FIC: D'You Know Your Enemy?
Title: D'You Know Your Enemy?
Characters: Peter Pettigrew, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, Severus Snape, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Alastor Moody, Rufus Scrimgeour, Nymphadora Tonks, Albus Dumbledore.
Prompt: "Hmm...what would have happened after PoA if Peter had been arrested after all?? from kt_tonguetied, for her birthday, which was last month!!
Word Count: 3,702
Genre: Humour-ish...ish.
Rating: T for language and partial nudity!
Warnings: Watch out for crack, due justice, Green Day lyrics, The Boondock Saints references, and general insanity.
Author's Note: This is for the wonderful kt_tonguetied, who wanted an AU-ish fic. This is the first I’ve ever written! (if we don’t count that last, epically weird journey into Time-Travelling.) ilu, KT! Hope this brightens up your week!
D’You Know Your Enemy?
“Stupefy!”
The last thing Peter saw as a free man was the striped, ragged wallpaper of the Shrieking Shack, fading out behind three faces. Sirius wavered in his vision, the lines of his prison uniform blending into the wall, his gaze was knifelike and beyond anger. He shook with rage; the only thing keeping him from killing Peter on the spot was the scarred hand that grasped his shoulder. In that moment Pettigrew realized that he had never been as frightened of the Dark Lord as he was of Black.
Remus had cast the spell to stun him, to bind him, to keep him from transforming back into a rodent, and now he was looking pointedly away. His eyes were dark blue and betrayed. He had always been the sensible one, but as terrified as Peter was of Sirius, god only knew what Remus was capable of now. Something was hiding behind his eyes-hate and resentment so well concealed it was only visible as pain.
Standing next to him, his shoulders squared in defiance, was James-no, it was James’ son. The boy’s eyes were as green as his Mudblood mother’s, as green as the curse that had killed her, and full of a begrudging, repulsed kind of pity.
The brown-haired girl and the ginger boy were behind them, hands clasped in fear, both wearing the same disgusted look, as if they had seen a dying animal. Snape was passed out on the floor, hit with a triplicate of a curse that was only meant to disarm him.
Peter opened his mouth, another weak parody of an apology forming in his throat. He could plead with them, his old friends, but they had no use for him like the Dark Lord did, and the words choked him.
He was better off dead, and he knew it.
***
“You were called here to arrest Black, and that is what I expect to happen,” Severus hissed, mixing a pain-relief potion for the knot on the back of his head. Angrily, he seized the nearest silver knife and began to chop a valerian root, ignoring how his brain throbbed. The floor of the Shrieking Shack was not soft, and the walls of his dungeon seemed to swirl about like those in a Muggle funhouse. “Arrest Lupin, as well-he was harboring the criminal.”
“Black claims the opposite-that Lupin had nothing to do with his escape. Circumstances have changed, Professor Snape. Apparently Peter Pettigrew is alive- do you understand the repercussions this would have on our legal system? We’ve held an innocent man in prison for almost two decades.“
“Black is far from innocent,” he snarled. Snape had known all along that Sirius had never been a servant of the Dark Lord, but he had kept the fact to himself through the years, and continued to keep it now. He found it odd that Dumbledore had never questioned him about Black’s innocence, but Dumbledore was about as odd as one could be, so Severus had never pressed the issue. He felt safer with Black in Azkaban, for his own reasons.
“And if half the things I’ve heard about you are true,” Scrimgeour growled in return, “You would have no room to talk.”
“There are marks that don’t wash off, Snape-“ Alastor Moody interjected, glaring. “And you don’t see one of those on Black or Professor Lupin.”
“Black is a criminal, a lowlife-it is in his blood. And Professor Lupin is no better than any other enabler-“
“If by enabler you mean ‘has just solved one of the most mysterious crimes in Wizarding history,’” Moody snapped.
Severus had had no idea that Pettigrew or Black were Animagi-or that they had learned the technique so early in life. For any other wizards, it would have earned them respect from the Potions master, but the hatred from their youth lingered, and he found he despised them almost as much as he despised himself.
