Hi everyone. I just got back from spending the weekend camping (a great change from spending all of last weekend doing homework), that's why this didn't go up earlier. Next Sunday I should be able to get part six up pretty early in the morning (though keep in mind I'm on the west coast of the U.S.). Again, thanks sooo much for your wonderful reviews. I've enjoyed reading your theories on what James has planned. Hopefully this next part won't disappoint. Enjoy!

Part Five

Sirius:

Everyone in Knockturn Alley had an ill-favored look about them. Skulking about in the shadows with a mad glint in their eyes, huddled in groups conducting all sorts of nefarious business, or on the prowl for a new dark endeavor, they were all strikingly unnerving. Especially the drunks that inhabited the cheaper sections.

"Are you certain we're in the right place?" James asked, pulling the dark hood lower over his face.

"Yes," I whispered, "My mum used to frequent Knockturn Alley – probably still does – I know the good side from the bad side."

"There are a lot of stores here that would sell potions," he noted, eyeing the small, bedraggled shops that lined the busy street. "We'll have to check them all."

"Let's try there first," I pointed at Sordid Sells, a store with dusty windows and a door that hung on its hinges.

A rusty bell sounded when we entered the dark, musty shop. Lit by small, floating candles that barely touched the obscurity, it was cold and foreboding inside. The shelves were lined with bundles of putrid plants whose names I couldn't pronounce and had never heard before. There were also jars of pickled magical creatures and rows of charmed and cursed pendants and weapons. Skulls decorated the walls and dangling animal limbs hung from the ceiling.

The shopkeeper was a burly middle-aged man with a round face and large, completely black eyes. His scraggly dark hair shrouded some of his features but couldn't conceal the abrading scar that ran across his left cheek. He appeared to be examining some merchandise behind the front counter but I knew he was watching us avidly.

"Excuse me," James said approaching him, "We were wondering if you carried any werewolf potions."

The man paid him no mind.

Stepping forward, I casually picked up a large jar from one of the many shelves. It was filled with hippogriff claws that were submerged in a thick brown liquid. Knowing I already had the man's attention, I threw it against the floor. The glass shattered, releasing a rank smell as the fluid oozed across the floor.

"Ye'll hav' to'r pay fer tha'," he said, eyes gleaming.

"Pay for what?" I asked smoothly. "That was already broken when we entered."

He grinned, showing us his yellowed, crooked teeth. "What'r ye wan'?"

"Werewolf potions," I supplied. "Do you have any?"

"No," he shook his head. "Hooks's the 'nly place tha' do."

"Thank you." I smiled amicably before turning and leaving the shop.

A few moments later, a shocked and impressed looking James was at my side. "What was that?"

"Politeness won't get you very far in Knockturn Alley, James. Better let me handle everything in Hook's. It's down that way," I indicated the opposite end of the street.

Hook's, as it turned out, got its name from its shopkeeper, an elderly man with a birthmark on his temple that took the shape of a hook. Compared to all the people that infested this place, he was normal-looking. He had short white hair, a well-rimmed beard, and brown eyes. Experience, however, had taught me that in Knockturn Alley the 'normal-looking' people were the most dangerous.

His shop was just as dank and dimly lit as the previous one. The difference was in its merchandise. Its shelves were filled with rows of oddly sized and shaped bottles, each containing a different potion. Some were merely marked as curses, others were more specific. One potion claimed it would make the drinker's skin disintegrate while burning that person's body from the inside. How lovely.

"I was told you carry werewolf potions," I spoke without looking at the man. Instead, I kept my gaze focused on a potion that was supposed to make a person cough up their own lungs.

"That's right," he replied immediately, seeming pleased that someone had directed me to his establishment. "What kind do you need?"

"The most recent," I picked up a bottle and carefully read its label. It permanently blinded whoever swallowed so much as the smallest drop. Honestly, compared to the others I had seen, that was rather mild.

