A Promise Worth Keeping

Chapter Eleven

The Leaky Cauldron had its Christmas decorations up although it was only the beginning of December. Of course the Muggle shops had been full of Christmas things for weeks now, but the shops in Diagon Alley had always seemed to retain some sense of perspective when it came to rampant consumerism. Remus found he resented being wished a happy Christmas by total strangers when it wasn't even Christmas yet. He thought he had a lot in common with that Muggle character, what was his name, Scrooge. Bah humbug. He sighed. No, that wasn't it at all. It was because the full moon had been a bad one and he was still recovering. It had been the worst one for years he thought. He hadn't even been able to get out of bed for two days. He was only up now, because of his desperate need to find Harry.

Remus took a sip of his mulled mead and watched Snape weave his way through the crowd on his way back from the toilets. If the expression on Snape's face was any guide, they seemed to share a distaste for the festive season. That was better, he thought as he felt a flicker of amusement at this. He held on to the feeling and by the time Snape sat down again, had re-captured much of his usual equable mood.

"This isn't working, Lupin," said Snape, scowling.

"What isn't?" Remus asked.

"This quest to find the Potter boy."

"His name's Harry," responded Remus, flicking an irritated glance at the other man. "In any case, we've hardly started looking for him. He could be anywhere in this city."

Snape snorted. "Exactly. You know perfectly well he can't be tracked unless he injures another unsuspecting Muggle with a blast of spontaneous magic."

"Not without using Dark Magic there isn't."

Snape glared at him. "What's that supposed to mean, Lupin?"

Remus blinked. "Er, that using Dark Magic is the only way to track someone who isn't using magic themselves?"

"Oh." Snape sniffed and took a sip of his drink. "Well it looks as if we're running out of options. We've tried it the Muggle way without magic, as you insisted, with as much success as the Muggle police."

"Perhaps they're not looking in the right places," Remus commented, but he was less optimistic than he had been. If the Muggle police weren't looking in the right places, they weren't either. They had tried dozens of places and nobody would admit to even having seen Harry, let alone know where he might be. Still, he wasn't prepared to give up yet.

Snape gave another snort and Remus felt his mood evaporate. It had been like this the previous week too. The Potions Master had dismissed every suggestion he had made out of hand without offering anything constructive in return. "Look, we've got those people at that soup kitchen place to speak to tomorrow. If that doesn't throw anything up, why don't we re-think how we're going about this?" he suggested mildly. He was damned if he was going to let Snape see how much he was getting to him.

The Potions Master put down his glass and sniffed again. "I suppose so," he replied ungraciously. They agreed to meet outside the Leaky Cauldron the following morning, and once they had finished their drinks, went their separate ways. Remus went back to Edinburgh. He supposed Snape went back to Hogwarts, but didn't ask and Snape didn't volunteer the information.

He stepped out of the fireplace into the living room of his flat and shivered. It was cold. The ever-present Edinburgh wind was rattling the windows and whistling inside. Even standing on the other side of the room by the fireplace he could feel the draught. He turned round and checked the coalscuttle beside the grate, sighing at how little coal was in it. Quickly, he lit a small fire, and after making himself some tea, huddled down beside it. He sat, staring into the flames warming his fingers on his tea mug. He was worried about Harry, and what Sirius might do to him. He felt sure, or as sure as he could be about a man he hadn't seen for nine years and whose motivations had ceased to make sense, that Sirius wouldn't kill the boy when he found him. Remus was quite sure that Sirius would find Harry. He always had been completely single minded when it came to finding things he was looking for. Remus doubted that would have changed, whatever else had.

He sighed. If only tracking people wasn't so damned difficult. There were one or two Dark spells that he was aware of that would eventually do the job, but they were difficult and dangerous to perform, without guaranteed results. What they really needed was a map like that silly one they'd done at school. Remus blinked. Wait a minute, he thought, it couldn't be that simple, surely.

Standing up, he rummaged on the desk for a piece of parchment and eventually found a sheet, almost worn through with having been written on so many times. He made a face, but grabbed a quill from the desk and sat down to make some notes. Think about it logically, he thought. The map the four of them had done at school had been of a very small geographical area and tracked anybody within that area. But that wasn't what he needed to do here. He was trying to track two known people in a very large geographical area. It was almost the opposite problem.

