Disclaimer: Characters and settings belong to JK Rowling and Warner.

A/N: Real life in the form of a six day working week and the relentless advance of carpal tunnel syndrome have hammered my hopes of getting this story finished any time soon. I've had to severely cut back on my (already limited) keyboard time. Hope you like this chapter – it's one of those experimental things, yikes! Spot the pricey item I'm putting on my Xmas wish-list.

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Chapter 69: The Expurgation of Sirius Black

Thin-lipped, McGonagall took a very subdued Luna off to her office to give her part of the story. Looking gloomier than ever, Elmsworthy was taken by Professor Sprout to parts unknown.

Harry, Sirius, Remus and Professors Dumbledore and Flitwick assembled in Dumbledore's office, where the headmaster wrote the password on a scrap of paper, handed it to Fawkes, and asked the phoenix to go and fetch young Mr Malfoy, who was returning from the paddock. Looking through the window, Harry watched Draco with his hands jammed in his pockets trudging back down Squirrel Hill. Draco gave a thistle a vicious kick as he passed it. Simon was standing at the fence, watching the boy go. He wasn't quite far enough for Harry to miss the toss of the head as the horse caught sight of the phoenix swooping down to meet Draco then zooming up again and turning back to fly to the castle.

"Nice view, sir," Harry said as Draco moved into the shadow of the castle and out of view, and he realised Dumbledore was watching him with a half-smile. Simon was still standing forlornly at the fence.

"I like to keep an eye on our visitor," Dumbledore said softly, moving over to close the window as Fawkes flew back through it and landed gracefully on the perch. He really didn't need to keep his voice down: with the argument going on between Remus, Sirius and Flitwick it wasn't like anyone else would have worried about anything he said.

"He needs another horse," Harry mused. "He gets lonely up there."

Dumbledore nodded. "Horses aren't like people. They are social animals. They need their friends."

"People are social animals," Harry countered, thinking of how lonely he'd been growing up at the Dursleys'.

"True." Dumbledore nodded.

After a time during which Flitwick waved a piece of paper under Sirius' nose, Sirius snarled some more at Remus, and the two by the window watched the horse and thought private thoughts, Dumbledore added, "If we are to find company for him then perhaps we should be careful to find a nice, steady sort of paddock mate."

Harry considered this, then nodded also. "He's a bit nervy, isn't he?" He smiled. "Maybe I could move up there the next time all the students are sent home. Better than going to the Dursleys'."

A flicker of sorrow crossed Dumbledore's face. "You need to spend at least one night under their roof per year to maintain your mother's protection, but… I think Simon would miss you a great deal were you to stay away longer. It's hard to tell with horses, but I believe he was quite sad when you were back in time even though you were well taken care of – by Severus of all people. My, but life takes some odd turns. I'm getting on to a century and a half and it's quite wonderful how often I fall prey to irony." He smiled as if he'd made a joke; however, if so it wasn't one Harry was privy to. But Harry was cheered by the implication he might be allowed to stay on at Hogwarts rather than return to Dursley purgatory. Well, should the barrier come down and the Blockade be ended and Voldemort defeated and –

The odds were great, but not, perhaps, impossible. If only Draco would talk to Dumbledore, maybe things would –

As if on cue, there was a knock on the door, the sudden noise stopping the argument. It opened a crack and a sleek blond head peered into the room.

Draco held up his scrap of paper. "Er… I guess by the password this is where I'm meant to be?"

"Yes, come in, Draco," Dumbledore said warmly. "Thank you for turning Simon out."

"Ah… not a problem." Draco slipped into the room. He gave Lupin a wary look and shot a lightning-quick glare at Sirius, who must have caught it but did not appear affected, being himself too busy glaring at Remus.

"Was I interrupting something?" The pale raised eyebrow and hint of a suppressed smirk suggested he knew he was and wasn't regretting it in the least.

"Not at all," Dumbledore reassured him. Draco deflated a little, disappointed at missing excitement, but puffed up again as Dumbledore added, "I promised we wouldn't start proceedings until after you'd returned from taking Simon home."

Draco nodded in satisfaction, although the wariness at the back of his eyes didn't entirely fade, and he took the seat Dumbledore indicated.

"All you missed was a small disagreement between Professors Lupin, myself and Mr Black as to the merits of recording Mr Black's statement," Flitwick said.

"Oh," replied Draco. He shrugged. "It didn't sound like accord had been reached. And no, I wasn't listening in at the door," he added with a scowl at Sirius, who'd raised his own eyebrow in return (perhaps it was a Black trait, thought Harry, trying to remember if Narcissa had done the same thing). "It wasn't like I needed to with 'Mr' Black shouting like that."

