Sorry for the lateness of this chapter. School and work obligations did a wonder on my schedule (read: wrecked it) over the weekend, and I was left with a limited amount of time to work on stories.

In spite of this, I hope that you find this chapter enjoyable. I will admit that I am still exploring the world of Harry Potter, and while I do know where the story is headed, I have yet to fully configure how it is that I'll go about getting there.

So I hope that you will explore with me, and have some fun hanging around with these characters. Even when it seems like they aren't going anywhere, they have a way of making things…complicated.

One.

A day later, Sirius Black left the Burrow with his godson in tow, and Remus Lupin left with him. Dumbledore had returned a few hours previous, announcing that he had put his best effort forward into finding Peter, though he was typically vague as to what that actually meant.

"I should be searching as well," Remus had said. Sirius had been inclined to say the same thing, but the bundle in his arms reminded him that he had more…pressing work to do. No matter what theory he bent his mind to picking apart, Sirius couldn't justify putting Harry into danger, nor leaving him in the care of anyone else. After his performance at Privet Drive, it would have been the height of hypocrisy to ask Molly and Arthur to watch the boy while Sirius went off to risk his neck.

"I would like you, Remus, to help Sirius and Harry," Dumbledore had replied. "Owing to your, ah, history, you are the best suited among us to keep them out of the limelight, so to speak. We need to ensure that Harry stays out of the reach of whatever Death Eaters may remain. We cannot assume that they all were under Voldemort's control. As sad and…accusatory as it might be, we must move forward with the belief that at least some of them acted of their own accord."

And so now they walked, side by side in Diagon Alley, seeking out whatever it was that they might need for the…journey. Sirius had already stopped at Gringott's to pick up some gold; it was a marvel to realize that—after years of living essentially penniless—there was actually enough money in his old vault that this freak-show family he seemed to be building could not only live on it, but live comfortably. Of course, the problem was that there wasn't going to be many chances to do that. The whole idea was to stay as out of sight as possible.

Remus looked entirely too nervous to be out in daylight again; he was used to traveling at night, in the middle of nowhere. He preferred forests and mountains more than anything even remotely urban; it was safer that way, for him and for…everyone else. Sirius kept having to tell him to calm down before he actually attracted attention to himself.

It didn't really work.

It was at some point during the mid-afternoon that Sirius had one of those…sparks of intuition again. Though he didn't know at the time what they signified, he would notice later that they always seemed to show up at pivotal moments, or at least pertain to pivotal things.

Not that this seemed particularly pivotal, but what could you do?

It was thanks to this peculiar fit of impulse that Sirius entered Quality Quidditch Supplies and bought a miniature broomstick for Harry; he recalled for no reason in particular that he'd gotten one as a gift for the child before, but it—unlike its owner—hadn't had the good fortune to survive the first night of November. Remus, who had taken up the arduous task of holding Harry (by virtue of his incessant wriggling, it was clear that he was no fonder of the arrangement) when Sirius had suddenly decided to do a bit of shopping, raised a quizzical eyebrow. "Dare I ask what was so critical about a toy?"

"Trust me," was all Sirius could think to say. "It'll be important."

The quizzical look didn't abate. "…Fair enough, Padfoot. Fair enough. I didn't realize that you were a latent seer."

"I've been called stranger things. Call it my animal instinct if it makes you feel better." He winked. But in the back of his mind, Sirius wondered if it was a hint of fortune-telling that seemed to be taking over his choices lately. He'd never put much stock in divination, had never even considered taking it at school, and couldn't recall ever having been struck by it before.

Yet now, it felt like every other day, some part of him was insisting that he do a certain thing, or speak a certain way, or approach a certain person. He tried to think of anything he may have heard about when a seer's "inner eye" first opened; was it around his own age? But eventually he decided that it was no use. He didn't know a damn thing about it.

Perhaps that was why he was gravitated toward Flourish and Blotts, even though he hadn't darkened its doorstep since he'd picked up his seventh-year textbooks. Remus said nothing in particular; though there was surprise clearly written on his face, there was also keen interest.

"Good afternoon, sirs!" proclaimed the manager as they entered. "Is there anything I can help you find today?"

Sirius waved a dismissive hand. Remus said, "Ah, yes. I'm looking to brush up on potion-brewing. I've never been particularly good at it, you see, and I was hoping…" And so on.

Sirius began strolling aimlessly through the shop, eyes flitting here and there across any number of spines and covers, hoping that this newfound sense might guide him toward…something. Of course, the problem with a skill like seeing, or intuition or instinct or whatever you wanted to call it was that it rarely (that was, never) worked on demand. So here he was, wandering through a bookstore—when he'd never been particularly interested in books past their use as kindling—feeling like a great damn fool.

Until he saw it, hidden in a dark corner: not with any books on divination or fortune-telling, but in the middle of a random display of secondhand volumes of all sorts. It sat atop a chewed-and-blackened tome about caring for magical creatures from Northern Ireland—a nondescript little book, leather-bound but without any kind of picture plastered on the front.

All the same, Sirius felt himself drawn to it.

He picked up the slim volume, which had no title on the cover or the spine, and opened it. On the title page opposite a conspicuously stationary frontispiece of a bird perched on a dead tree, these words were printed laboriously in faded ink, clearly handwritten:

A Mind's Last Defense

Karlin F. Labeau

"Find everything all right?"

