Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed! Great to hear from you!
Well, here's the chapter you've been waiting for...I hope you all like it and that it's not a let-down XD After this there are two more chapters and two sets of outtakes, so we're almost finished here :O
Enjoy!
Chapter Eleven
The door closed with a slight grinding sound and Wolfsbane slowly turned around to face the two men who were each studying him with no small amount of distaste.
"I think, Mr. Black," Dumbledore said firmly, all cheer from his conversation with Harry gone-he'd clearly been putting on an act to reassure the child, "that it is time you explained exactly what it is you're doing here."
Wolfsbane whimpered and looked down at the stone floor, and then with a soft pop he disappeared. In his place stood a very skinny man, though his face held a good amount of color so he had the slight appearance of being healthy. His hair was long and clean, bound at the nape of his neck and he was clean-shaven though he wore torn, dingy grey robes.
"Still in your Azkaban robes, I see, Sirius," Remus growled.
"I haven't really had time to go shopping for new ones," the man replied, softly and calmly.
"But you've had time to clean yourself up?" Remus demanded, his tone accusing, "One would think those robes would be the first thing-"
"Remus," Dumbledore interjected, "I'm sure that since Mr. Black has consented to speak to us that he will also consent to explain his motivations-"
Remus rolled his eyes and demanded, "Well, what are your motivations for still wearing your prison clothes?"
The man sighed, rubbing his face in frustration, and explained, "It's easier to go into the bathroom while the boys are in class and keep myself from getting disgusting, than it is to go into town and buy new robes."
"There's another thing," Remus barked out, disgust coloring his face, "What were you doing living with boys, anyway?"
It took Sirius a moment to recognize what Remus was accusing him of, and he flushed red with anger, "That's disgusting! How dare you-"
"Boys!" Dumbledore injected, loudly.
"Sleeping in Harry's bed!"
"He's my godson! I would never-"
"Remus! Sirius! Be silent!" Dumbledore roared and the two men finally fell silent and turned away from each other. Dumbledore took a calming breath, and said, "I am well aware of the history between the two of you, and I would greatly appreciate it if the two of you would save your...arguments for later. I am a busy man and cannot be bothered to mediate the disputes of two grown men, one of whom I have employed."
He shot a firm look over to Remus who looked firmly admonished and took a couple of steps away from Sirius Black, and stared down at the floor.
"Let us remember that young Harry is outside waiting for us to finish up. Also remember that his well-being is the reason we are here," Dumbledore added. "Let's make this as quick as possible, and get any and all dangers out of the castle for the welfare of young Harry and all the students."
"You think I want to hurt Harry?" Sirius demanded in disbelief. "That's-"
"-Not so hard to believe given that you tried to kill-"
Sirius' face went slack with grief and he explained, voice hollow with despair, "I never tried to kill-"
Dumbledore cleared his throat before the two men could begin to argue once more and he said, "There are clearly many things that we don't seem to understand, Sirius. It has been widely acknowledged that the reason you escaped from Azkaban was to extract revenge and kill Harry Potter..."
"That's not true!" Sirius breathed, shaking his head sharply, "well...mostly not true."
"Then us what is true," Dumbledore asked, his gaze firm upon Sirius' eyes.
"Well, I certainly don't want to kill or otherwise harm Harry," Sirius replied with a glare at Remus for extra measure. "But it is true that I wanted revenge...but not against Harry, I'd never hurt Harry. I wanted to kill him," Sirius pointed to the shivering, caged rat on Dumbledore's desk, "Peter Pettigrew."
Dumbledore turned to look at the rat on his desk with mild interest and then replied, "You certainly don't seem to have succeeded."
Sirius coughed and agreed, "No, sir."
"Why is that?" Dumbledore asked, peering down at the prone rat, "He certainly doesn't seem to be difficult prey."
"Not sporting enough for you?" Remus asked, snidely.
"I can't kill him now," Sirius explained softly, "I don't want to leave Harry alone now that I've gotten to know him, and if I killed Peter then I'd go straight back there," Sirius finished with an involuntary shudder.
