Altercations
By Neurotica
Eleven
The Hogwarts dungeons had never been her favorite place in the castle; in fact, the only time she'd ever gone down there after graduation from Hogwarts was to see the person she was visiting today. Remus was in Dumbledore's office having some sort of discussion with the Headmaster—Sirius suspected the Order's leader wanted to send Remus on a mission. Sirius himself was out on the Quidditch pitch watching the Gryffindor team practice for their upcoming match against Slytherin. She'd told the two wizards she was going to the library to check out a few things from the restricted section—and that would be her eventual destination.
His office door was partly open, though she was sure he'd meant to close it securely behind him upon entering. Carefully and quietly, she pushed the heavy door all the way open and stood in the threshold, watching him hunched over his desk, marking students' papers.
"Students are to be in their common rooms until dinner. If you do not wish to spend the next month in detention, I suggest you join the rest of your house," he said without looking up.
"Is that a threat, Severus?" Emmeline asked with a smirk, biting her lip to keep from laughing as he jerked his head up at her voice.
He pursed his lips. "Do you wish it to be, Miss Vance?" he asked softly.
She raised an eyebrow. "Since when do you call me 'Miss Vance'?"
"Unless I am very much mistaken or unless you've made a recent change that I am yet to be aware of, that is your name," he said in the uncaring tone he used with the rest of the world.
"Okay," Emmeline sighed. "But you never called me by my surname until I started seeing Remus." His jaw clenched and she held back a grin. "Ah, I see what this is... You're jealous of Remus, aren't you, Severus? How very endearing..."
"I assure you, Emmeline, that I am in no way jealous of Remus Lupin," he said menacingly. Emmeline knew him too well to be threatened.
"Could have fooled me," she said flatly. "You know, you and I haven't had a decent conversation that hasn't dealt with Order business for nearly a year. Why is that?"
He shuffled some of his papers, avoiding her eye. "I've been busy," he said stiffly.
"Right. Too busy to even say hello?"
"Is there something I can help you with, Emmeline? I'm behind on my work." He went back to marking papers.
Rolling her eyes, Emmeline pulled a slip of parchment from her robes. "I need a favor," she admitted quietly. His quill froze over the parchment he was grading, and she knew he was listening. "I've been researching the curse Malfoy used on Sirius, since neither you nor Naomi can tell us anything about it—"
"Were I able to get information, I would have—"
"I'm not blaming you. I'm just saying I've found something..." She sighed. "I found a potion that could help him—"
"Let me guess," Severus said, placing his quill on the desk slowly. "You wish for me to prepare it for you?" She shrugged and he sighed. "I see. So the only reason you've come to visit me is because you are inept at Potions. And you wonder why I've been avoiding you."
Again, she rolled her eyes. "I'll ignore that for now. Look, you're the only person in the Order who can make this potion, so I'm asking you to do me this favor. If you don't want to, that's fine. I'll find someone else to do it. I'm sorry to have interrupted your work." She turned to leave, but before the door closed behind her, he called her back. She remained facing away as he spoke.
"What is this potion?"
"You've already said you're too busy and I wouldn't want to add to your workload."
"Just for the sake of my curiosity, then."
Slowly, she turned and walked to his desk, handing him the slip of parchment. He stroked his chin as he read the instructions and ingredients, and she knew he was considering her request.
"You do realize this potion takes six months to brew, not to mention the amount of time it will take to gather these ingredients," he said softly, lowering the parchment and looking up at her.
"Which is why I will take it elsewhere since you're busy," she said, reaching out to take the parchment.
He pulled it back, examining it further. "And you further realize I am no longer the Hogwarts Potions Master," he said over her, ignoring her last comment.
"You're the only one I would trust with this, Severus, and you know it."
"Finally, and most importantly in my opinion, why should I help Sirius Black?"
"You wouldn't be helping him, I am. And you'd be helping me."
He sighed. "Very well," he said crisply. "I may be able to find the time to brew this. You will, of course, supply the ingredients I do not have?"
"Of course," she said, fighting to conceal her excitement. "Anything you need."
He nodded once. "I will be in contact with you."
She nodded back and smiled. "Thank you, Severus, this is much appreciated." She leaned over the desk to kiss his cheek quickly—did he blush? "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to the Headmaster's office—"
"Yes, you wouldn't want dear Remus to get worried, would you?"
