Vivify

by lightgetsin

Summary:

Sirius Black is alive, and Harry Potter is missing.

Sirius came home late in the evening of December first to find Severus Snape sipping tea at his kitchen table. He'd wanted a bit of a walk, so he'd flooed to the King's Arms and then cut through Christ Church meadow, and he was too preoccupied in his own thoughts and with everything Ignatius had said to call out as he came into the house. So neither of them were expecting him, and when he stepped through the kitchen doorway he had a second to take them in, sitting opposite each other, Snape's hands wrapped around Sirius's own coffee mug and Remus leaning forward on his elbows, quill twisting absently in one hand as he spoke in that low, deliberate way of his.

Sirius paused, blinked. The full moon--no, just this past Friday.

Remus looked up, saw him, and started, a minute, barely perceptible twitch. "Sirius," he said, rising and shooting a quick look at the clock. "Are you back earl--oh my, it has gotten late, hasn't it?"

Sirius followed his gaze to the clock reflexively, helplessly, then looked hastily away. "Right on time," he said, sticking his hands in his pockets and shifting a little so he could feel the comfortable weight of his wand, sheathed along his forearm. "Snape," he added, after a beat.

"Black," said Snape, and sipped his tea.

"Did it go alright?" Remus asked, as he always did. He leaned over and began deftly rolling up a large piece of parchment that covered half the table.

"It was fine," said Sirius, as he almost always did.

Remus secured the tube of parchment with a black leather thong. He turned, tucking the roll under one arm and sweeping up a few books in the other. "I put a stew on this afternoon," he said over his shoulder, heading for the door into the living room. "Did you want bread?"

". . . I'll get it," Sirius said to his disappearing back. He stood a moment longer in the doorway, feeling a frown settle in between his eyes. Then he pushed himself off the jamb and headed for the icebox, reaching for his wand. Remus was gone less than a minute, and the kitchen remained resoundingly silent for the duration. Sirius dug out a loaf of bread, spelled it to rapidly defrost and toast itself, then investigated the pleasantly bubbling pot on the stove. At his back, Snape's--his--mug gently clinked.

"Now then." Remus bustled back in, voice proceeding him. "Ah, you found the bread. Severus, would you care to join us?"

Sirius, in the act of stirring the stew, did as he had been told over and over again and breathed slowly, counting backwards from ten. Remus was so confounded polite to the man--to most people, when it came down to it. Though there were a few notable exceptions to that, Snape was rarely one of them. Sirius couldn't honestly object, since the mild-mannered civility seemed to get under Snape's skin and make him twitch, and that was always pleasant to watch.

"Thank you," said Snape. "I think I will."

Ten, nine, eight--

"Wonderful," said Remus, brushing by Sirius to collect plates. His hand lingered for a moment, warm at the nape of Sirius's neck. 'Be nice,' it said and, 'let's make this easy on everyone.'

Sirius huffed out a quiet breath and dished up the stew.

Not even Snape's dour presence at the table could ruin one of Remus's savory stews. The man approached cooking the way he did most things, with a quiet, unassuming competence that often yielded exceptional results. They'd tried to learn together, taking turns reading each other recipes and doing the grunt work whenever they could in the months since they'd settled into this house. It had seemed like a good project, something they could do for each other that neither had ever bothered to learn for themselves. Ignatius, who had been hounding Sirius to find some sort of calming physical activity to help him rebuild cognitive structures and reconnect with his surroundings and all that shite, approved heartily. Sirius didn't know if throwing around a lot of measuring cups a few times a week was doing anything for him, but at least when it was Remus's turn they got good food. Though Remus seemed to pay it no more attention than anything else, his culinary efforts were already far and away beyond anything Sirius could manage. Harry, who was quite good himself, had spent many a pleasant night skiving off school in the late spring, perched on the kitchen island with socked feet swinging, cheerfully heckling as Sirius bungled his way through a recipe.

"And your students?" Remus was asking. "Any promising ones this year?"

Snape made a disparaging sound. "If so, they have yet to show themselves," he said sourly. "Thus far they have been a lot of fumble-fingered, empty-headed halfwits."

"Ah," said Remus comfortably. "I'm sure there is talent somewhere in there."

Snape made a highly unattractive noise of doubt through his oversized nose.

"And speaking of potions," said Remus, setting down his spoon. "I wonder, Severus, if you could give me a professional opinion?"

"Mmm?" said Snape.

"Well I think I told you I've been doing a spot of consulting for the ministry," Remus said. "The regular enforcement departments have been rather overwhelmed since the war--"

"--well before that," Snape muttered.

"Quite," said Remus. "In any case, they've retained me to look into preventative or permanent solutions to some recurring problems--the cyclical outbreak of carnivorous molds, large-scale bad luck curses, that sort of thing."

"Surprisingly wise of them," said Snape.

Sirius blinked. Had that . . . did Snape just offer up a sideways compliment?

"Anyhow," said Remus, smiling a little, "there's been an upsurge in Boggart activity over the past, oh, three or four years."

"That does not require talent to explicate," said Snape abruptly.

"Quite," said Remus. "Britain has been full of their favorite sort of food in recent times." He let out a quick breath. "In any case, I got to thinking about some sort of prophylactic repellant. A chemical one, that is, that could be sprinkled in wardrobes and trunks and the sort. Have you heard of such a thing?"

"Tricky," said Snape. "An amorphous creature like that doesn't have any of the usual alchemical allergies."

"Precisely," said Remus. "The other option is to figure a way to, er, riddikify a space, as it were. But I know any attempts to sustain a Patronus in a specific location have failed spectacularly, so I'm not hopeful about that. I thought I might try to look for a potion of some sort."

"Hmph," said Snape, setting down his own spoon.

"Not possible?" Remus asked, discouraged.

"Hmph," said Snape again. "One cannot reach the ethereal with the chemical quite so easily."

"That's assuming a Boggart is entirely ethereal," said Remus. "We don't know."

"Now that is an interesting question," Snape said slowly, as if he had not heard Remus at all. "I wonder . . . theoretically it should be possible to alchemically manipulate a potion in such a way that it produces . . . transcendental vapors. Nightshade plantings have been known to attract displaced spirits . . ."

"Have a few ghosts you'd like to poison?" Sirius asked.

Snape jumped, as if he had forgotten Sirius's presence. "Perhaps," he said irritably. "Though now that you have returned to us--" Remus made a subvocal, warning noise and Snape broke off. "Is it any business of yours?" he said, giving Remus a look that was almost defiant.

"Yes," said Sirius, setting down his spoon with a loud clink. "The dead are dead, even ghosts. They've gone beyond. It means they're not part of it any more. They're out of the race, off the board. You can't touch them any more. They're . . . out of reach." He became suddenly aware that they were both staring at him. Remus's mouth was a tight, thin line.

"Sirius?" Remus said softly, in the careful, disturbed tone he had used all through the spring when Sirius's mind and body had still been figuring out how living was supposed to work.

"That is fascinating, Black," Snape said softly. "There are two people I know of who have gone beyond, as you so quaintly put it, and returned. And the other was not forthcoming on the subject. Tell me--"

"Severus," Remus cut in. He spoke quietly, but Snape straightened up as if he had just been slapped on the cheek. He cast Sirius one more intense, speculative look, then returned to his bowl.

Sirius mopped at the remains of his stew with a crust of bread. "You should publish your findings, Moony," he said into the ensuing silence. "Get in the history books a little more than you already are."

"Oh," said Remus, laughing. "It's a bit soon for that, though it is a thought."

Snape took himself off soon after dinner. Sirius scrubbed the dishes by hand with unaccustomed vigor and periodically jogged the volume on the wizarding wireless up a notch until conversation in the kitchen was nearly impossible. Remus walked Snape out, then disappeared into the study with no comment on the racket. Sirius finished up in the kitchen then joined him for their usual evening pursuits of reading and watching things on the Muggle telly Harry had rigged up and Hermione had spelled for them. Sirius rather liked the telly, though he couldn't imagine how Muggles found anything specific they were looking for. After Hermione was through, they had more channels than there were wizards in Britain. Why would they ever want to watch Chinese local weather reports . . . in Chinese?

"Everything went all right with Ignatius?" Remus asked from the desk, not looking up.

"You already asked that."

"Yes, but I thought perhaps you might not bring up something you wanted to discuss with Severus here."

"Nope," said Sirius. "Nothing to talk about."

Remus began yawning just after midnight. Sirius, bored with the television offerings and too restless to read, followed him off to bed without protest. They performed their nightly routines, maneuvering around each other in the bathroom and bedroom before they settled into bed.

"Good night," said Remus. He kissed Sirius briefly but warmly on the mouth, then rolled away and extinguished the lamp. Sirius lay still, listening to Remus's breathing as it evened out and settled into a comfortable sleep pattern.

There was a clock on the nightstand, but he would have had to turn the light on to read it. He lay in the dark, counting seconds and breaths and hoping a little bit that he would just fall asleep and wake up tomorrow and go on with his life nice as you please. But there was nothing doing and at last, after what felt like at least an hour, Sirius crept out of bed. He went to the kitchen first, got himself a glass of water and leaned against the counter to drink it. The moon was waning but still substantial, and it was bright enough in the kitchen so that, when Sirius looked up at the clock he could clearly make out the hand marked 'Sirius' and the hand marked 'Remus' pointing solidly towards 'Home.' He could also see a third hand. Not pointing to 'Mortal Peril,' Sirius told himself. That it had never done, not in the whole five months.

Sirius set his glass in the sink and went out into the hall. He didn't hesitate as he turned right, away from the stairs, and slipped into the study. He pulled the door mostly shut behind himself, suddenly paranoid to the point of fearing the sound of the latch would wake the ever-vigilant Remus. He turned on only one dim lamp and stood for a moment in the center of the room, watching the shadows proliferate.

The long roll of parchment was easily located. Remus had simply propped it in the corner behind his chair. Sirius hefted it, then frowned at Remus's cluttered desk.

He slipped off the thong and unrolled the thing across the floor, weighing down the curling ends with the books Remus had left with it. Then he sat back on his haunches, twisting and untwisting the leather thong around his hands.

It was a map of the British Isles, as well as the western part of the continent. A very good one too, to Sirius's relatively inexperienced eye, with a lot of detail and pinpoint notations. Remus hadn't marked anything, and Sirius let out a quiet breath between his teeth.

He considered a moment longer, then looked down at the leather tie. A single crystal, round and polished to a soft glow, hung from the strap.

"Right," muttered Sirius. He picked one of the books at random, skimmed the contents, then went on to the next. He lingered longer on the second, consulting several entries and rereading key passages. This one he left open at his knee while he investigated the third and largest volume, which turned out to be nothing more than an atlas, probably the source for the doubtless enlarged map.

"Right," he said again, setting it aside. He rose to his knees and leaned over the map, drawing his wand with one hand and dangling the crystal from the other. He consulted the book one last time, then recited a simple incantation, something even his casual grasp of Latin translation could get the gist of. He paused, tapped the crystal with his wand, then twisted his hand and set the stone swinging in a wide circle over the map. It flickered almost hypnotically as it swung, the rivers and mountains and seas pictured on the map distorted and enlarged through its transparent shape.

Sirius took a breath. "Remus Lupin," he said clearly.

At once, the crystal stopped in midair. It hovered for a moment, as if considering, then with a suddenness that left a red line across the back of Sirius' hand, it slammed down onto the map. Sirius cursed, rubbing at his hand, but he was already leaning over, squinting to read place names through the reflective stone. The crystal had set down in England, a little outside of London . . . yes that was Oxford there, centered in the transparent eye. And, if the map were large enough Sirius had no doubt that it would center on the proper street, the exact house, the room at the top of the stairs and the man sleeping on the bed in there.

"Well, I'll be damned," muttered Sirius, who had never tried something of that sort before. He tugged at the crystal, which came away from the map with some reluctance. Then, with barely a pause for breath he began again, not even checking the book as he recited, tapped, and swung.

"Harry Potter," he said clearly.

The crystal continued to swing. Sirius watched it closely as it revolved in slowly decreasing circles, and at last hung from his fingers, answerless.

He did it again, emphasizing each word and speaking his godson's name with exquisite care, like a command or part of the conjuring power of the incantation. Again the crystal swung, indecisive and unrevealing, until gravity had its way and it hung, lifeless.

"It's no good."

Sirius jumped violently, twisting around to find Remus leaning in the doorway, threadbare nightshirt just covering his bony knees.

"We tried it half a dozen times," Remus said quietly. "Both Severus and I."

Sirius swallowed through a dry mouth. "What . . . what does this mean?" he asked, gesturing helplessly with the crystal.

Remus sighed. "It means what it means. The location spell could not . . . locate him."

"Well, that's simple," said Sirius, letting out a relieved laugh. "It couldn't locate him because he's not here." He waved a dismissive hand over the map. "There's a lot of world out there and he's just spreading his wings a little bit."

"He's not anywhere in the world atlas. We tried."

"Oh," said Sirius. "Are you sure it's the entire world atlas?"

"Have you tried having your wand point to him?" Remus asked. "That doesn't work either. And the clock has been pointing to 'unknown' since before Halloween. I know," he said, as Sirius opened his mouth. "He wanted to be left alone. I know that, and I respect it. But I also think that he should respect the fact that we worry for him."

Sirius dropped his head into his hands. That's all Harry had asked of them, that early July day when he'd gone. On balance, Sirius supposed they were lucky Harry hadn't just left a note. He'd waited only long enough to attend all the funerals, every single bloody one right down to the Slytherin fourth year he'd never heard of. Sirius had stuck to him doggedly throughout, and he could recall with agonizing clarity Hermione's crumpled expression as she'd wept between a shocky Fred and a silent George, the long line of still young faces, pale skin taking on a greenish cast from the herbs draped about their necks and stuffed in their mouths to stop them from rotting away. Voldemort had been gone for six months, and none of them had been ready for the end of year Hogsmeade celebrations to turn into a running street battle, a goddamn bloodbath . . .

Harry had fought as Harry would, and after, when they had rounded up the crazed remnant of the Death Eaters mad with revenge and a faint, wild hope that if they killed Harry Potter, maybe, just maybe . . .

He had gone to all the funerals, shaken all the hands, let strangers hug him. Then he had left, one small pack over his shoulder and Hedwig for company and Sirius, who perfectly understood the instinct to find yourself a nice isolated cave to spend a year or two in (oh yes he certainly did) had let him go.

"What if he's in trouble?" Sirius said, his voice a little husky. "I mean maybe he's found a way to hide out, but what if--what can we do?"

Remus came into the room and knelt before him. His knees popped audibly and Sirius winced in sympathy. They were getting old, Moony and him. "We're looking into it," Remus said gently. "I'm looking, and Severus is looking, and we're going to start quietly asking around. We'll find a way to pin him down, and we'll make sure he's all right, and if he still wants to be left alone we can leave him alone."

Sirius nodded. He was dimly aware that Remus was speaking to him as if he were a child, that he wasn't supposed to let that happen, but he didn't much care. "I just," he said uncertainly. "I know what it's like to be hounded, for everyone to want a piece of you when you're feeling so destroyed, and he asked for space and I wanted to do what was best for him."

