Subplot

9 - Sirius

The sudden ring of the doorbell startled him. Mundungus was out to some dinner party, and had not said a word about expecting company, much less that late at night. Sirius decided to stay in his armchair, glad he had stuck to the precaution of not lighting the magical torches if Mundungus was not there. Opening the door was too much of a risk, and whoever was at the door would probably just go away if the house stayed dark and Mundungus did not answer. The bell rang again. Then someone knocked and shouted:

"I know you're in there, but don't worry, because I'm friend, not foe."

Just like in the old days when you were always afraid to open your door, Sirius remembered. When Voldemort was in power, seeing and hearing friends outside was no guarantee that it was safe to let them in. He got his wand out of his pocket and got out of the armchair, careful not to make any noise. While he was still deciding whether or not to transform into a dog, the door was opened by a spell; the torches were lit by a simple Lumos spell. Into the hallway came the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Varlerta, hands outstretched to show she was unarmed. Sirius sighed with relief and motioned her to enter Mundungus' living room.

"Oh, hello, Professor Varlerta. Come in and sit down. What gives me the honour?"

"Hello, Mr. Black. Actually I've come to see you because I'd like to ask you something." Professor Varlerta dropped onto the sofa and rubbed her face with her hand. Both seemed to be healing from minor abrasions. Sirius noticed that she was wearing leather pants suitable for driving a motorbike, which made his conscience give a pang.

"Sorry about abducting your motorbike. I'd never have borrowed it if I'd known I wouldn't be able to get it back for such a long time. Tea?"

She waved his apology away, or maybe she was just declining his offer. "Don't worry, I didn't need it. I've got a car now. Actually, that's why I've come. I'd like to take you back to Hogwarts if you're willing, Mr. Black."

Willing? Did she say willing? But what he wanted wasn't the main point here.

"Dumbledore told me to stay here. He said it's not safe to fly home."

"I agree with him." Professor Varlerta took off her leather jacket and let it fall onto the sofa. "It's not safe, especially if you are flying through the sky on an invisible motorbike, while everybody is searching the sky with anti-invisibility spyglasses for Mr. Black on an invisible motorbike. Also, we do not know whether there is a leak in our 'Order' or however Dumbledore wants to call it, and whether this leak is somebody who knows you are an Animagus. So it is not safe to run all the way to Hogwarts on four paws, either. If you get into my invisible car in the shape of a dog, it is still quite risky, but I believe the risk to be relatively smaller. It's up to you whether you want to take it or not."

He did not want to appear rash, or make a mistake and regret it later, so he asked: "What does Dumbledore say to that?"

"Well..." She hesitated, then looked him squarely in the eyes: "He didn't say a thing. I didn't tell anyone I'd go and get you. I just acted on the spur of the moment, you could say."

If this wasn't fishy... "Why? Didn't we all agree to coordinate our actions with him?"

Professor Varlerta crossed her legs and shifted on the sofa as if to get into a comfortable position for telling a story. After a few moments of audible silence, she said:

"The castle was attacked by a rather mean blast of Icy Fingers the day before yesterday. - No, nobody took any harm to speak of, except for an attacker," she hurried to say when he moved to ask her. "We managed to defend ourselves with the usual methods, and later called a group of Aurors to search the grounds for Death Eaters. But as you will probably know best, that is not good enough for Icy Fingers. Voldemort and his supporters are very likely to try again, and soon, too. As you may know, my position at Hogwarts includes certain responsibilities. I tried to find an expert who could help me to live up to them, and it seems you are the only expert left alive."

She had a brutal way of coming to the point, he thought. Thinking about his Spellsearching days was painful. They had worked for the Ministry, Lily, James and he. Peter, he remembered, had not passed the test, while as a werewolf, Remus had not even been permitted to take it. That had not discouraged Lily, James and him, though. The threat of Lord Voldemort's Icy Fingers curse had cast a shadow on everybody's life. Because of their top NEWT's, people had had the highest expectations of the three of them, so they felt it was their personal duty to find the way to block or break this curse. They had believed in what they were doing.

