Through Another's Eyes
By Neurotica
Five
Sirius Black awoke to the mother of all headaches. It'd been quite a long time since he'd felt this horrible—the first time he and James had nicked a few bottles of firewhiskey from a less than vigilant Defense Against the Darks Arts professor in sixth year sprang to mind—and it took him a few minutes to reorient himself with his surroundings before he could even begin thinking about what had caused him to feel this way. Once certain he wasn't going to vomit the moment he sat up, he opened his eyes and surveyed the room he was in. It was an unfamiliar one, cold and dark and damp; possibly unfriendly.
As his eyes adjusted, Sirius began searching for anything that could tell him where he was and what had happened to him—the first, he decided would have to remain undetermined for the time being, as there were no windows or visible doors; the second wasn't quite as difficult to work out, though he wasn't sure hippogriffs had actually run him over, whether he felt like they had or not. After a few deep breaths, he took a mental checklist on injuries: Head, still throbbing; no broken bones, as far as he could tell at the moment—that could change once he tried standing up; bleeding seemed minimal, only a few minor, non-life threatening cuts—
I don't like it here, he thought suddenly. Too dark, too uncomfortable... Too unknown.
He sighed heavily. Mad-Eye is going to kill me for this one.
Finally, he pushed himself off the floor, wincing as his body protested loudly and thoroughly. The headache made him dizzy and for a few moments, he worried he would fall again. Managing to stumble across the room, he regained his balance against the wall and felt his way along, searching for a door his mind was already telling him didn't exist.
There has to be a way in... he kept telling himself as he made his fourth round of the room. I didn't just appear here...
He stopped in his tracks and only just refrained from smacking himself on the forehead. Magic, you dolt. Absolutely plausible that you just appeared here, and that the person who brought you here disappeared just as quickly.
It was another fifteen minutes of knocking on the walls, testing to see if there was a sound change that would indicate a hidden door, trying his luck at Disapparition—he tried so hard, he actually lost his balance again and face-planted into the floor—before panic really began to set in.
It would be helpful if I could just bloody remember how I got here. Then I could work out how to handle the situation a little better—
Sirius' thoughts stopped abruptly as a tapping sound could suddenly be heard on the wall he was standing beside.
"Move aside," called an unfamiliar voice. "I'm opening the door."
His heartbeat increased as he stepped backwards into a corner, waiting for the person to enter. He could see a faint outline of a door appear in the wall and that door was opening...
Harry lay in his bed at Hogwarts, tossing and turning, though none of his dorm mates noticed due to a privacy spell he'd placed over the bed after he'd pulled the curtains. Since the incident out by the lake a few weeks back, he'd been prone to the same sort of nightmares he'd had in his own world the year before and once he'd realized what was happening, he'd started placing the charms to avoid any scenes in his dormitory like he'd had then; he was already getting enough attention during his waking hours, he didn't need any while he slept.
The teenager's eyes were screwed shut, both against fear of what he was dreaming and the intense pain that had erupted in his head. It had been quite some time since his dreams had had this sort of effect on him, but try as he might, he couldn't wake himself from this, couldn't force himself not to see what he was seeing...
He hurried down a dark, damp hallway behind a cloaked figure who continued on without breaking stride or looking around at any of the many doors they passed. Harry tried to concentrate on their location—a Muggle apartment building, perhaps, judging by the blurred golden numbers on each door set above a matching doorknocker. They finally reached the end of the hallway and the door that was their apparent destination; a door was slightly ajar, just enough to allow Harry to hear somebody's muffled cries of pain. Harry's heart rate increased to a maddening speed as the cloaked figure reached out a dark-skinned hand to push open the door. The figure entered first and disappeared into the dark, leaving Harry to enter on his own. Once past the threshold of the door, Harry realized the person he'd followed here had gone completely, and the moment that realization hit, the door slammed shut behind him.
He gave his eyes a moment to adjust, then immediately regretted the work he put into the task: white light filled the room, nearly blinding him, revealing to Harry that he was far from alone in this strange place. Relief was quickly replaced by horror as he recognized the two other people in the room: his godfather, doubled over on the floor, looking as though he was in terrible pain, and Lord Voldemort, who obviously had full control over the situation.
"Tell me where the boy is, Black," hissed the Dark Lord, flicking his wand minutely and causing Sirius to bite down so hard on his lip that he drew blood.
"Have you checked Hogwarts?" Sirius groaned when Voldemort raised his wand to end the spell. "Gryffindor Tower, more specifically..."
Sirius' cheek cost him another flick of Voldemort's wand, his body tensed visibly and just barely managed to hold back his cry of pain.