"I know," said Remus gently. Sirius became aware that they were crouching eye to eye, nearly whispering. "I didn't want to upset you," Remus said. "I was starting to worry that it'd been a while since the last letter, and, no matter what he said, it was odd about the clock. But you've been so happy lately I didn't want to upset you if it was nothing."

"How did Snape get mixed up in this?" Sirius asked, clearing his throat and sitting back.

"I ran into him in Diagon Alley this afternoon," said Remus. "And he asked after Harry, and, well--"

"He did?" said Sirius disbelievingly.

"Well, what he said was, 'Has the scarred brat deigned to put in an appearance yet?'"

"Oh," said Sirius, laughing a little and then realizing that he should be indignant.

"And I said no," Remus continued. "And he saw that I was concerned and he told me to stop being so upright and do some interfering if it was bothering me so much. And I said I'd been thinking about looking up some location magic, and he said I couldn't be trusted not to botch it up, so . . ."

"So what happens now?"

"Now we do some research," said Remus.

Sirius nodded. "I can help."

"Wonderful," said Remus, smiling warmly at him. "An extra pair of hands and an extra brain are always appreciated."

"Even a brain as addled as mine?"

"Your brain is no such thing, Sirius Black."

"Are you sure?" Sirius asked, a little wistfully. "Because I swear Moony, sometimes everything just seems so far away . . ."

"Hush," said Remus. "It's all right. Give it time."

Sirius nodded, and let Remus roll up the map and put the books away, then haul him off to bed. Remus had been saying to give it time for the whole year Sirius had been alive again, at least for the last nine months of it Sirius could clearly remember. Before the middle of March or so he could find nothing but a whirling, terrifying confusion of amnesiac fear, faces and people and words completely incomprehensible to a mind still in large part on the other side of the void, whatever the blazes that was. He was told, though he thankfully did not recall this, that it had been nine weeks before he could make intelligible sounds. According to Remus there was just a lot of howling before that.

And before that, before a chilly solstice night when the great beyond had spat him out like a bit of refuse, or before Harry had dragged him out depending on who you believed, before that there was--

"Remus?" he said, as they settled back into bed.

"Yes?"

"Next time, worry me."

"I'm sorry?"

"Next time," said Sirius, turning on his side to face him, "tell me. I can handle it. I'm better now. And even if I can't . . . I don't like you keeping important things from me. Historically, that doesn't work well for us."

There was a brief pause. "All right," said Remus. "Agreed."

*

"Severus Snape," said Ignatius.

"Yes," said Sirius, wearily.

"How do you feel about him?"

Sirius rolled his eyes. He liked Ignatius, he really did. The man wandered around St. Mungo's in worn out denims and Stone Roses T-shirts, and he could tell Sirius that physical addictions were often displacement activities for deeper anxieties with a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth and an absolutely straight face. But sometimes he asked the most daft questions . . .

"It's Snape," said Sirius. "There's not much to say. He's a slimy git and I hate him."

"Yet you will willingly sit down to a meal with him," said Ignatius.

"Well, willingly might be stretching it." Ignatius waited, face politely inquiring, and Sirius sighed. The bugger could keep that up for hours on end, Sirius knew for a fact. "Remus asked him," he said. "And it's not like I can draw my wand on him for being him. He did save Harry's life, back in June."

"Hmm," murmured Ignatius. "That doesn't sound very simple at all. In fact, it sounds quite complex."

"Why are we talking about Snape?" Sirius asked irritably. "Shouldn't we be discussing Harry? That's the important part."

"Sure," said Ignatius easily.

Sirius waited. "Well?" he demanded after a moment. "Aren't you going to ask me how I feel about it?"

"I thought it was implied," said Ignatius, cracking a grin. "But if it will help--" he flung himself back in his chair, crossed one leg over the other, and regarded Sirius through half-lidded eyes. "How do you feel about the fact that you don't know where your godson is?"

"Concerned," said Sirius, then made a face. Talk about daft. "Worried. Frightened. Look, can you say something insightful, because I'm sort of drowning here."

"Is that what I do?" Ignatius asked, one eye popping wide open. "Say insightful things when you find yourself under a glut of emotional synonyms?"

"You asked me how I felt," Sirius said sulkily.

"Because you asked me to," Ignatius shot back.

"Well?" Sirius pressed. "What would you have asked me, then?"

"Actually," said Ignatius, "I've been meaning to ask you if you'd object to having a syndrome named after you."

"A . . . beg pardon?"

"A syndrome," Ignatius said patiently. "One that would carry your name and encompass the constellation of post-resurrection symptoms which you have manifested."

"Wouldn't that violate all that privacy bollocks you're always spouting about?" Sirius demanded.

"Certainly," said Ignatius. "Which is why I will never publish a paper on the subject." He paused. "Though there are also the small matters of wizarding disinterest in my line of work, and the high probability that submitting such a paper to a Muggle publication would have unpleasant consequences for me."

"So . . . why are you naming it?" Sirius asked, baffled.

Ignatius shrugged. "I'm writing a whole series of papers, actually, and I've just gotten tired of making up new names for you and not having a simple nominative for your condition."

"My condition," said Sirius dryly. "My condition is that I was dead and now I'm alive again."

"You see?" said Ignatius. "It doesn't trip off the tongue, does it?"

"That's very strange, you know," said Sirius, squinting at him. "Writing papers you know you can never publish."

"Is it?" asked Ignatius. "Personally, I would rather do something strange to make myself feel better when I'm caught in an unsatisfying position than do nothing at all." He paused again, then smiled easily and shrugged. "Besides, I find you fascinating."

"Someone said that to me just a few days ago," said Sirius.

"Who?"

"Oh, er. Snape."

*

Sirius hurried through the mental ward as quickly as possible. Ignatius said it never hurt anybody to be reminded that there were people with worse problems, but Sirius, who had spent nearly four months in a bed on this very ward, was not interested in gaining perspective. He nodded to the harried mediwitch bent over files beside the only entrance, and was almost to the door when a voice reached him.

"Excuse me? Aren't you--Mr. Black?"

Sirius turned. It couldn't possibly be a reporter, not in here, could it?

"Oh," he said, blinking at the young man puffing up to him. "Aren't you the Longbottom lad?"

"Yes sir. Neville." He stuck out a hand--the left--and after half a beat Sirius accepted. Neville's right shirt sleeve was shortened, the cuff concealing the ragged stump where the arm ended just below the elbow. Sirius remembered now, seeing the boy's white, agonized face on a gurney when he'd come to this very hospital in June, heart in mouth, to collect a battered, silent Harry.

"Visiting your parents?" Sirius asked, glancing up the ward.

Neville nodded, his pleasant face set in a practiced expression of calm acceptance. "I come when I have time," he said. "More now that the planting's all done--I run a herbarium now, you see, well, not run it, actually, because I'm bollocks with numbers and all, but I do everything with the plants and er." He straightened suddenly and shook himself a little. "Sorry. I don't mean to keep you. I was wondering, I heard that you and Professor Lupin--I was wondering if you could get a message to him?"

"Sure," said Sirius, bemused. "What is it?"

"Well, we've got a Boggart," Neville said, and shuddered just a little. "It's gotten into one of the cabinets in the back office. I tried to get it out this morning, but . . ." he trailed off and flushed a little. "And, well, Professor Lupin was the one who taught us--or tried to teach us--how to get rid of them and he seemed so good at it, I was wondering if he'd mind terribly coming down to have a crack?"

"Oh," said Sirius, "he'd be delighted. And I mean that literally. He's doing some research, and I know he could use a Boggart or two around. In fact," he added, considering, "why bother Remus? I can handle the thing right now. Do you have a sturdy trunk or chest that I could borrow?"

Longbottom blinked, appearing momentarily dismayed. "Oh, I wouldn't want to trouble you . . ."

"Nonsense," said Sirius briskly. Neville belonged to the generation that had been raised on early childhood stories of the mad Azkaban prisoner. Sirius had found, with some experimentation, that ignoring it was generally the best approach. "I have time now, and it shouldn't take long at all."

"Well, all right," said Neville, shrugging. "I'll Apparate on ahead. You can take the floo into the shop. Just call for Longbottom's Leaves." He grinned a sunny, proud grin. "Thought of the name myself," he said, and gestured Sirius ahead of him out the door.

When Sirius stepped out of the fireplace in Longbottom's Leaves the first thing he noticed was the smell. There were plants everywhere, set under specially colored lamps or suspended in tanks of water. The ceiling was a tangled upside down forest of dried and drying bulbs and roots and herbs and other unidentifiable things. The whole place smelled overwhelmingly sweet and bitter and a little damp, all the scents of the earth.

"Here we are," said Neville, bustling out of the shadows at the back of the shop. The fingers of his remaining hand went out, testing a stem here, plucking a withered leaf there, unconsciously graceful and efficient.

"Nice place," said Sirius truthfully. The shop was quite small, and out the glass-fronted doors Sirius recognized one of the seedier, less well-populated offshoots of Diagon Alley, but after all Neville had only finished Hogwarts six months ago. He appeared to be doing very well for himself.

"Thank you," said Neville, beaming. "We have space for a little garden out back, though I still grow most things at my Gran's. Eventually I'd like to get a larger space and have all the plantings here so the customers can see them and buy straight out of the ground if they want."

"Nice," Sirius repeated. "Now, about that Boggart . . ."

"Back here," said Neville, turning and winding his way back through the shelves of growing or preserved flora. Sirius followed him through the tiny shop then a door, and up a narrow flight of stairs. "This is actually the second Boggart, you know," Neville said over his shoulder. "We had one . . . not three weeks ago it was."

"Remus says there's been something of an outbreak," Sirius explained.

"I reckon," said Neville, shaking his head. "I found that one and my Gran chased it off." He opened another door at the top of the stairs and ushered Sirius into a small but comfortably appointed workroom with a line of tall wooden cabinets along one wall and the requisite scatter of growing things. A desk stood in one corner, its surface strewn with ledgers and parchments and quills. Three unsteady towers of books perched worryingly near the edge, and a cauldron sat next to the accounting ledgers.

 

 

"My Gran takes care of the bookkeeping for me," said Neville, bending to pull an ironbound travel trunk from a corner. "And most of the selling, actually. She also whips up some simple potions for a few of our customers. She's amazing with potions--don't know why she couldn't have passed that on to me." He shot a ruefully resigned look over his shoulder. "The only part I'm really good at is making the stuff grow. Will this do?"

"Perfectly," said Sirius. "It's in one of these?"

"That one," said Neville, pointing to the middle cabinet. He shook his head. "My Gran found it. I was downstairs, and all of a sudden I hear this great screaming and wailing, and Gran comes tearing down sobbing that Voldemort has come back and is in our second storage cabinet . . ." He paused, right arm rising as if he would bring the missing hand to his face. "I've never seen her like that before," he said quietly. "She's always just so . . . Gran."

"Well," said Sirius, clapping him on the shoulder. "No worries. Will have the thing out in no time."

"I really do appreciate it," said Neville, shuffling backwards towards the door. "Do you, erm, need anything? Can I get you some tea or--"

"Sure, tea would be nice," said Sirius.

"Terrific," said Neville brightly, and hurried out. Sirius cast a sardonic eye over the teapot sitting on a low corner table. Not that he could blame the lad-who in his right mind would willingly face a Boggart? Sirius opened the trunk and placed it at the ready in the middle of the room. Then he stood a moment, taking slow deep breaths and preparing himself.

Who in his right mind, indeed? Bugger it, Remus wanted a Boggart, and a Boggart he would get. It was the very least Sirius could do, after everything.

When he opened the cabinet door, Harry's dead body tumbled out and fell at his feet.

Sirius gasped, leapt back, and made a sound much like the one Peter had when the knife slid into his gut. He stared, shook, and lifted his wand.

"Rid--" he began. But as he watched Harry was moving, mutilated limbs impossibly shifting to take his weight, and now that Sirius was looking that wasn't Harry after all. He didn't know how he could have mistaken it.

"I'm very sorry," Remus said, standing and smoothing down his robes with brisk hands. "But I can't do this anymore. I don't know who you are, but you aren't my Sirius Black."

"Yes, I am," choked Sirius. "I am, I am, you'll see." He caught himself, raised his wand again. "Riddikulus!"

Remus--the Boggart--dodged, whirling towards the open cabinet in a flare of robes, then twisting back. And when he was facing Sirius once more his features had shifted again, his form stretched and elongated, and Severus Snape was staring back at him.

Sirius took another step back, startled more than anything. He lifted his wand for a third time, then paused, squinting at the apparition. It simply hung there, neither speaking nor moving, staring at him.

"Mr. Black?" behind him Neville pushed the door open. Sirius heard a small "eep," and the alarming rattle of a tea tray supported by only one hand.

"Riddikulus," said Sirius firmly, then again, "Riddikulus," as he hurried to cut the thing off from returning to the wardrobe. "Riddikulus!" He slammed the lid of the trunk down on it at last and hunched there a moment, hands flat on the surface, panting.

"Er, Mr. Black?" Neville asked tentatively.

"Bit of a work-out, that," Sirius said, straightening up and wiping his brow. He squinted at the lad, hanging uncertainly in the doorway, and pulled up a teasing grin from somewhere. "Harry told me the story about the Boggart in Remus's class," he said. "Reckon it felt you coming up the stairs, eh?"

"Oh," said Neville, coming into the room and clearing a space on the edge of the desk for the tray. "I reckon, though the last one I saw turned into--" he stopped, right arm jerking spasmodically. "Could you close the cabinet, please?" he said abruptly. "And do you take sugar?"

"Actually," said Sirius, moving to do as he was asked, "I hate to put you out, but I should really be getting home. Remus and I are expecting company tonight. Well, not actually company since it's just Sn--erm. Remus will be waiting for me." He glanced into the cabinet as he swung the door shut, momentarily puzzled by a diffuse white glow emanating from within. Just a Pensieve, he saw, after a moment's confusion.

"You sure?" Neville asked, lifting the steaming teapot. "It's the least I can do."

"Don't worry about it," said Sirius, patting him on the shoulder. "It's a favor to Remus, really."

"All right," said Neville, "if you're sure. Do you need help with that?"

"Got it," said Sirius, hefting the trunk. "Remus or I will drop it off as soon as we get the thing settled in a wardrobe or something." He paused, contemplating. "Maybe the guest closet."

"Thanks awfully," Neville said, moving to open the door for him. "Say hello to Professor Lupin for me."

Sirius nodded and tilted the trunk in a jaunty wave, which produced an annoyed rattle from within. He was about halfway down the stairs when the door below opened and a very tall, thin woman stood silhouetted by the lights in the shop.

"Sirius Black," she said, looking up at him through narrowed eyes set in a lined face. Her gray hair was pulled back in a severe knot, and she carried a handbag big enough to contain a litter of puppies.

"Madam," said Sirius, bowing despite his burden. "You must be Neville's grandmother. Just taking care of that little Boggart problem for you."

He tried a smile on her, with no visible effect. Sirius sighed internally. From all accounts Neville's grandmother was a real dragon, a "grand old broad" as James had used to say of his own grandmother. Those eagle-eyed, steel-spined sorts never seemed to like Sirius, no matter how charming he was.

