Usual disclaimer, no rights to any HP characters portrayed and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale, it's gritty fiction.

It took a few days for Harry to stop waiting to be woken up by banging on his cupboard door and his Aunt screeching at him to come and make their breakfast, to accept that he was actually here and no-one was going to hit him or call him 'Freak'…..

That brought him to another question though, if he was really here and this wasn't a dream, if Uncle Mooney was here….. where was Uncle Paddy? He knew that Mummy and Daddy were gone, Uncle Mooney had explained that they couldn't come back because of the way the bad man hurt them, but why wasn't Uncle Paddy here?

He knew that something was wrong when Uncle Mooney started crying when he asked that, but it was Uncle Ted who sat him down and told him that Uncle Paddy had been sent away because he did something bad. Ted's heart almost broke when Harry asked what Uncle Paddy did.

"He helped the bad man hurt your Mummy and Daddy Harry, so they decided that he had to be punished in a bad place..."

"But it wasn't Uncle Paddy Uncle Ted, it was the Rat!"

"What are you saying Harry? Everyone says that it was your Uncle Paddy."

"Uncle Hagger knows it wasn't him! Uncle Paddy told him that he was going after the Rat and to tell Uncle Albi that he would be coming back for me after he got him!"

"Uncle Hagger must have forgot Harry, because Uncle Albi was the one why decided that Uncle Paddy had to go to the bad place."

"No! Uncle Hagger told him, I remember!"

Harry repeated the story of everything that happened and was said on the day his parents were murdered, but Remus, Ted and Andi were hearing it for the first time. After he repeated the story, they took him to Gringotts to tell Uncle Gringott, and Gringott got furious again. He'd known that Dumbledore had sent the boy he thought of as family even if he was human to those animals, sealed James and Lily's wills and unlawfully took control of the Potter votes, but it was now obvious that the goat fukr had also decided to throw the last hope for redemption of another one of the core guiding families into Azkaban on false charges just to prevent him from interfering with his plans for young Harry….

Gringott suddenly slammed his fist into his desk as he barked. "We will have the will readings for Lord and Lady Potter that were blocked five years ago by the wizards now that the new Lord Potter is back with us!"

It appeared that Gringott had a plan of some sort, but Harry was the only one in the office who could understand much of what he was saying him as he was chopping back and forth between English and Goblin angrily. Ted showed that Hufflepuffs can have Gryffindor courage too when he tried to get through to him, shouting. "Explain what your point is in English please Director Gringott!"

Gringott barked a laugh as he stopped and slapped him on the back. "It's been a long time since anyone has had the courage to challenge me when I was angry Mister Tonks, from now on you can call me Gringott."

"Thank you Gringott, please call me Ted, but can you explain what you plan to do in a language that we can understand please?"

Gringott nodded and spoke in English "As I told you when you first came here, the Potters were the leaders of the Druids and Wizards Council, which were the same thing, they only changed the name because calling themselves Druids gave the Christian priests an excuse to stir up trouble. Anyway, the Council was always made up of the thirteen guiding families of Magical Britain. Some of those families changed over the one and a half millennia that the Council guided Magical Britain, but well over half of them remain to this day, as does the alliance that was forged between them when they became part of the newly created Wizengamot in the Sixteenth Century. That alliance has maintained links between the guiding families, even if they haven't always seen eye to eye, so representatives of most of the other guiding families were named in James and Lily Potter's wills. Can you think of a better way to get them together to try and resolve this issue?"

Ted laughed. "No Gringott, I can't, but…. What about the fact that Dumbledore had Lily and James' wills sealed in the Wizengamot? Won't they argue that it's illegal to read the wills?"

Gringott shook his head with a toothy, menacing grin. "The rulings of the Wizengamot only hold weight in Magical Britain Ted, not here in the Goblin Nation! That was a master stroke of the Lord Potter of the time when he championed the creation of Gringotts Bank in the Fifteenth Century so that the goblins could handle the finances of the wizarding world for them. He successfully argued that goblins needed to able to rule themselves and control everything within their domain if they were to properly protect what they held in trust for the wizarding world. The other wizards didn't understand the ramifications of this, so they agreed to the condition to create a separate Goblin Nation which had Gringotts Bank and everything beneath it as sovereign soil to get the goblins to take over all the work and responsibility of managing their finances for them. Goblins around the world quickly saw the value of this move so a Gringotts and Goblin Nation has been created in most countries of the magical world, because this generated considerable income for them and meant that the wizards couldn't take them over and subjugate them without having the other Goblin Nations around the world join the fight. What that means for us is that once we get the representatives of the guiding families in here for the will reading, the laws of the wizarding world don't matter."

