DISCLAIMER: I do not own Harry Potter

2. Shadows and secrets

"Who put this on, anyway?"

Remus blinked as Sirius swore, colorfully and admirably. They were kneeling by the hatch door of the wine cellar, in a small room off the kitchen, and Sirius's brow was furrowed in irritation.

"Alastor, I think."

"Figures," said Sirius. "That man has a mind like a rat trap."

Remus tended to agree. "He is thorough," he said.

Sirius grunted. "But I think we can get this off without his help." He pointed to the far side of the hatch, to a faded scuff mark that almost seemed a natural part of the wooden floorboards. "Feel that?" Remus slid over to the mark and nodded as he felt the magic, like the pull of an anchor. "I think if we dismantle that part of the spell, the rest should follow."

Remus took out his wand and probed the mark. It was like something stiff and gooey, the resistance of a field, and his wand sent up a few warning sparks. He closed his eyes and focused, testing out the field's boundaries, thinking back to numerous other protection spells he'd both constructed and dismantled, and to the years of magical theory droned into him at school. Alastor always did like a strong grounding in theory.

There. He thought he had it. He flicked his wand, a short, stiff flick, and muttered under his breath words dredged up from memory. The strain of the spell intensified; he felt a corresponding strain in himself, caught in a tug of war between his wand and the spell, until he finally felt the anchor loosen and snap back. Sirius swore again. When Remus opened his eyes, he saw Sirius back on his heels, staring at the remains of the spell that draped like a translucent skein from the wall before it slid down, dissolving as it went.

"That was strong," Sirius said.

Remus nodded. He rather hoped that wasn't a taste of whatever still awaited them in the cellar.

Sirius was feeling along the edge of the door for the handle, tucked down flat against the boards. He forced the handle up, the creak of rusty iron sounding a protest, and Remus knelt down beside him to grasp the other side of it until it stood straight up.

"I have no idea when this was last opened," Sirius said, staring down at the still-closed hatch.

Remus glanced around them. "Maybe we should seal the room first. We don't want anything getting into the rest of the house."

Sirius nodded. "I'll do that. You see if you can hear anything." He stood up and crossed to the doorway of the room, pulling out his wand.

Remus laid his head flat on the boards of the hatch. One of the Weasley twins' extendable ears would have been handy right now, if they could find a way to get it down there. He closed his eyes and probed for any signs of magical disturbance, feeling his heartbeat slow with the concentration, his breathing deepen.

"Anything?" Sirius said from above him.

Remus straightened and shook his head. "Either there's nothing there, or I just can't sense anything through the wood. Or it's very good at hiding," he added.

Sirius grinned. "Who knows what my father might have down there." He crossed to the other side of the hatch and leaned down to grasp the handle. "I can get this," he said. "You be ready for anything that comes out."

Remus crouched by the hatch, his wand out, as Sirius slowly lifted it up.

A very strong smell of must drifted up. Wooden steps led down, the bottom of them hidden in shadows, and long silvery cobwebs wove their way in and out of the steps. It was very quiet.

Sirius crouched beside Remus, his wand held out. They exchanged a look. "Aperio," Sirius said commandingly, the word swallowed up by the dark silence of the cellar. Remus braced himself.

Nothing happened.

"Well," Sirius said, lowering his wand. "So much for that." He stared down the steps gloomily. "I suppose we'll have to go down just to be sure."

"We should," Remus said, not liking the prospect any more than Sirius. He sighed. "Lumos," he said, and the tip of his wand barely cut into the dark below. He tested one of the steps with his foot, holding onto the edge for balance, and slowly made his way down.

The steps didn't go down that far after all. When he reached the bottom, there was only a foot or so between his head and the ceiling. The floor was concrete, layered with a good half inch of dust, and he had to suppress the urge to sneeze.

"Seems deserted," Sirius said behind him, holding up his wand like a torch. With the combined light Remus could see wooden racks filled with wine bottles grey with dust, and little else. It wasn't a large cellar. There was barely enough room for the two of them.

Sirius slid past him to the racks, pulling out a bottle. He wiped it clean on the sleeve of his robes. "My father always did have expensive tastes," he said.

There must have been hundreds of bottles here, Remus thought, glad that they'd waited to clean this room until after Mundungus had left. He circled the room, such as it was. There was no sound except for the scuff of his footsteps, no sense of any other presence. He turned back to Sirius, who was wiping off another bottle, glancing at the label before replacing it and pulling out another as a shadow slid down the rack toward him.

