cxliii. traitors in the moonlight

Four-year-old Harriet Potter grabbed her aunt's skirts and dragged her feet as they neared the cupboard door.

"No, no, no," she begged through broken, shuddering tears. "Please, Aunt Petunia, please! Don't make me go!"

Harriet dropped her weight to break Petunia's grip and earned a sharp, irritated tug for the attempt. Petunia's cruel fingers tightened and would leave little bruises behind by the morning. "Stop that," she ordered, heedless of Harriet's tears or her terror. "You're to go to your room and be quiet! Quit your hysterics!"

"Please, Aunt Petunia!" The cupboard waited, door opening, the interior swallowed by the thick shadows formed in the hall's bleak, cutting light. "There's a monster in there! I don't wanna go!"

Harriet was a small girl made thin as a bird from too many missed meals—freaks who can't finish their chores don't get supper—so even a woman as slight as Petunia Dursley could lift her by the elbows and swing her forward. Harriet cried when the door swung shut, screamed her aunt's name until her throat burned. "Please!"

The latch slid home, and the vent opened, bars of yellow light slashing across Harriet's blurry eyes. "There's no such thing as monsters," Aunt Petunia hissed before storming off.

But there were. As Harriet hugged her bony knees to her chest and sobbed, she knew the monster was in the dark with her; she'd seen it moving, staring, had felt its attention lingering like a bad spot of sunburn. "Go away," she whispered through her fear. "Go away, go away."

The monster didn't go away. It stayed there in the closed, dusty dark, a palpable presence like a spare bottle of floor cleaner or another spider hiding in the risers, too many eyes looking from too many directions. Harriet could see it—he, maybe—moving, the shape of skinny, masculine fingers splayed in the vent's broken light, and suddenly those fingers disappeared, replaced by different silhouettes, birds and horses and butterflies, little stick-men and castles and long, flying dragons. Little Harriet stared, first in terror, then in wonder, as the monster in the boot cupboard made shadow puppets on the wall, and her fear subsided inch by inch.

She was still frightened; perhaps she'd always be a bit fearful, as all people were wont to be in the face of the unknown, but her trembling ceased, and her tears dried as she watched the shadows play. She startled when she felt the presence at her side but didn't pull away. She didn't flinch when her scar itched and crawled like it was trying to run away off of her flesh. Sometimes Harriet wanted to escape herself too, so she understood.

"Who are you?" she asked the monster. She raised her hand against the light, her shadow just a shadow until it became his, forming a black lily with swaying leaves.

Much later, after the silhouettes blossomed into other flowers that grew and withered and died, after her heavy eyelids closed and she fell asleep huddled against the cold door, Harriet felt a formless mouth by her ear, whispering sounds. Whatever the creature living in the dark with her said, she didn't understand, the noise of it like nothing she'd ever heard before, both terrible and familiar, like the laughter of a loved one lost a long time ago.

In the morning, she recognized one word he'd said as if it'd always been there in her head. One word, a name.

"Set."

x X x

The feeling of a shadowy hand reached into Harriet's chest, wrapped its spindly fingers about her heart—and squeezed.

The pain hit her like an electric shock, wending out from her chest, prickling in her arms and down into her fingertips. Awareness returned all at once rather than in dredges and doses, Harriet's eyes snapping open to the sight of the forest floor moving beneath her, her glasses hanging on by virtue of the Sticking Charm applied to the temples. It took her a moment to realize the pain in her ribs came from pressure applied by a shoulder rammed into her middle, a shoulder belonging to a man running through the underbrush—or trying to, at the very least. He kept stumbling on the roots.

