IT'S SATURDAY! YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS!

Have fun guys! :)

Thanks so much to Holmes44, luck-life, imSiriuslyLupin4you, ChocolateFrogsForMoony, Ally and The Lady of the Land for your great reviews! Glad you like the story so far and here's hoping you'll keep reading. :)

Oh, more strong language! You lucky readers!

There.

Now you can't say I didn't warn you.

DISCLAIMER: I own no part of the Harry Potter books, films, etc. Everything belongs to JKR/Warner Bros.

All bits from the book(s) are in bold.

The Meaning Of Family

Chapter Six

'Shit,' Sirius stated simply, staring down at the Daily Prophet on his lap. 'Bloodyfuckingbuggeringfucking –'

'Sirius?'

Sirius sighed. He moaned. He put his head in his hands. He'd known all along that it was somehow all going to come to this, but why had it come so soon? He couldn't even respond to Remus's gentle call, much as he wanted to hear his voice again. Why? Who was he? What had happened to him? Where was handsome, cheeky, jovial, so-goddamn-super-sexy, happy-go-lucky Sirius Black?

It seemed like all his luck had run out now.

Remus walked in from the kitchen, having just come downstairs after putting Harry to bed, leaned forward and gently tugged the copy of the Prophet from his friend's lap. The sight of the headline made his blood run cold.

SIRIUS BLACK NAMED AS BETRAYER OF LILY AND JAMES POTTER

MINISTRY LAUNCHES MASS SEARCH FOR BLACK

He had time to read the first sentence before Sirius let out another desperate wail:

Today, the 5th November, the Ministry of Magic has announced that Sirius Black, believed to be in league with You-Know-Who, who disappeared mysteriously on 31st October, is thought to have betrayed wizards Lily and James Potter to You-Know-Who, leading to their deaths on the same night the Dark Lord disappeared. Black, twenty-one, was widely known as one of the Potters' closest friends…

'No way,' Remus muttered. His voice rose angrily as fear and rage coursed through his veins. 'No fucking way!'

Sirius made no response but to sob into his hands.

'How can they let this happen?' Remus cried, pacing the living room floor and screwing the paper into a tight ball of black and white print. 'How can Dumbledore let them do this?'

'Remus…' Sirius croaked, finally lifting his head from his hands. 'It's not Dumbledore's fault…'

'He promised to keep you safe!' Remus yelled, uncharacteristically angry. Sirius was apprehensive, bordering on frightened, by this sudden outburst of rage. Remus was usually the calm one, the one who solved disputes through talking rather than duelling (Sirius, typically, would always rather opt for the latter), yet now here he was, pacing the floor and tearing his hair out over some allegation in the Prophet, going, 'He promised to keep us all safe! Howcan you be safe, Sirius, if you've got Aurors after you, threatening to kill you or put you in Azkaban?'

What little colour was left in Sirius's face drained away. He hadn't so much as thought about Azkaban. He swallowed.

'They're gonna take me to Azkaban?' he said very quietly. Remus, who had been growing redder by the minute, also turned white, and stopped pacing. He drifted over and crouched down beside Sirius's armchair, putting a soothing arm around his friend.

'No, of course they're not,' he murmured.

'But you said –'

'Well I won't let them, okay? I won't let them get you, Padfoot, I promise,' Remus whispered.

There was a sharp rap on the door. Both men froze.

'Shit,' Sirius moaned, laying his head in his hands again. 'It's the Ministry they've come for me…'

He carried on muttering about Azkaban and Dementors, but Remus stood up and looked hard at the door. Dumbledore had put the Fidelius Charm over the house, hadn't he, and offered to be their Secret-Keeper. Unless he had chosen to divulge the secret (and that was highly unlikely), nobody else could know where they were. He started to the door but Sirius grabbed the back of his jumper.

'What are you doing?' he hissed. 'Why are you betraying me?'

Remus shook his head. 'I'm not,' he replied, 'it's Dumbledore. He's the only one who knows we're here.'

'Oh,' said Sirius, and let go of the back of his sweater, though he still looked very reluctant to let Remus answer the door. As soon as he heard the latch click he jumped up, terrified, but sighed in relief when he heard Dumbledore's (rather calm, considering the situation) voice fill the tiny hall.

'Ah, Remus.'

'Good afternoon, Professor.' Remus had never quite lost that awe-struck tone he unconsciously adopted when speaking to Dumbledore, Sirius noted with a half-smile. It probably would have been a full smile, if it weren't for the threat of Azkaban and the injustice of the whole wizarding world thinking he was responsible for Lily and James's deaths hanging over him.

