ANNOUNCEMENT: Unfortunately, I'm going to have to extend my posting schedule to the first Saturday of each month, rather than the every-other-Saturday schedule I've been on. Why? Half of it is that I'm simply not as fast a writer as my current chapter lengths demand. I started out aiming for 2,000-3,000 words per chapter and they're now around 5,000-8,000 words, with some even reaching 11,000! My options became chopping chapters down or allowing myself more writing time, and since I'm worried my quality of writing will go down if I force myself to cut scenes out to stay on schedule, I've picked the latter.
The other half of this decision is due to a few keys on my laptop keyboard (including my spacebar‼ 😨) going rogue, resultingin my writinig soundinig liikethis f mykeybooard is leftto itsownndeviices. Because I'm too broke to fix the problem, I'll be writing out each chapter by hand and fighting my keyboard to make it sound coherent as I type it up. I'm so sorry for the schedule shift, everyone! I promise I'm not abandoning, or even getting distracted from this fic; I just need more time to get my words out, is all. I'll also be adding a recap at the head of each chapter to refresh people's memories!
Content warning this chapter for near-drowning.
An expanse of shimmering glass surrounded the boats on all sides, unnaturally smooth even with the motion of the oars slicing through it. One might almost think Kokiri Lake were filled with heavy syrup.
Sirius peered over the edge of the boat. The water was pitch black. Did its color have to do with depth, or was caused by spiritual influence? Lights twinkled below like distant stars. It was mesmerizing to watch them shimmer and flick through the water.
Narcissus hooked a blocky finger in Sirius's collar and tugged him back. "Kokiri Lake is as deep as Lord Mekar wants it to be and full of things that would love to pull you under out of curiosity," he said. "It is not a place for humans."
Sirius rolled his eyes. "Obviously. I just wanted to see whether I could spot any spirits in it."
"You won't see them unless they want you to, and if they want you to, you don't want to see them," Narcissus said. "That which resides here is of a different nature than the playful child-spirits of the forest. The Lost Woods are a game; Kokiri Lake is a test. It is under less kindly supervision than the island it protects."
"You call the Lost Woods 'kindly'?!"
The Deku Scrub tilted his head to the side. "I would consider dying via well-meaning entertainment less torturous than drowning in leaden, freezing water, fully aware and fully terrified. Wouldn't you?"
Sirius shook his head. "Having lived through a long, slow death involving mind-magic, I'd rather get it over with in a few minutes. Skip to the end, you know?"
"Mr. Black, I have some news." Marcus Turner, one of the Prefects, stood stone-faced a short distance away. "The kids would consider it good, but I doubt you'd think the same."
Sirius winced. Just from that warning, he could guess what the boy was about to say. "It's to be expected," he said tiredly. "Report away."
"Zelda says that a group of teachers is en route to 'escort' us," Turner said with a slight grimace. "As much as I'd like to be reassured by that news, the teachers don't have much experience with surviving Hyrule's hazards. Most of the kids here, at least, have learned to defend themselves in the castle halls. I'd honestly rather stick with you than trust them to know what they're doing out here."
Warmth bloomed in Sirius's chest. He wasn't sure he'd ever get accustomed to people putting their trust in him again. "Maybe Kajiwara can figure something out once they get here," he said. "They can't properly tie me up until they have me in a dungeon cell, after all. It would make me more of a pain to transport! There could be some wiggle-room there."
The boy's brows pinched together. "The teachers have been really uptight about keeping everyone 'safe'. They've had their heads buried in the sand all year, as if ignoring the strangeness would make it stop happening. I don't know whether they'd be willing to budge."
"Well, then, it's been an honor to play Pretend Professor with you all this last month," Sirius said with a jaunty salute. In all honesty, the prospect of being locked up at the castle didn't scare him. He'd be fed, he'd be warm, and he'd have the chance to tell his story. Nothing could rival the awfulness of Azkaban, save for literal torture to match the emotional effects of Dementors. Even Snivellus wouldn't dare cast the Cruciatus Curse on Sirius with Dumbledore keeping an eye on him.
"You weren't pretending to teach us!" said Agarkar, who was sitting with Alice and Noel by the cart bearing their unconscious classmates. "You did your best, which is more than I can say for Lockhart last year. Ugh." He shuddered. "That man gave me the creeps and he was incompetent."
"I agree. You're not entirely qualified, but you at least studied up properly on the subject before teaching it," Marcus agreed. "That's better than Trelawney, who doesn't seem to realize that Divination is a largely hereditary magic, not something that can be taught in the same way as a subject like Charms."
A heartfelt smile spread across Sirius's face. He had people who believed in him again. He'd committed a terrible mistake twelve years ago, getting his friends killed with his foolish gullibility, but maybe he wasn't completely worthless. Maybe he was worthy of trust.
"Thank you," he said. His voice broke in the middle. "I'm—I'm glad you were able to learn from me." He accepted a hug from Agarkar, who then reached up to pat him on the shoulder.
