Chapter 47: People like you
John Dawlish didn't want to be here, didn't want to deal with a dementor attack, didn't want to have to help Sirius Damned Black of all people.
John, however, had volunteered himself to join the Auror Office sixteen years ago, and since then he'd accepted that at work, he didn't have the leisure to choose his clients, so to say.
Didn't mean he couldn't be irritable about it, though.
When Gulch carefully pushed the young – ah, young, his ass; Black didn't look like it, but he was barely four years younger than John, and he'd entered the Auror Training Program one whole year before the older wizard too – lord towards a bench, John clenched his teeth and kicked a colorful flower – that had no business looking so cheering – away.
There was nothing John could blame on Black here, and perhaps the dementors had simply taken a liking to the taste of his memories back in Azkaban, but that didn't change the rest of it all.
John knew people like Black – the cold aggressivity, the self-confidence, the will to make others suffer for their mistakes and failings – and maybe, maybe Black was really innocent, but he was also one of them.
That wasn't something John was willing to overlook.
The auror growled at nothing and decided to ignore Sirius Black for the time being. Gulch had decided to take care of that particular problem and she was welcome to it. John would go and take care of the perimeter with the hit wizard team and the patrollers who had come along instead. Make sure no one else had gotten caught by the dementors, see if they could get some witnesses to talk, check the wards – the Auror Office had been alerted, so they worked, but they should also have emitted a repulsive aura strong enough to prevent hazardous dementor intrusions.
...Unless, of course, it hadn't been hazardous.
John took a moment to touch base with the others who had been dispatched – the hit wizards would stand guard, the patrollers would check everything – before going right back on his tracks, looking for the flower.
When they'd gotten there, with Black keeping the dementors at a distance but unable to do more...
The flower had been right by the wizard's feet. It hadn't moved until the man himself had taken a few steps away, and there was a chilling breeze going around.
As if it had been stuck on Black, a perfect beacon.
John put on his safety gloves – rough and a size too big, but they did the job – and crouched to pick up the flower.
Round and yellow, it could pass as a non-magical species, but the orange teardrops weren't natural, if you looked at it closely. Something had been done to that flower – after Hogwarts, John had continued studying Herbology through the Academe for a few years, before he'd joined the Auror Training Program – and the way it shone...
The auror squinted and blew on the flower, revealing a glittering powder that had nothing to do with its petals. It floated in the air a tad too long, and John swiped out a vial and his wand to collect.
That was something for the unspeakables on duty at the Office of Answers, down in Level 10.
Not that John cared about what happened to Black down the line, but he'd still do his job, and he didn't fancy other people getting caught in the middle. If this was an attempt on the wizard's life – or soul, whatever – whoever had done this both had access to and was willing to use dementors.
These days, that meant Death Eater.
"What's that?"
The auror threw a glance at his colleague: Gulch was apparently done with Black, who had his eyes on the flower too.
...It had taken John four counterspells for his skin to turn back to its normal color, and he wasn't talking about the pink flowers where his hair should have been, last time he'd seen the asshole.
He was still convinced there was something wrong with that guy, with the very fact that he'd managed to overcome Azkaban, with his ability to bounce back – sharper, more dangerous – from every single horror thrown at him. Innocence was never enough to protect anyone from the dementors, no matter what Black had said during his trial.
Then again, you couldn't break what was already broken.
But. Gulch's question.
"It was sticking to him when we got there, and I can assure you this flower has been bred for a specific goal. The powder and the dots... I don't know what it is exactly, but considering what just happened... Can you ask him where the flower comes from?"
Pirene Gulch gave him an unimpressed look.
"Or you could ask him yourself. Like the senior auror you are, able to move past personal grudges."
John just took out a roll of evidence fabric and threw it over the flower – covering it with a twist and turn to seal the protection – without a word.
Gulch sounded exasperated:
"Dawlish, you need to work on your damn temper, and maybe on those weird fixations you've been having during the last years. Black's been cleared, you were damn rude when it happened, now move on and behave like a grown-up!"