Ted laughed again. "That's perfect, now as I can't see you doing this unless there's some value in it for us, may I ask who these representatives of the guiding families are?"

Gringott nodded, pleased that Ted had gotten that point. "Some aren't important, or at least can't make much of a difference at the moment, but Amelia Bones, Saul Croaker, Griselda Marchbanks, Tiberius Ogden, Augusta Longbottom, Cyrus Greengrass and Minerva McGonagall are all witches and wizards who are listened to. I'd like to have Lord Black there too, because contrary to what everyone is saying, he was intelligent enough to neither remove Sirius Black as his current Heir nor cast him out of the House of Black as some members of his house were demanding, but it is Heir Black who is named in the wills rather than him….. Wait, this could work, Heir Black was never tried for his alleged crimes, therefore his incarceration in Azkaban is actually illegal. Which means that, strictly speaking, removing him from Azkaban to allow him to present a case for his innocence in front of the Lords and ladies of the Wizards Council is not illegal, and Wizards Council laws still take precedence over Wizengamot laws because the Wizards Council was retained as the high court when the Wizengamot was created…."

He nodded to himself again. "Yes, this is what we will do, we will copy young Harry's memories of that day, and what he went through with the Dursleys too, and I will charge Amelia Bones and Saul Croaker with bringing Veritaserum that they will certify as being genuine, then I will have Sirius Black brought here from Azkaban prison…."

Ted cut him off at that. "But how can you do that Gringott? You can't just go in there and take him…."

Gringott snorted. "Of course we can! What wizards would ever bother going to the effort of warding against anything other than Wizards' magic? Most of them believe that lesser creatures like goblins and elves are beneath their notice, there to serve and nothing else. With few exceptions, the only ones who ever thought otherwise were the Potters, and they kept quiet to avoid drawing attention to us."

"But if you could have taken him out of there at any time, why did you leave Sirius to rot in there?"

Gringott's shoulders slumped. "Because I believed that he was guilty of betraying the Potters... While I knew that he had never received a trial, I'd never heard anything before this to refute the story that he had been the Potters' secret keeper and therefore was the one who betrayed them to Riddle so that they were killed. As I told you when you first came here, the Fae peoples care for the Potters because they have protected us for two thousand years, so I wasn't going to lift a finger to help the one who I believed caused the deaths of Lord and Lady Potter and let that old goat fukr take their son away…."

"Now, however, I know that Lord and Lady Potter's faith in Heir Black was justified, and his only real failing was in trusting Dumbledore so I have wronged him and will do what I can to redeem myself. If we cannot get Magical Britain to clear Heir Black's name, the Goblin Nation will get him to safety, Harry and the family will be able to see him when they want but he will be safe from the wizards of Britain."

A small voice piped up at that. "Thank you Uncle Gringott."

They all stopped and looked at Harry, shocked that they could have forgotten the quiet child as they raged and debated about what to do, and Gringott leant down to look him in the eye. "No, thank you Harry. Thank you for showing me the truth and that I was wrong, one way or another we will get your Uncle Paddy back…."

He paused at that and then stood and turned to Remus. "While we're sharing old secrets Remus, would you care to explain how Heir Black is a dog animagus and I never knew about it? Your nickname obviously relates to your unfortunate condition, but it sounds as though Padfoot, Prongs and Wormtail relate to something else... Would you care to explain?"

Remus hesitated and then nodded. "James discovered that the Lycanthropy virus apparently only exists in human bodies, and changing into an animal form is enough to stop the virus. James and Sirius decided that if they became animagi they could accompany me when I was the wolf so that I wouldn't have to go through that alone each month. They researched what was needed to become an animagus and did it all on their own in secret. They dragged the Rat along with them because they were trying to make him feel a part of our group, in hindsight that was a mistake. When he eventually took a form a year after James and Sirius, none of us were really surprised that the form he took was a dirty grey rat because we couldn't think of him as anything else…. he complained when Sirius gave his form the name Wormtail, but James and I agreed so he was stuck with it. Sirius thought that it was hilarious that the form he took was a black Irish Wolfhound, James gave him the name Padfoot from the Black Dog legends. For some reason James took the form of a stag, which Sirius ever so imaginatively named Prongs…. I could never understand why he took the form of a stag though, I'd always seen him as a lion, or perhaps a griffin…."