"Sirius!"

Sirius started back, raising the bottle by the neck in front of him like a club, looking around wildly. Remus jumped forward and caught sight of the edge of the shadow--creature, whatever it was--sliding up over the edge of the open hatch.

"What was that?" Sirius said, lowering the bottle, his eyes wide.

"I have no idea." Remus stood at the foot of the steps, peering upward at the square of light. He couldn't see anything from that angle so he stepped up to the bottom stair, trying to see around the edge.

He saw a black patch scurry along the corner of the ceiling in the room above, disappearing just as quickly from his line of sight.

"It's up there, whatever it is," Remus said. "Good thing you sealed the room."

Sirius moved to stand beside him. "It could have attacked me, but didn't. That's encouraging."

Remus gave him a wry smile. "Somehow I doubt it's friendly."

"I didn't mean that. It's just that it's got us at a bit of a disadvantage," Sirius said, nodding at the narrow confines of the steps, "and it helps to know it won't attack as soon as we show ourselves."

Remus tapped his wand to his nose, thinking. "I'll go up first, try to get to the far side of the room. Perhaps we can catch it in crossfire."

Sirius nodded. Remus went up the stairs slowly, trying to catch another glimpse of the shadow as he went. He heard the creak of Sirius behind him. He ran up the last few steps and whirled around, backing up against the wall. Sirius burst up and mimicked Remus's stance.

The room seemed deserted. No sign of any movement. Remus scanned the walls and corners of the room, but there were only the ordinary shadows cast by the gas light overhead.

There. It was like the movement of a mouse. A little twitch in one corner. He caught Sirius's eye, and saw that he'd noticed it, too. They circled closer to it cautiously.

"Stupefy!" Sirius said suddenly, his wand held out, catching the shadow dead on. But it only froze for a moment before scuttling away, sliding around the room so quickly that Remus couldn't track its movement anymore. He thought it ended up on the ceiling somewhere.

Not a good development. He traced every bit of the ceiling with his eyes, inching around in a circle, straining to see. There was nothing.

"Do you suppose it found a way out?" he asked Sirius.

Sirius shrugged. "The seal should have kept it in, but I've never seen anything like it. Who knows what it's able to do."

"Can we get through the seal without taking it down? We should probably---"

He caught the movement in the corner of his eye.

"Petrificus Totalus!" he shouted at the same time as Sirius. Their wands crackled. Caught by the two shots of energy, the shadow wriggled and shook in place until it burst in a shower of black sparks that filled the room, pieces of it falling to the floor where they crumbled into dust.

Remus stared down at the remains. He suspected he had bits of it in his hair.

"That was interesting," Sirius commented.

"You don't suppose there are more of them, do you?" Remus cast a glance back at the cellar door.

"Likely there are." Sirius sighed. "We should do some more research first, find a different spell."

Remus agreed. There could be dozens of them down there. Of one mind, they heaved the hatch door forward until it fell with a crash and shake of the wooden boards.

Then Sirius laughed a little, looking down at his hand where he still had the bottle of wine grasped by its neck. He lifted it up. "I could do with a drink," he said, glancing at Remus.

It was barely noon. Remus raised an eyebrow at him. Then again, what the hell.

"Should we replace the protection spell?" he asked.

"I keyed the seal on the door so that we could pass through," Sirius said. "We can leave that up for now and do the rest of the cleanup later."

Remus found two clean goblets in the kitchen and an ancient corkscrew topped by a silver knob in the rough shape of a hawk. He handed the corkscrew to Sirius.

The kitchen was as gloomy as the rest of the house, but it was one of the few rooms Remus felt at home in. Perhaps it was just that they spent most of their time there, or that the echoes of the house's summer occupants still lingered. It didn't seem as oppressive. He aimed his wand at the fireplace across the room, which was already set with kindling but not yet lit for the day. A brief cracking, popping sound later, flames shot up nearly to the mantle before they settled down again to a cozy level, brightening the room considerably.

At the table, Sirius was already pouring the wine. "There might be something in the Calamitus text," he was saying. "Or Pimsey's Dark Arts."

Remus nodded and accepted the goblet held out to him. "A blanket spell, so we're not trying to pick them off one by one." He took a sip of the wine. Not bad. At least it hadn't turned to vinegar.

