Disclaimer: still not mine even though I asked very nicely.
Chapter two: Mystery
'Well that was an odd start to a summer vacation.' Dumbledore thought to himself. 'And it isn't over yet.' He thought wryly as he heard the knock on his door and Professor McGonagall entered.
"Well?" She asked.
"Tired, but otherwise I'm fine." He replied, wilfully misunderstanding her. As her eyes narrowed he felt a little guilty and he held his hand up to forestall her. "Black had gone by the time the Aurors arrived. Harry was there, they took him back to the Ministry and questioned him for hours until I managed to persuade them to let him go. I've put him in one of the visitors' suites for the night." An understatement, it had taken a lot of fast-talking on his part to get the lad released. He had had to point out several times to Fudge that as far as anyone was aware Harry had neither done nor come to any harm.
McGonagall sat down rather heavily. "How is he?"
"He seems …" Dumbledore paused for a moment "well." He said in a mildly surprised tone. There wasn't much that surprised him these days. He had noticed in the past that people seemed reassured by his knowledge and had, over the years, become practiced at hiding his surprise on the rare occasions that he felt it. "Harry appears to have been fond of Black and certainly exhibits all the characteristics of a child brought up in a loving home."
"Brought up how?"
"Well that's the question isn't it?" The two sat in thoughtful silence for a while. "It almost seems like … but that seems too unlikely. Doesn't it? I wonder..."
"Well thank you! That was definitely worth saying, it all makes so much more sense now!" McGonagall responded tartly.
Dumbledore smiled slightly. "My apologies Minerva. I am tired and was merely thinking aloud." She merely sniffed in response. "We should perhaps leave speculations to another day. I have a feeling that answers will neither be quick nor obvious." He continued firmly. "Tomorrow we must find somewhere for Harry to stay for the rest of the vacation." For some reason he was feeling immeasurably reassured by their conversation. The last nine years had been hard on both of them. Minerva's anger with him (while both justified and but a small fraction of his own anger with himself) had made his life difficult. She was someone who, in a strange way, he considered his closest friend and for the last nine years their conversations had been solely about the school. Those nine years had taken their toll on him, he felt old, as he never had before. But now, finding Harry alive and apparently well had started to give him new hope and Minerva's reaction that evening had helped no end.
Harry woke the next morning confused about where he was. Then he remembered. The previous evening he had tried to be so brave about Padfoot leaving him, about his life being turned upside down again. But the men just kept on. He kept telling them but they just kept on going. He was feeling so unhappy anyway that it all became just too much and once he started crying he couldn't stop. He had thought he had cried himself out but, that morning, as he thought about Padfoot again he couldn't help crying once more.
"Stop!" He told himself firmly. "Stop right now. Be brave. Be a Gryffindor. Make Padfoot proud." He took long deep breaths while he tried to pull himself together. "I'm at Hogwarts. I'm safe. I will see Padfoot again. I will!" He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head firmly to get rid of the final tears. Then he opened his eyes and looked straight ahead. "I will!" Having put his tears behind him forever (well for the moment anyway) he got out of the bed and made his way into the bathroom to take a shower.
An hour later, washed and dressed and with a breakfast inside him, he found himself sitting in Professor Dumbledore's office opposite the headmaster and a tall thin woman with black hair and glasses who was introduced as Professor McGonagall. She was looking at him quite intensively, as if, by staring, she could see inside him. He felt rather nervous about her scrutiny and so tried to concentrate on looking at Professor Dumbledore.
"Well now Harry, I know this must be difficult for you, especially after yesterday, but we'd like to ask you a few questions." Harry gulped and nodded his head concentrating on the kindness in Dumbledore's eyes, a kindness that had been absent in the wizards who had questioned him so thoroughly the previous day. "Perhaps we could start with you telling us what you know about yourself?" Dumbledore suggested.