Gringott laughed at that and said "The Monarch of the Glen" as if that explained everything. When their expressions said that it hadn't explained anything, he expanded. "The Monarch of the Glen is a famous Muggle painting of a noble stag from last century that hung in their House of Parliament. Young Harry here's namesake Lord Henry was as much of a prankster as his grandson James, so he made a point of stealing The Monarch of the Glen from the House of Parliament in broad daylight back in the Twenties. No-one could work out how it suddenly disappeared like that, so to avoid having to admit that they had no idea where it was or how it disappeared they replaced it with a copy before people could start asking what happened to it. The copy's still hanging in the House of Parliament, while the original has been hanging behind the desk in the master's study in Potter Manor ever since as a prize. James grew up seeing that painting right behind his father because he spent a lot of time in there learning how to be the Potter from him, so I can see how it would have become his animagus form, as it was a noble animal that was associated with his father, whom he loved and respected."

They all nodded thoughtfully at that, because it did make sense when he put it that way.

Harry showed what a clever boy he was then, because he asked. "Uncle Mooney, if changing into an animal makes that Lycan stuff go away, why don't you just change into one?"

Remus knelt down to look him in the eye. "It's because the wolf stops me finding my animagus form Harry, and without finding my form I can't change."

Harry nodded thoughtfully. "Oh, so it only works for those magi animal forms then? I'm sorry Uncle Mooney, I didn't understand."

Remus froze at that, staring at him, then slowly turned to look at Ted, Andi and Gringott. "It can't be that simple! Can it?"

Harry was confused. 'What do you mean Uncle Mooney?"

Gringott laughed. "From the mouths of babes! What Remus means Harry, is that you may have just solved a problem that has plagued our world for thousands of years, because no-one else has ever thought to ask that question…. Wizards! They think they're better than everyone else but a six year old child does what they haven't been able to do, think!"

He turned to Remus and solemnly asked. "Am I correct in believing that you wish to try this Mister Lupin?"

Remus nodded emphatically. "Most definitely!"

"Very well, we'll do this properly then, we'll get you to St Mungo's straight away to get formal confirmation that you currently have Lycanthropy, and I'll find out whether any of our human wizards are good enough at human to animal transformations to trust them to change you, if not we'll have to find someone better."

"If you're bringing Professor McGonagall in for James and Lily's will readings Director Gringott, I'm quite prepared to trust her to do it."

"Of course! She is one of Britain's, if not Europe's, foremost masters of transformation! Yes, that would be best I believe Mister Lupin, we'll get the formal confirmation from St Mungo's that you have the Lycanthropy strain in your blood now, then when she comes in we'll get that confirmed again just before we have her change you into some form of animal and back and test you again…."

He stopped and looked at Harry. "Harry, if this works it will be one of the most significant discoveries ever made in the Magical world, it will probably change the lives of thousands of humans, both Magical and Non-Magical, and that's just present day, but I'm afraid that we can't afford to let Magical Britain find out that you're to thank for it as long as we're trying to hide you from Dumbledore. Do you understand why this is so Harry?"

Harry nodded at him. "Yes Uncle Gringott, Uncle Albi is a bad man who pretends to be good so we have to hide from him. I don't mind, as long as it helps Uncle Mooney that's all that matters."

Remus sobbed and crushed Harry in a hug. When Ted looked from Andi to Gringott with tears in his eyes at this sight he made an amazing discovery, that goblins could cry too, because Gringott also had tears in his eyes as he looked proudly at Harry.

When Gringott caught Ted staring at him he gruffly turned away and touched a rune stone on his desk, barking orders in Goblin at the stone, there was a lot to be done if they were to get the representatives of the guiding families into Gringotts for the will reading that afternoon, and turn the Wizarding world upside down.

A dozen powerful and well known witches and wizards were surprised by Gringotts owls arriving around lunch time on the day after the Christian Christmas. They were even more surprised to see that they were being personally summoned to Gringotts in an hour and admonished not to say a word of where they were going to anyone, by Director Gringott himself. The summonses for those with children included a note advising them to bring them if that made them more comfortable because other children would be there. The Director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and the Director of the Department of Mysteries' summonses also had a 'request' to bring a supply of certified Veritaserum with them, which was at once both questionable and intriguing.

At the same time, two imposing goblins suddenly appeared in Sirius Black's cell in Azkaban and bowed to the black dog laying on the cot, quietly saying. "Merry Christmas Heir Black, please change into your human form so that we can take you with us more easily."