Soon, against the background of the bright, clear sky, they could make out the silhouettes of people flying on broomsticks. The boat was only a kilometer away from shore now, so close to simultaneous freedom and further imprisonment. Though some part of Sirius's spirit wavered, he stood tall and confident. He and his students knew he had done his best, and he had some people on his side now. This time, he wasn't alone.
The Deku soldiers started doing double-takes at the horizon, pointing and calling out in alarm.
"What are they doing? Don't they know about the lake's protections?" one soldier asked, squinting up at the sky.
"Lord Mekar is well-known for preventing magical shortcuts to the island. Surely they know better," another one said. "They do, right?"
Luna, who had been sitting by the rail and looking peaky for the whole ride, glanced down at the book lying open in her lap. "There wasn't a lake around the forest in Zelda's time," she said with alarm. "She didn't know it was dangerous. She couldn't warn them!"
Sirius and Narcissus cursed and ran to the other edge of the boat to watch the broom-riders speed over the sparse forest around the edge of the lake. They were on a direct course for the boat, and they weren't slowing down.
"What will happen once they cross the edge of the lake?" Sirius asked. He recalled how the monsters hadn't dared touch the water. The way spirits seemed to work, they tended to have a very clear line of influence. Whether the lake's power was exclusive to the water or extended into the airspace above was the question.
"Lord Mekar has allowed the toadstool dust you used on the Lost Ones to keep its effect, but he generally cancels out any outside magic brought within the vertical bounds of his lake," the general replied. "As soon as those mages fly past the edge of the water, their brooms will stop working and they will be at the mercy of the spirits they have disrespected." He picked at the rope knot around his waist and undid the tie between him and Sirius. "Your colleagues will require a rescue," he said gravely. "Will they be able to tread water until my soldiers and I can reach them?"
Sirius shook his head. "It isn't common for witches and wizards to know how to swim. They could cast a charm to breathe—" He cried out in dismay when he realized that "no magic" meant no magic. "Except they can't! They'll be helpless!"
"Soldiers, untie yourselves and prepare for a water rescue!" Narcissus boomed. "Speed is of the essence! We have four non-swimmers incoming!" He knelt down and started murmuring what sounded like a prayer. To appease the lake spirits, perhaps?
"What's going on, Mr. Black?" Marcus asked. "What do the soldiers mean about the lake? Why do they have to prepare for a rescue?" As he spoke, the Deku Scrubs dove into the black water and started swimming out with impressive speed.
"Kokiri Lake exists to protect the forest. It doesn't allow itself to be crossed using magic, and those brooms are magic." Sirius pointed up at the nearing figures. They were seconds from crossing the boundary now, and at the speed they were going, he had to hope they'd survive their unexpected landings. The spirits couldn't undo the teachers' magical constitutions, could they? "They're going to—"
One by one, the incoming figures dropped out of the sky. Luckily for them, they had swept closer to the lake in preparation for landing and the effects of the anti-magic slowed them down significantly. They dropped almost straight down—far preferable to skipping across the water at over a hundred kilometers per hour. This close, Sirius could recognize their pale, shocked faces. Professors McGonagall, Sprout, Flitwick, and…REMUS?!
Sirius leaned out over the railing, reaching for his old friend. A strangled cry leapt from his throat. Remus! His only living friend was here!
"Mr. Black!" Marcus pulled him back from the edge of the boat. "If you fall in, you'll just add to the number of people needing rescue!"
"That's Remus out there," Sirius said hoarsely, still reaching out. "He's my only friend, and he might die in front of me! He's my friend!"
Marcus held Sirius's upper arms in a powerful grip. He was a large, strong kid for his age, a little bigger and taller than Sirius. "Your friend would want you to stay alive," he said firmly. "Don't kill yourself trying to save him."
Sirius watched with rapt, desperate attention as the soldiers converged on the floundering humans in the water. Being made of wood, they had no trouble staying afloat as the panicked teachers clambered over them in an attempt to escape drowning.
"Secure your passengers!" Narcissus commanded.
He and the soldiers shifted their passengers to float on their backs and hooked their arms through the humans'. Supporting them from below with their buoyant bodies, the soldiers guided the choking, sputtering teachers toward the boats. Sirius hurried to the ladder of his boat and waved Marcus over. "We'll have to pull them up if they can't climb!" he cried.
Professor Flitwick was the first teacher to be pushed up from the water. He coughed and gasped, barely able to hold onto the ladder for all his body's attempts to clear the water from his lungs. Sirius reached down with Marcus bracing him and hauled the small man onto the deck. Flitwick stayed on his hands and knees, fighting to clear the last of the water from his lungs.
Then another soldier arrived bearing Remus Lupin, and Sirius felt his heart stop. Remus was right there. He was right there, and oh Merlin, what if he hated Sirius? What if he wanted Sirius dead almost as much as Sirius had for much of his prison stay? Could he bear that? Hear the accusations from his last friend?
He shook himself. Remus was wheezing and shivering and needed his help. Nothing else mattered. If the man chose to curse him later, so be it.
