The next day, Remus woke up early to check the shack and the forest, desperate for an old friend to talk to about Harry. He'd tossed and turned for hours, still wracked with self-loathing despite Hermione's reassurances; the guilt, he realized during his walk to the shack, hadn't dissipated with the night.
Harry walked into class looking remarkably, incongruously normal; Remus struggled to look him in the eye.
Harry approached him after class and Remus started to panic.
"Dad wants to talk to you."
Oh. He was not expecting that.
"He's been getting frustrated, I think, that he can't say very much to me. Hermione's been trying to find some spell that will help him communicate better but we've all been busy with Buckbeak's case and, well, anyway, dad started asking for you this weekend."
Remus struggled to place Buckbeak, but his tired brain did not want to cooperate. No matter. "Alright, well- I assume you've got to get to class right now?"
"Just History of Magic. I can bunk; Binns won't notice."
Remus fought to wrangle a stern expression onto his face. "I'm your Professor, Harry; I can't allow that. How about-" Remus pushed aside a bunch of parchments on his desk, looking for his planner. "Okay. Hmm. Do you have any time after your classes today, but before dinner?"
"Yeah, sure, a little bit," said Harry.
"Great. Thank you."
"See you later!" Harry called, heading for the door. He didn't seem to be avoiding Remus anymore, but it was hard to be sure, especially with Remus' own guilt hanging heavy on his conscience.
...
It seemed like no time at all before Harry was back and casting his Patronus. Prongs burst forth from his wand and cantered a gleeful lap around Remus' office before coming to stop in front of him and greeting him with a silent 'Moony.'
"'Lo, Prongs," Remus whispered. Maybe some of last night's grief was still stuck in his throat because he struggled to say much of anything to James.
Prongs nuzzled his chest reassuringly. Remus swallowed and wet his lips.
"Er, you wanted to talk to me?"
Prongs nodded. He stomped his back left hoof twice and spun in a tight circle.
"I know Padfoot's in the shack; I've been bringing him food."
"The shack!" Harry exclaimed quietly.
Prongs stomped his front right hoof twelve times.
"Er, come again?"
Prongs stomped twelve more times.
"Twelve what?"
Prongs rolled his eyes and then looked around the room. His gaze landed on a small portable lunascope with an inlaid clock face. Prongs trotted over to it and gestured to it with his snout.
"Twelve... moons?"
Prongs shook his head.
"Twelve months?"
He shook his head again.
"Twelve, er… Oh! Twelve hours?"
Prongs nodded, hesitated, and shook his head.
"Close? Twelve o'clock?"
Prongs nodded fervently.
"You're saying that Padfoot, what, will be at the shack at midnight?"
Prongs nodded and mimed a howl.
Remus sighed. "You want me to go out to meet him in the shack at midnight."
Prongs nodded.
"Prongs, I'm working on it. I've been leaving him food and supplies every day. Eventually he'll trust me enough to stick around in the evenings."
Prongs shook his head and then tossed it back.
"It really has to be now?"
Prongs nodded.
"What's the rush?"
Prongs cast his eyes up thoughtfully. After a minute, he bent his knees and rolled onto his back, his legs sticking up comically in the air in his best stag impression of a dog playing dead. Remus snorted despite himself.
"Mrs. Mabel? Although, I think she's dead now, so it'd be Mrs. Norris."
Prongs nodded then shook his head.
"Filch, then?"
Prongs shook his head with vigor.
"Er, just the cat?"
Prong nodded excitedly, then gestured with his muzzle towards the pile of essays and lesson plans on Remus' desk.
"A student's cat?" Remus guessed.
Prongs rolled his eyes, shook his head in Harry's direction, then nodded once at Remus.
"Oh! A professor?"
Prongs nodded.
"Some… other professor… has a cat?" That didn't seem very relevant. Remus struggled to remember what the context for their discussion was. When was the last time he had had a decent night's sleep?
Prongs rolled his eyes and tossed his antlers back with maximum drama.
They stared each other down for almost a full minute before it clicked.
"Minerva!"