John snorted – and went on waiting.
Gulch opened her mouth to speak once more, but it was Black's voice that rose first.
"Don't bother with that, Auror Gulch. Bitterish Dawlish over here had decided what he thought of me the moment we met, and I've dealt with that kind of attitude all my life. Always the same thing, it doesn't change: either I'm like all the blood extremists because of my name, or I'm lying and still like them. What I do doesn't matter, it's all lies anyway. I got into ATP to spy, I secretly think everyone else is beneath me, I'd rather see you all dead than as equals, there's always someth..."
John spat a "Nothing to do with your choices, Black!" that got the wizard to stop speaking – and John could only turn around and look at him, still sitting on his bench, a bit tired and pale.
And yet, still too sharp to be real.
Black, John found, was frowning at him – unconvinced, but also curious.
"...What's the matter, then, Dawlish?"
Gulch had her eyes on him, he noticed, watchful, ready to intervene and put a stop to whatever would come if needed. John wasn't surprised: he hadn't made a reputation of being easy-going, in the latest years. Irascible. Temperamental.
Half the time, the law wasn't enough – not against people like Black, regardless of that particular man's guilt or innocence. John felt justified in his anger.
"It's just, I know people like you. I know how you were raised, I know how you think, and I know how you would crush anyone you consider to be in the wrong. It doesn't matter that you don't believe in the same bullshit they do, you still have convictions, you'd still leave us all in the dust if you thought it justified, and because of who you are, there's nothing we can do to protect ourselves! There will always be enough money, enough clout to keep you free, at least until it's too late."
Gulch made a face, perhaps sensing where this was going:
"Dawlish..."
Black didn't seem to mind, though. His expression wasn't bitter and mocking anymore – a bit angry, perhaps, but it seemed he'd found something in John's words, and the auror didn't like the way the wizard pushed a hand through his hair, thinking.
As if he could understand. If there was one thing John knew, it was that people like Black couldn't understand the more mundane, less elite parts of the world. Even John's wife, sometimes...
But Philippa, her, would never behave like Black did.
"It didn't keep me free."
Gulch was looking at him as if to say he'd really done it, this time, but John, once again, ignored her. He knew what Black meant, but it was yet another proof that he didn't understand.
"And it was still too late! I was right behind you in ATP, you know. You joined in 1979, I did in 1980. When you went after Pettigrew, I was in phase three. I got called to the scene with Patricia Cole. It doesn't matter that you weren't the one to cast that spell, in the end, you still went in storming and twelve people died because you think your justice is as good as an entire tribunal!"
Black didn't look away – but there was something in his eyes that twisted and burned away.
"...I didn't go there to kill him, I went there because I thought something had happened to Peter."
John faltered a bit – thrown back to the trial, to what Sirius Black had forced down everyone's throat back then. He still had doubts, even with the truth potion, but...
The auror did believe that Black had spoken the truth, back then. Mostly. Perhaps edited for his needs, and even so John didn't like a lot of what he'd heard back then – the attitude, the lengths to which the man was willing to go – but he couldn't deny that, if anything, he understood Black's motivations.
The wizard had said something along those lines during the trial, too.
"I... I was angry at Peter, yes, and disappointed, but I didn't want to lose another friend just because someone like Bellatrix had gone and terrified him out of his mind. I wouldn't have..."
Black made a vague gesture, as if referring to a scene that wasn't here at all.
John chased away the memory of the gouged street, the mush of flesh and blood where people had been living individuals minutes before, the half-pulverized head with absent eyes that had fallen behind a deformed public bin – Black standing in the middle, a deranged laugh on his lips. Cole telling him to mind the perimeter and not get any closer.
"If that's true, why didn't Pettigrew try and convince you he hadn't done it on purpose, then? Why was his first instinct to fake his death and explode everything around him? You were his friend, you might have believed him, he could have continued his life, or at least waited for a less explosive way to disappear! But that's not what he did, and I don't know why he'd have done what he did if not because he knew you."
