The Potter and the Kettle Black

Chapter 4

Harry wasn't able to find Black again that afternoon, and eventually returned to The Three Broomsticks without him. When Rosmerta asked after the dog, he told her to still leave out some food for him outside the shed. She pursed her lips, but did as he asked. Harry had an early dinner by himself, feeling vaguely miserable, without quite knowing why. He still didn't think he had done anything wrong, and Black himself had admitted that Harry had done the right thing to try and verify his information. And regardless of what Black said, it was his responsibility to do as much as he could. His parents were the ones who had been betrayed, after all. He deserved to know who was responsible. And whatever Sirius said, there was only so much he could do without endangering himself. If Scabbers really were an animagus (and even after having seen Sirius himself transform, Harry was still having trouble with that idea), it would be much easier for Harry and his friends to make sure he was properly captured and questioned. It scared him a little that Sirius was thinking in terms of murdering the rat.

In any case, what was done was done. Harry had already written to Professor Lupin, and the letter was sent. When he went up to his room after dinner, to avoid the increasingly boisterous crowd downstairs, he found that Hedwig had already returned with a reply for him.

Dear Harry,

It was very nice to hear from you after all this time. Of course I know who you are; I played with you quite often as a baby. I would have been in touch with you earlier, but I didn't know how you would feel about meeting a complete stranger who once had the distinction of changing your diapers.

Your parents were dear friends of mine, especially your father, and I would be happy to tell you anything you wish to know about them. I can to come up to Hogsmeade some time in the next few days if you would like to meet over the summer. In any case, I look forward to teaching you and your classmates when school starts.

Remus Lupin.

Harry smiled in satisfaction at the friendly tone of the letter, and wrote back, setting up a meeting with his future professor. If Black was right about him, Lupin would be the first competent Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher Harry would have, and apart from finding out about his parents and Black, Harry was curious to meet the man in his own right.

The next few days, as Harry waited for Lupin to arrive, were a bit lonely. The dog Snuffles never did return during the daytime, although Rosmerta told Harry that the food she left out for him was always gone by morning. Harry quickly got to know the village of Hogsmeade, and some of the regulars at The Three Broomsticks. He saw Hagrid at the pub a few times, and heard rumors that the Azkaban guards, known as Dementors, were on the prowl for Black, and might even be stationed around Hogsmeade itself. His urgency to act intensified, and he tried to come up with a plan for how to get Lupin to corroborate Black's story about the animagi.

Finally, one morning, as Harry was finishing up breakfast, a stranger entered The Three Broomsticks, and approached Harry's table. He looked tired and worn, his robes were old and patched, and his brown hair was liberally infused with flecks of grey, but there was a quickness about his eyes that spoke to his obvious intelligence. When he came up to Harry and smiled, he looked years younger, and Harry realized that despite his haggard appearance this man had not yet quite approached middle age.

"Hello, Harry."

Harry stood up, hastily, shoving his breakfast aside.

"Professor Lupin, thank you for coming to see me."

"It was my pleasure, Harry. I've been looking forward to meeting you."

"Won't you sit down down?"

"Thank you, Harry."

Lupin sat down, across from Harry, looking at him intently. Harry flushed, slightly.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't be staring. We always knew that you had James's features, but the resemblance really is startling. If it weren't for your eyes, I wouldn't know you apart from James at that age."

Harry nodded, awkwardly, not knowing how he should respond. This wasn't the first time he had been told this, of course, but it never really got a lot easier. All of a sudden, he remembered why he hadn't asked Hagrid or any of his teachers about his parents; it was rather difficult to think about the life he should have had. But remaining ignorant was not the answer; difficult as it was, this was a conversation he needed to have. He wracked his brain, trying to think what he had meant to ask, but Lupin spoke before he had a chance to say anything.

"I shouldn't be embarrassing you into silence like this. You can ask me anything you like, Harry. I'll try and tell you whatever I know about James and Lily. It's the least I can do, after everything he did for me."

"How did you meet him?"

"On the Hogwarts Express. He ran into my compartment and asked me to hide him because a girl was chasing after him for pulling on her pigtails. Your mother, as it turns out."

Harry laughed. This was a side of his father none of his teachers had ever mentioned.

"Did it work?"

"Not particularly well. I didn't really have much to do, because James pulled on his invisibility cloak and plunked himself on the seat across from me. So when Lily came in and asked me about a boy with messy hair and glasses naturally I told her I'd seen no such creature. Unfortunately, she was tired after her run across the train, so she decided to sit down and catch her breath."

"Oh, no."

"Oh, yes. Right on his lap. Not that James particularly minded, mind you. Even though she slapped him so sharply that the mark didn't fade until we got into Hogwarts. Of course, she didn't speak to me for years after that. She never did let on to McGonagall that we had the cloak, though. That was always a sign to James that she liked him despite all evidence to the contrary."

"So he got a lot of use out of the cloak, then?"

"More than I should probably tell you about, as your professor. We weren't exactly models of good discipline for most of our time at Hogwarts."

"He was a really good student, though, right? Not like me."

"James was very powerful and talented, of course, but for most of his time at Hogwarts he never particularly applied himself to schoolwork. Except in Transfiguration, which he really couldn't help being good at, he only did as much as he needed to get by. He always got a spell to work when he needed it, but he wasn't much for writing essays and doing homework. Very much like you, I imagine."

"No, I mean, I..."

