Blood Traitor

Chapter Three

August, 1995

Molly's cooking had been even more excellent than usual. The conversation had trickled out, and the sounds of the Wizarding Wireless Network now filled the room. It had already reported on flimsy cauldron bottoms (a sobering moment, as it reminded everyone of Percy), as well as a puff piece on some Ministry official, and a set of enchanted golf balls that had gone wild on a Muggle golf course (Arthur was extremely relieved that he had not been called in to work).

Now the announcer was speaking about the "dangerous murderer" Sirius Black. The misinformation in the piece was drawing much laughter from around the table. Fred and George were adding commentary of their own, causing Ginny to giggle until she almost choked. Even Sirius found the whole thing amusing, though Molly and Hermione were a bit reserved.

"...chief concern is that Black could be a danger to those who fought most strongly against You-Know-Who," said the announcer.

"Suppose we had better all duck, then?" Fred asked brightly. "He might try to curse us any minute now, it's a wonder we hadn't noticed it before." His mother hushed him as the deep voice of Kingsley Shacklebolt replaced the announcer.

"We were able to track him into Asia, after which examination of local newspapers made it obvious he was in Tibet. We should be able to find him in a few months. Villagers have already reported seeing a strange man who was not a tourist or mountain climber, and their description tallies with Black. I am confident that we'll be able to catch him soon."

"Be a bit of a surprise if they caught him in Tibet, I'd say," George chimed in. "D'you think they will, Sirius?" Everybody started adding in comments until Molly cut them off once more.

"Severus Snape, professor at Hogwarts, has informed the WWN that not only is Black willing to kill, he is also a sexual deviant-" An enormous burst of laughter broke out around the table. Only Sirius, Molly, and Hermione did not join in or at least smile. Sirius turned off the radio with a flick of his wand, and Fred and George howled in protest.

"C'mon, Sirius, we wanted to hear about you being a sexual deviant!" George yelped.

"I just want to know what Snape knows about it," Fred added, grinning. Before he could continue, Molly stood up, heaved the twins out of their chairs by their ears, and marched them out into the hall.

"Bed for everyone. It's quite late," she insisted. Amazingly, she managed to usher Ron, Ginny, Harry, and Hermione away without much protest, probably due to a look Hermione was shooting at the others. She then turned back to Sirius, but he had also stood up and left the dining room. He could hear the kids' conversation as they went up the stairs.

"Honestly, it isn't that hilarious," Hermione's voice drifted down to the ground floor.

"Come off it, Hermione, you can't spell anything with Society for the Protection of Sexual Deviants," Ron's voice floated after it. Sirius scowled, and decided to use one of the alternate staircases to get to bed.

***

July, 1986

Sirius and James were sitting down to breakfast one morning after some early flying when something small and round hit Sirius in the head. At first he thought it was a Snitch; James had lost several of them over the years, and they had gone feral. However, it turned out to be a small bird. It wasn't an owl. It barely looked like a bird at all, with fangs and a slightly furry texture, but it was carrying a letter. It latched onto Sirius' wrist with its teeth. Apparently birds enjoyed drawing his blood of late. He shook it off his wrist, resigned.

"What the hell is this?" he demanded of James.

"Moony!" James cried. "It must be from him, it's a wolfbird. I owled him the other day to say you were here. C'mon, what's it say?"

Sirius opened the letter, gaining a few more scratches from the wolfbird in the process. Hey guys- glad to hear you're there, Padfoot. Do your homework, both of you. I'm in France. Remus. Sirius looked up from reading aloud and frowned. "That's short. D'you think something's bothering him?" James shrugged, unconcerned, as another bird swooped in the window, this time a staid brown owl bearing two letters printed with the Hogwarts crest. It dropped them in Sirius' orange juice before flying away.

When the letters had been retrieved and dried, James opened his with a flourish. His expression quickly changed as he read the letter over, whistling in amazement. "There've got to be thirty books on here at least. What do they want us to do, defeat evil by falling asleep at it?"

"That's how they defeated Grindelwald, you know," said Sirius solemnly. "Enrolled him in a class of Professor Binns'. He was literally bored to death."

