Sirius suggested the Shrieking Shack. "The dementors aren't allowed that close to Hogsmeade – the villagers might prove too tempting. The Whomping Willow is still well within Hogwarts grounds, as well. The dementors won't be too far away, but Hagrid lives close enough that they definitely won't be allowed to go there."
Having chosen the way out of Hogwarts was only the beginning of their planning. All sorts of details had to be discussed, until Hermione was satisfied that they would not be caught – or worse, be in danger from the dementors. The main point they debated the most was the use of the time-turner. Eventually, to appease Hermione, they decided they would only use it if it looked like they would be missed. The other point they argued about was whether or not to risk visiting any other places in Hogsmeade. Hermione put her foot down on that one and made the boys promise not to leave the Shrieking Shack.
The day before, on Saturday morning during breakfast, Harry received a letter from Dudley. This in itself was a perfectly ordinary event. However, the postscript of this letter was new:
PS I got new boxing gloves. Red ones, this time.
Harry stared at the innocuous-looking sentence for a long moment, thoughts racing. Red. The mention of which in the postscript – rather than the main text – meant that the letter Dudley had received had been written in red ink. Had been intercepted.
Only after that information had finally sunk in, did he notice the unusual way Hedwig had behaved. She had not lingered at all, had not waited for him to give her a snack, but had instead taken off directly to the owlery. With a heavy heart, Harry had to admit that her behaviour would not have been enough by itself to alert him. Whoever had intercepted her, had done a far superior job than Dobby had the year before. Then, Hedwig had obviously fought and lost. Now…
Harry delayed sharing the information with his friends. Knowing Hermione was already worried about their planned trip to the Shrieking Shack the next day, he did not want to give her a reason to reconsider. He watched Ron banter with his brothers, watched Hermione write yet another essay, while they ate breakfast in the great hall. He would have quidditch practice soon. Perhaps it would be better to share the letter afterwards, when he would have enough time to discuss it—
Hermione was staring at him, her expression slowly turning into a frown. She must have seen something in his face, then, that told her of his unease. With a sigh, Harry handed over the letter. Hermione immediately looked at the postscript, well aware of their code system. She also spent looking at it longer than the one short line warranted, before kicking Ron under the table and then handing it over to him. She resumed her work once Harry had his letter back, but remained distracted, looking up every now and then, as if intending to say something.
Harry did not get a chance to discuss the matter with her until after his training, when Ron and Hermione met him outside of the changing rooms, looking resolved.
"We're still going," said Hermione, with a glance and a nod at Ron. "But, Harry, we need to be careful," she implored.
After breakfast the next morning, Harry led his friends out of the castle and towards the greenhouses. Once out of sight, he hid them all under his invisibility cloak, and slowly, they walked towards the Whomping Willow. There were not many people to evade, as almost everyone avoided the vicinity of the Whomping Willow. The next hurdle was keeping the branches of the violent tree from hitting them. Once Hermione was sure that no one was glancing their way – and not a second earlier, no matter how many times Ron told her to hurry up – she cast a spell to levitate a small rock over the knot at the base of the tree and drop it on it, momentarily freezing the branches. It took some manoeuvring to lower themselves into the tunnel, without removing the cloak, but finally they were inside and hidden from view.
Happy to be done with one dangerous part of their adventure, they set off, chatting cheerfully, their wands lighting the way.
Sirius met them still inside the tunnel, holding a torch lamp. "You'll need to extinguish your wands. It's better not to use any more magic from here on. Hogsmeade is being patrolled by aurors, and there are tracing spells everywhere."
They followed behind him in a more sombre mood, as the tunnel began to rise, twisted and reached a small opening, leading to a very disordered and dusty room. Paper was peeling from the walls; there were stains all over the floor; every piece of furniture was broken as though somebody had smashed it. The windows were all boarded up.
"Let's go upstairs," said Sirius, turning towards a door to their right, leading to a shadowy hallway.
"How did you get in here without magic?" Hermione asked him, her eyes travelling around the boarded windows.
"One of the windows can be opened without magic," Sirius pointed vaguely towards the bars on the windows. "We removed the locking spells as teenagers and replaced them with a solid lock – to make sure one of us could get out in animagus form, if necessary. Thankfully, it was never needed back then – but it proved useful now."