She moved aside as he reached the bottom, and he saw as he passed her that she was carrying a bag of groceries.

"Thank you for your assistance," she said coolly, "though I'm sorry we've put you out. I don't know why on earth Neville didn't just call the pest control division of the Department of Magical Creatures."

"No trouble," said Sirius, taking a few steps into the shop. "Glad to be of help. Good evening, madam."

She dipped her chin once in a short nod and headed up the stairs. Sirius sighed out loud this time, and started shoving the trunk into the fireplace.

"Mr. Hogwash Thumbtwizzle," he said into the flames. "Mourton Street, Oxford." He and Remus had wanted a connected floo, but they'd also wanted their privacy, and just as importantly, their safety. The Oxford house was supposed to be a refuge for them and, when he wished it, for Harry. Apparently, thought Sirius as the fire whisked him away, Harry didn't wish it.

"What in the world?" Remus asked as Sirius stumbled out of the fireplace and tripped over the trunk.

"Brought you a present," Sirius said brightly, kicking it closer to him. "Careful," he added as Remus bent to inspect it. "There's a Boggart in there."

Remus looked up, delighted. "Did Ignatius have a Boggart?"

"I ran into Neville Longbottom," Sirius said, taking off his jacket. "He sends his hellos, by the way. Got the thing out of one of his cabinets. Nice little herb shop he has off Diagon Alley. Hullo, Snape," he added at last, glancing over to the man seated once more at his kitchen table.

"Thank you," said Remus, straightening up and embracing him in a quick, hard squeeze.

Sirius slid an arm around him. "I thought about roses, you know," he said, "but then I figured you really weren't that sort of bloke, so a Boggart it was."

"You're in a good mood," Remus said, leaning back and looking closely at him. Then he paused, a line deepening on his brow. "Or are you?" he asked softly.

Sirius felt the edge of his jovial smile waver. "I'm fine," he muttered for Remus's ears alone. "Just, you know. Boggart."

"Of course. Thank you again." Remus stepped away to shift the trunk into the study, leaving Sirius to his own devices. He fussed for a moment with a cup of tea, then moved to settle across the table from Snape. A formidable stack of books stood between them, pages bristling with little parchment markers.

"Well?" Sirius asked brusquely. "Have you found anything?"

"Yes," said Snape.

"Really?" Sirius had been about to take a sip, but he set his teacup down with a thump instead. "What is it?"

"A variant on the location spell you attempted," said Snape. "It's for finding bodies."

There came a sharp breath from the doorway. "Severus," Remus said, a hint of danger in his voice.

Sirius glanced up to find him entering from the study, map tucked under one arm and atlas in his hands. He wondered a little distantly what Remus thought he could possibly protect him from at this late date.

"You wanted a quick and easy way to find him," said Snape, shrugging as if it mattered not at all to him. "This spell will . . . eliminate a possibility."

"All right," said Sirius as Remus opened his mouth. He wrapped his cold hands around his mug. "Let's do it."

Remus spread out the map, a much less detailed one of the entire world this time, and weighed down the corners with books and tea mugs. There was a brief debate over who would be doing the casting, which Remus won by dint of having the crystal and not letting it go. Sirius, who had a very fresh image of his godson's dead body to contemplate, sat silent and watched.

Remus chanted, voice steady and calm, then tapped and swung. "Corpus mortuus," he said. There was no sound but the low crackling of the fire. And then, "Harry Potter."

The crystal hiccupped, as if it had hit a pothole in midair. Sirius's stomach shifted, rolling ominously, and he thought he might throw up. But then the stone swung on, undisturbed, and it was only as its momentum wore down and it began to slow that Remus's hand trembled.

"It's possible to hide a body," said Sirius into the silence. "It must be."

Snape, who had been sitting with preternatural stillness, stirred. "It could be buried in ground that is later made unplottable," he said.

Sirius nodded, staring into his tea.

"There's no live Harry on this map," said Remus. "And there's no dead Harry. One of these things must be untrue."

"Hogwarts students aren't taught how to make themselves unplottable, are they?" Sirius asked.

Snape snorted. "I should think not, considering that is impossible, as all sensible wizards know."

"Oh," said Sirius, in a small voice.

"Severus," Remus said again, reprovingly. He turned to Sirius and adopted the steady, professorial voice with which he had reinstructed Sirius's faulty brain on everything from wandwork to Sirius's own middle name. "You can't make a person unplottable. There are localized spells to conceal a wizard's presence from detection, but in order to hide someone on a map they must be at a location that has been made unplottable."

Sirius nodded dutifully. He wondered if he'd actually known that before. Probably, what with one thing and another.

"I doubt Potter would know how to make a place unplottable," Snape said coolly. "I do not recall it from his specialized curriculum, and I know it is not part of the general Hogwarts instructional regime."

"He must be on the map," Remus said, tracing the outline of South America's eastern shore with a fingertip. "We're all on the map, alive or . . . otherwise."

"That's not really true." They both looked up at him, and Sirius shrugged. "Voldemort isn't on the map," he said. "Neither was I, when I was . . . gone. No body."

"I highly doubt that Potter has removed himself from this reality," Snape said acerbically.

Sirius eyed him. "So? Let's have it. Where do you think he is?"

"I think," said Snape deliberately, "that Potter is off somewhere sulking and waiting for the cavalry of friends and admirers to come find him."

"You just said he doesn't know how to hide himself," Sirius said lowly. He could hear a rushing sound in his ears, like the echo of the ocean trapped in a seashell.

Snape shrugged carelessly. "Potter has the most confounded luck. I can easily picture him inadvertently settling in an unplottable location without even knowing it."

"Oh yes," said Sirius, with deep sarcasm. "That's exactly what's happened. Because nothing makes Harry more likely to throw a dramatic, self-centered fit than watching over a dozen of his friends and classmates slaughtered by people aiming for him."

"Potter," Snape hissed, "is a maladjusted child with a hopeless incapacity to deal with difficult events. He can't cope and so everyone in the wizarding world--and Muggle, occasionally--has to know about it."

"Like you have any room to talk about that," Sirius snarled. They were on their feet, both of them he realized, leaning across the table to practically spit in each other's faces. "As if you don't have 'neglectful childhood' written all over you. I wonder what your students think about your capacity to cope, hmm?"

"I have rarely seen a wizard dealt such a rich and gifted hand spend so much time feeling so sorry for himself," snapped Snape.

Out of the corner of his eye Sirius was dimly aware of Remus still seated at the table, watching them through widened eyes, lips a little parted and a hint of alarmed color in his cheeks. Oddly, he seemed to have no inclination to interrupt them.

"How dare you pass judgment on Harry!" Sirius roared. "He has suffered--"

"As have we all," Snape returned, lips drawing back over sharp, disturbingly pointed teeth. "And yet it is Potter who runs off into the night and spends five months worrying everyone foolish enough to give a damn about him!" His eyes flickered to Remus, and then away.

It was only then that Remus moved, rising to his feet and extending a placatory hand. "Severus--" he began.

Snape rounded on him like a snake striking. "Oh for God's sake, Lupin!" he shouted. "Stop coddling him!"

There was a resounding silence. Sirius's ears were ringing. He felt like throwing things. He felt like breaking dishes for the pleasure of the sound of it. He felt like wrapping his hands around Snape's skinny neck and squeezing until the bastard cried hypocrite.

"He's alive," Snape snarled, furious eyes flashing from Sirius to Remus and back again. "He's alive, and that's all. Anything else is just selfish wallowing."

"That's enough," Remus said, with a sharpness that sliced between them like a blade. "Severus, thank you for your assistance. We'll be in contact if we have any further thoughts." Snape took a breath between his teeth, but then apparently decided not to say whatever it was. His face was astoundingly blank. "Sirius," Remus continued, voice still crackling in such a way that made Sirius's spine go ramrod straight, "why don't you go upstairs. I'll clean up down here."

Sirius glanced down to find that his tea had spilled across the map. The South Pacific was now a spreading swamp of brown.

He pushed back from the table, strode out of the room and climbed the stairs on unsteady legs. He was shaking all over with something he couldn't put a name to.

Remus found him sprawled across their bed, watching the door and waiting. He stood in the doorway for a long time, just looking, until Sirius moved uncomfortably.

"I'm sorry, all right?" he said, nettled. "We should be thinking about Harry, not doing . . . that."

Remus was still silent.

"What?" Sirius repeated, becoming increasingly uneasy.

"I was just thinking," said Remus at last, "that that was the most alive I've seen you since . . . in a long time."

Sirius had no idea what to say to that. The shakes were subsiding, leaving a depleted exhaustion in their wake. Life, it seemed, was pretty damn tiring.

"What do we do now?" he asked, voice hoarse.

"We try to find him," said Remus. He pushed off the doorway and came to sit on the edge of the bed at Sirius's side. "Luckily for us, a number of wizards and witches are currently experts on locating the unlocatable." His mouth twisted wryly. "Last time Hermione and I went hunting, it was for Voldemort."

"Ironic," said Sirius, listlessly.

Remus was silent for a full minute. He sat straight, hands clasped between his knees. "Sirius," he said at last.

"What is it?"

"I would like---" said Remus, then stopped.

"What?" Sirius repeated.

"I would like to tell you something," said Remus. "About Severus."

Sirius flung one arm across his face. "Yeah? Don't hold back on my account."

"I'm trying not to," said Remus. "It's rather difficult." He shifted uneasily then, bizarrely, flushed. "While you were dead," he said rapidly, "you have to understand how bad things were. Harry was . . . troubled, and nothing I did seemed to reach him. The war was not going well, and it was becoming clear that Dumbledore would not be long with us. I . . . was alone again."

"I know," said Sirius. They had never discussed that time. They'd never had to.

Remus took another breath. "Severus and I were thrown together by circumstance a great deal. He had the only line to Voldemort, and he often worked with Hermione and me on keeping track of his movements. And after a time, Severus and I came to . . . find something we needed in each other."

Cold chills raced up Sirius's spine. "You were . . ."

"Yes."

Sirius blinked rapidly. "And when I came back . . . you ended it."

Remus frowned. "Well no, actually. I was going to," he added hastily, "but Severus did it first." He unclasped his hands and ran one through his hair. "I just thought you should know that may be part of why he was so . . . harsh." He paused. "The two of you . . . you share a great deal. Only you've applied it to different purposes."

Sirius dropped his arm and looked up at him again. "I imagine he's quite angry," he said flatly. "And jealous."

Remus gave him a sharp look, as if searching for pleasure at that thought. There was none to see, and his shoulders hunched a little. "You have nothing to fear from him," he said, in the firm, professor tone. "I know he will not interfere." He leaned over and laid both hands palm down on Sirius's chest. "And even if he did . . ." he shook his head helplessly. "You're alive. You're here."

Sirius nodded. His mouth was too dry to speak. Remus's comforting words blew through him and were gone. Oddly, all he could focus on were imaginings of that scene a year ago, how Snape had said it, or if he'd said anything at all. So like the fool, Sirius thought, disgusted and pitying. To give up something he wanted, and, oh yes, Sirius could see that now clear as day and did not know how he could have missed it, so like Snape the hypocrite to give something away with his own hand, and then hate the man who took it from him.

"Are you . . . all right?" Remus asked tentatively.

Sirius blinked, swallowed. "I'm fine," he said, and reached out his arms.

Remus came to him at once, and they pressed close. Sirius kissed him, gentle at first, then with sudden ferocity. They twisted, grasped, writhed and bit. Remus let him get the upper hand quickly, and he lay back beneath Sirius with a desperate abandonment he had not shown since before--before--

Remus slept after, immediately and deeply. Sirius did too, after a long still time that stretched far past midnight. He'd known this, he thought as drowsiness came on. He'd known it, and yet never seen.

*

The Michaelmas term had ended and, in the absence of the students, the residents of Oxford could venture out once more to reclaim their town. Sirius hunched his shoulders inside his coat. It was a dreary, cold December afternoon, the sky a flat gray sheet overhead and the pavements treacherous with the occasional slick of ice.

He hadn't had much to do with the decision to move here, though he had been the one to sign the papers, of course. Remus didn't have that sort of money--any money, really--and they'd both refused to let Harry help out. But really, it had been Remus, firmly insisting that Sirius should not go back to Grimmauld Place and making coaxing comments on the value of a fresh start. Sirius had not seen the house until the day he had been released from St. Mungo's at the beginning of April, and it wasn't until summer came around and he began taking walks and exploring that he realized what a good choice Remus had made. Oxford was a comfortable mix of retiring and lively, with a population of generally scholarly Muggles who didn't give Sirius a second glance. There were lots of libraries for Remus to play in, if mostly Muggle, and enough entertainment within walking distance to keep Sirius occupied on the rare occasions he grew restless.

He turned onto High Street, and then ducked into the covered market. He was ostensibly out to replenish their produce supply for a few ambitious culinary endeavors Remus had in mind, but Sirius loitered along at a slow amble, peering into shop windows and inhaling the mingled scents of fresh fruit and frying chips and baking cookies.

A solicitation caught his eye, and he paused, momentarily struck with the absurd urge to go in and inquire after a job. But then he turned away, laughing at himself. He had no need to work. And besides, it wasn't as if he had any good references.

"That's right, chaps," he muttered to himself. "Locked away for twelve years before I could even reach my prime. Two years hiding out in caves and skulking a lot, then eighteen months spent dead. Anything else? Why no, I haven't done much of anything as it turns out . . ." He stood still a moment, struck by a fit of vertigo. Would he ever work again? For a moment he was rudderless, seeking a course into the future that he had once held so steady. He was to be an Auror, and he was to be brilliant. And now . . . now he could hardly plan for tomorrow, let alone the next decade.

He snorted, checked his watch, and picked up his pace. Enough dallying. He was going to be late, and a man shouldn't keep a lady waiting.

Hermione had arrived and was being amply entertained by Remus when Sirius got home. She stood at once and came to shake his hand and kiss his cheek, one gesture solemn and very grown-up, the other sweet and schoolgirl charming.

"It's been a while," she said, as Remus relieved Sirius of his bags and began putting things away.

"Yes," said Sirius, thinking back and realizing that it had been at least August since they'd last bumped into each other. "How are you?"

"All right," she said, and pushed impatiently at a strand of hair which had escaped her pins and fell across her forehead. "We've been very busy at work, of course. And you?"

"Fine," said Sirius, shrugging. "I can't complain. Tea?"

"I've got a pot on," said Remus. "It should be about ready."

Sirius went to the stove to check, then to fetch mugs. "It's nearly solstice," Hermione said at his back.

"Yes," said Sirius, not turning. They were just two weeks away from the anniversary of the night when Harry had tossed Voldemort out of this world, body and non-existent soul. Dumbledore had followed on his heels and Sirius, who had no recollection of any of this, had been the result. He rather thought he had Harry to thank for that, though the boy himself was remarkably tight-lipped on the subject. Well, Harry and the great beyond's clearly deficient skill at maths.

"Have you been feeling all right?" Hermione continued. "No dizziness? Headache? Confusion?"

Sirius did look then, and found Remus doing the same. "No," he said slowly. "Should I be sick?"

Hermione shook her head, frowning. "I don't think so, but it did occur to me as a possibility."