Dumbledore stepped over the threshold and closed the door firmly behind him. 'Is Sirius here?' he enquired. His tone was pleasant, but there was an urgency there that even he could not mask – he obviously knew.

'Yes, Professor, he's just in the living room,' Remus said, adding quickly, 'You know he's not responsible, don't you?'

Dumbledore smiled kindly. 'Of course I know he did not betray Lily and James. I know neither of you did – you swore to me the night I rescued Harry from the rubble of his home that you had never betrayed them. I can tell when someone is telling the truth, believe me.'

'But the Ministry don't,' Remus said with sudden bitterness. He would desperately have liked to add, 'Why didn't you tell them after you promised to keep us safe?' but he couldn't quite manage it. Sirius would have said it without a second thought, and Remus berated himself for being such a coward, but he still couldn't bring himself to yell at his old headmaster.

'No, the Ministry don't, Remus, you are quite right, which is why I would like a word with Sirius, if you please,' Dumbledore replied. His tone was almost serene, but for an underlying hint of impatient irritation.

Remus nodded, with a feeling he'd just had a big slice of humble pie forced down his throat, and led Dumbledore through to the living room, where Sirius was sort of frozen in the middle of the floor.

'Er… Sirius?'

Sirius looked up, smiled uneasily at Remus, then spotted Dumbledore and flushed. 'Oh hello Professor. Would you, erm, like to come in?'

'Sirius, Remus, sit down,' Dumbledore said gently. Remus was rather taken aback at being told to sit down in his own house, but sat nevertheless, and Sirius followed suit. Both of them looked at Dumbledore with a kind of nervous expectation. Dumbledore surveyed them both carefully, then spoke.

'Now, Sirius, as I am sure you are aware, you have been wrongly accused of committing a crime.'

Sirius regarded Dumbledore. 'I know,' he said irritably. Dumbledore showed no sign of reaction to Sirius's tone.

'Good,' he said, smiling in an infuriating manner. 'Well then,' he continued, 'I hope you trust that I am doing everything I can to explain the situation to the Ministry.'

'Have you caught Peter yet?' Remus said tersely from the doorway. Sirius started – he hadn't noticed Remus get up and start pacing again. Dumbledore looked mildly irritated.

'No, Remus, I am afraid we have not,' he said briskly. 'However –'

'I thought so.'

'However, I can assure you both that the Order of the Phoenix is doing everything in its power to find him. We are also keeping a track on all known Death Eaters and several of Lord Voldemort's past followers who claim to have been forced into following him.'

'Malfoy got away. What are you doing about him, then?'

Sirius could do nothing but sit in stunned silence for a moment. He had never heard Remus talk to Dumbledore like that before. What on earth had happened to Quiet Remus, forever in awe of the old man? Where the hell had he gone? What was going on today?

Dumbledore cleared his throat. 'I am afraid, Remus, that we can do nothing about Mr. Malfoy at the present moment. However –'

'But he's a Death Eater!'

'However,' Dumbledore continued firmly, 'we can do something about Sirius: you two must go into hiding.'

'But we are in hiding,' Remus said. Sirius frowned.

'The three of us,' he corrected.

Dumbledore's fixedly calm expression worried Sirius immensely, and sure enough, the next words he spoke were, 'I am afraid Harry will not be able to come with you.'

'What?' the two younger men cried in unison.

'But Professor –' Remus protested, but Dumbledore cut him off.

'I have been thinking this situation over, and I feel that Harry would be better off with his aunt and uncle.'

His words were followed by a ringing silence as Sirius and Remus gaped at him in horror. Sirius was first to break it.

'No way,' he said. 'Harry's coming with us.' His tone was firm but his hands shook and his voice quavered. They couldn't take Harry away – how could they take away the only thing Sirius had reason to live for.

'Professor, if you take Harry Sirius will go after Peter and –'

'Is this the correct time to remind you that there is a full moon in approximately a week, Mr. Lupin?' Dumbledore said pointedly. Remus fell silent, and Sirius noticed that Dumbledore had addressed Remus as 'Mr. Lupin' – he had assumed an authoritative, teacher tone.

They were done for.

