Just as the old man had promised, the portkey had taken Sirius to a small, sparsely furnished apartment consisting of a kitchen, a small living area, and a bedroom.
Without a wand Sirius had no way of knowing what wards and charms were coating the building. For all he knew the whole place was a beacon for the Aurors, but at that point the former prisoner was too exhausted to even care. Besides, the old man had said it best- he could have just left Sirius there to be found if he'd wanted too.
There was food in the kitchen- eggs, toast and bacon- that had all the hallmarks of being made by a house elf. To his surprise, there was also a packet of muggle chocolate. Someone seemed to be looking out for his wellbeing- or they were trying to buy his trust.
Next to the bed were two potions. The first was a cloudy purple with the words "To sleep" on it, and other was bubbling and red, "To wake up."
By all rights Sirius should have thrown the potions down the sink and then covered the floor in tripwires before going to sleep, but thirteen years of nightmares made the thought of a Dreamless Sleep potion too tempting to resist.
Fuck it. If they come for me there's nothing I could do anyway.
In one motion he threw back the concoction and seconds later was snoring.
For twelve hours Sirius slept.
-"make no mistake, Dementors are dark creatures that should not be trifled with, but I am confident that if none of you antagonize them, then they will not antagonize you."
Headmistress McGonagall speech was, as always, straightforward and to the point. Harry fondly remembered the headmaster that had been in charge during his first year. The old man's opening monologue had rambled on for so long that he had to be gently reminded by McGonagall- then the transfiguration professor- to get to the point.
"I have utmost trust in the two ministry escorts-" the headmistress gestured to the two dour looking men standing beside the teachers table- "-to keep the Dementors in line if necessary."
The crimson robed Aurors had been standing to each side of the entrance to the Great Hall when the students had entered. One had their wand lit up with an orange light and were waving it past each student as they walked past.
"What do you think they were looking for? It's not like Black is going to be hiding under our cloaks," Ernie had said when they sat down.
Susan replied before Justin got the chance, much to his consternation.
"We learned about Polyjuice potion last year. How is it possible you manage to forget so much in two months?"
The disturbing thought that anyone in Hogwarts could be Black in disguise momentarily silenced all of them. Dementors were bad, but at least you knew they were coming ahead of time. Despite Professor Sprouts assurances- who had pulled him aside shortly after the train stopped- that the ministry was only being cautious and Black was just as likely to head to London than Hogwarts, he couldn't help but feel a pang of guilt that this was mostly because of him.
Mcgonnagall was still talking, "It is also with equal parts sorrow and excitement that I announce the retirement of Professor Ericcson. In his sixteen years of service teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts, I counted Ericcson as both a trusted adviser, and a friend..."
Harry sent a surprised look across the table at Justin. The old DADA teacher had been well liked among the students, even if Ernie held a grudge at him- apparently, he had originally been behind limiting the duelling club to third-years and above. He would have thought Ericcson would have announced a retirement at the end of last year and received a proper send-off. Maybe the man didn't like fanfare.
"...however, as an old friend once said to me, an ending is only sad if there is no new beginning to come after it. I am pleased to welcome our new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Ignatius Carrick. I trust you will all give him a warm welcome."
The gathered students dutifully gave a round of applause, and Harry turned to look at the new professor, wondering how he hadn't noticed a stranger sitting where Ericcson would normally be.
The man looked like he had spent most of life working in the sun, skin tanned to a dark brown like hardened leather. Broad shoulders reminded Harry of the men on Dudley's wrestling shows and a long, jagged scar ran diagonally along the length of his face. He looked more like a dragon tamer than a teacher.
Despite a fearsome appearance, Carrick was grinning from ear to ear as he looked across the length of the hall, waving cheerfully at the assembled students.
"Without further ado, let us begin the feast!"
