Runaway Home

Chapter Twelve:

No Escape

Dumbledore and Remus both stood up instantly, wands out. Harry cowered, wide-eyed, back into his chair.

"Can I help you, Cornelius?"

Harry glanced timidly up at Dumbledore, but the old man's eyes had turned frighteningly icy, just like his voice.

"No, you've helped quite enough already, Albus." Fudge was clearly trying his best not to look smug, despite his formal air. "I've merely come to collect Lupin and Potter for questioning. Aurors have already been dispatched to retrieve Black."

"No!" Harry looked, horrified, from Remus to Dumbledore. "You can't let them take him!"

"Ah, but we have to, Harry." Fudge's look of false sympathy was more horrible than any malicious look ever could have been. "Black is a raving lunatic. He's killed innocent people, did you know that? He's responsible for the death of your own pare-"

"NO! He's NOT!" Harry trembled with rage, not seeming to notice as a burst of uncontrolled magic set fire to the minister's robes for the second time that day.

Fudge spluttered and doused the flames, glaring openly at the boy and Remus, who had taken a rather defensive step towards him. "If you'll just come with me then, Mr. Lupin, and bring the boy-"

"They won't be going anywhere, Cornelius." Dumbledore took a step towards Fudge. "Why do you need to question them if you've already got Black in custody?"

Fudge spluttered a little more. "They were found not only consorting with the murderer, but assisting him! Who knows what-"

"What kind of chaos a seven-year-old and a reclusive, middle-aged man could cause together?" Dumbledore raised an eyebrow.

Fudge had to take a moment to compose himself. "Lupin, as a werewolf, is untrustworthy to begin with. As for the boy, Black seems to have brainwashed him. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have rather larger matters to deal with than your silly interrogation." He waved a hand imperiously at the Aurors, clearly motioning for them to take Harry and Remus.

Harry didn't even hear the words Fudge said- he was too deep in his own horror to realize what was going on. His godfather, the first person to ever care for him, was not only dying but being taken away from him by these people... Remus was struggling, the Aurors were shouting, red light, and Remus went limp... One of the Aurors grabbed him by the arm.... And he followed numbly as they lead him to the fire.

***

Harry continued to be unaware of his surroundings as he was taken to the Ministry through the fire and led through hallways and elevators to a small room. He didn't see where they took Remus. He barely noticed when the Auror who'd been leading him sat him down in the room and started talking to him.

"Oi, kid, are you alright?"

Harry shook his head, half to clear it and half in answer. The Auror looked sympathetic.

"Eh, few days with a raving lunatic'd do that to you, I 'spose. Your aunt n'uncle have been notified, they know you're safe n'all. Be back home before the day's out, I 'spect." He gave Harry what he must have thought looked like an encouraging smile, but the idea of going back to the Dursleys now was unthinkable.

Harry started to cry.

The man looked utterly helpless. Hell, he hadn't been trained in babysitting! "C'mon kid, quit that... It'll be alright..."

"No it won't! You're going to do something bad to Sirius, and I'm going to go back to the Dursleys, and they hate me! And now Remus is gone too, and...." Harry hiccupped and continued to cry. He was a big boy, and the Dursleys had always punished him when he cried, but now there just wasn't anything else to do.

"So you actually like him, then?" The Auror couldn't help but be a little surprised. The effing Boy Who Lived, good friends with Sirius Black the Mad Murderer?

"I love him. He took care of me, and he loves me too." Harry glared defiantly at the Auror, his sobs beginning to slow.

"Don't you know what he did?" The Auror raised an all-knowing eyebrow.

"He didn't do it though. All those people, and my mum and dad, he didn't kill any of them!" Harry was angry now, hands clenched into fists, tears drying on his cheeks.

The Auror wasn't amused by Harry's childish anger. It was a little frightening, the intensity of it. "So what'd he tell you then, if you're so convinced he din't?"

"He told me that he was supposed to be..." Harry had to grope for the right words. He'd told the story so many times already that he was getting fluent with it, but he didn't know the exact terms. "He told me that my parents had a spell put on them, so Volymort wouldn't know where they were hiding, and Sirius was supposed to be the only one who knew where they were."

"Alright, makes sense." The Auror shrugged. Everyone knew that. He wasn't about to believe everything a little kid told him, but well... there was no harm in hearing him out. Besides, he'd been at Hogwarts a couple years ahead of Black and Potter- made sense that Potter would choose Black for something like that, considering the other choices; that quiet kid, Lupin, or the hanger-on, Pettigrew.

