Dog Star Rising

Dog Star Rising

Chapter 4

Sirius paused for breath, and looked around the table. Four pale and solemn faces were staring back at him. No one had taken another sandwich for some time, and now both serving platters abruptly vanished. In their place appeared a steaming apple crumb, accompanied by a bowl of custard. Remus passed both around the table, and everyone helped themselves. After taking his first bite, and sighing in contentment, Sirius continued.

"Dumbledore told me about the conversation he'd just had with you in his office, Harry, and that at the time, you'd been angry enough to try to tear the room apart. 'Good on Harry, then,' I said, and offered to finish the job if he'd let me near the office. Eventually I calmed down a bit when Dumbledore assured me that he would continue to look after you in my stead, and that you would not be left for long alone at your aunt and uncle's this year. You were almost sixteen--the age I'd been when I left home--and I knew your good friends would be beside you, as mine were with me then.

"Until his death, Dumbledore met with me once a week or so, and kept me informed of all your doings. The only other person who has known about me being alive almost from the beginning is Mundungus. Dumbledore and I took the opportunity of searching 12 Grimmauld Place from top to bottom for the locket during the first few days after my 'death'. He kept the Order members away by pretending to be uncertain about whether the provisions in my will for Harry to inherit the house would be enforceable or not. Complete nonsense, of course--once I was declared legally dead, the will was absolutely binding. When we failed to turn up the locket anywhere in the house, though, we realized that Mundungus must have sold it.

"Unfortunately, Mundungus had carried so many objects out of the house, and he has so many contacts in the Wizarding underworld, that he was unable to remember who had bought one gold locket. Probably he let it go as part of an entire lot of assorted contraband, and by then it was months later and the locket had almost certainly left the hands of the original buyer. Mundungus agreed to put out feelers to try to locate it, but he warned us it might take quite some time. He had to avoid attracting the suspicion of his fencing network, and also of the Death Eaters themselves. It would never do to let Voldemort hear that someone was desperately searching for a locket of that description.

"We didn't tell Mundungus why the locket was so important, just that it was. Fortunately, his profession taught him long ago not to ask too many questions, and when he realized that the secret of the locket was the reason Dumbledore had faked my death, he told us he didn't want to know. We made plans that I would stay with him after the house passed officially to Harry, and he visited me frequently during the time before that happened.

"Dung was at the house with me the evening you decided to use the mirror, Harry. I'd invited him for supper and a few drinks--we'd decided to empty a few more of the bottles from Father's wine cellar before you inherited everything. We had barely started on the first bottle, though, when I suddenly heard your voice calling me from the direction of the fireplace. I thought it was a hallucination for a second; then I remembered that the last thing I'd done before leaving the house on the day of the battle at the Ministry was to take my mirror out of my pocket and leave it on the mantel for safekeeping.

"When I looked over at the mirror and saw your face in it, I didn't stop to think, just stood up and started towards the fireplace, calling out to you, but then Dung grabbed my arm. I think he was yelling something like, 'Hold on, mate, you can't!' but I was focused on getting to that mirror. I jerked my arm away, but somehow in trying to do that and rush to the fireplace at the same time, I managed to trip over the legs of my chair. I fell sprawling onto the hearthrug, and before I could get up, Mundungus landed on top of me. He was trying to hold me down, but I heard you calling my name a second time, and I was beyond listening to reason. I swore at him and tried to throw him off, and the two of us rolled about like that for a minute or so on the floor. The struggle ended when we both heard the sound of breaking glass, and realized the mirror had shattered.

"When I came to my senses, I realized that Dung had been right, and fortunately he enjoys a good scrap too much to hold a grudge. Dumbledore came to the house the next day. He assured me that you were fine, and that you'd left Hogwarts as scheduled that morning. He also told me that some of the Order members intended to have a word with the Dursleys before sending you home with them. You'll have to fill me in on that conversation, by the way, Moony. I very much regretted missing out on it: there are one or two things I've wanted to say to them for years about the way they treat my godson.

"Once Dumbledore shared his other news, however, I stopped thinking about Harry. That was the day he told me the results of his research into Voldemort's past. 'I have learned,' he announced, 'that we must be searching for not one Horcrux, but several. Harry, in fact, has already destroyed one without realizing it: Tom Riddle's old diary, during his second year.' Then he showed me the memories in his Pensieve that he later showed you, and invited me to accompany him on an expedition he was planning to the House of Gaunt--Voldemort's old family home." He quickly summarized for Remus the story of the Gaunt family as he and Harry had both heard it from Dumbledore.