With that, Mcgonnagall sat down and the tables filled with food. The Hufflepuffs took a few moments to appreciate the meal- not much will interrupt a train of thought better than an entire roasted turkey appearing in front of you- before the conversation turned back inevitably to Sirius Black.
"-think it'll be enough to stop Black? Three Dementors and two Aurors don't seem like much of a-"
"-last I heard he was heading south anyway, he probably-"
"-reckon I could take him; I mean he's been in Azkaban for so long-"
Fearing that boredom would kill him long before any crazy escaped prisoners did, Harry tried to change the subject, nudging Ernie and saying as loudly as possible, "What do you think about the new teacher?"
"Seems like he'll be less boring than Ericcson, at least," the other boy said, "Apparently Sue's aunt knows him- hey Sue, what were you saying about Carrick before?"
Harry's ploy worked at least temporarily, and the conversation was thankfully diverted until the end of the feast. He had the unfortunate feeling that Black would be all anyone would talk about until he was caught.
The first week back was surprisingly hectic, as the Hogwarts curriculum apparently decided to take off the kids gloves at third year. Snape and Flitwick led the charge in handing out essays, and the other teachers weren't far behind.
Transfiguration had begun, rather ominously, with a safety lecture that had covered most of the lesson, with the rest being made up of revision, a theme that continued for the entire first week. Apparently, Professor Sabbath thought that whatever they would be learning was a serious step-up from last year. At the start of the second week he was proved right- turning inanimate object into animals turned out to be far harder than doing the opposite.
The class everyone was curious about was, of course, Defence Against the Dark Arts and the new professor.
"Let's jump right in, shall we? Our first topic will be curses, and how to defend against them," Carrick said once all the Hufflepuff and Gryffindor students had arrived.
That piqued the interest of the class. The first two years of DADA had mostly been made up of studying various creatures and learning how to identify dark magic. And since the faculty couldn't actually bring a vampire or wendigo into class it ended up mostly consisting of looking at moving images and writing essays about them. Curses were another matter entirely.
"For this lesson," the weathered professor continued, "We will start by identifying cursed objects and avoiding them. In each of your desk drawers there are five items- by the end of the lesson I will expect all of you to be able to tell which are cursed. But first, open your textbooks to page one-hundred and twenty-four."
Harry's hopes of an all-practical lesson were quashed. It turned out to be a lot more entertaining than he'd thought however, as halfway through the lesson Carrick announced that they could begin trying to single out the non-cursed item and bring it to the front whenever they felt confident. Most of the students that immediately tried- mostly Gryffindors, predictably- ended up failing miserably, and had to deal with various light inflictions.
Fear curses seemed to his favourite, and seeing Ron Weasley try to hide under his desk from a wave of invisible spiders was certainly fun. Other students had to deal with inflated fingers or temporarily speaking only in rhymes, and the whole class soon became equated with the professors roaring laughter as he undid each curse with a wave of his wand.
By the end of the lesson Harry had narrowed it down to two of his objects- a leather-bound book and a ring- and deciding that caution was the better part of valour, levitated the ring up to the front without touching it. He earned five points for his caution, and then promptly got them taken away when it turned out he'd guessed wrong.
Harry decided he liked Carrick- the man certainly seemed to be having a lot more fun teaching than anyone else, except perhaps Flitwick.
Finally, after what felt like several years the start of third week began, and with it the two most important aspects of Hogwarts life: Quidditch, and the duelling club. And while the first game of Quidditch with Hufflepuff wouldn't happen for another two weeks, the duelling club hit the ground running.
The seventh-floor room they were using had clearly been enlarged to be several times bigger than it should be, and was lined with raised square platforms like boxing rings along the walls. At the end of the hall was Professor Carrick, Professor Snape and a very worried looking Madame Pomfrey, no doubt thinking about the potential injuries that could result from having fifty odd students slinging spells at each other. Not for the first time, Harry silently cheered at the staggering lack of safety regulations in the wizarding world.
Snape spoke first, a Sonorus charm to amplify his voice.