"Yeah, well, Snivellus likes Binns' class, so no dice there," James said. "Bet Snape's related to Grindelwald, though."

"Same green skin, same evil shifty eyes...you might be onto something, Prongs." This latest round of Snape-bashing was fortunately interrupted by Mrs Potter, who promptly dispatched the boys to Diagon Alley in search of several dangerous-sounding potions ingredients. James scribbled the list on his arm with a spare quill, and the boys bounded into the Floo Network with reckless disregard for their or anyone else's safety.

No matter how much Sirius loved the Potter house, he could not hide his joy at being back in London, amid the bustle of Diagon Alley business. The other boys sometimes mocked him for being a "society wizard", but he never spent much time away from people if he could help it. "Hey, Tom," he said happily as they stepped into the Leaky Cauldron. The wizard who ran the pub looked up and smiled.

"Heard the news, then, have you? I thought you'd be around as soon's you knew." Sirius looked at James, who shrugged.

"What news?" Tom looked surprised.

"Why, the Quidditch promotional, o' course. I thought that's why you'd come. It's not every day you get Josef Wronski and Dangerous Dai Llewellyn in the same place," he said. Slowly, the words began to register. Josef Wronski and Dangerous Dai Llewellyn. James looked as though he were about to stop breathing with delight, and Sirius had to pound him on the back.

"When's it start?" James demanded. Sirius suspected they were about to get into a lot of trouble. About time, then.

***

Two hours later

"This is stupid," said Sirius.

"Shut up."

"This is so unbelievably stupid it could qualify for The Big Book of Unbelievably Stupid Ideas."

"It'll only work if you keep quiet," hissed James. They were both under the Invisibility Cloak, waiting outside the door of the Naked Mole Rat, a pub where Josef Wronski and Dai Llewellyn were having lunch with several reporters. The plan, according to James, was to wait for someone to open the door so they could slip in. The only flaw was that, as the pub was cordoned off, nobody was opening the door.

"I've got a better plan," said Sirius. "I'll distract people by running through the streets naked singing Christmas carols while you impersonate the Minister of Magic and kidnap Wronski on the pretext that you've forgotten to take your dried frog pills and are therefore not responsible for your actions."

"Oh, sod it," said James, and took off the cloak, walking straight into the Naked Mole Rat. Sirius scampered invisibly along after him, just in time to see James somersault dramatically to the floor in an attempt to distract the reporters, and then hit his head on the base of a statue. A minute later, he was kicked in the ribs by an invisible Sirius.

"Are you all right?" James (and Sirius) looked up into the concerned face of Dangerous Dai Llewellyn and gaped, amazed. The famous Quidditch player was standing right next to them, scant inches away. He was a young, blond Welshman with a mischievous grin, and, in Sirius' opinion, entirely too good-looking and flamboyant to be anywhere near one of Sirius' friends. James began to gibber, until he was stopped by another invisible kick.

"Er, my head hurts a bit," he said, wincing. At that moment, several flashbulbs went off in his face as a multitude of reporters swarmed up.

"Excuse us," Llewellyn said to the reporters, who ignored him. He turned to James. "Can you stand up? I'll take you to my flat and you can have a bit of a lie-down."

"All right," said James bravely, standing. Sirius wished he could kick him again, or at least stop being invisible. Dai Llewellyn was inviting James to his flat, and he, Sirius, had to stand there unnoticed! The injustice of it was ridiculous, and Sirius spent several seconds in thoughts along the lines of my parents could get me introduced to him anyway before remembering that he was no longer on speaking terms with his family.

Llewellyn, guiding James by the elbow, gradually managed to shake off the reporters and lead the boy into a private Floo room off from the bar. He slammed the door on Sirius' foot on the way.

"Hang on, let me find the Floo powder," said Llewellyn, letting go of James' elbow. "You ever tried stepping into a Floo grate without a destination? Let me tell you, you end up some interesting places..."

