A/N: It might be Friday 13th for some of you. Chapter thirteen on Friday the Thirteenth. I feel lucky!

Lost: One godson, Answers to Harry

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He's older than I expected, Frank thought. He had taken the wobbly handwriting on the letter to mean that the boy who had signed his name at the bottom – the elusive Harry who was now standing before Frank – was a small child, perhaps seven or eight years old, though the accurate spelling of 'impenetrable' had suggested otherwise. But the boy looked almost ten, or perhaps eleven. And Frank had never seen such a sickly child, even in the distant memories of a war in his own youth. The boy was pale as milk, highlighting the small spots of early pubescent acne on his nose, his whiteness enhanced by the mess of black hair framing his face. And what a face – the poor boy had scars right down his cheek and across his forehead, terrible scars that made Frank think of soldiers and battles. The boy's arms were thin as twigs, his lips chapped and peeling, and he ran in a shambling fashion, as if he was never sure which direction his feet were going to go in.

Part of Frank wanted to believe that the boy standing before him was only an apparition, an illusion that would vanish with the noonday sun. Part of him hoped that the boy really was nothing more than Pettigrew's ill nephew, locked up for his own protection and prone to bouts of hysteria that might have prompted him to write a distress letter in what Frank had quickly recognised as dried blood.

But the likelihood of that was growing slimmer. And, much as he reviled at the thought of being caught up in other people's debauched affairs, standing aside and letting those affairs carry on under his own nose was simply not something Frank would stand for.

So instead, he extended his hand, as brown and calloused as wood, and greeted the boy. "Hello lad. I'm Frank. And you must be Harry," he was suddenly aware of the caretaker watching them from the doorway of the Riddle house, so he lowered his voice in what he feared was a conspiratorial manner and added, "I got your messages, lad, don't you worry."

The boy took Frank's hand in his own pale, sweaty one and shook it.

"Thank you," he replied. "I was beginning to think I'd never get anywhere."

He winced a little as his hand pulled away, and Frank asked quickly, "You've got a bad hand there, have you?"

The boy – Harry, Frank corrected himself – nodded, pushing his glasses up his nose. His eyes, Frank noticed, were deep green, the only colour in his face that didn't look weak and washed-out. He held the hand close to his chest. "It's just a cut. It's from ages ago."

"Well, let's have a look," Frank barked. Harry pulled away for a moment, then, chewing on his lip, he held out his hand. Frank gave a disapproving huff as he took a hold of Harry's wrist to bring him close enough to inspect the cut. It was an old wound, that was certain, but the boy had clearly been picking at it, and the skin around it was red and inflamed. It wasn't badly infected, but it wasn't going to heal anytime soon, either. Frank gave it a gentle prod and received a hiss of pain from Harry. He shook his head at the boy. "This is a pretty ragged cut, lad. You should take better care of yourself. Come on, let's give it a proper wash and bandage it up."

Frank took the boy's hand and made to lead him towards his small cottage on the edge of the estate, but the Harry resisted, glancing nervously back at the Riddle house. "I think I'd better stay in Wormtail's sight," he explained. "Don't want to make him suspicious," his expression seemed to be pleading for Frank to understand.

Frank shrugged. "Fair enough. I'll be back in a moment."

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Frank returned with a bowl of warm water, a crusty old bottle of antiseptic and a faded box of muggle sticking-plasters. He sat Harry down to clean and bandage the ugly cut on his palm. Every few minutes Harry looked back at the Riddle house, and wriggled impatiently as Frank tediously dabbed antiseptic into the cut, which had opened up as the boy flexed his hand.

Harry's agitation was making Frank more uneasy than ever, but he decided he was not going to let anything faze him today. As the boy squinted once more at the open front door of the Riddle house, Frank grumbled, "You can't possibly think he'd be able to hear us talking over this distance, do you?" They were at least fifty metres from the house.

"He has ways," Harry replied, turning unblinking green eyes on Frank. "We should keep our voices down. Ouch!"

Frank put down the stinging antiseptic and began opening sticking plasters. "Now then," he said. "You're going to tell me what possessed you to write me that letter in your own blood, lad, and why you've been hidden up in that house since then. Are you mad, or something? They turning that place into some kind of asylum?"

