"She believes every word," Severus said. "I didn't detect a single bit of lying, not even her usual prevarication."

They'd waited until they'd gotten to London to speak. Albus wasn't sure what the girl's range was, but he had a suspicion it was growing, and they hadn't wanted her listening in.

"I concur," Albus frowned and shook his head. "Do you think she's insane?"

"I've had my suspicions since she was planning to knife me the first time we met," Severus said dryly."But the Sorting Hat suggested that this sort of thing isn't impossible. The Quill wrote her name, and not Millie Scrivener's; otherwise we'd be having a different conversation right now."

They'd known that she was actually Scrivener for months; Severus had suggested using a muggle private detective to track the girl down, bypassing the Death Eaters in the Ministry and the aurors. Albus had been surprised at the idea, likely because he didn't have a foot in both worlds like Severus had once had.

"I'm more inclined to believe that her accidental magic made her simply believe that she was this... character from another world."

"More things in heaven and Earth," Severus said.

They'd had this argument before. The girl knew things that Millie Scrivener could not have possibly known; ergo she wasn't Millie Scrivener. It wasn't simply a matter of a seer seeing things or reading books; the girl had known how to use a knife since the first time he'd known her.

"We'll find out soon enough," Albus said. "She's agreed to allow you to teach her, and you'll get enough glimpses to her past to make a determination."

"If she believes that I am trying to plunder all of her secrets, she may lose all trust in us," Severus said. "And I believe that there are not many adults that she trusts at all."

Albus nodded, but it was apparent that he wasn't listening.

Taylor Hebert, while an intriguing mystery wasn't particularly important in the scheme of things. She was violent, but not overly so. She tended to attack only when attacked. If she was going to be a Dark Lady, that was still years away.

As far as Albus was concerned, that meant that she wasn't a problem for the moment.

Severus had different opinions.

The death of Minister Umbridge shortly after the attack on the Muggleborn seemed suspicious. It had causes all sorts of problems for the Dark Lord, and no one in Albus's ragtag Muggleborn resistance had admitted to removing her.

Severus had an uneasy feeling that the girl had seen a problem and eliminated it, using magic so dark that even the Dark Lord had been unable to identify it.

She had an unyielding belief that she was always right. She distrusted anyone in authority, and she was gathering followers at an alarming rate. Worse, her followers tended to be much more competent than their same age peers, and would likely each be worth several of the usual incompetents who graduated from Hogwarts.

They had tactics. He'd spied on their training sessions often enough to know that what they were doing was dangerous.

Wizards attacked one on one. That was the cultural rule. Aurors didn't always follow that rule, but even they didn't tend to gang up by more than three to one.

Taylor's army attacked while disillusioned, multiple opponents attacking one wizard, moving, and then repeating for the next. Most Wizards didn't bother with disillusionment because of the human revealing spell; it was good for an ambush, but once Wizards knew they were being attacked, it became much less useful.

He'd heard that they were researching a counter to the human revealing spell. He'd have scoffed, except that he'd created several spells when he'd been a schoolboy, and they were working in teams, which seemed to make them much more effective.

Most Wizards researched their own spells, hoping to be able to sell them and make a profit, or use a spell that no one else had and use it to their own advantage. Wizards simply didn't do research as teams.

It was such a muggle concept that it hadn't occurred to anyone.

Severus had read about Edison and the scientific method. Much of magic wouldn't work as a muggle would expect; it was as much a matter of willpower and visualization as rote words and wand waving. However, they were accomplishing things at a faster pace than he would have expected, learning spells that would make them more dangerous.

Even their failures were sometimes weaponized.

Severus saw this every day, watching from the shadows, and yet somehow Albus never seemed to pay attention to what he was telling him, and he never seemed to understand why it was important.

He was too wrapped up in his own shadow war with the Death Eaters. There had been battles that had never made the newspapers, fought through proxies. The Muggleborn Liberation Front outnumbered the order by four to one, but Albus had never trusted any of them enough to bring them into the inner circle.

Albus was simply too old to understand the changes that Severus saw coming. He didn't understand that the real danger Taylor represented wasn't that she was another in a long line of dark lords; it was that she was changing how things were done. Those changes would last long after she was dead.

Even the Dark Lord tended to be dismissive of her; something that Severus found incredible considering the losses that he'd suffered. The Dark Lord was certain that the girl had a backer, most likely Albus who was the real mastermind behind the defenses the girl had put up.

Both men were fighting the last war, while the girl was looking past the current war to the next one.

"The Dark Lord is going to expect more information from me," Severus said. "he's becoming frustrated by the losses he has had."

"Do you have any news as to the identity of his Seer?"

"There are only three known Seers missing," Severus said. "It could be any of them. If the Dark Lord is taking counsel from Miss Hebert's methods, it might be all of them."

