Subplot

13 - Sirius

The eyes of Hogwarts' wizened headmaster were grave, and Sirius realised Dumbledore had not only asked him to come into his round office to inquire about the Spellsearchers' progress. That was just as well: Remus Lupin and he had made no headway to speak of. Once upon a time James had scored a chance hit when working alone in the laboratory: Using the highly dangerous and complex method of curse self-infliction, albeit within the protective frame of the Atmoglisa, he had managed to completely Counter Icy Fingers one night. Sirius and James had felt elated; the following few days were spent with attempts to reproduce the effect. But before James and he had been able to find out what exactly had prompted James' success on that one attempt, word got to them that the Dark Lord was after the Potters. The rest was history.

Sirius had always believed James and he had been close to finding the counter curse then, but now he was not so sure. Remus' and his work seemed to be going nowhere. Of course, now they knew virtually everything there was to know about Icy Fingers - for Non-Death Eaters, that is. Several of the vandalised books had been replaced with the help of Madam Pince. While others might be lost forever, at least they had Lily's old notes. The red-headed witch had kept a neat and thorough log of all her book research. Her references, implications and suggestions were complex, but once they had come to understand her train of thought, Lily's notes were a revelation. However, they only contained knowledge that was more than fourteen years old, knowledge that had not sufficed then and did not suffice now.

Practical experiments had not yielded much more results, either. The Atmoglisa Magica, permitted witches and wizards to try spells and curses in a comparatively safe 'virtual environment' (a term Remus used). In it Remus and he could work Icy Fingers due to the old information the 'Git' had given to them; there they could practise countering on a general basis and try different ways of countering Icy Fingers. But so far, the creeping cold had always had the last word in their experiments. Sirius shivered when he thought of the laboratory. They could put log upon log on the fire - for safety reasons, house elves were not permitted there - but however much they heated the room, Ice Flowers still covered its windows at most times.

"Sirius, I have called you here because I want to ask your opinion on a grave matter," Dumbledore said. Sirius nodded encouragingly, realising the very same moment he was only pretending to understand. He placed his hands palms down on Dumbledore's desk and waited for the grave matter, vaguely wandering if it had to do with the recent murder reported in that morning's Daily Prophet. But apparently it did not.

"As you know, I have tried to win all those who are willing to fight Lord Voldemort for an order of cooperation. After our first meeting, you were spotted and photographed in front of Anne Figg's house. At that point, it seemed unlikely to all of us that a photographer of the Daily Prophet just happened to be in the right place at the right time - excuse me, in the wrong place at the wrong time. We all feared there was a leak in our order, that one of the witches or wizards I invited because I consider them trustworthy had betrayed us."

The lines around Dumbledore's eyes creased with worry; Sirius could see his white eyebrows bristle up in accordance to the furrowed brow.

"You mean you are not sure whether or not there is a leak in the order, whether or not any of us is a traitor," he replied after a few seconds of silence, urging Dumbledore to go on.

"Indeed, we do not know exactly," the headmaster responded slowly. "I have checked on every one of my trusted and valued friends since the meeting, and I could find no indication that my trust in any of them was misplaced. And so far, nothing else has happened. If there is a traitor, I have found no evidence that he or she betrayed us a second time."

"So are you saying it could have been just my tough luck after all?" Sirius asked. "Or are you implying I should take this personal?"

Dumbledore sighed. "There is a third possibility. After I suspected treachery, I did not call for a second meeting of the order. Some groups that have agreed to cooperate on that first assembly have met on their own since then to limit the chances that their plans are overheard by a traitor. They have related their plans to me, but not to anyone else. But of course, if there is a leak in our order, that person might just be biding his time. If we call for another meeting with everyone, the traitor will learn more of our plans. Maybe he or she wants us to think that we are safe, wants us to think the photographer spotted you by chance."