When Lily found out she was expecting little Harry, she had been banned from the dangers of their Spellsearchers' laboratory, of course. Her contribution had been limited to book research. Still the three of them had been a team focusing on their common goal until the day when Sybil Trelawney's prediction had made it necessary to put precautions before research. When James had left the laboratory to go into hiding, both he and Sirius had been convinced they would continue their work together soon. They had been mistaken.

"I'm sorry," he said. "You must be aware that this was fourteen years ago. I don't think I know much more about breaking Icy Fingers than the next best Spellsearcher."

She chewed her bottom lip and wrinkled her forehead, apparently thinking. Finally she said:

"You don't want to work on it. Why?"

Because Lily and James were dead. Because they wouldn't be but for his ambition. "Because... er... there's got to be other people who are better qualified for it. Official Spellsearchers with a proper laboratory and a Ministry budget to go with it. Finding a way to break Icy Fingers used to be a high priority issue."

She snorted. "Used to be, yes, but not anymore. Remember, we've got that idiot Fudge for a Minister of Magic. You know what his top priority is? Muggle Repellents. That's where the cosy laboratories and the Ministry budgets go today, not where they are needed. They say Fudge is much more concerned with his own Mugglephobia than with the threat of Voldemort." She stopped short, apparently aware that her anger showed.

"So nobody ever worked on a counter-curse for all these years?" He couldn't believe it. James and he had been so close to finding one!

"Nope. When the acute threat no longer existed, nobody bothered with it anymore. I hope you do, though. The threat is back in town, and we need you at Hogwarts. Will you come with me?"

His emotions were in conflict. Yes, he wanted to get out of here, to get to Hogwarts, but no, he did not want to act against Dumbledore's will. Yes, the thought of having a task to do, of having a purpose in life again, was rather intriguing, but he knew he would see James wherever he turned if he tried to pick up their research where they had left it.

"It's not the kind of work to be done alone. I'd need partners, at least one," he replied to gain time for his decision.

"We'll find you one." She waved away his objection with her hand. "Until then, you can count on the Hogwarts staff to assist you in any way we can. I'm rather keen on seeing your work myself, because we need results ASAP."

"Why didn't you talk to Dumbledore about all this?"

"I did, actually. We had it all neatly figured out except for the transportation problem, on which we disagreed. He thinks it's not safe for you to leave this place. I think nothing whatsoever is safe today, so I came to get you with my car anyways. Now it's up to you. It's your life that is in danger if you come with me, and I will perfectly understand it if you think the risk is too high."

Very politely put. Of course she'd think him a coward if he decided to stay put.

"Ok, I'll come with you. Let me just write a note for Mundungus."

He tore out a page of his crossword puzzle book and wrote:

'Got work to do at H. See you there. Thanks for everything. S.' Admittedly, it was not exactly a cryptic note, but he had no reason to believe it would fall into the wrong hands if he left it here on the table. Then he went and packed his one extra robe into a small bag. Varlerta got up, put her jacket back on, put his bag over her shoulder and approached the door. Sirius transformed into a dog and followed her out into the dark back garden. The frosty air surprised him. He had hardly been outside since summer. Suddenly he realised how much he had missed seeing the sky, smelling the sea and feeling cool grass under his paws. How he longed for a time when he could show his face again without the fear of being discovered, arrested or worse.

"Where did you put the bike?" she asked him. He led the way to the garden shed, and both went inside. Then he sat where the motorbike had to be and uttered a short 'woof.' She took a few drops of an Invisibility Revealing Potion, but obviously the Hiding Spell was stronger than her remedy. So she tried a spell or two, but looked at him questioningly when she did not succeed. He transformed back into a man and pulled his wand out of his pocket. (Learning that trick, namely that when transforming back into a wizard he was still wearing his clothes and had his belongings on him, had cost him several months of practise many years ago.)

