Sirius Black hadn't been doing well. Sanity wise. Or sanitation wise, if he were really honest. His mind was circling, which it did a lot these days.

He needed to... Find him. Find Peter. Peter was at Hogwarts. He needed to find. Hogwarts. He needed to find him. He's at Hogwarts.

But he followed his nose. He couldn't take the Hogwarts Express. It wouldn't go. He followed the scent. He had to find him.

He found Him. But it wasn't the right him. Not Peter. But he followed his nose until he found him. Him. What was his name? How could Sirius not remember his name? He scared him. He didn't want to scare him, he loved him. He didn't have any bad memories of him. That's why they had taken him. His name. He.

He disappeared. Sirius was alone again. Cold again. He had to find him.

Him! Him! He's at Hogwarts! Not with him. Not with Remus. Remus who he betrayed. Remus who must hate him. Remus. Who was not at Hogwarts. Sirius's doggy nose twitched, wanting to find Remus, but there was no trace of him.

He didn't have time! He had to find him! He had to find Peter! He had to find Hogwarts.

Hogwarts Express.

He had to find. The Hogwarts Express.

After he dug through this smelly trash.

(line break)

The thing about tracking charms is you have to do some fairly unforgivable things to make them accurate beyond a general geographical location. And while some wizards may not have a problem doing such things 'for the greater good,' the ministry had laws about such things.

The disappearance of Harry Potter after a fairly large breech in the statute of secrecy wasn't cause for panic per se. Not nearly on the scale of the massive manhunt for Sirius Black led by legendary Auror Kingsley Shacklebolt. But it was still a fairly big deal. Big enough, because it was Harry Potter, that the Auror department was getting involved instead of leaving things to Madam Hopkins in the Improper use of Magic office.

Hazel Wood wasn't a senior Auror, so her typical assignments were things like standing guard at Wizingamot hearings. Standing guard at crime scenes. Investigating escalations from the Improper Use of Muggle Artifacts office. Standing guard at international sporting events. There is a lot more standing than she had expected. But, she gets to be in the room, and as long as her face remains expression less people forget she's there and she gets to hear all sorts of gossip.

Not that she'd share it! She wants to gain enough seniority to investigate real crimes!

But back to Potter. The magical reversal squad were dispatched to his Muggle relatives home where they found a woman hideously inflated, his aunt and uncle enraged, and the boy himself missing.

The aurors had been called in when they found Harry missing, unsure if he had been abducted by dark wizards. When the furious family told them that the "ungrateful brat ran away" and "good riddance," Hazel had made knowing eye contact with her partner and swept out of the room to perform a residual magic scan.

Besides the blast, the only magic they had found in the area was in the squib neighbor's house, and an emergency stop of the Knight Bus. Hazel questioned the squib, a Ms. Arabella Figg, who had been listening to Canons of the Heart over the Wireless and hadn't heard anything over the tragic death of Sergeant Billonious.

Hazel's partner met her outside and together they discussed tracking down the Knight bus.

"Where would a thirteen year old wizard go on the Knight bus?" Megara asked.

"Better question," Hazel said, "Where on Earth does a muggle raised teen wizard even know where to go?"

"Hogwarts? Diagon?"

"I think we escalate this, have someone waiting for him at Hogsmead and the Leaky. We can't have him running about by himself with Sirius Black on the loose." Hazel felt important, and official, leading the team, though she suspected strongly that the issue would be taken out of her hands the moment she got back to Headquarters.

She was only partially right. The Minister of Magic himself had gotten involved, placing himself as the one waiting at the Leaky Cauldron for the Boy-Who-Lived to show up. Which was a bit weird, but she suspected was politically motivated. The boy may be just a boy for now, but eventually he was going to be a force to be reckoned with in his own right, and it would suit the minister well to have been in a position to seem helpful to the boy in his youth. Politicians were like that.

Hazel had just hoped they didn't completely freak the boy out. It took a lot of extreme emotion to produce that kind of accidental magic at thirteen. And from what she'd seen in the house? Well.

The problem was, the boy didn't turn up in either place.