"Several days later, Dumbledore and I set out for the cottage we'd seen in the Pensieve. Fifty years on, now, the old place has nearly crumbled to the ground, but the walls and some of the roof beams of the kitchen were still there. Dumbledore asked me to keep watch while he searched the room, and after a few minutes of muttered spells, he knelt beside the fireplace and pulled a brick out of the chimney. I saw him cast a spell that caused something to glow brightly in the hole where the brick had been, and then he reached his hand inside the hole to take the object out. I watched most of this in quick glances over my shoulder, you understand, as I stood in the doorway trying to make certain we hadn't been followed and praying that the cottage wouldn't collapse around Dumbledore's ears before he finished what he was doing.

"Then suddenly, Dumbledore was screaming. I whipped around, and saw him standing next to the fireplace with his arm outstretched. He had something in his hand, but I couldn't see clearly what it was, because brilliant white flames were shooting out of it. Dumbledore's entire hand appeared to be on fire, and he was obviously in great pain. I had my wand out already, and I did the first thing that occurred to me--performed a Summoning Charm to get the object out of his hand. It took a strong one to do it, too, but I succeeded, and was able to halt the thing in midair before it reached me.

"I hate to think what might have happened if I'd been a few seconds slower. As it was, you all saw the effects of that curse on Dumbledore's hand and arm, I'm sure. His burns were horrifying. I started to cross the room to help him, but he waved me back and instead he came over to where I was standing next to the ring, which is what I could now see it was. I couldn't believe the old man was still on his feet, but he was thinking only about the Horcrux in spite of his injuries. He calmly thanked me, and then he pulled out his watch chain and threaded it through the ring so that he could carry it without having to touch it. I was ready to rush him to St. Mungo's, even if that meant taking the chance I might be recognized and arrested, but he refused point blank. He was still gasping with pain, but he insisted on travelling back to Hogwarts instead--alone. His phoenix, Fawkes, came soaring through the window, singing, and shed some tears on Dumbledore's hand. The burns remained, but Dumbledore seemed to be in less pain than before, and then he grabbed the bird's tail and disappeared.

"Two days later, I received a message from Dumbledore asking me to meet him in the Shrieking Shack. When I arrived, he showed me the ring, now with a huge crack in its stone, and told me that as a Horcrux, it had been destroyed. He also told me he'd realized what caused the trap to activate when he touched the ring. 'It was quite simple, really,' he explained, 'and I should have expected it with an object hidden in the Gaunt household: the required Removal Spell ought to have been spoken in Parseltongue. Harry could have done it easily. I, on the other hand, would have been killed if not for your quick thinking, Sirius. It is also fortunate indeed that I took the precaution of casting some strong Shielding Spells before entering the cottage. If that curse had detonated at its full strength, it would have destroyed the entire building, along with both of us.

"'More than ever, now,' he continued, 'I believe that we will ultimately require Harry's aid if we are to completely succeed, and I intend to begin preparing him as soon as the next school term begins. When the time is right, we will let him fully into our confidence.'

"Well, my emotions about this were definitely mixed, as you might imagine. Much as I wanted to see Harry, I also wanted him well away from anything as dangerous as these Horcruxes. I also couldn't believe that Dumbledore was proposing to reveal the Order's greatest secret to Harry, given the problem we'd been dealing with all year of Voldemort having access to Harry's mind.

"'Until the battle at the Ministry,' Dumbledore said when I brought this up, 'I would have agreed with you.' Then he went on to tell me about what had happened after my untimely exit from the battle. Harry, I swear, being your godfather is going to turn my hair completely white. When I heard how you had gone charging after Bellatrix--!"

"I'm so sorry for that, Padfoot," said Remus, looking stricken. "It was my fault. I'm the damned fool who let go of him!"

"Moony, you'd just watched me die, and you had a half dozen students to look after at that point. Dumbledore told me how Harry would have tried to throw himself through that veil after me if you hadn't stopped him. You did splendidly that day. Don't blame yourself for any of it.