"Visibitangi!" he called. The motorbike reappeared at once. A little dust had settled on it over the weeks.

"I should have thought of that spell," Professor Varlerta commented. Then she pried loose the Shrink Box behind the saddle of the motorbike. She tapped the bike itself with her wand to make it fit into the box and put it inside. When she offered him a helping of the Invisibility Revealing Potion for the ride in the car, he accepted, because he knew he would feel uncomfortable if she could see him but he could see neither her nor himself.

"All set?" she asked him, approaching the door of the shed with the Shrink Box tucked under her arm. "Yes, I am," he replied. Once more in the shape of a dog, he followed her out to her car. She opened the passenger's door of her black Ford Anglia, put his small bag and her Shrink box into the boot of the car, then told him to wait. Out of the boot she took a blanket and placed it onto the leather of his seat, possibly in kind consideration for his bare canine rear end. He was glad of this when he jumped inside, as the interior of the car was quite cold. Someone obviously had taken considerable pains to restore this old vehicle, which nevertheless looked like it had seen better days. Besides the red leather upholstering, Sirius noticed that a strange kind of radio and a large compass had been installed. Professor Varlerta got into the driver's seat, pushed the button for the Invisibility Booster and gave the steering wheel an encouraging slap. He must have given her a questioning look, because while the car speedily rose into the air she turned to him and said:

"Yes, that's right, the car is Ensouled. Comes in very handy that it can think for itself, not the least since I'm used to having the steering wheel on the other side."

After a few minutes of silence - as a dog, he wasn't really up to small talk - she reached over to the box standing in front of him, took out a battered plastic case and inserted a shiny plastic disk into the radio. It had to be a modern kind of record he realised when the speakers around him started to play a sequence of tacky rock ballads at him. A look at the small record's plastic case told him it was called 'Temple of the Dog.' Maybe that was her idea of a joke, he thought when he heard her hum along to the lines: "You call me a dog, well that's fair enough."

The ride in the car seemed endless to him, maybe because he could not tell where they were going in the darkness. Looking out of the window was pointless. He tried not to think of Aurors with spyglasses or of soul-hungry Dementors but told himself everything would be fine. At one time he felt Professor Varlerta's hand on the fur of his back, but she took it away very quickly as if she had touched red-hot iron.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Black. I did not mean to be disrespectful - it is just that I almost forgot that you are not a real dog. You make quite a good impression of one as you are sitting next to me," she said with a little embarrassed laugh. Sirius made a mental note of always keeping his tongue in his mouth in her company from now on.

Finally, he could feel the car descending. It was impossible to make out Hogwarts in the blackness that surrounded them, but Professor Varlerta patted her car's steering wheel.

"Look at my wonderful Drifter," she said with content in her voice. "Already knows its way home." Sirius could only make out a few lights. Not many seconds later, he felt the tires make ground contact. They had arrived without being caught. Varlerta got out and opened the door for him.

"I'd like to go to Dumbledore straight away and get it over with, because he may or may not be fuming. I'm afraid he will probably be asleep right now, though, so it will have to wait until tomorrow," she said. "I have a little guestroom in my building. It's not much, but at least it's a place to sleep in, and it's out of the students' sight. Do you want to come with me?"

He did his best to nod and followed her into the strange, new building. When the magical torches lit up, he saw a large room littered with musical instruments and other strange devices. Relieved to be in a place he could consider safe, he transformed back into a wizard. Meanwhile, Varlerta had opened the door to a tiny hall. He could see it held a narrow, steep spiral staircase and three more doors which led - he guessed - to a study, a bedroom and a bathroom. Through the two open doors he got a glimpse of walls completely covered by bookshelves in one room; the walls in the other were just as completely covered by an odd assembly of Muggle and witches' clothing held up there by magic. Varlerta politely motioned for him to mount the spiral stairs, so he did.