This time Black looked away – and John wondered, was that a remnant of the dementors' influence – and focused on the paved ground. His hands were pulled into first, white-knuckled.
"I have no idea. I don't get it, I don't get him, he wasn't like that before, he wanted... He wanted to help, he wanted to be a good person even if he couldn't be one of the greatest! Peter... Peter was a bit fearful, not the very best at a lot of things, and yes, he was aware of it enough to want to stay with people who could protect him, but... The worst days, I think it was all an act and I was simply blind, and I can't say anything else because otherwise I don't have an explanation! If anything..."
The wizard bit his upper lip, took a deep breath. Dug his pale fingers in his thighs through the fabric of his dark robes.
"He should have known I'd have dragged whoever was breathing down his neck in a pit if needed. That we would have protected him, again, if only he'd said something! That all he had to do was ask, and I'd have ripped them open if there was no other solution!"
...That much John could believe. Still.
"Doesn't change the fact that twelve muggles died when you barged in."
If he sounded a bit spiteful, well. Supposing Black was truly being honest, it was primarily Pettigrew's fault – yet John couldn't help but think that it had all gone so wrong because of Black's very nature.
Perhaps Pettigrew had been too afraid of his own friend, in the end, to even consider anything else.
"...I'm not saying I didn't muck it up back then. Or that I wouldn't have cursed him anyway, once I understood what had been going on, once I was certain of what he'd done. I'm just saying..."
Black sighed and tried to relax – with mild results, his hands still twitching with tension.
"I wouldn't have gone for a lethal curse, I'd rather have dragged him to face what he'd done, to tell Remus and his own parents his faults, to wallow in Azkaban for a few years, perhaps. It would have hurt, yes, and at that point the only thing that mattered was that he'd deserved it, but even so... I didn't go there to try and obliterate Peter, he was the one who chose to run away from his mistakes."
Something dark flittered across Black's face, and John shivered.
"...And he did even worse since..."
The auror shook his head – didn't ask, he'd read that article written by Skitter on Harry Potter's behalf, he knew what they claimed had happened at the end of the Triwizard Tournament. Everyone at the Auror Office had, if only because Fudge had wanted them to know exactly how far his detractors would go.
At the time, John hadn't believed it either: after all, the Minister himself wouldn't go around endangering the entire community by lying about something like that, and it made sense for a traumatized teenager to try and make up an explanation for whatever had happened with Cedric Diggory. If anything, Albus Dumbledore's support had been the only point that had him doubting – yet John could have believed, not that the old headmaster would want the Ministry for himself, but that he'd grown dissatified with Cornelius Fudge's tenure and was pushing for a new vote.
It did sound contrived, now that the auror thought about it with a clearer head, but it wasn't like Fudge had only ever had defenders.
But back on tracks:
"My point, Black, is that people like you have their own definition of what they get to decide for everyone else. The obscenely rich and the extraordinary minds and the powerful figures alike, they all think they know better, that the only ones who disagree with them are the ones in the wrong, and you are all three of those people! People like me, like us..."
John's arm shot out towards the rest of the street – and, specifically, at his colleague, who, for once, didn't contradict him in any way – on those words.
"...We don't have an age-old family name or fortune, we are good at what we do but not enough to be considered experts or exceptional masters, and if we make the mistake of disagreeing with someone like you..."
The auror scoffed, a bit put off by his own words. He hadn't expected to dwell on that when he'd gone to work this morning, but...
"I don't think you realize, Black. Your family might be a prime example of what purebloods tend to degrade into, and you have your own share of unpleasant relatives, but at least they cared when you disagreed with them, at least it mattered. Me? I'm no one, a halfblood of no importance who can easily be dismissed if I dare speak up out of turn. What I want or think only matters as long as it follows you people's priorities. My wife and her uncle and aunt do listen to what I say, but the rest of them? My father-in-law would have seen me killed if he'd still been alive when I married his daughter, if I had even gotten as far as that! I saw...!"