"What do you mean 'You don't want to leave Harry alone?'" Remus snarled.
"I'm his godfather!" Sirius exclaimed.
"You're a criminal!"
"You can see for yourself," Sirius growled, waving angrily at the cage on Dumbledore's desk, "that I'm not!"
"Why don't you explain everything to us, Sirius," Dumbledore demanded.
Sirius Black swallowed and looked between Dumbledore and Remus, and asked, "You're just going to take me at my word?"
"I assure you, Mr. Black," Dumbledore replied, eyes twinkling, "there is no way you could lie in this room without me knowing it."
"I wasn't Lily and James' secret keeper," Sirius announced. "I convinced them not to pick me...I thought I was too obvious, that I was the one everyone would suspect as being the secret keeper..." Sirius choked and stared down at the floor, "So they chose Peter instead, but he was a death eater and none of us knew! It was like I'd handed them over on a silver platter!"
Remus looked stricken and unable to process the information.
"Why didn't you mention this?" Remus demanded finally, "To anyone!"
"No one would have listened!" Sirius growled, "They tossed me into Azkaban without a second thought or a trial! And they left little Harry to those goddamn muggles!"
"Language, Sirius!" Dumbledore scolded.
"I apologize, headmaster," Sirius replied, not looking very sorry at all.
"Do continue, Sirius," Dumbledore encouraged him.
It took Sirius a moment to gather up the strength to continue with the most painful part of his story, and when he finally managed his eyes were watery.
"The second I found out what I'd done, that I'd left them-James-to a death eater," Sirius choked out, "I went to their house...and-there was just little Harry...Peter was all I could think about, I had to find him. I couldn't understand why he'd ever betray his only friends...I wanted to kill him for what he'd done. When I finally found him, he acted like it had been me and he blew himself up, I thought he had died and everyone held me responsible for killing him, the muggles, Lily and James..."
Sirius stared down at the floor, lost in memories, and then he continued suddenly, "And then, I saw it," he dug into his pocket and produced a worn torn up sheet of paper and handed it over to Dumbledore. It was a family picture of the Weasleys when they were in Egypt after winning the money drawing over the summer. Ron held a much healthier Scabbers in the picture, "when Fudge came to inspect, I saw him on the cover of The Prophet. I realized he was still alive and with the Weasleys no less. It was simple after that. I could track him down and kill him-"
"All you had to do was escape from Azkaban," Remus finished for him.
Sirius grinned, a hint of the mischievous boy showing through, and he continued, "Once I'd gathered up enough strength to transform, I could think again. Animals are more or less immune to the dementors-"
"Which is how you got Harry away from them on the train," Remus said in sudden realization, and Sirius nodded.
"It didn't take me long after seeing Peter in the newspaper to realize that I'd become so skinny even as a dog that I could slip through the bars, and I walked out past all the dementors and swam back to shore," Sirius finished.
"Deviously simplistic," Dumbledore commented in surprise.
Sirius gave the headmaster a wry look and replied, "I suppose, in retelling it is..."
Dumbledore nodded in concession, "I don't doubt that it was a trial. It is nonetheless an impressive story. Now if you could just explain how you came to be with Harry, and what it is exactly that you want with him."
"I wanted to see him, before I got sent back to prison for killing Peter. I couldn't imagine that I'd have another chance...so I tracked him down. I'd planned to just look through his windows and see him or something," Sirius sighed and shook his head, "but that plan…didn't work out like I'd intended. On my way to Harry's house, I noticed a kid with a trunk running away from somewhere. I, for some reason, thought…it might be him. So I followed along and tried to get close enough to see, but dog eyes can't always see things too well, so I had to get pretty close.
