Author's Note: I am going to shoot for Thursdays with this story, and as long as I keep writing like I have been, that should happen. Thanks to everyone who is reading, reviewing and favoriting. I am hoping to get to writing back to the reviewers today, but FF has been making responding difficult. Thanks, MNF
Chapter 1:
Scents
28 April 1994:
"Padfoot, I know you're out here," Remus said as he'd entered the woods. He'd followed Crookshanks out. Early on, Remus had realized the cat had a remarkable tendency for rooting out evil, hence why she'd chase Scabbers. While watching the map, Remus had also seen Peter's name down in the dungeons, although he could never catch him. Even in the sanitation pipes of the old castle, the stench of the Animagus was more than the wolf could stand.
"I can smell you." Remus could feel his former friend looking at him, but Padfoot was faster and quieter than a human, especially this man only days after the full moon. "If I can smell you, I can certainly smell Wormtail. The odour of sewage never leaves him now."
Remus held still. Padfoot was circling him, but not in a threatening way. The dog Animagus was making sure that he'd truly come alone. There was the breaking of a twig, and it made Remus turn toward a bush that was just starting to get its leaf buds.
"You came alone," Sirius said, although it was obvious he'd not used his human voice much as it cracked just like he was thirteen again. "Are you sure that was wise? You were the smartest of us."
"I'm the one with the wand. Come out so we can talk like men. I want to hear your story," Remus asked.
"Are we safe from the Dementors?" Sirius asked frightfully. "As a dog they ignore me."
"I wondered how you'd maintained any semblance of sanity. Come on now, I've brought you food and water."
"How do I know you're not trying to poison me?" Sirius suddenly sounded like his wicked cousin, Bella, the sing-song pattern of so many Blacks. Remus had the unfortunate experience of duelling her before she was imprisoned.
"Sirius, if my goal was to kill you, I would have done it on the full moon. I tracked you most of the night," Remus stated. "If Peter is running around then there is a story, and I want to hear it." There was quiet, then some rustling leaves.
'Tell me, is Harry safe?" Sirius whispered into Remus's ear, making the Defence Professor jump and let loose a very un-manly squeal.
"I have always hated when you did that," said after he'd caught his breath. "Safe is a provisional word with Harry, and I'm sure I haven't gotten the whole story from him."
"I mean right now, is he safe?"
"As far as a I know, he's safely in Gryffindor tower with his friends. Ron has complained that Scabbers – what he calls Wormtail – is gone. He blames their friend Hemione's half-Kneazle for the disappearance."
"Yes, she is quite brilliant," the cat-Kneazle appeared and walked up to Sirius and wove himself between his legs. He then sat down to groom himself at his feet. "You said something about food? Is it perhaps in that sack?" Remus nodded and handed him the paper bag from a Muggle bookstore he worked for once. He'd been able to smuggle some bread, whole fruit, and ham from the previous nights' dinner and a baked potato and a hunk of cheese from lunch. He'd taken some bangers from breakfast but found himself peckish at about ten this morning and ate them himself. Sirius dug in.
"Do you think I'm guilty?" Sirius asked between bites of ham on one of the rolls.
"I think I'm missing information, so I'm open to hearing your side. Did you give James and Lily to You-Know-Who? Did you betray them?"
"No! I could never do that! James was…shite Remus it wasn't me. We decided to change Secret Keepers at the last minute. We didn't even tell Dumbledore. Lily cast the spell between James and Peter, and I watched Harry. James didn't trust Dumbledore, you must remember that," Sirius rambled as he ate, talked with his mouth open and sipped from the cup that Remus kept refilling with water. "I'm not sure what happened between James and the headmaster, but he was sure that Dumbledore didn't have his family's best interests in mind. He had me take a message to Frank Longbottom; I don't know what it said but he said Frank needed to know immediately. That was October twenty-one; they were dead ten days later."
"Back to the Secret Keeper, Sirius, what happened that night?" Remus asked, trying to get the fugitive back on track. Sirius had always had a sort of manic personality. If he had a thought, he often ran with it and talking him out of his ideas was near impossible – especially if it was a prank.
"Er, yeah, Dumbledore was there to do the spell with James and me, but James stopped it. It was odd, he looked at Lily and then called the whole thing off. That's when he had me take the message to Frank. When I got back the traitor was there, and James said that they'd use him rather than me, since I was too obvious. It's true, James and I were like bookends. Always were…" Sirius stopped, his mind going somewhere that Remus couldn't follow.
"So, you're the Black heir," James said so pompously.
"So, you're the Potter heir," Sirius answered in kind. The two stared at each other for a long moment. "I think we've met before."
"We share an auntie," James said. "My uncle Charlus is married to your great-auntie Dorea. We're related somehow."
"I know," Sirius said, still eyeing the other boy. "Face it, we're related to nearly every pureblood, most of the half-bloods too. My parents are also cousins of some sort."
"You know you can't marry your cousin in the Muggle world," James responded. "I heard my father talking with Uncle Charlus about it." After a long pause, he continued. "Can we share a ride to Hogwarts?"
"The heir from what's considered the darkest house, riding to school with the heir of the lightest house? Sounds like the perfect prank?" Sirius enunciated in a perfect pureblood accent.
"You enjoy pranking?" James asked excitedly. "My father and uncle prank each other all the time."
"I love pranking," Sirius said with a glint in his eye. "The real trick with this prank is not getting caught."
"No one will care, we're just lowly first years."
"My stupid cousin and her fiancé are both prefects from Slytherin House. I know she'll come to check on me. Oh, and don't mention you're a Potter while they're here."
