Sir Cadogan had apparently gotten into Gryffindor House's spirit of celebration, because he was busy enjoying a bottle of mead with his fat pony when Sirius padded into the corridor and switched from dog form to human form. The movement caught the pony's eye and he whinnied in alarm.

Sir Cadogan looked up. "What?" he demanded hazily, as if half-afraid Sirius was an apparition.

"I need to get in," Sirius told him.

The little knight shook his head, the metal helmet clanging against the raised shoulder guards, and drew his sword. He waved it wildly and for a few dangerous seconds of each swing, it looked as if he might overbalance. "A likely tale! I shall call for a teacher or some other auth—"

Sirius rolled his eyes. Same mad little knight. "I've got passwords."

Sir Cadogan lifted his visor, the better to gape at Sirius. "You— you do?" he asked faintly.

Sirius waved the paper in front of him and unfolded it. "Yes, I do."

"Well, why didn't you say so?" the knight demanded, shoving his sword back into his scabbard before he lost it. "Let us have them!"

"Not so loud." Sirius answered. "Now let's see if I can guess the right one. Oddsbodkins?"

"Indeed not!"

"All right, then. . . ." Sirius squinted at the paper, but making out the handwriting in the dark was difficult. King. . . Kingston am?" he asked.

Sir Cadogan's hand landed once again on his sword hilt. "That was never a password, you scurvy—"

"Take it easy. I think you're scaring your mount," Sirius told him. He could see the whites of the pony's eyes and the animal had backed away from his master so far that only his head was still in the portrait, and his rear was in a picture of a now disgruntled family of cats.

The knight turned around to see his pony and held out a gauntleted hand. The pony only backed further into the next portrait and the mother cat yowled irritably. "Perhaps I am. Or perhaps it's you!"

"It's you. I don't have a sword. And this kid has horrid handwriting. King's Ransom, maybe?"

"No, the password has already changed! If that is all you have, I shall now get the local lor—"

"I have a list," Sirius repeated, just starting to get irritated. "That generally means more than two. I'll tell you when I'm out of passwords, and then you can go get the headmaster." While I run out of the castle as fast as four legs can carry me, he added silently.

Sir Cadogan agreed to this reluctantly and let Sirius read off his passwords, only shaking his head for the next four or five words as Sirius read them off. Finally, "Yellow dog" hit the jackpot, and the portrait swung open.

Sirius shook his head and climbed in, too close to getting at Peter to truly be irritated.

Before he could guess at the appropriate boy's dormitory, he caught sight of a pair of shining eyes glowering at him from an armchair by the fire. He tensed, wondering if he ought to flee, but then Crookshanks leapt off the seat and into the dying light of the fire.

"Did you know I was coming or something?" Sirius asked softly, leaning down to stroke Crookshanks's head. The cat didn't reply, only twitched his bottlebrush tail. "So, where's Peter?"

Crookshanks shook Sirius's hand off and obligingly led him up the spiral steps of a tower and into the a boy's dormitory. There were five beds in it, the boys within them apparently fast asleep. Sirius looked down at the cat. "Well?" he whispered.

Crookshanks sprang atop one of the trunks, which Sirius took as an indicator of which bed Peter was in. He drew his knife and pulled back the curtains with such ferocity that they ripped. He glanced at them for a moment, but then he shrugged and turned back to the bed itself. There was Harry's redheaded friend beneath the sheets, but he didn't see any sign of Peter.

While he looked around for a corner that Peter may have wedged himself in, the boy stirred, rolled over, and eventually opened his eyes blearily. "Hunh?" he mumbled.

Sirius tensed, hoping that the kid wasn't awake enough to really see anything and would just close his eyes and roll over again.

He wasn't lucky. The boy's eyes widened in recognition and he yelled. Sirius bit back a string of curses and left as quickly as he could. Crookshanks leapt off the trunk and followed him back into the common room. Sirius made his way to the portrait hole with the cat still on his heels. "No, you stay here," he muttered, pushing it open.

Crookshanks remained in the common room after Sirius climbed out and slammed it shut once again. Because Sir Cadogan and his rotund pony were staring after him, he waited to round the corner before turning into the big black dog again and sprinting out onto the grounds four-leggedly.

He paused, panting by the Greenhouses, to consider his options. He decided the Shrieking Shack probably wasn't the wisest choice, since if a teacher looked out the window, they might become suspicious if they saw the Whomping Willow utterly still— especially if it was Remus or Professor Sprout who happened to be doing the looking. He certainly couldn't stay here; they'd be searching the grounds again for sure. That left hiding out in the Forbidden Forest for the rest of the night. Well, he certainly knew every inch of that terrain, and once he caught his breath he set off for it once again.

It was two o'clock in the afternoon before Sirius reentered the tunnel to the Shrieking Shack. In his hurry to get back and explain that for once he wasn't late due to idiocy, he bowled over a familiar-looking grey fox. Sirius lowered his head as the fox sprang back up and nodded to him, and both canines returned to the old house.