It took another moment for the Sickle to drop; when Harriet failed to remember how she'd gotten here, when it finally hit her that she was slung over a strange wizard's shoulder being towed into the trees, she gave a shout and thrashed, slinging her elbow at the back of his head. The blow missed, as the wizard startled when she moved and squealed, dropping her. Harriet landed hard on her side, right on the ribs Riddle had broken last year, the ones that would never be quite as strong as they were supposed to be, and the sting of impact took her breath away. Leaves crackled under heavy shoes, and Harriet rolled, dizzy and breathless, coming to a stop on her knees. The wizard had a wand out and pointed at her—but the instant Harriet turned her own on him, he faltered.

"W-who are you?" she demanded, stuttering despite herself. If someone had told her that morning she would be picked up and carted off by a stranger, Harriet would've bet money on the culprit being Sirius Black—but the stooped man didn't resemble the escaped convict at all. He had dark, watery eyes and the build of a person who'd lost considerable weight in a short amount of time. His dated attire hung loose on his shabby frame, his narrow face waxy and unclean with patchy blond hair atop his head. His beady eyes darted toward Harriet's wand, and she doubled her grip.

Barely a moment passed, but it was enough time for him to come to a decision. "D-dear Harriet!" he squeaked in an unctuous tone, forcing a crooked smile. "You've grown so much, and look so alike James and Lily!"

"Who in the hell are you?!" Harriet yelled, alarmed by his apparent knowledge of her person. He still had his wand out, but Harriet believed—or at least hoped—she could disarm him before he could hurt her. "What do you want with me?" A terrible thought occurred to her. "Did the Ministry send you?"

"The M-Ministry? No, no, of course not! This might sound odd, but I—I was a good friend of your parents, Harriet! A very good friend!"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"I—I came to help you! To rescue you! At great cost to myself."

Harriet didn't believe that for an instant. She didn't know where in the forest they were, but if any kind of rescue had been underway, the bloke would be running toward Hogwarts—toward Dumbledore—and not away. "Pull the other one," she snarled. Her heart—sore in her chest from Set's phantom touch—thumped with fright. "Where—what happened to Elara and Hermione? What did you do to them?"

The man's face twitched, a full spasm that started around his eyes and ended with his mouth, like a person controlling a sneeze. "I didn't mean to startle you! I—we had to get away from there! Those people weren't your friends, Harriet, not anymore!" When she said nothing and didn't curse him, the wizard took the opportunity to rush on. "You've got to understand! He's got them all Confunded! Or under the Imperius. We can't trust anyone there, not while he's got them in his control—!"

In his enthusiasm, the wizard had lifted his wand—and Harriet immediately sent a Stinging Jinx at his legs, forcing the hand lower again. She didn't attack him because she didn't know the spells to incapacitate a person, not when she'd have to turn her back to run, and because—well, Hermione had been acting quite odd, this entire impromptu trip considerably strange and suspicious. Had she been cursed? Was it Sirius Black, and did this wizard know something about it?

Before Harriet could question him further, a snarling roar ripped through the forest, and Harriet threw a shield on instinct, protecting the terrified wizard from a seething beast of a creature leaping out of the bracken. The dog collided with the shield and bounced toward Harriet, sending her scuttling backward on her rear as the wizard raised his wand—.

And the dog disappeared, a ragged man taking his place, wand already held in a shaking fist. "Expelliarmus!"

The first wizard's wand jumped from his loose fingers, struck the ground, and disappeared in the abundant debris. The newcomer grinned—a savage, victorious expression that only broke when familiar silver eyes drifted from the terrified wizard to Harriet, frozen in panic. "Sorry, kid," he rasped. "Accio!"

He tried to Summon her wand—but the Charmed silver on her wrist, the Honor Among Thieves enchantment, kept Harriet's salvation in her hand, thank you, Hermione—and Harriet retorted, "Expelliarmus!" His wand fell and bounced—Harriet snatching it up before he could think to move.

She knew who he was. She'd seen enough Daily Prophets with his picture to recognize Sirius Black anywhere. If anything, he looked less horrific in person, cleaner and better fed, but no less weathered, his stare as fearsome as a Basilisk's.

