finding that there was now a black and purple cabbage rose growing from where the battery used to be.
The transfer of puppies went smoothly, Molly Weasley at the wheel of an unassuming Honda Civic, and Tonks riding shotgun. Both women promptly started to coo over the puppies, causing Sirius to wave them off in the hopes of keeping his last meal. And also just in case trouble happened to be hanging about the back shadows.
Which, as it happened, it was.
Of course, the human side of him was rather bored by all this, and inclined to start wandering down paths of thought that it ought not to wander, like how kennels could look an awful lot like prison cells, but to make up for that, there was a steady parade of pretty, intent young women, all no doubt planning on becoming veterinarians themselves, fussing over him. Far too young for his tastes, with most of them only being in their fifth or sixth year if they'd been at Hogwarts, but even in a purely platonic sense, there was nothing like being the center of attention for an entire herd of females.
It was evening and the girls had gone home for the day. He'd just settled on the dog bed, groomed and cosseted, for a nap with his head on his paws when a new scent entered the back area of the clinic.
Dry and dusty, ancient and unsettling, the sort of scent to send a tingle up your spine, be you on two legs or four. It spoke of times long past, and rightfully so, of chaos and twisting powers, of the absence of light and the destruction of life. Dark Magic.
Concentrated, too, and tinged with the brittle, stretched smell of insanity, all tied on to a scent that he'd know anywhere... and had known. Toujours Pur, and she was among the purest and the most unbalanced because of it. Bellatrix Black-Lestrange, his first cousin.
She had been beautiful once. Lucius Malfoy had fought a wizarding duel to have her as his bride, before losing to the sly and deadly-quick Rudolphus Lestrange and settling for the lesser light of Narcissa. (Something the vain blonde had never quite gotten over, he fancied.) She was anything but a beauty now, features taut and skeletal and her movements, once like dark dancing, now uncomfortable and stiffened, as if expecting the floor to come alive at any moment and swallow her up. Sirius more than half wished that it would. The Muggle escorting her didn't seem to notice, however, and he suspected a charm cast on the sly.
Dressed in a Victorian-era gown, she was towing a large basket of sleeping puppies on a trolley behind her.
He had to force himself to keep from growling as she wisped closer, and instead slunk as close to the bars of the kennel as he dared, head cocked to one side and listening.
"I'm to leave these here in your care, the master commands it, and his will shall be done or all your lovely blood will run across the floor." she informed the veterinary assistant with the utmost solemnity, and he knew then how mad she was. Nearly a decade and a half in Azkaban, with only the knowledge of her own blood-guilt for company, and a husband who'd slipped into catatonia within weeks. Bellatrix had always been the strong one. But what was she saying now? Her voice had gone soft and absent, addressing an unseen audiance of old ghosts and old memories, rather than the assistant, who he could see starting to slip free from beneath whatever charm she'd laid on him while lucid. Not the Imperius Curse... he doubted she was steady enough to manage it, even if Avada Kedavra was sometimes strengthened in the insane.
"Run, like little kitten's feet, all bright and warm. Such blood, you Muggles have. It flows and flows, mixed, weakened so that it spills so easily. And you spill it so easily amongst yourselves, and you have tried to spill ours... weaken it... dirty, filthy little mudblood!" burst from her in a sudden rage, as the assistant, still enthralled but nervous in spite of it, veered away and pressed as firmly against the kennel wall as he could manage. "You crawl atop my sister and you sire your perversions to set a trap for us. The pure. Tojours Pur. Always remember that, Bellatrix, for you are a Black, and the Blacks do not mix with Muggles!"