"You are completely mad," Sirius said, fascinated, and then remembered he was invisible as Llewellyn jumped in surprise. He took off the cloak, and instantly was slammed up against the wall by a defensive spell. If Sirius had been evil and Llewellyn hadn't been such a good Quidditch player, the boy's gut reaction would have been to try some very nasty counterjinxes. "Hey, mate, mind letting me go?" he croaked with a desperate glance at James.

"That's my friend, we were just being invisible to sneak in here," James hastily explained, and after a pause Llewellyn released him.

"Sorry," Llewellyn said easily, slipping his wand back into his robes. "Automatic reaction...when you've nearly been eaten as many times as I have...tried to raise a dragon in the changing room once, ended up with all my robes burnt to bits..." As he rambled on, the boys exchanged a look full of the respect reserved for the truly insane. And yet, Sirius pondered, they were still going to follow him back to his flat. Instantly theories began to spring up in his brain- theories which involved him being very jealous and over-protective of James- and the worst part was that they seemed entirely plausible...

Llewellyn's flat turned out to be a cross between a zoo and an antiques shop. Every available surface, not to mention unavailable surface, was covered with something molting, shedding, jumping, or exploding. One birdcage contained what was probably a Fwooper, which could drive listeners mad if allowed to sing. Of course, that explained a lot about its owner.

"Hey, Michael," Llewellyn called into the kitchen. A voice called back something in response, and soon another young man walked into the room, this one dark-haired and more serious-looking.

"Who are they this time?" he asked exasperatedly. Llewellyn waved his hand in a gesture of dismissal.

"These are my young friends, er, my young friends..."

"James and Sirius," finished James, then belatedly stuck out his hand. "Pleased to meet you." Sirius narrowed his eyes as Michael muttered something inaudible to Llewellyn and left the room, meeting with an exasperated eye roll in response. Something was going on here.

"Sorry 'bout the mess," said Llewellyn affably. "Michael keeps trying to clean it up, and then I keep having parties, and buying things that would probably be illegal if the government knew about them, and all that. You know how it is." James nodded, although fortunately he probably didn't know how it was. "Either of you want a drink? I mean, an age-appropriate beverage? Ah, sod it, have a drink if you like. What'll it be?"

"Scotch on the rocks," said James promptly, with an air of enforced adulthood. Sirius stepped on his foot. "Or lemonade," he amended. Amused, Llewellyn winked at Sirius, and disappeared into the kitchen after Michael. "What'd you do that for?" James demanded, glaring at Sirius. "You're acting like my mother. Or Remus."

"Actually," said Sirius, "I think I'm just acting like a suspicious, paranoid bastard who's been raised by the next best thing to Dark wizards, and therefore doesn't trust people who attack him and then take him back to their flat."

"He didn't attack you," said James impatiently. "He just kind of...ok, attacked you, but you were invisible first. Anyway, he's a really famous Quidditch player, he can't be evil. It's against regulations."

Sirius shrugged it off- it was impossible to argue with James when he was excited about something- and picked up one of the contraptions on the dilapidated table. The device, reacting with amazing speed, instantly began pecking his arm. For the third time in two days, Sirius had to fight off a crazed, bird-like object. Meanwhile, Llewellyn returned with a beer for himself and two lemonades for the boys.

"Cheers. Either of you want to stay for the team party? It's in about three hours, everyone'll be happy to see you, and if you decide you want that scotch on the rocks after all, no-one will care."

"Ye-"

"No," said Sirius, struggling to keep himself from adding in fact I think we'll be leaving right away. James was probably right, there was absolutely nothing wrong with Llewellyn other than the fact that he was a bit insane and liked to party too much, and Sirius was being overly suspicious. But, on the other hand, Sirius was generally not the type of person to turn down a party, and therefore if he was doing so something must be very, very wrong, and he ought to drag James out of there before something completely awful happened. On the other hand, which would have to be somebody else's because Sirius had run out of hands, this was all completely ridiculous...and he had almost convinced himself to stay for the party and get absolutely hammered, when Michael brushed by him with a whisper that sounded a lot like, "Don't drink the lemonade."

Sirius cast a glance at James, who was talking Quidditch and paying no attention to his friend, and followed Michael into the kitchen. "What?" he asked bluntly.