He doubted it, though. The Seer had been in play long before the girl had been gathering her cotiere.

"His Seer has made all of this harder than it has to be," Albus said. "Which is why it is important to bring the girl into the fold."

The Death Eaters and the Albus's group had been engaged in a little dance; the seer tended to keep the ambushes from being as effective as they should be, which was likely the reason that the Dark Lord didn't punish the seer worse for his or her failures considering the girl.

"His seer does seem to fail consistently around her," Severus said. "But do you believe that it will be enough?"

"She's whittled his numbers down to the point where if it wasn't for his seer, his destruction would be certain."

The fact that Albus was fighting in every fight meant that any fight that didn't include the Dark Lord was almost a certain victory.

"I'll do my best to bring her into the fold," Severus said. "And her people?"

"Bring in the graduates," Albus said. "But not those who are younger. We do not use children in this war, not unless we absolutely must."

Potter, he meant.

"You don't consider the girl a child?"

"Not by her own words," Albus said. "I don't think I considered her a child even before I knew."

The world vanished around him, and a moment later he found himself in a dark room. A single lamp was hanging from the ceiling, beaming light into his eyes and making it difficult to see into the darkness.

He could barely make out figures in the darkness; almost all of them had wands pointed at him.

Stiffening, he realized that he didn't have his wand.

Why had he thought this was going to be a good idea again? His escape from Azkaban had been eclipsed by that of the others, and he could have easily escaped the country in the confusion. Finding Peter was a lost cause; undoubtedly the rat was at his master's side, protected from anyone who would ever do him harm.

Coming to serve a girl who'd inspired boggarts had been foolish.

"Sirius Black," the girl said, stepping out into the light.

All of the others had hoods on, but she didn't bother. Presumably it was to protect their identities, although he wasn't sure why. Everyone knew the girl had the muggleborns in her pocket. Finding out the non-muggleborns wouldn't be that hard.

"Yes," he said. His throat felt strangely dry.

It didn't feel like he was facing a twelve year old girl at all; it felt like he was facing the court, ready to be sent to Azkaban once again.

"You have been accused of crimes against the family Potter," she said. "Convicted on your own word. Now you tell us that you did not."

"I didn't," he said.

"Prove it," she said.

A second light appeared, highlighting a pensieve. It looked almost exactly like the one Dumbledore had once had, except that the stand it was on was different.

"Do you know how to use that?" he asked.

She nodded.

"Show us you are innocent," she said, "And we will give you what you wish; a chance to fight back against those who did you wrong."

A heavyset boy stepped out of the shadows.

"Take a deep breath," he murmured, "And think about those memories you want to show us. Don't think about lying; I've had the training to see through that, and these memories may be shown to Dumbledore later."

He nodded.

The boy put his hand on Sirius's shoulder, and as he leaned in, Sirius could see a dozen wands lifted in his direction. The message was clear; a single false move and he'd regret it.

He closed his eyes and sifted through his memories.

Time seemed to stop, but finally he opened his eyes.

"Is that it?" Taylor Hebert asked.

He nodded.

Before he could say anything, she raised her wand and the world disappeared around him.

It seemed like only an instant when light exploded all around him. There were children moving quickly, and he looked around him, confused.

"The rat is here," the girl said.

"What?" he asked.

"How did you miss it all these years?" she asked a pair of redheaded twins.

"We've had pets before who had different names than what we gave them," one of the boys said. "We had a cat we called Crinkles, but when we brought her here, the map said her name was Polly Proudfoot. We just thought Scabbers thought he was named Peter."

"Right," Taylor said. She sighed.

"All right," she said after a moment, a strange, unfocused look in her eye. "It looks like we've got him."

"What's going on?" Sirius asked.

"Your rat has been living with our family for more than ten years," one of the boys said. He grimaced. "Staring at us in our room with his beady little eyes. The things he's seen..."

"You need to stay here," Taylor said. "There are aurors in the castle, and the last thing we need is for there to be an accident on the day you're going to be free."

"Free?"

"We've got the rat," Taylor repeated, as though he was slow. "I showed the memory to everyone who needed to see it, and the boys recognized your rat as their family pet."

"We gave Ron that rat," one of the boys muttered.

"Worst gift ever," the other boy said. "We'll have to make it up to him."

"New pet," the first boy decided. "Tell him it's actually a lady in hiding; it'll make him paranoid to even go to the loo, much less..."

"Leave him alone," Taylor said tiredly. "He's going to be traumatized enough about this without you adding to it."

"We'll figure something else out," the second boy said cheerfully. "After we figure out how to get back at the pervert."

"We need him for Sirius here," Taylor said. "Nothing until after he is free."