"Are you sure you weren't seen?" Hermione asked again, while they were climbing up the dusty, crumbling staircase.
"Quite sure – I sneaked in last night." Sirius shot her an amused look. "Good point, though. You know, Hermione, that sort of consideration for every detail is what makes a truly distinguished rule-breaker."
Hermione's response was a deep scowl.
They followed the footprints left in the otherwise thick layer of dust on the floor, left by Sirius over the previous hours. From the dark landing, they could see one door left open, a stripe of light falling from it. Inside, there was a magnificent four-poster with dusty hangings, already cluttered with items that Sirius must have brought with him – free of dust as they were.
Harry and Ron added the bags they had brought in the middle, as they all made themselves comfortable around the edge of the bed. Shouts of "Happy birthday!" followed, then Hermione's thanks. Then it was time for presents.
Ron went first. "This may not be much of a present…" From his bag, he produced two thin notebooks. As he leafed through them, it became obvious that they were filled with tightly-hand-written notes. "These used to be Bill's. Fred and George got him to hand them over to them, and they gave them to me. They're his notes, from his earliest apprenticeship days – about tracing spells—" He held up one of them. "—and protective enchantments." He showed the first page of the other, which said so in its title.
Hermione was delighted. She was not at all disappointed to find out that the notes contained little to no practical information about how to cast the spells. "It's not like we could learn these, anyway. Most of them would be far too difficult. But knowing what the aurors are capable of – what Pettigrew may be capable of – will be very useful."
Harry had decided against buying her a book. His previous year's present to her had been one – and had been a bit useless, because of how difficult to understand it was. This year, he had actually found something a bit more practical – in a junk shop in Diagon Alley, of all places.
Hermione regarded the contraption with some interest, pulling the straps apart to discover what it was.
"It's a harness for your wand," supplied Harry. "For when we jog. Your jogging clothes don't have the best pockets, do they?" He grimaced, realising she might not appreciate the criticism only after speaking the words.
"You're right!" Hermione looked happy, thankfully, rather than upset. "I keep fearing my wand'll go off at any moment." She fitted it on her arm, to try it out. "That's great, Harry. Thanks!"
Sirius had volunteered to supply the birthday cake after finding out it was Hermione's birthday. From the packaging, it was obvious the cake had come from a muggle shop – as had the elderflower cordial Sirius had also brought. Ron regarded the items with some curiosity, picking up the bottle to take a closer look at the printed label.
"There's tap water in the bathroom, to go with it," said Sirius. "I thought about making tea, but I'd rather not risk using magic here – even a little spell for heating water…"
They immediately agreed that the cordial was more than enough. The boys got busy to dig in, Ron expressing his surprise at how 'normal' the slice of cake on a paper plate and cordial in a paper cup, to go with it, tasted. Hermione, meanwhile, took a token bite out of her slice of cake before drawing Bill's notes closer to leaf through them.
"Sirius, you said first that we couldn't use magic here," she said. "But now you're saying it's just better not to risk it? So it's not like the trace, then? We might use magic and not be detected?"
Sirius nodded. "The trace is deep magic – the well-being of children and their families is involved, and that makes for some very powerful magic. There are no other tracking spells that are anywhere as strong. You can put on local alarms in some places – to detect intruders, or ill-intentions in general. Alarms to detect a specific person are much more difficult – though they exist."
Hermione was listening with rapt attention, and at the same time trying to look up the information in Bill's notes. Sirius halted her leafing though it at the appropriate entry, and she immediately marked the page.
"But there isn't any sort of alarm placed on the Shrieking Shack," went on Sirius. "I checked. Only the shops and pubs in Hogsmeade have those, as far as I could tell last night. So that leaves ordinary tracking spells. If the aurors are regularly checking for traces this far outside of the village – and at least they appeared to be doing so last night – then they'd be able to detect any use of magic in here – and trace it back to me. Or one of you – if you use magic—"
"So it's best if we don't use magic, in case you need to later on," Hermione caught on.
Sirius nodded. "It wouldn't do to have my trace overlapping with one of yours. I'd rather not have it be discovered that I was here at all, but if it can't be helped—"
"But we've disturbed the dust," said Harry. "It's clear to see that someone's been in here."