Several hours later, he had covered numerous sheets of parchment, stopping every now and then to check something in one of the battered spell books from the bookshelf. He was still scratching away with his quill when the clock struck three. He looked at it in surprise, but sure enough it was three o'clock. The fire had long since gone out, and his half empty mug of tea was stone cold. He looked at the sheets of parchment covered with his scratchy scribbles and diagrams, and stretching his cramped and still bruised limbs, rubbed his eyes, yawning. He really needed to sleep, but first he had to decide what he was going to do about the map. Flicking through the sheets of parchment he realised he had done the ground work, but that it was going to take quite a bit longer to work out precisely how to enchant the London A-Z he had. He was confident enough of his own abilities not to be worried that it would work once he had done the spells. In the meantime though, he thought it was as well to carry on searching. On that thought, he took himself off to bed.

---

The following morning, Snape was already waiting outside the pub when he arrived. Although Remus wasn't late, Snape gave the impression of having just looked at his watch for the umpteenth time. "Where is this soup kitchen place then?" Snape demanded.

Good morning to you to, Remus thought pulling out the A-Z. He flicked through it until he found the right page. "Here," he said, pointing. "It's quite a way, I think."

They negotiated their way through the throngs of Christmas shoppers and caught a bus. The centre, when they eventually found it, was in a dilapidated building, with paint peeling off the window frames. Remus thought that there probably wasn't much money to spend on appearances. Inside however, it was clean with a heavy disinfectant smell permeating the foyer. There was a notice board on one wall covered with posters about the dangers of drugs and where to get confidential advice. There didn't seem to be anyone about.

Remus looked at Snape who shrugged as if to say, get on with it. He was about to see if he could find someone when the door behind the reception desk opened and a thin, tired looking woman came out. She looked them up and down suspiciously.

"Yes?" she asked.

Pushing down the irritation and anxiety he was feeling Remus said, "I wonder if you could help us. We're looking for someone."

"Uh huh." She folded her arms. She must hear this every day, Remus thought. " And you are?"

"Family." Which wasn't stretching the truth too far.

The woman sighed. "Well you see, Mr…?"

"Lupin."

"Mr Lupin, many of the kids that come here have good reason not to want their families to find them." Something must have changed in Remus's face because she continued, "I know you're going to say, but not in your case. After all you're a nice guy and you look like a nice guy, but you would be amazed at the dreadful things nice looking, respectable people can do to kids."

Remus sighed, acknowledging that she was right, but he still pulled out a photograph of Harry that Dumbledore had given him. "Can you at least tell me if you've seen this boy?"

The woman's eyes widened and he knew she had. "You have seen him! When was he here?"

Snape swung round from where he was standing examining the posters on the notice board.

The woman threw up her hands, shaking her head. "I didn't say that. Yeah, I recognise this kid. I recognise him because the police were in here looking for him as well, not because I've ever seen him. I'm sorry."

"Has anyone else been here looking for him, apart from the police, I mean?" Remus asked, thinking of Sirius.

"Nah." The woman shook her head. "Poor kid."

"Is there anywhere you know of where someone like Harry might have gone? We've not seen any sign of him."

The woman snorted. "Yeah plenty. But if the police haven't found him there then you're hardly likely to, no offence. You want my advice? Leave it to the professionals. If they can't find him, he either doesn't want to be found or he's probably dead, but I'm sure they told you that already."

Remus nodded, depressed.

As they turned to leave, the woman said, "Can I ask why you're looking here?"

"What do you mean?"

"You said you hadn't seen any sign of the boy and I wondered if you'd got specific information that said he'd come into London. Just being nosey," she gave a self-depreciating smile.

Remus and Snape looked at one another. "The police said they were sure Harry had come into London," Remus said slowly.

"Yeah, but why? Are you sure it wasn't just a sweeping generalisation?"

"You mean we've been looking in the wrong place?" demanded Snape.

"Well you've not seen any sign of him yet, have you?" the woman asked in return.

As they stepped outside the building Snape said, "Lupin, who was it that told me the boy was bound to have gone into London?"

Remus rolled his eyes. "That would have been me, Severus. I was wrong. I listened to people who appeared to know what they were talking about. You don't think I am as annoyed as you are that we seem to have spent over a week in the wrong place?"