The guest room in the attic was large, but low; but for the middle passage, both of them had to bow their heads to stand in it. The furniture comprised a double bed and an empty chest standing open to air. Two small dormer windows overlooked the lake, if his sense of direction was right; presently, all he could see of the grounds was pitch-black darkness.

"It's all I can do for tonight. I'm sure tomorrow Dumbledore will think of a more comfortable place where it is safe for you to stay." With a wave of her wand she conjured up sheets which arranged themselves very properly on the bed.

"It's wonderful, really. Thank you so much for everything," he hurried to say, glad he had finally made it back to Hogwarts, wondering if his caution of staying put all this time had been foolish. True, the Daily Prophet had not stopped reporting on the Dementors' search for him, but flying here without the least problem almost felt like a letdown.

"If you are hungry, I've got some food downstairs," she told him. "I knew we would return rather late, so I went to the kitchen elves to get some before I left."

"Wonderful," he repeated a little awkwardly. Careful not to hit his head anywhere on the low ceiling, he followed her back downstairs into the main room. There she emptied a small table of a strange flute, some broken steel strings as well as a pile of paper and moved the table to one of the two small sofas. From a basket she produced some cold pies, bread, cheese, fruit and several bottles of Butterbeer as well as a plate and some cutlery.

Sirius remembered his good manners. "You shouldn't have gone to all that trouble for me," he said. Professor Varlerta sat down and opened two of the bottles with her pocketknife. "My pleasure," she replied nonchalantly and handed him one of the bottles. He sat down beside her, trying to say something smart, but failed.

"So you are a musician?" Brilliant, absolutely brilliant, Sirius. She only has a room full of musical instruments because she likes the way they smell, right?

"Yep. It's my true passion in life. I used to play in a band..." Her eyes assumed a dreamy look; she sighed. "Of course, they've got someone else now that I had to come to Britain. It's almost as bad as losing a lover to someone else..." She grinned. "You must think me completely foolish when you hear me moping around like that."

"No, not at all." Of course, what did he know about losing a band, or losing a lover, for that matter?

"But teaching certainly has its points, and I find research quite satisfying. I hope you will, too," she said.

"Are you a Spellsearcher, too?" he asked.

"Not exactly," was her reply. "I'm trying to redevelop certain methods of Strengthening which are currently considered marginal to magic. The most important method is enhancing the strength of a witch or wizard by music. This is not a new branch of magic which I am developing, but probably the oldest there is. It is an immense field, and there is so much to learn. I spent some time in a Navajo village in Arizona and studied with an old Medicine Man who agreed to teach me some ancient music magic. My other mentor was maybe the last shaman of a tribe in Northern Mongolia, the most amazing witch I've ever met. The mighty lore of enhancing magic through music and through living in harmony with nature is dying out with the last Wise Men and Women of some of the more remote cultures of this world."

She looked down at the floor for a moment. Her sadness was palpable. Surely there were ways to prevent this.

"Don't you think we can do anything about it? Preserve the knowledge of the wise, write it down, teach it to our children?"

Her gaze went up and straight into his face. "No, I don't think so. Things change. The world changes, for better or worse, but you cannot stop time in its tracks. Some things can be preserved for our immediate purposes, but they will not be the same. Even if you write down a piece of knowledge that is intended for oral tradition only, you diminish its magic. All I could do is collect titbits of lore for my personal use, but I don't deceive myself by thinking it's the same thing."

"So what brings you to England, then? Shouldn't you be studying with more shamans and collect more knowledge?" He felt overcome with uneasiness. There were important things to learn out there in the vastness of the world, things that might help them in the struggle ahead of them, and the time was running out. But here they were, sitting comfortably on a sofa, drinking Butterbeer. She took a sip out of her bottle, then said:

"Besides the obvious, you mean, the wish to do away with Voldemort? Well, the thing that brought me back here was stone circles."

He almost choked on a mouthful of the heavy, brown liquid. After her exciting report, she couldn't possibly mean this esoteric nonsense. "Stone circles?" he asked as if he hadn't heard right.