Sirius reached down and gripped Remus's freezing hands. In a coordinated effort, he and Marcus pulled the almost insensate man onto the boat. Remus curled up on his side, gagging and coughing up water. Unsure of what to do, Sirius hovered anxiously beside him. He drank in every detail of his poor half-drowned, too-thin former schoolmate. He felt terrible for only recognizing Remus now, and not when he'd been a pampered pet in his baby cousin's care back at the castle. He wasn't sure what he could have done then, but he felt like there must have been some comfort he could have given Remus. Some reassurance that his last surviving old friend was neither mad, nor a betrayer. Remus must have thought he was alone all this time, made to wallow without any outside support in the existential misery that was being a werewolf in a cruel society.
Sirius didn't hear anything around him. There was just his friend's pained expression and cough-wracked body. The sound of Remus's strained breathing filled Sirius's ears.
'Please let him be okay,' he thought, cursing his uselessness. He rubbed circles on Remus's tense back. The lake water dripping off of him was positively icy despite the warm weather.
"Towels!" Sirius burst out. "Or blankets! We can dry and clean them later. We just need to get this water off before everyone freezes."
Sirius realized only as he set to gathering towels that all four teachers were now laying and sitting on the deck. It made sense, since their boat was closes to where the four had landed. He'd just lost track while he'd been occupied by his friend's distress. Professor Sprout was upright and coughing weakly, her hand pressed against her chest. Professor McGonagall seemed to have escaped mostly unscathed. She was pale and there was a slight wheeze to her breathing, but she was only shivering instead of coughing. Flitwick and Remus were conscious and had their eyes open, but were still clearing their airways. Remus in particular looked absolutely exhausted—or perhaps Sirius just noticed it more on his friend's face.
With a team of students and dry blankets at hand, the hostile water was quickly wicked away. Narcissus and his soldiers stood around the edges of the boats, speaking apologies and explanations to the spirits below. As they did, Sirius felt the damp blanket in his hands warm to a more natural temperature. The professors' chattering teeth went still.
"M-Mr. Black," Professor McGonagall stuttered formally.
Sirius nodded, inwardly nervous but outwardly calm. "Hello, Professor McGonagall. I'm sorry we couldn't magic you dry, but as you just learned the hard way, the spirits in the lake don't care for mages."
"Spirits? Like all these forest fairies?" Professor Sprout asked. "How did they attack us?"
Luna drifted over from where she had been joining in on the prayers to the lake. "The forest and lake are both sacred places with things to protect, but Kokiri Lake is the harsher test of character," she said. "Its spirits have less patience for disrespect and more control over what happens within their domain. The Lake Spirit said your refusal to slow your approach is why he made the water colder. The Harrys made the same mistake, but they at least tried to avoid flying over the lake."
Sprout and McGonagall stared at her with blank incomprehension. "A ghost controlled the lake temperature?" the latter said incredulously.
"No, the lake turned itself colder!" Luna chirped. "I think you have some catching-up to do about the way Hyrule works, Professor. Sometimes the trees and lakes have feelings, too."
"L-Luna," Professor Flitwick croaked, trying and failing to sit up. "Are you…alright? No one's…mistreated you?"
Luna smiled dreamily. "I've had a lovely time, Professor. Zelda has been teaching us Hylian and Mr. Black has been giving us lessons in the local style of potion-brewing. The Deku Scrubs have been all very kind to us, and my classmates have been nicer since Kajiwara told them I'm not loony after all. I've also made a new friend!" She gestured toward her seemingly empty shoulder. "His name is Poppo and he's a Korok! Koroks are the children of the Great Deku Tree, and they take care of the forests around Hyrule. He got bored in the Lost Woods, so he'd like to travel with me for a bit."
Professor Flitwick seemed bewildered, but he nodded. "So long as…you're in good spirits, my dear," he said hoarsely.
"Sirius."
At the strained, airy whisper, Sirius's attention snapped to Remus. "I'm sorry," he said, and just like that, a cork popped and more words began flowing out. "Peter and I changed places as the Secret-Keeper at the last moment without telling anyone. I suggested it, and James and Lily agreed. I felt so clever at the time, but I…I was so stupid Remus. So gullible, to trust him! I let prejudice blind me and I put my faith in that rat instead of you!
"And if you want to kill me for it, I don't blame you. I deserve it for failing James and Lily. Just, please, you need to find Peter. He said he betrayed us because he was afraid for his life, but you can't believe anything he says. He could have become a true Death Eater and just been lying to save his skin. He was willing to blow up an entire street to frame me!"
Remus coughed. "Sirius," he said more clearly, reaching up to touch Sirius's face. "I know. I believe you."
Sirius laid his hand over Remus's and sobbed, overcome with more emotion than his Dementor-damaged mind could handle. All his thoughts narrowed into a needle-sharp point: Remus believes me. Remus believed him, and he wasn't alone anymore. Even if the other teachers wanted to imprison him, he had his friend again. Remus would make Peter pay, even if Sirius couldn't. He'd know what to do.