"Don't presume to interpret how I'm feeling," the other man snapped and Disapparated with an angry pop, right out there in the street in front of all the Muggles.

Remus stared at the empty space Snape had been standing in and shook his head. Then he walked round the side of the building, where he couldn't be seen from the road, and Disapparated himself.

As he thought, Snape had gone back to the Leaky Cauldron. Remus walked into the bar just as Snape was sitting down at a table in one corner. After getting himself a drink, Remus joined him.

Snape ignored him, but then after a moment said, "Any more bright ideas as to how we might find the boy?"

Remus allowed himself a slight smile. "Actually I do."

Snape looked at him in surprise, and Remus continued, "Last night, I remembered something I read a few years ago about tracking spells and I'd like to research it. It may take a couple of days."

Snape raised an eyebrow. "Really? I trust it wasn't an article entitled 'Why tracking spells never work' or some such and that this time something may actually come of it."

"Oh don't worry, I'm sure it was nothing like that," responded Remus with another slight smile. The more he thought about the map, the more confident he became.

Snape glanced at the clock. "I need to go," he said. "I trust you will let me know when you have something?" He waited for Remus's assurance and Disapparated.

Remus went back to Edinburgh absolutely sure that he wasn't going to contact Snape unless he knew what he had worked. It wasn't quite as cold as it had been, but the wind was still rattling the window in its frame. Unfortunately he'd finished the coal the previous night and hadn't had time to get more, so instead he sat at his desk with his feet on an old Ever-Warm hot water bottle. He re-read the notes he'd made and started work.

Finally he sat back, stretching and admitted he was stuck. He needed a book he had last seen in the Restricted Section of the Hogwarts Library. Well, he could do that tomorrow, he thought and took himself off to bed.

The library smelt exactly the same as it always had done, a mix of musty parchment, old leather and floor polish. Madam Pince still lurked disapprovingly in her small office like a Black Widow spider, ready to pounce on any unsuspecting student stupid enough to make too much noise. She'd looked askance at him when he came in, but he'd cleared his visit with Dumbledore so she couldn't stop him.

He eventually found the book he was looking for, and sat engrossed for hours. In the end however, he was forced to admit that he had come to a dead end. What had seemed like a fairly simple reversal of what he remembered doing all those years ago was nothing of the kind.

"Why don't you take a break, Remus?" asked a voice behind him suddenly.

He turned round in his chair and saw Dumbledore standing looking at him reprovingly.

He shrugged. "I'm think I'm done in any case. It was just an idea, but it's not going to work."

"Oh you never know, why don't you tell me about it?"

And Remus found himself back in the Headmaster's office explaining how he had thought his idea might work."

"Ingenious!" commented Dumbledore, conjuring a cafetiere of coffee and pouring out two cups. "But I can see why you're having problems with it."

"It seemed worth a try after all the success we've had with other methods." Remus accepted a cup.

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled. "Yes, Severus was quite eloquent on the subject."

Remus couldn't help smiling back. "I'll just bet he was." He took a sip of coffee and was serious again. "But we've lost a week. They could be anywhere by now."

"It's no consolation, I know, but the Ministry appear to be having just as much difficulty as you and Severus."

"Yes, but that doesn't help Harry much." Remus sighed. He met Dumbledore's eyes and said, "He won't kill him, I'm sure of that."

Dumbledore nodded. "You told me that last week."

"So I did, almost asleep on my feet. I need to speak to Severus, decide what we're going to do next."

Remus eventually found the Potions Master in his office in the dungeons. Delight was not the expression that crossed his face when Remus walked in. "So, managed to work a miracle and construct a working tracking spell?" he asked in a derisive tone.

"Not yet," Remus responded. "In the meantime don't you think we should get a general idea of where they went?"

"I thought that was the whole point of what we were doing."

Ignoring this, Remus said, "Harry has to have left the immediate area of that Institution, otherwise he would have been found, or someone would have seen him. But that doesn't mean there's nothing to be found at the Institution."

"We've already been there," Snape objected, but finally agreed that for want of any better ideas, it might be worth going back.

The next morning was bright, but cold with a strong easterly wind that chilled the bones. Remus stood beside Snape, shivering on the edge of the patch of woodland that hid the Centre from the rest of the world. There were, of course no clues. Even the signature from Harry's burst of spontaneous magic had finally dissipated. He looked at the spot where it had been then turned round and looked behind him.