She laughed silently at his question and let herself fall into the back of the sofa. "I know it sounds silly. But my old shaman teacher told me to. She said that I could not learn her magic as well as one of her people could have, because I could not talk to the local spirits of nature and they would not recognise me as one of their own. To a person of our culture, that sounds like nothing but superstition. I've never seen or heard a spirit of nature as long as I live, neither here nor anywhere on the tundra, but I believed her when she said she did. She told me to come here and find the forgotten magic of my people, which turned out to be our picturesque local stone circles. It's just the kind of thing she would have thought adequate - using the magic of music, of nature, of the very ground below us, the magic of our ancestors."

"That's amazing. What are the stone circles supposed to do?"

"Imagine yourself as a Muggle battery, you know, a device that stores power. Imagine the stone circles as a re-charger. Think of certain ancient, sacred tunes as a way to switch the re-charger on. That is how it is supposed to work, anyways. - The guy you stayed with, Mundungus Fletcher?" He gave her a questioning look to make her continue. "Ten years ago he did some rather brilliant translations of some decaying old documents. By accident I found a book about it in a wizard pawnshop in Brooklyn. It's not like I believe in fate or anything, but when I read it I knew I wanted to find out more about stone circle magic. I never did, because I wasn't sure whether the time was ripe for me to return to England. But when I heard Voldemort was on the rise again, I knew it was high time. Now I'm almost prepared to start with my research in earnest. I can't wait, actually."

That made him think of something. "Harry wrote me that you hired Neville Longbottom and Ginny Weasley as your research assistants. He says they adore you. Will you take them to your stone circles?"

Varlerta beamed at him. She has a lovely smile, he thought. "Oh, he wrote that? That's really sweet. Actually, it's me who adores Ginny and Neville. They are both wonderful kids, full of possibilities. It's an infinite joy to see them develop their skills. Of course I'll take them to the stone circles. There's a small local one that's perfect for beginners like us - in a way, all of us still are. This circle has never been moved or destroyed - I'm sure you know the magic does not reside in the stones, but the circles mark places of special power. They also serve as eternal calendars for the dates when the power of the circle is highest. Like most stone circles, ours is one that responds to the full moon. Now that the kids have already learned so much, I decided to take them out there on the next full moon next Tuesday night. Last month I was there by myself on the full moon, the first after the equinox. It was amazing, like a surge of power that shot up into me. I'm not sure I would have made it through Halloween night without it."

Her excitement was visible in her face and audible in the stream of words that flowed from her lips at increasing speed. He could see her point and tried to find an adequate answer, but did not know what to say. So he just smiled and nodded like an idiot. Maybe he wasn't very good at conversation anymore. The years of forced silence felt like a cobweb that stuck to his lips and had crept into his throat. Fighting against it was always some extra effort and took up a bit of extra time. While he had always been considered the incarnation of wit in his youth, his tongue now felt clumsy whenever it was time to converse. And of course, what was there to say about him that wasn't a dreary tale of years and weeks spent enclosed? Professor Varlerta gave him a scrutinizing look, then stifled a yawn with her hand.

"Please excuse me for being so impolite, but I think I better get to bed. I've got to teach the second year Gryffindors early tomorrow morning, and they are really quite a handful. If I haven't got my wits about me, they are likely to blow each up other in class. And then I'd be facing a law suit."

She rose. "Please feel at home, help yourself to the bathroom and everything. In the morning I'll have the house-elves bring you breakfast. I hope I won't disturb you - I have to rise early - but of course, the lower floor of this building is completely soundproof, so you won't hear a thing. Anything else you need for the night?"

He got up and made a neat pile of the remainders of his meal just to have something to do with his hands. "No, not at all, you've already taken care of everything. Thank you very much."

"No problem. Well, goodnight then." And she disappeared through the door into the tiny hall.