His students crowded owl-eyed around the commotion, burning with curiosity. Sirius hiccupped a laugh at the sight. "I'm just telling the truth again," he explained, sniffling and wiping his eyes. "You know how I get."
Several kids patted him on the back. "It's okay to cry, Mr. Black," Alice said. "What happened to you is way worse than that Deku Baba that got me. You can't grow a tame Dementor, after all."
Sirius laughed again. "It'd be great if they could be tamed, though! Would have saved me the trouble of losing my mind," he said. "And if that was a request to grow the Deku Baba seeds we've got, the answer is no. Professor Sprout gets to choose what happens there."
"But you think we could grow them?" Agarkar asked excitedly. "I'll give up some of my dinner to feed it!"
"Just use a Gemini Charm on your dinner, once we have Magic Rods," Marcus advised. "Zelda passed along that food is pretty tight at the castle. No reason to go around giving away what you can get to a carnivorous plant."
"Say, Professor Lupin, have your eyes changed color?" Alice asked. "I thought they were a darker brown before."
Remus's amber eyes went wide. He patted at his face as if something were supposed to be over it.
"Your accessories might have been claimed by the lake in exchange for not drowning you," Luna said. "Why were you hiding your face, Professor? I think you look just fine."
"Your eyes have changed color?" Professor McGonagall leaned over to get a look at Remus. "This wouldn't have to do with why you've been concealing yourself in your quarters, would it?"
Remus exhaled tiredly. "It would, Minerva." He pried himself up from the deck, grimacing.
Sirius saw in that moment that his friend had longer canines (top and bottom) and a few other teeth that seemed sharper than they should have been. He helped Remus sit up, then looked closely at him. Remus looked younger and healthier than before, closer to his actual age. His eyes were unmistakably those of a wolf, though, and the sideburns sticking out from under the bandanna he had tied over his ears were considerably longer and shaggier than before. "I know the full moon, is close, but this is new," Sirius said in a low murmur. "Did changing dimensions change the curse?"
"I can still hardly believe it, but someone appeared at my bedside on the last full moon and took the curse," Remus said in similar tones. "I was mid-change, so certain things stuck, but unless I will it, I'll never become a beast again. And the rabid mania I had in that form is entirely gone—taken with the rest of the affliction."
"How?!"
"It was that shadow-child who attacked the school. He has a level of command over magic the likes of which I've never seen," he whispered. "We should speak of this later, though, when there are fewer young ears." Remus motioned with his chin toward the Ravenclaws clearly doing their best to eavesdrop.
"Black, Kajiwara, we're about to make land! Get the children in order!" Narcissus bellowed across the boats, making the professors jump. "No stampedes!"
"Got it, General," Sirius said in Hylian, straightening.
"What manner of being are these?" Professor McGonagall asked, visibly unnerved by the Deku soldiers now crossing the deck to undo all the ropes still stringing everyone together. "More 'spirits'?"
"Or are they sapient magical creatures?" Professor Sprout asked interestedly. "They remind me of Bowtruckles."
"Deku Scrubs are a kind of people, just like humans," Sirius explained as he undid his own rope. "Some have magic, some are mundane. Most of Hyrule's populace is Muggle, though they regularly use magic in other ways. There aren't many barriers against its use here."
"Yeah, Zelda says that they run their bigger cities and villages on magic pulled from the ground," Alice said excitedly. "I can't wait to see what that looks like. Imagine having powered technology that doesn't require electricity! I could bring a computer to school!"
Sirius tried not to think about the professors' attention on him as he lined up the students by year and reminded them of how they were to arrange themselves while traveling. The older students would be closer to the outside of the group alongside the Deku soldiers, while the first-years would cluster in the center. Any monsters that attacked would be intercepted by the soldiers and Sirius, while the seventh-years were to pull in and maintain a defense. Without effective magic, the students would have to depend on their Kokiri swords and physical strength to defend themselves.
"Yes, I know I'm not a professor or anything," Sirius said in response to the eyes he felt on his back. "I'm just doing my best here, alright? I'm not their father, nor their warden, so 'teacher' was just the term that made sense here."
"Also, he's been teaching us," Noel said. "So yeah, we're his students. He doesn't call us gormless nitwits when we screw up in Potions class, either, so I'd consider him more of a proper professor than Snape."
Sirius puffed his chest out. Snivellus hadn't set a high bar as an instructor, but Sirius had easily cleared it without any extra training. If any old bloke could step in and do a better job, that didn't make the obsessive creep's knowledge worth much of anything, did it?
Flitwick cleared his throat. "I appreciate what you've done for my students, Mr. Black," he said. "I can't guarantee what the Headmaster won't have you detained upon our return, but you'll have my support in our staff discussions."
"Are you entirely convinced that Pettigrew is dangerous, Black?" Sprout asked. "Because we have a bit of an, erm, situation back at the school."
"I took it upon myself to reveal him," Remus confessed. "It was reckless, I know. Albus didn't seem to be concerned about what I saw as dire situation, and I felt it necessary to do what he wouldn't. Unfortunately, Peter planned out an escape route just for such a situation, and he's now loose in the school."