"He's not as bad as you think."
"That is a matter of opinion."
Shaking her head hopelessly, she said, "Thank you again, Severus. I'll see you at the next meeting. Oh," she added before leaving the office. "Please don't mention this to Sirius or Remus; I want to surprise them."
"I'll try to refrain," he muttered.
She smirked, winked, and left the office, feeling much better than she had before. She only hoped her book was right and this could help Sirius.
"So what did Dumbledore want you for?" Sirius asked as casually as he could, sipping a butterbeer. After leaving Hogwarts, Sirius, Remus, and Emmeline had headed down into Hogsmeade for a quick dinner at the Three Broomsticks.
Remus shrugged. "He, er, needs someone to escort Arabella Figg to Germany and back this weekend."
Sirius and Emmeline stared at him for a minute. "And he wants you to do it?" Sirius said flatly.
Again, Remus shrugged.
"What did you tell him?" Emmeline asked.
"I told him I'd get back to him tomorrow," Remus said, taking a bite of his stew. "I wanted to talk with the two of you first."
"Nice of you to think of us," Sirius muttered.
Remus sighed. "Should I even ask your opinion on this, Sirius?"
"Do what you want," Sirius said with a half-shrug. "I'm not your father."
Remus ran a hand through his hair in mounting frustration and turned to Emmeline. "What do you think?"
"It's ultimately up to you," she answered. "Would it just be you and Arabella?"
He nodded. "Look, this is nothing like France. I won't be in the wilderness with the nearest sign of civilization being a hundred miles away."
"No, you'll be in a foreign country where you don't know anybody, and you could get lost or killed and nobody would look twice at you," Sirius whispered angrily. "And if you do get into trouble, it's not like Arabella will be any help."
As if you would be more help, Remus thought angrily. He refrained from saying it aloud. "Sirius, I'll be fine. It's a three-day trip."
Sirius shrugged again. "Like I said, do what you want. You've said it before: You can't be expected to keep reading books for the Order. You're a big boy now."
Remus sighed. As much as he loved Sirius, even the fact that his best friend was desperately protective, he didn't know how much of this he could take. Remus' disappearance in France was still at the forefront of Sirius' mind, no matter how often Remus assured him he would be fine when he was just going to Diagon Alley for the day. Remus hadn't forgotten his experience in France either—he still had nightmares from time to time, but he couldn't let those three months keep him from the rest of his life. "I'll be fine, Sirius," he said quietly.
Sirius nodded, obviously not near being convinced, and continued to sip his drink, not looking at either of his friends.
"Why does Arabella need to go to Germany?" Emmeline asked quietly.
"She's been acting as Dumbledore's representative in German affairs for the Order. Everything goes through her—she's been going out there every few months, but Dumbledore's worried the Death Eaters may have found out who she is, and he doesn't want her going alone," Remus explained. "So I'd be acting as her nephew, taking his dear aunt on a short vacation."
"When would you leave?"
"Day after tomorrow."
"So you'd be gone for Halloween," Sirius said, not looking at him. "Again."
"Well, this time will be voluntary, but yes, I would be gone for Halloween," Remus said. That had been the first thing he'd thought of, and it was the reason he'd been nervous about mentioning it to Sirius—Halloween was one of the hardest times of the year for Sirius, and Remus didn't like leaving him to spend it alone.
Sirius nodded and drained his butterbeer, reaching into his pockets for a few Galleons to pay for their meals. "I'll see you at home," he said shortly, standing and walking to the pub's fireplaces to Floo home.
Remus dropped his head into his hands. He probably should have followed Sirius to stop him from breaking anything fragile in the cottage, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. The world wasn't going to stop just because Sirius was pouting; he'd just have to get over it, as much as Remus hated to think like that. But they were both adults, and they both had things they needed to take care of—well, not Sirius so much; he mostly spent his days staring out the kitchen window now.
"You're going to do this, aren't you?" Emmeline asked quietly.
"You two act like I'm leaving forever," Remus said. "It's three days."
"I'm just wondering so I can plan dinner for the rest of the week, that's all," she said, her lips twitching. Remus smiled a little. "I'm behind you on this, just as long as you come back to me in one piece."
"Does he have no faith in the fact that I can take care of myself?" Remus asked, turning to her. "He acts like I'm a first year whenever I suggest doing something for the Order that doesn't involve a library."