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When Sirius descended the spiral stairs early the next morning, he just caught a glimpse of Professor Varlerta as she disappeared into the bathroom. He noticed her striped men's pyjamas and the messy cloud of hair around her head, so decided it might be polite to stay inside his attic room until he was sure she was dressed. When he dared to re-emerge, he found the building empty. At least now he could take a shower without worrying about his host.

The doors of Professor Varlerta's bedroom and study were closed and he did not want to disturb her privacy even more than he was already doing. Unsure what to do with himself now that he was dressed and ready, but rather craving breakfast, Sirius had a further look around in the building's main room. Idly he touched a few of the instruments. When the conspicuous electric guitar responded to his touch like a wand, he concluded that it was a magical instrument. Professor Varlerta seemed to own piles of the strange little records he had seen her play the day before, but when he skipped through them he hardly recognised any names. As a young man he had liked rock music, just as she obviously did, but he had to realise his taste was fourteen years out of date. Instead he looked at the black-and-white Muggle photograph that apparently displayed Professor Varlerta with her band. In the foreground, an exceptionally handsome blond man was singing into a microphone. The bodies and manes of the long-haired male bass player and of Varlerta playing guitar were a bit blurred by motion. Sirius couldn't make out the sex of the slender figure behind the drum set but thought the drummer's face had a look of ecstatic pleasure. A logo in the lower right corner of the poster identified the band as "The Magic Mushrooms."

When he heard the door open, he turned around swiftly, feeling as if caught in the act of something he wasn't supposed to do. Then a loud voice cried: "Sirius!" It took him a second to comprehend that the boy running up to him was Harry.

"How did you get here? Are you ok? Were you chased by Dementors? Did you fly back here on the motorbike?"

As always, Harry wanted to know everything at once. The boy roughly set down the bag he had been carrying - Sirius noticed that a dark, steaming stain of tea or something similar spread over the brown fabric as well as the carpet - and ran up to him. Godfather and godson sat down on one of the sofas and started at once to talk at the same time. It took them a few seconds until they could converse normally. Sirius told Harry how Professor Varlerta had picked him up at Mundungus' house so he could try to regain his skills as a Spellseacher. Harry talked about the attack on the castle at Halloween, about how the cold had affected his scar, but also about Mr. Pigmalgion, who had just sent him a new wooden pawn for Ensouling. Sirius felt absolutely at ease when he heard his godson talk excitedly about his chess figures devious attacks which had resulted in the demise of the first wooden pawn. Not for the first time, he wished he could spend more time with the boy. He wanted to have time to waste with him, to talk about daily, unimportant things, to joke with him and become his substitute father. This reminded him of his responsibilities.

"Shouldn't you be in class right now, by the way?"

Harry shrugged. "I suppose I should be in Care of Magical Creatures now, but Professor Varlerta talked to Hagrid and sent me here. She asked me to take this bag here to her guest, and Hagrid did not object. I had no idea I would find you here. You think I should go back?"

"Maybe it's not that urgent," Sirius conceded. "Do you think there's my breakfast in the bag?"

It was indeed, and only half of it was soaked by spilled tea. After scraping the food onto yesterday's plate, Sirius was content to eat and let Harry do the talking.

"... but playing Slytherin isn't what it used to be, you know. It's nothing to be proud of if Gryffindor flattens a team that's made up of nothing but green beginners. They were a laughing stock. The two Beaters actually crashed into each other during the match. Both fell off their brooms and hurt themselves, and there wasn't even a Bludger near them when they crashed. When I caught the Snitch I almost felt bad about it because the score was already a hundred and ninety to twenty, but I really wanted to end this shameful performance. So if we beat Ravenclaw, too, the cup is very likely to be ours, but it wouldn't be as glorious as it was two years ago."

"Such a nuisance when your opponents die out, isn't it?" Sirius replied with his mouth full. Harry laughed, the wonderful, untroubled laugh of a boy, as if he had never been attacked by Voldemort, had never witnessed scenes of the vilest Dark Magic or conversed with the shadows of his murdered parents. He will be alright, Sirius told himself.