John had to stop, to breathe.
Black's – or rather, Pettigrew's – disaster after He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's disappearance hadn't been the only horror from John's time in auror training, far from it. He'd joined, after all, at the very height of the war – because it had been the war, because he hadn't felt that herbology was helping enough, because his aunt's husband was still suffering from what Abraxas Malfoy had done to get him out of office – and had only finished ATP in 1983, when they were still picking up the pieces.
And John's family-in-law, all things considered, had been right in the middle of it all.
"I saw my damn brother-in-law take a chunk off Mad-Eye's nose when we tried to get him to come quietly, and after that he was no more than a corpse, all that because he'd chosen to follow that... that...! And it's not even the worst of it, because the asshole didn't just die, he also left a pregnant, muggleborn wife behind, and I had to tell Diana how he'd died! For what exactly he died!"
John wasn't even looking at Black anymore. There was so much he could tell, so many times he'd been disappointed, so many evenings he'd had to comfort Philippa, so many days they'd seen Diana and Cleo without the girl's father. Trials during which he'd recognized a name, meals he'd spent wondering how to tell his wife what he'd learned before the newspapers did.
So many opportunities for a relative of Philippa to make it clear how much they didn't care about what John Dawlish, little halfblood with no history or power behind him, could think of them.
The auror shook his head.
"The other, younger brother... He's not as bad, doesn't care that much about blood, but he still has that look about him, of arrogance and superiority. Felix wouldn't kill or purposely destroy someone of lesser birth, but he still... And her cousins! You know them all, too, and most of them aren't any better. At best, judging, and at worst..."
Gulch put a hand on his arm.
"Dawlish, come on. Don't do this to yourself, it's not your fault and it isn't Black's either."
But John just shook her off. It was too late, he'd started on that road and now... He'd already let Black see, the other man knew his weaknesses now – it might as well be worth something.
"After you got carted to Azkaban... Malfoy had a sob story about the imperius, and Crouch interrogated him, but at first he was convinced enough to let the damn liar go. Maybe it was because Crouch's wife was Malfoy's aunt and Crouch was weak to her opinions, I don't know, but he only changed his mind when his own son turned out a Death Eater too, and by then it was too late: Crouch lost his place at the head of the DMLE in less than a month, and Malfoy had been financing a blasted booth for victims of the imperius 'just like him' to come forward and talk to aurors about what they thought they might have done without fearing legal repercussions for half a year already so no one wanted to accuse him of anything again."
Sirius, who had been listening attentively – the father-in-law, the brothers, the cousins, Crouch and Malfoy, he had an idea where this was going, and now that he was thinking about it, if it was that 'Dawlish'... – let the auror continue.
It was better than dwelling on Peter once more, and it told him a lot about Dawlish himself.
The wizard was still very opinionated, and Sirius didn't regret hexing him after his trial, but at least now he knew where the animosity came from. Which also meant he might navigate their conversations better, should it come to it.
John Dawlish, to put it simply, was a garden-variety British wizard who had a door open on higher grounds through his marriage and had suffered because of it.
The auror, of course, wasn't done – he had, after all, not yet gone through all of his wife's cousins.
"Marden... That guy is a goddamn brute, calls himself better than everyone but is barely fit for society. I'm not surprised to hear he's a Death Eater too. As for Crouch Jr and Bellatrix, you don't need a picture, do you, Black?"
Sirius could only pinch his lips – damn, he hadn't realized how busy the older Malfoy brood had gotten during the last war, but it was true that Abraxas Malfoy and Armand's father had five sisters, all married, which meant cousins... three of whom happened to be Death Eaters – and helpfully add:
"If it makes you feel better, I had an encounter with Marden Burke during the summer, and he didn't leave in a very good state. If he didn't get immediate medical attention, it might be some time before he walks again."