"I think we both know the boy is not under the ever-watchful eye of the Mudblood-lover Dumbledore," Voldemort countered.
Sirius bit back a groan and forced himself to sit up straight to better face Voldemort. "So what makes you think I know where he is?"
A cold smile formed on Voldemort's face. "Whether you do or not is irrelevant. He will be found and any protecting him will be killed."
"Starting with me," Sirius growled, spitting blood on the floor at Voldemort's feet. "You might as well kill me, Snakeface; I'm not telling you shit."
The cold smile grew as Voldemort raised his wand to Sirius again, his lipless mouth beginning to speak the Killing Curse. Green light filled the room and Harry felt himself falling backwards for what felt like ages until his back touched his bed in Gryffindor Tower, his body covered in cold sweat. Struggling to regain his bearings, Harry made certain he could easily recall the details of his dream before jumping out of bed and bolting out of the dormitory.
The amount of activity within James and Lily Potter's home this late at night was becoming disconcerting. Every order member that doubled as an Auror was in attendance, all of them trying to figure out what had happened less than an hour ago that had resulted in Piper's kidnapping. They'd managed to calm down both James and Lily to the point James was no longer prepared to charge off into the night searching for clues that may not exist and falling into potential traps; now he was at least willing to wait for a plan to form before running off to his death. Lily was focusing her fear and nervous energy into something a little more productive: She and Alice Longbottom were testing the protective wards and charms around the Potter home in an attempt to work out what done so terribly wrong that night.
"What happened, Potter?" Mad-Eye growled, stomping into the room and taking control.
James blinked and sighed. "They took Piper," he said hoarsely. "We're not sure how."
"There are traces of portkey and Floo usage," Tonks told Mad-Eye.
"I was the Floo," Remus told her. "I'd only been here maybe an hour before the Death Eaters arrived."
"Which leaves us with portkey as the method of escape," Kingsley said quietly. He quickly left the room, probably to contact the Ministry about any unauthorized use of portkeys that evening.
James shook his head. "Impossible. The only people who can even activate a portkey in this house are the ones on the safe list. Lily, Remus, and I were all locked out of the house at the time."
"Could anyone have gotten into the house without your noticing?" asked Tonks.
Remus and James exchanged a look. "Possibly," James started slowly. "But like I said, to even get past the Fidelius—"
"Yes, I know, they have to be on the bloody safe list," Mad-Eye snapped.
Remus furrowed his brow. "Are you insinuating someone on the safe list took Piper?" he asked quietly, feeling the room fill with tension.
"You're out of your mind, Mad-Eye!" James said loudly, drawing Lily and Alice's attention as they reentered the house. "Why would one of our friends—"
"Don't be naïve, Potter!" Mad-Eye retorted just as loudly. "I know damn well you're not. You know as well as any of us how easily it would be to fool certain wards."
James bristled. "Nobody I've deemed safe would have kidnapped my daughter," he said with more than a hint of arrogancy.
Remus often envied how easily his friend could trust after everything he'd been through, everything he'd seen. But even as Head Auror he did rather have a tendency to let that easy trust get out of hand. Not a bone in James Potter's body could ever believe even for a second that his closest friends could ever do anything to betray him, no matter how hard others tried to convince him otherwise. Case and point: the discovery of a spy within the Order of the Phoenix some fifteen years ago. Nobody could figure out how the Death Eaters had discovered the names and home addresses of the supposedly secret Order members, nor how so many of their missions became compromised. It had led to everybody becoming suspicious of everybody else, but James very stubbornly maintained that however Voldemort was getting his information, it couldn't possibly be from the result of an Order member's betrayal.
Though a lot of the arguing was kept from Remus' hearing range, he knew that at one point Sirius had suspected him; following the mysterious disappearance of Caradoc Dearborn, now suspected to have been placed under the Imperius Curse and killed when he began to build-up an immunity to it, most of the ambushes and murders targeted at Order members—or at least there was more time between the attacks to suggest the leak in the Order had been sealed. Sirius had actually apologized to Remus, probably on James' orders, for suspecting him; Remus had decided to simply accept the apology rather than inform Sirius the suspicions had gone both ways—until that point, Remus had kept his thoughts on the Order's betrayal to himself, and with so many deaths of their friends hanging over their heads, knew it was best just to let those thoughts fade away on their own.
And it almost felt like déjà vu watching James argue with Mad-Eye about ruling out all possible suspects, regardless of how much trust James put into them.
Kingsley reentered the room just as James could be heard muttering about where Mad-Eye could shove his paranoia, and looked around the living room. "No luck, I take it?" he asked Remus.
"Not yet," Remus responded. "Did you find out anything?"