***
He was in a classroom on one of the higher floors of the castle, looking out over the grounds. The moon was sinking lower in the sky as the night came to an end. Remus was lost somewhere in the woods, Peter was being held by a group of no less than ten Aurors and Hit Wizards, and Sirius was sitting alone at a desk, watching steam rise from the cup of tea Professor McGonagall had left for him. He would’ve rather had a pint of Guinness and a plate of chips, but one couldn’t be picky when they were attempting to clear their tarnished name.
“We’re going to have to take you into custody, Mr Black.” The tall Auror with the earring sat down across from him. “But not to Azkaban, just to the Ministry.”
Ah yes, the Ministry. The government-the people who had thrown him in prison without so much as “how d’you do?”, and left him there to rot. Sirius kept his mouth shut, and nodded. If he wanted vindication, he would have to bear with the Ministry and their many ineptitudes for a while longer.
“What about Remus? I tried to get him back inside before-and the children?”
“The children are fine, they’re speaking to Dumbledore, and Auror Tonks is going to search the grounds as soon as the sun rises-“
“Wait, did you say Auror Tonks?”
“Yes, Auror Tonks is newly inducted, but perfectly capable of-“
“D’you mean Nymphadora Tonks?”
“Yes,” Shacklebolt said brusquely. “We need to stay on topic; I need to get an affidavit from you, Sirius. It’s highly important that we find Remus as well-you know the Wizengamot won’t acknowledge the testimony of the children, no matter who they are, and we need a second witness from the actual capture of Peter Pettigrew.“
“Well, shite! What good is an affidavit going to do? Who’s going to take our word? I’m a ‘murderer,’ remember?” Sirius snapped, hooking his fingers around the air. ”Remus is a frigging werewolf, and Snape is supposedly an ex-Death Eater. There’s not a jury in the world that’s gonna believe us, and you think the Wizengamot will?”
“I have the feeling we’ll be able to get a confession from Pettigrew.”
“Of course you will, he’ll tell you anything you want to hear, the little bastard.”
“We have methods to obtain confessions-“
“Yeah, I know all about those, and how well they work. Do you know how many times I’ve been dosed with Veritaserum? Do you know how many times I’ve said it was Peter who turned James and Lily in? And has anyone listened?”
“Sirius, as your old friend, I’m sorry, but people believed you had done it. I believed it, too. At the time, it was all we had to believe.”
He put his head in his hands, staring out the window. “I can’t blame you, King…For a while, I was starting to believe it, too.”
"Then my advice to you is to leave."
"What?"
"Go, get out of here. The Ministry will do everything in their power to keep you in prison, and I don't want that anymore than you do."
***
Another tree root snagged the toe of her Doc Martens as she tramped through the Forbidden Forest. Mad-Eye had sent her on a wild goose chase…or werewolf chase, as it were. She checked her watch-it was just before dawn, and a mist still hung heavy over the ground. The pale sun was rising in the east, just a thin yellow haze on the horizon.
She slipped on a moss-covered rock, scraping her palms as she landed on the pine-needle covered forest floor. A large, canine footprint was pressed into the soft dirt, just an inch from her fingertips. Tonks traced a circle around it with her wand, noting another set of footprints and a hank of brown, bloodied hair.
“Looks like I’m on the right track, then …poor fellow. I guess that’s how it goes. We either live happily ever after or we get killed by horrible curses.”
It figured that her first real, honest-to-Circe, battle-with-bad-guys mission would end with hunting for the body of a schoolteacher. Hopefully, he was still alive…but with the chaos the night before, someone may have accidentally killed him. Or purposefully, she noted, remembering the seething look on Snape’s face as he had detailed the discovery of Peter Pettigrew and the accidental public transformation of this unknown werewolf Professor Lupin bloke, of whom the students seemed so to be fond. He was also her soon-to-be-exonerated-second-cousin’s best mate from their own school days, which explained why the authorities were so keen to find him.
It was an historic day-the notorious mass murderer Sirius Black was to be cleared of all charges except for that unregistered Animagus bit, and if she effed this up, it would definitely be remembered.
“Are you out here, Professor? Can you hear me?”