Lupin smiled thinly. "Headmaster, I still don't see that it would be harmful to take a written statement…"

"And I've been dying to try out this new spell I've been working on," Flitwick piped up.

Sirius folded his arms. "I don't like it when people experiment on me," he growled, sounding a little bit like Snuffles. "Especially when they say they're 'dying to try out' something, because generally speaking it's not them who's going to be in mortal peril."

"Shoe on the other foot, chickens coming home to roost, skrewts looking for burn cream…" muttered Draco, and smirked as Sirius shot him a glare.

Harry cleared his throat. "I don't mind if you test it out on me," he said. Hell, even Simon trusted Flitwick…

"Absolutely no-one is testing anything on Harry." Sirius sighed and shook his head. "All right, all right… I just don't see the sense in it…"

"There's no sense in research," said Flitwick happily. "That's the joy of pure magic."

Sirius rolled his eyes. "If you say so."

"Well," Dumbledore said before anyone could say anything to cause further rancour, "I'd quite like to get to the bottom of why a horse decided to join us for lunch. It can't all be due to his sudden and unexpectedly gregarious new outlook on the world. Time for Sirius to fill in the blanks, and I don't see how it would hurt to have a record of his story. How does your new spell work, Filius?"

"Oh, it's very simple. That's the beauty of it. All you need is the right parchment…" Flitwick took out a blank piece of parchment from his satchel. "The parchment needs to be especially powerful to process the spell. That tends to make it almost prohibitively expensive, but I had this scrap ready and I can make some more. And, of course, we need the right spell." He tapped it with his wand. "Draco vox vivo. There. That will convert speech into written text." He smiled nervously, obviously still not entirely sure of Sirius' innocence whatever the headmaster might say. "It'll only take down what Black has to say – not the words of anyone else. I'm still working on that part of the charm… Shall we try it out?"

Sirius winced as the wand flicked in his direction.

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Hmm. Yes. I suppose… Is that thing working…? Well, I'll be damned, so it is. Ahem. Well (scribbles the quill as Sirius began to speak, slowly at first but then faster and more evenly as he stops paying it attention), it was what you might call a spur of the moment thing – no, Malfoy, I did not use spurs on your precious Simon, so put that wand away. Thank you, Headmaster. I'm getting a little sick of people pulling wands on me.

What was I saying…? Yeah, right. Okay. I was up at the paddock with Simon – well, because I thought I'd experiment with illegal Dark magic on him, of course. What the fooOOoo (the quill judders as the Bowdler subcharm kicks in) do you expect from a mass murderer? Oh, for Merlin's sake, I go up there because he's easy company, not because I had some booOOoo*y idea of turning him into kebab, Malfoy, so give me a break and stop fingering your wand. We all know you're not going to use it in front of Dumbledore. (Pause) Don't play dumb, I know what pocket you keep it in. You're not fooling anyone. Look, I may be related to you but it's not like I tend to behave like the branch of the family you're from… All right, I'm sorry, yes, that was uncalled for. (Sigh.)

Just for the record, I've never had any intention on harming Simon. Back me up on this, Harry. (Pause.) Thank you. I certainly didn't think anything was going to happen today. What? Well, because Luna was there. She seems to be able to convince that crazy animal to do whatever she likes. Flaming hoops? No problem. She'd probably make it fly should she care to. As well as her, there was Remus – no, don't worry, Harry, I was keeping in mind Simon's antipathy towards him. Remus was staying well out of range. He was there mostly for emergencies and to keep an eye on Elmsworthy.

(Long pause. Verbal heat from another person in the room begins to curl the quill.)

…I know, but given the fact that there was a good solid wall up between us and them, I thought it would be safe. How could anyone have predicted what happened? … I'm getting to it. Exercise a little patience for once, Malfoy.

Where was I? Yeah, up at the paddock. That's right. Yes, in human form – the headmaster reset the wards on the fence to stop people coming into the paddock who shouldn't be there. If certain people I won't name (there is a cough which sounds like the word 'Harry') don't muck about with the wards again I'm perfectly safe. I was sitting in the stable, minding my own business and telling Simon how glad I was he had attacked me rather than turning into Snape … (pause) … (well, it's true… hasn't Harry told you the details of that story yet, Draco? Later, okay?) … when I see Luna. She didn't have anyone else with her, so I called out hello and told her Simon was up with me. As he was. That's how disturbed he is by my presence, that he actively seeks it out and then goes to sleep (the quill digs into the parchment in an effort to convey sarcasm). Sorry. Luna brought the bag of brushes up and we brushed the horse for a bit. She gave me a bit of a lesson in horse grooming – new career for me if the magic thing doesn't work out. Then she asked if I'd ever considered riding the horse.