"What are you doing?" demanded Snape.

"Harry spontaneously Apparated through the fence," Remus said thoughtfully.

"Well even those dolts from Magical Catastrophes managed to work that out, Lupin."

"Put it another way, you've just somehow got through the fence. What do you do, where do you go?"

Snape looked at the lie of the land. "If you've got any sense at all you get into the woods by the shortest route."

"That's what I thought. You go this way." Remus pointed past where they were standing, eastwards into the woods. "Come on."

When the woods gave way to fields they stopped again. Remus pulled out a Muggle map he had acquired and looked at it. "That road keeps on in the same general direction for a few miles and then there's a village. We could ask people there if they've seen Harry." He knew the police would already have done so, but it was worth a shot.

It took longer than they expected to reach the village. It had a pub, busy with the Saturday lunchtime crowd. They stopped for a drink and something to eat as well as to see if anyone remembered Harry. The barmaid had just served them - half pints as Snape had looked blank when asked if he had any Muggle money with him and Remus didn't have much - when a voice behind them said, "Well if it isn't our two neo-pagan weirdos again."

Remus turned round. Standing with an amused expression on his face was the detective sergeant who had interviewed him. "Still looking for that kid are you?" he asked.

"Er, yes. As far as we can tell though, he didn't go anywhere near London."

Green shrugged. "Not all of them do." He was interrupted by another man, who asked him a question about a quiz team. He was obviously well known in the area. "Sorry," he said turning back to Remus and Snape. "You might be interested in this though, a boy answering the description of the one you're after was nearly picked up for thieving milk yesterday."

Green immediately had both wizards' undivided attention. "What! Where?" demanded Remus.

Smirking slightly at their reaction, Green said, "Village about fifteen miles from here. No other reports about him though."

Remus pulled out his map and said, "Where is this village?"

A short while later they were standing outside the churchyard of a rather unremarkable village. "Why don't we split up? We'll be able to cover more ground that way," Remus suggested.

Snape gave him a sour glance. "If you like."

They arranged to meet back at the churchyard in a couple of hours and then Remus headed off to the edge of the village where he had spotted a group of small boys kicking a football around, what could with some imagination, be described as a football pitch.

He stood watching them for a while, until one of them kicked the ball in his direction. He caught it and waited until the boys came running towards him before he kicked it back.

"I wonder if you could help me," he said pleasantly. "I've lost my dog and I was wondering if you'd seen him."

The boys looked at him suspiciously for a moment, then one of them said, "What kind of dog is it, mister?"

Remus described Padfoot, and one of the boys commented, "Wow! That sounds like a pretty cool dog. Does he bite?"

"Not usually. You haven't seen him then?"

Three of the boys shook their heads. "Sorry, mister. We'd remember a dog like that."

However, the fourth was looking more thoughtful. "I think my gran said she saw a black dog chasing rabbits last week, she was complaining about how nobody has to have dog licences any more, so I wasn't really listening."

"Can you remember if she said how big it was?" Remus asked.

The boy shrugged. "Sorry. It might even have been with someone. It's just when you said a black dog, well it might've been the same one."

Remus smiled at him. "That's okay, I'm sure I'll find him."

It appeared, when Remus got back to the churchyard, that Snape had also had some success. He had spoken with a man who had seen Harry the day before. "The boy would seem to have been making quite a career as a thief, round here," he commented.

"What happened?" asked Remus.

Snape shrugged. "The man said that people had noticed milk going missing from their doorsteps and a neighbour nearly caught the boy red handed, yesterday morning. He chased him into some woods near here and lost him."

Pulling out a pencil, Remus marked an 'x' on the map by the village they were in.

"What are you doing?" Snape demanded.

"I thought if we could note other sightings of Harry we might be able to work out where he's holed up."

Snape looked as if he was desperately trying to find something wrong with this as a strategy, but couldn't come up with anything. "That might work," he said in a grudging tone, after a moment.

Remus supposed he could hardly expect enthusiasm from Snape. In the end he just ignored the comment. He felt more positive about things than he had done since he had been arrested and was sure that it wouldn't be long before they had found Harry and Sirius was back in Azkaban.

By Tuesday, however he wasn't feeling quite as positive. The map was now covered by numerous x's marking sightings of both Harry and Padfoot. The most recent was on Sunday, so he knew they were still in the area, but where?