The dog stared at them for about thirty seconds and then suddenly turned into a haggard looking man who croaked. "So this is Christmas, is it? Who are you, and what are you doing here?"

One of the goblins looked at him as if he were mad but the other put a hand on his brother's arm to stay any comment as he spoke, the human had been in this hell for over five years so they had to expect him to be a little off…. in fact he was remarkably calm and lucid, all things considered. "We are part of Director Gringott's personal staff in Gringotts London Heir Black, and we have been sent to collect you for the hearing you should have had five years ago."

That had the man struggling to his feet as quick as he could, but he would have collapsed if they hadn't caught his arms. He nodded and croaked. "Thanks! Well, what are we waiting for? Let's get out of here!"

They gave toothy goblin grins that would normally terrify humans and nodded. The next moment the cell was empty. They appeared in an infirmary beneath Gringotts and the human was handed over to the waiting healers, who had orders to clean him up and get him fit to talk in an hour.

It was no surprise that everyone summoned was there at the appointed time, because while many witches and wizards considered all goblins beneath them, these people had a better understanding of their world than most, and they knew that no prudent person would ever ignore a summons from the Overchief of the Clans of the Goblin Nation of Britain and the Director of the Gringotts Banks.

Once they were all seated, Gringott announced that they were here for the reading of the wills of Lord James and Lady Lily Potter. Some of the people present raised the fact that those wills had been sealed by the Wizengamot after James and Lily's deaths, but Gringott pointed out, as he had with Ted, that the rulings of the Wizengamot had no bearing here on the sovereign soil of the Goblin Nation, he also raised the question of whether anyone had ever asked the justification for sealing the Potter wills, as to do so without any proper authority over the Potter Estate was in fact an illegal act.

He then sought and received confirmation from all adults present that the requirements of the legal wills of the late Lord and Lady Potter would be honoured and upheld in accordance with the laws of Magical Britain. Most of them, but Amelia Bones and Saul Croaker in particular, were certain that something was going on now, as being formally asked to confirm that the requirements of the wills would be legally upheld was not standard practice at a will reading. Nor was the final step taken before the actual reading, getting Directors Bones and Croaker, Madam Marchbanks and Lord Ogden to all formally confirm that the wills were legally certified.

They soon understood all these steps, as what came out of the wills was proof that just about everything the Chief Warlock had told the Wizengamot about Lord and Lady Potter's wishes and Heir Black's betrayal of them to their deaths was a lie. The fact that they had listed in order of preference who they wished to be Henry James Potter's guardians (most of whom were present in the room) and specifically stated that he was never to go anywhere near Lily's Muggle sister and her family or Albus Dumbledore was clear evidence of the Chief Warlock's dishonesty and guilt, seeing as he'd assured the Wizengamot that he was specifically following their wishes when he placed Harry with Lily's sister and made himself Harry's Magical Guardian. Gringott smiled wolfishly as he pointed out that Dumbledore had actually made himself Harry James Potter's legal guardian though, which meant that he had no rights at all over Lord Henry James Potter, and therefore had had no right to allocate the voting proxies for the House of Potter to himself as Harry James Potter's guardian. He also pointed out that as the child that he had made himself the guardian of was legally dead, his proxies as his guardian had been automatically cancelled.

Madam Marchbanks shook her head. "I think it is time to formally question Mister Dumbledore's competence to stand as Chief Warlock if he can't even get the name of the person he's stealing from right!….. But why couldn't we find out all this out before Henry James died?"

When the door behind Gringott opened then, he didn't bother turning around because he knew who was in the chamber there and that they'd been listening to what was being said in the room. At first the people around the table just stared at the two adults and two children who'd entered the room, until the ones who'd known Lily best and had seen Harry before the Potters went into hiding suddenly realised who this boy had to be. The look that Amelia Bones turned on Gringott would have made anyone of lesser stuff foul himself, but he just calmly stared her down. "Why did you let us think Harry had been killed? Magical Britain has been grieving him for over a week!"

"Because we were more interested in Lord Potter being alive and well than comforting the ones who abandoned him Madam Bones! And for your information, Lord Potter was in the middle of an intensive reconstruction process when the family he was placed with were killed, which we wouldn't have interrupted even if we could."

"What do you mean abandoned him?"