Auror Tonks jumped off a boulder, striding through the dewy, ankle-high grass of the clearing. A loud snort cut through the birdcalls and she spun, drawing her wand... and proceeded to trip over a body laying face-down on the ground.
For a moment she was motionless, sprawled on the forest floor and wondering how many bodies she had to stumble over before she could retire, or be fired by Scrimgeour, one or the other.
“Dammit!” she exclaimed, scrambling to the side of a brown-haired man, spread-eagle in the grass, completely starkers, with his mouth slightly open. Jagged cuts, half-healed, raced across his ribs and shoulders, his hands were stained with blood and bruised. His hair was full of leaves, and he looked just like Mad-Eye had described-exhausted, if not deceased.
Gingerly, Tonks put her fingers against his neck, feeling for a pulse-it was steady and slowing. He snored again, quite loudly, and she shrieked. “Oh, dammit to hell! M’only tryin’ to take your damned vital signs! I thought you were dead, you damn bastard, scaring me like that. Goddamn!”
“Well,” he mumbled, still quite asleep as he batted her hand away. “That certainly illustrates the diversity of the word.”
***
Everything was blurry, except for the familiar, stinging ache that spread across his shoulders and chest, and down his back. He put an arm over his face and groaned. Someone was whistling Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, loudly and slightly off-key.
“Oi,thasnuffothat, then.”
“Wakey, wakey, hands-off snakey!” Someone shouted in his ear. “You sleep like the blessed dead, there, Lupin, I’ve been trying to wake you for fifteen minutes!”
Remus sat up abruptly, momentarily bewildered by the ample and rather fluffy pink blanket draped across his midsection, until he noticed the woman sitting directly in front of him, cross-legged in the grass. She smiled brightly.
“Bloody hell," he said, hoarsely. "How did I get here?”
“Well,” the lady began seriously, taking a long drink from a metal Thermos. “When a man loves a woman very much-“
He blinked loudly and ran a hand through his hair, looking around.
“Just a joke! A joke, you know? Never mind. Here, have some tea.” She conjured a mug and filled it from the Thermos, handing it to him.“Do you remember anything that happened last night, Mr Lupin? About Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew?”
“Sirius-he’s out of Azkaban.”
“That’s right,” she said, patiently. “And Peter?”
The fuzzy-edged, fractured memories of the night before started to piece together, and he remembered, vaguely, the confrontation in the Shrieking Shack. “He’s alive. I thought he was dead. We-we caught him, and then Snape tried to interfere…I didn’t hurt anyone? Oh, no… not the children, I couldn’t live with that-”
“No, everybody’s perfectly fine…Well, except for Pettigrew, who’s being sent to Azkaban this afternoon. And you…well, you’re cut up pretty badly. And you did your werewolf thing last night on school grounds, which is kind of illegal.”
“I know,” he sighed, nodding resentfully and paying no attention to the slow drip of blood that fell from his shoulder onto the grass. “Do you think I’ll have to resign?”
“It’s quite possible. I don’t even think the Headmaster is allowed to run starkers through the forest.”
Remus consoled himself in the thought that the back of his skull had not been occupied by Voldemort, nor had his memory been obliterated by a backfiring wand. He was lucky to only be imagining beautiful women in Ministry robes providing him with warm drinks-that was a far better fate than what Quirrell and Lockhart had met.
“I’ve another question-who are you?”
“Nymphadora Tonks of the Auror Squad Second Division, Reconnaissance and Capture Unit, at your service.” She saluted lazily, pulling a knapsack from a rock nearby and tossing it to him. “Here, have some trousers.”
***
Eight of them disembarked from the small boat; the two Hit Wizards and two Aurors escorting Pettigrew, and the head of the Auror Department followed Kingsley Shacklebolt up the rickety dock and through the once-thought impenetrable walls of Azkaban.
The other two supposed criminals, Black and Lupin, were being held by another group of Aurors at the school, assisted by Mad-Eye Moody, called in from retirement and collecting statements from all of the witnesses.
He was still presuming their innocence in the deaths of the Potters until they were proven guilty-and a river of guilt washed over him. Aurors were supposed to be just in the dealings with Dark Wizards-the Ministry was not supposed to arbitrarily imprison people without having a trial. How could they have mistrusted the results of Veritaserum?