"Harry, I'd like to hear from you about exactly what happened. Dumbledore said that by the time he reached you, you were confronting not just Bellatrix but Voldemort himself."

Harry nodded. Gasps sounded from the rest of the table, and Remus buried his head in his hands. "Dumbledore arrived just after Voldemort did, though," Harry explained. "He did the fighting then, not me. All I did was try to keep my head down."

"He said that at the last, Voldemort attempted to possess you fully, but that some power in you threw him off. Dumbledore told me he believed that Voldemort would never try to invade your mind again--can you shed any light on this?"

All eyes turned to Harry, who drew a deep breath. "Well, Voldemort disappeared, and I thought he had gone. Then I felt him in my head, stronger than his presence had ever been before. The pain in my head was ripping me apart, and I heard him taunting Dumbledore, saying 'Kill me now, kill me now.' His idea was to force Dumbledore to take the chance of trying to destroy him by killing me. Now we know about the Horcruxes, so that makes sense--I'd have died, but he'd have escaped again. Anyway, the pain was so bad, I was almost wishing for Dumbledore to go ahead and do it, and then I thought that if I died, at least I'd be with you, Sirius. And when I started to think about you, that drove Voldemort out of my head. Dumbledore told me later that it was the power of love. He said that I hadn't accomplished much by using my mind, but that in the end, my heart saved me."

Whatever Sirius had expected to hear, this didn't seem to be it. He was staring at Harry, apparently speechless. Harry took another bite of his apple crumb; then, when the silence still stretched out, he continued, "So if Dumbledore knew Voldemort wouldn't read my mind, why didn't you tell me right away that you were alive?"

Sirius shook his head and sighed. "Mostly because of this irrepressible heart of yours. We knew that you've always been abysmal at hiding your true feelings, and if people noticed that you weren't in mourning, they'd be suspicious. The plan, as I said, was to tell you eventually, once enough time had passed, and when it became necessary for you to know in order to work with us.

"Time passed very slowly for me after that. Mundungus was trying to search for the locket, but he had his Order duties and his regular activities to carry on as well, and at first he didn't have much luck. There was very little for me to do, since I had to stay hidden. Dumbledore was searching the Black family library for additional information on Horcruxes. He passed a few of the books on to me, but only a very few. Healthier for me, he said, not to have my mind fixated on Dark Magic. I resented this pretty strongly, not least because they were my books, but to my knowledge, no wizard ever succeeded in out-arguing Dumbledore. At least I had Mundungus for company most evenings, and was even able to roam about the neighborhood as a dog during the day. No one bothers about leash laws in Dung's part of town. He kept me around in canine form during meetings with his criminal contacts as well--told me he'd always wanted a guard dog.

"A couple of times during those months, Dung and I asked Dumbledore to remove some more valuable objects from the house. Dung needed to have an excuse for contacting some of the people he'd sold things to before, and putting new merchandise on the market worked beautifully in arousing their interest. Or at least it did until the afternoon you caught him at it, Harry. I'd have given quite a few Galleons to have seen that confrontation--from Dung's account later, he truly thought for a minute you were going to kill him! I appreciated your loyalty, but it actually created a problem at the time. Though you may not believe it, Dung has his own peculiar code of honor. He likes you, and he's always considered me a friend. Your accusation that he was stealing from me hurt him deeply, and he went into a fit of the sulks for weeks--said that if he was going to be accused of betraying a mate that way, he was damned if he'd attempt to sell any more Black heirlooms. It finally took Dumbledore to persuade him otherwise, but even then it was spring before Mundungus told us he thought he'd discovered where the locket had finished up.

"Not surprisingly, it was in the possession of a wealthy collector of Dark artifacts named Collybus Aterwood. I actually knew him slightly; he's a second cousin of mine, but I hadn't seen him since I was a teenager. Collybus and his wife Drusilla were thrilled, it seems, to own a relic of Salazar Slytherin--particularly because neither Mundungus nor his cohorts realized how valuable it actually was and sold it far too cheaply. When Colly was approached about selling it back, he just laughed.