I told her no, while Hippogriffs are fairly straight forward once you get the hang of them, Simon had always seemed a bit unstable to me. He is, Harry – you can't escape the fact that stallions tend to be more bolshie than mares or geldings, haven't you ever read that horse muttering book in the Library? It's by this American chap named … oh, so you have read it. All horses are potentially hazardous to your health, anyway. Plus I didn't want to end up being smuggled into the Infirmary again. Kind of puts a damper on one's day.

Luna thought Simon would be fine. She pointed out how well we get on these days. Which is true – never thought I'd end up bonding with a Muggle herbivore in any sense other than the digestive. Joke, all right? It was a joke. Cool it. But she agreed that it would be too difficult for a complete tyro to try riding for the first time on the side of a hill. And we'd be visible from the castle. But it seemed safe enough for me to accompany her as Snuffles down to the meadow so she could make Simon run around in circles for a while.

We met up with Remus and that Slytherin kid on the way – Elmsworthy. Y'know, the skinny one who looks like he was given a sense of humour bypass in infancy. Typical Potions swot. Even gave me the typical Potions Swot Glare like he thought I was up to something, even though he wasn't supposed to know who I was… silly me. Turns out he did know. Like to know how, I would… I already thought he was a bit dodgy after the For- … um… some explosion I'd heard about in passing… but Remus was with him. Turns out they were going to do some experiments down by the lake where it's too wet for fires and the ground's soggy enough to absorb any shocks. Remus was along to make sure the Slytherin didn't kill himself or anyone else. Luna – she was a little busy keeping Simon calm – h**l, that beast really takes exception to Remus being anywhere near the students! – said she'd been practising with her wall of sky some more, and would Remus like her to show him how to put it up in a cone to contain any reactions that get out of hand.

Remus did, of course, in fact he sort of smirked – you did, Moony, you smirked – and said it'd be dead useful when some idiotic student started throwing about bits of newt spleen when making potions using peatpallum – that was cold, Moony, really cold, saying that… and then having Elmsworthy staring at me, Snuffles, like he knew that not only was I Sirius Black, but only I would be dumb enough to try something like that. However, he asked her to show him later. But Luna explained that she needed an adult on hand if she rode Simon, and she also wanted to try giving a certain someone whose identity had already been guessed by Elmsworthy – yes, I swear on Merlin's grave those were her words – giving this person a riding lesson.

Remus went kind of still – that's what you do, Moony, you go sort of rigid with this little smile like you're not about to tell everyone in your reasonable voice what complete aooOOoos they are and then you open your mouth and, well… it's not nice, that's all I can say. Not nice at all. So Remus was suspiciously quiet and I'm thinking uh-oh, Luna's not going to see daylight for a month what with all the detentions, and then Remus asks the Slytherin kid if it's true.

The Slytherin shrugs and nods. I can tell Remus wants the full moon to come early and give him the excuse he needs to do some damage (oh, yes you did, Moony, don't deny it!), but then he takes a deep breath and says well in that case I hope you'll respect the headmaster's desire for the secret such as it is to remain secret a little longer from all the students who don't yet know – there must be at least six of them. Elmsworthy ignores the sarcasm and nods like he's just worked out several things but he's not going to say what they are. I swear to Merlin, Albus, that boy's too smart for his own good. So sharp he'll cut himself one day, as James' mum used to say. Diplomat? Really? Well, probably hooray for us, but Merlin help the other countries, especially if he decides to go into blowing things up as a full-time occupation… I suggest we give him a post on Mars if Luna's theory on the Space Bunny colony is ever proven.

But I digress. Ah – that's right. Luna suggested we kill two harpies with one stone and have Remus put up a ward to divert attention from the meadow so that I can have a riding lesson, and she can twist the wall of sky into a cone to cover Elmsworthy's experiment, because she knows it's going to be noisy and she doesn't want Simon getting scared. The idea is that Remus can keep an eye on both parties from a practical distance.

I didn't think Remus would go for the idea (well, because you looked pretty annoyed by the whole Elmsworthy-figuring-out-Snuffles thing, Moony).

But he did.