Remus had never seen a stag look so smug before.
"Right. Something about Minerva, and… what were we talking about before?"
"Finding Sirius in the shack tonight," Harry supplied helpfully. Remus just barely resisted the urge to jump; sometimes he still forgot Harry was there at all, even though he knew Prongs could only ever be where his son was.
"Oh, bollocks," Remus moaned. "She's onto me? She and Poppy?"
Prongs nodded.
"So I have to go find Sirius and warn him before it's too late?"
Prongs nodded, then buckled his back knees so that he sank into a strange cervine crouch.
"I'm always careful, Prongs."
Prongs rolled his eyes, then played dead again.
"Oh. You're saying Minerva's done something I have to be careful of?"
Prongs clambered awkwardly back onto his hooves before nodding again. Then he turned around in a full circle and stared meaningfully at Remus.
"Ah. She's done something to the shack?"
Prongs nodded.
"Some kind of surveillance?"
Prongs nodded again.
"Anything we couldn't handle?"
Prongs shook his head proudly. Remus gave him a fond smile.
"Okay. I'll find him in the shack tonight and I'll counter whatever spells Minnie's set up in there- Harry, if you tell anyone I called her Minnie, I will deny it until the day I die."
Harry's chortles trailed off as a mischievous grin took over his face. "I won't say a word… if you take me with you to meet Sirius."
"Absolutely not."
"Why not? He's my godfather!"
"He's on the run after twelve years in Azkaban and if anybody finds out I brought you to meet him, I'll be the one stuck in Azkaban!"
"But he's innocent!" Harry protested.
Remus sighed mournfully. "I know that, Harry, but no one else does. You just heard that some of the other professors are suspicious of me. It's bad enough that I'm sneaking out to give aid to a man everyone thinks broke out of Azkaban to kill you; if they ever found out I gave him access to you, I'm done for."
Harry was still pouting; Remus turned to Prongs.
"James? Should I sneak your son out to the shack?"
Prongs shook his head vehemently.
Harry's shoulders drooped. Remus placed a consoling hand on one of them.
"I promise as soon as I get Sirius' name cleared I will make sure you meet him, okay? I'm sure he's dying to see you too."
"You're making a lot of promises," Harry grumbled.
"I fully intend to keep all of them," Remus replied evenly.
Harry sighed. "Fine, I'll wait."
Remus was relieved for all of two seconds before he realized that the acquiescence came much too easily. "If you try to sneak out on your own with the invisibility cloak, I will know and I will give you detention for the rest of term."
"How do you know I have the cloak?"
"It doesn't matter. You'll still show up on the Map."
Harry glowered at his shoes. Prongs started flickering ominously.
"I'm sorry, really I am; but it's for your own good as well as mine."
Prongs vanished. Harry looked up at the sudden dimness of the room. "Well, I guess that's that, then."
Remus' heart ached, loath to let Harry storm out of his office, angry, again.
"Harry, wait."
Harry stopped walking towards the door but didn't answer. Remus frantically tried to think of a more positive topic.
"You said Hermione was doing some research into ways to help Prongs communicate?"
Harry finally turned around and looked at Remus. "Yeah, when she's not up to her ears in other projects."
Remus cracked a fond smile. "I'd love to talk to her about it and try to help. Do you think you can bring her with you on Thursday? We can meet here in my office and work on it together."
"Yeah alright," Harry nodded. "I'll see you then."
Harry left looking notably cheerier than he had a moment earlier. Remus counted that as a win.
He gave Harry a couple minutes' head start and then headed down to the Great Hall for dinner; there was no way he was facing the Weasley twins on an empty stomach. He shovelled some food into his mouth, barely noticing it, before he rushed back to his office.
Somehow, even though they had still been in the Great Hall when he left, Fred and George had beaten him back to the Defense classroom and were loitering nonchalantly outside the door to his office. Remus had to hand it to them; they were good.
Remus was not surprised to find that Fred and George were quick learners; they had been excelling in Defense ever since their detente, and obviously they had to be clever to achieve some of the pranks they'd pulled off. Funnily enough, this was not entirely reassuring to Hogwarts Professor Remus Lupin.