"This is the newest one I've got," he said. I heard him set something down.

Slowly, I made my way to the front counter. There was a small flask the same size as the one Remus had drunk from yesterday evening. When I picked it up I noted that it was labeled identically, with the word 'werewolf' written on a black sticker. This was it.

Hastily, I paid the man and indicated to James that we should leave. When we were outside, my best friend commented, "I can hardly imagine Remus in a place like this."

I nodded. Neither could I. He must have been desperate.

"All right. As soon as we put in the saline hyssop roots we'll have to add the mushroom pileus in exactly two hours," James reminded me for the fourth time. "Are you certain you can get it by then?"

"Yes, I'm sure. I'm going now."

"I'll bring the potion to a simmer and make sure we've made it properly so far."

"I'll be back in a half-hour," I promised as I concealed myself under the Invisibility Cloak and noiselessly left the secret passageway we were hiding in.

"Jeremy!" I continued pounding on my friend's door, thankful that no one else was around to hear the racket I was making. "Jeremy! It's Sirius, let me in!"

Damn it. Why wasn't he answering? I had checked on the Marauder's Map just before knocking and it showed that he was in there. He couldn't possibly have left in the time it had taken me to fold the map up and step out form under the Invisibility Cloak, much less without my seeing him. Unless, of course, he had randomly decided to climb out a window and run off into the Forbidden Forest.

"Jere–"

The door swung open to reveal a grinning Jeremy. "Sirius. Why didn't you knock harder? You would have brought down the door and saved me the trouble of opening it." It was meant to be a joke but it came out rather snappy. I couldn't read the emotion in his eyes but whatever it was, it wasn't joy. He seemed…shell-shocked.

"Sorry. It's important, though."

"That goes without saying," he stepped aside and motioned for me to enter. Once I did he closed the door behind me. "What can I do for you?"

Jeremy's home looked much the same as it had the last time I had seen it, just after we had met. He still had the same set of what he called 'action figures'. He had picked them up before coming to England, when he had spent a few months living as a Muggle. The only thing that was different was the fact that his large couch – which admittedly had been rather shabby to begin with – was gone. It opened up a lot of space in the living room – indeed, there was nothing save one small chair in it now – but I had to wonder why he'd gotten rid of it.

"Er… What happened to the couch?" I asked, frowning.

Jeremy laughed. Loudly. "Sometimes, when Dumbledore sends Hagrid away from Hogwarts, he has me look after Sunshine. Unfortunately, Sunshine was a bit…over enthusiastic and managed to ruin the couch. Clawed it all up."

"Sunshine?"

"Oh, you haven't heard? It's his new pet wyvern."

"Hagrid has a pet wyvern? And he's called it 'Sunshine'?" Wyverns were sort of bird like. They had a dragon's head – though fortunately they didn't breathe fire – wings, and a serpent-like tail.

He shrugged, chuckling weakly. "I've learned to not be surprised by anything Hagrid does anymore."

"So…are you all right?" I asked. Last time I had seen him he had been troubled. Now, he was smiling but it seemed forced, something plastered on his face just because he knew I'd expect it of him.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine," he waved a dismissive hand, "I'm just sick. Headache. Cough. Sore throat. Normal stuff."

"Why don't you go see Madam Pomfrey?" I asked.

"I did. She wasn't there. She was in some meeting about what happened to that girl…Evelyn Milay. I haven't had a chance to go back yet." He looked away, apparently very interested in the design of his bedspread.

I nodded. It was more than the flu. That was assuming he even had the flu. If I had more time I'd try and figure out what the problem was. At the moment though, I had a potion ingredient to get a hold of. "Last time we saw each other – last night – you said you had to jar some mushroom pileus for Dumbledore."

Jeremy frowned, looking confused.

"They're for someone in New Zealand, remember?" I didn't have time for him not to know what I was talking about.

