For a few moments, Sirius' mind was completely blank. No thoughts of anything penetrated his mind as he just stood there staring at Paige. Then, things seemed to click and several facts became very evident to him. One was that Paige was standing in front of him. Looking just the same as she had fourteen years ago, just a bit older. Still standing at about 5' 2'', still the same brown hair (which was tied back) and the same blue eyes. The second thing he realized was that she was hurt, the third was that last seen by anyone, she had been going after the guy that had been in the Potter Family mausoleum, and the fourth was that she had a man, assumedly stunned, floating in the air next to her. And then, of course, the fact that he had been just standing therein front of her for about a minute without saying or doing anything. Snapping out of it fully Sirius said,
"What happened? Is this the guy that broke into the mausoleum?" Paige looked a little shocked about what he had said.
"How did you know," she started but Sirius interrupted her.
"Follow me. We'll go into the kitchen and you can tell me about it." He said walking past her and leading her down the hallway. Paige followed him bring the floating man with her. Looking back every few steppes to make sure that his face was still covered.
"How did you know that someone had broken into the mausoleum?" Paige asked him once they had reached the kitchen. She directed the floating man away from her, toward the sink and she headed to stand by the table. Being close to him made her mad.
"Tonks." He said simply turning his attention to the man whose face was covered. "Is that the guy?" He asked staring at him, wondering why she had covered his face.
"Yea that's him," Paige said looking at the man as well. "So now to my question I had before. Got any veritaserum?"
"No. Snape," Sirius spat his name out, "doesn't like to leave his precious potions here."
"Well we need some cause I wanna find out who the hell this guy is." She said while absent mindedly, gingerly touching her shoulder, where blood had started to seep through her gray tee shirt (which was now dark gray from the rain). Sirius took more notice to her injuries, the one on her shoulder, the one across her right cheek and her left eye that was slowly turning black and blue.
"Your hurt," he said plainly. "This guy do that to you?" He asked looking between the two of them.
"Yes." She said testily. "Even more the reason I wanna know who he is."
"Why did you bring him here? Why not take him to the ministry? They would have veritaserum. And, better yet, how did you get here? This house has so many bloody charms on it," Sirius said looking at her. But she would not return his gaze. She was either looking at the floating man, or inspecting her wounds and surroundings, anything really, but him.
"Yes the ministry would have veritaserum. But it would take time and forms to get it, and they would never let me question him. "It's not your case any more Summers. Now fill out these stacks of forms." Bullocks the whole thing if you ask me. And I came here because, I figured that as the orders headquarters it would be safe. And I was able to come here cause Dumbledore told me about it and took me here in the beginning of the summer. I don't even think that you had even moved in yet." Paige said.
"So you are in the order then? Dumbledore never said," Sirius said still watching her intently.
"Yes and no. As I'm sure your aware of, I've not been to one meeting. But I'm reporting to Dumbledore. For now, I'm acting as unaware eyes. What I'm doing is just looking around for anything that looks off. Like, Tonks did you say? Well if I see Tonks acting suspicious or something of that like, I'll say something to Dumbledore, and if she's in the order he can say to her "look there are some people who can see that something odd is going on"." Paige said, still looking anywhere but at Sirius. "If I know the orders happenings, I'll look for certain things. Or I'll dismiss something that I know isn't involved in whatever we're doing. Unaware eyes see what the enemy is seeing. Get it?"
It made sense. Have someone that wont report you, looking for any holes or problems so that they can be fixed. Sirius opened his mouth to say something, but Paige cut him off.
"It's been about an hour now. Lets see what he really looks like." She said checking her watch, and walking over to the floating man. With a tug, she pulled her cloak off his head. The head that, when reviled, still looked like James Potter. Such silence filled the kitchen that it seemed as though neither of the occupants were breathing. Both were staring at the man that was floating in the air in front of them. Finally Paige broke the silence. "An hours past since I first saw him. I watched him while he was in their house and he didn't drink anything. And he obviously didn't have anything while we were dueling. He should have changed back." She said, unable to keep some of her worry from lacing in with her words. Sirius just stared at the face of his best friend.
"There are other ways he could have made himself look like James. There's gotta be other ways." Paige said, though it seemed she was talking more to herself then to Sirius. And still, all Sirius could do was stare. He had so many mixed feelings. He was mostly torn between crying at the sight of James, and wanting to ripe the imposter into little tiny pieces. Paige was saying something, but he couldn't make out her words. He seemed to be in another world. And then, the imposter's eyelids flickered slightly, and Sirius came smashing back down to reality.