So I changed back into the handsome chap you see before you. Was that a snort, Moony? True friend, you are. True, true, dear friend… I was relying on you to keep that little b- that dear chap Elmsworthy under control. Hmm? Oh, Elmsworthy barely raised an eyebrow when he saw me change back. Just said 'huh' like he'd had a theory confirmed, and not an interesting theory at that – the kind of theory that wonders if earthworms are worms that live in the earth. Yes, I was annoyed. Do you know how hard it is to be an Animagus? Let me tell you it's…

Sorry, Albus. The story, yes…

Luna set up a conical wall over the area the Slytherin wanted to blow up. She poked a small hole in it so that he could insert his potions and take stuff out when he'd finished. Elmsworthy stuck a few branches in – something to do with cellulose matrix and its rapid dissolution. Extreme exothermic reactions, blah blah blah. Basically what it seemed to boil down to from what I can remember of Potions classes (Merlin, Albus, but Hogwarts really has had a bad run of Potions masters – old Boggart was the pits!) was Elmsworthy wanted to make things go boom. Like that's ever been difficult – ask Neville!

You know how when things are going well it's only because someone's waiting around out of sight to give you a kick in the teeth? The eye of the storm? Yeah – they say you shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, but any sane person would just to see how big the fangs are – right, Harry? Right.

Huh? Oh, Simon's not a gift horse. He's found some gift humans to give him lots of food and brushing (chuckle).

So there we are. Remus is watching the Slytherin and Luna is helping me up onto Simon's back. I must admit I was nervous – probably held the reins a bit too tight to start off with… Simon gave me one of his Death Glares. (Chuckle.) How many people have apologised to a horse? Err… outside of this room? Oh, thought I was being original. Never mind. But I manage to stay on his back… that is to say, he doesn't toss me over his head immediately. Then Luna leads me around for a bit while I try and get my balance sorted out. Not too bad. I even start to enjoy myself. It's kinda fun, riding…

So things were going well. Stupid of me, but I forgot the cardinal rule – the one that states if things can go wrong they will go wrong. Usually at the worst possible time.

Elmsworthy's experiments were working well – the cone of silence – hey! That's a better name for it! – was just like a bought thing. While there were faint little pops, there was nothing to alarm anyone, especially Simon. And I was about to learn how to rise to the trot and stop bumping around like a sack of potatoes on poor old Simon… (chuckle)… yeah, but who can blame him for getting mad? He was being amazingly patient, all things considered. We'll have to try putting you up next week, Moony. It's okay, I'm just kidding… stop looking so frightened. Yup, everything was going nicely.

And then I heard it: Elmsworthy said "Whoops."

It was really quiet, but even Simon stopped and went all tense like he knew that word. He might. It's universal for I've-fooOOoo*d-up-big-time-now-bend-over-and-kiss-your-aooOOoo-goodbye.

Then there was this explosion. Boom! My ears are still ringing. And Simon's standing up on his back legs. Luna's got the leadrope and I've got my arms around Simon's neck. I don't know what you were doing, probably wondering if you still had your fuzzy werewolf tail… I was too busy worrying about the fall from the top of a rearing horse… Hmm? Oh. No. … I didn't know horses ever fell over backwards. Thank you for that information, Draco. I'm sure that won't bother me at 2 am.

Right on top of this there's a whistling sound and then BAM! Right behind Simon lands the cone of silence with all the explosions it's been storing up all letting off their noises pop-pop-pop-screech-whiz-bang.

Simon goes mental. He rips the leadrope out of Luna's hand and starts running. Third stride in, he trips on the rope… Oh, glad you fixed that, Malfoy. I didn't get time to check his knees. Just a scrape, yes? Good. Poor sod. Well, he broke the clip and went straight back into the gallop. I'm leaning forward on the Simon Express with the reins just in front of my nose. The trouble is, I can't reach them because for some reason I can't stop hanging on. Scared? Me? (Snort.) I wasn't scared – I was terrified. Too blooOOooy right I was scared. I thought this unstoppable force was going to run into some immovable object. Like the castle. Or Hagrid.

I was right with the first– it was the castle, which was basically between us and his paddock. Very single-track, horses are. Simon went up those front stairs like a kangaroo. I was worried he'd go up more stairs like he did with Malfoy… yeah, Harry told me about that and you were blooOOooy lucky is all I can say… but luckily Peeves saw us in time and headed us off, driving Simon into the Great Hall. I'm sure Peeves was acting solely on altruism, yes, not just because he likes flinging armour about the place and making a racket…

Then there we were, coming down the aisle in less than a romantic sense, and I'm outed to the entire school. In the middle of dessert, no less. (krrrrk)

Oh, is it? Doesn't last long, Filius. Given the massive cost of that blasted parchment, you'd think it would be (kkkrkkrkkpst-t-t-t)

Err… Albus? Now that we've finished testing this new (krrrk)ell, any chance of another go at that choc(krrrk)ate cake? … Oh, that's okay. Considering what I've eaten as a dog, I don't mind sharing with a horse. A (krrkrrk) elf could (krkrrrrrkrrrr) possib- (fzzz… snp!)

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