"Oh!" he exclaimed, smiling, "Of course. Mushroom pileus. How could I possibly have forgotten?"

I breathed a sigh of relief. "I need three."

"Three," he repeated. "I only have six. I'm supposed to send them all to New Zealand tomorrow. I know you wouldn't ask if it wasn't important but Dumbledore's given me a generously paying job and a place to stay," he indicated the hut, "I can't risk that."

"I'd go to Diagon Alley if I could but it's late enough for all the shops to be closed. Knockturn Alley would have them but I can't risk buying faulty merchandise." I hated having to ask him for this, knowing how important this job was to him, but I had to. For Remus. "I'll give you enough money so that you can buy three more in Diagon Alley tomorrow morning. I need them now, though."

"Why?" he asked quietly.

A simple question with a not-so-simple answer. One I couldn't give. Not without revealing Remus' secret. "I…can't tell you, exactly. All I can say is that Remus is in trouble."

My statement was greeted with an arched eyebrow. "The sort of trouble where mushroom pileus comes in handy?"

"Well, not the mushroom pileus so much as the potion it's going to help us make." I couldn't tell whether Jeremy was going to agree or not. If it had been James, or Remus, or even Peter, I probably would have been able to see it on his face. I didn't know Jeremy well enough, though. I had no idea what he was thinking. "Please, Jeremy," I pleaded, "It's very important. If we don't get this potion right…Remus could–" I sighed. I couldn't say 'be executed' without launching into an elaborate explanation of the situation. How could I make him see how urgent this was?

"All right, Sirius," he relented. "Just let me get it." He walked into his kitchen and grabbed a small jar from off a shelf above the sink. When he returned, he handed it to me. "There're three in there."

Clutching the jar in one hand, I reached into my pocket and pulled out all the money I had on me. "Here," I said, dropping the coins into his waiting hand. "Thank you." Expressing how grateful I was would be impossible. Hopefully he would hear it in my voice.

"Sirius," he said, looking down at the money in his hands, "This is way more than enough."

"Thank you," I repeated.

"I'll give you the change next time I see you," he assured me, dumping the coins onto his kitchen table.

"Keep it. For your trouble," I turned towards the door. "I need to be leaving."

Jeremy followed me. "Just so you know…I would have given them to you even without the money to buy replacements."

I paused and turned back to look at him. But he had mentioned Dumbledore and his job…

"I can tell how important your friends are to you," he said by way of explanation, smiling his first genuine smile since when I had seen him prior to moonrise the previous night. Before everything had gone to hell.

I didn't really understand what he meant by that but I just nodded and smiled. "I need to go now."

Passing me, he opened the door. "I hope everything works out for Remus." He hadn't even met Moony but I could tell he sincerely meant it.

"Thanks." When he pushed the door shut behind me, I added, more quietly, "So do I."

"It's ready," James announced softly. "We just have to let it cool."

Right. After it cooled we'd be able to take Remus a flask. If he agreed to drink it, we'd know. We'd know whether he had killed Evelyn. All day – ever since I had learned what had happened to the poor girl – I hadn't let myself doubt, even for one moment, that Remus was innocent. Now, though, I felt a growing anxiety. What if I was wrong?

"If you want, you can go explain things to Remus while I wait for the potion to cool," he offered without looking up from the cauldron.

I watched him carefully, surprised. "Are you sure?"

James smiled. "Yeah. You're his closest friend. He should hear it from you." He left a lot unspoken. That wasn't his only reason. He knew that I liked being the one that was there for Remus. It made me feel like I was doing something worth while. More importantly, it made me feel needed.

"Thanks, James… Just, thank you." I was lucky to have such an incredible friend who understood me so well.

It was dark when I returned to our room. The familiar, rhythmic snoring told me Peter was asleep. Soundlessly, I padded over to Remus' bed, which was barely illuminated by moonlight. Peering through the semi-darkness, I was surprised to see that my friend was wide awake. He was lying on his back, staring up into the obscurity with shadowed emerald eyes.