"Beyond the first lesson, this club will not be about teaching students the art of duelling," the dour professor explained, "Any and all spells that may be of use to you in a duel will be taught in other classes or may be self-taught in your free time. What it is is a sanctioned time and space to hone your abilities against other students. With this casual atmosphere in mind, I expect that any grievances you may have between yourselves will be aired out here rather than in the hallways."
He lowered a particularly dark glare at the assembled group of Gryffindors as he said the last statement, and Carrick spoke up.
"Professor Snape and I are in agreement that it would be best for this group to be divided by year group and not house, but if any of you feel the need to sort something out with a student in a higher year then feel free to do it here where we can stop you killing each other. With that said, we should go over safety measures and rules..."
Harry only half-listened as Carrick went over what he already knew- no permanent injuries, no curses that aren't approved, try not to be as stupid as you all look- having spent a good portion of last year pestering older students about the club.
"Alright, the three of us can't look after all of you at once so get into groups of five or six and find a ring. Anyone who doesn't want to duel someone else today, there's plenty of training dummies on the far wall."
Harry immediately looked over to Draco, and the pureblood gestured to the ring closest to him. Harry moved over to him, and after a few minutes of shuffling around groups also ended up with Ernie and two Slytherins, Blaise Zabini and Daphne Greengrass. Harry knew barely anything about either of them, except that they were clearly more reliable with a wand than Crabbe and Goyle, who had been swiftly abandoned to find themselves in a group of Gryffindors.
The five of them quickly started participating in a tradition even older than duelling- trash talking. It was, Harry reflected, a form of friendship. If they'd been actual enemies then the words flung back and forth between them would probably have ended in curses being fired long before stepping into the ring.
Finally, Carrick spoke up.
"Alright, start whenever you'd like. No more than two at a time and please try not to get yourselves expelled."
Zabini and Ernie went first. After a few minutes of back-and-forth Ernie finally realized that the Slytherin was a lot better at dodging and parrying than using shields and starting to throw out weak hexes until one connected. He was then promptly taken out by Greengrass- "it was just a lucky shot, I coulda' won"- who walked out of the room with a sneer, seemingly content to take a win then leave. In the corner of his eye Harry could see Justin getting completely dominated by a Gryffindor girl with bushy hair- with her back to him he couldn't make out who exactly it was.
Finally, Harry took a position up on the stage opposite his rival and bowed.
Not even bothering with a taunt, Draco started casting immediately.
"Serpensortia!"
Well, that was a sort of taunt. Immediately, a coiled snake sprang from his wand, hissing angrily and slithering towards Harry.
"Evanesco," he snapped back, watching the conjured reptile disappear with a small "pop."
Their first duel had ended with Draco using that spell, resulting in Harry fleeing out of the room and promptly being caught by Filch. He had asked Professor McGonagall during the resulting detention, and she had explained that while the vanishing spell was technically a fourth-year spell, it was far easier to banish an item that had been directly summoned- so easy, in fact, a first year could do it.
Unwilling to let him keep his initiative, Harry responded quickly with a stunner and a migraine hex- Susan's favourite- both of which Draco took on a shield charm.
Since when could he take two spells on one Protego?
Moving quicker, both boys started sending weak hexes at each other, neither willing to try anything spectacular until they had each other's measure.
"Nasa vespertia!"
"Huria!"
"Aculea!"
"Augmenti!"
The last charm gave Draco pause, and he swore as a torrent of water hit him. Moments later the stream was stopped with a vanisher of his own, and Harry's wand bucked in his hand at the magical backlash. The blonde shot him a poisonous glare, but Harry didn't give him a chance to properly reply.
"Stupefy! Huria!"
Draco's wand moved intercepted both smoothly and Harry took a moment to be impressed. Parrying a spell required two skills- timing and reflexes, and it was clear that the pureblood had improved in both aspects since last year.
