When Harry woke up in the bed of Room 11 at the Leaky Cauldron, there was a brown tabby cat with very distinctive square markings around its eyes asleep on the end on his bed. As soon as he stirred, the cat awoke instantly and stared at Harry with slightly narrowed eyes.
'I'm glad to see you,' he whispered sleepily. 'I was going to try and get back to Scotland today but I don't understand what's going on, mum. It's been a really weird night. I should be expelled. And Minister for Magic was involved in a case of Underage Magic, which he completely dismissed, and he'd told me to stay here to two weeks so he can keep an eye on me. I'm not to wander beyond Diagon Alley. I'm not even allowed to come home to you. Then he said I have to stay in school over Christmas and Easter, which we do anyway. But I'm not allowed on the Hogsmeade weekends... Is that my punishment instead? That's what I thought anyway, but then Fudge nearly jumped out of his skin when I asked him about Sirius Black.'
Minerva changed back into her human form and pulled her sleepy-eyed pyjama'ed son into her arms, relishing in him being safe in her arms again. Her nose buried into his soft black hair, comforted by its familiar citrusy smells.
She decided Dumbledore and Fudge were wrong, Harry had already worked out the basics and deserved to know the truth. 'I'm so glad you're safe. Did Vernon Dursley so much as lay a finger on you?' she said.
'No. I had Minnie. He was frightened of her,' he said quietly.
'And last year?' she said softly. She felt Harry freeze and pull away from her and he wouldn't look her in the eyes.
'It doesn't matter now,' he whispered.
'It does matter, Harry,' she said. 'And you must understand, you are not a fault, this is all on him. Oh Harry, if I'd known, I would never have let you go alone. You don't have to face these things alone.'
'But sometimes I do. And he threatened to hurt Aunt Petunia if I told anyone. He wanted to stop me coming back, he locked me in my room, there were bars on the window... and then, after Dobby threw the pudding at me and Hedwig escaped...'
Harry fell silent and she could only give him space despite the terrible images that filled her head and made her feel so angry. She had to give Harry the time to tell her when he was ready. Though she was definitely planning to curse Vernon Dursley and was wondering if there was a slow and torturous method to send him to his death that was extremely painful but not actually Dark Magic.
Harry said forcefully, 'there are things that people aren't telling me. I'm sure Professor Dumbledore and even the Minister for Magic know information about me that they're not willing to tell me. Like about Sirius Black, what's the Minister not telling me? What haven't you told me? I know you've mentioned he was one of dad's friends but what else? Why the sudden connection to me that's got everyone frightened? This is about more than my name, isn't it?'
'I was going to tell you... I just didn't know how to, I wanted to protect you,' she said sadly. 'Fudge and Albus don't want to scare you but I think you have a right to know. It appears that before he escaped Azkaban, Black was talking in his sleep, he kept repeating "He's at Hogwarts... he's at Hogwarts..." The Minister thinks that because Black lost everything the night you defeated Voldemort, and after twelve years alone in Azkaban, well...'
'He's after me.'
'Yes.'
Harry rolled his eyes. 'Another year, another madman...'
'Harry, it's not just a case of another madman, you have to be on your guard. We all have to be on our guard. I'm not sure the Minister is completely right; he's putting it down to revenge, pure and simple but it's so complex. I'm sorry we haven't talked about him, I suppose some of it was me protecting you, but also, how, even when, am I supposed to tell you about him? Sirius was more than just a friend of your father's; he was his bestfriend. We all thought he'd turned away from the pureblood rhetoric and the Dark Magic the Black family sided with. He was sorted into Gryffindor and eventually disowned by his mother. He was practically adopted by your grandparents, Fleamont and Euphemia, after that. But, in the end, he betrayed your parents for the Dark Lord and it seems he maybe after you too, even now. I don't want to believe it of him, I never have. He doted on James and Lily and he adored you, yet the evidence is hard to deny. He was their Secret Keeper; he was the only one who knew where they were hiding. Not even Dumbledore knew until after they were killed.'
'He adored me...' Harry whispered, shocked.
'He's your other Godparent, Harry.'
Minerva watched as Harry fell silent, processing what she had just told him. 'Do you want me to leave you for a bit?' she asked.
'No,' he said but he didn't say anymore. Instead, he got up and made his way to the bathroom and when he came out, he was already dressed, though he'd clearly had a losing battle with his hair. 'Breakfast,' he said casually but his green eyes were dull and she wondered how much he was hiding.
