"You doin' alright back there lads?"
Harry dutifully answered in the positive while Malfoy continued silently glaring daggers at Hagrid's back. The blonde had made his feelings about the whole situation clear, bemoaning the unfairness of being sent into the Forbidden Forest with a "great big oaf," for detention. The fact that this was completely his own fault was, of course, being willfully ignored. Harry was just glad he wasn't being forced to clean cauldrons for Snape like Crabbe and Ernie.
"Ah cheer up Malfoy, ye're goin to be seein' somethin' special tonight. Technically ye're meant to be scrapin' out the flobberworm cage, but I thought that was a bit harsh," The giant said, clearly excited. He'd refused to say what the two students would actually be doing in the forest, which just made Malfoy more terrified.
"Yes, I understand that you think we should be enjoying this, but you're an idiot," the blonde pureblood whined, apparently oblivious to the fact that no one in earshot cared about his opinion, "and when my father hears about this you're going to be fired from this bloody school."
Harry sent him a glare. "Oh shut up Malfoy, it could be worse. Filch wanted to whip us for Merlin's sake."
Hagrid stopped suddenly, looking around and then back at the students. The boys moved around and beside him and saw why. Ahead of them, the path dropped off into a steep decline, and in the darkness Harry could see what looked like a massive thicket of bushes and dead trees formed into a rough circle.
Malfoy looked even paler than normal. "I'm not bloody going in there. They can let Filch hang me up by my thumbs but I'm not going in there."
"Ah nonsense, it's perfectly safe. You can stay here if you want but you'll be on yer' own, right Harry?"
Harry gulped, looking down at the imposing mass of plant life. He thought he could just about see something moving around in there, but wasn't sure if it was real or just a trick of his imagination. Still, Hagrid was his friend, and loyalty was one of the characteristics of a true Hufflepuff.
"What exactly is in there Hagrid," he said, unsure.
The groundskeeper just beamed down at him.
"Old friend of mine by the name of Aragog is visiting here fer a bit of an inspection. The Acromantulas are expanding out y'know, since they're breedin' so much lately- one nest just isn't big enough any more. I figured since there's only gonna be a few of the em' there at the moment it'd be the perfect time to introduce them to more people, try an' foster a 'sense of community'."
That was apparently Malfoy's breaking point and he dropped to the ground, muttering faintly about spiders and his father interchangeably. Harry kept his terror at a minimum, more out of ignorance than bravery, and looked again down at the "nest." He could definitely see movement now, several horse-sized shadows moving steadily towards them.
"Ah that'll be the greeting party. Acromantulas are very territorial, best wait to be invited first," Hagrid said.
Sure enough, the three of them were soon surrounded by half a dozen massive spiders, each one chittering away in a strange language as they inspected the intruders. Even Hagrid looked faintly nervous. Finally, the largest of them moved up and, to Harry's astonishment, spoke in garbled English,
"Hairy-man welcome here. Small-men food-gifts?"
Hagrid gave it a stern look, as though the six-foot arachnid was a rowdy schoolchild, and replied, "O' course not, Maloran, these are friends. Er, Nest-mates, not fer' eatin' you understand? If you eat them I'll be angry, and Dumbledore will be even angrier."
This was apparently enough for the Acromantula, and it shrank back, apparently terrified by the thought of angering the headmaster. The old man seemed fairly harmless- bordering on senile- to Harry, but apparently he held some serious influence here.
"Fear-sorry, small-men friends like Hairy-man, come see Aragog then leave please-yes?"
The formalities over, all three began descending down the incline. Even Malfoy was following with a sort of dreamy expression on his face. Harry sent him a questioning look.
"Dad says when you use the Cruciatus curse on someone for long enough they stop being able to feel any pain at all. I think something like that happened with me," he said cheerfully. Hagrid shot him an inscrutable look, but didn't say anything.
After less than a minute- the spiders and Hagrid set a fast pace, and neither boy wanted to let the Acromantulas behind them catch up- they reached the entrance to the thicket and went through. Under the light of a near-full moon, Harry could make out at least another dozen shapes moving around above them. They seemed to be spinning massive webs, forming a sort of "ceiling" across the circular walls of the nest.