Once there, both transformed to talk. Before Sirius could say anything, Regulus started on him. "What took you so long? I was worried sick and just going out to look for you!"

"I got caught," Sirius mumbled. "Someone in the boy's dormitory woke up and saw me, so I had to get out of there quickly, and I didn't figure coming back here was wise if I had someone on my tail."

Regulus opened his mouth as if to argue, then quickly closed it. "You're right," he said softly. "This time it wasn't your fault."

"This time?"

"Well, last time you attacked a portrait and yes, that was your fault," Regulus pointed out. He slumped into the nearest chair. "But never mind that. This means doubling the already doubled security." He shook his head. "If I didn't know you'd kill me for suggesting giving up, I'd point out that southern France really is quite nice this time of year."

"I'm not just running away!" Sirius snapped.

"Regardless of whether or not it comes down to a choice between your pride and your soul?" Regulus demanded, rubbing his temples. "You're the only brother I've got, Sirius. I'm not letting you get yourself worse than killed, even if I have to stun you and Apparate us both to France to do it!"

"You won't. Reggie, I promise," Sirius bit his lip, sat down in the desk chair, and pulled both the old Daily Prophet photo and his list of passwords out of his pockets. "I realize I've broken a lot of promises, and maybe it isn't the easiest thing to believe me on, but. . . ." He hesitated. "This is more than just revenge. Remus and Harry both deserve the truth, Reggie."

"I know." Regulus shook his head. "I can't honestly say I completely understand, but I know. It's why I haven't already stunned you and Apparated us both to the south of France for your own good."

"I thought that was because you wanted my name cleared," Sirius remarked, absently balling up the list of passwords.

"Well, that, too. But mostly because I knew you wouldn't have escaped and then come barreling straight into danger unless you had some desperate reason not just to get away but to clear your name, too."

"Good. Now what do we do?"

"Watch. Wait. What we've been doing since we got here and will be doing until Pettigrew is in Azkaban instead of you."

Sirius scowled. "I'm still not sure he's going to live that long," he growled.

"He's got to live long enough to tell Dumbledore the truth, and I doubt the headmaster is going to let you commit murder in front of him," Regulus muttered, barely loud enough for Sirius to hear. But he seemed to give up. Perhaps this was, again, something he knew, even if he didn't understand.

Neither of them had thought of anything to do or summoned the energy to move by the time Crookshanks reappeared in the Shrieking Shack, again carrying something in his mouth. He leapt onto the desk Sirius was seated beside and dropped the objects on his lap.

Sirius, who had nearly fallen asleep, looked up in alarm. "What?"

Regulus looked up. "The cat's back, and he's got something for you," he announced absently, getting to his feet. "What is it?"

"Looks like a piece of a sheet," Sirius answered, picking it up. "And some of his own hairs, unless he's shedding really badly."

Regulus reached over and stroked Crookshanks along the spine. "His skin seems healthy enough to me, so I'd say he was carrying those hairs with him. The question is why." He shook his head. "I hate these guessing games."

"There's blood on the sheet," Sirius remarked absently.

"Well, then it's something to do with violence. And since it's all the cat ever comes to us with information for, it's got to have something to do with Pettigrew. . . ." Regulus shrugged and continued stroking Crookshanks, who had closed his eyes lazily.

"Peter . . . blood . . . cat hairs. . . ." Sirius muttered. For several minutes he sat staring at the sheet and repeating himself. Then he got it. "Peter faked his death."

"Again?"

"Why not? It worked once. And from what I heard from the redhead with the rat, Crookshanks has been pouncing at Peter all year, so it just makes logical sense to frame the cat. . . ." He shook his head. "Damn."

"Well, he can't have gone far," Regulus informed him. "Peter had to have disappeared in the last few days, because Crookshanks would have brought that news to us as quickly as possible."

"Not that it does us a lot of good," Sirius pointed out gloomily. "After all, we don't know where he is anymore."

"We know where he isn't. Where's Pettigrew likely to hide?" Regulus asked. "And how long is he going to stay there?"

"Well, Peter's not going to want to move around much once he's comfortable," Sirius admitted, "and we all knew the Forbidden Forest pretty well, but if he hid there we could look forever and still never find him. I can't really think of any other easily accessible places."

"I don't see what other choice we have but to scour the Forest anyway," Regulus pointed out. "Unless, of course—"

"The remainder of that sentence better not have the phrase 'south of France' anywhere in it," Sirius interrupted warningly.

"All right, all right, we start scouring the Forbidden Forest," Regulus consented. "Later. Right now I'm going hunting and you're going to bed."

Author's Note: Hard to believe I've been posting this over two months, isn't it? I really, honestly, and truly meant to update this yesterday. Then I had a fight with my connection, followed by a fight with the site's servor before giving up in disgust. Anyway, thanks everyone for the reviews, and I'm glad no one was annoyed by Remus's angst. Jackline: It seems like there's a wall because there is. is pleased someone noticed. It's mostly Sirius's making, and since Regulus is a bit more aloof by nature he's not going to push it until it absolutely needs to be broken down. Cheers! -- Loki