"Quickly, Harriet!" the first wizard screamed, a manic gleam in his beady eyes. He jabbed a stubby finger at Black. "Quickly, kill him! Kill him before he kills us!"

"I'm not bloody killing anyone!" She breathed in too fast, her side aching. Harriet didn't know who to point her wand at—Black, ostensibly, but he hadn't been the one dragging her off into the night after knocking her out. He's an Animagus, she thought, taking in Black's harsh, solemn features, the intensity of his shadowed gaze not unlike his daughter's. And he—he tried to attack that bloke. Is that wizard right? Is Black going to kill us both? "What is going on here?!"

"Harriet." Again Black's voice rasped like loose scree, and he cleared his throat, never fully taking his eyes off the unknown man. "Give me my wand. Let me end this."

Harriet had no bloody intention of letting him end anything, especially if that something was her.

"He killed your parents, Harriet! You must stop him!"

The squealing tenor of the wizard's words sent Black into a frenzy, and it was only Harriet's wavering aim between the pair that kept the taller, thinner man from attacking. "You dare speak to her, you rancid piece of shite?! How dare you! I'll rip your buggering head off, Pettigrew—!"

Pettigrew?

The name rang a bell, but Harriet didn't have time to consider where she'd heard it before. She managed to get her feet under her despite her nerves and frightened breathing. What could she do? Attack Black? With what? How? She didn't know the right spells, and the words jumbled in her brain—and if she managed to knock him back and run, which way? Where was the damn school?

"Harriet." Again the bastard spoke, and he sounded like Uncle Vernon did when being stern with Dudley—fond but irritated, his patience wearing thin. He had his hand held out, palm up, dirt under his fingernails. "Give me my wand."

"Don't do it!"

"Shut the fuck up!" Black bellowed, baring his teeth at Pettigrew. "You'll get yours in a minute, rat bastard. Where were you taking her, Peter? Huh? Where were you going?"

"Away f-from you! Harriet, please—!"

"Don't speak to her!"

More footsteps approached in the bracken, their heads turning toward the sound. Harriet recognized the shape coming through the gloom and bolted, calling, "Professor!" as she grasped Lupin's sleeve, and he reached out to steady her. "It's Sirius Black! We need—."

His arm twisted, and his hand struck faster than Livi could, snatching both wands from her fist. He let out a rough, pained breath.

"Wh—?!"

"Forgive me, Harriet. Petrificus Totalus."

Harriet's arms snapped to her side, and her legs came together, her eyes wide in shock. Lupin made as if to grab her as she toppled—but Pettigrew shrieked and dove for the trees, Lupin's quickly diverting his attention to throw another curse at him. "Incarcerous!" Black cords burst into life and bound themselves around the pudgy wizard. He hit the dirt with a grunt. "Watch him, Sirius! For Merlin's sake…."

Harriet smacked a thick root face first and busted her nose.

"Fuckin' hell, Moony! Is she all right?"

Kneeling, Lupin dragged her onto her back, and though Harriet couldn't see his face very well in the thickening dark, she glowered up at him, putting every ounce of hate and betrayal into her gaze. They shouldn't have trusted him. The moment he confessed to knowing Sirius Black, Harriet and her friends should have known he was their enemy; after all, Lupin wouldn't be the first professor to try to kill her, but maybe he'd be the first to succeed.

"Episkey," he muttered with something like remorse, and Harriet felt her busted nose slip into place, blood still dripping on her face and down the back of her throat. It was a disgusting sensation. Lupin made as if to touch her, then changed his mind and stood, leaving Harriet there as he turned instead to Black and Pettigrew. He held out Black's wand. "We haven't much time. I managed to divert her friends in the woods, but they'll manage to find their way here eventually."

"What'd you do?"

"I had to Confund them. I didn't have a chance to try anything else after I caught up to the pair."