In the center, a mound of eggs could just barely be made out, guarded by one absolutely massive shape. It was at least three times bigger than the other Acromantulas, and loomed over everything like a king surveying his new castle.
"Ullo' Aragog, I see you've been busy!"
A scratchy, hissing sound filled the air, and it took a moment for the boys to realize it was laughter.
"Hagrid," the monstrous spider said in perfect English, "It has been far too long, old friend."
Harry shook himself out of his reverie, glaring at Hannah.
"I wouldn't say we're friends, we met once and Hagrid did most of the talking. It's also sort of meant to be a secret, Hannah, Hagrid could get in real trouble."
The diminutive brunette shrank down, looking rather ashamed. "Um, well, honesty is one of the house values, right?"
"I wouldn't worry Harry," Luna said, "I'm pretty sure Dumbledore knew- he tended to know everything- and since McGonagall became Headmistress Hagrid says he isn't allowed to take Detentions anymore."
Hannah took a moment to stop cowering and turn to the Ravenclaw. "You're friends with Hagrid?"
Luna nodded enthusiastically. "Of course, daddy visited him all the time when I was little. He used to let me ride around on the Thestrals."
Harry didn't know what Thestrals were, but knowing Hagrid they probably had lots of teeth and were completely unsuitable for a child to sit on. The half-giant may have been kind and loyal to a fault- Harry often thought that the only reason he hadn't been sorted into Hufflepuff was because he wouldn't have fit through the hidden entrance- but he also tended to treat even the most dangerous of magical beasts like pets. At least Acromantulas could be reasoned with- he couldn't say the same about the groundskeepers' pet Graphorn.
Harry drew his own wand thoughtfully, spinning then tapping it against the table.
"If they want to work out what happened to the Dementor, talking to Aragog would probably be the best place to start, and for that they'd have to go through Hagrid. Maybe we should go ask him?"
That seemed to Harry to be the most reasonable thing to do. The Dementor didn't really have anything to do with him, and by all rights should have been left to the professionals, but he couldn't help but feel curious. Besides, he hadn't got around to visiting Hagrid this year, and was starting to feel guilty about it.
It ended up being considerably more difficult to organize a simple visit to the groundskeeper's hut than he'd thought. Just a few hours after Hannah shared her discovery the Headmistress announced that due to a dispute with the Centaur population in the Forbidden Forest, students were no longer permitted to leave the school grounds except for Hogsmeade visits, and were completely banned from going within fifty meters of the forest edge.
Harry had shared a glance with Hannah over his breakfast at this- it seemed obvious that the real reason for the new rules had something to do with the missing Dementor. It seemed that outside of them, Ernie, Justin and Susan, who Hannah told everything, no-one else had worked out what they had.
It was a sort of thrill to be in on a secret that the staff clearly didn't want them knowing about, but Harry had been right when he'd said there wasn't really anything they could do about it. One of the remaining Dementors now patrolled the edge of the forest, seemingly just to keep the students in line. Harry hoped McGonagall didn't get any ideas about keeping them on permanently.
Hagrid still seemed to be staying in his hut, well outside of the reach of the students, so Harry sent a letter off to him the next morning. By lunch, he was still waiting for a reply.
"Hagrid's probably just taking his time writing and spoiling Hedwig rotten Harry, stop worrying so much," Susan said after Harry checked the owl entrance for the fifth time.
She was right, but with two Dementors still on patrol he couldn't help but feel nervous. It had seemed perfectly safe sending Hedwig out at the time- Harry wasn't even sure if Dementors had any interest in owl souls- but he was a perpetual worrier when it came to his friends and by extension his pets. No doubt a psychologist would put it down to his lack of friendships before coming to Hogwarts, and he always suspected his Sorting into Hufflepuff was due to something similar.
"Did you hear what Carrick had the fourth-years doing?" Ernie was saying excitedly to anyone who would listen. "Apparently he had a live Bandersnatch! I didn't even think they existed."
The Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor was proving to be quite interesting, seemingly paying lip service to idea of a curriculum while cheerfully doing more-or-less whatever he wanted in class.
Susan was only becoming more annoyed that of the five Hufflepuffs, she was the only one who had the other DADA teacher, Professor Prewett.
"Can't believe I'm the only one in Prewett's class. She's as bad as Binns sometimes," Susan grumbled. She was exaggerating somewhat. While Harry, Ernie and Hannah were all in Carrick's class, Justin and her were stuck in the other class, and had to deal with Prewett's dull monotone. "Isn't that right Justin?"
The other boy completely failed to respond, seemingly gazing off into the distance with a dreamy expression on his face. Harry followed his gaze over to a group of Gryffindors chatting among themselves over lunch. Ernie interrupted him by throwing a bread crust in his face, and he let out a spluttered "What was that for?!"
"Absolutely pathetic Justin, even for you. Really, all a girl has to do is knock you a few dozen feet and you fall head over heels for her," Ernie said lazily, flicking some more pieces of uneaten sandwich at the muggleborn wizard to his annoyance. "Ever since Granger publicly emasculated him in the duelling club he's been drooling after her."
Ah, that explained it. Harry vaguely remembered Justin losing a duel to Hermione Granger, and that Justin had been somewhat distracted since. The others continued bantering about Justin's apparent masochistic streak, but Harry was quickly distracted by the flap of wings as Hedwig finally returned from Hagrid, a reply letter tied to its leg.
Barely containing his excitement, Harry untied the letter, throwing a piece of bacon to the owl before it gave a happy warble and perched directly on his head, waiting for another reply or another piece of bacon. He opened the letter, quickly reading the messy scrawl.
Dear Harry
The Auror's don't want me sending any more letters off, but I managed to sneak this one through. I wouldn't go around talking about the missing Dementor right now- the ministry won't punish you for knowing or anything like that but you'll get all the rest of the students riled up. McGonagall has enough going on, please don't make her job harder.
STAY AWAY FROM THE FOREST! Leave it up to the adults Harry, whatever took the dementor is bad news, bad enough that they won't even tell me what's going on really (or they just don't know themselves).
Apparently we're going to go talk to the Centaurs soon and see if they've seen anything amiss. Bloody aurors aren't letting me go see Aragog and Mosag, apparently Acromantulas aren't "reliable intelligence." I'd say they've got more "reliable intelligence" than the whole bloody ministry put together, if you catch my meaning!
Cheers,
Hagrid.
Well, that wasn't particularly informative. It seemed Hagrid didn't know much more about what was going on than they did.
Harry tucked the scroll away. In the crowded Great Hall anyone could overhear the Hufflepuffs discussing the note, and Harry wasn't about to draw the Aurors ire. Despite Hagrid's assurance, Harry still found the grim-faced enforcers more than a little scary, and the less attention they were paying him the better. He could discuss it with the rest of his friends in the Hufflepuff common room, under the protection of a privacy charm.
Remus Lupin was working steadily on becoming blackout drunk as quickly as possible. This was unusual for him. Inebriation reminded him too much of the early stages of "the change," when his mind and body became unsynchronized and the wolf started to take control.
This was a special occasion.
Sirius Black was free, probably heading towards Hogwarts, and there was nothing he could do about it. Ericcsons retirement had given him a golden opportunity to join on as a Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, but McGonagall had turned him down. All the reasons she gave were reasonable, but he wasn't about to let that get in the way of some perfectly good self-pitying.
He almost hoped Sirius would come for him before he went for Harry- maybe then he'd get some answers, some closure. And hell, thirteen years in Azkaban must have dulled his abilities somewhat, maybe Remus might actually be able to take him out. That would be satisfying. If he focused through the alcoholic haze, he could just about hear the screams and the crunch of bones.
It wasn't healthy to wallow in anticipated violence, Dumbledore had taught him that, but then Dumbledore had abandoned him, so he wasn't about to start caring about the old man's platitudes now.
