Even after three-and-a-half months of getting up at the crack of dawn, Regulus still had trouble with early hours. On the other hand, Sirius had become a morning person sometime in the last thirteen years. So it was a surprise to wake up while Sirius was still sleeping. He checked his watch: Five-thirty. No wonder it had seemed so dark.
Crookshanks yowled from behind him.
"Oh, you got me up," he mumbled, sitting up. He lifted the huge cat onto his lap and petted him. Crookshanks purred.
Ten minutes later, Sirius rolled over. Crookshanks looked over at the movement, his ears pricked forward and his bottlebrush tail twitching. Reasoning that the cat had come to see Sirius anyway, Regulus released him. Besides, it was only what Sirius would have done to him.
Crookshanks pounced, landing squarely on Sirius's chest. The man woke up and sat up with a start, and the cat tumbled into his lap, mewing indignantly. Sirius looked down at the animal and back up at Regulus. "I suppose this is your idea of a joke?" he demanded.
"No, but it's yours."
Sirius looked from the cat to his brother for a moment, as if trying to unravel the riddle. Then he chuckled. "Touché. I did do it to you, didn't I?" He scratched the cat behind the ears as if he were a dog. Crookshanks fluffed his tail but tolerated it. "What brings you here, buddy?"
"Maybe he just likes our company," Regulus suggested.
Sirius rolled his eyes. "I'll bet you they got the Fat Lady replaced, eh?" he asked the cat. Crookshanks purred. "Well, any closer to getting Peter?"
The cat did not reply.
"I'll take that as a 'no.'" Sirius shook his head and looked over at his brother. "How long d'you reckon it'll take to get to him?"
Regulus shrugged. "All eternity, for all I know. I never really knew Pettigrew."
"Lucky you," Sirius answered darkly.
After awhile, Crookshanks apparently decided that was enough and disappeared back into the woods. Regulus checked his watch again— now it was six, the time Sirius usually woke him up. "Well," Regulus said cautiously, "I'm going to get down to Hogsmeade and see if I can't snag a few copies of the Daily Prophet."
"I thought you said you weren't going into Hogsmeade," Sirius pointed out.
"No, I said I wasn't going into Hogsmeade for a loaf of bread. That requires human form, and there's just enough of a family resemblance I'm not going to risk it. But we haven't had any outside source of information in three months. Well . . . unless you count the cat, and even then, that's only information on Hogwarts grounds."
"You're right. I'm going too."
Regulus sighed. He'd known this would happen, although it hadn't stopped him from hoping it wouldn't. "Sirius. . . ."
"Look, Reggie, you're the one being stupid now. You and Remus and Peter are the only three people that know I'm an Animagus."
"I suppose."
"And it's not likely that we're going to run into Remus or Peter," Sirius added, as if to be sure his brother couldn't use them in an argument.
"True," Regulus muttered reluctantly.
"And if we do run into Peter, I'm going to kill him, so it isn't as if he could testify against me in front of the Wizengamot anyway."
"Sirius, we talked about that."
"And I've changed my mind. Peter dies."
Regulus sighed and shook his head. It was useless right now— he'd have to take it up with Sirius when the man was feeling more sensible, which might not be for some time yet. He just hoped he got to it before Sirius got to Pettigrew. "Fine," he mumbled. "We both go to Hogsmede."
Regulus, who was usually the family pessimist, felt he should have known that the day he decided to go to Hogsmeade would be a Hogsmeade weekend for the Hogwarts students— even though it had been so long since they'd gotten outside news that he'd forgotten it was a Saturday.
Still, they were in the form of dog and fox, and as Sirius wandered through the crowds with his tail wagging absently, the worst attention he got was an older wizard shooing him off, muttering about rabies, and a few students stopping to scratch his pointed ears. On these occasions Regulus, who was not only a fox but the wrong color for an English one, slunk into the shadows, and the kids seemed to think he was only a smaller, shier dog. As such they made slow progress, but with Sirius's size he was probably more noticeable slinking than he was wagging his tail vaguely.
The village itself hadn't changed much— they passed the same shops and the same two pubs as Sirius rooted through garbage cans. Regulus would normally have leapt into them to take a look, but he was up to his belly in snow and didn't have the traction for the leap. The only truly obvious difference was the parchment that seemed to be tagged to most business doors.
Once Sirius had as many papers as would fit in his mouth, the two turned back. Regulus squinted at the signs as they walked, but the snow, which had been falling gently all day, was picking up so it was almost a storm. He figured if they were omnipresent, the papers were probably important as well, so he scrambled atop a low-lying window ledge and leapt at the nearest door, grabbing the parchment in his jaws.
Sirius watched him with one brow raised, a rather human expression that looked comical on the dog. Sincerely hoping no one was watching, Regulus raised one of his own in reply.
The big black dog shook his head and the two made their way back into the forest, stopping one more time to allow a pair of giggling Gryffindor girls to pat Sirius's head and try to coax Regulus out of the alley he'd ducked into.
"So what was that all about?" Sirius asked as they returned to human form. "That note on all the doors?"
Regulus took the missive out of his mouth and scanned it. "That's the one and only trip we're taking into Hogsmeade," he announced.
"Why?"
"Because they're sending dementors in there after dark, and I don't care if I have to stun you, we're not risking it," Regulus answered.
Sirius shuddered, and not just from the cold. "Trust me, Reggie, you won't have to stun me."
"I thought I might not. Anything good in the papers?"
"No one thinks they've seen me around here since Halloween, I guess you could call that good," Sirius answered. "Rita Skeeter's written a Ministry-bashing article about how they've yet to catch me." He grinned, clearly self-satisfied.
"Anything else?"
"The Eagles beat the Tornados in the National final," Sirius replied absently, flipping through the sports section.