Still, he had him on the defensive now, and followed it up with a barrage of stunners and disarming charms, hoping something would connect. The purebloods wandwork became frantic, throwing up a shield and diving to the side, avoiding a stunner but finding himself cornered, wand out of position.
Got him.
"Contrarium mutatio!" Draco yelled, desperation clouding his voice.
Draco's wand glowed a bright yellow for a few seconds, and Harry felt the arena change in a way he couldn't properly describe. It was like the entire room was moving at great speed, but in no particular direction.
Then, quite suddenly and without explanation, he was upside-down.
Harry let out an embarrassing yelp and felt his legs instinctively collapse as the ceiling now appeared thirty feet below him.
I'm not falling, so it's just an illusion, a detached voice said in his head, but the solid jolt of adrenaline and terror that had coursed through him effectively banished any logical thoughts. Harry was aware enough to jump out of the way of Draco's next spell, but instead of moving left his body went right instead and he crashed into the border rope.
What the hell is this?
He was so disorientated that the next stinging hex hit him dead-on, and Draco openly laughed at him before following it up with a tripping Jinx as Harry tried to stand up, dropping him with a shout.
"Finite Incantatum," he said, trying to take advantage of the Slytherin toying with him, but the effects of curse didn't reverse.
Harry realized that the fight was effectively over, and Malfoy was just trying to force a surrender out of him to further wound his pride.
Fuck my pride, I'm about to throw up. Moments later a shower of blue sparks erupted from Harry's wand, signalling the end of the fight.
The Confundus charm can be easily countered with a simple Finite Incantatum. This rule also applies to descendant spells of the Confundus charm, such as the Backwards charm and the Topsy-Turvy curse (see page 241.) This, combined with the effects of the spell being lessened if the target is aware they are affected gives them limited use in combat.
Harry huffed in frustration as he closed Charms: The Fundamentals. So far, the closest thing he'd found to Malfoy's spell was the Topsy-Turvy Curse, but it was a projectile and Finite Incantatum hadn't worked. The smart thing to do would be to ask a teacher, but that felt wrong, like an even greater admission of defeat than surrendering had been. Besides, he was fairly sure most of the teachers would just tell him to focus on his homework rather than duelling.
"Harry, come look at this!"
Harry looked up, seeing the diminutive form of Hannah Abbot clutching a thick leather-bound tome like a shield. The girl had arrived at the school with all the confidence of a dormouse, and despite every effort from her classmates remained completely introverted. Ernie in particular had spent most of second year volunteering her for everything he could find, including one particularly disastrous pick-up game of quidditch. This had mostly resulted in a lot of tears and Susan getting to test out several creative new curses, and he eventually gave up entirely.
Glad for a distraction, Harry followed her across the library and into one of the small study rooms, and found the smiling figure of Luna Lovegood waiting there. He mostly knew the second year by reputation as an oddball even by Ravenclaw's standards. Hannah, nervously chewing her lip, sat down opposite Luna.
"Hello Harry," she said dreamily, "Hannah and I were just discussing Dementors. She's deathly afraid of them you know."
That was predictable enough.
"Fair enough," He replied, sitting down with them.
Hannah shot a more than a little annoyed glance at the other girl. "I'm not deathly afraid of them, I just... I'd just feel better if I could know where they were. I was asking Luna to help me with a finding charm for them."
The basic location charm was taught in second year, but as far as Harry understood it became more difficult to use the spell depending on the target. An inanimate object was easy, animals were slightly harder, and it took a great deal of continuous concentration to work on another sentient being like a person. He wasn't exactly sure where Dementors sat on that scale.
"And?"
"And," Luna replied, placing her wand flat on the palm of her hand, "It's behaving awfully strangely, even for magic, and I think you'll agree magic can be pretty strange. Find me Dementor Number one!"
The wand lifted into the air and span straight around, pointing at one of the walls. She did it again, this time with "Dementor Number two", and the wand span around to point in the opposite direction.
