When Remus saw the man put up the poster, he thought at first some family must have lost their dog. As he spent another long hour working the dead end job that helped him pay the rent he made a mental note to read it later to see what he could do, feeling a kinship towards the canine that was out in the world, lost and alone. He looked out of the window again as he added another glass vial to the pile. The job wasn't what he had hoped and dreamed for back at Hogwarts, but he'd always been good at transfiguration and, he mused as he picked another silverfish from the jar, enlarged it and transfigured that one too, at least he no longer had to wonder what use it was to learn how to transform animals into water goblets.
" When are we ever going to use this?" Peter had whispered as the four of them sat together in a group, a rat on the table before them.
"Never." James had said, as he stacked more books and ink jars, building a maze for the creature. They would have to start trying to cast the spell soon. McGonagall was not a professor to be messed with, and she'd already looked their way twice.
" It's a good way to learn the basics, the principles of transformative magic…" Remus started, but at the same time Sirius spoke.
" It can be useful" He said.
" Yeah?" James asked sitting up, his attention on Sirius.
" if we'd ever find ourselves trapped in a cell dripping with water, mad with thirst, with rats at our feet…" Sirius said, and then he grinned ".. but it seems strange a school would assume it's students to end up there."
Remus picked another silverfish from the jar they were kept in, and transformed it into yet another glass vial. He should not be thinking about Hogwarts. Hogwarts was a dream he'd once had. A silly dream by a naive boy who'd been too sheltered from the real world. He transformed another silverfish. It wasn't a bad job, he told himself once again. Yes, it was repetitive, and yes, it required no skill beyond that of Hogwarts' first year, but it rid the world of pests, and provided potion makers all over the world with the vials they needed. He picked another silverfish from the jar. Yes, it was repetitive. Another. Yes, it was. Another. But repetitive as it was, out of all his friends at Hogwarts, all those brave young dreamers, he was best off. James, Peter, Lily, all dead. Gideon, Fabian, Marlene, Benjy, all the Bones' , all dead. Caradoc, missing, never found. Frank and Alice, lost forever. Sirius. Sirius...
"...if we'd ever find ourselves trapped in a cell dripping with water, mad with thirst, with rats at our feet…"
At what point had Sirius' betrayal began? At what point in their friendship had Sirius decided that it wasn't worth it, that he would give up all his effort to be different from the man his family tried to make him? When they were fighting the war? It wasn't hard to imagine the war to break a man, the fight had seemed hopeless at time, and the losses too great...But Sirius had never been someone that broke under a challenge. When Gideon and Fabian had died, when the loss of war had felt too much and they'd all started to hope, Sirius had put his hand on Peter's shoulder and spoken up.
" We've lost." he'd said. " But that does not mean they'll win. We can't give up. We owe it to Gideon and Fabian that we won't give up. They wouldn't have. And anyway, Even if we all die and there's no one left, we're still better off than the other side. No amount of wealth, power or feeling of superiority is worth living a life as bleak as they do, believe me, I know."
Had he been siding with the dark lord then? It made no sense, and yet.. There had been so little time between the deaths of the Prewett brothers and Peter and the Potter's that he must have been.
So when had he betrayed them? What had been real? Had Sirius ever been their friend? But you did not become an animagus to ease a friend's suffering merely as a pretense.. Did you?
He should not think about that. He picked another silverfish from the jar.
It was dark by the time Remus left the factory but he still walked over to the poster stuck to the lamppost to see if there was anything he could do. He could imagine far too well what it would feel like for that poor dog, lost in a cold dark place without the people that cared.
But the poster wasn't for a lost dog.
"Have you seen this wizard?" It read in bold capitals. Beneath it was a picture of someone who looked more like an inferius than a man. He looked familiar, somehow. Perhaps Remus had seen him.
He studied the poster and tried to remember the faces he'd seen. He'd been living on the lower end of society for a while, working jobs that barely paid the rent, living in neighborhoods where poverty was a force so strong it was almost corporeal. So where had he seen a face like that?
The man in the poster looked back at him, and a small smile spread across his lips.
Remus stepped back quickly, his heart racing.
No.
He looked at the poster again, from a saver distance, and now he saw what he should have seen before. The sign the man was holding. The black and white clothes. The grin. The grin was unmistakable.
But no one had ever escaped Azkaban…
"I'll admit that the idea in itself isn't bad, it's just not possible." Remus said.
"What do you mean?" James asked. "If mcGonagall can do it, so can we."
"I am not saying it can't be done." Remus said "Just that it is dangerous and it will take years. Decades. You all talk as if you'll have it done before summer!"
"I was thinking Springtime." James said.
"No one has managed to become a successful animagus before the age of 25!" Remus said.
"Why should we be holding ourselves back because of the limitations of others?" Sirius asked.
Of course Black would be the one to figure out how to escape Azkaban. Even if he had no wand, no books, no friends to help him. No magic. Of course, he'd still find a way, he'd been doing impossible things for as long as he'd lived.
Whatever race of dog he transformed into, Sirius' mind was a terrier. When it had sunk its teeth into a problem, it would not let go until the problem was solved.
Of course he'd be the one to escape.
So what now? Would he come for Remus?
Remus reached into his pocket and his hand closed around his wand.
Sirius was a better fighter than he was, or at least, had been.
Would it still be true after 12 years of Azkaban? With a stolen wand?
There hadn't been that much of a difference between them.
But Sirius could transform in a way that Remus could not, and then what?
Was the dog as much a traitor as the man? Would he be able to shoot the dog?
No one alive knew that Black was an animagus.
No one but him.
Would he have to tell someone?
Would they listen?
