Sirius held onto Harry tightly, pressing his mouth against his shoulder in an effort to muffle his cries. He'd been dug out of that hole shouting for Lily, barely making sense between screams and panting for air - and he shouted back at Harry, trying to calm him down, and held him tight as some of the witches helped lift him up by the linens he had wrapped himself in, and held him like he hadn't held him since he was that young baby boy that was named his godson all those years ago, crying and spitting and babbling as his groomed beard was scratching his full cheek.
Now, Sirius was holding onto his godson tightly as he squirmed and screamed in his robes as he was pulled out of the hole, and he wrapped an arm around his knees, lifting him fully as he kept asking Harry what had happened.
Footsteps followed him from all sides, yet Sirius did not bother with them, focusing his entire attention on Harry as pails of water started to be levitated towards the site of the ritual. He did not look back towards the circle, or the witches who had finished, all exhausted from the hours of ritual, who were surely thankful for the water to wash themselves, especially those that helped dig for and then lift Harry. Yet Sirius did not bother with the grime, dirt and soot covering either of them. He knew that he had barely seen Harry at all, but he had never seen his godson in such a state, in a crazed and frenzied state that reminded him of himself in his first days out of Azkaban.
"Give him a Sleeping Draught." Matthias declared, barely keeping up with Sirius's quick gait as they evaded the circle of the ritual. Sirius grumbled an unintelligible response, unintelligible even for himself, as his head felt as if it were in twelve places at once, thoughts racing through his head as he cursed himself for allowing Harry to do the ritual alone.
Yet by the end of the day, with Harry still in a state of frenzy, he finally agreed to it, and flicked his wand to immobilise him and be able to pour the draught down his throat without being fought against.
Nothing that Harry was frantically blabbing about made the least bit of sense, as if he were speaking a foreign language, his words mixing and pushing into each other. As his breathing finally settled, Sirius sat at the end of the bed and released him the spell that immobilised him. At least he could now allow himself to think for a while, while sitting next to a calm and peaceful sleeping Harry, as opposed to fighting to understand him.
What had he done?
"I've ruined him. I've finally driven him mad."
"Give it time. Give the boy time." Matthias responded from a corner of the small hut in which Sirius and Harry had taken residence. "These things are complicated, they take time."
Pissed to no end at the complications of rituals that he could still not make head or tail of, rituals that no witch or wizard alive seemed to be able to, Sirius got up from the far end of Harry's bed, and threw his arms in the air, trying his best to keep his hand away from his wand. He was afraid of what he would do - not to Harry, but to the old man.
"How will time fix Harry? You've seen him!"
This time, Matthias had no answer or word of advice, and he let his head fall onto his cane. Taking a deep breath, Sirius paced around the room, before taking Hedda's journal out. This was not supposed to happen. There were no instructions this time. There was not anyone who knew anything else, anything more.
"Let me repeat the ritual." Sirius finally said. "I'll do it myself this time, as it was always supposed to happen. We'll keep Harry under the Sleeping Draught the whole time, if needs be. How long until we can reassemble everything?"
Matthias pondered on the matter for a long time, before raising his head towards Sirius.
"You know the longest part, son. Collecting enough fresh tincture of bear sweat takes at least a good few days between five wizards. Even if we can handle it all on our side… A week, at least."
"I don't have a week." Sirius responded in a snarl, despite knowing all too well that such matters cannot be rushed. He shook his head, and continued pacing around the room, still shuffling through the journal. "Let me think. Let me think."
The old man nodded to himself, his grey curls bouncing lazily as he put his chin back against his cane.
"Back in the day, it took them only three days. That was everything they did… how unfortunate, what became of them. Bone and dust, the lot of them." Matthias lamented, more for himself than anyone else. "I had an aunt who told me that most of their meat was stripped off the bone, to the point they could barely tell one apart from the other, and even the Healers had trouble putting them together. Thirty of them, food for the wolfman, bless them."
"If they were such proficient witches, how come they all died from one werewolf attack?" he asked, but Matthias shrugged again, and got up.
"I'll let them rest tonight, and announce in the morning that we're doing it again then. The payment should be the same, and we'll be happy with it. As for lodgings, this place'll be empty until winter, you both are welcome to either go or stay." Matthias said. "Good night to the both of you."