'Professor, please,' Sirius said hoarsely. 'Remus is right, if you take Harry there'll be nothing left to stop me from going after Wormtail, and I don't want to go to Azkaban. Even though I'll probably get sent there anyway, I don't want…' His voice tailed away as Dumbledore fixed him with that piercing blue gaze, and said, 'I notice that you referred to Mr. Pettigrew as "Wormtail". Is there any particular reason for this? A nickname that sprung from… whence?'

Sirius and Remus exchanged horrified glances, but knew that they had no choice – telling Dumbledore about Sirius, James and Peter's biggest bout of rule-breaking, though undoubtedly excruciating, would probably amount to a crucial piece of evidence against Wormtail – and that meant justice.

Sirius bit his lip and began.

'Professor, the thing is… In our fifth year –'

'It was because of me, Professor.'

Dumbledore turned his gaze politely from Sirius to Remus. 'Whatever do you mean, Mr. Lupin?' he asked cordially.

Remus took a deep breath, looking as though he really didn't want to explain – but Sirius had been about to when he'd cut him off.

'As you know, Professor,' Remus began, seemingly having calmed down and become his polite, awe-struck self again round Dumbledore, 'the Shrieking Shack was built for me when I came to Hogwarts, so that I could transform every month and still attend school and have some chance at a half-normal life. That's where all of this starts – with my becoming a werewolf. None of this would have happened if I hadn't been bitten… and if I hadn't been so foolhardy…

'It seemed impossible that I would be able to come to Hogwarts. Other parents weren't likely to want their children exposed to me. But then you became Headmaster, Professor, and you were sympathetic. You said that as long as we took certain precautions, there was no reason why I shouldn't come to school…' Remus sighed, and looked directly at Dumbledore.

'My transformations in those days were – were terrible. It is very painful to turn into a werewolf.' He broke off, his head turned to look at Dumbledore but his eyes seemingly far away – he might have been talking to himself. There was a small silence, before he continued:

'But apart from my transformations, I was happier than I had ever been in my life. For the first time ever, I had friends, three great friends. Sirius Black… Peter Pettigrew… and, of course, James Potter.

'Now, my friends could hardly fail to notice that I disappeared once a month. I made up all sorts of stories. I told them my mother was ill, and that I had to go home to see her… I was terrified they would desert me the moment they found out what I was. But of course, they worked out the truth…

'And they didn't desert me at all. Instead, they did something for me that would make my transformations not only bearable, but the best times of my life.'

He stopped again. Sirius looked uncertainly at him, and he dropped his gaze from Dumbledore to the floor, unwilling to divulge the secret – the last thing he wanted to do was get Sirius into even more trouble, this time for being an unregistered Animagus.

'Remus? Tell him,' Sirius said.

'What did they do, Mr. Lupin?' Dumbledore asked gently. Remus swallowed.

'They became Animagi.'

Dumbledore's reaction was not what Remus had expected. He had envisaged Dumbledore standing over them, shouting and reprehending and possibly reporting them to the Ministry. Instead, he nodded and said, in an interested tone, as though simply discussing the outcome of last week's Quidditch match, 'Animagi? Goodness, that must have take some work.'

Remus looked up. Dumbledore did not seem at all angry, which only made Remus feel worse. It would have been better if he had shouted. The guilt Remus felt for betraying Dumbledore's trust was immense, and the way the old man simply smiled and spoke as if he were politely intrigued only increased that sense of having betrayed somebody he looked up to and admired so much.

'How long did it take?' Dumbledore asked. 'I am aware that Sirius,' he nodded at Sirius as he spoke, 'and James were the brightest pupils in school – but surely, it can't have been easy. The Animagus transformation can go horribly wrong – one reason the Ministry keeps a close watch on those attempting to do it.'

Remus nodded.

'It took them the best part of three years to work out how to do it. Peter needed all the help he could get from James and Sirius. Finally, in our fifth year, they managed it. They could each turn into a different animal at will.

'They couldn't keep me company as humans, so they kept me company as animals. A werewolf is only a danger to people. They sneaked out of the castle every month under James's Invisibility Cloak, They transformed… Peter, as the smallest, could slip beneath the Willow's attacking branches and touch the knot that freezes it. They would then slip down the tunnel and join me. Under their influence, I became less dangerous. My body was still wolfish, but my mind seemed to become less so while I was with them.'

He finished with a sort of anxious expectancy, awaiting Dumbledore's reply. Dumbledore merely nodded, and said rather pensively, 'Wormtail… A mouse or rat, I presume?'

Sirius said, 'A rat, Professor. A grey common or garden rat.'