"As I asked earlier, did anyone in the Wizengamot ask for justification of sealing Lord and Lady Potter's wills, or demand to see them to confirm what was actually in them before they allowed them to be sealed, thereby sealing his fate for the next five years? NO! You just let that old goat fukr do as he liked. Lord Potter actually escaped by spontaneously apparating across London to escape the people you let Dumbledore leave him with after they smashed his mouth in with a bat! Why would we want to let the Wizarding world know where he was, when you would have just let Dumbledore send him back there?"

Amelia couldn't think of anything to answer that, so Gringott went on. "After the children leave the room, we will show you just what those monsters did to him, what they thought about him and why we rid the world of them. We will also show you exactly what happened the day the Potters were murdered, and who it was who really betrayed them. That was NOT Heir Black, as the Potters' wills have already stated."

"But how can you know that? It was only He Who Must Not Be named and Harry as a toddler there, wasn't it?"

"At the start, it was Lily Potter, Tom Riddle…. the one you know of as Lord Voldemort, and Harry Potter, then Lily was killed and it was only Riddle and Harry until the magic reacted and destroyed Riddle, but the one who really betrayed the Potters was in the cottage too and he came to see what had happened to his master…. And as for how we can know exactly what happened, our young Lord Potter has an amazing ability, he can remember everything perfectly back to when he was a babe, didn't you note that he recognised half of you, even though he hasn't seen any of you since before the Potters went into hiding?"

That made them stop and think and they realised that he was right, they'd been confused but the boy had recognised many of them. They were all reeling at that moment, but Minerva McGonagall was curious about another point. "May we ask who these other people are Director Gringott? Lord Potter is obviously connected with them in some way."

Roger went to answer that but Gringott held up his hand to stop him. "I would suggest that you restrict your answers to how you found Harry and what happened after that Roger, in fact I don't think that you should mention your wife or daughter's names at all. As I told you when we first met, Dumbledore is a master of Mind Magic and he can extract anything they're told from them. We have all gone to a lot of trouble to try and keep young Harry and your family safe, we don't want to risk that by spreading information any further than it needs to be."

Looking worried, Roger nodded grimly at that and started speaking. "We're Muggles, as you lot call those of us who don't have magic. We were driving in London when my daughter suddenly screamed out 'LOOK OUT', because a little boy had just appeared in the street, right in front of our car. I only just managed to avoid hitting him, more by luck than skill, and my wife and I jumped out of the car to see if he was alright. We hadn't hurt him with the car, but he wasn't alright because some bastard had smashed all his teeth in with a cricket bat. I'm a dentist and we were close to my practice so we took him there to see about cleaning him up and doing something about the pain, though he'd been hurt so much and so often that he didn't seem to be bothered by it. We figured that it would be quicker to call the Police from there too….."

"Anyway, we got him there and cleaned him up but… my wife burst into tears because there was nothing we could do for the little tyke but clean up the mess and fit him with a complete set of dentures like people who are old and toothless have to wear. That's when it got really strange, because someone asked…. my wife not to cry. It wasn't me or my daughter, and there was no way the poor boy should have been able to speak with his mouth smashed in like that, then my wife turned to look at him and fainted, I almost did too when I looked at him, because he had a full set of perfect teeth when just about every tooth had been smashed out before. I spent a bit of time convincing myself that they were in fact there and real, then a man burst into the practice looking like a lunatic who lived on the streets…."

He waved at Remus. "It was Remus, after giving us all a scare, he helped us work out that Harry had spontaneously apparated, for the second time that day. He had seen the street outside the park on the tellie…. Television?" Remus just waved at him to go on, because they didn't have time to explain television. "About a month or so before but he remembered it in enough detail to apparate there when he was desperate to get away from his family after his Uncle told his cousin to smash his face in with a cricket bat!"

There were growls around the room, but Minerva and some of the others were staring at Harry in shock at the idea that he could apparate to a location he'd never been to on the basis of no more than an image he'd seen on the television a month before. Gringott rapped a dagger on his desk and Roger continued.

"Anyway, after that, we showed Remus what had happened to Harry's mouth and after he scared the hell out of us by almost turning into the wolf and then telling us he was actually a werewolf, he told us he might have an idea about how Harry had managed to fix his teeth and went to get Harry's cousins..." Roger waved to the Tonks. "Dora confirmed that Harry was a metamorphmagus like her and Ted organised for us to come and see Gringott to get the help we needed to look after Harry, and that's how we got here."