"Find me, Dementor Number three!"
This time, however, the wand shakily turned in one direction, then the other, then began weakly spinning in circles.
Hannah explained, "We gave them numbers so the spell would work, it was Luna's idea. The first Dementor is the one patrolling the airspace above the school, the second is outside the walls. The third was meant to be in the Forbidden Forest."
That was troubling.
"Maybe it's just too far away? The forbidden forest is a lot bigger than it looks." In fact, Harry's own experiences there made him suspect it was enchanted to be so.
Hannah responded by pulling out her own wand and saying, "Find me, John Abbot."
The wand responded by shaking for a second before falling back down into her hand.
"They're away in South America on holiday right now," she explained. "This is something else."
Despite the flimsy evidence, Harry started to feel uneasy. While he wouldn't complain about one of the Dementors going missing, something about the whole situation worried him for reasons he couldn't properly explain. Find me wouldn't work at all on anything that didn't exist, so it had to still be alive- actually no-one seemed to be completely sure if it was even possible to kill a Dementor- so something else must have happened to it.
"So what, do we tell the Aurors?"
Hannah shook her head. "They already know, I think. Erica told me that Nathan's brother James- you know they're dating? - saw Hagrid talking with the Aurors outside the Forbidden Forest. Apparently, they looked pretty worried."
As Harry mentally worked out the chain of people that information had passed along, Luna started talking again.
"It's rather worrying that a Dementor could escape captivity, yet another sign of the Ministry's growing incompetence. This kind of thing is why Daddy thinks we should all rise up and overthrow them. He calls it "the Day of the Grim". Do either of you read the Quibbler?"
Harry, only half listening, replied in the negative then turned to Hannah. "Well its interesting and I won't complain about one less Dementor. Once everyone hears about this they'll really start freaking out."
Luna cocked her ahead as though listening for something and said, "Maybe you could ask your spider friends that Hannah was telling me about if they saw anything?"
"HANNAH!"
The same man that had brought Sirius to the safe-house had rang the doorbell an hour after he had woken up.
Sirius had spent most of that hour inspecting the rooms he had been confined in, the exterior doors being fasted shut with more than just a physical lock. He had found dozens of sets of runic wards indented or subtly painted throughout the three rooms. The subject wasn't exactly Sirius' strong suit, but from he could tell the place was layered with disillusionment charms, observation wards, and silent alarms linked to somewhere unknown, all charmed made to be near-unbreakable. The only reason to use runic chains like this was if the place was meant to go completely unused for long periods of time, and no-one would be able to refresh temporary charms.
He had been about to start copying them down for later when the old man had knocked. Sirius had let him in, not seeing much point in making trouble at this point, and he had sat down at the kitchen table, smiling politely up at Sirius.
"Did you rest well, Mr. Black?"
"Yes. Thank you for the potions, and for your... hospitality, but I have some questions."
The gentlemanly figure gestured broadly, as though telling him to go ahead.
Sirius sat opposite him, avoiding eye contact. His occlumency had never been the best even before Azkaban, and it never hurt to be careful.
"Well firstly, you got me at a disadvantage. What's your name?"
"You may call me Atticus. It is not my real name, but I think it would be wise if you knew as little about my organisation as possible," Atticus said.
Sirius accepted that with a nod.
"Alright then, 'Atticus'. Why are you helping me? And why are you helping the Rat?" A mote of barely contained aggression entered his tone as he mentioned Pettigrew.
Atticus answered, "It is not out of kindness, I'm afraid. We require your assistance with a small task, as we do with Mr. Pettigrew. It is a simple matter of business, which is why we helped you."
Sirius snarled. "I didn't ask for help. don't owe you anything."
The gentlemanly figure nodded, unperturbed. "You are forgetting our earlier conversation, Mr. Black. Mr. Pettigrew agreed to work with us because we threatened him with simple violence and… exposure, but our deal with you will be far less one-sided."