Dumbledore ran one bony forefinger over the other. His frustration of not knowing what to make of the situation was palpable. Sirius thought over the three possibilities, and found that one of them had to be true: Either the traitor was just waiting for the revelations of the next meeting so he could annihilate them more effectively; or there was no traitor, just a case of bad luck; or the traitor was a deadly enemy of Sirius Black, and Sirius Black alone. The vision of a face flashed up before his eyes - a hooked nose, a spiteful smile, a gaze full of envy. Experience told him he must not voice his suspicion; Dumbledore would become angry, or worse, he would simply sit there and look hurt. Sirius felt a great reverence for the wise headmaster of Hogwarts, so he kept quiet. Probably Dumbledore could appropriately estimate whether Snape was a traitor to him and to Hogwarts, but did that have to mean Snape betraying Sirius to the Daily Prophet was out of question?

The headmaster gave Sirius a sharp look as if he could read his mind. Sirius was glad he had not actually mentioned Snape. "So you think it would be dangerous to call for another meeting of your order?" he asked.

Dumbledore exhaled heavily. "It might be, and then again, it might not. I truly feel we all have to trust each other and we need each other's help. For this reason I wanted us to meet as an order of those who are willing to fight Lord Voldemort. I believe these meetings are necessary, but if there is a traitor among us, they may do more harm than good." He counted on his fingers: "Minerva is in favour of meeting again. Severus is against it. Chent Flitwick believes we should take the risk, and so do Astra Sinistra, Metheus Quibster and Varlerta. Moody took a fierce stand on never trusting anybody again when I asked his opinion, of course. Poppy, Heather Sprout, Cosinus Vector, Hagrid, Arthur Weasley and Gerold Hawks are undecided - and so am I, to tell you the truth."

"I don't know what to think of this business, so I guess you can count me among the undecided," Sirius replied.

"Your opinion is of special importance to me," Dumbledore told him. "The life threatened by the last leak, if there was a leak, was yours. As long as you are at Hogwarts, you are safe, even if your whereabouts should become known. I would hate to defend this school against wizards from the Ministry as they should fight on our side, not against us. Yet I assure you that no one will penetrate the walls of this castle as long as Minerva and I are here to protect it. But still - while a spy of Lord Voldemort could do us all immense harm, a spy of the Ministry might be a special danger to you. If you ask me to, I will postpone the next meeting of the order until we have found the culprit."

Sirius nodded and bit his lower lip to keep from speaking up. He could not ban Snape's face from his mind even though he gave it a fair try. Snape quietly sending an owl to the Daily Prophet. Snape sneaking into the library with a scissor in his hand. Snape staring at Varlerta whenever she wasn't watching. What did it matter if there was another meeting of Dumbledore's order? The traitor slept four storeys beneath him every night.

"If the Ministry knows I am here, I may become a liability," he answered slowly. "I do not doubt that you would know how to protect me, but I wonder what will become of the school if Fudge knows you are harbouring a fugitive mass murderer."

A scowl dabbed at Dumbledore's brow. Sirius knew the headmaster did not like it when Sirius embraced the idea of himself as a murderer. To console him, he came up with a practical compromise.

"Of course I can't help you with your worry about a potential spy of Voldemort, but if it's me you are worried about... Why don't you call for a general order meeting which Remus and I won't attend? Just instruct everyone from Hogwarts not to mention us or our Spellsearching activities in the meeting. If there is a spy of Voldemort in the order, it might be a good idea to keep the latter secret anyway." Of course, if Snape was the one who tipped of the Daily Prophet, this would not help, but Sirius reckoned that Snape would not act against the interest of Dumbledore if he could not blame it on some anonymous, hypothetical spy.

"I've thought of this possibility, and it might be the best way to solve this problem," Dumbledore agreed. "Will you agree to be left out?"