Harry shook his head. "No. At least, I hope I'm not mad," he said quietly. "I just want to go home. I'm a prisoner. This is the first time I've been allowed to leave the house…I managed to leave you that message in the dirt when I broke out, once. You will help me, won't you?" he asked, suddenly anxious. "You don't really think I'm mad?"

Frank chewed his tongue for a moment before answering. It was not disbelief at the boy's sanity, but merely caution. Once he gave Harry his word, he couldn't go back on it. At last he sighed, "Yeah, I'll help you. How old are you, lad?"

"Twelve," said Harry, turning his face once more to the Riddle house. "Although, I'll be thirteen at the end of July. Is that soon?"

"Only a couple of weeks away," Frank said, surprised at the boy's age. He looked younger than that. "How long have you been in that house?"

"I don't know…nearly ten months," Harry answered. Frank finished the bandaging of Harry hand and the boy inspected it tentatively. "Thank you," he smiled, looking unexpectedly cheeky. "It feels strange, saying that. I never thank Wormtail."

"Wormtail? Is that what you call Pettigrew?"

"Who?"

"The caretaker," Frank said, frowning. "His name's Pettigrew. But I like Wormtail, it suits him better."

"I didn't know," Harry said, leaning his head back to get more sun on his face. He didn't seem conscious of the terrible scars on his face at all, but perhaps that was just from being accustomed to them. "I've only heard him called Wormtail. Although Mum and Dad called him Peter, I think," his eyes suddenly hardened, and he looked much older and grimmer. "He killed them, my Mum and Dad," he looked at the old man beside him, and Frank felt a cold shiver run down his spine. Harry was twelve years old, but he seemed to be commanding Frank to listen and obey him. Harry hissed, "That's why I have to get out of here. The ones who kidnapped me are my enemies. All they care about is keeping me alive."

To avoid that compelling gaze, Frank busied himself with tipping out the bowl of water and gathering up the antiseptic and the sticking plasters. He wanted to change the subject, so he said, "In your letter, you talked about someone named Sirius. I assumed he was your father, and Moony was your mother." He did not mention that he had also imagined they must be a pair of no-good hippies, with names like that. Young people today were all too frivolous for their own good.

"My godfather," Harry sprang up and his voice gained a new eagerness. "Did you send my letter? Is Sirius coming? As soon as he knows where I am, he'll come, nothing will stop him…you did send it, didn't you?" He asked anxiously, when Frank's face remained expressionless.

Frank stood up, feeling his back creak a little, and picked up his spade. "Yeah, I sent it, lad," he answered as he wandered back to the flowerbed where he had been digging out the stump of a dead rosebush when Harry had first appeared. He left the bowl and the rest of the medical supplies where they were, thinking he could pick them up later.

"And?" Harry asked apprehensively. "Did he reply? Is he coming?"

Frank pushed his spade into the dark earth, chopping under the roots of the rosebush. Harry was standing to one side, watching him. Frank sighed and paused to get a better grip on the handle of the spade. "I don't think he got it, lad. The letter just come back yesterday, with 'return to sender' stamped on the outside."

"But," Harry shook his head as if he didn't believe Frank, "we've got a letterbox, now. The muggle postman should be able to find us…twelve Grimmauld Place. That's where you addressed it, right? You could read what I wrote, couldn't you? I couldn't write it clearly…because of my hand…"

"I didn't send it by no 'muggle' postman, whatever you mean by that, but I did send it to twelve Grimmauld Place London, like your letter said. So I don't know what went wrong," Frank grunted as he levered at the stubborn roots of the dead bush.

Harry sat down on the grass, rubbing his scars in a habitual motion, like the way some people bite their nails when they are anxious. "Why would that be?"

"I don't know, lad, but I've sent the letter out again. One of the girls at the post office was going to London for a couple of weeks and she said she'd go and find the house if I gave her the letter. Took a bit of convincing, but she did say she would," Frank knelt and began untangling the roots from the soil. "She'll be back in August, she said, so we'll know then whether or not the letter's been delivered."

"Why'd she take convincing?" Harry asked. Frank thought this was a very nosy thing to ask, which reminded him of why he didn't like children.

He answered anyway. "Oh, they don't trust me down at the village."