Emmeline shook her head. "That's not what it is, Remus. He knows you can take care of yourself. He's just... worried. He nearly lost you last year, we all did, and he doesn't want to take that chance again. Sirius wouldn't know what to do if something happened to you. You didn't see him while you were lost in France, but he was a complete mess. He didn't know whether he was coming or going half the time. I swear, if the rest of us hadn't been around to keep him from doing something stupid... well, he would've done something stupid."
"Sirius does stupid things every day. Why would my being in France make things any different?"
"Because on a normal day, you're around to fix his stupid things," Emmeline said with no trace of humor in her eyes. "He spent those three months in a complete daze. If Maxime hadn't found you, he would have been absolutely destroyed. I've never seen a friendship like the one you and he have. He's just looking out for you."
Remus sighed. "I know. We'd better get back. Maybe I can get to him before he pulls out the Ogden's."
When they Flooed back to the cottage, it took only a second to realize Sirius wasn't there. As far as they could tell, he hadn't even come home. "Where would he have gone?" Emmeline asked as Remus came back in from the backyard. He'd gone to see if Sirius' motorbike was missing—it wasn't.
"Who knows." Remus sighed, dropping heavily into a kitchen chair. "There aren't exactly a lot of places he could go, right?"
The Gryffindor common room was packed that night as students studied, socialized, and laid around on the sofas and chairs. At a corner table, Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny were doing their best to finish their homework before the weekend, since three of the four in the group would be playing Quidditch on Saturday. It wasn't as easy as it sounded, though; for the last half hour, Ron had been beating his head against his Defense book. After the first fifteen minutes, Hermione stopped trying to prevent him giving himself a concussion—Ginny pointed out he couldn't damage his head worse than it already was.
"You know, I used to like Defense Against the Dark Arts," Ron muttered, his forehead resting on a page depicting a wizard having the Cruciatus Curse used on him. "I was never as good as Harry, but as least I was passing. Now I have no chance."
"If you keep talking like that, you won't," Hermione said, finishing the same report Ron was having so much trouble with. "Maybe if you listened in class instead of sleeping for a change..."
Ron lifted his head. "It's not my fault! We were on the pitch until eleven last night."
"Well, then you should learn how to manage your time a little better," Hermione replied loftily, stuffing her books into her schoolbag.
"We've got a match against Slytherin this week, though. We can't lose this game—"
"Didn't they have this argument yesterday?" Ginny asked Harry quietly.
He nodded. "They're running out of things to argue about..."
Ginny laughed quietly and looked at the portrait hole as it opened. Neville stumbled through and sat alone on a sofa, not looking around at his fellow students once. Everyone in the school knew of what had happened to his parents over the summer, but no one really knew what to say to him when he looked like that. Harry had tried a few times, and he was pretty sure Neville had ignored him every time.
It wasn't fair that Neville's parents had met the fate they had. Harry knew what happened to the Longbottoms fifteen years ago, and that there wasn't any hope of them recovering, but Sirius always said there were medical breakthroughs every day—of course, he was usually talking about Remus' Lycanthropy, but both conditions were supposed to be incurable, so why couldn't there have been a chance that Neville's parents could have one day been all right?
"Maybe if you'd get your head out of your arse!" Hermione yelled. The entire common room was suddenly silent and looking at her.
Harry raised his eyebrows and turned slowly to Ginny. "She did not just say that," he whispered in disbelief.
Ginny couldn't answer; she was too busy trying not to laugh at the look on Ron's face. Ron was staring at Hermione in total shock, also unable to respond. Finally, Hermione realized that all the attention was on her. Without another word, she picked up her schoolbag, tossed it over her shoulder in an attempt to regain back some of her dignity, and went up to her dorm.
"What just happened?" Ron whispered weakly.
"I think Hermione's getting impatient," Ginny said, sniggering. "I'm going to go talk to her. Good night, Harry," she added, quickly kissing Harry before following Hermione's path.
"I still don't get it," Ron said, turning to Harry.
Harry shook his head. "You're on your own for this one, mate. Come on, we should get to bed. It's nearly midnight."
Emmeline wandered into the living room just past two a.m. after finding Remus wasn't lying beside her. She found him sitting on the sofa, an open book on the coffee table in front of him, staring into the fireplace. "Do you plan on coming to bed anytime soon?"