Dawlish blinked at him, abruptly dragged out of his tirade – which had likely reached an end, anyway. The man didn't seem exactly pleased to hear about that, but at least he wasn't accusing him of anything horrible. Sirius and Eleanor had done the responsible thing, after that day in August, and had told Kingsley about the incident. The Auror Office should know about it, then – but maybe not Dawlish and Gulch in particular.
The auror grumbled a low "still doing whatever he wants" under his breath but didn't push.
Sirius waited a moment – still no accusations. Well, in that case:
"You're married to Philippa, aren't you?"
Dawlish threw him a suspicious look but nodded.
The father and brother-in-law were Anthems and Evan Rosier, the muggleborn widow Diana Exeter – well, Rosier – and Philippa's mother was a Malfoy by Blood, so, cousin with Lucius, Armand, Marden Burke, Typhon and Cadence Barnes, as well Bartemius Crouch Jr. On the other side, Sonata, Bellatrix, Andromeda and Narcissa.
Dawlish was to the Rosiers, in the end, what Ted Tonks was to the Blacks – except he wasn't a muggleborn, and thus he and Philippa hadn't been cast out of the family. Still, Sirius didn't doubt he'd faced rebuke from some of the family members. Not all of them, but enough.
Add to that how a lot of purebloods accused of being Death Eaters had side-stepped Azkaban with a good name and some gold, maybe it wasn't very surprising for John Dawlish to have grown bitter.
Dawlish looked reluctant when he finished:
"I... Philippa doesn't care about all that. But even so, sometimes she just... She doesn't do it on purpose, but there are also times she just doesn't understand. It's hard enough for her that we don't have as much as she was used to and that half her family is dismissive of our marriage and sometimes of our son, and she's trying, and most of the time it's not a problem, but sometimes..."
...Yeah, Sirius wasn't going to comment on that.
"It probably doesn't help, having Evan Rosier as a brother-in-law. However long that lasted."
If there was one person who had been clear about their stance on blood purity back in school, it was Evan Rosier. Of course, he hadn't been going around flaunting that he was a blood extremist, for that you had to actually listen to what he used to say – but a blood snob, definitely. Just as bad as Narcissa, even when he was four years younger.
Dawlish, from what Sirius knew, was not an old name in any way, not even as a halfblooded family. A pureblooded great-grandmother who had married a muggle man sometime in the... late 1880s'? And then several weddings to more muggles and halfbloods – the only remarkable individual in John Dawlish's close family tree was Nobby Leach, the first and only muggleborn Minister for Magic, married to Emma Dawlish.
Not exactly what you'd want to boast about around blood snobs – unless you were trying to get a rise out of them, but not everyone was Sirius, so.
The auror grunted and took out his report book to jot down something.
"That asshole wasn't even my brother-in-law yet and he'd always say things about how Philippa deserved the best, even though he couldn't care enough to come and wish her a happy birthday three years in a row! And of course, I knew exactly what he meant by that, that I wasn't good enough, that my whole family wasn't good enough and he barely tolerated me because our children would still count as purebloods even if I wasn't one."
Dawlish shut the report book closed and tucked it back inside his robes.
"And all that time he was married to a muggleborn and keeping it a secret from all his little purist friends! As if that made any sense! What did he think would happen, that..."
Nothing more followed, but Sirius and Gulch shared a look, all too aware of what was implied here.
The wizard glared at both of them.
"No matter what you do, Black, that's what you were raised to be. And maybe you walked out of it, good for you, but there are still traces of it everywhere on you. You would still crush anyone in your way, if you thought it necessary, and that... That I can't agree with."
The auror was, fundamentally, right, so Sirius didn't try and change his mind there. It wasn't about their ideals, then – just about the ways to get there and the legitimacy of their justification. If there was one thing Sirius knew, it was that you couldn't expect people to put your beliefs before their own – you could only try and find common ground, agree to ignore each other... or fight it out.
It didn't matter if you thought your beliefs more obviously right, because the people on the other side thought exactly the same.