"Why's that?"

Frank growled. "Old grudges."

"What do you mean?"

"It means never you mind!" the old gardener snapped, shooting a warning glare at Harry. But the boy's eye only flashed mischievously.

After a moment, Harry said thoughtfully. "I'm going to find a way out of the garden. There has to be a way, and I just have to figure it out. Will you help me get what I need? Wormtail doesn't let me have anything that might be dangerous, you see. But you must go down to the village a lot?"

"Sometimes," Frank said surlily, returning to the roots of the rose bush. He finally hacked the last of the smaller roots away and parted the stump from the earth. He brushed the lumps of soil off and carried the stump to his wheelbarrow not far away.

Harry stood up as Frank returned. "I should go back," the boy explained. "In case Wormtail gets suspicious. Thank you, Frank."

He set off across the lawn in his strange shambling run, as if he was learning to use his legs all over again. He turned back once to wave, his glasses flashing in the sunlight, and Frank paused and raised his hand in reply.

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Harry spent every day in the garden, and as little time as possible in the house. He tried to keep him conversations with Frank to a minimum, as Wormtail was always watching them, though he rarely ventured near enough to eavesdrop. But it was difficult to deny himself a friendly voice to listen to. Frank was old, grumpy and easily offended, but Harry always looked forward to talking to him, and he was certain that Frank didn't mind having a small boy chattering ceaselessly to him while he limped across the carefully-cropped lawns.

Harry told Frank about his life. He told him about how he had been raised by Sirius, and how they had gone to France to rescue Moony and how he, Harry, had been such a fool and had run away to go to school. He told Frank about Ron and Hermione who had looked after him, "but they've probably forgotten all about me," he sighed. He told Frank about his hunger strike to make Wormtail give him what he wanted. He didn't tell Frank about being a werewolf – the old muggle would never believe him – nor did he talk about what Dumbledore had said about his being a Horcrux – but that was because it was something awful he simply didn't want to talk about.

Frank listened to everything Harry said, and even though he frequently complained that Harry could have talked the legs of a donkey and it was clear that Frank thought Harry had made a lot of things up, he never told Harry to go away.

The enchantments that Frank was unknowingly victim to were a puzzle for Harry. He was sure that Wormtail was telling the truth – Frank had been bewitched. But in what ways, and how could such bewitchments be overcome?

Frank was always reluctant to go down to the village, just as he was reluctant to leave it in search for help for Harry, but whether that was some spell or simple stubbornness, it was impossible to tell. Likewise his lack of enthusiasm in the matter of thwarting Wormtail and escaping the house – had he been hexed to keep him subdued, or was he simply an old man who didn't want any trouble? He was perfectly willing to help when Harry made a suggestion, such as bringing Harry notepaper from the village (which he did, along with several ball-point pens, saying he didn't care for any more bloody letters) but he wasn't willing to take risks under his own steam. The cold fact of it was that Harry simply didn't know enough about magic to differentiate between when Frank was acting under a bewitchment and when he was acting of his own accord. Harry's magical education under Sirius' teachings had been patchy at best, and a year had passed since his last lesson. Even the small theories about magic that he had learned had now been half-forgotten.

At the back of Harry's mind, he wondered if Frank might not be controlled by that strange curse that Wormtail had tried to use on Harry – the one for which the incantation was imperio. Perhaps the old man was even reporting all Harry's conversations back to Wormtail? Perhaps he was even being controlled directly by You-Know-Who himself? Harry knew that if this was the case, all the plans he and Frank had made were doomed. But that did not deter Harry in the slightest – after all, he had nothing to lose by going through with his escapist ideas. He simply had to be careful not to force Frank into any situation where a jinx might be triggered – Sirius had described how some spells would be invisible and dormant until their victim did or said something in particular, such as betraying the caster of the jinx.

Since Frank insisted upon waiting for the girl from the post-office to return – hopefully having found Sirius and delivered Harry's letter – Harry was forced in the meantime to face the latest problem of the final barrier between him and his freedom: the wall that surrounded the estate, which could not be touched by human hand.