Dumbledore nodded once again. 'Well then,' he said, 'thank you for this crucial piece of evidence. Now back to the matter at hand.

'Sirius, how would you feel about moving back to your old home and living under the Fidelius Charm? Again, I can assure you the best protection there is, and the Ministry will be less likely to know where you are until this messy business can be cleared up.'

There was a pause, in which Sirius and Remus looked rather shocked.

'No way,' Sirius said, coming to his senses and shaking his head. 'I'm not going back there under any circumstances. I ran away when I was sixteen, I can't go back!' He'd only agreed to go back in the first place because he knew he could wrap Remus around his little finger about anything – but there was no possibility of getting round Dumbledore.

He looked pleadingly at Dumbledore, who sighed in a weary manner.

'Then you leave me no choice, Sirius,' he said. 'I hate to do this but if Harry is to be safe from harm you must either go back to Grimmauld Place or hand him over to his aunt and uncle.'

Sirius froze. How unjustified was this? He glared at Dumbledore, wondering how his life had so quickly turned upside down. It was as I he'd drunk some sort of Felix Felicis-type potion, only one that had the opposite effects. Dumbledore was asking him to revisit the one place he had finally managed to escape from, or he must give up the only thing stopping him from landing himself in Azkaban. It was an option between the most unfair thing in the world and the most unfair thing in the world – and yet he knew he had no choice.

'Fine,' he growled, still glaring. 'Fine, I'll go back to Grimmauld Place. But as soon as the Ministry realise what stupid idiots are running the Auror Department, you'd better get me out of there.'

Dumbledore nodded, but did not smile. 'Good,' he said. 'I am glad you made this sensible decision so quickly.'

'Will you take the Fidelius Charm off my house then, Professor?' Remus asked. Dumbledore turned his gaze towards him, eyebrows raised in a curious, but not unkind, manner.

'Take it off? Whatever do you mean? I would not compromise your safety, Remus, at all.'

Remus frowned. 'But Professor, if Sirius and I are –'

He stopped suddenly, realising what Dumbledore meant. His jaw dropped, a horrified expression on his face. Sirius, however, did not understand. He too frowned, looking from Remus to Dumbledore, and back again to Remus.

'What do you mean, Professor?' he said hoarsely, studying Remus intently. He didn't know exactly what was going on, but something was very wrong. His breath came fast and shallow, as his eyes flicked from his friend to his former headmaster, face kept turned towards the former.

Dumbledore sighed. 'I feel that, for the safety of yourself and of Harry, Harry especially, it would be best that Remus did not come with you.'

Horror seeped through him like icy water; how could this happen? How could Dumbledore say something like that? Didn't he know that Remus was a necessary part of his and Harry's lives?

'Why – why not?' he said hoarsely. 'Why can't Remus come?'

Dumbledore opened his mouth to speak, but Remus answered instead, in that same bitter tone he had used when accusing Dumbledore of not doing enough to protect his best friend.

'It's because I'm a werewolf.'

Sirius's eyebrows knotted. He uttered one arrogant, monosyllabic reply:

'So?'

He'd run around with a werewolf who knew how many times at Hogwarts, so what was the big deal? Dumbledore was making far too much fuss about this. Lycanthropy was no big deal in Sirius's book – Remus couldn't help it, it wasn't as if it was a choice, so why the hell couldn't he stay with Sirius and Harry? It wasn't fair, Dumbledore couldn't take him away just because he was a werewolf. Dumbledore had never had a problem before. So why did he have one now?

Remus sighed and rolled his eyes. He hated having to spell this out word for word because Sirius was too thick to understand, he hated realising that he would have no part in Harry's upbringing, and he hated having to pretend that he didn't care.

'Sirius,' he said, doing his best to keep him voice level, 'I'm a werewolf, right? What do werewolves do? They run around and scratch and bite themselves and looked for other people to scratch and bite. I'm not myself when I'm transformed. What if those other people were you, or your mother? What if it were Harry?' His blood ran cold at the very thought.

But Sirius shook his head. 'That's not going to happen,' he said firmly, as if by willing it not to happen he could prevent it. He turned to Dumbledore. 'This is all your fault!' he shouted, suddenly indifferent to the fact that this was Dumbledore he was yelling at. 'If you'd done more to try and stop this, Lily and James would still be here, I wouldn't be on the run from the Ministry and Remus wouldn't be being treated differently just because if something that happened to him when he was a kid!'