After a while they heard the door open. "Oh, you are still here, Harry?" Professor Varlerta asked. "Shame on you. If you don't hurry, you will be late for Potions, won't you?"

Harry glanced at his watch and sprang to his feet. "See you later, Sirius - that is, if you don't disappear again in the meantime," he said and approached the door.

"I won't, I promise," Sirius replied. He watched Professor Varlerta disappear into the hall and re-emerge laden with a pile of books less than a minute later.

"I told Dumbledore you are here, and he said he'd like to see you in his office at six. He believes it's safe for you to roam the grounds as a dog," she said to him in passing. "Sorry, but I'm in a bit of a hurry, because the Hufflepuff seventh years are probably already waiting for me outside my classroom."

"Was he angry?" Sirius asked her.

Already in the open door, she turned, a mischievous smile on her lips. "Do you ever feel like a kid again because you've been sent to the headmaster for a scolding?" she replied enigmatically.

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He enjoyed the smell of the wet grass, the sounds of the forest and the wind in his fur. How he had longed to be outside! Sometimes, life was so much easier as a dog. No need to talk, no expectations to fulfil; nothing to hinder his freedom. Too bad dogs did not wear watches, though. Even though he did not know the time, he ran back to the castle at the first hint at dusk because he did not want to miss his appointment with Dumbledore. When he ascended the steps to the front door, he saw it was closed. Since the attack on Halloween, the castle was protected by extra security. Harry had told him that students were not allowed outside after dusk even though night fell early on these autumn afternoons. In the grounds students were required to move in groups of no less than four, something Harry found very annoying because Ron, Hermione and he always needed a chaperone if they wanted to spend time outside now.

Looking up at the forbidding, closed door, Sirius let out a short bark. Would somebody let him in, or would he have to find another entrance? He knew from experience that this was not an easy task in these times of mistrust, so he was glad when someone opened the door for him. When he saw Filch stand in the open door, he swore a dog's curse under his breath, however.

"Betake you away, you filthy beast," howled the caretaker. Filthy beast, indeed. He would take revenge on the cat some day. Impatient to get to Dumbledore, Sirius ducked low and slipped through the caretaker's legs, then ran up the stairs before Filch could follow him. The caretaker sent a few wailing curses after him.

In front of Dumbledore's gargoyle he stopped. Should he transform to say the password? He uttered a soft bark; the gargoyle let him in. Smart of Dumbledore, he thought and stood up on his hind legs to reach the door handle. Just as he entered, he realised he was interrupting a private conversation.

"I understand your fears, Metheus, but I still cannot grant what you ask for. For all my disagreements with Fudge, this is still a school, not a fortress to protect wizards who fight for their viewpoint with violent means." Dumbledore was gesturing with his hands to underline the importance of his words.

"Most of us have renounced violence years ago, Albus. There are dozens of League members out there who have never hurt anybody, but now all of their lives are threatened by You-Know-Who. Please let me ..." Seeing the large, black dog stand in the door, Professor Quibster, the Muggle Studies teacher, stopped short.

Dumbledore acknowledged his presence with a nod, then got up to close the door behind him. "Sirius," he said. "It is very good to see you are well."

Sirius transformed back into a wizard. "I am sorry to interrupt your conversation. Am I early?"

"A bit," Dumbledore admitted, but his eyes creased into a smile. "But it doesn't matter. Will you sit down?" Quibster frowned noticeably; obviously he would have liked to continue his conversation with the headmaster in privacy. Sirius gave him an apologetic smile. The Muggle Studies teacher slightly bowed his head as a farewell to Dumbledore.

"I wish you'd reconsider, if only for the sake of the children," he said and walked out the door.

He looks old, Sirius thought as he saw the headmaster of Hogwarts rub two knotty fingers over his wrinkled forehead.

"I hope you are well, and not too angry with me, Albus," he said. The first name of his former headmaster did not come easily to his lips, even though he knew that there was hardly any grown witch or wizard who was not on first-name terms with the wizard in front of him.