He laboriously studied the wall, searching for some weakness which its maker had missed. Every time he went near it he plucked up the courage to touch it with one finger, testing it in case it happened to fail. He tried to poking it with branches, bits of wood, metal and plastic cutlery from the kitchen, and tried protecting his hand with his shirt and the rubber sole of his shoe. None of it made any difference to the terrible weakness that shot through him when he touched the wall, or when he touched it with some other material. It would be impossible to make a ladder of wood, or gloves that might stifle the effects. Harry had considered digging under the wall, until he heard Frank comment happily on how there had no been a single rabbit in the garden since the wall had gone up. That suggested that there was magic under the wall as well as in it.

Then one day Harry got a hold of one of Frank's garden tools, a trowel with a plastic handle. When he touched the wall he braced himself for the usual collapse onto his knees and the aches that accompanied continuously falling to the ground – and then realised he was still on his feet.

The weakness still hit him like a hammer, making his hands shake and his head droop in exhaustion. But it was not as bad as normal. It was far more tolerable than normal.

Harry stepped back and stared at the trowel. What had he done? What was different? It finally hit him – the blade of the trowel was made of stainless steel. Steel was made partly of iron. And cold iron – or so Sirius had frequently complained – was one of the few physical materials that deterred magic.

Harry had to bite his lip to keep himself from cheering. Of course! The cutlery had not protected him from the magic of the wall because it was made of silver, not steel. Silver made no difference. But if somehow they could use iron…if a small concentration of iron weakened the magic, than pure iron might negate it completely…

His excitement ebbed as the day wore on. It was all very well to make such a terrific breakthrough, but how could Harry use it? You could not make gloves out of iron. You could not climb a wall in an iron suit of armour. Perhaps you could build a ladder out of iron, but with what? Could Frank walk down to the local hardware store and request a stepladder made entirely of iron? Besides the fact that muggles didn't make such things, bringing an iron stepladder into the Riddle estate would be bound to attract the unwanted attention of Wormtail. The only iron that was already in the estate was that on the gate – and clearly, it must be fake, not real iron at all but copper or some other metal bewitched to appear different, because the gate, like the wall, was magical.

Harry mused on this problem for several days, and though several ideas came to him, there was only one that seemed even vaguely practical.

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"We're going to have to build a ladder out of cast-iron pots," Harry told Frank when he saw him that morning.

Frank gave a barking laugh and shot Harry a very patronising look.

"I'm not kidding," Harry insisted. "That's the only way I can think of to climb the wall. Nothing but iron will protect us from the spell that's on that wall, and the only place I can think to get iron is cooking pots."

Frank sighed. It was the sigh of a man who is perfectly aware of his own sharp wits but doubts the sanity of those around him. This was the one thing that frustrated Harry to no end about Frank. Frank resolutely, stubbornly, infuriatingly refused to believe in magic.

Harry avoided talking about magic whenever he could. It was, after all, illegal in the wizarding world to show their powers to non-magical folk. And Harry had been trained by Sirius to be very careful never to reveal his belief in magic. It was vital when you were a pair of wizards on the run, hiding among muggles. But sometimes Harry had to discuss magic with Frank, such as now for instance – and Frank always shook his head sadly every time Harry mentioned the word 'spell' or 'bewitchment'.

"I've got it figured out," Harry explained, ignoring Frank's disbelieving sigh and pointing at the wall. "I've been estimating the height of the wall using my own height. We need something two and half metres high. An ordinary cooking pot is ten centimetres from lip to bottom. That's only twenty-five pots. We stack them upside-down and weld them together with solder, because I'm sure you can buy that in a hardware store and you can melt that on the element of an ordinary stove. The handles of the pots will stick outwards and form the rungs of the ladder."

"Lad," said Frank patiently, "twenty-five cast iron pots will weigh more than both of us put together. We'll never be able to carry something like that. Build a ladder out of tree branches and be done with it. I'll cover for you as best I can. I promised you I'd help you escape and I'll do just that, but I won't get mixed up in silly notions…"

"Wood doesn't work, I told you, the enchantment on the wall goes straight through it," Harry said, gritting his teeth.