Sirius remained pacing around the room, racking his brain for a solution, an idea that kept evading him. Anything. Anything.
"We have to kill Fenrir Greyback."
Sirius turned around, looking briefly towards the sleeping Harry. Was he imagining things now? Sure, it could have been Greyback, it could have been any other werewolf. After all, this had happened, what- twenty, thirty years ago? Shaking his head, he sat back at the edge of Harry's bed, and took of his askew glasses, realising that he had had them on all this time.
Godfather of the year award, huh?
"I have to kill Fenrir Greyback." a toneless voice once again stated in the emptiness of the room.
He saw it now. The slight movement of the lips, the Adam's apple lifting up and down, the breathing afterwards.
It was him. But Sirius had seen that Sleeping Draught boiling, and had passed his NEWT Potions with an E. He looked at it again, and smelt the empty cup. He even put a finger in it, and put it on the tip of his tongue. It was, by all means, for all intents and purposes, a Sleeping Draught.
"Harry?" Sirius slowly turned back towards him, and placed a finger on his eyelid, lifting it. He was still sleeping - he must have been, as his eye had no reaction to the light and did not follow his other finger.
"We must kill Fenrir Greyback."
"Why?" He wondered if Harry could at least hear, and waited for an answer, which came soon enough.
"Because she wants him dead. She said she'll help, if we kill him for her." Harry replied, still deeply sleeping. His mouth barely moved as he spoke, and as he finished, he snored lightly.
"Who is she?"
"She's not my mum."
"What are you talking about?" Sirius asked, vexed.
"She's not my mum. She was my mum, and McGonagall, and Rita Skeeter-"
"Harry, what the fuck are you talking about? Harry, wake up, come on now-"
A deep-seated fear took over reason, and Sirius leaned over his godson, shaking him by the shoulders. Yet another thing that could not have happened happened indeed, and Harry, even through the Sleeping Draught and still seeming deep in sleep, grasped his godfather's arms, and asked him to stop.
"Don't wake me, please don't wake me. I'm with them now. I'm with them. I can see things, and I'll see more things when Fenrir Greyback is dead. Kill him, we have to kill him for what he did."
"How do you even know about Fenrir Greyback, Harry?" How could he know about the werewolf that turned Remus? "What did he do, then?"
However, he already knew what Harry would answer before he even did - she, whatever she was, told him. It must have been the creature, the thing described in the journal. That must have been it, the thing that appears and gives you something in exchange. It all made sense now, when put together. Voldemort, or Tom Riddle, then, or whatever the Hell he named himself, who was led to a village of ritual-performing witches by Hedda Ablai for alleged research purposes, must have done the ritual, or done something at least, and then had put Greyback on, to remove all witnesses. Not for food, not for pleasure of killing - well, for Greyback perhaps for that as well- but surely, it must have been to remove all witnesses.
Now, how does one track a werewolf?
It was four days later that Sirius had returned to Britain with Harry in tow, heavily dosed with Sleeping potions and covered in his Invisibility Cloak. He would talk and answer some questions when asleep, but rarely - he kept repeating the plea of having to kill Greyback, and he would say at times that he was in a nice place, in some form of limbo, and that he could walk around a house, however he did not know whose house it was. Yet each time he would wake up in a sweat, and he would frantically babble unintelligible words, flailing his arms and legs until he was dosed again and fall in his enigmatic sleep.
He had written to Magdalena, and they activated their contingency plan. Ron Weasley would Polyjuice himself as Harry, and Hermione would alternate between herself and Ron, in order to make it seem like Harry was back after a short absence in Hogsmeade. Apparently, they were both good enough that no one had caught onto it for the first days, until Dumbledore - Sirius was still not sure how - caught onto them.
And here they were now. At least the adults and the sleeping Harry were, as Ron and Hermione, Sirius was told, were still in Hogwarts, and were told they would be told in the morning what the outcome of their Polyjuice trip would be.