"We'll keep an eye out," said Remus, giving Sirius an assessing look as if he expected him to sicken before his eyes.

"I'll be fine," said Sirius, suddenly and inexplicably irritated. He turned back, poured the tea, and passed the mugs around.

A silence fell as they all settled around the table. Hermione folded and unfolded her hands, sipped distractedly at her tea, and at last bent and retrieved a bulging tote bag from the floor at her feet.

"I've been doing some research," she said, then glanced at Remus. "And I've dug up all of my notes from last year. There might be something useful."

"Good," said Remus. "I couldn't seem to find mine."

Hermione flushed a little. "Oh, erm. That's because I have most of them."

"Ah." Remus looked a mix between amused and disturbed.

"Notes from what?" Sirius broke in.

Hermione looked up from the act of disgorging a small forest of parchment onto the table. "Well, from the search for Voldemort," she said, then blinked. "Oh. You weren't there. Right. Er, sorry."

"It's all right," said Sirius, shrugging. "This should be easier though, right? I mean," he continued off their expressions, "you obviously did find Voldemort so . . ."

"We did," said Remus. "But it's complicated."

"There are a lot of ways to hide," Hermione took up. "The most obvious, and most effective, is to stay in an unplottable location. That's part of what Voldemort did, though he did have to move around a fair amount." She withdrew something small and shiny from her bag, then tapped it with her wand and enlarged it into a circular mirror several feet across. "Being unplottable is all about remote location," she explained, voice falling into a comfortable lecturing pattern. Sirius could imagine her just like this, holding forth to a glaze-eyed Harry and Ron. Here she was, six months out of school, one friend dead and the other forsaking her company to be alone. Sirius looked closely at her, seeing the things her businesslike dress and brisk manner could not quite conceal. Her eyes were shadowed, a little sunken, and there were lines around them and her mouth that had no business on the face of an eighteen-year-old.

"Being unplottable means that you won't be read on a map, of course," she was saying, "but it's not just that. It also means that no one can set a cardinal point in their wand to that location or you, and things like owl post and remote viewing can be problematic. It doesn't necessarily mean that you're well-hidden. Once someone gets to the unplottable location, which is entirely possible if someone who knows where it is shows them, the spell no longer applies to them and they can come back any time they want."

"Which is basically how we found Voldemort," Remus put in.

"Right," said Hermione. "And Malfoy Manor, for that matter."

"What about Fidelius?" Sirius asked, curiosity piqued.

"It's rather the same thing," said Hermione. "Only more so. The power of Fidelius is the secret part, of course. That's why it works so well. If you choose the right secret keeper, no one will ever find you, not on a map, not by remote viewing, not by walking right by you. You'll simply be . . . hidden." She stopped abruptly, as if realizing what she had said.

"So if Harry is under Fidelius somewhere, for whatever reason, we won't find him," Sirius said.

Hermione nodded soberly.

"I doubt he is," said Remus. "He would need a secret keeper and, well . . ." He gestured around the table and Sirius, with a jolt, realized that the three of them constituted what was left of Harry's inner circle. Who else would he trust? No one, Sirius realized. No one who wasn't dead, anyway.

"In any case," said Hermione, "the other big difference between Fidelius and an unplottable is that Fidelius protects you from absolutely everything, up to and including someone looking right at you. It is possible for someone to stumble into an unplottable location, which is why places like Malfoy Manor have extensive misdirection charms put on them."

"All right," said Sirius. "Let's assume it's not Fidelius. What can we do?"

Hermione tapped the mirror and glanced at Remus. "I was thinking we should start with a bit of remote viewing," she said. "If we get lucky, we can check on him and perhaps learn where he is. If it doesn't work . . . well we'll have learned that he's probably somewhere unplottable, and that someone has put up additional protections against this sort of thing."

"Why would we be able to view him when he's not on the map?" Sirius asked, puzzled.

"Well, we're not sure he's not on the map," said Hermione. "All you know for sure is that a general location spell for your average wizard didn't work, and," she swallowed, "Corpus Mortuus didn't work. That was the other part of what we had to do with Voldemort. There are a great many different . . . states of being that a wizard can be in. Location magic is very sensitive to these sorts of things."

"In Voldemort's case," Remus put in, "it was a matter of designing a spell to search for a wizard who was currently inhabiting a body fashioned by a particular sort of dark magic." He cast Hermione an admiring look. "Which was brilliantly done, I must say."

Hermione blushed and began industriously pulling an assortment of vials and herbs from her bag. Surveying them, Sirius began to have the sinking feeling that they were going to have to brew something.

"But what sort of state could Harry be in?" he pressed. "I mean, he's still in his own body and all."

Hermione paused, then set down the glass container of toad skin. "I have no idea," she said, and for a moment Sirius caught a glimpse of just how worried she was. It went right down to the bone, he knew well.

As it turned out, remote viewing was a complicated endeavor. The three of them huddled around Hermione's books for nearly half an hour, then broke up to divide the labor. Sirius ended up doing most of the measuring and chopping, while Hermione presided over the cauldron in the kitchen fireplace and Remus fetched and carried. It was surprisingly pleasant work for what it was, and they fell into light conversation, not too terribly shadowed by the thing on all their minds.

"How is work, then?" Remus asked, bringing Hermione the bramblethorn.

"Oh, just fascinating, thank you," she said, adding the ground thorn in a steady trickle. "I don't have much seniority, of course, so they just throw me on any old project where they need a pair of hands, but I think it's going very well."

"I don't suppose anyone's looking into a Boggart-repelling formula?" Remus asked.

She stepped back from the cauldron as a cloud of pungent steam rose up. "Not that I know of," she said, flapping her hands before her face. "I'm currently looking into longevity magics. So many medical applications, if we can just get it right."

"I thought that sort of thing didn't work," said Remus, surprised. "There was that philosopher chap from York in the fifteenth century . . ."

Hermione nodded, returning to her stirring. "Quite a shame, really," she said over her shoulder. "Though it was rather egotistical of him. Could I have the eagle feathers, please?"

Remus fetched them, then came to lean against the counter. "I suppose it rather was," he said, then turned to Sirius. "Do you rememb--have you heard about Thomas Dirunitas? No? He was a philosopher, as Hermione said, who was rather taken with the idea that the, ah, most intellectually gifted wizards should have the right to prolonged lives to pass on their wisdom."

"And his name was first on the list, I presume?"

"But of course. Nicholas Flammel thought he was insufferable and basically told him to bugger off when he came to beg for elixir, so Dirunitas hit upon the idea of preserving himself in a sort of magical stasis, to be reawakened at a later age when his wisdom was once more required."

Sirius frowned. "But that's not living longer," he said. "That's not living at all. It's just extending your time by cutting a big chunk out of the middle of it."

Remus shrugged. "That may be so, but Dirunitas tried it nevertheless. He designed a spell that would hold his body in perfect stasis, no breathing, no heartbeat, no brain activity, with no decay for three centuries or until someone came along and gave him a Finite Incantatum."

"Did it work?" asked Sirius, interested despite himself.

"Oh yes," said Remus dryly. "It put him in stasis all right, and he woke up in three centuries. Except, well." He shrugged. "Something went wrong. His body came alive again but his mind . . . didn't."

"He wasn't quite a vegetable," said Hermione from the fireplace, "but it was pretty close. Apparently he spent nearly twenty years at St. Mungo's, and then died of natural causes. We're trying to fix that problem, obviously," she added to Remus. "If we could figure a way to preserve the body and protect the mind, imagine what we could do for sufferers of progressive disease, to name just one possibility." She turned hastily back to the fireplace as the cauldron whistled ominously. "Almost ready. Can I just have the last bits of--yes, thank you. Boggart repellant?" she added after a moment of rapid stirring.

"A project of mine," said Remus. "Which reminds me, I should get that Boggart out of Neville's trunk so we can get it back to him."

"Neville?" Hermione lowered the fire with a flick of her wand, then moved the cauldron to the counter. It steamed gently, its contents surprisingly pleasant in smell. "How is Neville?"

"Good," said Sirius, taking a peek. The potion was nothing remarkable, just a clear concoction that could easily be mistaken for water. "He's running a herbarium with his grandmother."

"Good," said Hermione, smiling. "I worried about him, with the arm and all." She sighed, looking suddenly weary. "Parvati Patil, she lost her right eye you know. She . . . isn't doing well."

"Different people react in different ways," said Remus gently. "There's no shame in needing time to recover."

Hermione bit her lip. "I know," she said softly. "I seem--I just try to keep busy."

"Which you do admirably as well," said Remus. Watching them, Sirius was struck again by how startlingly caring the austere Remus could sometimes be. Behind the carefully maintained polite distance was the starved soul of a caregiver. Though, Sirius thought a little wryly, certainly not starved anymore, not after this year. Rather over-glutted, he should think.

"I think it's cool enough, now," said Hermione, turning away and brushing impatiently at her face.

They gathered around the table once more. Hermione shifted all her books and parchments to one side and laid the mirror in the center of the cleared space. Then she dipped her wand into the cauldron and coated the surface of the mirror with a thin layer of potion, incanting the whole time. Sirius was oddly lulled by the scent of the potion and the steady rhythms of her voice, and he came to sudden awareness with a jerk when Hermione at last spoke Harry's name. She tapped her wand once, and stopped speaking.

They'd extinguished all the lights but the low banked fire, and outside early winter twilight was falling. They all leaned in close, crowding over the mirror, and waited.

It showed them their faces for one long, disappointing moment, shadow-cut and fire lit as they were. Then, just as Sirius was taking a breath to speak, something changed. The surface of the mirror clouded over and shifted, as if it were a pool of water which had just been disturbed. It went dark and opaque for a moment, then lightened to a silvery white something which shifted and pulsed like breathing. And then . . . nothing. Shapes and images danced beneath the surface, like the world on the other side of a curtain of rain, but there was nothing to grasp onto.

"Goddamn," said Remus, quietly and with feeling.

Sirius let out a pent up breath and sat back. Across from him Hermione looked very much like she might crumple into tears. "Oh," she said. "I thought that must work."

They all sat a moment longer, unable to pull themselves away from the mirror, from the hope that its clouded surface would part as for the sun, and show them what they sought.

Remus was the first to turn away. "Well," he said, voice steady and controlled again. "Well."

Hermione straightened visibly and lifted her chin. "All right," she said, with a good try at firmness. "We can learn something from a negative. Wherever he is, Harry is protected from location magics."

That, Sirius thought but did not say, or Harry was no wherever at all. He couldn't shake the thought of his godson having fallen through a hole in the world like a Galleon down a sewer grate, forever out of reach. What if he were just gone?

"There are things we can still try," said Remus, addressing Hermione.

"Try?" said Sirius. "But you already know how to do this. You plotted Voldemort."

"Well no," said Hermione, looking away as if she were ashamed. "We never figured out how to directly break through an unplottable spell."

"We were moving in that direction, though," said Remus. "You said you still have all your notes?"

"Yes," said Hermione. "But I don't know if--" She stopped, and shook herself. "Yes," she said again. "I have them."

"Right then," said Remus. "How should we proceed?"

"I'll look over what we have," said Hermione. She seemed to brighten with the prospect of tangible research to be done.

"And I will begin my own looking," said Remus. "Perhaps something has jogged loose in the past year." He didn't sound incredibly hopeful of this, Sirius noted.

Hermione nodded and began gathering up her supplies. "We can meet again in a few days and see where we are." She glanced over at the clock, paused fractionally as they all seemed to do, then looked away. "I should be going. I've an early day tomorrow."

Remus helped her collect her things, then bid her goodbye at the fireplace. Sirius sat still and silent at the table, watching their shadows backlit from the fire dancing on the darkened windowpane.

When Hermione had gone, Remus came and laid both hands on Sirius's shoulders. Sirius stared at the table top.

"Help me with dinner?" Remus said at last, softly.

"Er," said Sirius. "Sure."

He let Remus turn the lights up, then sweep him along into the homely activities of chopping and mixing and stirring. They didn't talk much, but Remus's hand was often on Sirius's back or shoulder as they moved around each other.

At last, when they were sitting down to eat, Sirius looked up and spoke. "If you didn't figure a way to plot an unplottable, how did you find him?"

"Severus," said Remus. "He . . . had recently visited the house, and once he was there the magic no longer applied to him. The trick was, as Hermione said, to design a spell specific to Voldemort's . . . peculiar circumstances."

"Oh," said Sirius quietly. "That doesn't help us at all."

"No," said Remus. "No, it doesn't."

*

"Have I ever told you about us?" Sirius asked. "How we got it together the first time, I mean?"

"No," said Ignatius.

"Remus did all the work," said Sirius. "We were sharing a flat and I reckon he'd been wanting it for some time. I would date anything that breathed in those days, and one day he just snapped." He grinned reminiscently. "Pinned me to the sofa and told me in no uncertain terms that I could keep larking about if I liked, but I wouldn't if I knew what was good for me."

"Which you apparently did."

"Yeah. June, 1980, that was." He blinked, struck startled and a little frightened as he always was by the passage of time. "We were together a year and some and then, well."

"And the second time?" asked Ignatius.

"Oh, it was after I moved into the bloody old Grimmauld house. We'd been holding off for a while, but it seemed pointless, somehow." It was less than a year that time, he realized and, depending on how you counted it, even shorter a span this time around. Sirius didn't think he'd even remembered what his prick was for until May or June, and then there had been the problem of convincing an overly solicitous Remus. But, as Sirius had argued, eating, sleeping, and shagging were the things that let a bloke know he was alive. Which was entirely true--he seemed to know up from down without thought when they were tangled up together in their bed. "Third time's the charm," he said into the silence, brightly.

"You seem agitated," Ignatius observed.

"Do I?"

"Yes, you do."

"Well, I'm not."

"All right," said Ignatius, and flipped the butt of his cigarette over his shoulder to the ashtray on his desk. It landed instead in the soil of an already thoroughly downtrodden plant.

"What symptoms?" Sirius asked abruptly.

"Beg pardon?"

"Symptoms. You said I have a bunch of symptoms. Of the Sirius Black Syndrome. What are they?"

"What do you think they are?"

Sirius gritted his teeth. "You know, some days I really despise you," he said.

Ignatius smiled. "Good," he said with maddening cheer. "These little indicators of progress are very heartening." He fell silent, head cocked, waiting.

Sirius sighed. "You talk about connection a lot, I reckon," he said reluctantly. "Is that one of them?"

"Perhaps," said Ignatius. He pulled out another cigarette, but didn't light it. "Connection is such a useful word that its meaning has begun to go soft around the middle," he said musingly. "Connection. Reconnection. All nicely vague, don't you think? You could just as well say 'paying attention' or 'looking where you're going.'"

"And I don't have it, whatever it is," Sirius said.

Ignatius sat forward, planting his elbows on his knees. "A great deal about our lives is determined by how we think," he said seriously. "You," and he jabbed the unlit cigarette in Sirius's direction, "quite unsurprisingly still think like you're locked in a twenty foot square cell." He sat back and smiled wryly. "Or, if you'll forgive the melodramatic overtones, like you are dead."

"Oh," said Sirius. "And I need to stop doing that?"

Ignatius shrugged. "Well, you aren't locked in a twenty-foot square cell. Or dead."