Frank pressed his lips together in exasperation. "This nonsense about magic is getting foolish, lad. There's no mumbo-jumbo on that wall. It's just electric wires…"

"It's not electric wires!" Harry cried, stomping his foot. He clenched his fists and took a breath to calm himself. "Please Frank. This is the only way to get out. I know it's a lot to ask – because you'll have to do the work yourself, in your house – but if you can get buy twenty-five cast-iron pots and do this for me, it will mean everything. I have to go home, Frank, I'm twelve years old and I'm just going to die if I stay here for another month…" he could feel a hard lump in his throat that meant he wanted to cry, and he forced it back down.

"Thirteen, lad," said Frank quietly. "Didn't you say your birthday was at the end of July? Well, it's the thirty-first today. You're thirteen."

A long pause followed this. "Oh," Harry said finally. He felt a little dizzy all of a sudden. "It's my birthday," he said aloud, without meaning to. He looked up with a small frown on his face, as if he wasn't really sure what to think about this new revelation.

From across the lawn came a shout. Harry and Frank both looked up to see Wormtail standing in the doorway to the Riddle house, beckoning with wide sweeps of his arms.

"What does he want?" Harry grimaced, breaking out of his reverie. "I'll be back in a few minutes, Frank."

Wormtail was hanging back in the shadow of the doorway. Harry had barely spoken five words to him since he had been allowed to leave the house, but Wormtail's grey and terrified complexion was familiar. It was the way the man always looked when he had been speaking to his master.

Harry paused on the threshold and waited silently to hear what Wormtail had to say. But the man just beckoned with his forefinger, his hand trembling and his upper lip covered in beads of sweat. Harry followed him into the house.

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"Harry…"

The room seemed to be full of fog. A face, wreathed in mist, was reaching out to him. A face lined with red hair and a soft, kindly smile…

"Mum?"

"Harry, run…go now…"

"I am!" Harry called, struggling towards her through the mist. "I am running!"

"Harry…"

And then the face in the mist was not his mother's. It was a boy, round-faced and frightened, a boy with a lightening-bolt shaped scar on his forehead identical to the one Harry's own. The boy's eyes widened, his mouth a soundless black 'o'.

"Are you Neville?" Harry shouted through the stifling mist.

With a jolt as if he had been electrocuted, he awoke. The scratchy fibre of the pillow filled his nostrils. Harry rolled over and found himself staring at the familiar blurry ceiling of his bedroom in the Riddle house. His head ached, and he sat up slowly and fumbled for his glasses on the table beside the bed. The room came into the focus. Harry looked around quickly, half expecting to see his mother or Neville standing at the end of his bed, but it was empty.

He got up and found he had fallen asleep fully-clothed. He must have dozed off for only a few minutes. It couldn't be morning already. Harry remembered he had promised Frank that he would be out in only a few minutes, but then he had gone upstairs…or had he? Now that he thought about it, he couldn't remember coming back to his room…he must have had a dizzy spell of some kind…

Harry rubbed his head and went out into the hallway. He stomach rumbled as if he hadn't eaten for hours. The brick wall across the stairwell was already open. Wormtail was starting to get careless. He's scared of his master, Harry thought, then wondered why something like that had crossed his mind.

The door was locked, as always, but Wormtail was sitting in the kitchen and he hurried to open it as soon as he saw Harry standing in the doorway. Then he cringed back into the corner and Harry brushed past the man without looking at him.

"Frank!" he called, when he saw the gardener pruning the hedges that ran across the garden. Frank turned and nodded his head at Harry as the boy approached. Harry bent and began to pick up the hedge clippings and carrying them to Frank's wheelbarrow, chattering as he went. "I'm sorry I took longer than I said. I fell asleep."

Frank grunted. "I missed you yesterday. I didn't get to wish you a happy birthday," Frank tucked the hedge clippers under his arm. "Pass me my gloves will you, lad, they're on the ground there."

"Yesterday? The thirty-first is my birthday," Harry explained, handing Frank the gloves. "You haven't missed it yet."

Frank pulled on the gloves and got to work in a deeper, pricklier part of the hedge. "Thirty-first was yesterday. I told you that."

Harry blinked, wondering if Frank was beginning to go senile. "But you only said it this morning."

