No one in the village paid any attention to the owl. Owls were hardly unusual after all, even owls carrying packages. If the owl was on the smallish side and the package a bit larger – well, the owl didn't appear to be struggling with its burden. For the most part the barn owl was ignored as it flew past the village. That is not to say the owl was not noticed, it just was not remarked upon. Owls were common occurrences in the wizarding world, after all. It was one of the reasons why Amelia was glad her Animagus form was an owl.
Had someone seen the little owl alighting on the rocky ground near the great black stray that had recently taken up residence in the area, perhaps they might have become a bit curious. There was no one for some distance, however, so the occasion went unnoticed.
The shaggy dog eagerly sniffed the package the owl had borne. It laid its ears back against its head and growled though, a moment later, when the owl turned into a willowy middle-aged woman. She was slightly shorter than average, with bright brown eyes and light brown hair that was cut short, the tips barely brushing the shoulders of her faded bronze robes.
Amelia appeared unconcerned by the huge menacing dog that stood practically within arm's reach.
"Don't look at me like that," she admonished.
The dog looked surprised.
"Yes, I know that's you."
Ears flattened, the dog growled with even more intensity than before.
"What? Do you really think I came to try to catch you and turn you in?"
The growling picked up a notch.
Amelia let out a huff of exasperation. "Please. Give me a little credit. I was in Ravenclaw, after all. I prefer to do my thinking before I go off doing something, rather than after the fact. It's served me well over the years."
The bearlike dog ceased its growling, but it still didn't look happily upon the slender witch.
"I had a hell of a time finding you, by the way. Which is all well and good, I suppose. I knew you had to be somewhere nearby, what with that right mess going on and your godson smack in the middle. I had to follow him, eventually. I couldn't find you anyway else."
The dog showed her its teeth.
Amelia merely raised an eyebrow. "You have a half-decent mind as well, as I recall. Quite useful for getting yourself into and out of all sorts of trouble. I believe you even pulled off acceptable grades for all your fooling around. Unless of course all the years in prison addled your head. In which case I will have to prod it awake for you. Think, would you. How many owls do you suppose there are that visit Azkaban? Bearing gifts nonetheless."
The dog's ears snapped up in surprise at that.
"Feathers aren't the only thing I've learned since then, Padfoot. I know what happened. It's a stupid rat that runs with snakes."
The dog narrowed its eyes at her. It looked from her to the package and back. Then it nodded once before turning and picking a path along the mountainside. Amelia picked up the package and followed. Upon entering the dimly lit cave, she stopped short.
There, tethered at the end of the cave, was a hippogriff, half gray horse, half giant eagle. Careful not to break eye contact, she bowed to the creature. The hippogriff regarded her imperiously. After a long, tense moment, its scaly front knees bent and she was able to draw her gaze off of its orange eyes and toward the shaggy black dog next to it.
"Buckbeak?" she asked with a hint of a smile. "I should have known."
The dog was gone. In its place was an unkempt, gaunt man wearing ragged gray robes. "I've found that he's a good judge of character," he said evenly. "No one cares to argue with a hippogriff." He watched her. "What are you doing here, Amelia?"
She tossed him the package. "Been spending some time up at the Hogwarts Owlery. Heard you might be hungry. I thought you could use some food. Seems I was right."
"That isn't what I mean. When did you become an Animagus?"
"After it became as useful, I'm afraid," she replied, seating herself casually on the ground. He looked at her blankly. "Owls are as common as dirt, and far less noticeable than giant, black dogs. You became an Animagus to run around with werewolves; I became one for – equally clandestine purposes. The worst of it was already over by the time I'd succeeded, so it wasn't as effective as I would have liked."
"So you're a spy?" he asked pointedly.
"I was in the Order, same as you."
"I thought you were an Auror." The carefully bland tone of his voice spoke almost as much as his words.
"I was. For a few years anyway. I couldn't take it after a while, though. Too many memories, many of them unpleasant. Books were always my preferred refuge in the end."
"Stop avoiding the question," he snapped.
"What question?" she said innocently.
"I am an infamous, wanted murderer. Why are you here?"
"Infamous and wanted, yes. But hardly a murderer." Amelia met his shadowed grey eyes. "I was a Ravenclaw, as I've already reminded you; we value knowledge. When we have two seemingly contradictory facts, we like to find out what is wrong. The Sirius I knew would sooner have hexed himself – or gone home – than betray James. It took me a few years, but I eventually flew out there to get some answers." She paused. "I know Legilimency." His eyebrows shot up toward his very untidy hair. She shrugged. "I had the better part of a decade with nothing better to do."
"So, an ex-Auror snuck into Azkaban to use Legilimency on me?"
"Yes," she said, managing to infuse the single syllable with a good deal of awkwardness.
"Was this a planned excursion?" He did not know what to make of her. Amelia could hear it in his voice.
She shook her head. "Hardly. Halloween six years later I suddenly had to know what had happened, I had to understand. Before I knew it I was on my way. I spent most of the journey trying to decide what I was doing and what I intended to do. When I arrived, you – you were trapped in your nightmares. I went in to try to release you from the confines of your mind and ended up learning most of what had happened."
"That night – when I first saw the owl in my cell – you'd been in my head? That was you in my head?" he demanded harshly.
