Chapter five

Nothing. Silence. Nobody knew anything that could help him. This meeting had been Harry's only hope, and now this only hope was gone. And then…

'Can you repeat those initials, Harry?' Sirius said suddenly.

Harry, who still couldn't believe his godfather had returned from what he had until this day believed to be the afterlife, stared at him distractedly for a moment before he spoke.

'Sure,' he said 'R. A. B.' Did Sirius know something? Had he learnt something… wherever he had been for the last year? 'Do you think - ?'

But Sirius didn't seem to hear him anymore.

'Regulus Arcturus Black…' he said slowly 'If only he could know…'

XXX

Far away, farther than you could imagine, although in some sense also quite near, in the Ministry cafeteria, two employees of the Department of Mysteries were discussing things they shouldn't really be discussing in public, but noone who hadn't actually been inside the Department could understand anything from their conversation anyway.

'Are you seriously considering going in there yourself?' one of the men asked.

'I wouldn't if there was another way. But there isn't,' his companion replied.

'But isn't it dangerous?'

'Who said I'm not afraid? But I'm responsible for him. I failed to stop him, so now I should go there and try to undo the damage.'

XXX

'All right,' he tried again 'I used to go to Be- Bu- Bo- How do you pronounce the name anyway? That school in France…'

'Beauxbatons,' Fleur supplied, giggling 'But I don't theenk it will work…'

'Yeah,' Ron added 'If you tell them you went to Be-Bu-Bo, they'll think it's somewhere in Africa rather than France.'

Fleur, Harry, a few Weasleys and even Procyon himself laughed.

'All right, all right,' Procyon said 'How about this: I moved here from America, because… er…' Making up a good explanation was harder than he had expected.

The door opened and Padfoot entered the room.

'We should get going now,' he announced.

XXX

It was just another boring day. The most exciting thing the rather unimportant Ministry official was expecting today was spilling his coffee all over his papers and having to do all the work again. How very wrong he was. The truth was he might not have time to make himself a cup of coffee at all. He wasn't really paying attention to the whispered conversation outside the door. It was none of his business, that someone was saying 'What am I supposed to tell them anyway?'.

There was a knock on the door. Quite a normal, boring knock, really, but then many unusual things begin with something normal and boring.

'Come in.'

They did. 'They' turned out to be a man about forty years old and a boy who could easily be his son, except that it was a well-known fact that Sirius Black couldn't possibly have a fourteen-year-old child (Well… unless some completely insane woman had somehow got into Azkaban just to… no! That really didn't make sense!). Then again, Black being here at all didn't make sense either. Another well-known fact was that he had died a little more than a year ago in a duel with his cousin Bellatrix Lestrange. And yet there he was, standing right in front of him, awkwardly saying 'Excuse me…?'. Dead people really shouldn't be doing things like that!

XXX

After a few hours of paperwork and arguing with Ministry beurocrats, Sirius almost missed being on the run. It had given him a very good reason to avoid the Ministry. Coming back to life (officially at least) turned out to be incredibly exhausting. Finally he was allowed to leave. He and Procyon headed for the nearest fireplace and traveled to the Burrow.

And it was not over yet. Before he could get on with his life, Sirius would still have to pay a visit to st. Mungo's and go through some medical tests. The Ministry, of course, was mostly concerned about his mental health. He had to admit it made sense, but it was still kind of annoying when the ministry official explained it to him, speaking slowly, as if not sure he will understand. "It's only reasonable, Mr. Black, that after everything you've been through…". Yeah, right, he thought, and everything I'm going through right now…

XXX

Procyon was actually quite relieved to hear that some people in the Department of Mysteries were going to start working on his case immediately. The sooner they start, the sooner he would be able to return to his world.

It wasn't that this one was really bad. He was currently living at the Burrow along with the Weasleys, Harry, Fleur and Padfoot (He didn't ever want to go back to Grimmauld Place. He said he was going to look for a new house 'as soon as this was sorted out'.) and enjoying it quite a lot, but still couldn't help feeling a little out of place. Is this how Padfoot felt all this time in my world? He would ask himself. If it was, now he understood why his father's other self had been so eager to come back here, despite everything. This universe wasn't worse than the one he had come from. It just… wasn't home.

It wasn't bad. Not for someone who belonged here. But the guest from another world couldn't help noticing that it's so different. Of course, he tried not to think about all the differences, but it was rather difficult when everybody around him seemed to have, for some strange reason, started talking about the man who could have been his uncle.

XXX

News travels fast in the wizarding world. By the time Sirius decided to show up in Diagon Alley, everybody seemed to know about his unexpected return. As he and Procyon walked down the street, people were pointing at them and whispering. Apparently, despite their wish to keep Procyon's story quiet, there were also some rumors about the guest from another world.

'So much for secrets,' Procyon commented 'By the time the term starts I won't need that story about the foreign school and everything.'

'Well, that'll make things easier, won't it?' Sirius said. He had spent the last year pretending to be someone else so as not to draw attention to himself. He knew it was not easy.

'I dunno,' Procyon replied 'If they keep staring at me like this - '

'Oh, stop whining,' Sirius told him 'Better staring than running away screaming. Trust me on that.'

But by the time their trip was over he was quite tired of it as well.

XXX

He wasn't really supposed to do this. But he had to. Other people had told him not to, but sometimes there were more important things than what you were told. His own common sense was telling him right now that he was probably going to regret this very soon, but, after this crazy year he was beginning to think common sense might not always be right. So what if this was crazy, dangerous, forbidden and unlikely to work anyway? It had to be done. Very slowly, he took another step forward and disappeared. Images that were familiar but not quite right flashed in front of his eyes.