The Auror sighed and began telling them that there had been traces of a portkey being created that evening, and the starting point was in the Potters' home, specifically an upstairs bedroom. "But we can't trace who created the portkey; whoever it was went to some great lengths to cover their tracks."
The others began to discuss this and the possible ways to break through those precautions, but Remus suddenly blocked them out, his brow furrowing as his brain registered a missing face among the Aurors. "Where's Sirius?"
Unfortunately, though he'd worked to keep the volume of his voice low enough to only be heard by Kingsley over Alice's suggestions, he'd voiced his question at the exact moment when everyone had stopped speaking.
James looked around in confusion as though he'd believed his best friend had been there the whole time. "Good question, Moony," he said, looking expectantly at Kingsley.
"Left work early, didn't he?" responded Kingsley, his eyebrows raised in an expression that suggested James ought to know all this.
Remus' brow furrowed more deeply. "Since when does Sirius leave work early?" he asked. "For that matter, when does he work without James?"
"Since the Minister deemed it necessary for both Sirius and myself to take a little break from field work," Tonks said rather bitterly.
James nodded. "They've been stuck doing paperwork until the inquiry is over," he said heavily. "And he did mention he had something to do tonight."
Mad-Eye muttered something that Remus couldn't make out but that made James glare daggers at him. "Don't even think it," James said coldly to the older wizard. Remus thought he caught a bit of the message passing between the two wizards and hoped desperately James wasn't approaching the end of his (of late) very short temper. But as both Remus and Alice opened their mouths to stop whatever fight was about to break out, a large eagle owl none of them recognized flew down the chimney, a note tied to its leg. The Order members stared at it for a moment in surprise—who sent owls after midnight?—before James shook himself and strode purposefully towards the impatiently waiting bird.
"Don't touch it, Potter," Mad-Eye said urgently. "Could be a trap."
James rolled his eyes at Remus, even though half the room had the same expression on their faces as the retired Auror, but withdrew his wand and performing a few spells Remus recognized to be portkey detectors as well as testing the folded parchment for possible harmful curses or poisons. He shot Mad-Eye a glance, silently asking if he was satisfied; when Mad-Eye gave a noncommittal grunt and shrug, James quickly untied the note. The owl gave a quick hoot before taking off back up the chimney, and the others crowded around James as he unfolded the note to reveal five hurriedly scrawled words in unfamiliar handwriting:
Find Black, find your daughter
James paled considerably as he turned the note over and over, searching for an explanation.
"What the hell does that mean?" Tonks asked in a low voice.
"Obvious, innit?" grunted Mad-Eye.
Nobody responded or tried to expand on Mad-Eye's words. A very heavy weight had settled in Remus' stomach as James dropped the note to the ground. "It can't be what it seems," he whispered imploringly to Remus. "Sirius would never..."
Remus opened his mouth, hoping something supportive would come out rather than one of the hundred blurred thoughts currently flying through his mind, but was saved the trouble of trying to filter out anything that could get him hit by James. A flash of green light filled the room, startling all the Order members. Heart rates slowed their speed and raised wands lowered as the green flames in the fireplace took the familiar form of Dumbledore. The Headmaster stepped out of the fireplace and took in the scene before him, his eyes automatically seeking those of James, Lily, and Remus.
"I apologize for my tardiness," he told them quietly. "As I was leaving my office, a student arrived." He looked pointedly at the Potters and Remus. Remus felt James suck in a sharp breath as the realization of the student's identity hit him. "James, Lily, I wonder if I might have a word in private?"
Exchanging a brief glance, the Potters nodded and began to lead Dumbledore towards James' study. Before they disappeared from sight completely, James looked back over his shoulder and gesturing for him to join them. Dumbledore began speaking almost the moment Remus shut the door behind him.
"Harry has had a dream he very strongly believes to have been a vision," began the Headmaster. "And I believe he is correct in that assumption..."
The other three listened carefully and with increasing horror as their leader told them the details of Harry's dream. Sirius had been captured by Death Eaters and was currently being held in an abandoned, condemned Muggle apartment building, the location of which Harry had managed to supply to Dumbledore. The vision had ended with Sirius' death, which seemed to be the only part Dumbledore didn't believe.
"Sirius, I believe is a lure," Dumbledore continued. "Either for us or, far more likely, for Harry. And though I believe Sirius is still alive, this isn't to say the end of the vision could not become true if we do not act quickly."
The other three took a moment for this to sink in. Lily was the first to break the silence. "Did Harry say anything about Piper?" she asked suddenly.