"I hadn't intended it to go as it did, but yes, that was me. I was glad I'd stuck a chocolate bar in my pocket before I'd gotten the notion to go dropping by. Even with the rather unorthodox mental intrusion, it took several pieces of chocolate to get you to respond. I had gone to learn why one of my friends had betrayed another, not to let you waste away and die. And you would have."
He stared at her. "I thought it had all been in my head, the memory, the nightmare, the vision of you. I woke up to find there was owl next to me who had brought me a bar of chocolate. Thought I'd finally gone mad. Who would defy the Ministry to send chocolate to me, the infamous Sirius Black? Any friends I had – before – would've thought I'd betrayed them. Sending curses, maybe, but not chocolate."
Amelia said nothing.
"The owl left, but the chocolate was still there. It – you – came back every few months with another bar. No note or anything else, just a bar of chocolate." Sirius studied her. "I found the whole thing to be rather confusing, and therefore, not quite happy. I suppose that was the purpose? Because the dementors would have taken the happy memory from me."
"I – I knew what had happened, the whole story, or at least enough pieces to see the story – the switch with the Fidelius Charm, the confrontation on the street, becoming Animagi. What was James' Animagus anyway?"
"A stag," Sirius replied absently, still staring at her intently.
"A stag. Huh, Prongs. Well, I knew all that and there was nothing I could do with it. There was no proof, just your memories, your word, and not a Muggle's chance in Slytherin that the Ministry would accept that."
"So you smuggled chocolate into Azkaban."
She nodded.
"Your family always was unconventional," he said with a bark of laughter. "Your brother never developed any magic, did he?"
"No. He takes after our father, I'm afraid. I don't think my grandparents were too happy about that, hadn't been too keen on my mum marrying a Muggle in the first place, but they got over it eventually. My niece, though, I expect she'll be at Hogwarts in a few years. Bit of a shock for Sarah, it was. She'd had no idea she had married a half-blood Muggle. Thought her mother-in-law was a bit of an eccentric, but no idea Clarissa was a witch. We had to tell her when little Heather started levitating her toys. To give Sarah credit, though, she's taken it all in stride. Even when she found out I was an Animagus because she wanted to know why her seven-year-old daughter had named her stuffed owl after me." She chuckled. "Cute kid." Then she turned serious. "How's Harry doing?"
"Not too shabby, considering he's underage. Two Tasks in, and if anything, he's ahead. James and Lily would be proud of him." Sirius held up her package. "Since you're here as a friend, can I assume this is safe to eat?"
"Yes," she said, smothering a smile.
"Good." He fell upon her gift of food like a ravenous wolf – or a starving dog.
"You're happier here," Amelia remarked.
"Hmm?"
"You are happier here than you are at Grimmauld Place."
"Of course. I couldn't wait to get away from that house. And Dumbledore wants me to stay inside and keep my head down? It's a wonder I haven't gone mad yet."
"And you weren't mad already?"
Amelia stopped abruptly and met Sirius' eyes. Sirius looked as taken aback by his outburst as she felt. He blinked and shook his head. They had separated from their memory-selves. "These memories are messing with my head," said Sirius.
"Of course. I can't tell if I'm here or – or there. You heard Harry and Dumbledore, right?"
"Yeah, so?"
"He said 'there I am.' There I am. Why would he point out himself?"
"With a suit." Sirius paused. "Why would Dumbledore have a suit? What is a suit?"
"A suit is the Muggle version of dress-robes. If he was wearing a suit, he would have been traveling in the Muggle world. But why would he be traveling with Harry? And why point out himself? Unless . . . " Amelia's eyes widened. "Unless there were two of him." She pointed excitedly at the two people in the cave. "There I am. And there you are. It's a memory; our memory. There are two of each of us here. It's like you said, it's some sort of Pensieve." She could see it, the outline of the puzzle they were trying to solve. The pieces were starting to fall into place.
Sirius caught on. "You're saying that what we heard was Harry and Dumbledore using a Pensieve? But surely there have to be hundreds of Pensieves in Britain, why did we only hear them?"
"We heard them before. 'I think that will do, Harry.' Two memories, at least two. Both times, Harry and Dumbledore. Why Harry and Dumbledore?" She looked up. "You said you left Grimmauld Place to Harry; he is your godson – you are connected to him. You broke ties with your family; Harry is the closest thing you have to family. My mum doesn't use a Pensieve. Harry wouldn't use one on his own, someone would have to take him into it and who is the only person who would do that? Dumbledore. We can hear them when they speak within the Pensieve."
"What good does that do us? We're still stuck here!"
"Why are we stuck here? Think. We came through the Veil alive, so we can get out, but we have to find our way out. You said that, too. This place, these memories, it's messing with our heads. We are snapping back and forth between past and present, and we can't tell what is which. We're trapped – and – and – and this – it's like a maze." It all made perfect sense to her now. "We have to find our way back to the world we left, but we can't even see the where we are going."
"So, Harry is what? Our lifeline?" Sirius hazarded.
"Some sort of anchor, I'd say. Memory anchors us. It traps us here, but it anchors us in the other world as well. And the Pensieve is the bridge. When Harry used the Pensieve, we have a solid connection between that world and this world of memory. If we can trace that connection, we can get out of here."
"So we have to hope Harry uses the Pensieve a good lot, then, you reckon? And what do we do in the meantime?"
"Try to navigate our memories. We still have to get through the maze, after all."
The cave around them dissolved into grey mist.