At that point it was agreed that the children should be sent off to another room with the Grangers before Gringott started showing Harry, Roger and Remus' memories that had been collected to date. He also passed around the letters the Dursleys had from Dumbledore about what they were expected to do with him. After seeing Hagrid on Sirius' flying bike and Petunia Dursley hastily dragging Harry inside the house before anyone could see him in Harry's memories, Minerva erupted into an impressive, if largely unintelligible, outburst of swearing in a thick Scottish brogue. When she'd calmed down enough to speak coherently, she explained that sight had dredged up the memory of her telling Dumbledore that these people weren't at all suitable to raise Lily and James' child and that he'd put her off, saying that they could discuss it back at Hogwarts, but the bastard had obviously obliviated her to stop her interfering.

Gringott looked at Remus for a while and after they both nodded he spoke. "Professor McGonagall, we were going to ask this after we dealt with the matter of Heir Black, but I believe that it will be too dangerous to attempt if you get more upset… do you believe that you're enough in control to perform a complex act of transfiguration at this point?"

She looked at him suspiciously. "Yes, I am capable of doing that, what are you talking about Director Gringott?"

"Are you confident that you can perform a human to animal transformation and reverse the process safely?"

She looked at him thoughtfully for a bit and then nodded. "Yes"

Gringott looked back at Remus. "Are you ready to test this Mister Lupin?"

Remus looked resolute as he nodded. "Yes!"

Gringott nodded and touched a rune stone, speaking in goblin to call a senior healer to the room, along with one of their human healers. He looked at Ted and he nodded, going to bring Harry back in. Harry would be upset if anything went wrong but he'd be more upset if he didn't know what happened to his Uncle Mooney.

The healer came in and cast the diagnostic spells over Remus to confirm that he was in fact infected with Lycanthropy. The others were getting impatient and Minerva snapped. "We are quite aware that Mister Lupin has Lycanthropy Director Gringott, what is the point of this?"

"Calm yourself please Professor McGonagall, because this part is what we require your assistance for, can you please perform a human to animal transformation on Mister Lupin…. This could be a historic moment, so please see if you can make his animal form something memorable..." Remus barked a laugh at that and nodded. "And then when you're ready, return him to his human form."

She looked at him as if he were crazy, but could see that for all the frivolous comments, both he and Remus were deadly serious, and Harry and Ted and Andi Tonks were looking worried, so she drew a breath and changed Remus into a toucan (she had studied the exotic birds to make more of an impact when she was teaching her students about this). When the bird had stopped flapping about, she turned him back and the healers came forward to run the diagnostic spells over him again.

The ones who were involved in this were looking anxious until the human healer said in a shocked voice. "It worked…. It shouldn't be possible but it worked!"

Remus shouted joyfully and broke free of the healers who were still trying to run further scans over him to rush over to pick up Harry and swing him around gleefully, until a voice most of the adults in the room knew all too well barked out.

"Will ye stop all this caterwauling and tell us what the hell is going on here?"

Gringott chuckled, because he wasn't cowed by the witch who could bring most wizards and witches into line with a look when she was like this. "What is going on Professor McGonagall, is that you have just played a key role in what was we believe to be the first instance of an infection of Lycanthropy being cured."

The room went silent except for Remus and Harry and Minerva turned to Gringott. "What?"

"When Remus explained to us why James, Sirius and the Rat became animagi while they were at Hogwarts…." Minerva whipped around to send a questioning look at Remus and he nodded. "Our young Harry asked a question that will probably change our world, well two questions actually… Apparently James and Sirius discovered that Lycanthropy only exists in a human body, so changing into an animal form would make it safe to accompany a werewolf when they were changed. That was why they researched how to become Animagi and did so while they were at Hogwarts, so that they could accompany Remus when he was a wolf so that he didn't have to go through that alone….."

He smiled fondly at Harry, even though all those teeth probably would have frightened most normal children. "That was when Harry asked Remus why he didn't change into an animal to get rid of the Lycanthropy. Remus explained that his condition prevented him from finding his animagus form, so he couldn't change and Harry apologised, saying that he didn't realise that it only applied to animagus animal forms…. And that in turn led us to the question of whether this would work…. Which it appears to have done….."

Minerva stared at him. "Are you saying that we've just cured Mister Lupin of Lycanthropy by changing him into a toucan and then back to a human?"

"Well I'm sure that the healers will insist on doing many more tests before they're willing to risk their reputations on it, but yes, I believe that that is exactly what you have done Professor."

She turned to stare at Remus and Harry and then shocked everyone by rushing to hug Remus, whispering brokenly. "Oh I do hope that it is true!"