"Professor Dumbledore has told me a little about your remarkable adventures, Harry. I don't think you're the kind of person to be defined by schoolwork. I also think you're a bit young to have found everything you're going to be good at. I wouldn't worry about it just yet," he smiled, "mind you, I'm not sure Lily would feel the same way. Our professors loved her, especially in Charms and Potions."

"Potions?" Harry asked, unable to keep all of his horror out of his voice.

Lupin smiled knowingly.

"I daresay our professor was a little different from yours, Harry."

"You knew Snape too, then, right? Why did he hate my dad so much? Dumbledore told me he saved Snape's life!"

Lupin's face darkened.

"Yes, well, Severus is not altogether wrong in that regard. It was an unfortunate prank, so to speak, by another... friend of ours. Snape would have died or worse if it had carried through all the way to the end. When James found out about it, he went in and saved Severus at great risk to his own life, but Severus always believed that we were all in on a plot to kill him until James got cold feet."

Harry frowned. He could tell that they were getting closer to the subject of Sirius Black, but this information was not promising. Black had tried to kill Snape? Not that Harry didn't sympathize, in a manner of speaking, but if Black had tried to kill someone while they were still at school, what might he not have done afterwards? Was he really as innocent as Harry was starting to believe?

"James had nothing to do with it, Harry. He was very brave that night, not least because he and Snape never liked one another. But regardless of that, James would never have let an innocent man suffer for something he didn't do."

Harry smiled, realizing that Lupin had misinterpreted his frown. But Lupin's words had unwittingly given Harry the strength to do what he needed to do. He could be wrong, of course, as he had been before, about Tom Riddle and Quirrell, but if there was even a chance that Black was innocent, Harry needed to act, as his father would have done before him.

"Did you have any other friends? I've seen some pictures, and I wanted to be able attach some names to the faces."

Harry pulled out the album Hagrid had given him, and opened it to a page with pictures of his father with his friends, making sure that he'd be able to ask about Sirius, even if Lupin avoided the question.

"Yes, we did have other friends. There's Peter Pettigrew, right there. He was devoted to your father, absolutely. Admired everything James did: always wanted to be just like him, but never quite succeeded."

"I've heard, I mean..., and there's a picture in here that I thought... did you know Sirius Black?"

Lupin nodded, shortly.

"I did. Or thought I did. Where did you hear that?"

Harry gestured around the pub, vaguely, not wanting to incriminate anyone in particular, in case Lupin actually checked up on him. But Lupin just nodded, looking at the boyish picture of Sirius as though he could something beyond it, something that held all the answers to everything that had gone wrong.

"Yes, Rosmerta would remember. She was very fond of the pair of them, your father and Black. None of us ever thought... but I suppose we should have known. James would never have believed it, you know."

Lupin suddenly looked a lot older, and Harry felt a bit guilty for putting his plan into action.

"Did I tell you about my friends?" he said, with the air of changing the subject.

Lupin looked up, and smiled again.

"No. Why don't you tell me a little about them?"

"Well, there's Hermione Granger, she's Muggleborn, but she's the cleverest in our year, but she's really brave too, that's why she's in Gryffindor. The professors love her, and she's gotten us out of loads of trouble."

"Sounds familiar," said Lupin, his eyes twinkling, and although he didn't say as much, Harry realized that Lupin must have played a similar role for his father and Black.

"And my other best friend's Ron Weasley. He's mad for Quidditch, and he's really good at chess; you should have seen him, first year, against McGonagall's giant set. I don't have any pictures of all of us together, but wait," he pulled out the clipping that Ron had sent him earlier that summer, the very one that Sirius had carried with him, his heart thudding violently, "...here's a picture of Ron with his family, they're in Egypt now, visiting his older brother Bill. That's Percy, he's Headboy this year, and their sister Ginny, and the twins Fred and George, and that one's Ron, and that's his rat, Scabbers."

Lupin was staring at the picture of the Weasleys intently as he had been at Sirius's picture earlier. Clearly, he did know something, and Harry was gearing up to somehow ask the really difficult questions, reminding himself that he had really liked everything he had seen of Lupin so far, and besides, Lupin had kept Sirius's secret for years now, which had to mean something.

Just as Harry had nearly built up the courage to speak, Rosmerta came by.

"Is that you, Remus Lupin? It's been years since I've seen you here in Hogsmeade."

Lupin looked up, and smiled at her distractedly.

"I've been abroad for a few years, and traveling too much, really. You might see a bit more of me now, though. I'll be teaching up at the castle this year."

"Well, isn't that a treat! I'm sure you'll be wonderful. You always did have a knack for it. It's good to see you in here with young Harry."

"Yes, it's very nice to see Harry again."

"Harry, you should watch out for this one. He may not look it, but he's got a few tricks up his sleeve."

Harry nodded, and Rosmerta turned to leave, before turning back again.

"Did you ever figure out where that dog of yours disappeared, Harry? We can't have a big scary thing like him around frightening the villagers. We've got enough to worry about with Black on the loose and those Dementors out to catch him."

Harry shook his head, and let Rosmerta step back to the bar before he looked back and met Lupin's eyes again. Lupin was studying him intently, and Harry had the sense that Lupin was thinking rapidly. He was reminded of his earlier impression that he was dealing with a very clever man, indeed, and he wondered just how much Lupin already understood. Finally, Lupin spoke.

"Harry, I think we'd better have a little chat about what sorts of stories you've been hearing lately."