"To see by whom?" Sirius shrugged. "There's a good chance no one else'll see the inside of this house for years. Remus won't be coming here – he doesn't need to, now that the Wolfsbane potion exists. And why would anyone else come here?"
Hermione was appeased for the moment, and went back to her slice of cake. Ron and Harry also unpacked the other items they had brought: Ron's chess set and a deck of Exploding Snap cards. Sirius agreed to play chess with Ron, while Hermione agreed to a round of Exploding Snap with Harry.
Sirius and Ron were still in the middle of their chess game, looking engrossed, considering each move with great deliberation, by the time Hermione had tired of Exploding Snap.
"Sirius, there's something I'd been meaning to ask you," she began. "It's about your Veritaserum questioning—"
Harry frowned. This was hardly a pleasant topic – why she would want to bring that up when they were here to celebrate – to have fun—
"Yes?" Sirius did not look up from the board.
Hermione pursed her lips. "I just found it very surprising. I looked it up – information gained from Veritaserum questionings is rarely allowed in trials, and only if the defendant gave permission—"
"Well, I didn't even think to refuse." Sirius did not look up from the board when answering.
"But all Death Eaters were given Veritaserum – and few even got a trial afterwards. At least that's what I read. I can't imagine they were all happy to give permission."
Sirius sighed, though it was not clear if that was in response to Hermione's words or Ron's move. "That's true. The permission was more of a formality. They were questioning Death Eaters – for the most part – and regular procedures were suspended."
"But then couldn't you protest that—"
"No." This time Sirius did look up. He regarded Hermione pensively. "If I did that and won, it would set precedent and others – actual Death Eaters – might try to take advantage of some legal loophole. And I don't want that."
"Actually, Sirius, I've been wanting to ask about that as well," said Harry. "Do you remember exactly what you were asked and what answers you gave? What with Pettigrew now known to be alive, you'd think people might realise there's another interpretation of what you said."
When Sirius did not reply for a long moment, Hermione reached for some parchment and quill she had brought along. "Well, we know of at least two problematic questions. You were asked if you were responsible for Harry's parents' deaths, and you answered yes—"
Sorrow overtook Sirius' face at her words. He nodded. "I couldn't have said anything else. They had to rephrase the question first, though. They first asked if I'd caused their deaths. I answered 'no'. So one of the especially clever aurors thought I meant I was hiding behind Voldemort's actions. Then they asked me if I was responsible." He looked down at the board again, and carelessly moved a piece.
"You sure you want to do that?" asked Ron.
Sirius frowned, turning his attention back to the board. "Oh, I see… Not a very wise move, was it? But as I made it, I better stand by it. Not that you need any more help in beating me. You know, I used to think I was rather good at chess…"
With a sniff, Hermione picked up her quill again. "Speaking of standing by unwise moves – another question you gave a bad answer to was to do with the twelve bystanders that Pettigrew killed."
"Yeah, that one I don't get," said Ron, looking away from the board for once. "Alright, so they asked you if they died as a consequence of your fight with Pettigrew, right? And you said yes. But even so, why didn't you just say that you weren't the one who killed them? That it was Pettigrew?"
"First of all, you aren't allowed to answer questions you haven't been asked. If you do – if you speak out of turn during a Veritaserum questioning – it can be considered an attempt to cheat. You could be attempting a misdirection – forcing the questions you want to be asked, that sort of thing—"
"But that's so you don't hide the truth!" exclaimed Harry. "Your questioning did the exact opposite!"
"I was getting to that," said Sirius. "They did ask me if I'd killed those people. I, of course, said no. They again thought I was hiding the truth behind a technicality. So they asked me if their deaths had been caused by my confrontation with Pettigrew—"
"But then, even they should've thought Pettigrew just as responsible!" said Hermione.
"But Pettigrew was the poor underdog killed hero, and I was the big, bad traitor." Sirius said this with a mocking smile.
"Now they know that he's neither dead, nor a hero. But still no one's corrected that account of the events," said Harry.
"Because none of them think there's any need for it." Sirius was beginning to get impatient with the unpleasant topic. "Come on, Ron. I think we both know now that you've won. Let's finish the game so we can move on to the reason for our meeting today." He glanced to the stack of books he had brought with him.