Gringott smiled as he dropped the next bombshell, touching the rune stone and saying something in Goblin. When Sirius Black walked into the room, Amelia Bones, Alastor Moody and Saul Croaker's ingrained responses had them whipping their wands out at the sight of a wizard who was supposed to be in Azkaban, even though they knew he should never have been sent there. It was interesting to note that Remus, Ted and Andi Tonks and Emmeline Vance had their wands out just as fast, pointed at Amelia, Saul and Alastor, and the two goblins who had retrieved Sirius from Azkaban had quickly stepped in front of him.

Gringott was clearly amused but his tone was firm as he said. "I would suggest that you remember the repercussions of attacking a guest of the Goblin Nation on our soil and put your wands away."

That made them stop and think and they did as he said, apologising for their automatic reactions. Alastor chuckled unabashed and complemented Remus and the others on how well they responded as he sat down, then they went through the process of formally questioning Sirius under Veritaserum and watching his memories of the day that James and Lily were killed, as well as when he confronted Pettigrew.

Of course, while they had all the evidence needed to prove that Sirius Orion Black, Heir to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, was innocent of all charges made against him (but not of being an unregistered animagus, they'd have to get an entry slipped into the register to cover him for that), two of the three people who'd signed the orders to send him to Azkaban without a trial still held the same positions of power, Albus Dumbledore, the Chief Wizard of the Wizengamot, and Millicent Bagnold, the Minister for Magic. Barty Crouch was no longer the Director of the DMLE, but he was still the Head of International Magical Cooperation, and that disgusting little toady Cornelius Fudge in the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes was still in a position to interfere with any questions about the incident. Mind you, Alastor remembered looking into the incident at the time (he always suspected a conspiracy and dug deeper if he was told to drop something), and the DMLE people who went to the scene told him that Fudge had had everyone who saw what happened obliviated before they could be asked anything about it, so all they'd had to go on was what Fudge said Black was shouting before someone stunned him.

What this added up to was that they'd have to be damned careful about how they went about getting Sirius a trial, whether it be the Wizards Council Court, Wizengamot or both. Of course, if they could get their hands on Pettigrew, Sirius would have a much stronger case. One thing they did have going for them there was the fact that they had Minerva McGonagall, Filius Flitwick and Pomona Sprout at Hogwarts, because if Dumbledore knew anything about Pettigrew, the information would be there somewhere. He may even be hiding him at Hogwarts where he could keep an eye on him, like he did with his pet Death Eater Severus Snape.

When they were discussing this, Sirius suddenly looked at Remus and grinned, Remus looked confused until it dawned on him what Sirius was getting at and he exclaimed "The Map!". This totally confused everyone else so they had to explain how they'd created the Marauders' Map while they were at Hogwarts to help them avoid Filch, the teachers and the prefects. Filius was getting quite excited as they described how it worked but Minerva wasn't sold until they looked at her and said that it showed who and where everyone was in the castle, no matter what form they were in. As a fellow Animagus she got the point of that quick smart, if Pettigrew was using his animagus form to hide in the castle, this map would lead them to him.

Their enthusiasm waned when they were asked where this map was, because Filch had taken it off Sirius when he caught him out after curfew in seventh year. He couldn't work out what it was, because it just looked like a blank sheet of parchment until it was activated, but he'd decided that it must be something forbidden if Sirius had it so he confiscated it, putting it in a cabinet marked 'Confiscated and Highly Dangerous'. The devious smile that came over Minerva's face at that confused most of them, but Filius and Pomona laughed because they'd seen it before, usually just before someone who thought they were being clever had the tables turned on them, and the others caught on and laughed when she said. "I really wish that Albus would share some of the chores at the school, Filius and my latest job is to go through the things that Argus has confiscated and ensure that there's nothing in there that could be dangerous to the students!"

She looked at Remus, as the responsible one, and asked. "Activation code?"

When he responded with "It's 'I solemnly swear that I am up to no good' to activate it, and 'Mischief Managed' to deactivate it." she gave a disappointed sigh and looked at Sirius, who of course got defensive. "Hey, why do you automatically presume that it was me who came up with that?"

"Did you?"

"Well yes, but you don't have to presume that anything like that must come from me!"

She shook her head while everyone else laughed, but Sirius suddenly stopped laughing.

"While you're looking for things at Hogwarts, please keep an eye out for James' invisibility cloak."