There was another long pause. Sirius, having realised that he had just accused Dumbledore of responsibility for every unlucky event in his life, stormed upstairs and flopped down on the bed, the bed that he would not see or smell or touch for an indefinite amount of time.

Life without Moony? How would that even be possible? He hadn't gone longer than a week without seeing his best friend since the age of eleven, excluding the school holidays when he had opted (or rather, been forced) to spend time at home rather than at Hogwarts. How the hell was he going to go without him? On top of that, how would he look after a kid on his own? True, he was getting better at feeding and changing and comforting Harry these days, but he was still petrified of getting it wrong. With Remus there, at least he had some reassurance, someone to tell him what to do, someone to help when he was tired and stressed and frustrated.

How the hell was he going to live without that?

He was vaguely aware of the voices of the other two downstairs, and heard the front door close, but he was far too upset to care.

Remus sagged against the door, eyes closed, brain in a frenzied panic about the near future and how he was going to get through it. Life without Padfoot? That was impossible! No matter how many times he might scold and sigh and grin and shake his head and roll his eyes about Sirius's idiotic and reckless behaviour or his raunchy comments about the Fat Lady, the truth was he didn't think he could face drifting about the house without any company whatsoever. Despite having lived this way for three years now, over the past few weeks Remus had got used to sharing the tiny house with two other people – in fact, he'd half mapped out his whole future in his head. He and Sirius would read to Harry, play with him, teach him to walk and talk and use a potty, buy every single teaching book ever published from Flourish and Blotts, share responsibility of home-schooling Harry and write to him every week once he went to Hogwarts.

And now none of that was ever going to happen, because Sirius had to leave in a week's time.

Despite being awe-inspired by Dumbledore, Remus couldn't help being angry at the old man for putting an end to the relatively normal life he'd half-begun to believe he might actually be able to lead.

He squeezed his eyes tightly shut, and sank to the floor, arms wrapped around his knees, head in his lap. Hot tears raced each other down his cheeks, but he wiped them away and resolved to adopt a don't-care attitude – the last thing he wanted was to break down in front of Sirius. If he could be brave, Sirius would be more than capable to managing without him.

He made his way up the stairs, however, only to find Sirius lying face-down, diagonally across the bed, shaking with sticky sobs. The sight hit Remus like a jinx, knocking the breath out of him and causing him to stumble back a step or two. He hadn't expected a reaction like this; he'd known Sirius would probably be a little upset (after all, they'd been friends for nearly eleven years), but to find Sirius in this sort of state was surreal. Maybe… No. He banned a wistful, drifting thought from his head, but decided not to leave Sirius alone right now, not when he needed somebody.

Remus dropped down onto the bed beside Sirius, and held him until he'd stopped crying. Sirius buried his face in Remus's neck and inhaled the warm, homely scents of toast, fresh linen, and the slightly woody aroma of cinnamon.

'I'm gonna miss you so much,' he whispered. 'Please don't make me go on my own.'

'I have to,' Remus replied. 'If I go, I'm only putting you and Harry in danger.'

Sirius nodded (as best he could), and said, 'I know, but I'll miss you all the same. It's as if, all my life, I've been a misfit. Then I get to Hogwarts and I've finally found some friends who accept me for who I am. And then…' He sniffed, wiping his eyes on his sleeve. 'Then something horrible happens and I'm left in charge of a kid and I don't know a thing about kids. But I've got you, so I think everything's maybe going to turn out alright. And then, as soon as I'm starting to get my life back on track and seems like maybe, just maybe, everything will be okay, some old beardy guy tells me I've actually got to spend the rest of my life alone with my demented mother and a kid I can't raise by myself.'

Remus didn't laugh at the comment about Dumbledore. Instead, he said, very quietly, 'I didn't realise you felt exactly the same as I do.'

'I can't do it, Remus,' Sirius murmured desperately. 'I can't raise him on my own. I need you.'

'And I need you, Sirius, but it's not possible. I love you and I love Harry, and if I ever hurt either of you I'd never forgive myself. I don't want anything to happen.'

They sat, still entangled, in silence for some time, until Sirius's ragged breaths became softer and more even, his chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm. Remus lay him down and stretched out onto the bed, wondering how his life had changed so quickly.

'Remus…'

He looked over as Sirius softly murmured his name, but his friend was still asleep. Trying not to think about the butterflies he'd experienced at Sirius's unconscious murmur, he rolled over onto the opposite side of the bed, as far away from Sirius as possible. Perhaps, if he distanced himself now, it would hurt less when they were inevitably parted.