That evening, he was standing at the bar of the Green Man, the pub in one of the villages in the area. He had realised that people were far more willing to talk to him if Snape wasn't about, and he suspected the Potions Master was equally uncomfortable in such places.

"Are you the chap that's been looking for a black dog?" demanded a man, coming up to him. He looked how Remus imagined Vernon Dursley's father would look.

Remus said he was and the man launched into a tirade against him. "Well now see here, people like you are an absolute bloody disgrace. I saw that animal yesterday, and if I'd managed to catch it, I would have had it straight down to the RSPCA." He put his gin and tonic down on the bar and wagged a finger in Remus's astonished face. "I've never seen a dog in such a mess as that for years. Looks as if it's been systematically starved. People like you shouldn't be allowed to keep animals."

"Where did you see him?" Remus managed to ask, pushing down a strong urge to laugh. He didn't think that would go down too well.

The man glared at him, but said, "In the lane outside where old Mrs Henderson used to live. And don't think you and all your hippy friends can bring your caravans up that lane and squat there. It's private property and you'll be done for trespassing. Don't know what the country's coming to!" He picked up his gin and tonic and went and sat down by the fire.

"What's he talking about?" Remus asked the barman who was having a quiet chortle to himself.

"He thinks you're a New Age Traveller." The barman grinned. "You're not are you?"

Remus shook his head, not having any idea what a New Age Traveller was. "Where's this place he mentioned?"

"It's about a mile and a half outside the village. Just a house, been on the market ever since the old lady croaked two years ago. All the local kids reckon it's haunted."

"Is it?"

"Nah, dry rot if you ask me."

But it sounded a perfect place for a couple of fugitives to hole up. Remus was tempted to go there immediately and check, but he managed to stop himself. For Harry's sake, he couldn't afford to fail, which meant that he couldn't do this by himself without telling anyone, especially Dumbledore what he was doing and where he was going. He quickly finished his drink and walked outside. Checking no one could see him, he Apparated to his flat and used the fireplace to talk to Dumbledore.

"I'm really on to something," he assured the Headmaster, "but I wanted to make sure you knew where I was."

"If you are right, bring them both back to Hogwarts immediately."

"Both of them?" Remus was surprised.

"Oh yes, we need to get as much information as we can out of Mr Black and I don't particularly trust the Ministry to do that without bungling again."

Remus shivered despite himself. Dumbledore's expression was anything but friendly at that moment.

He waited for Snape, back in the car park of the Green Man, but the Potions Master seemed to take forever and it was after ten by the time he finally appeared.

"This had better not be another wild goose chase, Lupin, I've got essays to mark."

"Come on then," responded Remus, "let's get going."

It took over half an hour to find the lane - once out of the village there were no streetlights, and the road was icy. The lane was overgrown and little used, making it more difficult to negotiate in the dark. A gap in the overhanging trees marked what had once been the garden of a house. They climbed over the gate and walked towards the dark shape of the house itself.

There was no light coming from the windows, which didn't mean much as it was late. They peered through them but couldn't see anything. "Inside?" Remus whispered.

"After you," responded Snape.

A whispered, "Alohamora!" and they were through the front door. There was a dank, faintly feline smell to the place. Old Mrs Henderson would have got on well with Arabella Figg, Remus thought. He sniffed the air again. There was the definite smell of woodsmoke. "This way," he said, leading the way to a closed door at the other end of the hall. Pausing only to conjure a handful of firelight he pushed open the door.

The room was a kitchen, with a large wooden table in the centre of the room. On one wall was an old fashioned fireplace, with the last, glowing embers of a fire in the grate. Asleep in an armchair to one side of the fire, wrapped in a blanket with his long legs stretched out in front of him, was Sirius. His mouth hung slightly open and a soft snore escaped from it. On his lap, cuddled in his arms, was Harry his arms loosely draped around Sirius' neck.

Remus's heart sank as he saw the two. Then he pulled himself together, so Sirius had clearly gained the boy's trust. They'd soon see how far he'd managed to gain control of his mind.

"Oh how touching," sneered Snape.

"Shhh!" Remus hissed, annoyed. "You've got the Portkey?"

Snape nodded.

"Right let's get them back to Hogwarts." He pointed his wand at the sleeping forms and said, " Stupefy!"