He finally saw them off an hour later, heads bent together over a charmed parchment they had been instructed to journal on daily. Remus itched to talk to Sirius about them, too. A quick tempus informed him it was only half eight, but Remus felt like he'd been awake for three days straight. He longed to take a nap before midnight, but the Full was fast approaching and he really couldn't afford to get more behind on his work than he already was. With a sigh and a strong cup of tea, Remus settled down to grade papers and plan lessons.
Remus was startled out of a deep NEWT revision planning session by his alarm charm, informing him it was eleven o'clock. Remus stretched his entire body, cracking several joints satisfyingly in the process, and grabbed several items from his quarters before heading downstairs.
The kitchen elves were almost all asleep and Tippy nowhere in sight when Remus passed the fruit bowl portrait, so he crept around the great wooden tables to where he knew a cupboard was filled with food on the other side of the room. Suddenly, a small calloused hand wrapped around Remus' wrist.
"Master Remus!" an elf squeaked. "Tippy! Master Remus is here!"
"No, no," Remus protested. "Don't wake her up, I'll just-"
"Master Remus!" Tippy called, rushing towards him. "Tippy was starting to think you wouldn't come! Tippy was worried Master Remus was having problems with his lady friend!"
"Oh, no, don't worry about me," Remus whispered, trying not to wake the rest of the elves. "I just ended up working late today."
"Master Remus has a late night date planned?" Tippy asked, undeterred. "Walk along the lake in the moonlight?" She didn't give him time to answer. "Very romantic. Tippy approves."
"You know it's not-"
"Master Remus waits right here, Tippy will make him a basket."
"No, it's fine, I can get it myself. Go back to sleep, Tippy; I'm sorry to disturb you."
Tippy's ears drooped and her eyes started to glimmer.
"Okay, fine, yes I'd love a basket."
Tippy cackled and skipped off towards the cupboard. Remus dragged a tired hand over his face. It was much too late to be trying to hold his own against a devious heteronormative house-elf.
A suspiciously long time- which is to say, no more than five minutes- later, Tippy returned with an unusually heavy basket. Remus weighed it in his hands and squinted at the elf.
"Do I want to know what's in this?"
"Tippy thinks Master Remus would like to be equally as surprised as his lady friend!"
The problem was, those five minutes waiting for Tippy was all it took for Remus to remember he was about to meet Sirius and to turn into a tight bundle of nerves.
"I definitely don't want to know, then," Remus decided. "Thank you for the food, Tippy. I'm sorry again for disturbing you."
Tippy shooed him out of the kitchen with several frankly lewd comments, which were at least enough to startle Remus out of his deep well of anxiety.
The anxiety built right back up, though, during Remus' trek across the shadowy grounds and through the oppressively dark Willow tunnel. He could hear his heart beating in the rush of blood through his ears, a lub-dub, lub-dub that started to sound more and more like Pad-foot, Pad-foot the closer he got to his destination.
Remus paused at the door to the shack to compose himself. And a good thing he did, because he'd been so caught up in seeing Sirius again that he'd almost forgotten about Prongs' warning. With a silent expletive, Remus cast several detection spells and found an unfamiliar entry ward. It was a strange one because as far as he could tell, it didn't bar entry to anyone; but what else would it- ah. He found the alarm charm woven into the ward and temporarily froze it. It would do no good to let Minerva know he was sneaking out to the shack in the middle of the night, but he would have to leave it be and stick to his story come tomorrow.
He pushed the door open cautiously, taking slow, careful steps as he cast more revealing spells at his surroundings. The rest of the first floor was suspiciously empty on the path to the stairway, but beyond that, the actual front door of the shack was host to several more surveillance and alarm charms. Remus disabled, froze, and confunded them as necessary, then crept up the stairs. Most of the second story rooms were clear as well, but Padfoot's bedroom lit up like the Great Hall on Halloween. Remus tried not to let that scare him; of course it would have been obvious which room he was 'spending time with Padfoot' in, and which room he had left supplies in.