She didn't entirely sound against the idea of getting revenge, Sirius noted.

A girl stepped up.

"My aunt is on the way with Mr. Dumbledore," the girl said. "She doesn't sound very happy at being summoned."

"Minister for magic means she's the servant of the people, right?" Taylor asked. She turned to Sirius. "I'm going to need you to be quiet."

Her wand snapped up, and the world vanished again.

A moment later, he was standing in the stairwell leading to the headmaster's office. He stumbled, and a girl who decidedly wasn't Taylor Hebert grabbed him. She had bushy hair, and she seemed Taylor's age.

"Please be quiet," she whispered in his ear. "Taylor's working to get you free."

Sirius frowned, but he stayed as quiet as he could and he listened. It wasn't until he heard Peter's voice that he growled and lunged forward.

The girl grabbed him firmly by the arm and said, "Don't make me stun you, Mr. Black. It's not time yet to go in."

There was a strange sort of steel in her expression.

Sirius forced the rage that filled his breast to quiet down. He'd have his time with Peter; now that he knew he was near, he'd never give up looking for him.

It seemed like an eternity before they were summoned.

He stepped into a room with Dumbledore, Snape and several aurors. There was a distinguished looking older woman in the room as well. Sirius found himself suddenly self conscious about his lack of bathing; he should have made more of an effort.

They were all standing around a pensieve, and they were looking at him soberly.

"There will be a trial," the older woman said. "But it will be a fair one. I expect the penalty for being an unregistered animagus has already been paid. That can't be said for Mr. Pettigrew here."

Peter was crouched over, locked in a cage. He was pale, staring up at everyone. His hands moved convulsively.

"I was hiding from him!" he shouted. "He was insane! He'd have killed me if I hadn't run."

"Even after he was locked away in Azkaban?" the lady asked. "Hiding in a family with young children... you should be ashamed of yourself."

Sirius lunged forward, only to find himself suddenly hobbled and falling to the floor.

"I'm sorry," the bush haired girl said.. "But I told you we need him."

"Any information he has will likely be ten years out of date," Taylor said thoughtfully. "Unless you think that he was in the family to spy on a Ministry official."

"While Arthur Weasley has a valuable position," the woman said. "It's not one that would be of interest to the Death Eaters."

"Then he was after the children?" Taylor asked dispassionately. She stared at Peter with a look as though he was a bug ready to be squashed.

"I've been watching," Peter said desperately. "I know your secret, what you can do. A rat sees things that people don't. If you don't free me, then I'll..."

Taylor Hebert stunned him.

"He's likely to say anything if he thinks it'll get him out," she said. "And he's apparently pretty tricky."

"We'll make sure that he stands trial," the older woman said grimly. "Thank you for bringing this to my attention."

She nodded, and the aurors descended on Sirius. They grabbed him, but they were much more gentle about than any of the guards who'd attacked him in the past.

A female auror who looked like she was barely out of school leaned close to him.

"Don't fight,' she said. "We're going to get you a bath and a shave. It's important to look like an honest man when you're up to be freed, right?"

They escorted him out of Hogwarts, and apparated him to the Ministry. They were halfway to the cells when two aurors came rushing up.

"Pettigrew was murdered," one of them said.

"What?" the girl beside him seemed shocked.

"The Ministry is on alert; hopefully this isn't the start of something bigger. The only way the Death Eaters would have known is if we had another leak."

The world seemed to shrink around Sirius. He'd spent so much time obsessing over Peter. The thought of killing him had been the only thing that had kept him going sometimes, and even his idea to serve Taylor Hebert had been with the idea that since Voldemort seemed to be after her it would eventually lead him to Peter.

Now... Peter was dead? Hopefully they had a body and he wasn't just faking his death again.

If it was true, then what was Sirius's purpose in life now?

His friends were dead; the war he'd devoted his life to was over. There was a new war, but did he really want to continue making the mistakes he had in the last one?

The Death Eaters had likely killed him. Sirius'd heard how corrupt the Ministry was, and the Death eaters wouldn't have wanted Peter to testify, even if the information was long out of date. He presumably was able to name some important names, and that was all the court ever really cared about.

"Are Jenkins and Dawkins all right?" the girl asked.

"That's the weird thing," the second auror said. "They were just stunned, not hurt. Pettigrew was murdered hard though."

"Death Eaters usually take out the aurors too,' the girl said. She was frowning. "We'd better make sure Black here gets to his cell safely. I'm going to ask the higher ups if we should double his guard."

"They'll likely want the trial to be hurried up; this is a black eye for us; we're supposed to be doing better."

"Moody will have us running drills," the girl said gloomily.

They led him to a much better cell than he was accustomed to; they got him new clothes, a shower and a shave.

Eight hours after that he was a free man.