Another Prisoner, Another Professor

In the late afternoon winter dusk, Black's office looked dark and cheerless; even after Black had lit all the candles, Harry was still aware of the cold, creeping grayness outside, surrounding the school like a dementor while the candles inside tried to ward off the desolation like a feeble Patronus. Looking at Black's face, though, Harry was sure he wasn't thinking about any happy memories.

Black sat in one of the red armchairs and immediately closed his eyes, his left elbow pressing down into the armrest as his hand covered his lowered forehead. Hesitantly, Harry sat down in the other chair. As the silent moments passed, Harry wondered whether he should say something, but just as he was deciding against it, Black spoke.

"It was never supposed to be like this," he said. He had not moved and his eyes were still closed; from what Harry could see through the shadows and the curtain of Black's hair, it looked as though he were squeezing them even more tightly shut. "You have no idea how much it was never supposed to be anything like this. It was all supposed to be very simple. I think we'd all agreed on it even before we spoke about it. If your parents died, you would come and live with me. No question, no issue, no complications. Why would there be? I was your godfather - I am your godfather. I knew you when you were a tiny baby who'd spent no more than five minutes outside your mother's womb. Of course you'd go with me. Never the smallest, slightest question. Ever, not once.

"None of us - " He took a very deep breath and paused. "None of us realized that I'd - done - I'd done something reckless, something very reckless and stupid. It was, ah, it was something I'd done a few years ago. It didn't have anything to do with - you or James, or Lily, none of you, there was no reason to think it would affect you at all. It was a long time before I knew it could cause any problems. When it did start - having complications, I didn't know they were related. I mean, I knew what I'd done a few years ago and I knew what was happening to me now, but I didn't realize there was any connection, do you understand what I mean?"

"Yes," Harry said.

Black's tightly shut eyes seem to slightly relax, but he kept them closed. "They were physical complications. They didn't happen very frequently and there were so many other things happening that I didn't have much time to think about them - they started not too long before your parents died. I wasn't near them when they died, I was in Germany, at the school. A few weeks after your parents died I looked at some various records I'd kept and read the official report of their deaths, and I realized that as they were dying I was sitting outside the dormitories trying to stay awake. We - the teachers there - we had different shifts on different days where we'd stay near the dormitories and keep watch over things. The next morning I didn't know anything had happened - I just knew Remus was supposed to have arrived at school at seven o'clock in the morning and he never came. I had to stay there until noon and then I apparated back to England. I thought maybe there'd been some kind of conflict or battle and something had happened to him. I didn't wonder if anything had happened to your parents - they were hidden from Voldemort, it's hard to explain, but - "

"I know Lupin was their Secret-Keeper," Harry said.

Black didn't ask how Harry had found out, or any other questions. "I apparated back to where we were living then, but there was no one there, no note or letter or anything like that. Everything was tidy. It didn't look like he'd had to rush out for some emergency. I wasn't exactly sure where your parents were supposed to be hiding - I had an idea, but I didn't know for sure - so I apparated to just outside Peter's flat. You know who Peter - "

"Yes."

"The entire street was empty, no people, no traffic. Somewhere a little ways off I could hear all this noise. At first I couldn't tell what any of it was, just noise, so much noise. I started running towards it and after a little while I realized there were sirens and people shouting. There were two dead bodies lying on the ground and part of the wall of a building was completely destroyed. The Muggle ambulance workers were wheeling more bodies in body bags into the ambulances - I asked somebody what had happened, and she said it was a gas leak. I thought maybe Peter'd come down there to see what was happening, but I couldn't find him. I was thinking I'd go to headquarters - there would have to be someone at headquarters - and then I heard someone say my name and I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked and it was Dumbledore - I was thinking to myself, why in hell is Dumbledore on a Muggle street wearing a suit? The only thing I could think of was that maybe somehow he had known where I was and had come to tell me what had happened to Remus. He took me aside a little ways and just as I was about to ask him he told me, 'Sirius, Remus killed Peter.'