"My father had a collection of spell books," Sirius said musingly, "hidden up in the library somewhere. I never could find where they were. Besides, I'm sure they're well protected. Not because they were dangerous," he added, "though half the spells in them are illegal, I'm sure. I think he just didn't want his grubby children getting their hands on them." He laughed a little, not pleasantly.

"I've been meaning to ask Moody to go over the library," Remus said. "I haven't dared touch any of the books. There are some interesting titles, though. Your father was quite the collector."

Sirius grimaced. "My father was quite a lot of things." He played with the stem of his wine goblet, hunched over the table and brooding a bit.

Remus watched him. They'd all changed, but maybe Sirius least of all, strange as that was. Physically he'd changed; it had been a blow two years ago, seeing in person just how much. But time didn't seem to work the same in Azkaban. Sometimes he felt like he was talking to the ghost of Sirius, or that he'd been transported back fifteen years.

"We're almost out of rats," Sirius said. "And Buckbeak's been giving me long-suffering looks. I don't think he cares much for them."

"I'm not sure we could bring in anything, er, larger."

"It would be easiest to let him hunt for himself," Sirius said. "We could arrange it so no one would notice."

Remus raised his eyebrow at him.

"Well then," Sirius said gloomily into his wine goblet, "we need more rats."

"We can ask Mundungus. He didn't have any problems finding the last batch for us."

"Speaking of," Sirius said, gesturing to a grey lumpy bag Remus hadn't noticed before propped up in the corner of the kitchen. Remus eyed it warily.

"Don't tell me."

"Augurey feathers. Says he's got a buyer in Cumberland, needs a few more days to negotiate."

Remus shrugged. He wished that the illicit traffic in phoenix feathers was the greatest of their concerns right now. "Just don't let Molly find out." He sank back in his chair a little, tapping the side of his goblet idly. "I've been going over the recruitment files."

Sirius made a face. "No more Nathan Bricks, I hope."

Remus let that pass. "There are a few other people I'd like to talk to." He took another sip of wine. "Dumbledore has already approved them."

Sirius pushed up from the table abruptly and crossed to the sink, his eyes searching out the room restlessly. "Then why are you asking me? You don't need my permission." He opened a few cupboards, shut them in disgust. "Do we have any food in this house?"

"In the larder," Remus said. "Molly dropped some off a few days ago. And I wasn't asking your permission."

Sirius opened the larder. "Cheese," he said. "And a stew of some sort." He peered down at the latter suspiciously.

"Pheasant," Remus said. "Molly put a preserve spell on it. And there should be bread in there, too."

Sirius dumped the stew in the cauldron above the fire and brought the cheese and a small loaf of bread over to the table.

He grinned at Remus as he slid back into his chair. "I know you weren't. I was simply pointing it out." He slid the cheese across the table.

"Cheers." Remus broke off a piece and studied it absently. "I should send an owl to Charlie soon, see how he's faring on his end."

Sirius didn't seem to be listening. "At least the food is better this time," he said.

Remus nodded. Last time their headquarters had been a two-room flat on the outskirts of London, Order members apparating in and out with such frequency that you couldn't help knocking over a few people a day just going between the rooms. Nights spent poring over letters and reports, trying to crack Voldemort's codes with seventh-year magic and a few reference books stacked on the floor. They were lucky to even find time to eat, much less cook anything.

"Sturgis filling with place with rotten eggs trying to find a spell for omelets. I swear the smell lingered for days."

Remus looked down at his hands. They'd had to sleep on the roof that night. He remembered what it had been like looking up at the night sky spelled clear of the city's lights, Sirius making an ass of himself showing off just how little he'd learned in their Astronomy lessons. He remembered, too, thinking in that moment that he couldn't help but be happy, however desperate the situation with Voldemort was. Back then, he never doubted they would succeed.

He wondered if Sirius had ever known. He suspected he had.

Sirius's face had turned wistful, mixed with a strange bitterness, Remus thought. Then again, maybe not so strange. Remus ate the cheese, broke off a piece of bread. It was a long time ago. No sense romanticizing the past. There was too much yet to do.

And now Sirius was looking at him with a smile hovering at his lips, like he wanted to say something but didn't know how. "You know, I often wondered---"

"The stew's ready," Remus said lightly.

Sirius glanced over at the cauldron, which was bubbling fiercely. "So it is." He stood up.