Ah. Ted Tonks, he supposed. Gentle Andromeda had always been Bella's favourite, even if her expressions of love consisted of picking her first as a target for new curses she'd discovered, and, later, treating her to long diatribes about the state of the Wizarding world, while he, Sirius, had been busy slipping out for weekends in Muggle London. Bella was looking agitated, he could only imagine what effect being in the middle of so many Muggles was having on her. He waited to see if he felt any sympathy for her situation and found none. Not entirely unsurprised and only a trifle remorseful at the loss of that little shred of his humanity, he forced himself to wait and listen through her ramblings and to resist the urge to come bursting out of his kennel and shake her to get to the point of it all, the mad ravings reminding him too much of Azkaban and triggering all sorts of urges to flee. Gryffindor courage, hah.
She was muttering now, and he could only catch snatches of it. "... must stand it... for the Master. I must, I must... must... filthy, stinking Muggles... ... their hands... hands everywhere... I must... my test." One of her hands twitched, and she withdrew her wand from her sleeve, tapping the end to her temple and murmuring something. A black-tinged aura surrounded her for a moment, and when it had past, she straightened and was herself again, haughty and controlled. "Come here, you fool." she ordered the assistant, who remained huddled on the edge of the room.
A sharp noise in her throat preceeded the barked command of "Obliviate!"
She paused to make sure the spell had succeeded and wiped clean the damage of her little outburst, and then immediately launched into her orders. "These five puppies are to be placed in the best of your kennels. They are to have their required surgeries tomorrow morning, and they will be retrieved by my agents an hour after the last one is completed, and they should be vaccinated as well. We have paid good galle-- pounds in exchange for this. Now, see to it." she stated, and then turned on her heel and stalked off with a swish of her hundred-years-too-old skirt. His mother couldn't have pulled off the lady of the manor bit any better.
The quintet of dozing crups was installed in the pen next door to his, a final pass was made by the assistant, who was muttering things about a few pints being needed, and then the lights were dimmed, the security cameras that Tonks had told him how to identify were turned on, and then there was, if not quiet, at least an end to noise beyond the occasional dog's bark or crying cat. He waited until his nose told him that the clinic was empty bar one lone receptionist waiting to take emergency calls, and then went to the back door of his kennel to transform back to himself again.
A doglike shake of his now human shoulders, and he was reaching for his cigarettes and matches when another Muggle device, the smoke detector, sprang into mind. Despite memories of Lily laughing her head off after he'd tripped the Evans family's for smoking in the house, he couldn't for the life of him remember what one of those looked like. So, no reestablishing his addiction tonight, it seemed. Anyways, there were the crups to rescue. He ventured a pat of the nearest of them through the kennel bars, and smirked contentedly as it responded by whining and scootching sleepily closer to him. But, to business, and let's see if he could remember how to work... what is it that Tonks had pressed on him?
A sell phone. Although he wasn't quite sure what, exactly, selling things had to do with a telephone that could fit folded in his hand, and didn't seem to need wires like everything else Muggle and elecronic, she assured him it would work. Flipping it open, he stared crosseyed at the keypad, and then pressed the two buttons she'd assured him would put him through to her. "Ruddy lack of fireplaces...!"
The phone was picked up at the other end. "Tonks?"
"Argh! Molly! Molly! The Muggles, they've managed to find their own way to enchant things. Molly? Come see this. And, er, hang on a moment, Tonks should be along."
Ah, Arthur. There was strange static on the lines, sometimes snatches of music, other times birdsong, and once or twice, something he was sure was Gobblydegook. Magical interference from the other end of the line being inside 12 Grimmaud Place, it appeared, since the numbers on the keypad were slowly changing positions and colours, but nothing too severe. After a while, and the sounds of Tonks fending off a curious Arthur Weasley, there was a laconic "Wotcher, Snuffles. Found 'em?"
"Don't call me Snuffles, Nymphadoooora," he bantered back reflexively. "But yeah. Get a car 'round the back, and I'll have them ready for you. Five of them... and I found someone here I didn't expect to see--" But then the line went dead. Glancing at the sell phone, he snorted at finding that there was now a black and purple cabbage rose growing from where the battery used to be.