"The first thing I thought - it was awful, but the first thing I thought was, what, did he get hungry? We used to joke that one day Remus was going to get extremely hungry and Peter'd be the first one he'd go for - Peter was somewhat overweight. Then I thought, whose incredibly stupid idea of a joke was this? I asked him, 'What?' and he said again, 'Remus killed Peter.'

"I still didn't believe it - I mean, why would he? - but I didn't think to argue and I said, 'Why?' He said, 'Peter tracked down Remus and Remus killed him.' By that point it just sounded really ridiculous - sort of like, all right, if this is somebody's bad joke, I still don't get it - and I said, 'Tracked down Remus why?' and Dumbledore said, 'For betraying Lily and James to Voldemort.' I said, 'Betraying them how?' and then suddenly this look came over his face and he said, 'Sirius - I'm sorry, I thought you'd got the owl we sent you - Lily and James are dead.'

"I'm not even sure what I did - I think maybe I shouted and hit something, but I don't know - and then suddenly Dumbledore'd apparated us to headquarters and I was still shouting whatever it was I was shouting. There was this frilly sort of pink glass lamp on one of the tables and I just smashed it against the wall - then I took whatever part I was still holding on to and smashed that again. I still didn't know why he was saying that Remus had betrayed James and Lily and killed Peter, but I believed James and Lily were dead. I was going to smash something else but Dumbledore grabbed me and somehow managed to hold me back. He started to say something about Remus, and I just yelled at him, 'Do you know what you're fu-' basically, 'Do you know what you're saying?' It was just unreal. It wasn't even unreal like a nightmare, because nightmares are about things that you've thought of at one point or another and I'd never thought of this. So he stopped trying to say anything about Remus and he told me you were being taken to your aunt and uncle. I knew James and Lily were dead, but there was some part of my mind that was still thinking, Lily's going to have a fit when she hears about this. I started shouting something about, why were you going there? and he said I just had to go to the Ministry and fill out some paperwork and then I could take you home. So I apparated to just outside there and I went in and screamed in a few different people's faces until they'd told me where I was supposed to go. The legal custody was all in place - it was just the physical custody. I was sitting on this purple sofa in some waiting room just furiously scrawling all the answers on the form. I remember a lot of the questions were making me angry, because I just wanted to get you and this form was asking about, main residence, other residences if applicable, have you had dragon pox, all these other things I didn't know why in the hell they'd care about. Then there was some line that said, are there other people living in your household? and I lost it. I think I was frightening the girl behind the desk - she was very young, looked barely out of school - but then after I'd been sobbing for a minute or so she came up to me and she said, 'Sir? We can take your blood sample now if you're ready.' And then all of a sudden I realized."

At last, Black tilted his head back and opened his eyes. He still wasn't looking at Harry. "The reckless, stupid thing that I'd done - it would be evident in my blood. It was unprecedented, what I'd done - as far as I know, I'm the only person to ever do it." He let out a single note of a hoarse, barking laugh. "No one else would have the motivation and no one else would have the opportunity. No one else would be arrogant and mad enough.

"So I hired an attorney named Brutus Swift. He was relatively young and unestablished back then. I put him to work looking for any legal loophole I could use and then I got a job working for an apothecary and took off for western Asia. When I wasn't collecting ingredients I was trying anything I could to get rid of my condition, but then the complications would return and I'd know it was still somewhere inside me. If a healer ever did look at a sample of my blood, they'd be shocked I've survived as many near-poisonings as I have. After a few years Brutus told me he couldn't continue with my case - I'd never told him what my condition was and he said he'd gone as far as he could go without knowing. I couldn't tell him. I'd never told anyone except your mum and dad and my other friends - that means Remus is the only other person alive who knows. I know he's never told any of the Death Eaters, because if he had, it would have got back to the Malfoys and I'd be locked up."

"Locked up - did - what if Lupin does tell someone?"

"He won't," said Black, opening his eyes and raising his head at last. The light from the candles had cast shadows on his face. "He has every reason to want me far away from you and he hasn't done it - he had plenty of time to contact the Malfoys before their legal troubles started. Perhaps he doesn't remember anymore - Azkaban could have taken it from him. I have no idea what he thinks these days. I'm not even sure why he wants to kill you."