Kingsley was shocked that a mistake as large as this had slipped through the cracks of the system. If Pettigrew had gone free, who else had they missed?
The echo of their boots on the stone floor put a beat to the crash of rogue waves against the seawall-the kind of waves that would pound your body to a pulp. The noises barely covered the screams echoing down the corridor as they reached a high-security cell. Kingsley held the damp parchment before him, reciting the indictment blindly as Scrimgeour personally escorted Pettigrew into the tiny stone room.
“…To be placed in Azkaban to await trial by the Wizengamot for accessory to the murders of James and Lily Potter, Marlene McKinnon, and Gideon and Fabian Prewitt, for accessory to the torture of Aurors Frank and Alice Longbottom, for the framing of Sirius Black for the murders of Muggles…”
A chorus of screams cut through the hiss of the rain. Shacklebolt hated coming to Azkaban. The Dementors seemed to flock around them like carrion birds every time he brought a prisoner to the island, and it was everything he could to do to keep from succumbing to the darkness that engulfed the prison. His eyes were drawn to the walls of Pettigrew’s cell, to crude marks carved into the stone. Without the Dementor’s Kiss, it would be punishment enough until judgment could be meted out.
Peter did it. Peter killed Lily and James. Wormtail is a murderer. Wormtail betrayed us.
The bars of the cell clanged shut with a death rattle, locked mechanically as well as magically.
“Welcome to hell, Mr Pettigrew. Have a nice day.“
***
“This doesn’t change the fact that he’s back, does it?”
“I’m afraid not. If you remember, Alastor, Voldemort has servants as faithful as Peter was, who serve out of something that’s almost, but not entirely, quite unlike love.”
“Lestrange,” he muttered darkly. “Barty Crouch, Jr, and that ilk. We can only hope none of the others escape.”
Moody remembered the old days, in the First War, fighting alongside the Order of the
Phoenix. It wasn’t out of love that the Death Eaters served The Dark Lord, nor was it out of respect-they served him out of selfishness, fear, and insecurity, for protection and the illusion of power. They had left their mark on Alastor, but for every ounce of flesh they took, he had sent one of them to Azkaban, and many more to the land of no return.
Mad-Eye wasn’t afraid to fight for what he thought was true or good, nor was he afraid to die, which was what he despised most about the Death Eaters. They were too cowardly, too ignoble to even die for their own cause, like so many of the Order had done. He wondered how many of them had been betrayed by Peter-and he had treated the lad like his own son, along with Sirius, Remus and James.
Dumbledore nodded seriously, as if reading his thoughts. “Which is why we must take every necessary precaution.”
“Lupin is to walk free, and Sirius Black is gone; he disappeared shortly after Kingsley told him they were taking him to the Ministry for interrogation. You had a hand in this?”
“We will need their assistance sooner than I had expected,” Dumbledore said enigmatically.
Moody was silent for a moment, studying the scars on the back of his hands. There was a sort of pressure in the air now, as if their pseudo-peaceful bubble had been burst and the things they had tried so hard to keep on the outside had come rushing in.
“You intend to reestablish the Order of the Phoenix?”
“As soon as possible. We will let the cauldron cool, so to speak, and see how the summer fares.” The headmaster said briskly, pushing his glasses up his nose with one finger. “Can you be counted on to join, if the need arises?”
“As long as I’ve an enemy, I’ll fight.”
"Count me in," Kingsley rumbled from the back of the office.
Minerva McGonagall stood up from her chair near the fireplace. "And me, as well."
"You know I'm in," Remus called from a seat by the window. "And so is Sirius...when he gets back from the pub, I mean."
Auror Tonks raised her hand, excitedly. "Ooh, can I? I want to join the Order, too--I mean, I think I could be of some help."
"Of course you can, dear," the headmaster said with a smile as he stood and straightened his robes. "Now, who wants to volunteer to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts next term?"
"I've, um, I've got a thing..." Kingsley said, evasively.
"Can't," Remus shrugged. "Werewolf."
"Albus, you know I was always rubbish at Defense."
"No thanks, I've already got a job."