"Of course," Sirius answered. "Remus won't mind it either, I think. He is not overly fond of large assemblies of witches and wizards who are likely to treat him with distrust." Neither am I, he added in his thoughts. He had not forgotten how people had looked at him when the order had last met.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When Sirius returned to the Spellsearchers' laboratory, he found it dark and dreary. Remus had gone to relieve Mundungus and the others on their secret guard on Azkaban for a week. He was due to return the next day, hopefully with a usable transcription of an extremely rare magical document; yet maybe, if not probably, he would return empty-handed. Mundungus was working on the transcription and translation of a very obscure text about magical energy absorption for them. Written partially in old Arabic and partially Latin, but using European Medieval magical runes (at least this was what Sirius had understood), the text in was an intriguing find. Bill Weasley had sent it to Hogwarts after discovering it in an Egyptian antique-junk store, but had told them he could not warrant for its authenticity.

Sirius stared out of the window into the clear and dark night. From far away he could hear the noise of the Quidditch pitch. Having nothing to do, he could of course do some more work, get a head start on tomorrow's agenda. He could. But - frustration soaked through him like liquid and weighed him down - he would not. What was the point of his work, anyway?

Covering himself once more with the invisibility cloak, he sneaked outside to see Hagrid and Buckbeak. The large Hippogriff was tethered behind the pumpkin patch, because Hagrid did not have the heart to keep him inside his hut all the time as Dumbledore had instructed him. Oblivious to the icy wind, Buckbeak was toying with his dinner, a bucket of fluffy baby rabbits. When he smelled Sirius, the large winged creature called out - a strange noise somewhere between the neighing of a horse and the crowing of a rooster. Buckbeak did not fail to greet Sirius even if the wizard was invisible; the creature was well used to that by now. Sirius patted his beak and stroked his wiry feathers; he scratched the thick downs underneath Buckbeak's wings, something he knew the Hippogriff loved. After a thorough caressing of the ferocious creature, Sirius turned to Hagrid's hut. Through the window he could see a light; Hogwarts' gamekeeper must be home. But when he approached the window, he saw that Hagrid was not alone; what's more, he looked as busy as anybody could look. Sirius had never met Olympe Maxime, half-giantess, headmistress of Beauxbatons and Hagrid's fiancée, but neither Hagrid's behaviour, nor the size of the female he was holding in his arms, left Sirius with any doubt that this must be the woman Harry had told him about.

Sirius pulled the invisibility cloak tighter around him and started to walk back to the castle. He felt cold, lonely and forsaken. Madame Maxime was no woman to be fancied by someone of his humble human size; yet there was no doubt about it: He would not have minded female company himself. For not the first time that night, his thoughts strayed to Professor Varlerta. He had visited her in her building a few times, and she had not seemed displeased by that. Once he had carelessly run into her apprentices, Ginny and Neville. It had startled all three of them considerably at first, but maybe it had been for the best. After Varlerta had forced the two students to swear a solemn oath that they would keep silent about it, she had introduced him. Sirius had to admit he had enjoyed the moment: Both Ginny and Neville had simply gawked at him in awe and admiration. When he happened to call on Varlerta during their lessons with her now, the two of them treated him kindly, but with respect. Just like Varlerta, they called him Mr. Black and bustled around to clear him a seat and get him a cup of tea. Perhaps they enjoyed playing hosts in the strange and usually slightly chaotic building of Professor Varlerta.

Even though he could not remember taking the turn, he suddenly found himself on the path towards the building, wondering whether she would be busy tonight. He had to admit he was interested in her as a woman. Even though she was not as beautiful as Lily had been, or come to think of it, neither quite as kind as Lily - his heart still skipped a beat when he remembered the red-haired witch's angelic loveliness, her pure, gentle goodness - even though Varlerta was really quite unlike Lily, she was still interesting. She had seen something of the world and had things to talk about; she had a biting sense of humour that was not unlike his; and even though she was not as gorgeous as Lily had been, there was no denying that ... He found himself knocking on the door of Varlerta's building.

When Varlerta opened, her face looked incomprehensive for the fraction of a second; then it broke into a smile. "Oh, it's you, Sirius? Well, come in, and if you don't mind, take that thing off."

Sirius spread the moist Invisibility Cloak over the back of a chair. "I hope I'm not disturbing you," he said.

