I know, I know, the title's lame. "Exposition"? There ain't that much in here, actually. But I couldn't think of anything much better than that. My inspiration has left me for several weeks, and has only returned about a week ago, so if I want to finish this story before HBP comes out, I'm gonna have to rush it! Also one of the reasons why this chapter is so short - I can't affort to spend a lot of time writing huge chapters. But I hope you like this anyway!
January/February 1996.
"HARRY POTTER SPEAKS OUT AT LAST: THE TRUTH ABOUT HE WHO MUST NOT BE NAMED AND THE NIGHT I SAW HIM RETURN."
Harry was gone.
That was the thought that kept going through Sirius' head. Harry has gone to Hogwarts, and it will be months before I see him again, and can talk to him and touch him and make him laugh. He tried to think of something else; he even put the two-way mirror away in his room so as not to make the temptation too big. But every time he entered the kitchen, he couldn't help but notice that it was depressingly empty, that Harry wasn't there looking up expectantly to hear what his Godfather had come up with this time.
As what was starting to seem like the normal routine, the others had left him as well – now there weren't any children to take care of, Molly and Arthur were now only coming back to sleep. Same with Remus and Tonks: they would like to stay, as they explained to Sirius, but they couldn't neglect their work for the Order of the Phoenix. Sirius had put on a brave smile and said that of course, he understood and it didn't matter at all, it was for the greater good after all. But it was hard to maintain that attitude when the last one closed the door behind him, leaving Sirius with only a hippogriff and a deranged house-elf for company.
Although… 'Deranged' didn't quite seem to cover it anymore. Ever since Kreacher had been discovered in the attic, after his disappearance over the Christmas holidays, he had been strangely submissive, obeying Sirius' commands. That in itself wasn't so strange: being a house-elf, he had no choice but to obey. What was strange was that he did it all quietly, without the usual dark mutterings about blood-traitors and the like. It was unnerving, and Sirius didn't know what to make of it.
There is a saying that misfortunes never come singly, and indeed there are times when the entire world just seems to conspire to make life as miserable as possible.
It started off fairly innocently and unimportantly except for the people directly involved: Broderick Bode died under suspicious circumstances. This earned him a small article on page ten of the Daily Prophet, which went unread by most people except a few: Bode's family and the members of the Order of the Phoenix.
The reason for the sudden anxiety Bodes death caused was his occupation. Broderick Bode used to work as an Unspeakable at the Department of Mysteries until a few weeks ago, when he had been attacked. Nobody knew who had done that first attack or who had staged Bode's death, but as Moody had elegantly put it: the whole deal stank of dark wizards. It was not unlikely that one or more Death Eaters had attacked Bode to either get into the Department of Mysteries or interrogate the Unspeakable to find out how to get in. When Bode refused to speak, he was so injured that he had to be taken to St Mungo's. When he showed signs of recovery, he was no doubt regarded as too dangerous to live, so somebody send a cutting of Devil's Snare to finish the job. A quiet operation that barely got attention from the rest of the world.
Not that it was hard to understand that the rest of the world had something else to worry about, something that would not be put as far back as page ten of the newspapers for a long time: on the same day Broderick Bode died, ten Death Eaters managed to escape Azkaban.
As had happened before, Kingsley Shacklebolt was again the bearer of the bad tidings. He had been working late at the Auror's Headquarters, and thus he had heard of the break-out a half-our after it had happened – and yet he was still one of the first who heard. He immediately send a message to the Order of the Phoenix.
Every detail of the out-break suggested a meticulous planning, from the careful elimination of the guards – and thus a quick warning that something was wrong at Azkaban – to the fact that it were the ten most dangerous Death Eaters who had escaped. The wizard prison had never been exactly crowded anyway, save for the time when Voldemort had just been defeated and his followers were being arrested, but with these ten Death Eaters gone, the only prisoners left were a few 'normal' criminals and a handful of Death Eaters who had never managed to get into Voldemort's inner circle. In one clever move, Voldemort's army had got his heart back; the Dark Lord had his most devoted followers at his side again, this time even more eager to kill as many as they could, to take revenge for the time they had spend in prison. You'd almost had to compliment them for the decision to kill Bode at the same time, so that nobody would notice it. Voldemort could hardly be accused of stupidity.
"The horrible thing is, of course," Remus pretty much summarised, "that nobody but us believes Voldemort's really back, so the rest of the world thinks those escaped Death Eaters are… well, having tea parties or something instead of plotting the end of the world."
"Tea parties at my house, no less," said Sirius sourly.
The two of them were sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a last bottle of Butterbeer before going to bed. Tonks was sitting next to Remus, sleepily resting her head on her arms and turning her Butterbeer bottle around in a dreamy sort of way. On the other side of the table, Moody and Kingsley were discussing the plans made in the meeting of the Order that had been held that evening.
"You could do that, you know," Tonks now said to Sirius, raising her head, "holding a tea party, I mean. And then just poison everybody, and you'd be the hero of the day."
"Except that nobody of the Death Eaters would show up unarmed, and if I announce that I killed them all, nobody of the Ministry would show up unarmed either, because surely the only way I would have been able to kill so many Death Eaters at once would be dark magic. Which, as you recall, I've apparently used before." Sirius' voice was not free of sarcasm as he said this.
"Well, Kingsley and I would," Tonks tried. But it was too late – Sirius had already given in to one of his moody fits, and was brooding about how universally disliked he was.
"How'd your mum react to the news anyway?" Remus asked Tonks, steering the conversation in another direction and hoping to distract Sirius with it.