Dumbledore looked at her regretfully. "He did not," he replied softly. Lily's shoulders sagged and both Remus and James reached over to rub her back in attempted comfort. "Before we proceed, I must inform you that while I believe Harry's vision to be truth, it could also be a trap. I was able to perform Legilimency on Harry, merely to ensure I understood the details of what he was telling me."
"Because he was frantic at the sight of his godfather being tortured and probably skipping the bits he didn't think were important," Remus muttered.
Dumbledore nodded. "Indeed. One of the many things that differentiate, if you'll pardon the phrases, our Harry versus this Harry we've come to know, is his connection with Lord Voldemort. Their lives have been entwined in ways we could have never foreseen, the connection deeper and more complicated than we can understand."
"What're you getting at, Albus?" James asked impatiently.
"Simply that the information we have gained is precarious at best and must be treated as such. It would not do for us to rush in, wands drawn, only to find ourselves in an undesired position," Dumbledore said.
"I think it's safe to say we're in an undesired position right now," James shot back. "What's the location of this place?"
Lily looked at him in horror. "You can't be thinking of going there!" she yelled.
"Yes, I am actually," he retorted, looking a little shocked that this came as a surprise to her. "My best friend is dying and our intelligence says our daughter is with him. What the hell would you expect me to do?"
As the witch opened her mouth to tell her husband exactly what she expected him to do, Remus stepped between them. "Lily, I'll go with him," he said quickly. "I won't let him rush in to anything, I'll bring him back, and if she is there, I will bring Piper back as well."
Lily looked at Remus for a few moments, some of the fight leaving her. She glanced again at James before turning her eyes to Dumbledore and nodding once; before any of the wizards could say anything more to her, she'd left the study.
"Take what you can get, James," Remus told his friend as he made to follow Lily out of the room. "She's terrified and the more you argue with her, the worse it's going to get, for both of you. You know it."
James looked ready to argue with him as well, but Dumbledore reminded them of his presence before he could open his own mouth. "Time is of the essence, James," he told them. "If you are to act, now is the one chance you may have."
"Where is this place?" James asked after a few moments.
Dumbledore remained silent a few moments, making certain James had control of his impatience before explaining to them the details Harry had given him of the place where Sirius was allegedly being held. Once the two wizards were confident enough that they thought they knew what they'd be walking into, the Headmaster led them back to the sitting room where the rest of the Order waited for them. While their leader briefed them on what James and Remus would be doing, James went to Lily to try and reassure her everything would work out. Several others immediately offered to go along with the two wizards, Tonks included who seemed eager to do something useful besides deskwork, but Remus stopped them quickly.
"If too many of us go," he explained quietly, "if there is an ambush waiting for us, they'll know we're there before we've had a chance to do any reconnaissance. The less of us there are, the easier it will be to keep quiet and our presence unknown."
Nobody seemed particularly convinced—Tonks was giving Remus a look that silently asked if that had been a dig at her clumsiness; he decided to ignore the look for now and deal with the repercussions later—but neither James nor Remus gave them time to argue back. Dumbledore prepared a portkey that would take the two wizards less than a block from the Muggle apartment building where they could perform the charms to make them undetectable to any wards set to alert of their arrival. With one last glance around the Potters' room at his fellow Order members, Remus touched a finger to the quill portkey before he had any chance to convince himself this was a bad idea.
The moment his feet touched solid ground, James pocketed the portkey for later use and began the standard charms to avoid enemy detection, first on Remus, then on himself. Remus could have done the charms himself, but James wanted to know nothing had been forgotten—enough of his loved ones were in danger tonight and he'd be damned if he let another one be harmed on his watch.
"Ready?" Remus asked once he'd placed a Muffliato charm around them.
James looked at the empty patch of air where he knew his friend to be standing. "No. You?"
"No."
James managed a small grin. "At least we're in agreement, eh?" He heard Remus' soft chuckle. "Off we go, mate..."
They approached the building that had been described to them slowly, but James paused before entering. "Moony," he said quietly. He felt Remus stop beside him. "Sirius wouldn't hurt my kids. Would he?"
He heard Remus' breath catch in surprise. The longer the werewolf hesitated, the worse James began to feel about the situation. Finally, his friend answered and James realized Remus had merely been weighing his words. "Sirius wouldn't hurt your kids if he was himself," he answered carefully. James felt Remus' hand touch his shoulder. "Whatever's going on, we'll figure it out."
James nodded, not particularly caring if Remus felt it or not. "Yeah, you keep saying that," he said wearily. "Come on, let's get this over with."
AN: Yeah, it's been over six months. But managed to get a spark of inspiration for plot direction, even though it took this long to actually get it to work the way I wanted it to. My apologies; hope you lot haven't lost interest. Would it be too much to ask for some reviews? Pretty please?