DISCLAIMER: This story is based on materials owned by the great J.K. Rowling. I do not make any money with it or anything…Only the Sylvia Shaw character is mine.

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A/N: In my spare time I have decided to make myself a book cover for this story. If you want to check it out, go to

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sirius the homicidal maniac : I'm still not sure what is going to happen to Timothy down the line, I do have some pretty interesting ideas though. There are things worst than death you know… anyway, Thank you for your good words (especially: aack! aw. :))

Nitequeen: Don't worry, you can say it as many times as you wish, it won't make you less welcome to drop your wonderful reviews in!!! You read my mind on that, just wait and see.

7- Black's turn


Mrs. Pomfrey came around 10:30 and declared Black fit for duty. She toured the cabin, making sure no potions or anything blatantly magical was left behind, then was gone with a sharp nod. Sylvia sat back near the kitchen table, "So Mr. Black, since you're officially okay, its your turn to uphold your side of the bargain." He looked down at her, nibbling at his lower lip and after a while made up his mind and sat down, turning the chair so that he could wrap his arms on the back. Sylvia released her breath, she had been afraid that he might decide not to tell her anything. The name of that criminal gang had visibly been an awful shock for him and for a fleeting moment she had been afraid he might be an actual member of the organization. But a good look at the horror and utter disgust he couldn't hide at the sight of the gang messages, relieved her of that fear.

"I think that maybe now more than ever, you should know the truth not just about me, but about exactly what you're up against." Now, that sounded ominous. Sylvia put her elbows on the table and crossed her hands to still them, ready to hear the worst. Black took a deep breath. "First, you have to know that I'm a fugitive myself, I escaped from the wizarding prison almost two years ago." Sylvia was prepared for the worst, but not for the unexpected. "WHAT? Are you saying that you are THAT Sirius Black, the convicted murderer?!!" She remembered vaguely the stories that had floated around on the news at the time, she knew he had been accused and convicted of killing a number of people. At the time, she had felt somewhat sympathetic for the fugitive as she was trying to live on the run herself. Of course, she was innocent and he was not, so she had dismissed the criminal from her thoughts. She also remembered thinking that he looked more like a animal than a man, filthy, skinny, with a dead look in his eyes.

She glared at the handsome man in front of her almost accusingly but did not back away, "You've change quite a lot, running away agrees with you." He almost smiled but kept eye contact, waiting for her sentence. "Did you do it? And don't give me some platitude, I want the truth. Just yes or no. Did. You. Kill. All. Those. People?"

"No." he said clearly. She still looked at him with narrowed eyes for long minutes but he kept his cool and never wavered his gaze from hers. There was no pleading, no hasty explanations, no nervous babbling, just a clear strong gaze, firm and assured. That won her over. She nodded to him, "I believe you. Why don't you tell me what really happened?"

He let out the breath he was holding, slowly and put his forehead on his arms in front of him shortly, in obvious relief. Then looking back at her he said "Thank you, you have no idea how much it means for me to hear that." He grinned slightly, "I should have known that you would not react like any sensible, normal person would. You're much too intelligent for that." She answered his grin, "You should work on your compliments you know, you'll never win any girl's heart with something as backhanded as that." His grin widened, "Is that a dare?" His voice turned theatrical, "I'll have you know that I can turn any and all women's head with my flowery words, oh, most divine of creature. Do I have to tell you how charmingly your crown of curls caresses your neck, inviting, begging almost manly fingers to tickle you seductively? Do I talk about the lush green of your wicked eyes that can turn a man mad with the desire to plunge in their very heart in order to discover your deepest and wildest fantasy? Do I have to ad to the list of your delighting charms, the voluptuous sight of your…lips, made for kissing under the moonlight, teasing every man to come and discover how they taste. Do I…"

Sylvia was laughing so hard she was crying. Not really wanting to know how far he would go, she interjected loudly, "I yield, I yield! You're the greatest smooth talker in the U.K.!" He put his hand over his heart, "You don't believe me? Oh! That hurts."

She tried to stifle her laughter and regain some dignity but every time she looked back at him, he would make a face, winking at her and batting his eyelash like a girl. And off she was again. It felt so good to laugh, to get the tension out, to share a good moment with someone like any normal person, that she hardly wanted it to end.

Eventually, her stomach hurt so much that she absolutely had to stop. Wiping her eyes, she proposed, "Why don't you tell me everything while I make ourselves some lunch?" "Good idea, I'll help you." he said, standing up and walking toward the small counter to wash his hands.

