All Debts Must be Paid

Chapter Eleven: Sirius

High overhead, the noonday sun streamed down onto the regimented green space of the park, the air warm with the fume filled heat of a summer city. Jerking his head up with a start, Sirius realised he must have slept all morning. His arm was throbbing painfully, and he hissed as he looked at it. In the daylight, the blisters looked awful. He needed to do something about it now.

Slowly he staggered to his feet, using the wall behind him as a support. He felt dizzy and for a moment, he thought he was going to pass out, but the dizziness wore off eventually. He took a few steps, but didn't think he was going to get very far on two legs. He didn't want to collapse in the street, so he fell forwards into the familiar canine shape and limped out of the bushes.

By daylight, the park looked much smaller than it had at night. It wasn't much more than a large, railed garden, criss-crossed with paths, lawns broken up with the geometric shapes of rose filled flowerbeds. There was a small pond with a fountain in the middle, and he slaked his thirst from it as quickly as he could. He felt exposed under the hazy sky and skittered down one of the paths towards the exit. The streets outside the park were busy as people swarmed out of their offices for lunch. Sirius moved along the dusty pavements, trying to stay out of people's way, but it was hard, a limping dog wasn't inconspicuous the way a scruffy man would have been.

At long last he got to the Leaky Cauldron and sat outside waiting until someone opened the door on their way out and slipped inside. Quickly he ducked under an unoccupied table in a corner before Old Tom saw him and threw him out. Then he waited for someone to go through to Diagon Alley so he could follow them. He didn't have to wait long. Few people seemed to want a pub lunch in this heat - he suspected Florian Fortescue would be doing most business today. He followed two wizards, deep in discussion about the outrageous transfer fees Quidditch players were getting these days, and they never noticed him.

It was still early for most of Knockturn Alley's clientele to be about, so the street was quiet. Business didn't seem to be as good as it used to be - several of the shops were closed and boarded up and the street had a run down air generally. Rubbish sacks were piled up in one of the shop doorways and he used their shelter to hide behind while he transformed. Then he staggered to his feet and went off in search of somewhere he could sell the guard's wand.

He found the pawnshop at the far end of the street. It was a dark and dingy looking shop that almost required its customers to furtively sidle up to the door. A bell tinkled at the back as he pushed the door open. There was silence for a moment and then shuffling footsteps made their way down a passage or corridor, getting louder as they approached. The owner of the feet that made the footsteps wasn't nearly as decrepit as they had implied. The man simply couldn't be bothered lifting his feet.

"Yes?" It was hardly welcoming.

"I understand you buy used wands?" Sirius asked.

The man immediately looked shifty. "Not much demand for second hand wands these days," he said.

Sirius rolled his eyes. "But of course if I wanted to buy one they'd be as scarce as hen's teeth." He pulled out the guard's wand and held it out. "How much?" he asked.

The shopkeeper took it, and looked at it for a few moments, wrinkling his nose up as if he could smell something bad. "Hmmm, willow, ten inches, dragon heartstring." He gave it an experimental flick. Nothing happened. "All right," he said eventually, after humming and hawing over it, "I'll give you a galleon for it."

Sirius was in too much of a hurry to be bothered going through the ritual of haggling. "It's only a few years old, it has to be worth at least three," he stated with finality, taking the wand back.

The shopkeeper shrugged. "So what? If you came by that legitimately, I'm Cornelius Fudge. It's not yours, you must have nicked it off somebody and it misfired when you tried to use it. That would explain the dirty great burn you've got there on your arm." He gave a sour smile. "I don't really care one way or the other, but if you're asking me to fence stolen property for you, you can't expect to get what you'd get for a genuine second hand sale. It's not as if I know you."

Sirius leaned forwards, and grabbed him by the collar of his robes with his left hand. "Oh don't you now?"

The shopkeeper sighed. "No of course I don't know you. Why should I? But what I meant specifically was, I hadn't done business with you before, know what I mean?"

Sirius let go of the man's robes and tried a different tack. "Well see, I need a wand I can use, would you like to gamble that this one is going to misfire every time I try to use it?" He pointed the wand between the shopkeeper's eyes.

The man looked at him speculatively for a moment, as if weighing up whether or not he would use the wand. He must have decided that Sirius meant what he said as he put out a hand and pushed Sirius' arm down. "You want to do a swap? Why didn't you say so?"

"You're happy to do an exchange?" Sirius was suspicious.

"Of course. Wand for wand, plus a small commission of course - to cover my costs."

"Forget it," Sirius snapped and put his wand up again.

The shopkeeper sighed. "All right, you win. See if you can find anything you can use in the stacks over there." He pointed to a series of shelves at the back of the shop. "The last three stacks mind."

But Sirius was already walking over to have a look and ignored him. He snorted as he realised that the last three stacks had the oldest, most used looking wands, but he spent some time walking up and down, trying a selection of them. However, none of them felt anything near right. Eventually though, just as he was beginning to feel dizzy again, he found something he thought would do. He cast a simple charm with it and when that worked, a painkilling charm on his arm, which brought blessed relief. He thought about Apparating back to Remus's there and then, but knew with the way he was feeling he would probably splinch himself. Instead, he tried a couple more simple spells with the wand, including one that began to heal the blistering on his arm. He wasn't getting any of the feedback he got from the other one, but it wasn't perfect, and was clearly a lot older than the one he had. However, it would do.

He walked back to the counter, but the pawnbroker had gone. Sirius looked round in puzzlement, but then shrugged and turned to leave when he heard the man's footsteps hurrying along the corridor from the back of the shop. He pulled aside the curtain and saw Sirius standing by the counter. "That was quick," he said.

"How long did you expect me to take?" Sirius asked as he rather thought it had taken quite a while. "This one'll do," he said then, without waiting for an answer.

The shopkeeper didn't give one. Instead, he asked in a sarcastic tone, "Good choice, good choice. Want me to wrap it for you?" Despite the sarcasm, Sirius thought he seemed nervous now, twitchy even.

"Don't bother, I think I'll use it, " he responded in an equally sarcastic tone, as he turned to leave.

Before he could do so, however, the shopkeeper asked, "Going to deal with that burn yourself are you then?"

Sirius turned back to him. "None of your business," he said.

"Well, not that I'm an expert or anything, although I do think I can recognise someone who's half dead on their feet from a wound that's well on its way to going gangrenous." He smiled cheerfully at Sirius. "Seems to me you should have a professional take a look at your arm. Er, a professional who respects the confidentiality of their patients and doesn't ask stupid questions, that is."

"And you are telling me this, why?" Sirius looked at him narrowly, then grinned without humour. "Oh, I get it, the healer pays you a commission?"

"Simple business arrangement," the shopkeeper stated, offended. "Nothing wrong with that."

"Well thanks, but no thanks. I'm quite capable of dealing with this myself."

The shopkeeper looked disappointed, then tried a different tack. "Got some burn salve back here, dead cheap, works a dream."

"Well unless it's free I'm not interested," Sirius snapped, beginning to get irritated.

"No harm in taking a look or trying it out," the man urged.

Sirius wondered if he looked completely stupid, that the man would try and sell him something that was so obviously no good.

Then a voice said behind him, "You should probably have taken him up on the offer, Black. I don't think anyone's going to be terribly interested in healing your burn anytime soon."

Sirius whirled round, and saw two men standing beside the stacks at the back of the shop. They both had their wands aimed at his heart. He recognised one of them as the Hit Wizard who was in charge when they arrested Remus. The other was Jacks.