"I didn't see you this morning, lad," Frank frowned, looking over his shoulder at Harry. "I saw you yesterday morning. I was going to tell you happy birthday, but then Wormtail called you away and I didn't get a chance. But I've thought about your pots idea and if you think it's the only way, then I suppose we could give it a try…"

Frank kept talking but Harry had not heard anything past 'but then Wormtail called you away'. A noise like rushing water was filling his ears so that Frank's cracked old voice was drowned out and lost. He felt his legs give way and he sat down on the grass without really noticing.

A day missing. A day missing, and he didn't remember going to bed, and Wormtail had looked terrified, as if he had just spoken to his master…

"Oh, no…He can't have…" Harry shook his head. Frank looked at him questioningly, but Harry was staring at the hedge, running his hand through his hair, his face twisted in horror. "He's been…all the days missing between the full moons…I thought…but He's been visiting…He's been visiting me…"

"Who?" Frank said, concerned at the boy's blank stare. He put down the hedge clippers and bent to touch Harry's shoulder. "What's the matter, lad?"

Harry turned to look up at Frank. "He's been obliviating my memory!" he gasped in a faint whisper. "He's been visiting me and talking to me and then making me forget… every month… sometimes more then once… that's the only explanation… Frank, he makes people tell him things! No one can lie to him," he buried his face in his hands, muffling his voice as he spoke. "I've been thinking I was so clever, getting the curtains open and escaping the house… but he must have known, he would have found out from my own mouth… and he let me do it, he didn't stop me, he let me think I had a hope of escaping…"

"Here, now that's no way to think," Frank didn't have a clue what Harry was talking about, but he recognised despair in the boy's voice. "Sure you've got hope, what about your idea to make the ladder?"

"He'll know by now," Harry groaned. "I will have told him. If only I could remember, I…" he raised his head slowly, frowning. "Neville," he said, "I do remember! He was there, speaking to me, asking me questions, but suddenly it was like…I could see Neville behind his eyes!" Harry shook his head in bewilderment. "I couldn't believe it, I said Neville's name aloud, and suddenly he stood up and pointed his wand at me… he must have been casting the memory charm… but somehow Neville had distracted him, because now I can remember…"

Frank scratched his head, at a total loss.

"Then I maybe he doesn't know!" Harry cried, excitement filling his face. "There's still chance he didn't find out!" He leapt up and grabbed Frank's arms. "There's still a chance, Frank! We have to build the ladder as soon as we can… sooner, if possible…"

Frank could only nod, still wondering what he has missed along the way.

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The curtains were open in the cavernous kitchen of the Riddle house, its corners dusty and undisturbed. Since the prisoner was no longer confined to the house, all the curtains had been opened, and watery sunlight filtered through the grimy windows.

It was the first week of August and someone was knocking on the door.

Harry was having breakfast in what he affectionately thought of as the ballroom of the Riddle house. It was a huge room with a high ceiling supported by two thick wooden pillars rising from the floor, and a pair of large oak doors set at either end. Though it had probably been built as a large study rather than as a room for dancing in, Harry called it the ballroom because there was a large painting of a dancing couple on one wall, and because he didn't realise how difficult it would be to dance with a pair of pillars in your way. He liked sitting in the ballroom because there was no furniture in here, and every noise was amplified and echoed by the room's size. This made it impossible for Wormtail to loiter in dark corners and sneak up on him.

He heard the knocking on the door and didn't realise what it was for a few moments. When he finally thought about the odd banging and decided it was someone knocking on the door, he abandoned his breakfast and dashed out of the ballroom as fast as he could. No one had ever come to knock on the door of the Riddle house for as long as he had been there – there was no one, after all, who could get as far as the door.

Wormtail was in the kitchen, asleep at the table. Harry wondered, not for the first time, if he might have been drinking. Discarding this thought for the moment, he shook Wormtail's shoulder as hard as he could. "Wake up! Wake up!"

Wormtail's head lolled but he didn't open his eyes. The knocking on the door grew more insistent. Fearing that whoever was there might soon get bored and leave, Harry cast her eyes around and saw one of the frying pans sitting unwashed in the sink. He grabbed it, raced back to Wormtail and heaved it up, meaning to hit the man as hard as he could on his black robed back.