"Well, he saw me first and it startled him so badly he fell. I worried he'd been hurt and didn't want to leave him alone in the rain if he couldn't walk. I went a little closer to make sure he was okay. That's when he started saying he was in trouble and he needed to run away. I wasn't too concerned about that because how much trouble can a thirteen year old get into, really? So I was just going to let him continue on his way, but he had no sense of how to take care of himself! He'd dropped his wand and forgotten about it, and he didn't know how to even call the Knight Bus!" Sirius shook his head affectionately at Harry's ignorance. "I decided he couldn't be left alone just yet and was going to see him off to someplace safe...but the more time I spent with him, the more I wanted to be a part of his life."
"Harry is quite the personable young man," Dumbledore agreed. Sirius smiled in pride at the praise of his godson.
"That's why I didn't kill Peter," Sirius finished, "I just want to pick up my life, and take care of Harry, like I should have been doing all of these years. However, I couldn't figure out how to get Peter to the authorities without them just tossing me back in jail without another thought..."
"I should think that would have been very easy once you'd gotten him in this cage," Dumbeldore murmured as he turned to look at the rat. It had its paws folded underneath him so it was impossible to tell if the rat was missing a finger as Peter Pettigrew would be.
"I'm not so sure," Sirius replied slowly. "Everyone thinks I'm a crazy murderer hell bent on revenge. You honestly think they'd listen to me if I showed up at Auror HQ with a sick rat in a birdcage and said I was innocent, see look! Here's Peter Pettigrew!"
Dumbledore chuckled and replied, "I believe you may have point there. Now, Sirius, there's one last thing that I need to know...Did you ever reveal yourself to Harry?"
"Of course not!" Sirius exclaimed, shocked at the very thought, "You know they'd arrest Harry for harboring a criminal in a second! It was best to keep him safe and in the dark so he wouldn't end up in prison himself!"
Dumbledore looked troubled by the accusation and replied, "You may indeed be correct, but we will fortunately never know."
Dumbledore tilted his glasses and leaned closer to study the rat once more, and Sirius turned to Remus who had fallen silent and was now staring thoughtfully at the wall.
"I'm sorry Remus," Sirius said softly, "things would have been so different if I'd been more suspicious of Peter than you..."
"It's not all your fault," Remus admitted, "I'd thought you were the spy, given your family history."
Dumbledore reached for one of his quills and began poking at the rat through the bars of the cage, presumably in an attempt to get the rat to move.
"Not too much of stretch really," Sirius replied. "I can see how it would be an easy mistake to make..."
"I shouldn't have doubted you, though," Remus insisted, "you always loved James more than you loved anything."
"They were frightening times," Sirius told him softly. "It was impossible to trust anyone."
"Forgive me, old friend?"
"Of course, I forgive you. You were trying to protect them just the same as I was."
The two men gave each other a firm hug for several seconds.
Dumbledore seemed to have given up on the quill and was now holding the cage and shifting it slowly trying to knock the rat off balance.
"You could just force him to transform," Remus suggested in amusement.
"I fear that he could run away," Dumbledore explained, "I don't have the means to keep a rat animagus within my office. Aha!" Dumbledore exclaimed, upon tilting the cage rather quickly. He turned to smile at Remus and Sirius and commented brightly, "That worked quite well."
"So what will happen now, Headmaster?" Sirius asked.
"Well, I daresay I may have done Harry a grave disservice," Dumbledore sighed, "I told him if all went well he'd have his dog back at the end of the day. Instead it appears he'll be losing one."
Sirius looked like he'd been struck and thrown back to the dementors, "What-"
"Though, I fear he'll be gaining a godfather," Dumbledore finished, and Sirius' face lit up with unabashed hope. "Excuse me for a moment, gentlemen, I have a few firecalls to make. You may want to make yourself more comfortable, Mr. Black, I think you may have a lot more questions to answer."
Sirius suddenly looked back to the office door, "Harry-"
"Ah, yes," Dumbledore exclaimed, "yes, we certainly don't want to leave Mr. Potter out there all day, and I imagine he'd like to say goodbye to Wolfsbane..."
Sirius immediately transformed back into a dog and went to sit patiently by the office door.