That said, Sirius still found that Dawlish could be a prick, no matter the reason – and thus he'd respond in kind, should an argument happen again.
Which brought him back to the beginning of this one: the blue package that hid the yellow and orange flower from sight and degradation.
"There was a colder breeze, before the dementors arrived, or maybe they were getting there and that's why the wind grew colder... What I mean is, that flower caught against my ankles at that moment, and then I could really feel their presence. I did think there was something wrong with the flower, but... I didn't have the time to think about it more."
Dawlish made a face but nodded – then he pointedly looked Sirius in the eyes:
"I still think there's something wrong with you, Black. With how you deal and speak and live. With the choices you make. I'm not saying they are always wrong, I don't know that, but normal people don't do the shit you do. Mostly because they can't, not when it's the wrong thing to do, and not when it's the right thing to do, either. Between that and the rest of it... I can't trust you."
Sirius let out a slow whistle and rose from the bench, relieved: if that was the problem...
"Not an issue for me, Dawlish, as long as you don't get in my face about it when I haven't actually done anything. I don't need everyone to love or approve of me, and you aren't wrong. I'm not quite... right, not by the standard of good and normal people, at least. Can't really do anything about it, either, except make sure other people don't suffer from it, but that... Well. No one is immune to hurting others, right or wrong."
They wouldn't get along, the two of them, but they could tolerate each other, if Sirius made the effort of avoiding triggers – which he did anyway, unless he had a reason not to or no awareness of them – and Dawlish refrained from being openly aggressive at the slightest doubt.
Sirius could deal with hostility – only, he drew the line at baseless accusations and menaces.
"So... Unless you have more need for me...?"
Gulch shook her head.
"As long as you told us everything you noticed, not really. We know where to reach you, and who to call if you don't answer. We are going to look into this, in between a murder and a disappearance. Try to find out if you were the real target. Usually I'd ask if you want a Will Billy, but these days..."
The witch trailed off, and Sirius winced in sympathy.
Bill Williamson had had the dubious honor of earning himself a protective detail for six entire weeks in 1842, after his neighbor had accidentally let a crimsomen loose, which had promptly targetted the wettest individual in the area. Will Billy had sworn off baths for an entire decade after that incident, which was the other reason the wizard's name was known throughout the entire country. Before Will Billy, there hadn't been an official procedure for long-term protection.
"You guys don't have enough people as it is, and I don't want more shadows anyway. I remember how it was, back during the first war."
Patrollers ambushed and aurors hurt in skirmishes, magestivators overworked with more and more petty crimes done in the shadows of bigger problems. Hit wizards on leave after a major injury. People who retired early, exhausted and wrung out and sometimes unsure of what they had done or said to whom after a bad curse. Some, dead. Others compromised.
And always more incidents, thefts, agressions, murders, terror attacks to deal with. Security to ensure in a losing battle. Civilians who escaped a public attempt on their lives only to go home and not come back out.
Dawlish snorted with something that was half a smirk and half a grimace.
"Might be more efficient to let you deal with whoever is trying to get you, anyway. It'd save us the effort, especially if you'd only be sneaking out behind our back."
The auror's eyes tightened as he took in the street once again.
"...As long as there aren't any dementors involved, I guess."
Sirius' mood darkened a bit.
"I'll need to look into that, yes. I'm... not at my best against them, not like I used to be."
"What do you think you could do about dementors creeping in your head that you don't already, exactly? I didn't forget what you said about that journalist, you know. You might not be afraid, but you are vulnerable and it shows! I mean, yes, you can still defend yourself better than the average citizen, but if there's also someone behind this all, the dementors only have to incapacitate you."
Sirius checked he still had his purchases from Sticks and Stones as he answered distractedly:
"Which is why I said I'd look into it. I don't know yet what to do, but I will try."
For a moment, Dawlish looked like he would ask more – but the auror thought better of it, scowling that he didn't want to know as long as it didn't involve anything illegal. Gulch threw him a look.