"You have to go to Hogwarts and get a vial of veritaserum from Snape." Sirius said in such a calm voice that it shocked Paige slightly. He also found himself a little shocked at his tone of voice. How could he be so calm when his best friend was right there in front of him? But yet, wasn't really there. "But make sure that you don't let anything on. I'm sure that Umbridge would just love a reason to make your life miserable." Sirius added in that same calm voice that was somehow unnerving to Paige. Once he saw that Paige hadn't moved, Sirius said, "Don't worry. I wont kill him or anything while your gone."
"Or anything?" Paige repeated knowing full and well the many other things Sirius could do instead of killing him. And until she knew very thing about the imposter, she didn't want any of those other things happening.
"Or anything." Sirius said again, eyes never once leaving James' face.
"I'll be back as soon as possible." She said. And then she grabbed her cloak from its place on the floor and headed out the door. Once Sirius heard the door close behind her, he pulled out his wand and pointed it at "James", and directed him into one of the chairs that had been pulled out earlier in the day. After getting the imposter in the seat, Sirius conjured up ropes to tie the man to the chair. He conjured lots of ropes. And then after them, he conjured chains to go around his writs and feet.
When he was satisfied he pulled out a chair for himself across from the imposter, sat down and, wand still on the man, said,
"Go on then. Open your eyes." He said in a low, dangerous voice. And the imposter eyes snapped open. And for the first time in fourteen years, Sirius looked into the eyes of his best friend, James Potter.
The Great Hall was how it always was during dinner. Filled with students and the noise of said students. Conversations were of the normal sort, and the food was just as delicious as it was everyday. Harry still couldn't shake the thoughts of his dream and his father from his mind, but was trying to push them aside long enough to have a normal conversation with Ron and Hermione. But the normalcy of dinner went flying out the window when a woman walked through the doors.
She was wet from head to toe, but it wasn't raining outside. And she was hurt. She had a long cut across one check and the opposite eye was black and blue. Once a few feet inside the hall, she did the odd thing of removing her cloak and throwing it to the side. With her cloak off, blood could be seen seeping through her shirt on her shoulder. But she didn't seem to care as she just walked up calm as could be up to the staff table. Nor apparently was she aware that she had the attention of the whole hall. When she had past where Harry, Ron and Hermione where sitting, she lifted the back of her shirt to stick her wand in the back of her pants. While her shirt was lifted up, they could see that she had a tattoo on her back of a blue and purple Phoenix. Looking up at the staff table Harry saw that all the teachers were watching her.
Dumbledore stood up slowly as the woman neared the table. When she had reached him she held out her hand and shook Dumbledore's. They had a few word with each other before surprisingly enough Snape rose as well. But he started to walk around the head table as though he were leaving. Harry saw, as he watched, that Umbridge was trying to get the woman's attention. The woman either didn't notice, or didn't care because she paid no mind to her.
When Snape had reached the other side of the table, both Snape and the woman started back out of the Great Hall. Umbridge was not having it though. Snape and the woman had reached where Harry, Ron and Hermione were sitting when Umbridge had made her on way around the table. And she called out to them.
"Excuse me Miss Summers. I was unaware of any cases that would require you to come up to Hogwarts. Would you mind just stepping into my office where you may explain yourself to me?" Umbridge asked in her simper of a voice. The woman, Summers, had visibly tensed at the sound of her voice, and Harry could see her hands balling and un-balling into fits. Slowly Summers turned to look at her.
"I am not in uniform. You or anyone from the ministry has no say what I do in my spare time. Or where I chose to go." Summers said coolly. "I need some healing potions, and at St Mongos, they would have me sitting in a waiting room for hours. Getting them from Severus is easer." With that said she turned to leave. But Umbridge spoke to her yet again.
"Why not go to the hospital wing? I'm sure they will have healing potions for you." She said in a voice full of fake sweetness. Summers turned around to face Umbridge again. From Harry's seat, he could see that she was less then pleased to be questioned by Umbridge like this. But, before she could reply to Umbridge, Dumbledore spoke,
"I'm sure that I don't see the problem in Miss Summers receiving a few minor potions from an old friend Dolores. And, Miss Summers had my full invitation to be inside Hogwarts, while off duty of course." He said calmly, the twinkle in his eye set in place. At Dumbledore's words, Summers continued her way out of the Great Hall, Snape following her. Before she left the Great Hall, Summers pulled her wand back out, pointed it to where her cloak had been thrown when she came back in, and Summoned it to her and then left. The hall was silent for a few brief minutes before talk broke out across the hall.