"I get the Rat," Sirius said.
"Indeed. We care nothing about your little dispute, but will happily hand over Mr. Pettigrew as payment upon completion of your task."
Sirius sat for a long minute, thinking. The desire for revenge was overwhelming, made him want to accept the offer immediately, but he forced himself to consider the facts.
"How do I know I can trust you? For all I know you'll just off me after I'm done and keep the Rat on your payroll. A man everyone thinks is dead is surely more valuable to you than one everyone is looking for," he said.
Atticus smiled broadly, sitting back as though a deal had already been agreed on.
"If you are looking for a guarantee, then I can only offer you one. If you do not agree to work with us, then we will set Pettigrew free after the conclusion of our business, and I can assure you he will not be so incautious as to allow you to find him, not when your efforts will be hindered by the authorities. You, Mr. Black, will live the rest of your life on the run knowing that your friend's killer and the man responsible for your incarceration is roaming free, laughing at you. That is a guarantee."
Ah. He had been offered the carrot, here was the stick.
He continued, "but for what it is worth, Mr. Black, if you use Mr. Pettigrew to prove your innocence, as I'm sure you were hoping to do, everyone will no longer be looking for you. And as a free man, you will be far more useful to my organisation."
In truth, Sirius' only plan for Pettigrew was to tear him into pieces. More worryingly was that last statement- had the old man said something he shouldn't? It didn't matter- he was right in that Sirius had no real choice in the matter. If he wanted any chance of revenge than he would have to go along with this. For now.
"I won't kill anyone for you. Enough good people have died because of me," he said.
Atticus nodded. "We anticipated you might say as much. We aren't asking you to kill anyone, though I'm sure it would make your job easier. We are simply requesting that you acquire something of great value for us. We chose you because the ministry has kill-on-sight orders for you, and so in the event of your capture, those parties who are working against my organisation will be unable to obtain any information about us."
The man reached into a coat pocket and removed a spherical brass device, setting it on the table. It sprang open with a sharp click, revealing a needle and a spiralling channel set into black, greasy stone.
"All pertinent information can be found on this- it's coded to your blood, and I'm sure you can figure out how it works. You will have absolutely no resources available to you apart from what is in this safehouse and what you can obtain for yourself, and will receive no help whatsoever from us. I'm sure you can understand why."
"You're assuming I'm agreeing to all this."
Atticus just smiled and withdrew one more item from his coat, placing it onto the table along with the brass device before standing.
"We would not have sought you out if we didn't know you would accept, Mr. Black."
With that he disapparated away, and Sirius was left with only his thoughts, the device, and a wand.
11 Inches, Oak with a dragon scale core. The same wand that had been snapped thirteen years ago when Sirius was put into Azkaban.
Fine. It didn't matter how they had got it back, all that mattered was that he had a wand, and having a wand changed everything. With each word the old man had said, Sirius had become increasingly sure that whoever was in charge of all this couldn't be trusted. It was a feeling based more on instinct than logic, but the longer Sirius sat at that table the surer of it he became. Something about Atticus felt off.
Sirius' reached out and grabbed the needle contraption, inspecting it closely. He had seen plenty of dark objects keyed to a particular person's blood, and several designed for imparting information. With one motion he pressed his thumb into the needle before withdrawing and watching the trickle of blood run through the black stone channel. It pooled at the bottom then disappeared into a previously unseen crevice.
Nothing happened.
Well, shit. If the thing is faulty, I don't exactly have a way of getting a new-
Sirius' went completely rigid. Clearly whoever had invented this method of sharing information hadn't cared a mote about the comfort of its user, as it felt like each piece of information had to carve its way through this skull and brain matter before it was absorbed.
After what felt like hours, but was probably only a few seconds, Sirius collapsed on the table, groaning. The device shuddered, then slowly crumbled to dust in his hand.
Remus.
I need to find Remus.