They spent a few days together at the Leaky Cauldron, mostly shopping in Diagon Alley for his books and school things for the forthcoming year as well as both standing outside the window of Quidditch Quality Supplies staring longingly at the new Firebolt that was on display in the window before moving on the Florin Fortescue's for an icecream. But they talked a lot too. Frequently about Sirius Black and James Potter, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew. But also, about Petunia Dursley, and Voldemort and Tom Riddle, and everything Minerva knew. She suspected, as much as Harry did, that Albus hadn't told her everything. She agreed with Harry, there were too many secrets. But she also knew, from her days as an Auror, that often the less people who knew, the better. Too many lips meant information could slip out somewhere along the way. Still, with Harry seeming to be at the centre of everything, it would be nice to know more so they could be prepared.
'I have to go back,' Minerva said after two weeks of being with her son. 'I have to prepare for the new school year but the Minister wants you to stay here. I don't agree and I certainly don't like leaving you on your own but it's safer here than Hogsmeade. Black could easily hide in the forest or the foothills of the mountains undetected. Here, well, there's too many people and the Minister has Aurors stationed in the pub and around Diagon. Still, I don't like leaving you alone.'
Harry smiled. 'I'll be okay,' he said. 'I can get on with reading my school books and get my head around Divination.'
Minerva scowled. 'Divination is such an imprecise and useless form of magic,' she muttered. 'You should be taking Ancient Runes or Arithmancy. You're perfectly capable of doing both. I know you only chose it because Ron Weasley has too.'
Harry said hopefully, 'I'll swap Potions for Ancient Runes...'
'Potions is a core subject, you know this. Now, I'll pop back at the weekend and then the Weasleys will be coming straight here a week on Friday, and Miss Granger too and then Arthur will take you all to the station. The Ministry have arranged it all. Even the cars. Are you sure you're going to be alright?'
'Yes, mum,' he said.
In fact, Harry rather enjoyed his two weeks, spending his days sitting outside Florin Fortescue's and trying every flavour of icecream and reading his books. Old Tom in the bar looked after him and he came to recognise who the Aurors were, even though they maintained a discreet distance. His two weeks passed quickly and before he knew it, Ron and the Weasleys and Hermione had joined him and it was time to get on the Hogwarts Express again.
Fortunately, this year, the barriers worked perfectly and he, Ron, and Hermione set off in search of an empty compartment.
After heaving his trunk onto the luggage rack, Remus J. Lupin sat down in corner of the empty compartment at the very end of the train. He was exhausted but that was never a new state of affairs, especially at this stage in his cycle. And he knew his wizard robes were particularly shabby, indeed, they had been darned in several places. He knew he looked ill and malnourished and although he was only thirty-two, his light brown hair was flecked with grey - such was the nature of his journey that had brought him to this moment in time. He leant against the window and closed his eyes, wondering how long his peace would remain undisturbed, it was rare that staff took the train to Hogwarts but Albus had requested it: Albus predicted trouble.
He ignored the compartment door sliding open and then shutting and the whispered hisses of three students debating who he was. He remained still, his face neutral, his breathing even as pretended to sleep. He was very good at the act but one of the benefits of being an Auror in the past meant knowing how to act innocuous and unsuspicious. Mind you, he'd always been gifted at appearing innocently naïve.
'Who d'you reckon he is?' hissed a boy.
'Professor R.J. Lupin,' whispered a girl.
'How d'you know that?' the same boy said.
He reckoned they were quite young; the boy's voice hadn't broken yet but there were signs it might happen soon. Brave enough not to be first years and clearly familiar friends. Not too cocky to be higher in the school and starting to disrespect staff, especially beat-up staff sleeping on trains. Maybe third years.
'It's on his case.'
From her logical and practical thinking alone, he wondered if the girl was Hermione Granger, especially when she surmised that he was to be teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts as, yet again, the post needed filling. Her reputation proceeded her. In which case, he would hazard a guess that her two accomplishes were none other than Harry Potter and Ron Weasley. He resisted the urge to peek.
His suspicions as to their identities were confirmed when the other boy said quietly, 'Remus Lupin. He was one of my dad's friends.'
He remained alert, listening to their whisperings, their conversation seemed to focus mainly around the escape of Sirius Black from Azkaban. Remus stilled his beating heart.
The news of Sirius's escape troubled him; he'd not slept well for weeks.
There had been an apparent warning by Arthur Weasley to young Mr Potter not to go looking for trouble. The boy was indignant, I don't look for trouble; trouble usually finds me. Remus bit back a snort; fucking hell, he sounded like his father. But that too caused a pang of sadness about deep shadows that lay in painful memories. The past was so stirred up.
Oh Sirius...