Pouring another shot of firewhiskey, the werewolf started as a piece of paper fell out of the bottle and into his glass.
Even half-drunk his senses perked up, looking around the sparse apartment. It was small, made smaller by the thick, warded cage in the centre of his living room. There were no clues that someone had been in it apart from him, and no real reason anyone would be sending him covert messages - he'd been a nobody since the war.
Which meant...
Remus grabbed the note- charmed to be temporarily waterproof- and unfolded it.
Moony. North bridge, midnight, alone- Padfoot.
He snarled, arm shooting forward to hurl the piece of paper into his fireplace.
It seemed like his wish had come true, and he had no idea what to think about it. The fact that Sirius was requesting a meeting at all made him suspicious. If the madman wanted him dead, why not just wait in his apartment when he'd broken in to leave the message? If he was able to find him and get in here then he had a wand, and could have taken him out when he'd walked through the door.
And if he didn't want to fight him...
Then he was about to get a rude surprise. It was three hours until midnight, but if Sirius thought he would be getting a meeting on his terms he was dead wrong. Remus pocketed his wand, covertly leaving the building and smiling faintly in spite everything- not a smile of happiness, but a leer of anticipation.
Two and three-quarters of an hour later Remus was waiting impatiently, having gone the long way around and approached from the other side. The bridge in question was out-of-the-way in a quiet area of downtown London, crossing a small rivulet, little more than a reed-filled creek. He was in the lower branches of a tree, watching both entrances carefully, covered in notice-me-not charms and wrapped in a transfigured cloak made to look like the foliage around him. Remus wasn't about to take any chances with Sirius Black.
Thoughts of bloodshed were making it difficult to concentrate, at least some of which could be attributed to the full moon being only two days away. That was the cycle- rage leading up to the transformation, and exhaustion after it.
It started raining, gently at first then into a downpour.
A muggle couple out on a romantic stroll hurried past him and he almost cursed them. Damn his nerves. Several people had wandered across with dogs, caught out in the rain, but none that looked anything like Sirius' Animagus form. Remus waited so long that he was beginning to think Sirius wasn't going to show up, when finally a black, low shape slinked past him, sniffing the ground. The dog, looking half-starved and panting gently, entered the light of a lamp post and even after thirteen years Remus recognized it.
Yes. His ploy had paid off, as Sirius now had his back to where Remus would approach from.
Slowly, he descended the tree, desperately trying to balance his violent instincts with caution. The dog had sat down on the centre of the bridge, facing away from Remus. A single, whispered curse and the bastard that had betrayed James and Lily would be reduced to a red smear on the pavement, a mystery for the public to gossip about then forget.
Kill him. KILL HIM. KILL HIM.
But no. Remus needed more than that and shook the thoughts away. He needed answers. The Grim could- would- die later.
"Stupefy."
The red light flew at the dog, hit it dead centre and... turned it to stone. Even as the word transfiguration flitted across his mind, Remus felt the cold tip of a wand poke against the back of his neck.
"Please, old friend," Sirius said, voice hoarse, "Don't do anything stupid. I just want to talk."
"I'm going to kill you. I'm going to tear you into fucking pieces."
He heard Sirius swallow behind him. Good, he was scared.
"I can already see you're angry, otherwise that trick wouldn't have worked, you don't need to convince me, please Moony I swear-"
"Don't you call me that," Remus said, feeling something bestial rise up in him, struggling in vain to control it. "That was what they called me, that was what our friends called me. The friends you killed."
A mote of desperation entered his old comrades voice as he spoke, a torrent of words pouring out of him, his carefully planned speech abandoned. "Please, Remus, you have to believe me. I didn't betray James and Lily, it was-"
Something snapped inside Remus and he turned, letting the wolf overtake him. Ducking under Sirius' wand, he sent a vicious elbow into his stomach before turning around and leaping on the other man. Remus' own wand forgotten completely, he bore his former friend to the ground.