"It really all began when a dark wizard who calls himself Voldemort started gaining a lot of followers, that's what the Death eaters are you know, his personal gang of bullies. That bastard have a crazy philosophy that wizards should never mingled with non wizard people, we call those muggles. He thinks that muggle blood is something dirty that puts an unforgivable stain on the "purity" of wizardry. You have to know that there are wizards entirely born of muggle parentage and often, a wizard and a muggle would get married and have wizard children, some of them becoming very powerful wizards and witches. Those, Voldemort sees as unfit to learn the Art or give any kind of responsibility or respect. He grew very powerful with time and started killing wizard with muggle sympathies or muggle blood. A lot of good people were murdered. Wizards were so afraid that they started to avoid saying Voldemort's name, as if saying it could bring his attention to them. Throughout the wizarding world, even today, years after his near grab of absolute power, he is known as You-know-who. That's partly the atmosphere I grew up in. Everyone was scared and no one knew what would happen or how to stop the madman."

He continued while making himself a sandwich, "Now, as a young teenager, I was going to Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry, the greatest wizard school there is. There, I made the best friends anyone can hope to have. James Potter, Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew and myself used to call ourselves the marauders and were terrible prankster, forever getting into trouble. That was the most wonderful time of my life, we were so close, I considered them my brothers." He smiled fondly at the memories. "But kids grow up, and eventually we all graduated. James got married to his longtime girlfriend, a wonderful girl named Lily Evans and I became an auror, that's a kind of policeman. I was working against Voldemort and the Death Eaters when we got news from one of our spy that You-know-you was targeting James and Lily as his next victims. They had a baby boy, only a year old so they went into hiding."

Black sat at the table with an enormous plate overflowing with food. He took a bite with a somber look while Sylvia with a more measured lunch, sat in front of him. "What happened to them?" she prodded after a long silence. He shook his head, coming back to reality and sighted. "We knew there was a traitor, for about a year Voldemort had been playing with us, always seeming to know what we were going to do and where we were going to make a raid. To protect the Potters we decided to use the Fidelius charm, a strong bit of magic that totally hides the subject from any form of magical scrying and even to the naked eye. The charm is keyed to one person you trust completely and who is the only one in control of it. We were at the time suspicious of Remus, for reasons I can't disclose to you now, so the Potters and others decided on me to be the key. At the last minute, I thought that I was too obvious a choice and that Voldemort would naturally go after me. I decided to secretly switch and lay a trap for the Death eaters. I offered Peter the Fidelius, he was the smallest and less powerful of us all, no one would think of him. He would be safe, James, Lily and my godson would be safe and I could lead the Death eaters by the nose and catch some of them. Perfect plan." He made a face, pushing his plate away from him, half eaten.

"Something went wrong I presume?" Sylvia said calmly. Black let a dark, derisive chuckle out that was half sob, "You can say that, yes. Peter was the traitor, I handed James and Lily to Voldemort. They died. I did that." Without a word, Sylvia took one of Black's hand laying on the table in hers and held it, trying to send support and understanding trough the gesture. He squeezed her hand back so hard, she almost yelp but she bit her lips and stayed quiet. He obviously needed this and she was not comfortable enough with him to offer more. He closed his eyes for long minutes. When he opened them again he was in control of his emotions, but he didn't try to take his hand back. "What about the baby?" she asked, working around the lump of distress blocking her throat. To her utmost surprise, he smiled a radiant smile of pure happiness. "He survived. His mother gave her life to protect him so when the bastard tried to kill Harry, the curse backfired on him and almost destroyed him. Voldemort fled, barely alive, nothing but a shadow, his powers gone. Harry was unhurt with nothing to show for it but a scar on the forehead that looks like a lightning bolt. A friend took him to live with his only living relatives, some very bad muggles who hates wizards. I went after Peter, I wanted to destroy him as he had destroyed James and Lily. I cornered him in London. He shrieked for all to hear that I had killed my best friends then cut his own finger, blow the street and in the chaos, transformed into a rat and escaped into the sewer. I was taken and sent to Azkaban, the wizard prison, without a trial. That was almost fifteen years ago. I was able to escape as a dog when I discovered by chance where Peter was hiding. I've been trying to find him ever since. Harry Potter is now known to every wizard as the Boy who lived, the only one to ever survive the death curse and the living symbol of the opposition to Voldemort. Now, that wretch Voldemort is back again and Harry is in the middle of it all. That's the reason I'm here now. To try and protect my godson from harm."

His features turned bleak once more, "But I was not really good at that either. Since I'm still on the run, I had to protect him from a distance. I needed to find a place close by to crash. That's when I met you. Then a couple of weeks ago, Harry was abducted and tortured by that…son of a…" Black stopped, trying to control his temper before continuing, "Harry was able to escaped but a kid was killed. Dumbledore sent me on a mission to ferret out some information, but Peter knows about my animagus form and some death eaters caught me," he smiled at her, squeezing her hand gently, "and then you appeared like an angel of mercy and saved me."