"I know that."

"Hmm," said Ignatius. "That's the difficult thing about your case in particular--you're remarkably resilient, and you don't seem to realize it."

"Do you have any ideas?" Sirius asked abruptly. "About Harry? Something we can do?"

Ignatius smiled again, appearing genuinely pleased.

"What?" said Sirius, exasperated.

"Do you know that that was the first time in the ten months I've been treating you that you've ever asked me that?" he said, hooking one leg over the arm of his chair and letting the foot swing. "What should I do, not what should I think."

"So that's a no," said Sirius.

The smile fell away. "Sorry. It's not my field. I haven't the faintest idea how to go about such a thing."

"Thanks anyway," said Sirius, slumping down in his chair. "Just had to ask."

He went down to the lobby, impatient for once with his still erratic Apparating. He waited his turn at the floo, keeping clear of the unfortunate bugger in front of him who appeared to be suffering from some sort of molting hex. "Longbottom's Leaves," he said at last, and stepped through the fire and out into the warmly lit shop. He looked around for Neville, dismayed to find him nowhere in evidence. Mrs. Longbottom, however, was unmistakable even with her back turned as she helped another customer. Sirius waited politely, tapping his wand against his thigh and resisting the impulse to go touching all the various textured leaves. You never knew when something was going to surprise you with an unexpected set of teeth.

f

"Mr. Black," said Mrs. Longbottom, leaving her customer to his perusals.

"Madam," said Sirius, bowing. He wished he had a hat so he could have doffed it. "I've come to return your trunk," he explained, digging in his cloak pocket and producing the miniaturized item. "Shall I--"

"No, thank you, I'll take it." She plucked it from his fingers, examined it closely, then enlarged it herself.

"Er," said Sirius, sticking his hands in his pockets then quickly removing them. "You haven't had any more trouble with Boggarts?"

"No," she said crisply. "And if we do, I assure you we will consult the proper authorities."

"Right," said Sirius, who had just been given the unmistakable impression that he wasn't a proper anything. "Well, I was glad to do it. I'll just be, ah--" he broke off, eye caught by a flicker of movement. The customer she had been helping, a very tall, spare man who bore a vague resemblance to Mrs. Longbottom was straightening up from a low table of plants with bright green, vertically pointed spikes. Sirius's eye slid over him, then jerked back.

"Excuse me," Snape said, eyeing them both with equal disfavor. "But is there any chance that you have any of the Locriminiums fresher than, say, three months ago?"

Mrs. Longbottom huffed. "Those were harvested not two weeks ago."

Snape stared at her, unblinkingly.

"There might be some more coming in out back," she said after a pause. "Shall I check for you?"

"Please," said Snape. As she passed him he twitched aside so the hem of her skirt would not touch him. Sirius, watching, had to work very hard to control a snort at the nearly identical expressions of loathing on their faces. Boggarts. Oh what he wouldn't give to have been there . . .

She disappeared through the back, and Sirius turned to go.

"Black."

He turned back, eyebrows up. "Snape?"

Snape pinched a small bud from a nearby plant, crushed it between his fingers, then made a face at the resulting scent. "Lupin hasn't bothered to owl me regarding our little problem," he said, and turned away to inspect a display of bulbs.

"Our?" repeated Sirius.

"I," said Snape haughtily, "have a very highly developed understanding of the importance of following through. I don't expect you to understand."

"Are you asking about Harry?" said Sirius.

"I am asking," began Snape with a snap of the teeth. But then Mrs. Longbottom was returning with an armful of plants that could have easily been deadly weapons. She cast Sirius a sharp look, apparently for still being present, but concentrated her attention on haggling with Snape. Sirius lingered close to the fireplace, strongly tempted to just go home. Remus would be there in the kitchen, maybe sitting at the table with some books while something lovely simmered on the stove. The room would be warm and quiet and safe, and Sirius and Remus would be there and Severus Snape would not.

How had it been for them? Had it been Snape, twisting and shouting and cursing beneath Remus, or . . .

"Thank you for your patronage," said Mrs. Longbottom.

Sirius jumped. Then, before he could think better of it, he was hurrying across the shop and ducking out the door before it could swing entirely shut. He fell into step with Snape, glancing around to see where exactly they were.

"Can I help you?" Snape demanded testily, shifting his packages to his other arm so his wand hand was free.

"No," said Sirius. "I believe you were trying to ask about the welfare of my godson."

They turned into the main stretch of Diagon Alley proper, and Sirius blinked a little, struck by the startling realization that he hadn't been here since a brief visit in April. Remus did all their magical shopping, and Sirius had not thought to question, let alone accompany him.

"I was asking," said Snape, "about the progress of the search."

"Same thing," said Sirius, distractedly. He stopped, staring across the alley. Snape took another step, then glanced back.

"What?" he demanded.

"Come on," said Sirius. He snagged Snape by the elbow and dragged him along at a brisk pace.

"Black! Unhand me at once!"

"Oh shut up," said Sirius as they approached the garishly striped awning of Fortescue's Ice Cream Shoppe. "You sound like a maiden whose virtue is being threatened." He didn't release Snape until they were inside the equally colorful shop, and nearly to the counter. "What'll it be?" he asked over his shoulder. "My treat."

"I can pay for myself, thank you," said Snape. He looked mildly unnerved to Sirius's eye. "Not that I want any," Snape added, almost as an afterthought.

"Well, I do," said Sirius. He turned back to the counter, where Fortescue himself stood waiting to take their orders. Without thought he ordered the largest sundae they had, a massive boat of a bowl with a few kilos of ice-cream and enough toppings to drown a small child. At his shoulder Snape made a sound of deep disgust. He glared between Sirius and Fortescue for a long moment, teeth clamped together, then ordered a single scoop of plain mint.

"See?" said Sirius, when they were settled at a corner table. "That wasn't so hard."

"I'm humoring you," said Snape, pulling the napkins closer and beginning to shred one with quick, precise movements. "You're clearly unbalanced and there's a chance you might become violent."

"True," said Sirius cheerfully. He glanced up as Fortescue arrived with their ice-cream. "Thanks, mate."

"You aren't actually going to eat that, are you?" Snape asked, eyeing Sirius's sundae with mild disbelief.

"Harry and I did," said Sirius, taking up the spoon. "The day I got out of St. Mungo's. They took me here, and we ordered this because Harry said he'd always wanted to eat one but never had."

"Heartwarming," said Snape, and sniffed at his ice-cream as if it were a glass of inferior wine.

Sirius took another bite. "Why are you so sure he's alive?"

Snape shrugged. "Why would someone kill him and then hide the body? If he's dead, what's the point?"

"To be cruel," said Sirius at once. "So we'd never know what happened to him."

"Hmm," said Snape. "Would you rather find his decaying body, then?" He considered Sirius's expression for a moment, mouth twisting. "Besides," he added after a silence, "this is Potter. Say what you will about the boy, but he has a remarkable talent for survival."

"He does," said Sirius. "I think . . . I think it's something he learned from them. The Muggles."

Snape shrugged carelessly. "Whatever the origin, he survives," he said. "I wouldn't be surprised if Potter lives to be as old as Albus."

"Just as long as he does it here," said Sirius. He lifted his spoon again. "And to answer your question, we tried some remote viewing with Hermione, and it didn't work."

"Hmph," said Snape. He spooned a miniscule amount of ice-cream into his mouth. "A remarkably imprecise art, that."

"Hermione didn't seem too thrilled, either," said Sirius. "We're concentrating on the map part of it again, now. Though how, exactly . . ."

Snape leaned his elbows on the table and let his chin come to rest in his cupped palms. "You know, Black," he said musingly, "being dead seems to have done you good. You're not nearly so odious as you used to be."

Sirius opened his mouth for a reflexive retort, something about the eye of the beholder, then paused. "That really fascinates you, doesn't it?" he asked instead. "That I died."

"Yes," said Snape, with startling frankness.

"Why?"

"Oh, please," said Snape. "You cheated death. You have taken more time, when none was due to you. For the pathos alone it is . . . deeply appealing."

"You should talk to Hermione," said Sirius. The top layer of ice-cream was beginning to melt into a creamy mess, and he swirled random patterns into it with his spoon. "You two could compare notes."

"What could Miss Granger possibly have to say that would be of interest?" Snape said, lip curling. "Unless someone has recently offed her--no? Ah well." He leaned forward even more. "What was it like?"

"I don't remember," said Sirius.

"Hmm," said Snape, the fingers of one hand beginning to beat out a light tattoo on the tabletop. "There are spells that might be able to help with that, you know."

"Why in Merlin's name would I want to try that?" said Sirius, startled and a little appalled.

Snape scowled and sat up. "I take it back," he muttered morosely. "Dying has only made you more dimwitted." He jabbed his spoon almost savagely into his ice-cream.

"Why do you care, really?" asked Sirius, puzzled. "Have you got a fatal disease or some such?"

"Don't look so hopeful. I'm quite healthy."

"Ah well," Sirius parroted. "So?"

"Curiosity is perfectly normal," said Snape irritably. "As is the desire to acquire knowledge that could prolong one's own life."

Sirius stared at him. "But you're bloody miserable," he said plainly. "You hate most everyone and everything. What've you got to stick around for?"

"Are you trying to talk me into offing myself?" Snape asked, genuine amusement tugging at his mouth.

"Is it working?"

"No." Snape paused, eating a bit of ice-cream. "The compulsion to survival is too deep in me to be rooted out now," he said at last. "Living itself is sufficient, it seems."

Sirius watched him, spooning ice-cream and fudge and cherries into his mouth almost mechanically.

"What?" Snape demanded testily after a minute of this. "Have I got something in my teeth?"

"No," said Sirius distractedly. "No more than usual." He looked away. "Hermione's coming up tomorrow night," he said abruptly. "After dinner. You're . . ." his tongue twisted itself to a halt over the word welcome. "You can come along, if you want."

There was a prolonged silence on the other side of the table.

"You can say no," Sirius said at last, nettled.

"You think so?" said Snape, so softly that Sirius almost missed it. He looked up, just in time to catch the expression of . . . what? Something tired and helpless and fixated. It was the same expression, Sirius thought suddenly, the exact look Snape had always given him, him and Remus. Only the snarling and the frothing hate and the childish grudges had been peeled back with time, leaving only . . . this.

There was a flicker, and Snape's features smoothed themselves into familiar planes of low-level disdain.

"I'll be there," he said. "Merlin knows three Gryffindors couldn't find their own arses with a map and directions."

"Remus and I don't seem to have a problem," said Sirius. He stood, left his half-consumed sundae to melt, and walked away.

*

Sirius leaned back against the counter, arms crossed, and watched. The three of them huddled together, heads bent over the map and sheaves of scribbled parchment, going around for what had to have been at least the fourth time on an esoteric point of arithmancical application. Sirius felt a little like he was watching history, like the past year and a half had never happened. He felt rather like a ghost.

"Look, it comes to the same point in the end, in either case," Hermione was saying, shoving her hair off her face. "No matter if something's happened to Harry or not, we still have the problem of getting around the anti-location magic."

"True," Remus said, leaning forward and tapping his parchments. "But the fact remains, no one has ever investigated the long-term impact of Harry's connection to Voldemort. He is not an average wizard, after all. It's entirely possible that he's not hidden at all, that we're just not looking in the right way."

"The remote viewing--" Hermione began.

"Is hardly a reliable indicator," Snape put in.

They fell to it once more and Sirius turned away to check on the tea. He'd already said everything he meant to say; Harry was missing, and if there were multiple possibilities, they should pursue multiple options. Beyond that, he had no desire, and even less capacity, to get into the nitty gritty of the thing. I used to be a mapmaker, he thought, and almost laughed out loud.

The distinctive rhythms of an incantation snagged his attention, and Sirius turned quickly back to the table. They were trying the map for the first time this evening. Hermione was doing the honors, in the slightly strange, sing-songy tones of someone who actually spoke Latin rather than just recited it. Sirius watched, hands braced on the counter behind him, as the crystal swung . . . and swung . . . and swung.

Behind him the teapot whistled sharply, and Sirius jumped.

"What was that?" he asked, as he rejoined them with fresh mugs.

Hermione pushed her parchment over to him for inspection. "Part of the spell we used to locate Voldemort," she said, then shrugged. "The basic idea is sound for any application, and I thought it was worth a try."

Sirius read, mouthing to himself. "Digitus . . . parvus . . . sinister . . ." He looked up. "This is looking for Harry's . . ."

"Left little finger," said Remus. "My idea, actually. It neatly avoids much of the problems of exact state."

"I still don't entirely understand that," said Sirius. "Why won't one spell just work for everybody?"

"Well," said Hermione, turning eagerly to him, "like most spells, location magics depend as much on the wizard doing the casting as anything else. When you try the most basic incantation to find Harry, what it's searching for is someone matching your recollection of Harry. When I do it, it's ever so slightly different. Not enough different to throw off the spell, of course, but different all the same. But naturally your recollection of Harry is of . . . Harry. Awake and alert and--" she smiled wistfully, "--happy. If you try to cast the spell, and Harry is somewhere out there and he's been turned into a toad, it could get problematic."

"It's very finicky magic," said Remus. "It's accurate enough for most circumstances, but someone actually had to come up with a specific incantation to track down a very intoxicated wizard because the basic one didn't always work, and parents and spouses were getting frustrated."

"Oh," said Sirius. "Have we tried that one?"

There was a slight pause. "The finger should have done it," said Remus doubtfully.

"Here," said Hermione, and began writing quickly on a fresh sheet. "I think I recall how this goes . . ."

He was beginning to have a very low opinion of location magics, Sirius decided, watching the crystal dance in the air for the ten or fifteenth time. He'd only seen it work once, and he was beginning to think that had been a fluke.

"All right," said Snape after a moment. "Can we safely say that we've established Potter is not lying drunk in a gutter somewhere?"

"We're back where we started," said Hermione. "Look, we can try different location spells until next year, but none of it will matter if Harry's gotten himself unplottable."

"And if he's not," said Remus, "trying to find our way around a spell we couldn't break after nine months of trying won't do any good either. At least with Voldemort we knew . . ."

Sirius tuned them out. He stared down at the table, eyes tracing the contours of the map almost hungrily. Where are you?

He scooped up the scrying crystal and held it between thumb and forefinger, gazing into it as if it were a crystal ball. As he slowly turned it Hermione's, then Remus's, then Snape's faces were magnified and distorted, turned suddenly to strangers in the stone.

Was he hiding grieving trapped hunted transfigured imprisoned dead?

For a moment, Sirius considered the possibilities, all of them he could think of. What would he do, if Harry were dead? . . . A strange question, he realized. He would hurt and grieve and rage. He would bury his godson as his parents had been buried before him and . . . and . . . he would learn to live in a colder world, with half his heart in the ground, and he would go on.

The others were rising to their feet. Snape was leaving, he gathered, looking quickly up, then back down. The three of them stood by the fire, backs to Sirius, still talking. He looked again, cataloging the angle of Remus's head, the hunch of Snape's shoulders. He was . . . entirely unsurprised. He and Remus had been caught fast in each other's orbit for decades now, with Snape the unpredictable, eccentric comet in their skies. No matter how hard he tried, Sirius couldn't quite manage to be surprised that gravity had shifted when he was gone. Surprised, or quite angry.