She just looked a question at him. "It's an heirloom, handed down from father to son in the Potter family, and it's something special, far better than anything we had in the Aurors. We shouldn't have had it at Hogwarts but it was just so much fun when no-one could find us. Filch caught us with it and confiscated it, but when he took us to the Headmaster's office, Albus took it off of him. James asked for it back when we finished at Hogwarts because it was a Potter heirloom, but Albus claimed that he couldn't find it. He told him that he'd return it as soon as he found it but as far as I know that was the last James ever heard of it, I'm sure he still has it there somewhere."

Filius was looking intrigued, because from what Sirius said this was certainly no ordinary invisibility cloak, but Minerva looked concerned, because the more they were hearing about him, the more she was coming to doubt the man she'd believed in and followed for decades, and that did not feel good at all.

Given her growing doubts about Albus, Minerva asked Gringott whether the goblins knew of any method by which she could improve her mind defences in a hurry. He looked at her for a while, measuring her, then nodded. "We do, but you will have a terrible headache afterwards." Filius' eyes widened at that, because that was the first time he'd heard of this process being offered to anyone outside the Goblin Nation.

Minerva gave Gringott much the same look as he had her, then nodded. "If it will protect my mind against him, I'll take the headache. I'm coming to realise that he has been taking liberties with my mind and I do not like that at all!"

Gringott nodded approvingly and sent her off to the Mind Healers to have occlumency skills inserted into her head. The rest of the adults took an array of memory charms or oaths to protect the information they'd heard here today, and arrangements were made to improve the wards of all their homes so that they could install goblin floos, because it was agreed that trouble was coming and they wanted to prepare themselves and their children for it, to keep the children safe. It was marvellous what you could get done when you had the resources of the Goblin Nation at your disposal.

The warning about the headache was no exaggeration, and Minerva was reeling when they flooed back to Hogsmeade, so she was quite happy to find that there was a carriage to take them back up to the Castle.

After the others had left, Remus, Sirius, Harry, the Grangers and the Tonks discussed their next steps with Gringott. This was quite a serious conversation for a six, seven and thirteen year old to be involved in, but they seemed to have already been marked by the Fates, or at least Harry had been and the girls were committed to helping him, so much so that they convinced their parents to let them get the same occlumency skillset as Minerva loaded into their heads when Harry did. It was only the fact that Gringott assured them that it was much easier to assimilate as a child than as an adult and that it would help them organise their minds and pick up all the extra things they would be studying more easily that got the Grangers and the Tonks to agree, but they were relieved to see that the kids did have an easier time of it than Remus and Sirius did, as they all got it loaded at the same time.

Sirius' choices until Amelia and the others managed to organise a trial to get him officially cleared came down to staying in Gringotts or Potter Manor (which had wards at the same level), or moving to one of the Potters' overseas properties. The option of being able to see Harry made him choose staying at Potter Manor with Remus, because Harry and the others would be coming there for training quite often.

The batteries of tests that Remus was put through by the goblins' healers were followed by more of the same at St Mungo's before he was officially certified as being completely clear of Lycanthropy. Another thing that was of considerable interest to the healers was that he had retained most of, if not all of the werewolf's enhanced speed, strength, stamina, senses and rejuvenation abilities (and temper) in human form, so he was being asked a lot of questions about how he managed to rid himself of the affliction. He just stuck to the story that the people who came up with the process wanted to test it more on other subjects and make sure that there weren't any negative aspects to it before they went public, the healers could understand that so they backed off, just asking him to return around the full moon each month for a while to ensure that it was actually gone and didn't return. They did provide the official certification to get him removed from the Werewolf Register as soon as they finished the tests though, and it felt good to see his name crossed out, especially as he was told he was the first one to be officially removed while he was alive.

A/N: Hey, if the original story line was that animagi were safe from Lycanthropy when they were changed into their animal forms, who's to say that the virus doesn't only exist in a human body and therefore can be removed by changing into an animal form and then back? I see the werewolves' monthly transformation as more of a metamorphmagus than an animagus transformation, so it is a human change of form rather than actually transforming into an animal. Works for me! ;^)

I know I've used the retention of the werewolf's abilities and traits in human form before but I think it's cool, and actually plausible. In my world they didn't instantly get those abilities in human form when they were infected, they developed them from exposure to the wolf over time after they were infected, so they wouldn't lose them after they're cured.

NB: The stag animagus form never made any sense to me, a predator of some sort seemed more logical as James was a warrior, so I thought I'd have some fun with it.