Sirius grabbed him by the shoulders. "WHAT?!"
The boat juddered underfoot, making them all stumble. "We've landed!" Narcissus announced. He pulled Sirius and Remus apart. "Figure out your issues once we're on our way to the train station, humans. The longer we dawdle, the higher the likelihood of being attacked on the road. Monsters can sense large groups of travelers."
Sirius shook his head to clear it. Right, getting back to Hogwarts. He couldn't let himself get distracted, even if he desperately wanted to know what the hell was going on. Peter was still at the castle, and he still had to get back to the castle to do anything about him. His plan of action was unchanged.
"I know you're here to bring me in, but let's just focus on keeping the kids safe, shall we?" Sirius said. "We'll have to travel several kilometers on foot to the nearest train stop." He went to start transferring the sleeping Lost children down, only to find them blinking and sitting up. Either the dosage they'd been given had worn off or Lord Mekar had decided they no longer needed to sleep. Well, at least they'd woken up here instead of in the middle of the lake.
Penelope Clearwater sat up, rubbing her eyes. "Where're we?" she mumbled. "Castle?"
"Not yet. We're at the edge of the lake, unloading to head toward the train station," Sirius told her.
The Prefect groaned. "I was hoping to sleep through that."
"Blame the Lake Spirit. He can cancel all the magic in his domain, apparently."
"Oh, wonderful. As if Hyrule itself isn't anti-magical enough, the spirits can compound it," she said with an annoyed look at the lake. Then she spotted the teachers, and gasped. "Professor Flitwick! I was starting to think I'd never see him again!"
Mira sat up and frowned at the teachers. "Are the professors okay? Why does it look like they fell in the lake?"
"Because they fell in the lake," Sirius replied. "As far as the lake was concerned, they were trying to take a shortcut to the forest. It didn't approve."
Penelope dragged a hand down her face. "Of course. If they've been behaving…well, admittedly the same way I did only a month ago, the teachers wouldn't have done anything to learn about how Hyrule's spirits work. They'd just assume they were the same as magical creatures and underestimate accordingly."
Sirius nodded. "That's exactly what happened. All you kids are going to have to teach them how this world works once you get back to the castle—perhaps arrange a 'culture class', of sorts. And a Potions class, too."
Yutaka and Loretta pushed themselves up from the pallet, yawning.
"Why wouldn't you teach the class, Mr. Black?" Loretta asked. "You're good at it."
Sirius smiled sadly. "Because I'm a fugitive, remember? I'll be detained as soon as we get back to the castle."
Loretta looked over at the teachers climbing to their feet with the help of the Deku soldiers still on the deck. "Do you want to get away? I can cover for you," she whispered.
Sirius laughed. "That's sweet, Miss Cornhill, but I'll have to face this like an adult, I think. The last time I ran off without explaining myself, that mistake came back in force for twelve long years. This time, I'll try doing things properly. If it doesn't work out, I might just take you up on your offer."
They traveled in a tense, huddled caravan toward Woodland Station. While the students were thrilled to be going home, the memory of what had happened to Alice kept their heads on a swivel. After the events of the school year so far, all of them had a level of combat experience. They knew the drill when there were monsters about.
"Okay, so what the hell happened at the castle?" Sirius asked the other adults at the back of the caravan. Kajiwara was close enough to overhear, but he figured she deserved to. The girl had been just as responsible for these students as he had these last few weeks. "Pettigrew is loose? When did this happen? What are you doing to capture him?"
"It happened on the first day of the rainstorm," Remus said. "A couple of students and I went to confront Peter in his disguise as a student's familiar. I cast the Animagus Revealing Charm and was about to immobilize him when he scarpered. He had been secretly using the wand of his 'owner' to carve out an escape route in the event of capture—likely because news of your story has spread around the castle. He would have undoubtedly heard young Mister Weasley talking about it, if not the boy's classmates."
"Using a magical map that tracks everyone within Hogwarts—and what a clever charm that is!—we have been following Pettigrew around the castle," Flitwick continued. "The trouble is, he's figured out how to use the castle's plumbing to travel and we have no way to reach him through the thick walls. Since both you and he are considered suspects until innocence can be proven, we've been trying to coax him out to talk. Unfortunately, it appears he either cannot hear us or refuses to believe our intentions."
Sirius bared his teeth. "Pettigrew is a mewling coward and a brown-noser. Always has been—I just didn't think much about it in our school years. If he could hear you, he'd come crawling out to blow smoke up your arses in an instant. He'd go straight to Minerva, Albus, Hagrid, or Sniv—Snape, the three people either most likely to kill me on sight or who have the most authority. I might not know Peter as well as I thought I did, but I grew up rich and got dragged to a lot of stuffy society parties. I know how obsequious suck-ups think."
"Do you believe he poses a threat to the children?" Professor McGonagall asked with a frown. "Keep in mind that any answer you give must be taken with a considerable grain of salt until your innocence can be confirmed."