Sirius wondered if the day that he was advised to bring Harry back to Britain was one chosen on purpose, as it had been the heaviest rain he had seen since his escape from Azkaban. Harry was hidden, bundled in his Invisibility Cloak and carried over by Remus towards one of the rooms of the Hog's Head, and it gave Dumbledore the perfect excuse to pretend Sirius was a poor dog that he was providing some temporary shelter to. He couldn't help but doubt the veracity of the 'dog-friendly' owner he was told of however, as the owner grumbled from the moment he followed Dumbledore in the inn, and had been this close to kicking him out.
Dumbledore guided him on a staircase above the bar, towards one of the four or so guest rooms. He watched him knock on one of the doors, before it opened slightly, and the two stepped in the room.
"I've put an Imperturbable Charm, so you should be fine, Sirius." Dumbledore advised, nodding towards him as the door closed behind them.
Inside, wrapped in an enormous, maroon fur coat, stood a figure he recognised easily as Lena, who busied herself examining Harry's Invisibility Cloak whilst Remus placed a blanket over the sleeping figure on the bed. Taking a step forward, Sirius changed himself back in his human form, and took a seat on a nearby chair, facing Harry. He took out Hedda's journal from one of his pockets, and handed it to Dumbledore. Sirius knew that he had to return at some point before the ritual could be done with himself, especially if it would render him in such a catatonic state as it did Harry, and they all knew by then a short version of what had happened from his letters, Hell, even Ron and Hermione received a letter each from Sirius, as Harry asked him to do so in one of his sleeping conversations.
"So this is the mythical journal of Hedda Ablai." Dumbledore stated softly, lightly going through its pages. "The journal you were advised to peruse and which has the ritual young Harry here enacted."
"I've been thinking more and more if I've made the greatest mistake in my life by trusting this picture of a dead witch." Sirius mumbled, folding his arms across his chest. "Anyone that Voldemort wanted to have teach him must have been excelling as a Dark Magic practitioner."
"Any wizard or witch would have been lucky to have been taught by her." Dumbledore stated, offering Sirius a gentle smile from behind his long, white beard. "She was one of the greatest wizards who lived and taught at Hogwarts, and my own teacher as well, Sirius, do not forget that. You saw it yourself, in her letters, what a loss to Hogwarts she was when she quit. Ritualistic magic, however, is a fickle, unforgiving field, as everyone here can attest to.
From what I can read and from your letter, it doesn't seem like anything has gone wrong. I've looked into the village and its inhabitants together with Lena here, and they seem to be indeed who they proclaimed to be. By all means, Harry himself, even while asleep, can attest that it is all going in the right direction, as long as we restore some justice on their side, if Greyback has indeed committed such a massacre on behalf of Voldemort."
Sirius nodded, and looked at each and every one of them, before remaining with his eyes transfixed on Harry. He was not sure where to even start in tracking him down, and he certainly did not enjoy that the list of people whose locations he did not know kept increasing with each piece of the puzzle discovered.
Pettigrew. Voldemort. And now, Greyback.
"Karkaroff knows nothing of him. Apparently barely knew of his existence." Magdalena stated first, adding a short "Now, whether you believe him or not…" as she caught Sirius's gaze.
"He worked alone back then, that's what I've found." Remus added, finally taking a seat himself. "Since then, there's conflicting reports. Either he's been spotted in Wales, either in Hungary, either in Estonia- the trouble is, where there's wolves, there's werewolves."
"So we've got ourselves a needle in a haystack situation." Sirius concluded.
"Not necessarily. There's Ministry records on him - not on account of him allegedly having been a Death Eater, or working with You-Know-Who, but because of the attacks. If we could get someone to provide us with that paperwork, we could at least get a start with it." Remus continued.
"I'm sure we can obtain those." Dumbledore stated. "I believe that you have already been in touch with our friends from abroad in hopes of some leads?" he asked, turning towards Magdalena, who nodded solemnly. The closest to Harry, she watched over him like a statue, and leaned over to move a tuft of his hair away from his eye. "Wonderful. Now, I trust this matter to be handled largely between us four, five with Harry included. As for Mister Weasley, I will advise his mother and father that he is currently slightly contagious, safely cared for by Madam Pomfrey, as he continues his wonderful job in making the entire world believe he is Harry Potter."