The snowy white owl cooed as she was cradled in her owner's shaky arms as the note was untied from her ankle.
Harry felt a presence creep slowly behind him and his hair stood on end. Was this man really his godfather?
"Thank you, Harry," said Sirius. He then slowly lowered his hand onto the boy's shoulder, feeling a shiver at the moment of contact. The man took his hand back and a swamp of guilt manifested in Harry's stomach. What was he doing? Why couldn't he trust this man?
Because he killed twelve muggles, that's why.
You don't know that! Harry argued internally. He said it was Scabbers!
How can you be sure? What do we have to believe the entire Animagus story isn't a ruse apart from his word? And we've known scabbers for years!
If the letter says Scabber's has been acting strangely, we'll trust him. If not, we don't. Deal?
Deal. But also...
Oh, right.
"Er sorry," Harry mumbled. Through Harry's internal discord the man had crouched over the Auror, rifled through his pockets and cast a spell on what looked like a coin. But caught up in his thoughts, Harry had hardly seen it at all. "But... er... you know how you said you could...?"
"Gotcha." The man winked and Harry felt like he was back at Hogwarts, feeling the exact same awe and confusion as when he had first seen Professor Mcgonnogal turn into a cat. The man morphed effortlessly into a shaggy black dog with two piercing eyes Harry instantly recognised.
Harry couldn't help but smile, and not just at the coolness.
"Anything else?" asked the dog once it was back to being human. "No? Then how about we read that letter."
Harry unfurled the parchment. Written in a fast messy scrawl was:
HARRY,
WE'VE GOT SCABBERS IN A JAR. HE'S ACTING REALLY STRANGELY, WHAT'S THIS ALL ABOUT?
RON
Scabbers was acting strangely. Harry had seen the rat crawl into tight spaces all the time, what difference was a jar? No, the man was right. Scabbers wasn't really a rat. He was a murderer.
"Brilliant!" said Sirius, the clap of his hands echoing against the train station's walls. "Let's go then,"
"Huh? Go where?"
"Your friend's house of course. We've got to confront Pettigrew."
"Oh... right..." said Harry. And then, "shouldn't we send them another message? To make sure they don't let him go?"
"Sharp as ever," said Sirius. Harry went to reach for Hedwig the same time Sirius drew his wand. Harry paused, and watched as the wizard's brow furrowed in concentration.
"Expecto Patronum!" he cried into the empty station, illuminating every crevice in a dazzling light. Another shaggy dog came streaming out of the wand, as brilliantly silver as the light from which it was forged. It faced the two of them, seemingly awaiting orders.
Harry was lost. How on earth was a man who'd spent twelve years in Azkaban able to cast a Patronus? But Harry realised as he internally articulated the question that that must have been precisely the source of the ex-prisoner's happy thought. He had escaped.
"OK Harry," Sirius whispered, "I want you to repeat what I say. Tell Ron Weasley to not let the rat go at all costs. From Harry Potter."
Harry repeated the words and the Patronus almost nodded before transforming back into the stream of light it had come from and shooting through the walls of the station.
"Off you go Hedwig," Harry cooed, not seeing a reason to deprive the owl of its exercise if he didn't need her at that second. "I'm sorry but I couldn't tell you where the Burrow was if I wanted to. How are we gonna get there?,"
"Floo Powder,"
"But don't we need a fireplace for that?"
The man winked and picked up his pace, Harry scuttling to keep up. It felt wrong knowing he had abandoned his luggage in the Auror-riddled mansion. Why would Sirius have taken Harry to such an unsafe location anyway? Didn't he know better?
Harry phrased this question to Sirius, though through a politeness filter of course.
"Sorry about that," said Sirius as they walked through the bright London streets. "It was supposed to be safe. The rest of my family's dead, you see, so I got to choose the secret keepers for the house."
Harry could already tell where this was going.
"It's OK, you don't have to say it." The man must have felt stupid for choosing Pettigrew as his secret keeper twice, best not to add insult to injury.
"Here we are," said Sirius in a whisper. They had turned a few corners and were now shunted away from the night-city-bustle.
"Why this house?" Harry asked.
"This is a wizarding household."
"How can you be sure?"
"Well, among other things, there is always one foolproof spell that can guarantee you certainty. Alohomora!" said the man, and the locks didn't move, just as expected. Harry couldn't help but admire the little bit of genius.
"So how do we get in, you ask?" Sirius whispered with a smile. He drew a tiny black line from his jacket and dramatically held it up in the moonlight. He was clearly having the most fun he'd had in a very long time. He shuffled the pic into the lock for about a minute, and Harry felt terrible for a moment. Sirius was clearly breaking in with the expertise of someone who had done it many times before, it wasn't hard at all to believe he was a criminal. But Harry checked himself, briefly imagining what atrocities would have taken place that night if Sirius hadn't whipped him off that path.
The door swung open.
The apartment was silent. It felt dormant, as if the very building was sleeping itself. The pair crept past portrait after portrait, landing finally in a room where there was a fireplace and a bucket of floo powder.
—
Amelia Bones was not expecting any surprises that day. The tip about Grimmauld Place had been exciting at the time, though really she should have expected that it would be empty. The enchantment that linked her and her Auror's coin had told her so.
But one of the perks of being the Head of Magical Law Enforcement was that Amelia Bones had the pleasure of choosing wherever it was she wanted to live. She had chosen a small house away from the chaos of wizardry, and she had ensured that she would be able to see the fireplace from her bed, knowing it would unconventional architecture would pay off if someone ever broke into her Floo.
But as Amelia Bones blinked open her eyes and watched the silhouettes of Harry Potter and Sirius Black disappear into sparkly green flames, she was amazed. She had always had a feeling it would payoff, but she'd had no idea it could possibly be this huge.