Wordlessly, he sat up and pulled his knees to his chest.

I took the tacit invitation and settled down across from him on his bed. "How are you doing?" I kept my voice low so as not to wake Peter.

"Better. The shower and sleeping helped," he hesitated, "I'm sorry about earlier."

"Remus…don't apologize. You don't have to always be calm and collected. It's okay to slip. It happens." I'd cried in front of him. For me, that was falling apart entirely. Even James hadn't ever seen my cry.

"Thank you for being there for me, Sirius."

I wished I could see his eyes better. It was too dim though, I could barely make out the outline of his face. "You know that–"

"No, listen to me," he interjected. "Thank you for always being there. I've been happier here at Hogwarts than anywhere else. In large part because of you. I just need for you to know that."

No. He couldn't do this. He couldn't start talking like he was going to die. "Rem–"

"I know what you're going to say, but Sirius, I have a clock hanging over me. It's ticking down to the time when the Minister of Magic will return with his investigators and drag me away to be executed. Dumbledore will do everything in his power to save me. He'll fail, though. The investigation he's forced the Minister to conduct will end and they'll do what they would have done already if not for Dumbledore: kill me. I refuse to leave things unsaid. Especially with you." He sighed, sounding very helpless. "I'm sorry if it's hard for you to hear."

It seemed that since the time we had last spoken he had forced himself to accept what he thought was inevitable. I wondered if he was just saying this with calm detachment or if he really felt it. "I'm glad that I've been a good friend to you, Remus. But before you finish saying your peace, I have something to tell you. I don't know what Peter said but James and I didn't skip out to perform some sort of childish prank. We were trying to help you."

"Sirius…please, tell me you didn't go to Dumbledore. It'd be useless…you'd be getting yourself expelled for no reason."

"No, no," I shook my head, "Nothing like that. We performed a component charm on the potion you took before moonrise." When done correctly, a component charm would accurately list all of the ingredients used in any given potion. When tweaked – as James and I had learned to do – it would give the specific quantity of each ingredient and detail how it was added and mixed in. Essentially, it was a way of figuring out how to exactly replicate the potion in question.

I knew that Remus was frowning even though I could hardly see him. "But there was nothing left of that potion."

"We went to Knockturn Alley and bought another one. We figured it was our best chance of getting one like the one you took."

"Oh," he commented intelligently.

"Well, you know that James is very talented with potions. He used the results from the component charm to figure out how to make a potion that would counter the effects of the one you took." Basically, it had involved James figuring out what the key ingredient was and adding it to the potion in exactly the opposite way it had been added to the original potion. The mushroom pileus had been chopped into pieces and stirred into the original potion while it was cold. According to James, that meant we had to bring our potion to a boil and add the mushroom pileus in whole.

For a while, Remus just watched me. I wasn't sure if he grasped the significance of what I was saying. "You mean that if I drink this potion you made for me, I'll remember what happened during the full moon."

"Exactly." That was assuming that James had interpreted the component charm correctly and selected the right key ingredient. He was certain that he had, though, and I trusted him. It would work. "If it was another werewolf you can have Dumbledore give you the Veritaserum again. They'll have to drop the charges when you say you didn't do it."

"If I didn't do it," Remind amended. "If I did…" He didn't finish. He didn't have to. If he was guilty, it was over. His life was over.

For a few minutes we just sat in silence, lost in our own thoughts.

"The potion's ready!" Maybe it was because of the stillness in the room or maybe James really had yelled but Remus and I both jumped when he came running in with his announcement.

James was standing just beside the bed, holding out a large jar or purplish liquid. I took it from him and shakily handed it to Remus. Moony held it tightly in the palm of his right hand. For a long while, he didn't say anything. He just stared at it.