"I'm well aware of that, Professor," Sirius said with the weight of twelve exhausting years in his voice. "Whether he hurts the children depends on whether he feels it would be useful to him. He didn't blow up that street for fun; he did it to frame me. I don't think he hates anyone in particular. He's just a creature of survival, like the animal that represents his nature. Like a lot of other Death Eaters are, too, I'd bet."
"So regardless of his innocence or guilt, we should assure him his story is believed no matter what," Sprout inferred. "What would you suggest to detain him, or possibly yourself, depending on how the Pensieve trial turns out?"
Sirius felt a thrill. They'd be using a Pensieve? He could pass a test like that without a doubt. Veritaserum testimony could be made biased just by adding a few weighted questions to the list, but there were ways of telling altered memories from the truth. His memories up until prison were crystal clear. Regardless of whether Pettigrew had figured out a way to rearrange his own recollections, Sirius's would ring true.
"Sleepy Toadstool dust is an effective way to keep a wizard down for a while," he said. "A heavy dose can knock someone with a magical constitution out for a couple of days. Those mushrooms grow all over the place, and the students received some of their spores upon leaving Kokiri Court. The Deku Scrubs wanted them to be able to establish magical gardens of their own."
Professor Sprout let out a happy squeal. "Wonderful! I've been plotting out gardens in the lesser-used rooms of the castle. We were going to use things like potatoes and seeds from the fruit in storage. With the addition of local magical flora, we'll be that much closer to self-sufficiency!"
"I thought you'd love that news," Sirius said with a grin. "I think you'd also like to hear that positive emotion and magic have a strong effect on things in Hyrule. If you love those plants enough, they might just love you back."
"Humans, huddle! Soldiers, defend!" Narcissus shouted from the front of the group. "Two Bokoblins and one Moblin! All blue!"
Sirius shifted into dog form as a trio of monsters charged out of the forest to their left. Two of the creatures were around his human height, one wielding a bone-studded wooden club and the other nocking an arrow in a spiky steel bow. The Moblin, the only one of the three that Sirius recognized from the castle halls, was…worse. It was far taller than the ones he'd seen before, with its muscular physique spread across longer limbs and a look of intelligence in its glowing crystal eyes. The dingy teal beast lumbered after the faster Bokoblins with a sized-up sword and steel-braced wooden shield in its huge hands.
Narcissus led the charge, running right up to the Moblin. He spun to turn his forward momentum into centrifugal force and slammed his hammer against the monster's shield. With a loud crack, the shield and the creature carrying it were knocked back. The Moblin teetered on one foot, sent off-balance. Narcissus followed up his first strike with a brutal swing to the underside of the monster's chin. The Moblin lifted off its hooves and then dropped on its back in the dirt.
While their leader took care of the biggest enemy, the other soldiers went after the Bokoblins two-on-one. The smaller monsters were able to match a few strikes hit-for-hit, being much more agile than the Moblin, but they were quickly overwhelmed by the little Deku Scrubs' rapid stabs. Kokiri swords had the benefit of being as light as rapiers despite their double-edged form. The Bokoblins didn't have a chance against one trained Deku warrior, let alone two. It appeared the battle was well in hand.
Then the wind shifted and he smelled something electric and foul. He turned in the direction it came from and found himself faced with a pair of darting eyes on either side of an almost-invisible face. Upon being spotted, the monster sprang out of hiding with a gurgling battle cry. Sirius lunged at Remus and knocked him to the ground as a wicked spear stabbed into the dirt. The other professors and nearby students fell back, yelping in fear and surprise.
Flitwick was the first to recover, and began firing spells with wordless fury. The giant blue lizard lost its weapon, flipped upside-down, locked in place, and was blasted against a tree with enough force to form a splintering crater and knock the plant partly sideways. Roots that had ripped free of the ground rained dirt as the magic-resistant monster started moving again. Flitwick resumed his vicious attack with the other professors joining in. The lizard disappeared under a rainbow of offensive spells.
Sirius switched back to human form to gawp at the hail of jinxes, hexes, and curses. If he'd gotten on the wrong side of these four (yes, including Remus), that could have been him! Good thing he wasn't actually a murderer or two-faced slime like Peter.
The professors didn't stop blasting until a puff of violet smoke rolled across the smoldering tree trunk. A soon as they'd stopped, Flitwick and McGonagall crumpled to the ground, Sprout slumped to her knees, and Lupin toppled forward. Sirius managed to catch his friend, but couldn't save the Charms and Transfiguration teachers. They dropped like sacks of potatoes, totally out cold.
"What happened?" he asked, guiding Remus to the ground. His friend's eyes were open, but unfocused. "Did the lizard do something?"
"We're not used to these Hylian staffs," Sprout panted. "They draw a lot of power. As fast as duelists like Minerva and Filius cast, they burned through all their energy."
Sirius clapped a hand to his forehead and sighed. "This might as well happen," he muttered. Louder, he said, "We've got people in our group who are strong enough to carry them on their backs." He tapped on Remus's cheek. "Are you down for the count as well, or are you walking?"