"Other than Quidditch scores and you?"
"Honestly, Reggie, this close to Christmas it's mostly fluff and Holiday sales ads," Sirius pointed out. "And Quidditch finals. You can look at the other one if you want."
Regulus picked up the second of the two papers, but the only article of interest just showed that Rita Skeeter seemed fond of bashing the Ministry of Magic. He glanced back up at the canopy, where the tree branches were heavily laden with snow. "You know, winter's really starting to get a bit harsh even this deep in the Forest," he said conversationally.
Sirius looked up from the sports section. "Yeah, I've been thinking about that."
"Ye Gads, the mad thinks!"
"Reggie, shut up! I know of a place that nobody would think to look for us— the Whomping Willow's planted over it. Remus used to use it full moons, but I've kept an eye on the passage entrance and I've never seen him, so apparently he's using something else now—"
"Probably Wolfsbane," Regulus murmured.
"Wha'?" Sirius asked absently, startled at the interruption.
"Lupin's probably been using Wolfsbane instead of a hideout," Regulus repeated.
"I heard you the first time, Reggie," said Sirius, rolling his eyes. "Let me rephrase: What is Wolfsbane? And why don't I know about it?"
"You shouldn't; it was only invented in the last year or so— it was big news last spring. It's a potion designed to make werewolves safe. . . . Well, as I understand it, they keep their human minds, so it would make Lupin safe. I'd hazard a guess it would make someone like Grayback that much more dangerous."
"No kidding," Sirius mumbled, running his fingers distractedly through his hair. "Anyway, if Remus isn't using the place, we can, and that'll get us out of the snow."
"The Whomping Willow's planted over it?"
"I believe that's what I said, Reggie."
It was Regulus's turn to roll his eyes. "I don't suppose asking you how you intend to get past the flailing branches would do me any good?" he asked dryly.
"There's this knot . . . you know, this's easier to demonstrate than explain, and everyone's at Hogsmeade or at least inside right now, so let's go." Sirius folded the paper and stood up.
"Sometimes I wonder if you haven't gone insane. . . ." Regulus mumbled, following him.
It took Sirius some coaxing to get his brother under the Whomping Willow, even after he'd dodged the branches and gotten to the knot that froze it. By the time Regulus actually came forward, Sirius had to press the knot again so he didn't get pounded. Once they'd found the passage— which wasn't as easy as it should have been; the entrance was covered in snow the tree had shaken off— however, both of them got out of sight of the branches happily. They emerged in a hallway, sneezing from the dust their appearance had stirred up.
"Wait a second; is this the Shrieking Shack?" Regulus demanded.
"Well, yeah. . . ." Sirius answered. He was absently drawing designs in the quarter inch-thick layer of dust coating a table.
"Lupin used to come up here? Didn't the ghosts mind?"
Sirius looked up with a grin. "There were never any ghosts, Reggie, just Remus breaking things and howling. And James or I knocking him against the wall to keep him from getting out of control," he added as an afterthought.
"Well, that means nothing's been in here for fifteen years," Regulus observed. "We've got a bit of cleaning up to do, haven't we?"
The next few weeks passed in relative peace. What time they didn't spend hunting— it was getting harder to find game since most of the rabbits had gone into hibernation, so they were going out more and more often— they spent cleaning fifteen years of dust out of three or four of the rooms and arguing over how much dust needed to be cleaned out before it actually became inhabitable.
Crookshanks was introduced to the Shrieking Shack, and spent most of his first visit further shredding some already tattered bed curtains. Sirius sent him out with an order to send to Diagon Alley, since Regulus had failed completely to convince him that sending his godson a broomstick anonymously was only going to arouse suspicion, and that Sirius and Harry would have plenty of time to get to know each other after his name was cleared.
"Reggie, this place is clean enough," Sirius told him as he walked into a bedroom that Regulus was scouring again.
"No, it is not," Regulus answered. "You only think it is because you're a self-confessed slob who won't even let me cut your hair again."
"I don't look that bad," Sirius answered, watching his brother blow cobwebs off the ceiling with his wand.
"Comparatively, no, you don't," Regulus admitted. He stopped syphoning off the cobwebs and turned to his brother. "Hard to believe we've put up with each other for almost four months, isn't it? August eighth to December twenty-fourth."
"Christmas Eve already?" Sirius asked, leaning against the doorframe. "Did you bring that up for a reason?"
"Not really, although it would be nice if you did me one favor for the holidays," Regulus answered.
"What's that?"
"Let me sleep til noon."
Sirius laughed, but he actually obliged, and Crookshanks, who had come prancing into the Shrieking Shack sometime that morning, was not allowed to pounce on him until nearly one in the afternoon.
Regulus groaned and set the attacking cat on the floor, where he leapt straight back onto the bed. "You know, you used to sleep later than me, Sirius. What happened?"
Sirius shrugged. "In Azkaban, the nightmares come no matter what you do. When you're awake, on the other hand, thinking about them is optional."
"Oh." An awkward silence descended for a few minutes, until Crookshanks broke it by violently demanding Regulus's attention.
Sirius grinned at the mewing cat. "You know, one of us needs to go catch Christmas dinner," he remarked, perfectly cheerful. While Regulus felt awkward from the previous exchange, Sirius was clearly not too troubled by it.
"Let's both go. Then we might actually get something."
"Fair enough." Sirius picked up the cat. "You can go back up to Hogwarts and go rat-hunting," he told Crookshanks, who seemed to smirk as he leapt out of Sirius's arms and wandered out.
Author's Note: Hey all! There's not much to say about this chapter (or about the reviews from the last one). So, thank you everyone who's reviewed, and welcome aboard to snape'smistress-in-law and hornhead. Cheers! -- Loki