"Oh, fine." Moody snapped. "I'll do it."
***
Characters: Peter Pettigrew, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, Severus Snape, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Alastor Moody, Rufus Scrimgeour, Nymphadora Tonks, Albus Dumbledore.
Prompt: "Hmm...what would have happened after PoA if Peter had been arrested after all?? from kt_tonguetied, for her birthday, which was last month!!
Word Count: 3,702
Genre: Humour-ish...ish.
Rating: T for language and partial nudity!
Warnings: Watch out for crack, due justice, Green Day lyrics, The Boondock Saints references, and general insanity.
Author's Note: This is for the wonderful kt_tonguetied, who wanted an AU-ish fic. This is the first I’ve ever written! (if we don’t count that last, epically weird journey into Time-Travelling.) ilu, KT! Hope this brightens up your week!
D’You Know Your Enemy?
“Stupefy!”
The last thing Peter saw as a free man was the striped, ragged wallpaper of the Shrieking Shack, fading out behind three faces. Sirius wavered in his vision, the lines of his prison uniform blending into the wall, his gaze was knifelike and beyond anger. He shook with rage; the only thing keeping him from killing Peter on the spot was the scarred hand that grasped his shoulder. In that moment Pettigrew realized that he had never been as frightened of the Dark Lord as he was of Black.
Remus had cast the spell to stun him, to bind him, to keep him from transforming back into a rodent, and now he was looking pointedly away. His eyes were dark blue and betrayed. He had always been the sensible one, but as terrified as Peter was of Sirius, god only knew what Remus was capable of now. Something was hiding behind his eyes-hate and resentment so well concealed it was only visible as pain.
Standing next to him, his shoulders squared in defiance, was James-no, it was James’ son. The boy’s eyes were as green as his Mudblood mother’s, as green as the curse that had killed her, and full of a begrudging, repulsed kind of pity.
The brown-haired girl and the ginger boy were behind them, hands clasped in fear, both wearing the same disgusted look, as if they had seen a dying animal. Snape was passed out on the floor, hit with a triplicate of a curse that was only meant to disarm him.
Peter opened his mouth, another weak parody of an apology forming in his throat. He could plead with them, his old friends, but they had no use for him like the Dark Lord did, and the words choked him.
He was better off dead, and he knew it.
***
“You were called here to arrest Black, and that is what I expect to happen,” Severus hissed, mixing a pain-relief potion for the knot on the back of his head. Angrily, he seized the nearest silver knife and began to chop a valerian root, ignoring how his brain throbbed. The floor of the Shrieking Shack was not soft, and the walls of his dungeon seemed to swirl about like those in a Muggle funhouse. “Arrest Lupin, as well-he was harboring the criminal.”
“Black claims the opposite-that Lupin had nothing to do with his escape. Circumstances have changed, Professor Snape. Apparently Peter Pettigrew is alive- do you understand the repercussions this would have on our legal system? We’ve held an innocent man in prison for almost two decades.“
“Black is far from innocent,” he snarled. Snape had known all along that Sirius had never been a servant of the Dark Lord, but he had kept the fact to himself through the years, and continued to keep it now. He found it odd that Dumbledore had never questioned him about Black’s innocence, but Dumbledore was about as odd as one could be, so Severus had never pressed the issue. He felt safer with Black in Azkaban, for his own reasons.
“And if half the things I’ve heard about you are true,” Scrimgeour growled in return, “You would have no room to talk.”
“There are marks that don’t wash off, Snape-“ Alastor Moody interjected, glaring. “And you don’t see one of those on Black or Professor Lupin.”
“Black is a criminal, a lowlife-it is in his blood. And Professor Lupin is no better than any other enabler-“
“If by enabler you mean ‘has just solved one of the most mysterious crimes in Wizarding history,’” Moody snapped.
Severus had had no idea that Pettigrew or Black were Animagi-or that they had learned the technique so early in life. For any other wizards, it would have earned them respect from the Potions master, but the hatred from their youth lingered, and he found he despised them almost as much as he despised himself.