He was just raising the frying pan above his head when Wormtail gave a snort and awoke. He raised his head, saw Harry about to bash him with a frying pan, gave a squeal of terror and fell sideways off his chair, pulling out his wand as he did so. Harry just managed to bring the frying pan between him and the wand: Wormtail's stunning spell bounced harmlessly off it, cracking a mug sitting on the windowsill.

Harry peered over the top of the frying pan. "There's someone at the door," he said, just as the knocking was renewed full strength.

"What?" Wormtail panted, still sitting on the floor with his wand waveringly pointed at Harry's face.

"Get up! There's someone at the door, and I can't open it!" Harry shouted, dropping the frying pan on the table and heading for the kitchen door. Wormtail, who seemed to have been temporarily stunned by Harry speaking to him, struggled to his feet and followed him. He fumbled with his wand for a moment and finally, with Harry nearly screaming in impatience, managed to unlock the front door and fling it open.

Frank Bryce was standing on the step outside. Harry couldn't help but feel a little disappointed. Some unreasonable part of him had hoped it was a rescue party.

"Why doesn't my key work any more?" Frank demanded. When Wormtail, who was still frazzled by his recent awakening, didn't answer, Frank went on. "I've just had terrible news," he said, his voice shaking a little. He was clutching his hat to his chest. "My sister has died very suddenly. I've only just been down to the village and got the message. The funeral is in two day's time."

"Why a-are you telling me this?" Wormtail finally managed to find his voice.

"Well, I've got to go away for a few days, hadn't I?" Frank said angrily. "And you're always saying I'm to notify you if I'm not going to be here. So consider yourself notified!"

Wormtail relaxed a bit and said, "A-alright, you can go. But if you're not back i-in five days, don't bother coming back to w-work here any more."

"Oh, so that's how it is?" Frank huffed. "Fired for going to my sister's funeral? I will be back in five days, sir, and count it a blessing!" With that, he turned on his heels and strode away down the path.

Harry pushed past Wormtail, who was still rubbing his eyes in a bewildered manner, and hurried to catch up with Frank. When he had fallen into step with the old gardener, he said softly, "I'm sorry about your sister, Frank."

Frank looked at him and gave him the tiniest winks. "I don't have a sister, lad," he whispered out of the corner of his mouth, "I've just been down at the village. The girl at the post office has come back from London. She couldn't find your twelve Grimmauld Place," he put his hand in his pocket and pulled out the corner of what Harry recognised as his own scuffed, bloody letter. "So I'm taking it there myself."

"Really?" Harry stopped short and Frank turned with a small smile on his face.

"I am," he said, patting Harry's shoulder. "I'm sorry I've been such a stubborn old man, lad, but I've run out of excuses. I can't keep out of this whole mess any longer. I'll go to London and find your Sirius Black, you just see if I don't."

"Thank you!" Harry cried, and then he could not stop himself throwing his arms around Frank's chest and hugging the old man. "If you really can't find it, Moony owns a cottage near a village called Fairley, ask for a man named Lupin. And our friend Tonks, she's at the Auror Headquarters in this Moor near Oxford, but it's secret so you probably can't find it, and my friend Ron Weasley lives in Ottery St Catchpole, and when I was at the muggle school I had a friend called Patty, she lives in London too, on Walker Street. And Hogwarts is…oh, I don't know where Hogwarts is…" Harry finished.

"I'll see what I can do, lad," Frank replied, detaching himself from Harry. "Now I'd best be going to pack, I've got a long way to travel tomorrow."

Harry watched him amble away towards his house on the edge of the estate, where the secret iron ladder was half built and lying under a rug on Frank's kitchen, and felt suddenly fearful that he had lead Frank into something more dangerous than he knew or understood. He cupped his hands to his mouth and yelled, "Goodbye, Frank!"

Frank waved back to him and then disappeared into his house.

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TBC

A/N: Alright, I admit, I have no idea whether there are any moors near Oxford and I just made up the town of Fairley. It's a real town in my country and nearly all the European names over here are just the names of English towns, so it's probably a real place.

Thank you everybody and do remember to review – I need something to look forward to while I am struggling through dense bush, battling sandflies and giant wetas (did you see Peter Jackson's King Kong? Well that's where I'm going, minus the dinosaurs and Adrian Brody. My Dad counts for Kong.)

Cheers!