The transfer of puppies went smoothly, Molly Weasley at the wheel of an unassuming Honda Civic, and Tonks riding shotgun. Both women promptly started to coo over the puppies, causing Sirius to wave them off in the hopes of keeping his last meal. And also just in case trouble happened to be hanging about the back shadows.
Which, as it happened, it was.
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He'd paused for a smoke seated on the edge of the loading dock, gazing up at the sodium light orange of the night sky and just enjoying a moment of solitude for himself. You'd think that after 13 years with only dementors for company, and a year after that on the run with an illegal hippogriff he'd relish every chance he could get for social contact. You'd think that. He'd thought that. But still, Azkaban'd left it's mark on him as surely as on dear, mad Bellatrix. He'd just been out long enough to get over the worst of the raving, is all.
His fancies had just begun to turn towards Little Whinging and an upstairs bedroom at Number 4, Privet Drive when a noise from inside the kennels caught his ear. Footsteps, little, light, dancing footsteps, and a hoarse voice trying to sing.
"Snips and snails and puppydogs' tails, that's what little boys are made of..."
"Bellatrix..."
She stepped out into the night, wand raised casually but pointed unerringly at him nontheless. "It's our own dear Sirius, isn't it? Made of more than a puppydog's tail, you are. Bad doggie, keeping the little Muggles from their pets, keeping the Master from his plans. I haven't a newspaper to swat you with, but I can think of something... Incendio." she practically purred, shooting a jet of flame at him.
"Protego." he dodged, deflecting the spell as he snapped his wand to hand. "Expelliarmu--"
"Stupefy!" she snapped back. He dove to the left, but the red light of the stunning spell still caught him at the knees, sending him falling back to tumble from the loading dock and land on the concrete, his wand bouncing away to rest in the dirt at the side of the drive.
Dragging himself unsteadily towards it, he heard Bellatrix begin to laugh. "Sirius. Never serious, but Sirius, the dog star. Dumbledore's lap dog, too slow and broken to fight. I could kill you, you know." she informed him seriously. "But the Master says, not yet. Not yet. We mustn't show ourselves too soon, mustn't let the unworthy know that we live. They might wish to join us, and we are too pure for them. So you live, cousin, because the Master is greater than you. And you will die when he chooses because he is greater than us al--"
"Verto dementor!"
The spell was a cruel one, not quite Dark, but devastating to someone like Bella... and to himself, he had to admit. But a passing night bird was suddenly, if temporarily, transfigured into one of the Azkaban Guard, and it gave him the diversion he needed. She screamed, he screamed too, feeling the familiar wash of ice run through him, and the sudden absense of anything good and light. Give up, give in, give up... voices whispered to him, and he slipped down to the surface of the loading dock, head between his hands.
It felt like wading usptream through a frozen river, but somehow he found his memories of Harry, and cast a weak Patronus Charm as he was diving for the doorway back into the darkened kennel, the dogs waking and baying as one. As he joined them, slipping into the blessed relief and simplicity of the great black dog, he heard one last spell from Bellatrix before his human sense faded to the back of his mind and his canine senses told him she'd fled into the night.
"Arceo metamorphosis."
Trapped in his animal form until the curse wore off, Sirius didn't notice that the kennel he entered wasn't the one he'd left, but rather the crups' former home. 'Nor the very specific surgical instructions written on the card attached to it.
It was the very next morning, and Remus J. Lupin was going to see a man about a dog.
With the crups delivered and liberated a day ahead of schedule, there was both no reason to keep Sirius inconvenienced any longer, and no reason to risk alerting the Dark Lord's forces to the presence of a large black dog that Peter, the rat, would be able to identify. And then there was that worrisome half-sentence to Tonks over the portable telephone. All in all, despite Severus' sneering that they really were acting the old married couple if Lupin couldn't bear to let Black out of his sight for a minute, not that he'd blame him, for who knew how much havoc the git would cause... All in all, there were reasons enough to go get Padfoot out of the veterinary clinic a day early.