***
He was in a classroom on one of the higher floors of the castle, looking out over the grounds. The moon was sinking lower in the sky as the night came to an end. Remus was lost somewhere in the woods, Peter was being held by a group of no less than ten Aurors and Hit Wizards, and Sirius was sitting alone at a desk, watching steam rise from the cup of tea Professor McGonagall had left for him. He would’ve rather had a pint of Guinness and a plate of chips, but one couldn’t be picky when they were attempting to clear their tarnished name.
“We’re going to have to take you into custody, Mr Black.” The tall Auror with the earring sat down across from him. “But not to Azkaban, just to the Ministry.”
Ah yes, the Ministry. The government-the people who had thrown him in prison without so much as “how d’you do?”, and left him there to rot. Sirius kept his mouth shut, and nodded. If he wanted vindication, he would have to bear with the Ministry and their many ineptitudes for a while longer.
“What about Remus? I tried to get him back inside before-and the children?”
“The children are fine, they’re speaking to Dumbledore, and Auror Tonks is going to search the grounds as soon as the sun rises-“
“Wait, did you say Auror Tonks?”
“Yes, Auror Tonks is newly inducted, but perfectly capable of-“
“D’you mean Nymphadora Tonks?”
“Yes,” Shacklebolt said brusquely. “We need to stay on topic; I need to get an affidavit from you, Sirius. It’s highly important that we find Remus as well-you know the Wizengamot won’t acknowledge the testimony of the children, no matter who they are, and we need a second witness from the actual capture of Peter Pettigrew.“
“Well, shite! What good is an affidavit going to do? Who’s going to take our word? I’m a ‘murderer,’ remember?” Sirius snapped, hooking his fingers around the air. ”Remus is a frigging werewolf, and Snape is supposedly an ex-Death Eater. There’s not a jury in the world that’s gonna believe us, and you think the Wizengamot will?”
“I have the feeling we’ll be able to get a confession from Pettigrew.”
“Of course you will, he’ll tell you anything you want to hear, the little bastard.”
“We have methods to obtain confessions-“
“Yeah, I know all about those, and how well they work. Do you know how many times I’ve been dosed with Veritaserum? Do you know how many times I’ve said it was Peter who turned James and Lily in? And has anyone listened?”
“Sirius, as your old friend, I’m sorry, but people believed you had done it. I believed it, too. At the time, it was all we had to believe.”
He put his head in his hands, staring out the window. “I can’t blame you, King…For a while, I was starting to believe it, too.”
"Then my advice to you is to leave."
"What?"
"Go, get out of here. The Ministry will do everything in their power to keep you in prison, and I don't want that anymore than you do."
***
Another tree root snagged the toe of her Doc Martens as she tramped through the Forbidden Forest. Mad-Eye had sent her on a wild goose chase…or werewolf chase, as it were. She checked her watch-it was just before dawn, and a mist still hung heavy over the ground. The pale sun was rising in the east, just a thin yellow haze on the horizon.
She slipped on a moss-covered rock, scraping her palms as she landed on the pine-needle covered forest floor. A large, canine footprint was pressed into the soft dirt, just an inch from her fingertips. Tonks traced a circle around it with her wand, noting another set of footprints and a hank of brown, bloodied hair.
“Looks like I’m on the right track, then …poor fellow. I guess that’s how it goes. We either live happily ever after or we get killed by horrible curses.”
It figured that her first real, honest-to-Circe, battle-with-bad-guys mission would end with hunting for the body of a schoolteacher. Hopefully, he was still alive…but with the chaos the night before, someone may have accidentally killed him. Or purposefully, she noted, remembering the seething look on Snape’s face as he had detailed the discovery of Peter Pettigrew and the accidental public transformation of this unknown werewolf Professor Lupin bloke, of whom the students seemed so to be fond. He was also her soon-to-be-exonerated-second-cousin’s best mate from their own school days, which explained why the authorities were so keen to find him.
It was an historic day-the notorious mass murderer Sirius Black was to be cleared of all charges except for that unregistered Animagus bit, and if she effed this up, it would definitely be remembered.
“Are you out here, Professor? Can you hear me?”
Auror Tonks jumped off a boulder, striding through the dewy, ankle-high grass of the clearing. A loud snort cut through the birdcalls and she spun, drawing her wand... and proceeded to trip over a body laying face-down on the ground.