"Oh, not at all," she replied, polite as often, though by no means as always. "I was just re-reading the paper. I suppose you've read it too."

Today's Daily Prophet was spread over one of the sofas, the front page with its picture of a smoking ruin of a house and the covered bodies in front of it visible from where he stood. "It's terrible. Unbelievable. Just like in the old days, but the Minister of Magic just closes his eyes to it."

She nodded. "Another two wizards dead, and still they cover up the real reason. Metheus told me that they were both League men, just like the Kinneys and the Figgs. He believes that all members of the League may be killed any day now."

"I once overheard a conversation between him and Dumbledore. If I got it right, Quibster wanted Dumbledore to protect League members here at Hogwarts, but Dumbledore said no, because they are such a violent group."

Varlerta shrugged. "I suppose they are, even though I do see their point. But of course you can never protect all of them here. As far as I know, there are at least a hundred League members here in Britain and many more all over the world. If they were all to stay here until Voldemort is defeated, we would have to build a new castle, or rather half a dozen more castles here on the grounds."

"If we ever manage to defeat Voldemort," he replied, amazed by her optimism.

"Yeah, that's right. If." She made a gesture as if to brush away Voldemort, the threatened League members and the Daily Prophet. "Is it cold outside, by the way? I'd fancy a walk around the lake, if you'd like to come."

It was indeed cold and windy outside, but neither of them seemed to feel this was an obstacle to taking a walk. Having spent most of the day indoors, Sirius was glad to breathe the clean winter air. He even dared to keep his invisibility cloak open in front; the grounds were dark and deserted, and it was not likely that he would be spotted.

The path towards the lake was covered with crispy frozen leaves. Sirius could see his own breath as a thick cloud of steam. In the soot black sky, a million stars twinkled faintly.

"Oh, by the way, Mr. Black, please remind me to give you Linquist's 'The Jigsaw Fit - Curse and countercurse' when we return. The book just arrived as a reprint from Australia and is presently lying on my desk, waiting for you," Varlerta suddenly said.

"'The Jigsaw Fit' - that's great news. I did not even know there was a reprint edition," Sirius replied. Lily's references to that old standard book were numerous, but sometimes cryptic. Not for the first time, Sirius wished he could just ask the red-haired witch who had done so much book research for them. Instead, he had to reconstruct her knowledge bit by bit. The destruction of the Hogwarts library books did not help, of course.

"I really appreciate that you do so much book-hunting for us, Professor Varlerta," he told her. "It is a great help after what has happened."

After a few seconds of silence, Varlerta replied: "I know we are at cross-purposes here, Mr. Black, but I really do not believe Severus Snape to be responsible for that act of sabotage. You will have your own good reasons for mistrusting him, of course. But I keep thinking, if Verus was not responsible, somebody else must be. I wonder who that is, and what we can do to stop him or her."

"I am equally sure that Snape did it," Sirius said, trying to keep the harsh tone out of his voice. "He's got it in for me; he always did." He would have said much more but checked himself when he realised Professor Varlerta was laughing.

"Verus says the same about you, you know. You two must have truly vile personalities if I am to believe both of you. I am infinetely glad that this is none of my business. - By the way, how familiar are you with Linquist's theories of verbal supplements? I admit I did not read the whole book yet, but I skipped through it a bit last night, and I actually believe the supplement theory is nothing short of bullshit."

Supplement, supplement ... Come on, he said to himself. A proper Spellsearcher should certainly be able to take her up on that challenge. Linquist's theories of verbal supplements, now he had it.

"You mean the idea that there is a word for every word-induced curse, that curse and counter-curse are supplementing parts on a metaphysical, meta-language language?" The long-buried knowledge of his Speallsearcher Training Finals came back to him; he suddenly felt a whiff of a memory, of the top Hogwarts graduate he had once been. For a moment he thought of Lily, walking between James and him along the impressive hallways of their training college, railing at canons and harrowing them with hypothetical questions. What if Linquist, what if Flamel, what if old Merlin himself had been wrong? "So why do you think the theory is bullshit?" he asked reluctantly, acutely aware that he wasn't really in the mood to talk business. Professor Varlerta seemed to have caught on.