"I can do that," James said before putting his hand out to shake Sirius's. The other boy returned the action before they got about putting their trunks away. "Hey, where did you get that bruise on your cheek. My father packed some bruise paste in my bag, along with tons of other stuff. He's a potioneer, want to use some?" James was already digging through his rucksack for the tin.
"I er, I ran into a door," Sirius said.
"Why did you do that?"
"I didn't mean to, it just happened." Sirius accepted the tin as the door opened to reveal a lean, nervous boy with sandy coloured hair. "Can I share the compartment with you? Everywhere else is filled with giggling girls or upperclassmen."
"Sure, first year?" James asked and the boy nodded. "Us too. I'm James Potter and this is Sirius Black. We're not allowed to be friends because my family is light and his is dark but we're doing it anyway."
"Ok, I'm Remus Lupin," the boy said before lugging his trunk in.
"Sirius, are you okay?" Remus asked again this time, Sirius finally looked him in the eye.
"What? Oh, yeah, yeah, just thinking about the day I met James."
"Same day I met the two of you," Remus said. "I should have known you two were trouble right then and there."
"We did make life difficult for you."
"Especially when I was a prefect."
"Yeah, Mini probably thought you could control us," Sirius said with a cockeyed smile. The two were quiet for a while. Remus had a hard enough time calling Professor McGonagall by her first name. He never understood how he could call her Mini when they were in school, but Sirius did, and she never corrected him.
"How did you end up on that Muggle Street? Did you mean to kill all those people?" Remus finally asked.
"It wasn't me, I swear to you," Sirius said, pleading but looking so deranged Remus wasn't sure what to think. "I'd only been gone for a few minutes. Lily needed me to run out and get nappies. Just a pack of nappies. I came back and the door was blown off its hinges." Crookshanks came over and curled up in his lap. Sirius began stroking his fur, which calmed him a bit. "James was just inside; there was spell damage everywhere. His eyes were open and he was just staring up at the ceiling. Harry's little walker thing was in pieces and Lily's curio cabinet was destroyed. I stepped on one of Padfoot's toys and it squeaked, and I spun and fired on it before I knew; I blasted it apart.
"There was blood on the stairs and this awful smell, like sulphur and sage. I could smell the rat too – that weird sewage smell he picked up. When I got to the top of the stairs, the roof was gone over Harry's room and Lily…sweet Lily was on the floor and … Harry was screaming for his mother." Both men were in tears now. "When he saw me he lifted his arms up and he was saying my name, 'Sirwi'.
"I stepped over something black and grabbed Harry and then his nappy bag. I still had the nappies shrunk and in my pocket. I grabbed his luvey, and that rabbit he chewed on and was going to take him to my place. I didn't know where his little leather jacket was, so I wrapped him in a blanket. That's when Hagrid showed up. Remus, when I had Harry in my arms, I was thinking about what he needed, but Hagrid ripped Harry from me. Told me Dumbledore had to have him. That's when I just… I couldn't lose him too. I'd just lost my brother and sister and now they were taking my godson from me!" Words tumbled out of Sirius in a stream of consciousness that Remus could barely keep up with. Sirius stood and started pacing.
"I felt like when I was younger, when I knew the punishment was coming and there was nothing I could do to stop it and the fear welled up and… I just wanted Harry back. I don't remember telling Hagrid he could take my bike, but I must have. When I saw them fly away, the last bit of MY FAMILY being taken, I broke. I caught the rat's scent. He'd just left, the scent was that strong.
"After two days I finally caught up with him. He's the one who blew up the street. He's the one who killed all those Muggles. By the time the Aurors and Hit Wizards arrived I was lost in a world of grief and anger and confusion. I was in Azkaban for a full week before I realized it. Everyone I loved was taken. It took me a few more weeks to realize I wasn't going to get a trial, and no one was willing to speak for me.
"I prayed for death, but it never came. Every day I relived the horror that if I'd been quicker or waited a few minutes more before leaving, my family would still be alive." Sirius sat down with some force, flopping against the woodland floor, and used a tree as support. His energy was spent and now he was empty. "Now that you know the truth, do you hate me too? Are you going to turn me in?"
"No," Remus said. "No! Are you sure you never had a trial?"
"A trial is something I'd remember. I testified at enough. That cage they put people in while being interrogated is the thing of nightmares."
"Sirius, Minerva worked to get you out. She went every week and asked to see you and they wouldn't let her in. She's the only other person who thought the whole situation was strange. I did what I could, but with the werewolf registration, I had to be careful. Minerva went to the husband of your nice cousin, er, I forget her name."
"Andi. She's married to a barrister, Ted Tonks. He's Muggle-born, which is what got Andi thrown out of the family. Couldn't have happened to a better girl," Sirius said with a dark humour that always pervaded his conversations regarding the Black family. "Did you all really try to get me out?"
"We did, for a year but then something changed our minds," Remus said, closing his eyes as if he were trying to see the memory of the day the four of them were convinced that Sirius was guilty, and they should stop trying to help.
"Wait, I thought you thought I was a spy," Sirius said bluntly. "I know I didn't trust you, but I can't remember why. There were so many damned secrets."
"If no one knows the whole plan, then it's likely that the plan will succeed. That's what Dumbledore says," Remus said flatly.
"Yeah, that's what he said alright," Sirius answered. There was a niggling in his gut. "James and Lily had stopped trusting Dumbledore – was it his keeping secrets? James was analytical, and he couldn't be without all the information. So do you believe me?"
"Your story makes sense, especially since I know Peter comes and goes. Too bad Harry killed a basilisk last year. We could use it to flush Wormtail out," Remus said as a throw-away thought.
"Harry fought a basilisk?" Sirius said with shock. "Tell me everything."
"I'll tell you some, and then we need to come up with a plan."