"Shame," Ron said when they turned back to each other. "That Summers woman looked like she was ready to hex Umbridge off the face of the earth. I was hoping she would. Make life a lot easier for us." Harry and Hermione both laughed at this.
"I wonder what happened to her though." Hermione said when they all started going back to their food. "And if her injuries were anything," she paused here and looked around them before finishing "Order related." She said in a low voice.
"Well she's never been to Grimmauld Place. We've never seen her before, or even heard of her." Ron said.
"If she isn't, then it's a big coincidence that she just so happens to have a tattoo of a phoenix on her back," Harry said thinking of the tattoo he had seen. "And, also if she's not, we should wonder what the hell is she doing with the likes of Snape. Dumbledore called them old friends." He added.
"You didn't see their faces when he said that though?" Hermione asked him. "For about a second, both of their faces looked like they didn't like being called friends. But like I said it was for a second. Dumbledore might have just said that so Umbridge would let them leave."
Harry looked back up at the head table. Dumbledore sat eating his dinner as though there had been no interruption within the Hall. Umbridge however, was shooting looks at Dumbledore every few minutes. This Summers is an Auror, and if she is in fact an order member, something big must have happened for her to come to Hogwarts and talk to Dumbledore in front of a high up ministry official. She could get into a lot of trouble. Seeing her injuries only added on Harry's thoughts that something big had happened, or something big was happening.
"What happened to you?" Snape said to Paige as soon as they had reached his office. They had walked in silence all the way down to his office, knowing that a student, or Umbridge herself, might have followed.
"Cliff-notes version, someone did magic in the Potter family mausoleum, stunned three Aurors, and pissed me off. I went after them, and they did this to me. Got them in the end though. But, I want to find out who the hell he is. Oh and he looks just like James Potter." Paige said, moving to sit in one of the chairs in front of his desk.
"What?" Snape asked sharply.
"Yea. Oh wait, it gets better. I had him for over an hour, and he didn't have anything to drink, meaning no Polyjuice has been taken recently, and he hasn't changed back yet." She said looking around Snape's office. "So I need some veritaserum, to question him."
Snape immediately moved over to one of the shelves full of disgusting potions and potion ingredients and started to look for the veritaserum. Looking at some of the things that Snape kept in the jars, Paige found some that weren't potions or any kind of ingredient she had heard of.
"Let me guess. Bout maybe half these jars don't even have real potions and ingredients in them. There just there to scare little kiddies, aren't they?" She asked with a small smirk on her face. Snape didn't answer her, he just turned around and handed her a small vial containing a clear liquid.
"Remember, three drops," He said watching as she placed the vial under her shirt. Inside her bra no doubt. "You should probable take some healing potions with you." He added when Paige had risen to leave.
"Nah, Umbridge will leave me alone." Paige said, adjusting herself as she said it, confirming Snape's thought of her putting the veritaserum in her bra for safe keeping.
"Not just for show." Snape said. "If you don't tend to those injuries,"
"I'll be fine. I can patch myself up." She said cutting him off. They had a weird relationship, if you could call it that. It was mostly just respect of one another. And the respect just went far enough where they could be in the same room and talk and act civilly toward one another.
"Where did you leave this imposter?" Snape asked as Paige put her cloak on.
"At a safe place." She said. Knowing that Snape would understand.
"Hurry back then. Black," he spat out his name, "could be killing him this very moment." Paige didn't even bother answer him that. Instead she just said,
"Thanks. Be seeing you around." And left. She could help herself from quicken her pace slightly while thinking over what Snape had said. " Black could be killing him this very moment."
A.N- I'm sorry if this ended up being a chiff hanger. I really didn't mean it to be. I just need the questioning to be its own thing. There are something that I'm not to sure if there clear or not, chapters 1 and 2 take place on Halloween and everything since has been on Nov. 1st. I wasn't sure if that was clear or not.
I'm sorry for the last chapter being sloppy, I was rushing to get it up. I needed to study for a math test and didn't take enought time to read through it a few times. I would really like to thank everyone who reivew. It really, really made me smile. You guys have no idea. I was having a not so hot day at school and I came home and lots of reviews waiting for me. It was soooo nice. It would be really great to get that many again. Hint. Hint. Well, let me know what you guys thought about this one.