Ron nodded, outlining the last few moves that would lead him to checkmate. Sirius agreed and Ron's pieces joyfully dethroned Sirius' annoyed king.
Moving the books in the middle, Sirius picked up the one from the top. "This is the main one: Numerology for the Animagus Transformation. The others are mostly Latin books – a dictionary and a grammar—"
"Latin!" Ron looked a bit horrified.
"I'm afraid so," Sirius answered with a mock-grimace. "Hermione and Harry might've already been told a bit about that—"
"Latin words being more stable, you mean?" said Hermione. She had unsurprisingly been paying better attention in class than Harry. "It's because modern words can change meanings over time, but the meaning of Latin words is more stable," she explained, seeing her friends' sceptical looks.
Sirius nodded. "You can try translating your words directly to Latin and then calculating the numerological values, or you can try calculating the numerological values for English words first – and then translating the ones with the highest values. Either way, the calculation is the most important part – and what we came here for." He opened the numerology book to the appropriate page.
Harry sat up, willing himself to pay close attention. He would not have another chance to have Sirius explain things in person, to watch him write down the calculations as he was explaining so Harry could see what was going on. And he did want to understand. He wanted to learn this strange magic, to become an animagus like his father, like Sirius. He had been trying diligently, casting the animagus spell at every opportunity, just like Hermione. The constant effort had worked for her, after all.
"If you've had a look through your arithmancy textbook, you'll notice that this calculation is much simpler," said Sirius, pointing at a lengthy calculation, which did not look particularly simple to Harry. "That's because here you're only considering the words in the context of how they apply to you – rather than in every possible context, which you'd need to do for a general spell—"
"Sirius, wait." Hermione looked torn, glancing longingly at the book. But finally she shook herself. "Were we done talking about your questioning? I mean, was that it? Were there only those two questions that you answered badly?"
Harry frowned, for once more eager to move on to the lesson. But then he looked at his godfather's carefully averted eyes, the deliberately controlled way in which he was leafing through the book in front of him. A part of Harry was still in the mood for learning the animagus transformation, his thoughts drifting to the animagus spell and the excitement of finding the as of yet undiscovered first word of his transformation. He berated himself to get his priorities straight.
"There were a few other questions I was asked. My answers—" Sirius grimaced. "I suppose they could've been better." He looked at his curious young listeners then, at their earnest, concerned faces, and smiled wistfully. "I believe you three did a lot better during the Veritaserum questioning Snape subjected you to last year, than I did at my questioning. You figured out right away that a truthful answer is quite enough. You don't have to tell the whole truth – or the truest thing. I… didn't. I knew that was possible in theory, but…" Sirius drew a breath. "I said some things about my family – among other things—" He paused, grimaced.
Harry looked away from his godfather's clearly uncomfortable expression, turning towards the books Sirius had brought. Somewhere in the pit of his stomach, he felt a strange, unpleasant flutter. Sirius did not want to talk about this, had been avoiding discussing this for weeks, Harry realised and thought Hermione could have left well enough alone. He tried to focus on the text he was reading, to distract himself from what was being said, having a fairly accurate guess of what he was about to hear.
"They asked you about your family?" said Hermione.
"They wanted to know about my reasons for my supposed treachery. But once again, instead of asking me whether I was a Death Eater – or at least Voldemort's supporter – they started asking about—" Sirius grimaced again. "My… loyalties to my family. I mean…"
Harry read the description of the animagus spell for the third time – something about focusing on the moment while saying Amato Animo, then focusing on the inner self when saying Animato Animagus – but it was not nearly enough of a distraction. He hated hearing the halting words, something akin to shame in Sirius' voice.
"I… Well, I did, apparently – feel some loyalty for them." Sirius almost stopped at that point, but then he shook his head. "And that wasn't all. I… There were a number of things I said – about purebloods, about the people suspected to be Death Eaters—"
Harry did not want to hear this. It was like a confession, but one that felt forced. He kept hoping one of his friends would interrupt, but they were also listening uncomfortably. He spoke the spell – Amato Animo Animato Animagus – under his breath, to force the sound of the words to tune out his godfather's voice.