Remus blinked and groaned. "Walking," he grunted. "I'm a bit tall to be carried, anyway."
They kept on, encountering several jelly blobs and a few opportunistic Bokoblins along the way. Thankfully, there were no more Moblins; Sirius hated to think what might happen if they came across more than one of those at once. No one in their group could match Narcissus's incredible strength.
"No," Sirius said sternly as he herded a wandering Mira back into the group. "If you want a mushroom, you can ask me or Kajiwara. We'll get it for you."
Mira pushed her cheek against his arm as she tried to reach past him. Her green eyes were wide and starry. "I waaant it," she whined. "It's such a pretty orange! My friend wears orange. Can I see my friend again?"
"Maybe they'll visit," Sirius offered. He ushered her toward Marcus, who put an arm around the girl and produced a Hylian Shroom from his pocket to entertain her with. Sirius then circled around to where Yutaka was pulling against the grip of a Deku soldier in the direction of Kokiri Isle.
"They'll miss me! I was the only one who stayed to listen!" he protested. "They're going to be alone! It's not fair!"
"They have Koroks to play with, so they won't be alone," Sirius assured Yutaka. The soldier passed the distressed student over. "It could be that not everyone listens all the time. The Skull Kid still has friends, I promise."
The boy sniffled. "But…But no one found them. They were left there!"
Sirius rubbed his back soothingly. "I'm sure it wasn't on purpose. The Lost Woods might have thought it would be funny to play a prank on their other friends. It does things like that. Now that they live in the woods, your friend isn't alone anymore."
The boy looked up with watery eyes. "Promise?"
"Yes, I promise." Sirius towed him back to the group and let Kajiwara secure him.
"Those are the Lost children?" Remus asked softly when Sirius returned to his place at the back of the pack. "Filius has been desperate to learn what's happened to them, but Albus hasn't been able to host a meeting for that yet with everything else going on."
"Yes, those were two of the Lost Ones. There are eight total. Yutaka and Mira caught it the worst, and Mira needs constant supervision," Sirius said. "Essentially, they've all become prime targets for being spirited away, since their minds have been made weaker to such influences. They're able to see spirits and can fall into a state where they lack the impulse control not to follow anything that catches their eye. If left to their own devices, they could easily wander into a forest, chasing distractions until they couldn't be found. When they're in such a fit, you have to speak in a way that follows their delusion, otherwise they'll have a terrible tantrum and try to get themselves even more lost to spite you."
"That sounds a lot like an ancient fairy spell to me," Professor Sprout mused. "There are potions out there that can improve mental acuity in people with spell damage, but I couldn't begin to figure out how we'd brew something like that in this place. Severus has said his ingredient supplies are mostly shot, thanks to Hyrule's anti-magic, so he hasn't been able to brew much of anything, let alone tricky medical elixirs."
Sirius's first impulse was to sneer and say "good". With his slowly returning impulse control (and a subtle elbow from Remus), he managed to hold the urge in. "I'm sure we can figure something out once your gardens are up and running," he said instead. There, nice and tactful.
Just when the walk seemed like it might never end, having slowed to a crawl as the children ran out of nervous energy, a building came into view down the tree-lined path. It was a simple structure of metal-reinforced stone nestled within the trees close to the red stone of Death Mountain. A line of shining golden tracks led up to it, looped around a small lake, and headed back whence they'd come.
"Train tracks!" the children cried elatedly, rushing forward. Even the seventh-years, who usually did their best to be seen as serious adults that didn't get excited over anything, were skipping on their way to the train station. Mindful of Professor Flitwick on his back, Sirius power-walked to keep up.
When a train—a stunning stone and metal beast dotted with glowing blue eyes and patterns of bronze leaves—pulled in, their pace became more frantic. Nobody wanted to risk missing the first ride out of here. Sirius held on tight to Flitwick as he went into a sprint. They just had to make it!
The long-legged humans quickly outpaced all of the Deku Scrubs but Narcissus, whose lankier proportions allowed him to keep up. "This is a Woodland Line engine!" he yelled over the running feet and shouts of the students. "Ride it to Castle Town, then take the Origin Line to the Great Plateau stop! If you ride the elevator down, you'll be right at the edge of the Lake Hylia basin! You can use your brooms from there!"
Sirius nodded. "Thanks for the help! Wish we could make this a longer goodbye!"
"I'm sure your kids shall be calling mine soon enough! This probably won't be the last time we speak!"
Sirius laughed. "Right you are!" He pulled ahead and waded into the crowd forming around the open doors of the train as Hylians stepped off and Britons stepped on. Sirius let Flitwick down onto one of the benches and looked around the cushioned wooden interior of the train with a face-splitting grin. They were finally coming home!
His prison obsession came back in full force, filling his limbs with an electric sense of violence to come. 'I'll have you dead at my feet soon, Peter,' he thought with a manic grin. 'You can be certain of that.'
Peter knew better than to listen to the polite pleas that occasionally filtered into the lesser-used pipes he was traveling down. Had Sirius not managed to spread his story so widely, Peter would have gladly gone out to reinforce his own. However, the odds were stacked against him. He knew a losing battle when he saw it, and what was the remedy to a losing battle? Running.