Sirius considered the crystal for another moment, then shrugged and reached for his wand and the nearest parchment. A sudden, deep impatience curled in his gut. His feet shifted restlessly, and he was struck with the startling urge to become Padfoot, to go for a run through the meadows along the river, see how fast his four legs could carry him, set his nose to the ground and follow it to Harry, wherever he was. He didn't think there was much magic that could stop that. He needed, suddenly, to do something, and the impotent fury of having no options open to him set his pulse racing. This wasn't working, and if the combined brilliance of Hermione and Remus and Snape's Slytherin cleverness couldn't crack it, then what hope did addled Sirius Black have?

"Black," said Snape, breaking off mid-sentence. "What are you doing?"

"Sirius, that doesn't work," said Hermione

Sirius shrugged and continued. He swung, chanted, trying not to laugh as he conjured up the strongest impression of Harry's left little finger he could. "Harry Potter," he said.

The crystal slammed down so hard the table rattled.

They all leapt for it at once, voices an incomprehensible babble in Sirius's ears.

"Great Merlin--"

"That's in England--where's the map of the British Isles?"

"Don't bother, just enlarge it." Remus's wand appeared, tapping the map in rapid succession. The topographical picture enlarged ten, twenty, a hundred times. Continents disappeared, as if sliding off the edge of the world. England swelled larger and larger, until all signs of oceans were gone and details of cities began to emerge. Sirius sat perfectly still throughout, holding his hand suspended over the map, crystal still tethered to his fingers, waiting for the first moment of recognition.

They all realized it simultaneously, and there was a mad dash for the fireplace. Sirius got there first by virtue of tripping Hermione, and was the first to tumble out on the other side. Tom the innkeeper looked up from behind the bar, opening his mouth to call a greeting, but Sirius ignored him, pelting past and out into the alley. Remus apparated there, followed momentarily by Snape, and Hermione panted out of the Leaky Cauldron as Sirius headed for the brick wall.

"Wait," said Hermione. "Sirius, your wand."

"What?" he said, wand poised to tap the bricks.

"Make it point to Harry," said Hermione. "Only make it his left little finger--can you do that? Oh, here." She'd grabbed some parchment, the crystal, and the map, Sirius saw with approval as she juggled everything and searched for a quill.

"Just tell me," said Sirius, impatient, then repeated after her as she performed the spell. Hermione's wand spun on her palm, rudderless, but just a moment later Sirius's fixed itself along a line into the alley, nearly quivering.

"Goddamn," Sirius heard Snape mutter as they pelted through the half-formed archway and headed up the alley. Sirius was in the lead, arm stretched out, drawn ever onward by the pull of his wand. He glimpsed Fortescue's as he hurtled by, then took a right off the main drag, and then a left.

They skidded to a panting halt, blinking at the facade of the building Sirius's wand was still urging them towards.

"But--" said Hermione.

"He's in there," said Sirius. He leaned forward, squinting through the glass doors of Longbottom's Leaves. All the lights were out, and the interior was a shadowy snatch of forest.

"Should we--" Hermione began again, uncertainly.

"No," said Remus. "No, we shouldn't." He withdrew his wand and glanced at Snape. "Severus?"

"On my mark," said Snape. "Miss Granger?"

"All right," said Hermione, biting her lip but lifting her wand bravely. "We're going to have to pay for this if we're wrong," she added, then took a breath as Snape counted off.

The three of them cast simultaneously, and the glass doors blew inward, not the direction they were supposed to go, Sirius noted dimly. Hairline cracks webbed the glass, and the faint blue sparks of overloaded security charms crackled in Sirius's hair as he stepped through the door.

Behind him the others lit their wands, but Sirius kept his dark for fear of interrupting the spell. He followed it back through the shop, steps even and sure. He reached the back door, opened it, and ascended the stairs. It brought him to the row of cabinets along one wall, to the middle one. Sirius reached out, and the moment his fingers touched the handle his wand went slack and lifeless.

Sirius jerked the doors open, and he wouldn't have needed the light of the other wands to see. A Pensieve sat on an upper shelf, its dim, moonlike glow sufficient to show that the rest of the cabinet was entirely empty.

"I don't understand," wailed Hermione.

Sirius stood a moment, then transformed. His wand clattered to the floor, but he ignored it.

Harry was here. Sirius turned his head back and forth, then returned to the cabinet. He pushed in, shoving the doors open wider with his shoulders. He shut his eyes and sniffed, and sniffed . . . his nose found something soft and slippery, something very very familiar that smelled not only of Harry but of Remus and Peter and James and Sirius himself. Padfoot barked, the sound very loud in the enclosed space.

Someone seized him by the scruff of the neck and hauled him backwards. Padfoot went, allowing Remus to squeeze past him. He watched, straining forward to see as Remus bent, fumbling and uncertain, then heaving with sudden effort. He backed out of the cabinet looking like a mime for a ridiculous moment as he struggled, then bent as if setting something down. But then he tugged and twisted, and came away with the invisibility cloak shimmering in his hands and Harry still and white at his feet.

Snape pushed by Sirius, keeping one hand twisted rather painfully at the scruff of his neck. He crouched, knees audibly popping, and rolled Harry over. There was a brief pause, then he looked up. Sirius was behind him and couldn't make out his expression as he gazed up at Remus, but Snape's voice when he spoke was astoundingly gentle.

"He's dead," he said quietly.

Hermione made a sound, a choked whine of agony not unlike the one Sirius could feel building in his own throat. She shoved past Snape, nearly knocking him over, and leaned over Harry. She lifted his wrist, pressed a hand to his throat, then let out an enormous breath.

"He's not dead," she said.

Remus crouched down and laid a hand on her back. "Hermione . . . he's not breathing."

"I know," she said, and almost giggled. "He's not supposed to be breathing. He's in stasis. See?" She tilted Harry's face into the light. His mouth was slightly open, and a spray of small green leaves on long stems poked disturbingly from between his lips. Hermione fumbled at his chest and came up with a circular little talisman on a chain.

"But," said Remus slowly, "if we wake him up, he won't be . . . him."

Hermione slumped. "I know. Look, we've been working on this for nearly two months and I do think we're getting somewhere. And it's not like he can come to any more harm this way. We can just take him to St. Mungo's until my team and I--"

Sirius barked. He had meant to say, "No, that's daft," but he'd forgotten that he was still a dog and the abrupt sound startled everyone, including him. Sirius transformed, straightening up and mildly disturbed to find Snape's fingers now tangled in his hair. Snape snatched his hand back, and Sirius shook his head. "Hermione," he said, and pointed wordlessly into the cabinet.

She looked, frowned, double-taked, and yelped. "Oh!" she cried. "That's brilliant. It's what we were seeing in the mirror, only we didn't know it. Why didn't I think of that?" she added under her breath.

Sirius stepped up into the cabinet, and before anyone could stop him he'd plunged his entire hand into the frothing bowl of the Pensieve. At once he was falling, passing through a barrier as if between air and water.

And then he was in the kitchen of his own house, their eternally muddy little patch of backyard visible out the open windows. The sun was low in the sky, and the warm evening air had the flavor of spring to Sirius's nose.

Harry turned from the stove where he was stirring something in a saucepan. He was rosy-cheeked and healthy, but in the brief moment Sirius had to look into his eyes he knew this impression to be entirely false. Then Harry shouted and hurled himself at him, and Sirius had an armful of half-hysterical godson. Harry was made out of memories, Sirius knew that, but he was solid and warm and alive and here.

"You came you came you came," Harry babbled, clutching at him. "I thought it was her again. But it's you it's you--it's really you?" he pulled back and stared anxiously up at Sirius.

"It's really me," said Sirius. "Listen, Harry, we've found you and we're going to take you to St. Mungo's and we're going to, er, put you back together."

Harry nodded wordlessly and threw himself at Sirius once again. "Get me out," he said into Sirius's shoulder.

"We will," Sirius promised. He glanced up. There was, of course, nothing to see but the familiar dips and valleys of his own kitchen ceiling. Harry remembered this place very, very well, he realized. "Look, kiddo, I've got to go," he said. "Just for a little while," he added hastily as Harry's face twisted up. "We've got to get moving." He touched Harry's face. "But next time you see me you'll be in your own body again, all right?"

Harry nodded tightly, and withdrew. Out the window behind him the sun began to descend with unnatural rapidity, and darkness spread across the sky.

"Hey," said Sirius. "You shouldn't be here alone. Why don't you--remember the times you'd come here in the spring, and we'd cook dinner and play cards and Remus would scold you for skiving off school, but make us Irish coffee anyway?"

"Yeah," said Harry. "I've been, er. That stuff is sort of worn around the edges, now."

Sirius swallowed. "Just one more time, all right?"

Harry nodded, and at once Sirius was confronted with an apparition of Remus coming in from the study, followed by a memory Sirius. The two greeted Harry warmly and didn't seem to see their other guest at all. Sirius blinked at them. Was the memory Sirius taller than him?

There was a familiar tugging sensation, and Sirius let himself go with one last smile for Harry. He re-emerged in the cabinet. He was a little dizzy and he steadied himself on the nearest shoulder, realizing only after that it was Snape's.

"Come on." Remus had Harry slung across his shoulders, limbs dangling limply and head lolling.

Sirius lifted the Pensieve and cradled it with infinite care as he followed Remus down the stairs.

*

Harry's chest was rising and falling in a steady, comforting rhythm. Sirius watched it, his breathing unconsciously coming to match. It had taken nearly two hours to get this far, and it promised to be a very long night.

The doctor, finally allowed access to his patient after Hermione and her colleagues were through reviving him, hunched in the bedside chair, concentrating hard. The Pensieve sat between his knees, and he swirled and tested its contents with first his wand, then Harry's. Every now and then he would extract a single silvery strand, which he would carefully apply to Harry's temple. Harry lay, mouth and throat and lungs now clear of tangled greenery. Beneath the sheet his bones showed through skin gone nearly white from lack of sun. His eyes were closed and his face relaxed as in sleep. It would be some time before those eyes would open again, Sirius had been informed.

"It's brilliant," one of Hermione's colleagues was saying. The group of them were huddled in the corner behind Sirius, exchanging excited mutters and taking notes. "Preserve the mind for stasis by not putting it under stasis at all. Simple, but beautifully effective."

Sirius turned his head and pinned the man with a look. "Right," he said quietly. "Because being stuck inside a tiny Pensieve with nothing but yourself for company for months on end won't drive anyone crazy."

He turned back to Harry, feeling Remus step a bit closer at his side. "They are right, you know," Remus murmured. "It is brilliant. I don't think anyone's ever put an entire . . . person into a Pensieve before."

"Just be grateful Voldemort never thought of it," muttered Snape, from Remus's other side. "He could have lived forever."

"In a little stone bowl," Sirius retorted. "That's worse than being a bloody ghost."

"I don't think," said Remus gently, "that this is something many wizards would do . . . voluntarily. I imagine it's rather unpleasant."

"Harry didn't seem too fond, no," said Sirius roughly.

A throat cleared in the doorway, and Sirius turned to find Tonks, face her own and hair a subdued auburn. "How is he?" she asked, glancing nervously towards the bed.

Sirius stepped out into the hall with her, followed by Remus and Snape. Dora could make things fall just by looking at them, and Sirius didn't want to know what would happen if someone accidentally . . . spilled Harry.

"He's going to be all right," said Remus. "They're working on getting his memories and all back in slowly, starting with the most basic things."

"Good," said Dora. She glanced at Sirius. "Mum says you're to go and stay with them tonight, if you don't want to go all the way back to Oxford."

"Oh," said Sirius. "Thank Andromeda for me, but I think I'll be staying here tonight."

"Well, offer's open." She straightened up, and Sirius could practically see her Auror face coming on. "I'm also here because Kingsley sent me to tell you we've taken over the investigation from the Law Enforcement chaps."

Remus frowned. "This isn't dark magic," he said.

"No," said Tonks, shrugging, "but it is Harry Potter. I think Kingsley wants to make absolutely sure it's done right." Snape made a small huff of disgust. "Anyway," Dora went on, "we've picked up both Longbottoms and we're about to administer Veritaserum. Do any of you want to be present to represent Harry's interests?"

"I'll go," said Snape unexpectedly. He shrugged as they all blinked at him. "It promises to be quite a bit more interesting than sitting around and looking at the contents of Potter's head."

"Me too," said Sirius. "You can stay here," he added as Remus frowned uncertainly. "Someone needs to."

"All right," said Remus, shooting doubtful looks between them.

*

Neville Longbottom was just being escorted from the interrogation room as they arrived.

"He's clean," Kingsley Shacklebolt said, before Sirius could speak. "Relatively speaking, that is--he suspected something was afoot, but had no idea what."

Neville, who still looked a little slack and glaze-eyed from the Veritaserum, kept craning his neck to look up the hall. "Where's Gran?" he asked. "I want to stay and watch Gran."

"Fine," said Kingsley, appearing thoroughly harried. "This is a bloody mess," he muttered to Sirius in passing. "The press is already on it, and the Minister of Magic is on her way in."

"We'll get out of the way and let you work then," said Sirius. Dora showed them all into a room from which they could observe the interrogation without interfering. Sirius leaned against the one-way transparent wall, suddenly weary.

"Last time I was here," he muttered tiredly, "I was the one in there." He made a face at the recollection. Professor McGonagall and other allies had been able to put off any legal action until he was out of hospital, but no further. Sirius had spent twelve mindless hours in an interrogation chair, declaiming his innocence twenty different ways before anyone was satisfied.

"Me, also," said Snape at his shoulder.

Sirius looked over at him. The man's face was carved from stone, save for a tell-tale twitch about the eye. "I didn't know that," he said.

"My Christmas gift from the Ministry last year," said Snape, one hand coming up to clench reflexively at his forearm. "They let MacNair and the other butchers of Hogsmeade slide through their fingers, but they brought me in first thing."

On the other side of the wall the door opened and Mrs. Longbottom appeared, escorted by two incongruously beefy Aurors. Sirius glanced down at the silent Neville, who was watching his grandmother through wide, hurt eyes.

"Well, lad?" he asked, as gently as he could manage.

Neville jumped. "I told everything I know," he said, shooting one quick look at Sirius then turning back to the wall. "Gran's been acting a bit strangely, but I had no idea anything like this . . ." he shook himself. "She had me plant Stratinium Valerium, but then I never saw it in the shop. I'm not as stupid as she thought," he added with a bitter edge. "I'm no chemist, but even I know what that's for."

"Indeed," murmured Snape. "Either she wanted to preserve a dead body, or wished to rid herself of an inconvenient pregnancy."

Neville flinched. "I tried to do something," he said to the wall. "She had all these books and things upstairs, and I thought if only someone who knew about that stuff got a look . . . maybe it was nothing and I was just being paranoid."

"That's why you wanted Remus," said Sirius, nodding. "But I came instead."

In the interrogation room Mrs. Longbottom, sullen and silent, had been settled into a chair. An Auror dosed her, waited, then stepped back and gestured to Kingsley.