Black took back his hand and his plate to finish it, his story visibly at an end. She let him eat while she thought about all he have told her. When he was finished, she cut through his musing shyly, "Can I ask you some questions?" He looked at her with a distant smile, "Hum? Oh, yes of course, fire away."

"First, who is Dumbledore and what's his role in all this? I mean, he visibly knows who you are but still protects you, and that Mrs. Pomfrey she did not treat you like a criminal either. That's the reason I first dismissed the idea of you as Sirius Black the murderer."

Sitting back on his chair he answered, "Dumbledore. All right, Dumbledore is the most powerful wizard in the world, he is also the only one Voldemort is really afraid of. He's the headmaster of Hogwarts and the unofficial leader of those who fights against You-know-who. Last year, while I was trying to catch Peter who was hiding at the school, I was caught and had to tell Dumbledore the truth. He believed me and explained to Harry and his friend Hermione how to get me out before I was…executed. I still don't know exactly how they did it." She looked at him with surprise, "Aren't they just kids?" He smiled, pride shining in his eyes, "Harry is much more older and wiser than his years, sometimes its almost uncanny, the seriousness in him. With his two friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, they are worth two teams of aurors. Harry have already fought and won over Voldemort three times, which is pretty impressive even if you-know who was not at the height of his power."

Sylvia pondered that for a while, before asking, "Why are wizards hiding from us? I mean if wizards and muggles get married regularly, there must be a lot of people out there knowing about your kind. Why don't you put it into the open?" He nodded, "Your right, lot of people knows about wizards. Parents of wizard children, spouses and some important people in the ministry, but they are all under a compulsion never to talk about it with muggles who are not aware of our existence. That decision was taken centuries ago when it became pretty obvious that muggles and wizards were going in different directions and that wizardry was scaring and disturbing muggles very much. There was the fact too that we didn't care to be hunt down, blame for everything bad or simply be the butt of stupid prejudices and hatred like many other minorities were, and still are, experimenting. About the time we slowly disappeared, the muggles went down the road of science, discovering technologies and new philosophies. Before that, magic and science were one in alchemy, astronomy and medicine, but our withdrawal from your world seemed to push you somehow to the other side of the scale to a mechanical vision of the universe. Now our two wolds are like negatives of one another and can't really work together anymore. Magic doesn't function reliably in an environment were there's a lot of your machines and the same is true for machines running in a place filled with magical energies. That is why we mostly live in remote places."

"Well, that makes sense I guess."

Sylvia looked out the window, thinking hard, " So, your saying your godson is going to that school…Hogwarts? And that his name is Harry?" Black's eyebrow went up in surprise at her question. "Yea, why do you ask?" She grab the scrapbook without answering and started leafing trough it, muttering under her breath. Then she stopped on a page, reading with a scowl of concentration on her face. "Damn, I kind of hoped I was remembering it wrong but its pretty clear." Annoyed and curious Black demanded "What is it?" Sylvia just pushed the book to him, showing him a letter with her hand. "Read this. It's the last of the Death eaters messages I have found, it's also the most recent. It dates from about the time I got away, about twenty-eight months ago."

Black got whiter and whiter as he read trough it. He looked up at her, dismay on his face. "The Death eaters, They're looking for Harry trough the muggle police! We never thought of that! They hate muggles so much!"

"Logical though. There most be some sign of Harry somewhere if he used to live with…muggles. Social security, school, medical or maybe even bank records, if he was in the system, his name would be down in hundreds of places. People…I mean, muggles lives and breathes paperwork, if you exist, than you have a file with your name, address and age filed somewhere. Maybe you can put some magic to make sure only the ones who needs to know can read his name, but those can talk, and if they can't, maybe the police is on the list of 'needs to know'. "

"Possible, but it would not do them much good, Dumbledore said he had put some very powerful protection around Harry's house." Black seemed to calm down and regain some confidence. "Yea, but what about his school, the hospital, the dentist, a new friend's house, the local theatre, a restaurant…you get the idea. They would only need to wait around until he's outside the protections."

Black looks turned thoughtful, "We better tell Dumbledore this and I'll owl Harry to warn him not to go anywhere far from the house itself until we know just how far the protection extends."

He got up and stretched, "In the meantime, I feel the need for some exercise. What about a little work session of that…what do you call it?"

"Tae Kwon Doe. Good idea." She answered, smiling. She stood up and walked towards the door, filled with anticipation.

***

Dumbledore came after dinner, knocking politely on the door. They had been waiting for him, Black carefully going trough her scrapbook and she, working on her current contract; a black panther for a new soft drink ad.