It was a myth that sufferers of Lycanthropy gained super-human abilities outside of the full moon, but he hardly needed any extra strength to take down Sirius. Azkaban had robbed him of his strength, and he was helpless against the beating Remus delivered. Blow after blow rained on him, Sirius desperately trying to cover his head with his arms and talk through a mouth full of blood at the same time. Abandoning reason, he desperately rolled, putting his full weight into the movement and taking Remus by surprise, hurling them both down the steep hill and into the waters below.
The combatants were broken apart in the motion, their wands lost in the dark and rain. Sirius desperately tried to get out of the water, thoughts reduced to simple fight-or-flight, but Remus was faster. With a lurch the werewolf grabbed his midsection, bearing Sirius back to the ground even as he started clambering the hillside. He scrambled backwards, desperately kicking out and catching Remus beneath the chin. His once-friend seemed barely phased by it, grabbing Sirius' outstretched foot and using it to drag himself on top of him.
Finally, his full weight keeping Sirius pinned in place, Remus worked his hands around his neck and squeezed.
"Why... Why did you do it," Remus growled, forcing words through teeth that only wanted to bite.
Sirius choked desperately, unable to speak around the iron grip, too panicked to change into his Animagus form, desperately trying and failing to force air through his windpipe. The werewolf was too heavy to shift off him, too enraged to stop and listen to reason. Black spots began to form around the edges of his vision, and Sirius suddenly became aware of how stupid he had been. Moony was going to choke him to death and leave his body in the mud and it was all his fault.
Every regret in his life floated past his eyes, taunting him one by one. Wormtail's look of triumph as he blew up the street, Sirius himself laughing when the Aurors took him away, too stupefied by his own failure to defend himself, and the black walls of Azkaban swallowing him.
I'm sorry James.
Remus could barely see his victim through a haze of red, but he didn't care. All that mattered was killing, was the feeling of Sirius' throat collapsing under his hands. Nothing else existed but the bastard that had killed his friends and left him alone in the world, that had betrayed everything he'd once stood for.
Some detached part of his mind was yelling at him to stop but he ignored it. That part of him was soft, weak, spineless. This wasn't work for a man of principles, it wasn't the work of a man at all. He couldn't afford a second of pity of regret for the bastard below him. Remus needed to be a demon, a wolf wearing human skin. An animal... Oh.
James put a hand on Remus' shoulder. He didn't know how his friend- his former friend, he supposed- had found him, but then James always had the knack of knowing where he had to be at any given time.
"You don't have to say it in person, Potter. I know you all hate me, I'm sure most of the school does by now as well. I don't blame you."
"Remus," the other boy sat down heavily next to him, letting his legs hang over the edge of the tower along with Lupins, "Stop being an idiot. We're not going to stop being friends with you because you have an... illness."
Lupin almost laughed at that, but it came out as a choked sob.
"It's not an illness, it's... You saw what I almost did to Peter. I'm an animal."
James grabbed his head, forcing the other boy to look into his eyes.
"You're not an animal, you're a person, and I'm not abandoning you because of some bullshit like this. None of us are. We're the bloody Marauders. You hear me Remus? You're not an animal."
Sirius' felt a sliver of air escape into his lungs, and the world came back into focus for long enough to see the expression on Remus' face changing imperceptibly. There was still rage there, but it was clashing with sorrow and confusion and the despair of lost memories. His hands left Sirius' neck and he fell off him into the mud, eyes misting up.
"Why?" Remus murmured, unable to manage anything else. "Why, Sirius."
Sirius was silent for a long moment, gratefully sucking in mouthfuls of air before he took a piece of crumpled newspaper out of his pocket and handed it to Remus.
"It wasn't me, Moony. I wasn't the secret keeper. It was Wormtail."
Remus' looked at the paper, and his world fell apart.
"Why didn't they tell me?"
Sirius gave him a pained look.
"You have to understand Moony, James and Lily... I don't think they had any hope left that we could win the war. At that point they just wanted Harry to be safe, and..."