"Anyway. Be careful, and if anything happens again, at least tell Tonks or Kingsley."
Before a painful silence of non-acknowledgment of what exactly the witch meant could settle, someone walked past the hit wizards' perimeter and joined them.
"Pick-up time, Black."
Sirius took a second to recognize the frizz that escaped a brown knitted hat – but, yes, there were additional laugh lines and a slight roundness to the jaw that hadn't been there before, but he knew that face, especially above the black-and-gingerbread winter uniform worn by hit wizards.
"Harker? What... And what do you mean, pick-up time?"
The hit witch shrugged, unwilling to take her hands out of her pockets with the cold air.
"Dawlish used his record book to ask if one of your friends could come and check up on you, but your cousin is on her day off, doing things which I don't doubt are not so far from what she does while on duty, and Shacklebolt is still assigned to the muggle Prime Minister. So the record keeper crossed into hit wizard territory and came to find me instead, just as I was finishing my shift."
Sirius hesitated.
Holly Harker had aged, since the last time he'd seen her. Wider hips, he wondered if she'd had children – the Daily Prophet didn't care much about muggleborns' weddings if they weren't marrying someone well-known, so he'd had no way to find out – and an assured presence in her uniform. She filled the reinforced waist in a way she hadn't yet back then. More of a strength that couldn't be moved against its will than the energic young – well, older than them, but young – witch she had been when Sirius and James had entered the Auror Training Program. Sturdier.
"...So. Are we, then? Friends?"
It was a reasonable question to ask, after everything.
Harker only gave him a long look that didn't tell much.
"It depends."
Gulch and Dawlish, Sirius noticed, were leaving without saying goodbye. Probably evading whatever this might turn into – and, for Dawlish, escaping an explanation of why exactly he'd called for a babysitter.
"...Depends on what?"
Harker shook her head, buried in her scarf. Sirius didn't recall her minding the cold so much.
"On you, mostly. If you don't mind that I did have doubts, after everything. If you'd follow me for a drink at The Vigilant in order to find out if we can move past the last fifteen years without James. If you still care about a work colleague you were just close enough to ostracize when you started getting a bit paranoid."
"...I didn't treat you any differently."
Harker – Holly, if she still wanted to call him a friend – Holly didn't seem to mind his answer, even if she didn't look entirely convinced.
"You were getting snappish, but not only with me. For the rest, though: The Vigilant."
The hit witch waited patiently for Sirius to agree – and then she took the lead to a thin building a few storefronts down, stuck between the So Long detective agency and a – closed – craft store.
The Vigilant was a favorite for tired ministry employees, in a tie with a mixed muggle-wizarding establishment near the Ministry itself. Sirius himself had gone to both pubs a few times during ATP, with James and some other youngsters working for various divisions of the DMLE – Holly Harker, hit witch extraordinaire, included. It hadn't been his favorite way to spend an evening, but he still had good memories of those times.
They sat at the same table they used to, and Sirius asked for the same sprite water he'd order when the others were still on butterbeer or already on actual alcoholic drinks. Holly, on the other hand, ordered a tea – she used to go for firewhisky, back then.
The woman only spoke up once they both had their drinks.
"To be honest, I understand what you mean when you say you didn't treat me or the others any differently. You weren't hostile or openly suspicious of everything. A bit tense, but considering how we all knew you weren't sleeping, no one was really surprised. We all... explained it away."
Holly took a deep breath and continued.
"We weren't even wrong. Now I can say that. You weren't keeping your true nature to yourself while plotting to murder us in our sleep. But, when everything went down... When James died and you didn't say anything to defend yourself, when people started asking questions... I realized all the things you'd stopped telling us."
"Such as...?"
Sirius had always kept some things to himself, even before they'd found out there was a mole in the Order of the Phoenix, even before he'd had to doubt, not only strangers, but his friends too.