"Ok, I'll keep it short. What I thought bullshitty was Linquist's idea that the search for a counter curse has anything to do with finding a word to match 'Glaciera.' Rather we should look for a magical process that reverses whatever is the inherent magical structure of Icy Fingers." The look on his face must have betrayed his feelings, because she continued rather hastily: "Ok, ok, I'll change the subject now. Well ..." she considered for a while, "you know what Astra told me?"

Astra? Ah, she meant Professor Sinistra. Of course he could not know what she had told Varlerta as he wasn't a bloody clairvoyant, but he nodded encouragingly just the same.

"She said there's going to be a lunar eclipse early next April. A total lunar eclipse, and it will be visible in Britain, too. Can you imagine? As far as I read, stone circles run wild during that kind of thing. I'm really excited, and so are Ginny and Neville."

"You mean you will take them there during the eclipse to enhance your strength?"

"I certainly will. Of course, we will have to take a few precautions, because I literally mean the stone circles run wild during lunar eclipses. There's no telling what will happen. But of course we can protect ourselves from any uncontrollable surges of magical energy. I already borrowed a few books on eclipse power from Astra so I don't lead my assistants into danger."

He smiled when he thought of Ginny and Neville's devotion to their eccentric teacher. "That's good, because they would follow you blindly into peril, if their adoration for you is anything to go by."

"Thanks again for the complement. But you know, I'm not the only one they adore. I think," she lowered her voice conspiratorially, "Ginny's got a teenage crush on you. Isn't that cute?"

Professor Varlerta was by far not as kind and tactful as Lily, who would never have said such a thing, Sirius thought. Now how in the world was he expected to react to this?

"How ... I mean, why do you think so? She's quite young, isn't she?" he replied unhappily.

Varlerta seemed to find it funny. "How I know? A severe case of insufferable mentionitis, that's how I know. It's 'Mr. Black this'and 'Mr.. Black that,' and 'how is his work coming along?' and 'did he come to see you last night?' and 'don't you think he's lonely up there in the west wing?' - Don't look at me as if I had just suggested you were a paedophile. Of course she's quite young. She's fourteen. Most fourteen-year-old girls have these kind of crushes. It's perfectly harmless and will pass. I just thought it was cute." She grinned, but then her look softened. "I'm sorry, Mr. Black. I did not mean to worry you and admit it does you much credit that you look so miserable now. I'm positive she'll be alright. Matters would be much worse if you were a famous drummer or something."

Mr. Black this and Mr. Black that, and all this in spite of the fact that he wasn't a famous drummer - there he was, assessing his market value as a male again. He wondered if he should ask Professor Varlerta to call him Sirius at last, but felt embarrassed by the idea. Or maybe the thought of her calling his arch enemy by such a cute nickname as - he swallowed - Verus was repulsive enough to put him off the idea. He did not reply to her apology, but walked next to her in silence.

Professor Varlerta, however, had a slight disposition to chat, so the silence did not last very long. As always, she had a few stories to tell. Swallowing any displeasing thoughts, he once more enjoyed listening to her tell about the world outside Hogwarts: about the sky-scraper-sliced sky of Manhattan where collisions of invisible flying vehicles were not infrequent, about the dingy little subterranean clubs where she often played with her rock band, about her musician friends she missed so much. She could tell him of Muggle college classes she had attended and sometimes flunked, of her travels, of the eerie pre-dawn light on the icy taiga, of strange shamanic rituals she had observed in many places of the world. When Varlerta had finished her anecdote and was silent for a few minutes, darker thoughts flooded Sirius' mind. The witch strolling by his side had something that awoke a deep yearning in him, something he wanted for himself: A fulfilled life outside this castle, a life that would welcome her back whenever she decided to leave.