He paused to take a long drink, letting the firewhiskey warm him up. He'd forgotten how nice that feeling was. After thirteen years he'd forgotten what a lot of nice feelings were like.
"They didn't think they could trust me," Remus finished, sitting down heavily.
"We knew there was a spy somewhere, we knew it was probably one of us four. Every other werewolf in Britain was joining Voldemort, he was offering them so much, and Wormtail... No-one thought he could betray us."
Remus nodded wearily at that. It made sense, he supposed. Pettigrew, small, timid, kind Pettigrew, who never insulted anyone, who always went along with whatever hair-brained scheme James and Sirius came up with, and who had forgiven Remus even after he almost killed him. No-one had thought it was possible for him to be a traitor. That didn't make his friends mistrust hurt any less.
Sirius had phased out in the silence, staring off at something unseen. Remus felt a pang of sympathy and silently cast subtle cheering charm under the table, which seemed to at least jolt the other man out of his reverie.
"So, if Wormtail is still in the possession of the Weasley boy, then surely we have to get him," Remus said, excitement filling his voice, " McGonagall, will believe us if we have proof- Padfoot, he could prove your innocence."
Sirius was already shaking his head.
"It's not that simple. I was already heading to Hogwarts after I broke out of Azkaban, but things have changed. Someone else got to the rat first."
In between sips of firewhiskey Sirius explained his meeting with Atticus and the 'mission' he'd been given- or at least as much as he could say. The brass device had given him infuriatingly little to go on, and it seemed that despite Atticus' confidence that he would be killed if captured his benefactors wanted Sirius to know as little as possible.
Department of Mysteries
Wing 7, room 21.
December 14th.
And that was all it had said, making Sirius wonder why they'd even bothered with it. The old man could have just told him- maybe they thought he'd forget the numbers if it wasn't burned into his brain. Normally a device like that would be cursed to stop the recipient from telling anyone what was on, but Sirius seemed to be able to talk about it just fine.
By the time he'd finished, Remus was frowning heavily, worry painted across his face.
"How could they have known about Pettigrew? Hell, how could they have known where you were an hour after you escaped? That's not even mentioning that they had your wand somehow- just who the hell are these guys?"
Sirius waved him off. "I've already thought about all that."
"And?"
"No idea."
Remus shot him a glare, almost annoyed, before a painful wave of nostalgia hit him. Playfully arguing with James and Sirius about nothing, Peter watching on and smiling, until they had got so far from their original topic that no-one could even remember what it was.
"But anyway," Sirius continued, shaking Remus from his reverie, "Atticus made it pretty clear he wouldn't be contacting me until I was finished, so if we want to find out anything about these people we're gonna have to go along with them, at least for a while."
Oh, right. The robbery.
"I haven't even got to that yet. How exactly do you propose we break into the bloody Department of Mysteries anyway, especially considering we don't actually know what we're stealing? Getting into the Ministry is one thing, but the spooks keep their little kingdom locked up tighter than Gringotts."
The other wizard frowned for a few seconds before perking up.
"Do you remember how we made the Marauders Map? Might help with breaking in."
"We didn't make the map, James and Pettigrew did most of that in the Room of Requirement while we were in the hospital wing. I recall someone letting a Boggart out into the Great Hall during breakfast," Remus said, smiling at the memory.
Sirius just looked confused until a wide grin broke through on his face and he laughed. "I'd forgotten all about that. Dementors didn't leave me with much of my time at Hogwarts left, I guess. Just the bad bits, and I suppose there wasn't many of those."
Remus absorbed that silently, pouring them both of them another shot. Thirteen years, and he'd survived it. Most people sentenced to life sentences didn't last that long- he knew most of the former Death Eaters captured were long dead, though the Ministry didn't like talking publicly about it.
"Then we'd better try and remember as much as possible, Padfoot. Drink up, we can plot and plan tomorrow," he said, patting his oldest friend on the shoulder. He knew firewhiskey wouldn't be enough to heal wounds as deep as theirs, but it would at least be a start. The mysterious organisation, Department of Mysteries, and Pettigrew could wait until daylight.