For so long he thought himself as the only one left of the inseparable foursome from their schooldays, for so long he'd felt alone in the world because no one knew or understood him like they did. As Harry talked in whispered tones, he couldn't help thinking of James. James, who was so often misunderstood. Yes, he was boisterous and loud and he really did have his indignant prejudices at times, but he was also the most inclusive boy Remus had ever met. James guessed long before the others but James was bright, one of those boys who needed challenging or he found trouble simply because he was bored. He covered for poor broken Remus for so long. The Lupins didn't have two galleons to rub together after his parents had spent every last sickle they possessed failing to find a treatment for their son. Not that Remus told anyone about that but their poverty showed in Remus's charity clothing and his scruffy appearance. Replacing a wardrobe every month was a costly business and didn't warrant the expense of new clothes. James took to silently replenishing the chocolate stores, feigning his mother had bought him the wrong sized boots or that Sirius had given him a jumper that didn't fit and that he was up-gifting them to Remus. Remus pretended he didn't know, James pretended it wasn't happening. He understood that Remus was battling with his pride. James protected him from having to say anything, or worse still, asking for help. But James was also so loyal and so protective of his friends; he stood up for what he believed in; for what he felt was right. But wasn't that why he died. He died protecting those he loved. He died because he refused to go over to Voldemort. He denied Voldemort three times in the end. Many fell at the first hurdle but not James Fleamont Potter.
It made Remus's heart bleed as he listened to Harry talk about what Minnie had told him about his father and the group when they were at school. Minnie had described Sirius as a musician and Remus as an artist and that caused another pang of hurt. It was a long time since he'd found solace in his sketchbooks. He wondered where they were. He wondered where Sirius's old guitar was. Probably still at Beaumont. He shifted in his 'sleep' and turned his head away to hide the tears that threatened to fall over those painful memories that haunted his past like decaying ghosts.
Though it appeared Minnie obviously hadn't quite told the boy everything... perhaps she hadn't known as much as they thought.
They were kids of the seventies. What a time to grow up in! The Swinging Sixties had paved the way for them to be kids who broke their way out of Wizarding conservatism. And James, well, he looked like one moulded exotic amalgamation of John Lennon and Yoko Ono of the early 70s before they grew their hair and went all hippyish.
James. Attractive and confident and an unquestionable attitude of privilege that his background of old money gave him; his father, Fleamont Henry Potter, was a Lord, for fucks sake. Not that Fleamont or James ever acknowledged the moniker. It was a title James should have inherited; that Harry would one day. He wondered if the boy knew that, if Minnie knew and had prepared him... But then, very few outside the immediate family actually knew; the Potters never made anything of their heritage, despite the large manor and grounds and the money and their history as one of the oldest Wizarding families. James blithely ignored it and Fleamont and Euphemia invited James's friends into their home like they were extensions of the family and there were never any pretentions or any expectations to stand on ceremony. Instead, everyone played hard and worked hard and chipped in where necessary.
Remus could only ever picture Euphemia wearing tweed trousers, warm jumpers, wellington boots, and a flat cap, invariably with a chicken clutched under her arm and hay in her hair. But then, she had loved her animals. Fleamont tended to stick to his potions but he always welcomed the boys into his laboratory and encouraged them to experiment. Fuck, Remus loved that room, the coolness of the north side of the huge house and triple-storey deep oak shelves that lined the hexagonal space of one of the turrets right up to the roof struts. He loved the old lab bench and row upon row of mysterious ingredients that seemed to reach up to the gods. And books too, so many books. He spent hours there, either experimenting under Fleamont's watchful eye or drawing. He started by copying pictures of magical creatures out of one of Euphemia's books. It was with an ache in his heart as he remembered he'd got quite good at drawing the animals and how Euphemia had always had time to praise his sketches. But Remus supposed, slightly cynically, he was just another broken creature for her to rescue and home at the Hall.
Remus guessed it was that entitlement which made James a natural leader. But he was chivalrous too with a strong sense of moral right and wrong and that was what made him so endearing. Lily was a case in hand: once he felt sure his heart lay with Lily Evans, no one else would do. People thought he was a player but it was Sirius who had the girlfriends, going from one failed romance to the next every couple of months. James never so much as looked at another girl. He saved himself for Lily. Of course, that also might have been something to do with her being friends with Severus, he did so like a challenge and to take Lily away from Severus and change her heart was the biggest challenge of all. It also meant he got to best Severus in yet another way. They didn't understand Severus's background back then; he was just a vindictive and spiteful boy with a black heart and some outspoken ideas about Muggles and Dark Magic. It was his interest in Dark Magic that upset James the most. Probably because of Sirius.