There was a rushing noise in his ears and for a moment he did not know what was happening. Sirius is going to say he had grown up with them, Harry thought—
"I grew up with them, they were all my relatives," his godfather said a moment later. He avoided looking at Hermione, as he went on. "I… I knew what they were capable of – what they'd been taught at home…"
Of course, a part of Harry wanted to say. Of course you'd have thought that. It was all coming into focus, all the little things Sirius had said over the summer, and even before. Sirius, who had been one of the best students in his year without ever trying, who used to be so very handsome and popular. Of course he used to have a high opinion of himself, and his relatives who were like him.
"I went against the rules at that point, told them I didn't condone violence against muggleborns or muggles, even though I hadn't been asked about that, but they brushed my words aside – apparently it was my warped mind trying to justify my heinous crimes—"
"One private opinion they made you admit to – maybe an objectionable one – doesn't prove you guilty of what you were accused of," said Harry. The words were his own, but he could not have found them on his own. His mind caught in the trance made his thoughts blur, then focus on one thing, gathering his words. "It was wrong – everything they asked was wrong. They weren't searching for your secrets, they weren't looking for truth – they didn't want to hear it – they just wanted to hear what they thought they knew—" Harry gasped, bent over, caught himself with his hand on the dusty mattress. He was reeling from the way his own words had resonated within him.
His friends turned to him, helped to brace him. Sirius was regarding him curiously, Harry noticed once he looked up.
"Did you just go through the trance?" he asked shrewdly.
Harry nodded. He dared not answer, because there was a lump in his throat, he noticed.
Hermione gasped, glancing from him to Sirius and back. Then she began a rapid fire of questions. It was a distraction, a step away from the uncomfortable topic they had been discussing, and they all silently agreed to move away from it.
Harry drew a deep breath, swallowed the lump down. "Yeah, I went through the trance," he said shakily. "I'm not sure about the word, but I think it's either secret or truth."
Sirius cleared his throat. "Well, only one way to find out for sure." He picked up the numerology book again, and this time, no one interrupted him.
He explained the calculation in the book, then did a live demonstration of an example calculation for one of the words from his own spell – 'loyal' – and once all three had asked every question they could think of, and thought they had understood everything well enough, Harry and Hermione got to do the calculations for the words they had found.
Hermione's words really did seem to be 'persevering' and 'purpose', from their high numerological values, but Sirius still suggested she should try some related words. The boys jokingly suggested 'stubborn', which had a surprisingly high value, though lower than 'persevering'. Hermione went through some more words as well, and finally tried Sirius' equally joking suggestion of 'dogged' – mostly because he was still a little hesitant around her, following his confessions, and she wanted to get back to normal. To everyone's surprise, 'dogged' had the highest numerological value of all the words she had tried. Sirius raised his eyebrows at that, but did not comment.
Harry tried 'truth' first, and was happy to see the high numerological value. Sirius nodded, and then made him try 'secret' as well. The numerological value of 'secret' was not nearly as high, compared to either Sirius' or Hermione's words – or even Harry's own.
"Those two words are not really related – they're not synonyms. I wonder why you thought of them both," Sirius mused. "It could be that it is one of your words after all – but not related to your experience today…"
~HP~
The days following Hermione's birthday, Harry had firm resolutions to make quick progress with the animagus spell, to talk to Lupin and maybe sow doubt in his conviction that Sirius was a traitor, to find ways to reassure Dudley—
The days flew by before he knew it, spent suffering through Trelawney's predictions of doom, feeding flobberworms – surely the most boring of all creatures – in care of magical creatures, writing ever more challenging essays for the core subjects… Snape and McGonagall both had higher expectations of him and his friends after seeing them in action in the Chamber of Secrets, and tended to leave unpleasant comments if any of them slacked off writing their homework essays.
Lupin had not made it easy to find a way to have a chat with him, friendly as he continued to be in class. Even the full moon at the end of September had fallen at the end of the week, so he had not missed any of Harry's classes, preventing that topic of his health as a potential conversation-starter. At least, his lessons were challenging in an enjoyable way. Following the red caps, they had begun learning about kappas, creepy water-dwellers that looked like scaly monkeys, with webbed hands itching to strangle unwitting waders in their ponds.