The voice came clear out of nowhere, and Sirius flinched violently. He turned, saw the manager smiling cheekily at him, and said, "Ah…yeah. Sure. Ring it up, barkeep."

This earned him a decidedly strange look, and Sirius blinked. He handed the book to the manager, who evidently decided that a sale was worth whatever social oddities he might have to put up with, and the smile returned with gusto. "Absolutely, sir! Is there anything else you might need?"

"…Any guides on parenting?" the last Black asked blankly.

"Your friend already covered that base for you, sir."

"Oh. Good. Always was a quick thinker, that one. I guess that's it, then."

The manager was nodding, and Sirius had an odd feeling that the man wanted him and his…friend…out of the shop as quickly as humanly possible. Though his haste wasn't quite to the level of rude, and certainly not to the level of refusing to take their money, it was fast approaching that point. The thought crossed Sirius's mind that if he was noticing this, in his thoroughly befuddled state, then Remus would have sensed it long before now and was probably gnawing off his fingernails in torturous anticipation.

Sirius decided to just pay for his book and leave.

Two.

Sequestered in a cramped room in the Hog's Head, Sirius studied the book he'd gotten. Remus was on the floor, huddled in a corner near the door. "You do know what it means to hide, don't you, Sirius?" the young werewolf asked sardonically. "The idea is to not be where we've already been seen."

"Calm down," Sirius muttered, not really paying attention as he rifled through pages. "Nobody will believe we're this brazen. Defy expectations, Moony. That's the whole idea. The last place they'll figure to find us is right here in the open. So that's where we'll hide."

"You're quite enamored of your own brilliance, aren't you?" Remus asked, not sounding complimentary in the slightest. He glanced at Harry, who was zooming round in tiny circles on the limited floor space. A smile crossed his weathered face. "Your godfather has an overly-large head. Did you know that, Harry?"

Harry, too busy laughing, didn't seem to hear.

Sirius smirked, although again he looked as though he wasn't paying any particular amount of attention. "A Mind's Last Defense" was the oddest book he had ever seen in the wizarding world, if for no better reason than it bore no particular indication that it had been written by a wizard; it would have fit right into a Muggle library without raising any suspicions.

No moving pictures, no references to spells or magic or magical creatures or anything that pointed to it actually belongingin Diagon Alley. Whomever this Karlin Labeau character was, he (or, indeed, she; Sirius realized he didn't honestly know) hadn't been interested in writing for a magically-inclined audience.

What is time? asked the first line of the first chapter. What is experience? What, indeed, is perception? We human beings, so proud of our intellectual prowess, cannot answer these questions. Not past their rudimentary, circular selves. Time is the erosion of existence, the great enemy of life. But what is life? Is it experience? What of the plant, which has no awareness of self? Can a thing that has no understanding of itself truly experience anything?

"Whoever wrote this didn't get much sunlight," Sirius muttered.

"Where did you find that?" Remus asked as he reached over and picked up one of the small stack of volumes he had purchased from the bookstore. "It looks old enough to have gained sentience."

"Used section," Sirius replied. "I'm not sure what this was used for. Suppose it would have made a good doorstop." He lifted the flimsy little book gingerly and shook it around. "Or not. This name sound familiar to you? You were always haunting the library at school. Karlin F. Labeau."

"No," Remus answered promptly. Harry went whooshing past him and very nearly careened into the door, sounding absolutely delighted to have discovered how to move in a straight line. Semi-straight line. "What's the subject?"

"That's the thing," Sirius said. "I haven't the faintest."

"Nothing for it, then. It looks like you'll have to read it. I know it sounds blasphemous." Remus held up his hands, Advanced Potions Made Simple lying on his lap. "But you'll just have to make the sacrifice."

"Ngh," Sirius grunted.

Remus chuckled.

The world is finite. But the space into which the world has been placed is infinite. The human mind has no understanding of what this truly means, and therein lies the great mystery of the universe: what does it mean, to understand the limitless? What could we do, what could we accomplish, if we could but train ourselves to comprehend the incomprehensible?

"The great mystery of the universe," Sirius mumbled to himself.

Remus was flipping through pages, searching the index of his own book. "I agree," he muttered. "What's the point of a potion recipe that requires a rune dictionary to decipher? Are these characters even part of an alphabet?"

If time is truly a human construct, and I have no reason to believe that it is not, then what stops us from reversing our perception of it? If a man without food or money finds that his wife is pregnant, he has no recourse but to despair, for he has yet another mouth to feed. But if a man desperate for an heir to his fortune discovers the same thing, he rejoices. What has changed? Mere circumstance and perception. Why is the same not possible with time? Why can the circumstances and perception that mark the passage of time not be similarly flipped on a head? Sheer impossibility? A man who has lived his entire life in the desert would think the same of a flood. We humans must expand ourselves, reach beyond the limits of our comforts and fears, and grasp that which lies beyond.

After a handful of pages running together like this into a jumbled mess of crackpot theories and hypotheses, Sirius set Labeau's manifesto aside and scowled, leaning forward and dangling his hands between his knees. "Have you ever been searching for something, and found the answer? Except that when you found the answer, you realized it made no bloody sense?"

Remus, who now had one book in his lap, a second balanced on one knee, a third in his right hand and a sheet of parchment in his left, looked up at his friend with a kind of exquisite fury. "…Yes."

Harry continued to zip around the room, oblivious.