For a moment she was motionless, sprawled on the forest floor and wondering how many bodies she had to stumble over before she could retire, or be fired by Scrimgeour, one or the other.
“Dammit!” she exclaimed, scrambling to the side of a brown-haired man, spread-eagle in the grass, completely starkers, with his mouth slightly open. Jagged cuts, half-healed, raced across his ribs and shoulders, his hands were stained with blood and bruised. His hair was full of leaves, and he looked just like Mad-Eye had described-exhausted, if not deceased.
Gingerly, Tonks put her fingers against his neck, feeling for a pulse-it was steady and slowing. He snored again, quite loudly, and she shrieked. “Oh, dammit to hell! M’only tryin’ to take your damned vital signs! I thought you were dead, you damn bastard, scaring me like that. Goddamn!”
“Well,” he mumbled, still quite asleep as he batted her hand away. “That certainly illustrates the diversity of the word.”
***
Everything was blurry, except for the familiar, stinging ache that spread across his shoulders and chest, and down his back. He put an arm over his face and groaned. Someone was whistling Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, loudly and slightly off-key.
“Oi,thasnuffothat, then.”
“Wakey, wakey, hands-off snakey!” Someone shouted in his ear. “You sleep like the blessed dead, there, Lupin, I’ve been trying to wake you for fifteen minutes!”
Remus sat up abruptly, momentarily bewildered by the ample and rather fluffy pink blanket draped across his midsection, until he noticed the woman sitting directly in front of him, cross-legged in the grass. She smiled brightly.
“Bloody hell," he said, hoarsely. "How did I get here?”
“Well,” the lady began seriously, taking a long drink from a metal Thermos. “When a man loves a woman very much-“
He blinked loudly and ran a hand through his hair, looking around.
“Just a joke! A joke, you know? Never mind. Here, have some tea.” She conjured a mug and filled it from the Thermos, handing it to him.“Do you remember anything that happened last night, Mr Lupin? About Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew?”
“Sirius-he’s out of Azkaban.”
“That’s right,” she said, patiently. “And Peter?”
The fuzzy-edged, fractured memories of the night before started to piece together, and he remembered, vaguely, the confrontation in the Shrieking Shack. “He’s alive. I thought he was dead. We-we caught him, and then Snape tried to interfere…I didn’t hurt anyone? Oh, no… not the children, I couldn’t live with that-”
“No, everybody’s perfectly fine…Well, except for Pettigrew, who’s being sent to Azkaban this afternoon. And you…well, you’re cut up pretty badly. And you did your werewolf thing last night on school grounds, which is kind of illegal.”
“I know,” he sighed, nodding resentfully and paying no attention to the slow drip of blood that fell from his shoulder onto the grass. “Do you think I’ll have to resign?”
“It’s quite possible. I don’t even think the Headmaster is allowed to run starkers through the forest.”
Remus consoled himself in the thought that the back of his skull had not been occupied by Voldemort, nor had his memory been obliterated by a backfiring wand. He was lucky to only be imagining beautiful women in Ministry robes providing him with warm drinks-that was a far better fate than what Quirrell and Lockhart had met.
“I’ve another question-who are you?”
“Nymphadora Tonks of the Auror Squad Second Division, Reconnaissance and Capture Unit, at your service.” She saluted lazily, pulling a knapsack from a rock nearby and tossing it to him. “Here, have some trousers.”
***
Eight of them disembarked from the small boat; the two Hit Wizards and two Aurors escorting Pettigrew, and the head of the Auror Department followed Kingsley Shacklebolt up the rickety dock and through the once-thought impenetrable walls of Azkaban.
The other two supposed criminals, Black and Lupin, were being held by another group of Aurors at the school, assisted by Mad-Eye Moody, called in from retirement and collecting statements from all of the witnesses.
He was still presuming their innocence in the deaths of the Potters until they were proven guilty-and a river of guilt washed over him. Aurors were supposed to be just in the dealings with Dark Wizards-the Ministry was not supposed to arbitrarily imprison people without having a trial. How could they have mistrusted the results of Veritaserum?