"That was the other thing," said Neville, as if he hadn't heard. "We kept getting Boggarts. One right after the other, and always in that upstairs cabinet. It was just . . . unnatural."

"They felt Harry," said Sirius. Mrs. Longbottom had slumped, face relaxing into a passive mask as she dutifully recited her name, age, and occupation. "They were after Harry because he was really scared."

The three of them fell silent then, as the questions in the other room began circling in to the matter at hand. Yes, Mrs. Longbottom managed the shop for her grandson. Yes, she had met Harry Potter before. Yes, she had known he was upstairs in her cabinet, and yes she had put him there.

Neville made a quiet, dismayed sound, and let his forehead come to rest against the wall.

She'd been trying for a way to contain him for months before hitting upon the idea of the Pensieve. Sirius listened, rapt, as she explained how she had tried it on one of the stray cats always lurking about Diagon Alley, and how it had recovered and seemed just the same after. Though he felt a little sick, this was heartening.

"He just came into the shop one day," she said.

"What day?" Kingsley broke in.

"September third. A Tuesday, it was. Neville was out back in the garden, and I was minding the shop. And Harry Potter just walked in."

"What was he doing there?"

"He said he was on his way home, that he'd been traveling. My Neville had told me how he'd gone off, and I thought I might be the first to know he was back. He said he wanted to get some mint and some lavender to take home."

Sirius squeezed his eyes shut. Remus was fond of mint and lavender teas, particularly after the full moon.

"How did you subdue him?" Kingsley asked.

"I brewed him tea," she said, and if she weren't under Veritaserum Sirius thought she would have shrugged. "I just put in a dose of sleeping draught. It was very easy."

"And then what did you do?" prompted Kingsley.

"I stowed him upstairs before Neville could come in. I found an invisibility cloak in his things and thought it was marvelous luck. I sent Neville on errands for me all morning the next day, and I brought him out and got him into the Pensieve. It took a long time to get everything out of his head, even with him asleep. Then I put him in stasis, just like the book said. It worked perfectly. Then I made the entire upstairs office unplottable, so no one could trace him there."

Kingsley had a charmed quill transcribing the session, and the feathered instrument hung suspended over the parchment for a moment as silence fell.

"Why did you do this?" asked Kingsley.

"For all of us," she said. "For my Frank and Alice, and my Neville. We're none of us safe, never. You-Know-Who was dead for six months, and he still hurt my Neville."

"What does that have to do with Harry Potter?" asked Kingsley, though to judge by the look on his face he already knew.

"I could keep him safe for when he's next needed. We'll never be safe," she said again. "He can protect us, and if he could live forever he could protect us forever."

Sirius turned away, but then only slumped back against the wall as the interrogation continued. No, no one else had helped her conceive of this idea. No, no one had suggested anything to her. No, and no, and no, and no.

It was nearly an hour before Kingsley was through. By then Neville was sitting slumped on the floor, back propped against the wall, and Sirius was starting to itch to get back to the hospital. By then the Minister of Magic had arrived, and though Sirius genuinely liked Artima Nova, he could have happily strangled her as she kept them all for an endless discussion. Mrs. Longbottom's appearance before the Wizengamot was to take place as soon as possible, it was decided, to cut short public outcry. Legal assistance was found for her, and Sirius supplied the name of his own solicitor to stand for Harry. It was suggested, and Sirius had to agree, that Harry should be assigned a semi-permanent protection force. His godson would be anything but pleased, but that was just too bloody bad, by Sirius's mind.

It was the small hours of the morning before the impromptu conference broke up. Sirius's bolt for the door was only cut short by a hesitant hand on his sleeve.

"Er, Mr. Black?" asked Neville, who had been still and silent and nearly invisible throughout.

"What is it?" asked Sirius impatiently.

The boy gulped. "How's Harry?" he whispered.

Sirius let out a breath. "Why don't you come along and see?"

If anything, the group waiting for news on Harry had swollen as the night progressed. Sirius had to walk a gauntlet of Weasleys before he spotted Remus, deep in conversation with Professor McGonagall just outside Harry's door.

"All right?" asked Remus as Sirius approached them.

"Yes and no. Harry?"

"It seems to be going well," said Remus, leaning to his right to peer through the half-open door. Sirius did likewise, only to see his godson and the doctor in exactly the same positions in which he'd left them. "Hullo, Neville," Remus added, glancing over Sirius's shoulder.

"Professor Lupin." Neville shifted from foot to foot, not meeting anyone's eye.

"They say they'll be waking him up sometime around dawn," Remus explained. "I keep being told not to expect too much, that he'll probably be confused and disoriented." He glanced over at Sirius again. "You look dreadful. There's an extra bed up the hall if you want it."

Sirius opened his mouth to object, but what came out was, "Yeah, maybe I will. Join me?"

"I'll wake you if anything happens," said Professor McGonagall. "Off with both of you."

They settled down together on a narrow cot in a little dark cubbyhole down the hall from Harry. Sirius, who had expected not to be able to sleep, dropped off right away, head pillowed on Remus's curled arm.

He dreamt of the spring, of warm May evenings with Harry and Remus. He remembered it all clearly, perhaps more clearly even than he'd experienced the events first hand. They'd been so good to him, Remus and Harry, so patient and kind and probably a great deal many more things that he didn't particularly deserve. In the dreams Sirius spoke more than he had then, made Harry laugh sometimes, didn't put a pot on the stove and wander away and forget everything, from the cooking to why it was he had to eat in the first place.

Remus shook him awake into dimness and confusion.

"What?" said Sirius groggily.

"Come on, Padfoot. Harry's waking up. He'll want to see you."

That got him moving, and Sirius stumbled out into the hall after Remus. No one had left, it looked like, and there appeared to be a minor scuffle underway about just who would get to go in and see Harry first. Sirius won by dint of walking by and glaring, and so it was that he and Remus were waiting at Harry's bedside when his eyelids flickered and opened.

"Hi," said Sirius, wrapping his fingers about Harry's wrist.

Harry licked his lips and coughed a little. "Hi."

The doctor cleared his throat and Sirius reluctantly moved back to give him some room. He asked Harry a series of questions, made him follow his wand tip with his eyes, and offered up some water. Harry answered, stared a bit vacantly, and drank thirstily. At last the doctor, appearing cheerful enough, excused himself.

"So," said Sirius, perching on the edge of the bed and gently tapping Harry's temple. "Do you think you got everything important back in there?"

Harry frowned, then shook his head as if hoping to restore order that way. "I think so," he said cautiously. "But would I know if I was missing something?"

"No," said Sirius slowly. "Not necessarily. But it's all right. If there's something wrong we'll fix it, you hear?"

Harry nodded. The muscles of his face shifted and flexed, and he kept twisting beneath the blankets. Sirius, momentarily alarmed that Harry was having some sort of seizure, finally identified it for what it was.

"Feels strange, doesn't it?" he asked gently. "Being . . . you again?"

"Yeah," said Harry. He withdrew one arm from beneath the covers and stared at it with mingled wonder and fright. "I don't know . . ."

Sirius hushed him. "It will get better."

"Sirius?"

"Yes?"

Harry spoke softly, through barely parted lips. "Everything hurts," he whispered.

"I know," Sirius breathed. "I know." To Harry right now the world was too bright, too loud, too hot and too cold. His skin stretched strangely over his bones, and they were awkward, unwieldy instruments. Breathing was something that had to occasionally be thought about, and all in all the world was a confusing muddle, a clamor of people and purpose that Harry simply couldn't grasp. Sirius knew, and his throat closed up over the anger and the fright of seeing that look in Harry's eyes.

Remus cleared his throat gently. "You should rest," he said, and touched Harry's face. "We're so glad to have you back."

Harry nodded, sighed, and went limp. Sirius lingered a moment longer, until Remus tugged gently at him.

"Let's go tell everyone to go home. I think he'll be out for a while."

Sirius let Remus do most of the talking. The crowd of Hogwarts folk, Weasleys, and Weasleys-in-law slowly dissipated. Sirius, not planning on going anywhere himself, briefly considered returning to the hard little cot up the hall. But his feet shifted restlessly beneath him, and an uncomfortable, directionless energy hummed in his veins. He left Remus talking quietly to a sleepy Hermione and took himself off on a stroll up the corridor. Harry's room was halfway along, and Sirius paced from it to one end, then back and back again. A window let out at the end of the corridor into a clearly magical landscape. Sirius leaned there a moment, gazing out into a darkened stretch of woodland that was enough like the Forbidden Forest to make his heart ache, just a little.

Sorry, James. Fucked up again.

The door to the lift clattered open, but Sirius didn't turn to look until someone came to a halt at his shoulder and a familiar voice said, "Thought you'd be stewing around here somewhere."

"Hullo," said Sirius tiredly.

"I heard," said Ignatius, shoving his hands into his pockets. He was wearing a calf-length cloak that looked as if it were made out of several pairs of patched and faded denims.

"He woke up half an hour ago," said Sirius. "Seemed all right, considering."

"Good. And you?"

Sirius flattened his hands against the glass. It carried no transmuted chill from the night outside, simulated or real, and it rather destroyed the effect. "I've been better," he said. "And I've been worse." He turned from the window and began moving slowly back up the hallway. Ignatius kept pace with him, his boots loud on the tile floor. "He was in there for over three months," Sirius said abruptly. "I don't know what you've heard . . ."

"Minerva McGonagall filled me in."

"I didn't know you knew her," said Sirius, distracted.

Ignatius laughed. "Sirius, how do you think you landed yourself with me in the first place? Without her you'd be, well, without me."

"And that's just too tragic to contemplate," muttered Sirius. They reached Harry's door, and he cracked it momentarily just to check. Harry was sleeping on his back, arms and legs sprawled out every which way. "So that's how it works, then?" Sirius asked, his back to Ignatius. "Someone knows someone and asks you to help them out?"

"Well, in the absence of any coordinated efforts to provide mental health care to the wizarding population . . . yes, that's how it works."

"Oh," said Sirius. "Well I'm asking." He jerked his chin at the door. "I think Harry will . . . be needing help. He said some things, and I just think . . . that's a damn long time to have nothing but yourself for company."

"Sure," said Ignatius easily. "I'd be happy to see what I can do for him."

"Thanks." Sirius stepped back and gently shut Harry's door. He glanced down the corridor in the opposite direction from which they had come. There was a window on that end, too, though it was too far away for Sirius to make out what it showed. Two men stood, silhouetted against it. Sirius hadn't known Snape was still here.

"So," said Ignatius, still at his shoulder. "You found and rescued your godson when no one else could."

There was a silence.

"Oh come on," said Ignatius. "That was leading enough even for you."

"I'm not feeling much," said Sirius. "Except it's not exactly like it has been." He hesitated over how to explain, then gave it up. How could he tell Ignatius that there was a still, pristine quiet in his head, the battered post-flood landscape after the fear and the anger and the horror had rushed through him like a river breaking its banks. Missing Harry had been a drought, and finding him a hurricane.

"That's surprising," said Ignatius. "I would have expected . . . well." Sirius glanced over at him to find himself the subject of a pair of thoughtful gray eyes. "You've done good," said Ignatius. "Why not feel like it?"

"Because I had it all this time," said Sirius raggedly. "I could have had him out nearly three weeks ago. I went to that shop and I saw the bloody Pensieve, and I stood not two feet from him, and I've been inside the unplottable ever since."

"Ah," said Ignatius dryly. "Too bad you forgot your magical eye that day and missed the boy wrapped in the invisibility cloak."

Sirius turned away. "I had it all this time," he repeated, then thumped his own temple. "It was in here, and I didn't even know it." He glanced over his shoulder. Snape and Remus were clearly deep in conversation, their faces turned from him and their voices too low to hear. There was something startling in the set of Snape's shoulders, something fundamentally unaware of being watched.

"All right," said Ignatius. "So you had the key to breaking the unplottable since, what, the beginning of the month? Please let's not let this overshadow the fact that you did find him."

"By accident."

"Maybe," said Ignatius, and the speculative edge to his voice pulled Sirius's attention back to him. "I think we're a lot smarter than we give ourselves credit for, sometimes," said Ignatius. "We know so much that we're not aware of, and yet the most useful things have a habit of popping up when they're needed." He shrugged eloquently. "We're built for survival from the molecules up. Have you ever thought it's strange that we can't think ourselves to death?"

Sirius blinked. "Er, no," he said.

"Well, it is," said Ignatius. "Strange. And astounding. Imagine, we can want to die with everything we have, and yet our bodies don't care a whit, and just keep right on ticking. We're built for survival," he repeated. "We are . . . extraordinary in our capacity to fight for ourselves and what we need without even knowing it." He smiled suddenly and Sirius, taken aback, was put strongly in mind of Albus Dumbledore in one of his more lyrical moods. "And luckily for me," said Ignatius, "we're very good at only letting ourselves know things when we have a chance at being ready for them." He shrugged, and the bizarre resemblance vanished. "My job would be a lot harder if most people weren't so damned good at making themselves better, given a push."

"What," said Sirius, "you think I unconsciously knew or some bollocks like that? Look, maybe fifteen years ago I would have read the titles on some of the books or smelled the herbs or gotten a hunch. If Remus had gone, he would have. But not me, not now."

"You think so?" said Ignatius, slouching casually once more. "There's no real way of knowing either way, I suppose. But which would you rather believe?"

Sirius sighed. "I should not have to be within shouting distance of you before bloody dawn."

Ignatius grinned. "I believe that's my cue. See you next week?"

Up the hall Snape was illustrating a point by drawing on the window with his wand. Remus leaned close over his shoulder, watching and, Sirius hoped, heckling appropriately.

"Sirius?"

"Everybody?" asked Sirius. "You think everybody is really that well-adjusted or whatever you chaps call it?"

"Oh, I don't know," said Ignatius. "The thought certainly keeps me from getting too disillusioned. But a lot of people spend most of their time just . . . standing still, and some of them aren't standing in a very good place. I would really like to think that all it takes is the right force and the right application to get them moving. Or even to just get them looking . . . we need to know where we are before we can know where to go." He gestured demonstrably, then frowned at Sirius. "Are you having deep thoughts? Because I don't know if you should be doing that before you have some coffee."

"Go away," said Sirius. "And yeah, next week."

He approached the two of them slowly, waiting for either to notice. Remus did, Sirius could tell by the set of his back, but Snape seemed oblivious. He had drawn a crude sketch of northern England and Scotland, Sirius saw as he came up behind them.

"Hullo," he said, and set a hand on Remus's shoulder. "Snape."

Snape jumped, though he did a good job at hiding it. "Black," he said, without turning.

"We found some maps in Harry's things," said Remus. "They seem to indicate that he never went very far. He apparently spent the summer going up one side of Scotland then down the other."

"Ah," said Sirius. "You think that'll have settled his wanderlust?"

"For a while," said Remus.

Snape flicked his wand and the drawing disappeared. "Well," he said, still to the window, "as unpleasant as this has been, I think I must bid you all a . . . farewell."

Remus smiled warmly at him. "Thank you for staying. You didn't have to, and we appreciate it."

"Yeah," Sirius chimed in, to Snape's visible consternation.

"Well," Snape said. "That as it may be, I shall be off. Give my . . . greetings to Potter." He nodded coolly to them both and was gone.