He crouched by a floor drain. The Marauder's map showed his location, true, but only along the horizontal floorplan. It didn't indicate little details like drains, nor how far under the floor or up in the ceiling he had hidden himself. Trelawney and Sinistra had no idea they stood less than a meter away from him.
Inane words passed over his head. The two of them were talking about the only things the teachers talked about lately. "Oh no, we're stranded", "oh no, the food supply", "oh no, leaving the castle is so scary," and so on. Peter mentally filtered through it, waiting for the words he wanted to hear. He'd learned a lot about how magic worked here by listening in on the Potters' blather and secretly attending teacher meetings from behind a loosened brick in the staff room. One thing he'd picked up was that conjurations of magical objects, no matter how masterful, would always disappear within a few hours. It had been over three hours since the teachers' morning meeting, so at any moment now—
"Drat!" Sinistra cursed. "The bloody thing has gone and vanished again. Must be time for the noon meeting soon."
That was what Peter had been waiting for. He scampered off at top speed.
There was still one map remaining—the original Marauder's Map—but it was up on the sixth floor with Dumbledore. Peter had been goading the teachers into splitting up these past few days using Hogwarts's remaining magical shortcuts. The staff had become convinced that the best way to apprehend him was to spread out across the castle's floors, since he'd made it seem as though he might appear anywhere at any time. Peter was currently on the ground level, only a hundred meters from his true goal.
He squeezed through a drain by the castle's stores behind Madame Hooch, the usual guard. She stood relaxed, her Magic Rod in her robe pocket rather than in hand. Peter shifted to human form in silence and reached for the magical tool. Of all the Marauders, he'd always had the stickiest fingers and the cleverest hands. Peter eased in close to her back and lightly touched the staff. He couldn't lift it without her feeling the absence of its weight, but she wouldn't be in any state to notice for long.
Peter turned the staff so its head pointed toward her leg. "Stupefy," he whispered.
In a bolt of red light mostly muted by her pocket, Hooch collapsed. Peter claimed her staff and straightened. How nifty of these things, to be perfectly obedient to anyone who got their hands on one!
He unlocked the door to the broom storage in short order and grabbed the first broom within reach. Then he took a deep breath, braced himself for the coming airsickness of taking tight corners indoors, and hopped on. He had a very narrow window to escape, even with Dumbledore on the sixth floor. While Apparation had been deemed too dangerous to risk in the magical atmosphere of Hyrule, the Headmaster undoubtedly knew most of the castle's shortcuts.
Peter shot down the halls to the nearest exit, ignoring the screams and shouts he caused in his wake. A few students fired spells after him, but he didn't let that slow him down. By the time they got the incantations out, he was already gone.
A Blasting Curse opened the heavy double-doors ahead with ease. He held in a victorious whoop. In a world like this, it wouldn't matter if his ruse was revealed! He was a stranger in a strange land, and all the natives would see was another foreigner among hundreds.
As the deeper voices of adults started joining the cries of the students, Peter flew out under the beaming sky. He wrenched the broom up—not easy, at his healthy weight—and climbed over the peaked roofs of the castle. Another thing he'd learned about how magic worked in this world was that it didn't travel far. Back home, most spells could fly for fifty meters before fading. Here, that distance was chopped to two dozen. Perfectly fine for most uses, but not so great for catching fugitive wizards.
He pushed the broom as fast as it could go, turning it up farther and farther as he approached the nearest edge of the lake basin. Spells fizzled and popped behind him like celebratory fireworks. Peter let out a carefree laugh. He was level with the top of the basin now and he could already see the final leg of his escape: a field of prairie grass.
Peter landed close to the field, cast aside the staff and broom, and transformed. As a rat, he dashed into the swaying forest now towering overhead and vanished into its depths.
Notes:
-Lord Mekar, the spirit of Kokiri Lake, is named for the modern version of the location as it appears in Breath of the Wild.
-Sirius's and Remus's relationship in this story is not, nor will it ever be, romantic. I know it's a popular pairing, but I just don't enjoy reading (and don't currently want to write) romantic/sexual relationships, sorry. I'm going to keep it at a deep, devoted level of platonic here, perhaps veering into a queerplatonic life-partner ship later if the mood strikes. If you want to put on your romance-shipping goggles anyway, I'm not gonna stop you.
-Blue Moblins in this fic-verse are a duller version of the classic teal they sometimes were in older Zelda games.
-In case I've forgotten to mention, Pettigrew is still plump because he calmed down after his initial panic about Sirius earlier in the year and recovered from his stress-induced illness. He blissed out and went right back to Fat Rat Mode as soon as it seemed like he was safe.
-Finally, I've found a way to put Peter Pettigrew away! I've been puzzling hardcore behind the scenes, trying to figure out how to set him on the path for the prologue of Goblet of Fire to still happen later. Now that Pettigrew is off in the wind, Sirius can perhaps start learning to let go of his obsession a little.