"Just waiting for Sirius go get back," he said tonelessly.
She sighed and sat beside him. "Have you tried contacting him?"
He nodded. "He left the two-way mirror for Harry and he stopped carrying his wand around weeks ago."
"Hmm," she said thoughtfully. "What about the Order map?" By the look on his face, using the map he and Sirius developed hadn't even crossed his mind. He stood and started to make his way into their bedroom where they kept the map, but stopped in his tracks when the fireplace filled with emerald flames, and Sirius stepped out. "I'll just go to bed, then," Emmeline said, squeezing Remus' hand as she passed him in the hall.
The two friends stared at one another. "Hey," Remus finally said.
"Hey."
"So where've you been?"
Sirius shrugged. "Out," he answered, obviously not wanting to expand. "Why're you still up?"
"Waiting for you," Remus said flatly. "But you're back, and in one piece, so I'll get to bed. Good night, Sirius." He started down the hall again, but stopped when Sirius called him back.
"Hold on a second," he said quietly. Remus turned and raised his eyebrows questioningly. "Look, I've been thinking—" Remus resisted using his usual jokes about Sirius and thinking. "I'm sorry I acted like I did. You're free to do as you please, and to be honest, I'm glad you're still willing to do something like this after what happened to you—I don't think I'd be able to do that. So have a good trip and I'll see you in three days."
Remus smiled slightly. "Thank you, Padfoot. I don't leave until tomorrow, but I will be careful, I promise."
Sirius nodded. "So you'll tell Dumbledore you're going, then?"
Remus nodded back. "Good night, Padfoot."
"Night, Moony. Oh, and give Figgy my love."
Remus laughed all the way to his bedroom.
Sirius lay awake in his bed, his arms behind his head, thinking. Instead of coming back to the cottage after leaving the Three Broomsticks, he'd gone to Naomi's flat. He'd told her what Remus was going to do in hopes she could keep the other Death Eaters busy closer to home—she said she'd do what she could, and that was enough for Sirius. For now, anyway.
He was beginning to lose patience; waiting for Healers and researchers to discover what happened to him was starting to grate his nerves. He decided he would take matters into his own hands after his little appointment at the Ministry hospital tomorrow. He'd get his magic back on his own, since no one else besides Emmeline and Remus seemed concerned about it. Naomi suggested he start out simple—making feathers float was the first spell students at Hogwarts learned, and that couldn't exhaust him too much. His only problem, as Naomi pointed out over a late night pizza, was that he was too stubborn to quit when he did start to tire out. Well, he'd just have to get un-stubborn—maybe Emmeline could help him while Remus was gone, or he could go to his old flat where all his Hogwarts books were, and have Naomi come over to help him. Either way, he would be doing this, and he would succeed, no matter how long it took.
He needed to get back to the Ministry and to his Aurors. According to Tonks, Scrimgeour was trying to weed his way in as Dawlish's second-in-command, and he needed to be knocked down a few pegs—who better to do it than Sirius?
As far as he could tell, Dawlish was no closer to catching any Death Eaters when he'd started, and was further from it than Sirius ever was. His temporary replacement had the Aurors doing paperwork instead of following leads. The only people sent out on actual missions were the highest ranked Aurors. Those who'd only been in the Ministry for a year or two were stuck back at Headquarters pushing parchment and reviewing files they'd been over a thousand times. Soon it'd be time for training and deciding who would receive promotions. If Dawlish was the one seeing over it, nobody who deserved promotions would get them, and those who regularly kissed Dawlish's arse would. Maybe the Minister would allow Sirius to look over the reviews and training exercises to make sure things went the way they should.
Besides, Sirius was anxious to see Scrimgeour again. Every time Sirius made a surprise visit into Auror Headquarters, the other wizard was conveniently absent. Sirius was pleased to think Scrimgeour was avoiding him—he had good reason to do so.
Yawning widely and scratching his bare chest, Sirius turned to his alarm clock and groaned. It was going on five a.m. and he had to be at the Ministry at nine for tests with the Healers. They suggested he get all the rest possible the night before; the tests would be draining on his mind and body, since they didn't know how much of his powers had returned, if any. He turned on his side facing a picture of Remus, Harry and himself from a few Christmases ago, and closed his eyes. Sleep caught up with him minutes later.