Hogwarts made him feel he had come back in a regressive circle to be a school inmate, a Spellsearcher or a prisoner once more, however you wanted to see it. Unlike her, he had virtually nothing outside it. Again and again he harrowed himself about why he had not tried to run for it after Peter Pettigrew had blasted away a Muggle street to frame Sirius for the Potters' murder. Now all he had to show for most of his adult life were twelve years of pointless martyrdom - nothing that would look good on a CV at any rate. In contrast, the circle that had brought Varlerta back to Hogwarts as a teacher must have been a spiral. When she closed her eyes, he was certain, she saw not the merciless, ceaselessly glaring lights of an Azkaban prison cell, but a world that was obviously her oyster. Yes, he mused as he walked by her side, following the path that rounded the lake; she was free to live her life as she chose, and she had everything. Well, nearly everything. If he had been free to live his life as he should have lived it, there was one thing he certainly would not have missed.

Sirius contemplated the nearly dark grounds around him. The forbidden forest loomed like a dark, hungry beast in the background. The crescent moon, no more than a slim slice of light in the sky yet, was mirrored on the still waters of the lake. On the shore, a few ducks slept, huddled together in the frozen grass. Suddenly the surface of the lake rippled furiously; a giant tentacle appeared, grabbed one of the ducks at random and pulled the squalling bird down into the depth of the water. The rest of the flock dispersed with dismayed squawks. Sirius could not quite decide whether he found the scene he had just witnessed funny or frightening. Next to him, Varlerta inhaled audibly. He turned to her and saw a shady outline of her face, a faint spot of light on her hair. Before he could stop himself, he said to her what was on his mind:

"I still find it hard to believe that you are not married, that you have no family waiting for you in the States. I've always wanted one, you know - I was always sure I would have children one day." Varlerta did not respond, so he continued: "Don't you want a family? I mean, the way Harry sees it, you are good with children. And if you wait too long - I mean, one day you will be too old for it, won't you?"

He could have kicked himself. Even though he wasn't exactly an expert in the dating game, he could imagine there were a few basic rules. One of them had to be: 'Never tell a woman she will be too old to have babies soon!' Varlerta did not seem offended, though; she laughed.

"Teaching teenagers or even eleven year old kids is not exactly the same thing as changing nappies, is it? I just don't think I'm the type." They walked a few more steps on the icy gravel before she continued, her voice quiet and far more sober:

"I don't want to give you any crap about biological determinism, but the grim truth is that I never wanted to take the risk. Even if I don't believe in these things, the thought still scares me, you know." She turned her face away to look at the ink black waters that were once again smooth like a sheet of ice. Somewhere on the bottom of the lake, the giant squid must be snacking on the duck now.

Her words had confused him. Biological determinism? What did that have to do with anything? "I don't think I understand what you just said," he replied.

She exhaled a thick cloud of steam into the icy air. "See, I don't think it's in me, but even if I'm alright - it could be skipping a generation to appear in any baby I might ever have. However absurd it may sound, but it's not a risk I would want to take at any rate, even if it means I'll never get the chance to run around with a pram. If you consider the worst-case scenario I have in mind, you will certainly agree with me."

"I don't know what you are talking about," he said, feeling a vague dread arise in him.

She stopped dead in her tracks and turned to him. "Don't tell me you don't know. They must have told you. Somebody did, didn't they?"

He took a step back to face her. She was all defiance now, her chin raised up as if in defence, her body tense, her mouth set. Whatever they had not told him, it wasn't something pleasant, that much was sure. "You tell me, then," he retorted.

Valerta's laugh sounded bitter. "I can't believe they have been so irresponsibly negligent. Here you are, taking a near-romantic midnight stroll around the lake with me, and you don't even know that you are consorting with a monster!"

"Are you a vampire or a werewolf then?" he asked, forgetting for a second that neither species multiplied by procreation, that if she was a vampire or a werewolf, the question of maternity would not even have arisen for Professor Varlerta. The witch in front of him replied with another humourless laugh.

"Nothing so simple," she snorted, then extended her hand to him in a gesture of mock introduction. Her voice was pure acid.

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Black. My name is Valerie Riddle."

5