Kingsley was shocked that a mistake as large as this had slipped through the cracks of the system. If Pettigrew had gone free, who else had they missed?
The echo of their boots on the stone floor put a beat to the crash of rogue waves against the seawall-the kind of waves that would pound your body to a pulp. The noises barely covered the screams echoing down the corridor as they reached a high-security cell. Kingsley held the damp parchment before him, reciting the indictment blindly as Scrimgeour personally escorted Pettigrew into the tiny stone room.
“…To be placed in Azkaban to await trial by the Wizengamot for accessory to the murders of James and Lily Potter, Marlene McKinnon, and Gideon and Fabian Prewitt, for accessory to the torture of Aurors Frank and Alice Longbottom, for the framing of Sirius Black for the murders of Muggles…”
A chorus of screams cut through the hiss of the rain. Shacklebolt hated coming to Azkaban. The Dementors seemed to flock around them like carrion birds every time he brought a prisoner to the island, and it was everything he could to do to keep from succumbing to the darkness that engulfed the prison. His eyes were drawn to the walls of Pettigrew’s cell, to crude marks carved into the stone. Without the Dementor’s Kiss, it would be punishment enough until judgment could be meted out.
Peter did it. Peter killed Lily and James. Wormtail is a murderer. Wormtail betrayed us.
The bars of the cell clanged shut with a death rattle, locked mechanically as well as magically.
“Welcome to hell, Mr Pettigrew. Have a nice day.“
***
“This doesn’t change the fact that he’s back, does it?”
“I’m afraid not. If you remember, Alastor, Voldemort has servants as faithful as Peter was, who serve out of something that’s almost, but not entirely, quite unlike love.”
“Lestrange,” he muttered darkly. “Barty Crouch, Jr, and that ilk. We can only hope none of the others escape.”
Moody remembered the old days, in the First War, fighting alongside the Order of the
Phoenix. It wasn’t out of love that the Death Eaters served The Dark Lord, nor was it out of respect-they served him out of selfishness, fear, and insecurity, for protection and the illusion of power. They had left their mark on Alastor, but for every ounce of flesh they took, he had sent one of them to Azkaban, and many more to the land of no return.
Mad-Eye wasn’t afraid to fight for what he thought was true or good, nor was he afraid to die, which was what he despised most about the Death Eaters. They were too cowardly, too ignoble to even die for their own cause, like so many of the Order had done. He wondered how many of them had been betrayed by Peter-and he had treated the lad like his own son, along with Sirius, Remus and James.
Dumbledore nodded seriously, as if reading his thoughts. “Which is why we must take every necessary precaution.”
“Lupin is to walk free, and Sirius Black is gone; he disappeared shortly after Kingsley told him they were taking him to the Ministry for interrogation. You had a hand in this?”
“We will need their assistance sooner than I had expected,” Dumbledore said enigmatically.
Moody was silent for a moment, studying the scars on the back of his hands. There was a sort of pressure in the air now, as if their pseudo-peaceful bubble had been burst and the things they had tried so hard to keep on the outside had come rushing in.
“You intend to reestablish the Order of the Phoenix?”
“As soon as possible. We will let the cauldron cool, so to speak, and see how the summer fares.” The headmaster said briskly, pushing his glasses up his nose with one finger. “Can you be counted on to join, if the need arises?”
“As long as I’ve an enemy, I’ll fight.”
"Count me in," Kingsley rumbled from the back of the office.
Minerva McGonagall stood up from her chair near the fireplace. "And me, as well."
"You know I'm in," Remus called from a seat by the window. "And so is Sirius...when he gets back from the pub, I mean."
Auror Tonks raised her hand, excitedly. "Ooh, can I? I want to join the Order, too--I mean, I think I could be of some help."
"Of course you can, dear," the headmaster said with a smile as he stood and straightened his robes. "Now, who wants to volunteer to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts next term?"
"I've, um, I've got a thing..." Kingsley said, evasively.
"Can't," Remus shrugged. "Werewolf."
"Albus, you know I was always rubbish at Defense."
"No thanks, I've already got a job."
"Oh, fine." Moody snapped. "I'll do it."
***