Michael looked up from the drink he was mixing, with a bit of a grin. "Don't drink the lemonade. Unless you fancy waking up with a massive hangover and no idea why some sort of monster is eating your arm." Sirius had a mad impulse to respond with I knew it, you're evil, we're all going to die. He was having a fair number of mad impulses this afternoon.

"What?" he repeated.

"Well, it's not that Dai doesn't mean well, it's just that when he's drunk he thinks it's funny to find enormously large monsters and poke them with sticks. Amazingly, he hasn't lost a limb yet. We've all got a bet going on when he'll get eaten. But I suppose you've got similar problems with your boyfriend."

"With my which?"

"Your friend. Scotch-on-the-rocks boy. Bit of a party maniac, eh?"

"Yes, well, so am I," said Sirius, then realized he was deviating from the point, and persisted, "You said boyfriend before, didn't you?" A range of expressions flitted across Michael's face before settling on innocent.

"Sorry, momentary slip of the tongue, it's only a lot of people Dai has over are queer. Didn't think you were for a second. Not that I know many of Dai's friends very well, he's always got a load of crazy Welshmen in here, always completely smashed. Not that the Welshmen have anything to do with being queer. Sorry."

"Yeah, that's what I thought," Sirius said.

"The Welsh can really hold their liquor, you know. 'Mazing people. Just a bit hard to understand when they're drunk."

"Yeah, I know, James is part Welsh." This time he found the momentary expression on Michael's face to be amusing. If he had met him somewhere else, he might quite have liked him.

"Well, you had better get him out of here, if you don't want him to be too drunk before you leave." Michael looked a bit defeated somehow, as if he had hoped to find more of a kindred spirit in Sirius. A few seconds passed awkwardly.

"Right," said Sirius. "Better see about James, then," and started heading back to the main room of the flat.

"Oh, by the way." He paused, turned. "Good luck." And Michael walked away, leaving Sirius to wonder what he meant, and what he knew or suspected, and whether Sirius was right in what he suspected about him. It might have been- if one of them had said something two words differently, or a few seconds earlier- that they would have understood each other perfectly.

"And then the bit, with the Snitch and the dive thingy, y'know," James was saying a bit too loudly as Sirius entered the living room. He rolled his eyes. Classic tipsy James, only usually when he was like that Sirius was tipsy as well. Where was Remus when you needed him? France, apparently, thought Sirius. Stupid bloody Remus and his educational vacations. "Hey, Pad- Sirifoot," said James. "What're you doing here?"

"Taking you somewhere else," Sirius replied. He was quite sure now that he wanted to get out of here. Whatever kind of alcohol Llewellyn had put in the lemonade, it had worked amazingly fast.

"You sure? It seems your friend wants to stay for the party, even if you don't." This time there was a bit of a challenge in Llewellyn's voice.

"Right, S'rus. Party. Wi'alcohol an'things." Oh God.

"Don't think so. Nice to meet you, Mr Llewellyn. Beat Germany for us. We'll be seeing you." Working around the numerous protests, he put an arm around James and maneuvered him away. Somehow he managed to get him into the hallway before the inebriated boy fell off his shoulder. Creative cursing followed.

"God, James, you might as bloody well sit up already..." It was no use, it was no bloody use, this was just like James, and this was why you needed someone like Remus around, because without him they were just a lot of useless bloody idiots, and he really, really wanted to kick James in the ribs again, only he probably wouldn't feel the bloody thing.

"Bit of a problem, Black?" Sirius didn't have to turn around to see who it was. Snivellus. Perfect. Exactly who he needed to show up when he was trying to roll his half-conscious best friend far, far away from the apartment of someone who suspected he might fancy said friend. He resolved to count to at least one before cursing him.

"No."

"I sincerely doubt this has any connection to current events, Black, but it's well known that Dai Llewellyn is a pervert. Isn't that fascinating?"

"And it's well known that you're an arse," said Sirius. "See you at school." And then he hit him with a Stunning Spell, and allowed himself a grin of satisfaction as the Floo network swept them away.