With a sigh, Remus set to handling these new surveillance charms in the same manner, trying to be as quiet as possible so as not to disturb Padfoot, whose nervousness he could smell from the other side of the door. When the last spell had been countered, Remus pushed the door open slowly and peered into the room. There were three more surveillance charms inside, but he could easily reach them from the doorway.
Only once the last of Minerva's spells had been dealt with did Remus spare a glance at Padfoot. He was pressed tightly into a far corner of the room, but Remus considered it a massive improvement that he wasn't hidden under the bed.
Remus extinguished his lumos and conjured a handful of flames instead. When he and Sirius were thirteen, they used to climb into each other's beds after nightmares and tell stories by the light of handheld flames, upon mutual agreement that the flames were much cozier than the bright white of a lumos. A few years later, Remus would start thinking of those nights as intimate more than cozy, but either way, he hoped the familiar fire would endear Padfoot to him now.
"Hey, Paddy," He called softly. No matter what Prongs had said, Remus didn't trust himself not to have missed an eavesdropping jinx or two inside the shack. "I know you're a good dog. Do you want to go for a walk?"
Padfoot tilted his head at Remus but didn't otherwise move.
Remus sighed. He stomped his left foot twice, sank in a crouch, and then rolled over onto his back, bending his arms and legs into the air. He felt absolutely ridiculous playing dead as a human, but he hoped that would at least make the charade all the more obvious. Sirius wouldn't know who Filch's new cat was, nor that Prongs had used the sign as a stand-in for McGonagall, but Remus prayed that it would convey the general idea of 'authority figure' anyway. He rolled up and onto his feet in the general direction of the dog in the corner, ending up just a few feet away from Padfoot.
"You wanna go outside with me for a bit, Paddy?" Remus asked again. "I'll give you some yummy food, and maybe we can even… play fetch?" He pulled Sirius' wand out of his robes pocket and held it out toward Sirius. He had to drop the charmed flames in order to hold the wand, but Remus knew that if his wolfish eyes could see well enough in the dark, so could Padfoot.
The dog leaned forwards instantly to sniff the wand, and a plaintive whine escaped his muzzle.
"Yeah, I bet you do want to play fetch," Remus repeated calmly. "Let's go outside, yeah? Get some fresh air. I bet you don't like being cooped up in this creepy old shack." Remus took a step back and Padfoot took a step forward. "Good boy," Remus cooed. "C'mon now." Another step backwards for Remus and forwards for Padfoot.
Slowly, with much dog-friendly encouragement, Remus coaxed Padfoot out of the shack and into a nearby copse of trees.
"Stay," Remus murmured as a warning, then cast another round of detection charms. Two trees on opposite ends of the small clearing lit up. "Bother," he grumbled, and set to work dismantling them. Padfoot paid little attention to his tasks; his eyes barely ever left the unused wand in Remus' other hand.
"Let's keep walking a little bit, huh Paddy?" Remus murmured. Padfoot's eyes flicked up to his, then back down to Sirius' wand. "We have to keep moving. Come on."
Remus led him further away from the shack, weaving through trees and around bushes and large rocks until he found a stretch of forest untouched by Minerva's wand. Remus pulled a small square of fabric from his pocket and unshrunk it into the thickest blanket he could afford to buy from Knockturn. He conjured four jars full of crackling blue flames and placed one in each corner. The ground was still rather cold and hard even through the blanket, but Remus sat down patiently and patted a spot next to him for Padfoot.
"Minnie's onto me," Remus explained to the dog. "She and Poppy realized I've been acting funny and sneaking out to the shack, so she set up surveillance charms all over the house and, apparently, the nearby forest too."
Padfoot let out a small whine.
"I think I've disabled them all but I'm not one-hundred percent certain so I figured, for now, it's best to just stay out of reach. We should be safe here, though; you can transform now."
Padfoot whined again but remained stubbornly dog-like.
"Sirius, I'm not giving your wand to a dog, so you're going to have to change back eventually."
Padfoot made no noise nor indication of transforming.