"Ron's dad said," Harry began - he was thinking hard, trying to remember what he had heard Mr. Weasley say - "Back during the summer - he said it was because Lupin had put all his hopes with Voldemort and I defeated him."

Black shook his head. "It's possible, but I've never been convinced of that. Do you remember what I told you before? About what Lupin was like before he went to Azkaban?"

"You said...you said he wasn't the type who'd want to sit at Voldemort's right hand, he just wanted to blend in."

"I lived with him for almost a decade, during school and after," Black said. "There's no reason why he would have hated Muggles or Muggle-borns. His mother was a Muggle - the woman who spent his childhood washing his wounds after each full moon. He knew what it was like to live with the knowledge that people thought he was inferior - or would, that is, if they knew what he was. The more I think about it, the more I don't believe he was ever a genuine Death Eater."

"But I thought people said that Lupin was the only one - that he was so powerful that he was the only one Voldemort let join him who wasn't a pureblood wizard."

"People say all sorts of things," Black replied. "Was he powerful? Yes, he was powerful. But he wasn't powerful beyond belief, and as for the only one who wasn't a pureblood wizard, I know for a fact that isn't true." Black paused. "I can't take the slightest risk of anyone finding out the nature of my condition. I can't risk someone tricking or forcing it out of you - I can't risk being separated from you again. It took me twelve years to create a potion that would keep you safe from me, twelve years to be able to see you. I won't get into the complications of my condition, but some of them are very dangerous. I finished the potion a couple of months before Lupin escaped - I'd been planning to wait a year and make sure the potion would keep working, but when I heard what'd happened, I knew you needed me. You needed someone who could teach you how to defend yourself against the dark arts and you needed someone watching over you.

"I didn't know how to tell you. How do you tell a boy that you're his guardian but you couldn't take care of him? You see how vague I'm being now - I know you're thinking of everything I haven't told you, all the questions you'd hoped I would answer. You see how much I have to leave out. Besides, I had no idea how you'd take the news - I didn't know what sort of person you'd grown up to be, whether you would forgive everything or despise me for abandoning you. I had no idea how you would react if I told you, especially when there were things I couldn't explain. There was always the chance that you'd want nothing to do with me, that you'd ignore all my warnings and end up in a worse situation than you are now. I had to make sure you would always listen to what I said, and if in order to do that I had to be only your teacher and not your godfather, that was what I would do. I couldn't risk losing the progress I'd made. And I imagine that when you found out I was your godfather, you were angry at me, am I right?"

Harry nodded.

"How did you find out? Did Snape tell you?"

"No," Harry said, "but he knows that I know. I found out over the Christmas holidays - I heard some of the teachers talking about it - "

"Wait," Black said, holding up his hand. "How did you hear some of the teachers talking about it? Not even Snape would bring it up if he knew there was the chance that you could hear them."

Harry swallowed. "I - I snuck out to Hogsmeade."

Black slammed his hand down on the armrest of his chair. "I'm sorry," Harry began, before Black could say anything, "I - "

"You're not nearly as sorry as I would be if you'd ended up dead on the street with your throat ripped out, let me tell you that." Black sprang from his chair and began to angrily pace back and forth across the room. "I suppose you thought Lupin wouldn't kill you in the middle of a street full of people. Did I not tell you on the very first day we saw each other again - did I not tell you that Remus Lupin is a very unpredictable man?"

"Yes," Harry said quietly.

"Do you have any idea how many people would be devastated if you were killed? Do you think Ron and Hermione would ever get over that? Do you think Hagrid would ever get over that? Tell me how you got out of the school."

"There's a fireplace," Harry said. Pacing up and down the room, his cape flying out behind him, Black looked as batlike as Snape ever had. "In Room 314 - it's on the floo network - "

"Not by tomorrow, it won't be," Black said. "You will not leave the school grounds again until I take you home at the end of the year, do you understand me?"

"Yes," Harry said; a split second after he had spoken, he realized what Black had said. "Wait - when you - "

Black stopped pacing and rested both of his hands on the back of his armchair. "That is, assuming your aunt and uncle can spare you," he said. "I can't imagine they'd want you around the house when you could be away visiting for the entire summer, can you?"