"Not sure actually. She doesn't really talk about it – which makes me think that it's upset her a lot, because that's the way she goes when something's troubling her."
"Pretending it hasn't happened."
"Yeah, that's a way to put it."
Kingsley and Moody had put away the parchment scrolls they had been working with, and had taken something to drink as well. They both did an admirable job of ignoring Sirius' chagrined face.
"You managed to draw up new schedules?" Remus asked.
"Yes. I'm sorry to say that guard duty will be doubled, but it seems necessary," Kingsley said calmly.
Tonks groaned. "As if I hadn't had enough to do."
"It's for a good cause," Remus said fairly. "And we're all doing our share."
"I know, Remus." She smiled at him. "I know."
"Let's just hope Potter is doing his share as well," Moody said gruffly, taking his hipflask instead of a bottle of Butterbeer, "and learns Occlumency quickly."
"I'm sure he'll do fine." Remus the optimist, as always.
They sat in silence for a few moments, thinking about the latest developments and how they could prevent them from getting worse. Tonks was the one who broke the silence.
"You know what I was wondering?"
"No," Kingsley said simply.
"I was wondering exactly what's in the Department of Mysteries. I've been guarding it hundreds of times, it seems, but I have no idea what's inside, except the place where the Wizengamot sometimes holds trials. And the Unspeakables won't, um, speak either."
"Nobody told you what's inside?" Remus asked.
"I wouldn't be asking it if someone did, would I?"
Moody stretched out his wooden leg, letting it hit the floor with a clunk. He sighed, but smiled nonetheless. However, with his facial features, it came across as rather threatening. "Inside the Department of Mysteries," he said, "are the wonders of the world."
"What, the pyramids?"
Those three words managed what Remus had often tried in vain: Sirius smiled and seemed to forget his bad mood. Moody, however, wasn't as amused, and he gave Tonks a foul glare that was even more unnerving because of his fake eye.
"No," he said, "not the pyramids. I meant time, the human mind, the universe, the future, death."
"Death? Time? How can you keep that in a room? You might as well put the pyramids in there, they'd take less space."
"Surprisingly enough," he said somewhat dryly, "it's the other way around. I'd say that the entire Department of Mysteries takes as much space as one pyramid."
"And what are they doing with it? Just keeping it in a room?"
"No, of course not. The people we call Unspeakables study that which is still a mystery to us all – hence the name, the Department of Mysteries. The goal is to come to an understanding of how time, death, the human mind and memory and so forth, work."
"And then?" Tonks persisted. "Still keep it in a box? Or keep it in a box and try and control it?"
"I suppose so," Moody said, waving his hand as if he wasn't exactly sure either. "Of course, one has to wonder whether we can really control such things."
"Voldemort'd want it, though," Sirius said abruptly. "He's been trying to control death for decades."
"And that'd make another reason for him to get into the Department," Remus added. This sudden realisation was kind of a shock to them all. They knew Voldemort wanted to get in to get to the Prophecy, but they hadn't realised just how much of interest – of an asset even – the Department of Mysteries could be to him.
"We must be on our guard," Kingsley said eventually, "and hope that the Ministry soon realises You-Know-Who has returned."
"Which they won't believe," Sirius said.
"Then let's hope that they'll get proof soon."
They looked at one another, worried. What Kingsley hoped was something they all hoped – and dreaded at the same time. Because the only proof the Ministry would accept was when Voldemort went out in the open again, and then there'd be no other choice but a full-scale war until one of either sides was wiped out. It was a scenario the entire Order was hoping wouldn't come for quite some time.
In February, however, Harry appeared to have decided to take matters in his own hands, and again the members of the Order of the Phoenix weren't sure whether this was a good or a bad thing. Without any warning or even any small hints, Harry pushed Voldemort's return under the Ministry of Magic's nose, leaving them to deal with it.
"You have to admire the kid's courage," Sirius said proudly as he leafed through The Quibbler for the twelfth time, ready to reread the interview Harry had given to Rita Skeeter. The article gave every detail of what had happened last June and what Harry had seen when he had witnessed Voldemort come back to his old power, which the headline and the cover proudly proclaimed.
"Or the editor's," Remus muttered.
"I think I'll forgive him for writing that I was a famous singer," Sirius said.
"Which you thought a brilliant joke anyway."
"Don't spoil the mood, Moony."
Remus said nothing – thus actually in effect doing as he was told – although he did want to say something, quite a lot in fact. He wasn't at all sure whether this had been such a smart move on Harry's part. The boy hadn't been very popular at the Ministry of Magic in the past few months, and this openly defying pretty much the highest power in the wizarding world wasn't likely to do much to improve it. Also, Minerva McGonagall had reported that Dolores Umbridge wasn't overly fond of Harry either, to put it mildly, and the interview would only make her more eager to somehow teach him a lesson.
He did not mention his doubts to Sirius, however. He had begun to notice in the past few weeks that to his friend, everything Harry did was ultimate good, and everything the Ministry of Magic did was pure evil, with Voldemort and his followers only being slightly more horrible. Sirius wasn't one to forget others wrongdoing quickly, let alone forgive them, and being locked up for months had given him more than enough opportunities to let his resentment develop into a full-blown hate. Even the slightest mention of Harry (or, given the way Sirius seemed to think: Sirius' side) being somehow wrong, was likely to tick Sirius off. He was in fact getting scarily close to developing an "if you're not with me, you're against me"-mentality, and Remus wasn't at all sure what he feared the most: Voldemort coming back to full power of Sirius finally snapping under the strain and completely losing it.