Sirius Orion Black, another Lord in the making, only his mother eventually disinherited him. He was the first member of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black to not be Sorted into Slytherin House. Sirius, whose home life was fucking dark and miserable and brutal, whose father who liked to use the Cruciatus on his disappointment of a son and whose mother beat him violently with her cane that he'd return to school with black eyes and broken ribs. Sirius, the broken, confused, teenager who became a rebel without a cause, only he did have a cause, he had several and just didn't know how to unravel all the shit he was in. James took Sirius under his wing and watched with delight as Sirius found himself. He moulded himself on his favourite Muggle Glam-Rockers, especially David Bowie and Suzie Quatro, mixed up with a large dose of Alice Cooper. He was all long hair, make-up, and leather jackets, girls' satin blouses and tight, tight jeans, his silk kimono-smoking jackets and his red roses, his guitar and, later, his motorbike. Fuck, he was one hot bastard and he knew it. And his mother hated him all the more for it too...
James took them all under his wing. Poor stuttering little Peter Pettigrew too. Peter, who as a new first year had been so frightened of being away from home for the first time; Peter, who never grew much and his height and his speech issues made him a target from older, crueller students. And yes, Peter was often the brunt of their milder joshing but it was meant in good humour and Peter was hideously quick and funny with his cutting comebacks once he found his confidence with the group. And such a good actor too; he was the one they sent to the teachers if they wanted to ask a favour or get out of detention. And if anyone else so much as uttered a bad word in Peter's direction, let alone tried to bully him, then James would floor them with a quick and well-placed hex before they knew what had happened. Poor Peter did so worship James. He paid with his life for that.
All his broken boys who James built back up again so that Sirius turned away from his family's ways, and Peter found his feet and then his confidence, and Remus, with his 'furry little problem' as James called it... people believed Remus owned a terribly-behaved rabbit because of James.
The quiet and studious nerdy Remus... that was what people so often thought. A broken innocent with his maimed face and scarred body, his second-hand oversized baggy jumpers and his books and his drawing. Caught up in the wrong crowd... they muttered. Being led astray... they said.
Remus smiled to himself. People were often shocked when they found out the truth... though very few did. Probably only Minnie knew the truth that the tall and lanky puppy-dog ingénue was actually the devious and evil mastermind behind the four. Yes, James had the ideas, and Sirius was all for jumping into trouble without looking, and Peter acted the goat as he swung around on the bottom of James's bellbottoms, hanging on for dear life, but Remus was the one who looked first, who worked out how to not get caught, who researched the right spells and hexes and taught the others, he was the one who wasn't actually as innocent as outsiders believed. His new dormmates were shocked to find out that, at eleven-years-old, he knew more swearwords than you'd hear in a back-alley whorehouse off Knockturn. He was the one who found out which greenhouse Pomona Sprout grew her cannabis plants in. He was the one who lost his virginity first; the girls did so love a case they thought they could mother and heal, and the boys would always talk to him about their sexuality issues. Remus never cared what sex they were or how they identified, he hadn't cared from the moment he found out he could 'love' everyone so long as he didn't let them get too close. Though he always knew where his heart lay. He knew that from the moment he first saw him at eleven years old.
And now his heart felt like it was crumpling in on itself. Again.
Maybe it was a bad idea to come back. To face his history and the demons he'd left behind at Hogwarts.
He stirred from his musings when the Trolley Witch pushed open the door but ignored Miss Granger's attempts to rouse him.
'I suppose he is asleep?' said Ron quietly, as the witch slid the door closed. 'I mean - he hasn't died, has he?'
Remus contained his smile and finally dosed for a while until the door slid open again and this time there was a lazy drawl. 'Well, look who it is, Potty and the Weasel.'
Funnily enough, Remus didn't particularly warm to the newcomer, especially when his companions chuckled trollishly.
'I heard your father finally got his hands on some gold this summer, Weasley,' the boy continued. 'Did your mother die of shock?'
There was some scuffling and an indignant squawk from a cat as its basket got knocked to the floor.
Remus gave a 'snort' in his 'sleep'.
'Who's that?' said the boy.
'New teacher,' said Harry. 'What were you saying, Malfoy?'
Ah, thought Remus. A Malfoy. Now that's interesting, sounds like a smaller version of Malfoy senior. He listened to Ron bluster about how he'd like to break Draco Malfoy's neck and Remus was reminded painfully of school-day rivalries with Severus; the boy on the outside, desperate to get in. He wondered if it were the same for young Mr Malfoy.
He dozed again, finally falling into a fitful sleep.
***