Finally, though, he spoke in a voice so quiet I wondered if he was talking to himself. "For almost my entire life I've wished I could forget the full moons. At Hogwarts they've been better but still, I'd have given anything to erase the memories of madness. Now… I don't remember anything about last night. Not the pain of the transformations, not the utter loss of control and awareness of self. It's what I've always wanted and I'm going to give it away. It's better though. It's better than not knowing, than having that doubt in my mind, however small."

Setting the jar on his nightstand, he seemed to shake those thoughts from his mind. "I would like to do this alone," he said. Despite the darkness I could tell he was looking directly at me.

"Of course." It was the last thing that I wanted but I'd leave without protest if that was what he needed. "We'll wait in the common room. It's late enough so that no one will be there."

I climbed to my feet. At some point, Peter had stopped snoring. Either he was awake or he had, within the last few minutes, changed a habit he'd had for years. "Wormtail?"

"Yeah?" came his slightly distorted reply.

"Get up. Remus needs to be alone."

Peter groaned but didn't protest. Instead, he stumbled to his feet and followed James from the room.

"Remus," I searched for meaningful words that could express the depths of my emotions but came up woefully empty handed. Truly, what was there to say?

"I know, Sirius," he replied kindly.

I bit my lip. "Good luck."

Nervously, I joined James and Peter in the common room. They were standing in front of the fire, whispering. He was probably explaining to Wormtail exactly what we had done. We hadn't told him much when we left, just that we were going to make a potion that might clear or convict Remus and that he should stay and keep Moony company.

Blocking their barely audible murmurs from my mind, I sunk down into one of the many couches that filled the common room. Wearily, I swung my legs onto the cushion and leaned back against the armrest. I was beyond exhausted. I had been exhausted going into the full moon. Now I was ready to collapse. I had barely gotten any sleep since this whole nightmare began. It was hard to believe that Remus had only been arrested last night. It seemed like an eternity ago. I just wanted to crawl into some hole somewhere and forget about everything while I slept and slept…and slept.

I couldn't forget though. I couldn't even push it from my mind for more than a few minutes, if that. Remus was in there – in our dormitory – taking a potion that would restore his memory of last night. Soon, he'd walk into the common room and tell us what had happened. I wasn't sure I wanted to hear it.

I had known him for seven years. He and James were my closest friends. I didn't want to lose him. Not because of a misunderstanding, not because time would pull us apart, and certainly not because of execution. It just wasn't right. It wasn't right and it wasn't fair. What they did to werewolves was just…unthinkable.

Would it hurt? When they killed him…would it hurt? I had no idea. I had no idea how they executed criminals. Would he be allowed to have people with him? If he was…would he want me there? Would I be able to go if he did? I couldn't imagine watching him die. But I would. If it was easier for him. But, God…it'd be the hardest thing I'd ever had to do. I'd seen him in pain. I'd seen his body twist into wolf and human form. I'd seen him tear himself almost to pieces during the full moons. All of that had been hard, all of that had ripped something out of me. But actually watching him be killed? I couldn't even conceive of that. I couldn't imagine how horrible that would be.

Oh Merlin. What was I doing? I had to stop thinking like this. I had to stop thinking that the potion James and I had made would prove that the worst was true. I believed that Remus was innocent. Why couldn't I feel it? Why did my doubts have to take over? Why couldn't I just calmly await Remus announcement and then deal with whatever it entailed? Because I cared about him. Because I loved him and I couldn't not worry when his life was in danger.

I was scared. I was so scared. How was I supposed to–

"Sirius," James interrupted my anxious thoughts.

I looked up. Remus had just entered the common room. He was walking towards us. His face was calm, revealing no emotion. I searched his gaze for some hint of what the potion had revealed. The emerald pools were darker than usual, making his eyes almost black and giving him a very grave air. That was it, though. That was all there was to interpret. He was completely unreadable to me. I had no idea what he was going to say.

Remus came to a stop a few feet from us. "I need to talk to Dumbledore."