Black took his wand with a sigh. "Stupefy!" he said, and a red light collided with the wriggling, moaning wizard on the forest floor, rendering him still. "You should let me handle this, Remus. Go back to the castle with Harriet and Elara. She doesn't need to see this."

Professor Lupin studied him and then Harriet, his gaze lingering for a long while on her paralyzed form. "No—you're right. But she's already seen too much."

"Can you Obliviate her?"

"I've never tried before."

Harriet's breaths came in shocked, furious gusts through her nostrils, her heart racing in terror as the two wizards discussed her. They were going to kill the third one—she knew that, knew it—but a colder part of Harriet willed them to get it over with, to do it and let her go, so she could flee to her friends and take them away from here. What had Lupin done to them? How could she be so stupid as to let herself get taken without a fight?

Black approached her, and Harriet struggled with everything she had against the magic holding her, fighting to do anything, even if it was just moving a finger or a bloody toe. Black looked haggard and—sad, she'd say, if she'd thought a madman capable of being sad. He was an Animagus. A dog—one that, Harriet realized, she'd seen before, the same one she'd tried to lead back to Hagrid and had spent a pleasant hour nattering on to. How could that be possible? Why hadn't he hurt her then?

He reached to grab her, to maybe pick her up or turn her away—when a blinding streak of red light flew out of the trees, sending Sirius Black crashing into the foliage some several meters back, his head cracking hard against a trunk. Lupin gasped, a sound like a whip following, and he was on his knees, clawing at a thick rope tightening around his neck like a boa constrictor.

That was when Severus Snape came oozing out of the darkness, pale and looming, his robes somehow darker than the night surrounding them. If he had any pithy quips or exclamations to give, he stayed silent, Harriet able to see the way his body shook with rage from where she laid in the bushes. He held his wand in his left hand—knuckles white as bone, sweat gleaming on his dark brow—and he used his right arm to brace a goblet of all things against his chest as if unable to hold it. Snape swooped into the semi-clearing of tramped down plants and kicked Lupin—hard—in the gut, forcing him to his back. He knelt with one knee on the other man's chest, and Lupin wheezed for every breath, his face as red as a Gryffindor flag.

"Drink it," Snape hissed, grappling with the goblet until he had the rim rammed to Lupin's mouth. Whatever it held had been Charmed not to spill, or else it would have been all over the wizard's face. "Drink it now, or I'll kill you where you lay, wolf. Don't try me!"

Lupin gasped as the ropes relinquished themselves, and he clutched at the smoking goblet, swilling the liquid inside until it dribbled past his lips and he choked. Snape threw the empty goblet—and Lupin lashed out, shoving at the Potions Master, though Snape simply bore down harder, a nasty sneer twisting his mouth.

"Two more for Azkaban, I believe," Snape said in a deadly whisper. "I hope the Dementors have a nice Kiss for the both of you. Though I personally believe the best part will be telling Albus Dumbledore I told you so."

"Severus," Lupin grated, fumbling for his wand. Harriet's was next to it, fallen in the weeds. "Be rational. Listen, it's not—."

Snape twisted his wand in a wordless spell, and the ropes grasped tighter to the man's neck. "Rational? No, I don't think I will."

"He's not—."

The rope tightened farther still.

Unbeknown to the pair of wizards, Black had reappeared in his dog form, stalking through the thickets with his lip curled back over devilish teeth, mad eyes locked on Snape. A thrill of terror went through Harriet as she watched the horrid beast come closer and closer on silent paws—until the magic holding her broke like snapping twine, and Harriet ran, the gorse tearing at her bare knees, her arms out-flung to collide with Snape's back. He toppled—and Sirius Black's snarling jaws missed his throat by mere inches. Snape fired a spell wild into the trees, and something exploded in the distance.

"He's an Animagus, Professor!" Harriet gasped, fingers curling into the wool of his robes. "He's—."