At the sound, she saved her file and got up to answer it. "Welcome, headmaster." He gave her a boyish smile that took his years away and filled her with so much warmth that she answered the smile with one of her own without thinking. Darn! That man had a way with people. Sylvia felt her carefully built aloofness melt like snow under the old man sparkling gaze.

"I see that you had that talk with Sirius. Good. The less time we lose, the better." At her invitation, he sat down on the armchair near the fireplace with Black, perch on the sofa, in front of him, then she took a chair from the kitchen to sit down. She served him a cup of tea while he was greeting Black, asking about his health.

After a sip he started to explain, "Well, Sirius, your misadventure had some good and unexpected results. We were able to send the six Death eaters to the ministry where they were questioned under veritaserum. The First Minister had no choice but to accept the truth of Voldemort's return after the six men recounted the same story one after the other in front of many witnesses. They also told the ministry how Wormtail, A.K.A Peter Pettigrew, explained to them how to find you in your animagus form. I'm sorry to say your secret is no longer…well, secret. On the other hand, the revelation that Pettigrew was still alive gave quite a shock to everyone, especially Fudge. Since I was present, I took upon myself to point out to the good minister that it meant you could not have killed him. They questioned the Death eaters carefully about Pettigrew, and discovered he was the one who had blast the street and murdered all those muggles. The Death eaters seemed very amused by the fact that an auror was sent to prison in Peter's place. As a result of the questioning, you have been granted an unconditional pardon, the press notification will be released tomorrow. Congratulation, you are now a free man!" Dumbledore took some papers from his robe and handed them to Black who took them in trembling hands. He looked at them with unbelieving eyes and tried to talk. " I…you…thanks…" Dumbledore chuckle and dismissed Black's attempt to thank him, "Don't mention it, tweaking minister Fudge nose was my great pleasure. Beside, I didn't really did anything, you should thank Mrs. Shaw, instead. After all, she's the one who helped capture the Death eaters."

Sylvia was fighting the tears that were threatening to overcome her. Taking a deep breath, she was able to muttered, "I had no idea what I was doing, I'm glad I did something right for a change." Trying to prevent things from getting too mushy, Sylvia made an effort at changing the subject. "Look, sir, we have found something that Mr. Black thought you should know about." Dumbledore looked curiously at her and she started to tell him about Timothy and the messages from the Death eaters she had found, skirting around the subject of her abuse as much as she could. She told him how Tim had turned the whole thing against her, the fact of Harry's name in one message and her reasoning about Black's godson danger of discovery.

Dumbledore didn't look very surprised by it all. "I read muggle newspaper as much as I can, so I knew about the message printed in the press to ask for information about the Death eaters organization. I had no idea there were other messages or that Harry's name had been brought up, but it stand to reason. Voldemort is not stupid, nor are his followers, it would be very amusing and fitting in their point of view to use the very people they scorn to bring them information that can eventually lead to the destruction of muggles sympathizers and defenders." The old wizard got up and started to move around, looking everywhere absently, deep in thoughts. "We need to ask Harry to be very careful this summer though and to not wander outside the wards like he used to do. I'm afraid he will be very disappointed when I'll refuse him the permission of going to the Weasley's for the end of the summer." Dumbledore stopped in front of her laptop and seemed to studied it until Black's voice shook him out of his concentration. "Sorry sir, but, since I'm now free, can't I get Harry to live with me? I know he wants to. Hell, I know I want to!" Dumbledore shook his head in denial. "I'm sorry, Sirius. There are many reasons why you cannot do that. The Dursley's house is under a very powerful spell that protects it. It would take forever to duplicate it somewhere else and you don't even have a place to stay yet. Hogwarts is always less protected in the summer as you know, when many spells needs to be recast and the overall check of the shields. Moreover, I also still need you for that information gathering you were on your way to collect. Right now, Harry really needs to stay where he is and you need to be on your way before next week."

Black sighted in defeat but didn't say anything, The old man turned towards her, "What about you, Mrs. Shaw, Have you made up your mind about the memory spell?" Startled, Sylvia jumped to her feet like a little girl caught red handed in her mother's make up, "Uh, yes sir I have. I decided not to do it. I mean, I wish to remember everything, if its not too much problem for you of course…" Sylvia shut her mouth on her babbling, annoyed with herself for letting her nerves show. She added with a more steady voice, "If Mr. Black still need a place to crash between missions and don't have any other places to go to, he is welcome here."

"Good, that's settled." Dumbledore, then turned around to face her computer again and said, pointing his wand at her laptop, "Loco corpore ex nihilo invocat.". Sylvia shouted, "NO! Wait!!!" But suddenly, with a rushing sound, a huge black panther seemed to grow out of the table to stand in front of her, unmoving.

"Now, isn't that interesting!" said the old man, impassive in front of their gaping face.