He didn't expect to be sitting in the waiting area, sandwiched between an elderly woman with an incontinent old cat that had to be part Kneazle from the glare it was giving him, and a young boy with a tortoise in a box. And when Sirius was led out wearing a ridiculous white plastic cone around his head and looking quite woozy, he was altogether shocked.
"Mr. Lupin? Mr. Lupin...? We've got 'Snuffles' here for you. Now, he'll be a trifle unsteady for a couple hours, but the lad came through the surgery like a champion, and his shots are all up to date now... Mr. Lupin? Would you like to sit down?"
The werewolf, formerly one of Hogwarts' most polished and popular lecturers, was entirely without words. He managed to wave off the attentive receptionist, and gave Sirius a pat on the head, before crouching down and managing to come up with "...I am so incredibly sorry." after a few long swallows.
The receptionist looked enlightened and amused. "Ah, so that's it, is it? Not to worry, Mr. Lupin, we find quite a lot of the gentlemen who bring their dogs in for neutering come over exactly like you're doing. But I assure you, he really won't notice the difference, and there are significant health benefits for the neutered male as opposed to an entire one."
Remus silently settled the bill, collected his best friend, and led him gently back to Grimmauld Place.
"Won't notice the difference?!?!!!" Sirius... howled. Yes, that's what he was doing, Lupin decided, the both of them back in the sanctity of Sirius's room at Number 12. The effects of the Form Binding Hex had worn off in short order once the man's head had cleared. "I'm a bloody castrati and that daft bint thinks I won't notice the bloody difference?
"Well... you were a remarkably good soprano in the school choir before your voice broke." Remus replied mildly from where he was leaning against an armoire, one hand pressed to his lips in what he hoped was a thoughtful, concerned fashion, and not to hold back the fit of laughter that was threatening to overtake him now that the initial shock had worn off. He was told he was quite good at the thoughtful, concerned look, really.
"Moony... shut it, all right. Just... shut it." sighed Sirius, moving to sit on the bed and then jumping up again with a whine. "And d'you think you could sneak me some ice on the sly..."
"Certainly. Although why you don't want Molly to know is beyond me. She's probably had to deal with this before, thanks to the twins, and if not, I'm sure she knows someone who could help... wasn't your cousin Andromeda a bit skilled in healing?"
"Remus. I just had one cousin indirectly take the stones off of me. I am not asking the other to put them back on, even if she was in the know about my innocence and all that. 'Sides." the animagus at a loss replied primly. "She'd tell Tonks, and I'd never catch the end of all the comments. The opportunities are endless."
"Right. Well, there's nothing for it then, nadless--"
"Moony. Shut. It."
"So we can dish it, but we can't take it, Padfoot? As I was saying, if you won't get anyone else to take a look at things, there's nothing for it. Up with the robes and bend over, and for the love of Merlin, I'm going to be stealing one of Snape's forgetfulness potions after this."
It was directly after this juncture that Snape arrived.
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A/N: The spell 'verto dementor' is borrowed from one of R. J. Anderson's awesome Snape fics, since I couldn't work a Boggart into the plot. You should all go read them, they're amazing. I made up 'arceo metamorphosis' myself, as a spell to lock an animagus into one specific form. And yes, I know that Bellatrix is a great deal more loopy than she is in OotP, but this is when she's freshly out of Azkaban, so I'm going to take creative license and say she's more visibly crazy as a result.
Also, no, Bellatrix is not channeling Drusilla off Buffy the Vampire Slayer, although Drusilla is very cool. 'Nor is she part Cruella DeVil either, although Cruella is also very cool. She's just crazy as a loon after spending more time in Azkaban than Sirius did, at this point, without the protection of an animagus form, so she's babbling on in free-association trains that sane people would keep inside their heads. Which is something Drusilla does too, but it's the same effect for different reasons.