Reassuring Dudley was also not so straight-forward. The code they had agreed on worked quite well to communicate facts, events. He could not communicate reassurance in code. But neither could he do so in the main text of the letter, without mentioning what it related to, of course.
As for the animagus spell, none of them had made much progress by the time October arrived.
Harry, however, soon had something else to occupy him, as the quidditch season was approaching, and Oliver Wood was beginning to be very serious about training. He called a meeting on Thursday evening to discuss tactics for the new season.
"This is our last chance – my last chance – to win the Quidditch Cup," he told the rest of the team, striding up and down in front of them. "I'll be leaving at the end of this year. I'll never get another shot at it."
They had won the Cup in Harry's first year, but Oliver was still hung up on the fact that the tournament was called off the year before, due to the basilisk stalking the inhabitants of Hogwarts. Talking about it, Wood swallowed, as though the memory still brought a lump to his throat. His zeal was infectious, his conviction that theirs was the best team – especially because they had Harry – giving them all courage.
Full of determination, the team started training sessions, three evenings a week – including on Thursday evenings, even though Harry still had astronomy afterwards, at midnight. They were not discouraged by the worsening weather, nor by the shortening days.
As predicted, this meant less time for other activities, and both the duelling practice and work on the animagus spell had to be relegated to a few hours stolen over the weekends.
Harry returned to the Gryffindor common room one Thursday evening after training, cold and stiff but pleased with the way practice had gone, to find the room buzzing excitedly. Ron and Hermione, sitting in two of the best chairs by the fireplace and completing some star charts for astronomy, told him the news. The date for the first Hogsmeade weekend had been announced. It was going to take place on Hallowe'en.
Fred and George were discussing all the things they wanted to get from Zonko's, while people from Harry's year were talking about everything they wanted to discover during their first ever Hogsmeade trip. Harry felt his mood dim right away. Hermione, noticing this, reminded him – warned him, really – that he was supposed to stay at the castle. Ron was more understanding, suggesting Harry should ask McGonagall, explain the situation with his family and his hasty trip to Diagon Alley that summer.
"Ron!" said Hermione. "Pettigrew was sighted not too far from Hogsmeade just a few weeks ago!"
"And he has it in for us just as much as Harry!" Ron hissed back quietly enough not to be overheard. "But neither of us'll be staying at Hogwarts, will we?"
Hermione looked like she wanted to argue more, but at that moment Crookshanks leapt lightly onto her lap, a large, dead spider dangling from his mouth.
"Does he have to eat that in front of us?" said Ron, scowling.
"Clever Crookshanks, did you catch that all by yourself?" said Hermione.
Harry yawned. He would have enjoyed a few hours' sleep before astronomy, but he still had his own chart to complete, and Sirius would be expecting a mirror call – and he never forgot to ask about Harry's astronomy charts. With a sigh, he accepted Ron's offer to – partly – copy his homework, and got to work. Hermione, who disapproved of copying, pursed her lips, but did not say anything.
An hour later, Harry found himself in an empty classroom not too far from the common room, talking over his mirror to Sirius. His godfather had wanted him to do a couple of small corrections to his chart, and had realised while explaining the mistake to Harry who was not following along, that Harry had copied the chart. He looked at least as disapproving as Hermione, and did comment, then made him understand the mistakes enough that he would be able to pass Sirius' correction on to Ron.
Finally – partly to distract Sirius away from the unpleasant topic of astronomy – Harry brought up the Hogsmeade weekend. "I'll ask McGonagall if she'll let me go. She might say no, though. I was thinking, I could sneak out again. What do you think? I might even meet you at the Shrieking Shack again. I mean, I'll want to see the village a bit, but then we could meet—"
Sirius shook his head. "I can't. And I wish you'd reconsider sneaking out this once, but if you insist, make sure to use the passage behind the statue of the one-eyed witch, find Ron and Hermione as soon as you get there, and don't go anywhere where there aren't a lot of other people." He said this very firmly.
Harry was about to agree – the terms sounded reasonable enough – but then he asked instead why Sirius would be unavailable.
"I… I'll be visiting Godric's Hollow." Sirius sighed, looked away, when he noticed Harry's uncomprehending look. "I'll be visiting your parents' graves," he said very quietly.
"I want to come along," Harry said at once.