Coming to his feet, Snape swept Harriet behind himself as Black resumed his human shape, looking as savage as he had before, hair and robes unkempt, malice dripping from his glower like poisoned ichor. Lupin had found his wand and risen upright, the severed bits of rope falling from beneath his collar. "Get away from my goddaughter, you Death Eater filth!"

"As the cauldron said to the kettle," Snape spat. "Doing a bit of service for your Lord, Black? A dog Animagus. I should have known. You always were a simpering bitch—."

"Get bent, Snivellous!"

"I can't say I'm interested, dog."

Black growled—actually growled, the sound tearing out of him like something living—and only Lupin's hand on his arm stopped him from throwing himself at the Potions Master. "Stop this," Lupin coughed, the skin of his neck bright red with forming bruises. "This isn't what it looks like, Severus!"

"Oh? Isn't it? To me, it appears you've reconnected with your old school friend—just as I warned Dumbledore you would do."

"No. For Merlin's sake, can't you put aside senseless boyhood grudges for one blasted minute and listen?!"

It was the wrong thing to say; Harriet knew it, could sense Snape go as rigid as a metal spring about to launch itself, and despite her confusion, Harriet felt frightened for Professor Lupin and Black. She didn't want to imagine what Snape could do when he was really brassed off.

Cloying magic thickened the air. She had to do something—say something.

"That bloke on the ground there," Harriet muttered as she gestured past Snape at the wizard still unconscious in the leaves. Snape jerked his head half a millimeter to the side to indicate he heard her. "He carted me off out here, tried to convince me he was helping. He said—."

"It's Pettigrew," Lupin interjected, bending slightly to pluck Harriet's wand from the dirt. Neither he nor Black dropped their attention from Snape, and the Potions Master kept himself ready. The History instructor held out the wand, handle first, and Snape Summoned it, not allowing Harriet by him. He shoved the wand into her hand, his fingers cold as ice where they brushed against her own.

"Pettigrew is dead."

"Open your eyes, man! He's not dead—he's right there!"

Whether or not Snape had any interest in opening his eyes, they didn't find out, as another fizzling streak of red darted from the forest, a high, girlish voice shouting, "Expelliarmus!" Black lost his wand and fell, cursing, as Snape and Lupin whipped around. Snape's right hand gripped Harriet's arm, holding her back.

Elara and Hermione stumbled out of the trees into the dappled moonlight coming through the canopy, the pair both disheveled and scratched, Hermione's face bloodied as if she'd fallen. "Professor Snape!" she shouted in relief. She stepped as if to run to him, then thought better of it, seeing as how she'd have to pass close to the others. She pointed at Lupin. "Watch out, Professor! He's a werewolf—!"

Snape scoffed. "I'm aware, Miss Granger, seeing as I brew his Wolfsbane Potion every month."

"It took me so long to figure it out! The missing days, the weakness—."

"Granger—."

"But then I smelled the Wolfsbane on him and—."

"Shut up, you insufferable twit, and get over here!" Snape thundered, Harriet flinching from the shock of his rumbling voice passing through her. Werewolf?! Lupin was a werewolf?! And the potion—had that been what Snape forced down his throat? What did it do? "You as well, Miss Black!"

Elara didn't respond.

"Black!"

Elara stood still as stone, the wind caught in her robes, in the wild, loose strands of her hair, her attention centered on one person in particular in that clearing. Sirius Black stared back at his daughter with a fragile, hopeful smile on his scruffy face—a smile Elara did not return. She did not smile, or blink, or seem to breathe. From where she stood, Harriet could see the fury glint in her friend's colorless eyes like fire on a naked blade, a wave of anger so unspeakably cold and fathomless, it reached into Harriet's heart like Set's careless hand and squeezed.

Elara's hand remained steady as she lifted her wand.

Harriet didn't have to ask the question to know Elara Black was going to kill her father.

A/N:

Everyone: "Remus is the responsible one!"

Remus: [forgets potion, loses children in the woods, drops child on her face]

Everyone: "So responsible."