Dumbledore turned to him abruptly as if he had forgotten about Sirius' presence for a moment.

"No, why should I be angry?" he replied. A few lines of care smoothed out on his face. "I am very glad indeed to see you have made it here safely. We have to thank Varlerta and her Ensouled car for that, I take it?"

Sirius nodded. For some obscure reason his heart skipped a beat. "She picked me up. We had a smooth trip, no trouble at all."

Dumbledore's chest rose and fell heavily. Sirius thought he detected a trace of bitterness in his voice. "Maybe I was wrong to keep you hidden down there. After I made the mistake of sending you to find the Figgs, I did not want to make a second one that might result in your imprisonment or death. It seems to me that I have recently made a lot of mistakes."

He's never been one to doubt himself, Sirius thought. Something is weighing heavily on him, or, more likely still, many things are. He did not want to add to the headmaster's burden, so he said in the most cheerful tone he could manage:

"Don't worry about it, I was fine down there. When I got a chance to come, I took the risk, and with a stroke of luck I made it here safely. Now I hope to do something useful. Professor Varlerta said you want me to work as a Spellsearcher again."

"That would help us a great deal indeed," Dumbledore replied. "The question is, do you want to work as a Spellsearcher?"

He knows, Sirius thought. Feeling shame overwhelm him, he looked down at his feet shod in the black trainers Mundungus had gotten for him. Dumbledore knows that I wanted to be the one to break Icy Fingers, that I lied to him and stayed in that accursed laboratory because of my damned ambition. Why else would I have passed on the task of being the Potters' Secret Keeper?

"We were close," he replied. "We were almost there. A couple of days with the two of us working would have done it. I thought I could finish the work by myself. I was wrong. Now I have no idea if I will do any better if I get a second chance."

"It was not your fault," Dumbledore replied softly, offering stale comfort. "You meant well."

"Not well enough," Sirius heard himself say in a hoarse voice, and knew it was true when Dumbledore failed to utter any denials. Even if the difference was ever so small, he'd been tired of always being second best. There was this one bit of fame he had wanted for himself, and that desire had proved to be fatal.

"We will build you a laboratory in the western wing," Dumbledore told him rather matter-of-factly. "That part of the castle is used very little; and we will put a Sealing spell on all your rooms, so you should be safe there. You'll get a room or two to live in next to the laboratory, too. As an Animagus, you can move about the castle and the grounds unnoticed. Maybe your godson will lend you James' remarkable Invisibility Cloak."

Sirius nodded mutely. It was better than he could have expected.

"You will need help," Dumbledore continued. "There is no professional Spellsearcher whom I can trust enough to ask, but some of the teachers will help you with their expertise. I am talking, of course, of Minerva, Severus and Varlerta."

It was worse than he could have expected.

"I'm sorry to contradict you, Albus, but I don't think that is a very good idea. You see, Severus and I ... will probably never work together overly well."

"None of us can afford to be picky in these rough times," Dumbledore said sadly and shook his white-haired head. Sirius instantly regretted his objection. "Severus has never worked as a Spellsearcher, but is very talented at Countering curses. You should think twice before renouncing his help, even if it may not be willingly given."

Sirius bit his bottom lip to block an angry reply about where exactly Severus Snape could stick his unwillingly given help. Suddenly an idea formed in his mind which lifted up his sunken spirit.

"I would prefer a proper partner for my work. What about Remus Lupin?"

"Remus," Dumbledore mused. "He has never worked as a Spellsearcher before, has he?"

"He's taught Defence Against the Dark Arts at some school called Hogwarts, if that's any qualification to go by," Sirius said with a shrug, knowing he could needle the old headmaster with this sentence. He saw the wrinkled face crease into a smile and knew that better days were coming up for him.

"I suppose if we can keep him in the western wing with you, out of the students' sight and hopefully out of harm's way, it should be alright," Dumbledore mused. "You would have to train him, of course. But actually - why not? I will owl him straight away."