"This would be an extremely tiresome way of apprehending you, if my intention was to turn you in," Remus argued.
Padfoot did not respond.
"I know you didn't do it. I heard there was a nine-toed rat in the castle, and I've been trying to catch him for over a week now. Did you know he faked his own death again? This time he framed Harry's friend's cat."
Where Padfoot had rested a second ago, a man suddenly stood in his place. He was a strange combination of Sirius as Remus had seen him last- twenty-one, beautiful and reckless, falling out of love- and the Sirius plastered on every storefront in Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley- a gaunt, crazed face framed by matted black hair.
"Harry?" Sirius rasped, followed immediately by, "You believe me?"
"Sit down," Remus coaxed, "I hate craning my head like this when I know I'm taller than you."
Sirius huffed, but folded himself slowly, carefully, onto the far edge of the blanket opposite Remus. Remus rewarded him by handing over his wand. Sirius let out a sharp gasp when it hit the skin of his palm.
"This is my wand!" he exclaimed.
"I know," said Remus smugly.
"No, this is my wand," Sirius continued. "The one I got when I was eleven."
"I know," Remus repeated.
"But they snapped it when I was arrested! How…?"
Remus grinned at his old friend. "They didn't."
"I don't und- oh." Sirius stood back up. "I should have known this was impossible. I'm dreaming."
"Don't be an arse, Padfoot," Remus chided. "Sit back down."
"You'd think, if I was having a decent dream for once in my miserable life, I wouldn't be so bloody cold. And you wouldn't be so bloody rude. Have a heart, Moony," Sirius whined.
Remus closed his eyes and rubbed his thumbs along his eyelids. "Okay," he said. "Here's what we're gonna do. Sit the fuck down, Pads."
Sirius, still staring at Remus like a mirage, obliged.
"Stupefy."
Sirius hadn't held a wand in twelve years and was somewhat preoccupied with questioning his perception of reality; he didn't stand a chance to defend himself. His limp torso fell backwards, head hitting a damp patch of leaves behind him. Remus crawled over, gently removed Sirius' wand from his hand, and cast, "Ennervate."
Sirius sat back up with a gasp. "What the hell!"
"Do you still think you're dreaming?" Remus asked.
"I dunno; what was stupefying me supposed to accomplish?" Sirius shot back.
"Well, you passed out, and woke up, and none of your immediate circumstances have changed. Ergo, you're not dreaming."
Sirius rubbed the back of his head and looked more closely at the woods, the basket of food between them on the blanket, and the wand back in Remus' hand.
"None of this is possible, though," he whispered.
Remus snorted. "You don't know the half of it."
"But my wand!" Sirius didn't even seem to realize he was leaning over and reaching for it.
Remus hesitated to hand it back. "You aren't going to stupefy me back, are you?"
"Not if you tell me what the hell is going on," Sirius agreed.
Remus tentatively returned Sirius' wand. He gazed at it like a lost love returned from the dead. Well, Remus could relate somewhat to that feeling. Sirius unwrapped and re-wrapped his fingers around it, incredulous, and then cast a warming charm on himself. Somewhere under all of his stress, Remus felt a pang of sadness that the first magic Sirius used in twelve years was a survival trick.
"Where should I start?" Remus asked.
It took a few moments for Sirius to realize the question was not rhetorical. "My wand, I guess."
Remus grinned. "That's a great story. Here," he shoved the basket of food closer to Sirius with his foot. "Tuck in while I tell it."
Sirius helped himself to heart-shaped fillet steaks with mushroom gravy, sliced carrots cut into heart shapes, two blessedly normal-looking baked potatoes, and a bottle of red wine while Remus recounted his trip to Zoroff's. By the end, Sirius was cackling just like Remus had been.
"So by that point I'm barely holding it in," Remus was recounting. "I had to rush into the nearest side alley and silence myself before cracking up. By the time I'd pulled myself together I practically had to outrun a hag who'd started eyeing me-"
"No way," Sirius gasped between guffaws. "You're lying!"