Remus took a breath and picked at the bread in his hand until it was a small pile of crumbs in front of him.

There was a sudden crack. Remus blinked and saw Moody standing there, his eye whirling dizzily before he straightened it out with a grimace. "Let myself in," he said gruffly. "Thought I'd find you down here." He took in the wine bottle and the bubbling cauldron. "I see I'm in time for lunch."

Sirius went to find bowls and another glass for Moody, and Remus slid the wine bottle over, relieved by the interruption. "Pull up a chair," he said. Moody eyed him suspiciously, as if there were some hidden motive behind the invitation, but that was just Moody. He settled down stiffly, his ancient, faded robes swirling about his feet rather, his magic eye off whirling again as if they were in imminent danger of dark magic.

Remus suppressed a smile. "I'm glad you're here," he said, folding his hands on the table. "I have a job for you."

"What you need is a specific target for the root word," Moody said, squinting at the top row of books along the library wall. "Else you'll just be waving your wand around like a pixie."

Remus stood just behind him, leaning on the edge of the desk, and across the room Sirius scanned the leather-bound titles idly on his end. "Might as well take 'em all out at once. No sense pussyfooting around." Moody's head whipped around to Sirius, his magic eye rolling back in his head with a sickening lurch. "Don't touch that," he growled.

Sirius, who was reaching for one of the books, froze with his hand in mid-air. He raised an eyebrow in Remus's direction. Remus shrugged.

"Your instincts were right, Lupin," Moody said, ignoring Sirius's look. "This place is crawling with repellant magic." He said it with grim satisfaction. Then he stopped still, his gaze sweeping the library, his head cocked suspiciously. "Why haven't I seen this room before?"

"We only found it a fortnight ago," Remus said. "There was a concealment spell laid on it. Sirius knew it was here, but it took some searching."

"Huh," Moody said, unconvinced. He turned back to the shelf in front of him. "See that?" he said, pointing.

Remus squinted up, feeling suddenly like a teenager again in the middle of his NEWT exams.

"Not there," Moody said impatiently. He jabbed his finger in the air. "That red glow there, see that?"

"I don't have the benefit of a magic eye," Remus reminded him.

Moody scowled and pulled out his wand. He muttered a few words, too low for Remus to hear, and suddenly the library was filled with strange, multi-colored glowing forms, edging along the bookshelves and hunting portraits, perched like fairy lights along the mantle.

Remus could see a faint red glow where Moody had been pointing. "That?"

"That will give you a sting to singe the hair off your arm," Moody said. He scanned the room, scowling. "What we need is…there." He gestured to a shelf a foot away from Sirius's head, to a book whose binding glowed a soft silvery blue. "Pull that out," he said to Sirius. Sirius lifted the book gingerly from its perch. "Bring it over."

Sirius obeyed and laid the book on the desk, and the three of them stood in a half-circle around it. It still glowed. Remus thought it was rather beautiful in its own way. Ethereal. It sent a sliver of ice down his spine.

Moody let his wand hover an inch or so above it, and Remus could feel the low crackle of restrained magic emanating from it, raising the hairs on the back of his neck. The book pulsed as if alive, staring back at them with few good intentions. For the first time, Moody seemed uncertain on how to proceed.

"It's the key," he muttered, "but how---" Shaking his head, he pulled his wand back, reaching down with his other hand to open the book.

There was a loud bang and flash of light, and when Remus blinked past the spots in his vision, he saw Moody thrown back on the floor, sitting upright but with his eyes widened to an almost comical extent, legs sprawled inelegantly.

To Remus's surprise, Moody began to chuckle. "Now that's magic," he said.

Remus offered his hand to help him up, but Moody ignored it. He scrambled up slowly, eyes fixed on the book. "Haven't felt anything like that in a while. That's how you do it," he said with grudging admiration. "Put 'em on strong, make 'em to last." He turned to Sirius. "You open it."

Sirius stared at him. "No, thanks."

"You brought it over here, didn't you? Use your brains, boy. It's obviously keyed to your family."

Sirius still looked doubtful, but he held his hand out to the book tentatively. Remus realized that he was holding his breath, muscles tense, apprehension weighted in the pit of his stomach. He almost reached out to stop him. But then Sirius's hand was resting on the book's cover, washed over pale and ghost-like by the silvery glow as he flipped the cover slowly open. Remus leaned down to read the words, uneasy but also curious to see what such a book would hold.