"OK. Um, well I am going to be eleven next week. My Mum and Dad, they were killed by an evil wizard when I was a baby but the wizard couldn't kill me and no-one knows why. I grew up with my Godfather but he is on the run now as people think he is bad but he's not 'cos he told me he'd rather have died himself than let my Mum and Dad be hurt. I'm going to start Hogwarts in September." Harry was looking at Professor Dumbledore as he said this and noticed that Dumbledore smiled slightly at the last sentence. He started to panic – what if he wasn't allowed to go? He continued in a rush "And I have a bag of money in my trunk to buy my wand and school supplies and I won't be a burden I just need somewhere to stay until then and I can pay some rent or something and I'm generally good and won't be much trouble even though Padfoot says his hairs are starting to go grey because of the jokes I've played on him but I don't think he means it 'cos he always smiles at me when he says it and I'll be good, please sir I'll be good, I just want to be able to come to school and ..."
Dumbledore held up his hand to stop the flow of words "I'm sure you will be good and of course you are coming to school in September Harry." He said calmly. "Now, if you don't mind I'd like to ask you a bit about Sirius, your Godfather. Now, you say that people think he's bad." Harry nodded. "But he isn't."
"No sir, he's wonderful."
"Do you know why people think he's bad?"
"Yes sir, they think he betrayed my Mum and Dad, but he didn't."
"Are you sure he didn't?"
Harry frowned slightly. "Yes of course, he'd never do anything like that. He loved my Mum and Dad." He said firmly.
"Do you know why people think he betrayed them?"
"Because they think he was their secret keeper but he wasn't, they switched and it was Pettigrew."
"How do you know that?" Professor McGonagall interrupted.
"Because Sirius told me." Harry said simply.
The two professors looked at one another for a moment before turning back to Harry. "Have a lemon sherbet." Professor Dumbledore offered him.
As Harry and Dumbledore sucked on their lemon sherbets (McGonagall had refused with a sniff) the two professors returned to their questioning. This time starting with how Harry had grown up, where he had lived, what he had done, what Sirius had taught him. McGonagall's eyebrows were raised at a few points (such as when Harry told them that Sirius had rescued him from the Dursley's because they locked him in a cupboard at nights) but both of them kept calm and relaxed through the morning, which helped Harry keep relaxed too.
It was about an hour later when they came back to the topic of Harry's parent's death. Harry remained insistent that it was Pettigrew not Sirius who had betrayed them. "You see Harry," Dumbledore said, "it is hard for people to believe Sirius is innocent because of his actions when Peter Pettigrew confronted him. Do you see the difficulty?"
"Yes." Said Harry simply. "I know, Sirius told me that Pettigrew framed him cleverly before he changed."
"Changed?"
"Into his Animagus form." Said Harry, as if it was obvious.
"Pettigrew wasn't an Animagus." Said Professor McGonagall.
"Yes he is. He's a rat." Harry paused, the professors were sat before him open-mouthed. "That's what Sirius is doing now." Harry continued before either of them could speak. "Looking for him. Sirius told me that nobody would believe him until he found him. I think rats are probably very difficult to find." He finished sadly. "There are so many of them and they're so small."
"Are you saying Pettigrew is still alive?" McGonagall asked intently.
"Of course." Said Harry. "He cut off his finger and ran away. Sirius told me."
"An interesting conversation." Dumbledore was the first to speak after Harry had been sent off with one of the house elves to get some lunch. "There's no proof of course."
"It's impossible." McGonagall replied. "Completely impossible. Pettigrew just wasn't capable of that kind of magic, not capable at all. It takes years, years of study. Years. And talent, far more talent than Pettigrew ever had."
"It's plausible, if Pettigrew had had substantial help."
"Help?" She queried, and then it occurred to her. "You mean Potter and Black."
"Yes, I think there are some interesting holes in young Harry's account. Holes that might be explained if he was protecting his Godfather, protecting him from anyone knowing that he was an illegal Animagus. And of course if he was, it is probably the disguise he is currently using."
"They were two of the brightest students ever had in my class. They had the ability but …" She trailed off. "Of course, there is one person who would know if Pettigrew – if they all …"
"Indeed there is. I think we should have a word with Mr Lupin. He will, at least, be delighted to know that Harry is alright."
"And in the meantime, what are we going to do with young Mr Potter for the summer?"
"That, at least, I think I have an answer for." Dumbledore smiled. "Yes, I think that will do very nicely."