"Only it wasn't Sirius! He got my dad to switch to someone else, one of their other friends, at the last minute. To be the decoy," Harry said, remembering Remus' earlier words to Dumbledore. "And when Sirius found out that he betrayed my mum and dad, he went after the person, but the person blew up a street and killed a lot of people, and made it look like Sirius did that too."

"Wait, hold on. Who's this other person? Lupin?" The Auror stayed calm. It was just a little kid, 'course Black could win him over with lies.

"No." Harry glared emphatically. "His name was... um..." He thought hard. "Pet... something. I don't remember, exactly..."

"Pettigrew?"

"Yeah! That was it!"

"Alrighty then, if Pettigrew blew up the street and all, then why was Black still alive, with Pettigrew nowhere to be seen, hmm? He died in that explosion, kid- why would he've let Black live an' then blown himself up?"

"He was an... an Animagis, and he transformed and ran down a sewer." Harry said it as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.

The Auror snorted. Now the kid was making stuff up. "The Ministry keeps a careful watch on Animagi, Potter, and Pettigrew wasn't one of them."

Wait. In the briefing before they'd gone to Hogwarts... What was it the Minister had said? Something about....

"Wait a sec. Black is an Animagus, isn't he?" The Auror was a little worried now.

"Yes. So was my dad, and so was Pettigrew! They all were, but it was a secret. I remember Remus telling Dumbledore about it, and he seemed all ashamed of it. They did it at school." Finally, the stupid man was listening!

The Auror had to pause a second. What if the kid was actually telling the truth?

***

"Ugh..." Remus opened his eyes slowly, blinking a few times before he oriented himself with his surroundings. A small, dank room that smelled of... things. He didn't really want to think about them.

He also seemed to be restrained to a chair of some sort, like the one in the main courtrooms. Two Aurors stood in front of him, wands raised. One held a little phial of clear liquid. Fudge was in the background, looking smug.

"You hold him still, then, don't wanna get bit tryin' to give it to him," said the one with the phial.

"Wait," Remus said hoarsely as the other Auror moved to grab his shoulders. "You have to listen-"

"And we intend to, but not till you've had your potion, Lupin," barked Fudge, face growing red. He seemed wholly out of patience, having been deprived of his prizes once already. "Now get moving, you two! He's tied down, for Merlin's sake!"

And Remus was helpless to resist.

***

"Bloody fucking bugger fuck..."

The Ministry employees who passed the strange pair in the halls looked rather shocked. A boy, the boy, being dragged along by an Auror muttering obscenities and looking pale and wide eyed. It wasn't a sight one saw every day.

Harry didn't know where they were going, but he was reasonably sure that the Auror believed him. He only wished he knew where Sirius was, or Remus at least.

They'd been going down for a while now; down a strange lift, and down a dark corridor that reminded Harry of the dungeons at Hogwarts. Then suddenly the Auror stopped in front of a heavy wooden door and began to pound furiously upon it.

Harry heard a startled exclamation from inside and the door opened, revealing another rather irritated Auror.

"What-"

The man didn't get to finish as Harry's Auror dragged him through the door.

"Oi, Mr. Minister, sir, I think that the kid may be telling the truth."

"What? Brown, what is this?" Fudge stood up angrily, his already red face turning a lovely shade of purple.

"I talked to the kid, and he really seems t'be tellin' the truth. Somethin' bout Pettigrew's an Animagus and he cast that Blasting Curse-"

"Brown, Potter has obviously been Confunded-"

"But Minister, look at 'im! Confunded people go all blank and their eyes glaze over some, and he's not!"

"I WILL NOT TOLERATE THIS!" shrieked Fudge. "You will take Potter back to his Aunt and Uncle's, NOW! He's of no more use to me!"

Brown's eyes narrowed. It was one thing to believe that Black was a murderer, and it was quite another to refuse to listen to reasonable evidence.

"Brinks, Doyle, kindly show them out!" Fudge was still trembling with rage.

The other two Aurors wore similar expressions to Brown's. Sure, it was just a kid, not really worth listening to. But to continue to believe that he was Confunded or under a spell when he clearly wasn't... They herded Brown and Potter toward the door.

"You honestly believe him?" muttered Doyle as they reached the door.

"I dunno what to believe anymore," and Brown rolled his eyes back towards Fudge, oblivious to the muted conversation of the Aurors.

"Just... be sure to ask Lupin the right questions."