It wasn't in any language that Remus was familiar with. He doubted it was a language at all. It looked like gibberish. He straightened in disappointment. If there was a coding spell on the book, there was little chance they'd be able to crack it.

Moody, however, seemed unperturbed. "What does it say?" he asked Sirius impatiently. Remus glanced up at him, surprised, then looked at Sirius, whose eyebrows were drawn together in concentration, dark hair falling forward as he bent further over the book.

"It says…." Sirius frowned. He flipped forward a few pages. "I'm not sure, exactly. I think I know, it seems familiar, but also…not."

Remus watched him with some concern. The silver light reflected in Sirius's eyes, giving them a strange, otherworldly cast, as if Sirius was looking into some distant place. Remus supposed he was, in a sense.

"There should be a way to neutralize these other spells," Moody was saying, his eyes fixed on Sirius as well.

"There is," Sirius said slowly. His voice came from far away. Suddenly he straightened, and in a clear voice said several words that seemed to burn the air in front of them, echoing as if they stood in a giant hall and not a small library.

Remus shivered. Around them, the softly glowing lights faded until they were only dim pinpricks that disappeared like candles snuffed out. Moody gave a low whistle.

The silver glow of the book had faded along with the others. Remus saw where the pages were yellowed and stained, the edges torn, before Sirius closed the book with a muffled thump. The dark leather binding was deceptively ordinary.

Sirius picked it up carefully. He appeared even more gaunt than usual, his cheekbones standing out like jagged stones. "I think I've had enough of the Black family magic for one day," Sirius said quietly, and returned the book to its spot on the shelf.

Moody shrugged. "In that case, destroy it. No sense leaving items like that around for anyone to find." In a voice that probably passed as gentle for Moody, he said, "You won't mind me saying, but your family wasn't exactly known for benevolent magic."

Sirius didn't answer.

"We still need a spell for the cellar," Remus said, tearing his eyes from Sirius.

Moody brushed away that concern. "I'll take care of it. I've got a blasting curse I've been wanting to test. You lot read through what's up here. Look up some protection spells." He scowled. "You could use the practice." He gathered his robes in a swirl around him and disapparated with a loud crack and whoosh of air.

They were alone.

"Are you all right?" Remus asked Sirius, thinking as he said it that he couldn't have chosen a more inadequate question. He'd forgotten this sense of helplessness, brushed over when they were at school with a joke or snide comment; they were too old for that now, the usual tricks wouldn't work anymore. He wished with an intensity that surprised him that they were sixteen again. James would have known the right words.

"It doesn't matter," Sirius said. He still stood at the far end of the room, hunched over himself with his arms crossed protectively in front of him. "It's not like I didn't grow up in this house. Not much surprises me about it anymore."

"It's not…." Remus paused, searching for words. "It's not an unimportant thing."

Sirius shrugged the way he used to do at school, a gesture that signaled in defined terms that the discussion was over. It had irritated Remus then, and it was no less irritating now. He also knew the futility of pressing further.

It didn't seem to stop him. "You're not your family, Sirius."

Sirius was silent for so long that Remus didn't think he would answer. Then, with a hesitancy that was unlike Sirius, he asked, "What did you think of them, the first time you met them?"

Remus smiled a little. "I was thirteen."

"Still."

Remus thought back. It was hard to separate that first impression from the years that came after, from the filter of Sirius's own less-than-objective perceptions of them. "They were proud," he said slowly. "Intimidating. I don't think they thought much of your choice of friends."

Sirius snorted.

But he also remembered Sirius's father listening to their teachers' reports of his son with a hint of pride in his eyes. Maybe a little too self-satisfied, a little too haughty, but it was there. "I think they loved you in their own way."

He almost expected Sirius to laugh, and he mentally braced himself for it. Sirius didn't laugh. He shook his head and said very seriously, "They didn't, Remus." He smiled and looked thirteen years-old again; awkward and unsure, the years of bitterness a distant and unwritten future. When the most they'd had to worry about was who was going to win the Quidditch Cup that year. "I minded that rather a lot. But it made it easier."

Sirius straightened. "Do you suppose there's anything worth looking up in here?" he asked, scanning the rows of books with distaste.

Remus breathed out slowly. He wondered if even James would know the right words for this. "Likely there is," he said. "But I think I've had enough of books for today."