"I never lie!" Remus protested, pretending to be wounded. But something must have struck the wrong chord with Sirius because he stopped laughing abruptly and sat up straighter.
"I know you don't," Sirius whispered. "I'm so sorry, Moony, I'm sorry I doubted you. I can't believe I ever thought-"
"I'm sorry too," Remus replied, before he had to hear another friend admit aloud that he had thought Remus the traitor. "I'm so sorry I let you rot away in Azkaban for twelve years thinking you'd ever betray James."
"Moony, I…" Sirius couldn't finish the thought, but he didn't need to.
"I know," Remus said gently. "You don't have to say it. We both should have trusted each other."
Sirius nodded mutely. Without warning, he blushed; it made strange shadows on his concave cheeks in the flickering firelight. "Can I ask… all this heart-shaped food? Is it- are you-?"
"Oh, no!" Remus hurried to say. "I've been letting the kitchen elves think I'm dating some mysterious lady friend who loves picnics."
Somehow, Sirius' face shadowed even further.
"It… It wasn't my idea. Tippy just assumed, and I figured that was as good a story as any. I'm not- I'm not trying to-"
"Okay," Sirius huffed. "I get it."
Sirius' strangely familiar yet unfamiliar face was even harder to read in the dark. Remus shifted around nervously; the cold ground was starting to numb his bum in odd places. He cast around desperately for a new topic.
"How did you know Wormtail was in the castle?" he finally asked.
Sirius said nothing, just handed over a small rectangle of newsprint. Remus turned to hold the parchment closer to one of the fires and squinted down at it. He recognized most of the Weasleys, and there, finally, he saw Wormtail on Ron's shoulder.
"Of course," Remus breathed. He un-twisted himself to hand the paper back to Sirius. Somehow, the next thought out of his mouth was, "You get the Prophet in Azkaban?"
"Not usually," Sirius replied around a mouthful of carrot. "Managed to wheedle it out of Fudge when he came to inspect it last summer, though. Told him I wanted to do the crossword. I think I intimidated him enough with my sanity that he didn't want to say no." Sirius snorted to himself. "Bit of a wanker, isn't he?"
"You should meet his undersecretary," Remus said darkly.
"How did you know?" Sirius asked.
For a moment, Remus just blinked, trying to fit that question into his brief but vivid fantasies of murdering Dolores Umbdrige- maybe she could be number three on his murder spree after the Durselys.
"Oh, about Wormtail?"
"Or me, or any of it, yeah," Sirius said, taking a swig of wine.
Remus sighed. "That story is even more unbelievable than your escape from prison and finding your wand intact. I would tell you now except I need you to believe this wasn't a dream when you wake up tomorrow."
Sirius chuckled. "I'm still not sure this isn't a dream," he admitted.
"Well, hopefully still having your wand on you will convince you in the morning."
"Will you tell me tomorrow?" Behind the words, Remus could hear anxious echoes of Sirius' real question: "Will I see you again?"
"Yes," Remus said with a soft smile that morphed involuntarily into a yawn. "But I really should get going now; I've got classes in the morning and a ton of work to do."
Sirius' face twisted in disappointment, but he nodded and rose to his feet, vanishing the jars of flame and empty bottle of wine. Remus levitated the rest of the picnic into the basket and re-shrunk the blanket, which he handed to Sirius.
"Oh!" Remus suddenly exclaimed, "But you'll have to meet me in the shack again as Padfoot. I didn't want to disable all of Minnie's wards and arouse more suspicion. I told her you're a stray dog I found in the forest while looking for you, and that I'm trying to tame you to be part of my pack and keep me company on the full moons."
Sirius cracked a familiar grin that tugged on Remus' heart. "Professor Remus John Lupin, still lying to ole Minnie! A Marauder through and through."
"Not too far from the truth, though, is it?" Remus asked with a small smile.
Sirius' face softened. "No, I guess not."
They walked a little ways toward the shack in companionable silence, until Remus whispered to Sirius that he should probably be a dog for the rest of the way back. Remus took his leave from Padfoot once they reached the shack, offering him a pat on the head and a whispered, "be careful."