"Dung and I passed this information on to Dumbledore, and were supposed to wait for him to determine our next move. Neither of us, though, has ever been much good at waiting, and we'd been doing little else for months. We decided that if Colly wouldn't let us buy the locket, we were going to have to take it from him." Remus was shaking his head reproachfully by now, and Sirius gave him a rueful glance. "I know, I know, Moony, but I convinced myself that it was the best solution. It's not like Colly was going to be out much money anyway, and destroying that Horcrux was vital. Dung insisted on carrying out the actual theft himself--from professional pride, I think. We thought up the Inferius disguise over a bottle of Firewhiskey, and it seemed like a good idea at the time. Just in case he was caught, I knew Colly and Drusilla would be intimidated by it. Unfortunately, they weren't the ones who surprised Dung as he was entering the house; instead it was their house-elf.

"Dung is strictly a small-time criminal, as you know. He's carried out quite a few burglaries in his day, but he's not used to breaking into wealthy households that have magical servants. The disguise was no help at all against an elf protecting its home, and it only managed to ensure that Mundungus was sent to Azkaban. He's been there ever since. Dung's never told anyone what he was attempting to nick that night. I think about him every day, sitting in one of those cold cells, but at least he doesn't have to deal with the dementors, as I did.

"Dumbledore was furious with both of us, of course, which meant mostly with me, since Mundungus was out of reach. He opened negotiations with Colly about the locket, saying that he wanted to collect heirlooms of the Hogwarts founders for an exhibit at the school. Well, Colly and Drusilla found it nearly impossible to deny Albus Dumbledore outright, but the price they asked for the locket was far too great for him to pay. I'd have given the entire Black family fortune to get that locket back, but by then, it was no longer mine to give. We decided that the time had come when we needed your aid, Harry.

"At about that time, Dumbledore succeeded in locating the seaside cave where Regulus had hidden the decoy locket, and he and I made plans to retrieve it. Once that was done, I'd be less of a target, and we agreed that that would be the time to reveal my existence to you. After our experience at the Gaunt cottage, we both knew that it would be safer to have two wizards going after the locket rather than one. Dumbledore told me, however, that he was going to take you with him this time instead of me. Just in case anything went wrong, he said, someone who knew all about the Horcruxes needed to be on the outside of the cave. I could see the sense in this, of course, but I insisted on being involved. In the end, I was stationed on the cliffs above the cave that night."

"You were there?" Harry breathed.

Sirius nodded. "I was watching when you and Dumbledore entered the cave. I was thrilled to see you again, Harry, and surprised at how much you had grown in a year. I wanted to greet you then and there, but Dumbledore had ordered me to stay out of sight--as we'd anticipated, a black dog crouched on that cliff at night looked like just another boulder. Dumbledore had promised me that he would take all risks himself inside the cave, and that you would come to no harm if he could prevent it. If my help was needed, he would signal. I had a long difficult wait there, imagining all the things that might have gone wrong, before you finally came out again. When I saw that Dumbledore was injured, and you were supporting him, I nearly came forward to help you, but he didn't call for me, and before I could make up my mind what to do, you'd both Disapparated.

"I took myself back to Mundungus's, where I'd been living alone for the previous six weeks, and waited to hear from Dumbledore. He was supposed to sit down with you once you were safely back at Hogwarts with the locket, explain about what had happened to the real Horcrux, and prepare you for the shock of my reappearance. I was looking forward to being reunited with you before the night was over, but no message arrived. I was sitting there in Mundungus's armchair, listening to his wireless in an attempt to pass the time, when suddenly an announcer broke in with a news bulletin about a Death Eater attack at Hogwarts school.

"I jumped up, and was preparing to Apparate as close to the school grounds as I could, when the next sentence out of the announcer's mouth urged all parents of students to remain in their homes, as the attack was already over. 'It has been confirmed,' he said, 'that there were no--repeat, no--casualties among the students. However, I am immensely grieved to inform you that Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts, Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, and Chairman of the International Confederation of Wizards, has been killed. We will bring you more information as it becomes available.'

"I was stunned. I sat the rest of the night in that chair, listening for further information, but the wireless told me bloody little. I've been hoping that one of you might be able to tell me...how it happened..." Sirius's voice broke, and he looked toward Remus for an answer.

Remus bit his lip and stared down at the table for a moment. "When you finish your story, Padfoot," he answered at last, "we can tell you everything. Harry was with him at the time." Remus glanced at Harry, who nodded.

"I'll tell you," he said grimly. "All of it."