"I talked to Ignatius," said Sirius. He stepped up next to Remus and found that this window showed a moonlit stretch of gently rolling snow. Though he knew it wasn't real Sirius could almost feel the winter-muffled quiet of the night.

"I saw," said Remus. "Was it all right?"

Sirius shrugged. "Weird bloke, Ignatius," he said obliquely. Then, "I've asked him to talk to Harry, if Harry agrees."

Remus nodded. "That's a good idea."

"I just want him to get what he needs," said Sirius.

Remus nodded again. "We all do."

Sirius leaned into the window and fell silent. Remus was quiet as well, and their bodies unconsciously swayed together to touch at shoulder and arm and hip. Moony, thought Sirius. Moony, Moony, Moony. He must have said it out loud, for Remus glanced up at him.

"What is it?" he asked, brow wrinkling. "Sirius, you have a . . . look on your face. What are you thinking about?"

"Turning into Padfoot, breaking this window, and going for a nice long run," said Sirius at once.

Remus frowned at him. "You realize there's probably nothing on the other side of this but a dirty London alley, right?"

"Stop ruining my fun," said Sirius lightly. There was another silence, during which Sirius could feel the way the window would give under Padfoot's powerful shoulder, the explosive sound the glass would make, the exhilarating rush of frosty air in his fur.

"We're also five stories up, I believe," murmured Remus.

"Excellent," said Sirius. "Nice bit of airtime." Remus sighed, but when Sirius glanced at him his mouth was curling up in a bemused smile. "What?"

"I bet you want your motorbike right now," said Remus, smile barely dimming. "I'm sorry I don't have it. It's . . . nice to see you looking half-mad again."

Sirius shrugged. "Maybe," he said, and shoved his hands in his pockets. "I've changed."

"I know," said Remus, and there was such simple acceptance in his voice that Sirius ducked his head in sudden humility.

"Moony?"

"Yes, Padfoot?"

"There's something I want to talk to you about," said Sirius.

*

Snape sat on the sofa in the study, wineglass in hand and a very peculiar expression on his face. Remus knelt at the fireplace, chatting comfortably as he coaxed the flames into life. Snape cast him one quick glance, from bent gray head to muscled shoulders, down the bony arch of his spine to his arse wrapped in an ancient pair of denims. Then he looked away, into his drink and then studiously at his hands.

"Here we are," said Remus. He rose to his feet and came to sit next to Snape, close enough so their knees touched.

Snape took two quick swallows from his glass. "Will Potter be staying here, then?" he asked.

Remus smiled. Snape had already asked this once, over dinner. "For a little while, yes," he answered with only a hint of amusement. "I imagine he'll want to be rid of us old folks eventually."

"Speak for yourself," said Snape.

"Oh come now, Severus. Even you look in a mirror enough to notice these things." Remus lifted a finger and stroked the streak of gray at Snape's temple.

Snape scowled. "I knew I should have put a concealing charm on that."

"Oh don't," murmured Remus, stroking again. "It's very . . . distinguished." He smiled in such a way that made it clear he would rather have used another word. He ran his fingers through Snape's hair, his thumb dropping to trace the shell of the ear.

"Lupin." Snape's hand rose in a flash and locked about Remus's wrist. "What in hell do you think you're doing?"

"Seducing you," said Remus.

Snape barked a brief, disbelieving laugh. "Oh yes I'm sure," he said bitterly. "Have a lover's spat with Black? Want a handy revenge fuck?"

"No," said Remus evenly. "I want a long, hard, satisfying fuck. The kind that used to make you make all that lovely noise."

Snape's fingers flexed visibly on his wrist, but Remus did not flinch. "Why?" he demanded through set teeth.

"Because it will be so good," said Remus. "Because I want to, and so do you."

"As you'll recall," said Snape icily, "I ended our ill-advised liaison a year ago."

"Oh, I know," said Remus. "But it's not like you haven't been burning for it, ever since." Snape snarled. Remus reached over with his free hand and gently extracted his wrist. Snape let him, hand falling helplessly to his lap, and Remus leaned in. He set his mouth at the point where throat joins jaw, and Snape shuddered.

"Remus," Snape said roughly. "Black--"

"Shh," said Remus. "Not now. Kiss me."

Snape quivered in a moment of indecision, then gave in with a furious, helpless snarl. He turned, wound a hand into Remus's hair to yank his head back, and seized his mouth.

Sirius inhaled quietly between his teeth and shifted from one foot to another. The invisibility cloak swirled gently about his feet as he walked closer, leaning over the back of the sofa to see and hear better. He had been a silent third all the way through their dinner, and now he hovered, watching as a ghost might, the invisibility cloak a barrier between one world and the next.

The two of them grappled below him, hands gripping and sliding and gripping again. Remus allowed this for several long moments, then subdued Snape with a series of efficient twists that laid the man out beneath him and sent his jacket sailing over the arm of the sofa. Remus ground against him with a circular twist of the hip that had Snape jerking and making muffled sounds of need behind his closed lips.

"It's been a long time," said Remus between kisses. Both their mouths were flushed and swollen. "Take your clothes off for me."

Snape did. Remus sat up and leaned against the arm of the couch and watched. A curtain of black hair concealed Snape's flushed face as he worked his way down the row of tiny buttons on his shirt front, then at the sleeves. He sat up to take it off, then stayed that way as he removed trousers and pants with quick, efficient movements.

"Thank you," said Remus. He set a hand on Snape's chest, pushed him flat again, and leaned over to suck half the length of Snape's hard prick into his mouth.

Sirius stood directly in line with the light from the kitchen. It passed through him as if he weren't there and perfectly illuminated the way Remus's lips wrapped around Snape's cock, the shimmer of moisture on the flushed head as Remus withdrew it from his mouth for a moment to speak.

"It would be to your distinct advantage to open your mouth at some point tonight," he said, looking up and over Snape's cock through wickedly promising eyes.

Snape's lips parted on a rush of breath, colored with a faint whine.

"That will do," said Remus. He bent his head once more and swallowed and swallowed until his nose was pressed into the thatch of dark, wiry hair and Snape was twitching all over and making tiny, hoarse sounds. Remus stayed that way for a long moment, then withdrew slowly. When he had only the head in his mouth, he reached up and slid three fingers into his mouth alongside it. Snape jumped and swore.

"Here," said Remus, sitting up and withdrawing his moistened fingers. He offered them to Snape, who tilted his head to accept them. His mouth worked eagerly, suggestively, and Remus's other hand jerked and fluttered ineffectually as he unbuttoned his shirt and got rid of his trousers.

"That will do," Remus said breathlessly, and withdrew his fingers with a wet pop. He hooked one arm under Snape's thigh and lifted that leg to drape over the back of the couch. Sirius, who had been leaning close over them, had to jump hastily back as not to be kicked in the gut. Remus shot a quick, utterly wicked grin in his general direction as he slid his other hand beneath Snape.

Sirius came around the sofa and moved to stand behind Remus. He watched Remus's fingers push and twist, heard Snape's moan, saw the sudden give and slide. Remus pushed in with two fingers first, then a third almost immediately. Snape threw his head back repeatedly into the cushions, mouth gaping in a soundless cry.

"You haven't had anyone else, have you?" Remus murmured, withdrawing all the way and pushing back in. It was a rhetorical question, Sirius knew, but Snape's head shook minutely anyway. "Well then," said Remus, "we'd better be sure you're ready, shouldn't we?" He moved back a little and began pumping his fingers in long, firm strokes. Snape made noise this time, and lots of it. Sirius's breath was coming very short and he leaned close over Remus's shoulder to watch his fingers work, appearing and disappearing, and occasionally pausing to twist together or stretch apart.

"All right," Snape panted at last. "Enough. Remus--"

Remus yanked his fingers free and shifted forward. He slid one hand up Snape's raised thigh to hold him steady, and positioned himself with the other. They both shouted when he pushed in, and beneath his flapping shirt the muscles in Remus's back flexed powerfully.

"Come on," snarled Snape. "Come on and fucking do it."

Remus did. He set a hard rhythm, his shirt fluttering at the tops of his thighs as he shifted up for better leverage. Beneath him Snape arched and twisted and shouted, his hair whipping off his face as his head tossed. Remus leaned over and pinned him with a long kiss, and when he sat up again the fingers of his free hand were working one of Snape's nipples.

Sirius was panting hard through his open mouth, and he knew Remus could hear him. He leaned over more, wanting to see Snape stretched around Remus's cock, wanting to make words out of the inarticulate syllables falling from Snape's lips.

Remus turned his head, eyes only inches away. "Sirius," he said softly.

The expression on Snape's face spasmed, a momentary flare of outrage twisting itself into blank, gape-mouthed astonishment as Sirius shucked the cloak and put a knee up on the sofa.

"Keep doing what you're doing," said Sirius roughly. "You look incredible."

Remus grinned and thrust once, running a gentling hand down Snape's chest. The push of his cock woke Snape from his startled paralysis, and he let out an uncontrolled yelp. "I think that's a go, eh Severus?" Remus said, and thrust again. Snape did not answer. His pupils were enormous and dark as he stared from one of them to the other, and his long pale thighs flexed and spread.

They did look incredible, Sirius thought dizzily as he climbed up behind Remus. Snape was long and spare and pale, a startling contrast to Remus's warmer coloring and more substantial build. One of Snape's nipples was flushed and tight from Remus's pinching fingers, and Sirius's eyes traced up from there to the sharp etched collarbone and long white line of throat. He wanted to put his tongue there, he thought, his tongue and yes his teeth. Instead he leaned forward and touched one finger to that hollow, feeling Snape's pulse reverberating under his skin. His other hand slid down Remus's back, dipped under his shirt and cupped his arse.

"You know," Remus panted, looking over his shoulder at Sirius, "he said your name once, when we were in bed."

"Yeah?" Sirius slid his finger down and pressed it over the neglected nipple.

Snape lifted his head, glaring at them both. "I. Did. No. Such. Thing."

"Oh yes you did," Remus chuckled. "I don't think you knew it, but I remember perfectly." He snapped his hips with a sudden, twisting motion, and Snape subsided into the cushions. Sirius flicked his nail over the man's nipple for long minutes, alternately watching the little peak harden and redden, and looking down to see the way Snape's hips jerked and his thighs trembled as Remus fucked him. At last Sirius shook himself from a dazed stupor and fumbled in his trousers for the lube. He had no patience to get his clothes off, so he only took his cock out, hissing as it pulsed hotly in his hand.

Remus stilled as Sirius's hand returned to his arse, fingers slick and warm. But Sirius merely dragged the pad of his thumb across Remus's hole and continued on, gently cupping his balls and then reaching farther back and rubbing at Snape's stretched opening with his fingertips. Snape moaned, a full-throated sound of want that turned to a sharp cry as Sirius pushed a finger into him alongside Remus's prick. They were all panting, holding so still they shook as Sirius worked in another finger, turning them to rub Snape from the inside and letting his knuckles dig into Remus. Then Remus moved, shifting his hips just a tiny bit, and Snape jerked and howled and bore down hard on them.

"Fuck me," he snarled at them.

"You think that means he wants us?" Sirius asked, leaning in to nuzzle Remus's cheek.

"I'm starting to get that idea, yes," said Remus.

Snape's eyes popped open and he lifted his head. But whatever withering thing had been on his lips died as they began moving, pushing deep into him and then pulling out together. It was an uncomfortable position to keep his arm in, but Sirius didn't much care. Snape was looking startled and overwhelmed and blissed, and Sirius could tell by the involuntary jerks that his shirt sleeve was chafing at Remus's balls.

At last, however, he couldn't wait anymore. Sirius withdrew his fingers, gratified by Snape's inarticulate sound of protest, and returned them to their original target. Remus sighed, spread his knees, and leaned forward over Snape as Sirius prepared and finally, bloody finally, entered him.

There were several awkward, gasping, sweating moments as they all got their bearings and figured out how this was supposed to work. At last, however, Remus was moving smoothly between them, helped along by quick shallow thrusts from Sirius. He was hunched over, hands braced on Snape's shoulders. Sirius fastened his mouth to the back of Moony's neck and reached around him to find Snape's prick. He didn't stroke it, but simply held it below the head, squeezing hard and then releasing and then squeezing again.

He was dizzy, gasping, skin hyper-sensitive to the rasp of his clothes. He could practically feel every molecule of air as it rushed into his lungs, filling him with strength. This was so far off the map, so beyond anything for which he had a compass, and he didn't care at all.

Snape was the first to go, arching right off the sofa as he spilled all over Sirius's hand. Sirius watched him lose it, studied the abandoned look on his face for the brief moments it was there.

Remus lasted a minute longer, thrusting more slowly as Snape quivered and muled in the aftermath. But then he jerked, went still, and clenched up all over. Sirius, who had been on the edge since the moment he'd seen them kiss, came with him.

They lay in a limp, wrung-out pile on the sofa for long minutes after. Sirius barely stirred enough to shove sweaty hair out of his face. Snape didn't seem to have the energy even for that.

At last Remus shifted, and Sirius could feel him withdrawing. "Are we heavy, Severus?" he asked.

Snape's eyes opened, and Sirius could actually see the moment when the full realization of where he was and who he was with sank in. "Yes, you are," he said flatly. "Please remove yourselves, and I'll take myself off."

"To bed, you mean?" said Remus casually. "An excellent thought, Severus. Sirius, if you would . . ."

"I'm going, I'm going," Sirius grumbled, and sat up slowly.

"Beg pardon?" said Snape, staring at them through puzzled eyes.

"Bed," Sirius enunciated clearly. "Going thereto." He looked down at Remus. "I already enlarged it. We should all fit fine."

"Good thinking," said Remus, and slipped out from between them. He stood and stretched, the neat angles of him outlined in the firelight. Sirius stared, then looked over and found Snape doing the same. Snape felt his gaze and looked back, frankly off balance.

"Come on," said Sirius, pushing to his feet

Snape still hesitated, though it looked rather silly seeing as he was stark naked, obviously just well fucked, and sprawled out on their sofa.

"Severus," said Remus gently, wrapping his fingers around Sirius's wrist. "You heard him. There's room." He gave Sirius a squeeze then released him and strolled out.

The two of them stared after him, then at each other. Snape shifted on the sofa, knees coming together and ankles twitching as if they would have liked to cross. Sirius grinned and deliberately reached up to unbutton his shirt. Snape's eyes dropped, then shot back up to his face.

"Black," he said. "What are you doing?"

"Fuck if I know," said Sirius. He shrugged and dropped the shirt off his shoulders. "I can't tell where I've been, let alone where I'm going." He shrugged again, suddenly self-conscious under Snape's gaze. "But that doesn't mean I shouldn't. Go somewhere. Keep looking."

"For what?" asked Snape, clearly humoring him.

"Fuck if I know," Sirius repeated. "Look, are you coming or not?"

Snape was still and silent, his limbs almost waxen in the dim firelight. Sirius couldn't even make out the rise and fall of his chest.

"Fine," said Sirius, exasperated as only Snape could make him. "Suit yourself." He walked out without a backward glance, and swung around the newel post to climb the stairs.

There was no sound behind him, but Sirius grinned through his teeth. Snape would follow him.