Hazel and Megara finally stuck their wands out, and interrogated the barmy Knight Bus driver and his spotty assistant, they had no record of their passengers. And when they asked straight out if Harry Potter, tiny kid with black hair, had ridden their bus, they said no.

Hazel wouldn't say that she was excited that a child was missing. But the plot had definitely thickened, and she found a lot of joy in going over all the passengers Stan Shunpike could remember. He had a colorful memory for eccentricities. He remembered about ten percent of the names, but knew anyone in a funny hat.

He remembered only one child, which caught Hazel's attention. He said he couldn't be the Boy Who Lived though, "Wee titchy thing, couldn't been more'n a firsty." He said.

But Hazel pressed on. Her baby brother had gone on and on about Harry Potter when he first joined the quidditch team, and in between messily scrawled exclamations about how he was "Absolutely fearless" and "a complete natural flyer" he had mentioned his "perfect seeker's build" and how anxious he was to win the house cup before "Potter hits some kind of mad growth spurt and ruins himself."

Hazel had always got the impression that the boy was pretty... Compact. For a super powerful, dark lord defeating, possible sorcerer.

Today, on a hunch, she was going to talk to Tom from the Leaky Cauldron. Stan Shunpike might not have recognized the Boy-Who-Lived if he didn't see the scar. But she would. He could be wandering around Diagon Alley as they speak.

(line break)

Remus had almost expected this. He wasn't surprised. He'd stopped being surprised by things years ago. He wasn't even mad. He was. Tentatively excited. He hadn't had regular work for a while, had been traveling around the world working as a wand for hire in small villages where the Ministry didn't cover magical creature removal. He hadn't tried to settle down since he'd been fired as a professor from his last job at the Gwerin Teg Ysgol o Hud, in Wales. It had been a hard layoff, since he'd worked his way up from assistant professorship all the way to senior professor. He'd been almost to tenure, seven years teaching, seven published research paper, when his health started seriously declining. It was hard because, they didn't even fire him because he was a werewolf. He was just missing too many days to be an effective educator.

One of his colleagues, a half pixie from Glasgow, had suggested that perhaps his health was declining due to lack of pack, and perhaps if he went out and found a new pack he would revitalize.

Not only did Remus not believe that human wizards weren't really wolves, who needed "packs," Remus didn't know how to express how little interest he had replacing his pack. In wiping away the memories of the only people who were truly important to him, and plastering over them with brand new friends, all for something as stupid as his health.

So he quit, before they could fire him. Left his comfortable teacher's cottage, filled his hilariously fancy teacher's case, which James and... Which his friends had proudly presented him with already embossed Professor R.J. Lupin when he was just an assistant, with all his worldly possessions. He'd traveled the world, fighting his demons and actual monsters for what little food and shelter people could share.

It was hard to kill a werewolf. Even if you starved one, it could hang on almost indefinitely. It was a fascinating subject of study. Remus had begun to think, in his darker hours, that werewolves had some kind of earth magic connection, which supported them even when their human body was failing.

He wouldn't admit to sometimes seeing, just for science's sake, how long he could go. But it made the wolf desperate. The transformation somehow more painful. So he usually tried to eat as much as he could in the prelude to the full moon.

And then Dumbledore. Who he'd always be grateful to for his education. For his secrecy when Remus almost- For his opportunity. Dumbledore asked him to try out professorship again. A life he desperately missed. A life he ached for as he was slaying another bogart, another kappa, another werewolf.

Dumbledore just so happened to have an opening at Hogwarts. After all these years of openings. He wanted Remus to come teach. And oh by the way, they had a working Brewer of Wolfsbane who'd been interested in participating in replicating human trials. Just to make sure it worked. Would you mind quieting your werewolf half?

No mention of Him. No mention of, perhaps you'd like the chance to make up for not catching him before it was too late. Not, we need someone who knew him to predict what he may do. Not. We're offering you this opportunity because of him. Because we weren't interested in you without him. Like Remus didn't know. Like Remus wasn't interested in him without him either.

So he accepted. Of course he accepted. He owed Dumbledore so much. It would be a brilliant opportunity. He was going back to Hogwarts.