James, Lily, Remus and Peter... They'd all found out about the Order because Sirius had caught Mad-Eye's attention – that story with Adrian Nott, which he still thought had turned for the better – but he'd never told them how it had happened exactly. Not his secret to tell, not with the risks behind such an admission, really. Only Moody and Dumbledore knew what had truly happened to the older Nott heir and it was better that way.
It was obvious that he hadn't gone around telling everyone about what he did for the Order of the Phoenix while off-duty, either. He'd always kept his mouth shut at work, so he didn't quite understand what Holly meant here.
The witch smiled slightly – just a ghost of a smile, a painful subject, perhaps, but not something she feared bringing up.
"They wondered about Amara, when everyone started believing you were a Death Eater."
Sirius' hand shook around his sprite water. A few droplets splashed on the table, fizzling.
He forced a smile on his face, but he had no motivation to make it believable – not after that kick in the teeth. It was obvious why Holly's smile hadn't been quite open, now.
Amara Litz had been Sirius' girlfriend in the last months of 1979. She'd also been muggleborn, and from what he knew, no one in Great Britain had seen her since.
He could understand why some people might have thought...
"Amara... She sent me a letter, just before leaving her job and everything else... She said she didn't want to live in a country and a society where she risked being murdered just for existing. That her family had already tried that in Germany during the muggle war and she refused to put her parents through it again. She... just, left. Like that."
Sirius had understood – he still did – of course, but he couldn't pretend it hadn't hurt.
Amara hadn't owed him her safety, and Sirius wouldn't have been enough to make her feel safe, it didn't work like that. They had only been dating for about four months, at that, seeing each other during their spare time – which Sirius didn't have much of – and occasionally spending the night: it wasn't like she'd walked out on a husband or a family member.
He thought he might have told Holly and the other young recruits at work, briefly. Not much. Just that she'd left and he didn't want to talk about it.
Except he was a pureblood and her a muggleborn, and no one had seen Amara Litz after that.
"Please believe me, Holly."
The witch only nodded.
"I don't have to. We know she'd moved to Germany with the rest of her family, she still had relatives there, distant cousins. She's... Well, she got married and they started an optician business, Litzbrille Opticianry, that is very successful on both the muggle and the wizarding side. The Auror Office eventually heard of it, and I think Moody went to confirm what had happened with you himself?"
Holly trailed off, shook her head and refocused.
"What I mean is, Sirius. You barely told me about Amara, back then. You could have broken up like any other couple, or she might have been in an accident, or... I only knew you weren't together anymore five weeks later, because I'd wondered out loud why you weren't talking about her."
"I..."
"I'm not saying you should have or that I'm angry with you. Only that, in those circumstances, doubting the rest of what you told us was easy, and I don't really want to go through that again if I can help it. I mean, I don't think you being framed a second time would sound credible, after the last one literally exploded in everyone's face, but I hope... If we're trying this again, I hope you'll be a bit more discerning of what you should keep a secret and what you can actually share with me."
It was, too, what had damned him the first time around, wasn't it? Not telling anyone about the switch, not even the few people he both trusted and couldn't doubt because of their circumstances.
"...I can try that."
Holly waited a second before she nodded, a small smile on her lips – genuine, this time.
"I got married too, you know. Two daughters, Honoria and Hannah. The oldest will be of Hogwarts age next year. And I still go by Harker at work, but McGonagall is also an option."
That had Sirius stare at his old colleague in disbelief.
"...No. Wait, which one of our head of House's nephews? Bradley seems a bit old for you, I mean, not that much, but considering Randolph is your age... And weren't you doing that whole side-eye thing with Amelia Bones, back then? What happened to that?"
Holly laughed.
"Amelia is still a good friend, but she's also married to her job. Nothing happened, in the end. And it's Randolph, but come on, Bradley is only five years older than me. You are the one frolicking with a girl six years younger, if the rumors have it right."
Sirius opened his mouth to retort that he and Eleanor had only gotten together recently – and yes, he was almost thirty-seven, but she was getting closer to thirty-one – it wasn't the same as having a ten-years-old kid at home. It was time to catch up.