"What is it?"
Sherlock, who'd been about to step outside, saw Harry's expression change and stopped short. He knew that something had happened.
"Sirius!"
Harry was already pulling out the two-way mirror he'd shown everyone earlier.
Sirius's face appeared in the glass at once.
"Harry, are you still home?"
Sherlock already knew Harry was hosting a party at Grimmauld Place that day—he and Sirius had spoken that morning, when Sherlock received his gift.
"Yes, I'm just about to head over to Sherlock's."
"Good—stay right there, don't move. We're coming over now!"
"What? Right now? Hello? Hello!"
But Sirius didn't wait for Harry to finish. His face vanished from the mirror.
"That urgent, is it?"
Harry glanced at Sherlock, a little embarrassed. "Sorry—looks like I won't be able to come to your place after all. Pass along my apologies to your aunt and uncle."
"It's fine," Sherlock said evenly. "As it happens, I doubt I'll need to go either."
"That... that doesn't seem right."
Harry hesitated. "You've already spent the whole day here. Your mum and dad—and Mycroft—are all waiting for you."
"My parents, certainly. Mycroft, less so."
"Besides, the reason I'm staying is—"
Here Sherlock's eyes sharpened.
"Sirius and Remus may be in trouble."
"What?!"
Harry's face turned pale.
"Calm down," Sherlock said calmly. "It isn't hard to read from how Sirius just looked. And besides—whatever's happened, both Remus and Sirius are safe now."
Easy for Sherlock to say. There was no way Harry could simply calm down.
And yet there was nothing for him to do but wait.
"No—there is one thing you can still do."
Sherlock had read Harry's intention again before he could voice it.
"Wait by the door. Make sure no one rings the bell."
Harry was on his feet and at the door almost before Sherlock finished speaking.
He understood exactly what Sherlock meant—if anyone rang that bell, the portrait of Sirius's mother, Mrs. Black, would start shrieking.
No one wanted to hear that sound, except perhaps Kreacher, the Black family's house-elf.
Once Harry had gone out to wait by the door, Sherlock leaned back against the frame, apparently idling, gazing out at the street with a lazy sort of interest. In truth, he was turning over every possibility of what might have happened to Sirius Black.
They didn't have to wait long.
Harry had barely stood at the door five minutes when a tall, handsome man pushed his way out of the crowd.
Sirius Black.
"Harry!"
The moment he saw Harry, Sirius's face broke into a relieved smile.
"So good to see you again—and Sherlock, I knew you'd be here too."
For all his smiling, Harry could see the exhaustion and grief Sirius wasn't quite managing to hide.
"Sirius, what on earth is—"
"Come on. Let's talk inside."
Harry and Sherlock nodded and followed Sirius into the old Black family house.
The door closed behind them, and Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place vanished from the street as if it had never been there at all.
Once they were in the sitting room, Sirius sank straight into the sofa, as though setting down some enormous weight.
Seeing him like that only alarmed Harry further, and he called out at once.
"Kreacher!"
There was a sharp crack, and the elf appeared before the three of them.
"Bring my godfather a butterbeer."
"Yes, Master!"
Ever since learning of the sacrifice made by Sirius's brother, Regulus, Sirius and Kreacher's relationship had improved considerably. So now, seeing Sirius so worn down, the elf allowed himself a rare flicker of concern.
"Master, you ought to rest properly."
"Thank you, Kreacher," Sirius said, waving a hand. "It would help even more if you brought that butterbeer Harry mentioned."
At that, Kreacher vanished with a crack and reappeared just as quickly—this time already holding a large mug of butterbeer.
"Not bad at all!" Sherlock remarked, watching.
House-elves were masters of Apparition. Remarkably, they could pull off this notoriously difficult magic with no cooldown at all.
Kreacher handed the butterbeer over to Sirius with a respectful bow, then turned and made his way slowly back upstairs.
Sirius had already lifted the mug and taken a hard swallow.
Everyone knew butterbeer carried almost no alcohol. Even so, Sirius drained most of the glass in one go, then set the rest down on the table with a heavy thud. Under Sherlock's steady gaze and Harry's anxious one, he finally spoke.
"Moony's in trouble!"
He opened with a bombshell.
"You both know he went to find the werewolves, along with Tonks.
"But as it turns out, the job was far harder than any of us expected.
"He's been living underground almost the entire time, among a pack of werewolves.
"He hasn't been able to send letters—it would give him away too easily.
"Thank goodness Tonks went with him this time. You know how good an Auror she is, especially with that natural gift for shapeshifting—it lets her handle concealment and disguise without any trouble at all."
"She scored full marks in concealment and disguise during Auror training," Sherlock said slowly. "But she nearly failed stealth and tracking. So, all she had to do was arrange a meeting point with Lupin and then simply wait for him to come to her."
"That's it exactly, Sherlock!"
Sirius snapped his fingers, took another pull of his butterbeer, and looked noticeably better than a moment before.
"By the time Moony tracked them down, he found that nearly all the werewolves had already gone over to Voldemort's side.
"In that situation, he didn't try to talk sense into them the way Hagrid might have. Instead, he hid among them and made himself into a spy. And that—that was no easy thing.
"Moony's simply too decent a man. On top of that, after so long living in wizarding society, he still carries obvious traces of it.
"Whereas those werewolves have always kept to the margins, well outside normal society—stealing food, sometimes even killing for it."
Sherlock raised an eyebrow. "Professor Lupin's been away from that world a long time, then. So, the werewolves naturally lean toward Voldemort?"
"Yes. Those brainless idiots seem to think they'll be better off under Voldemort's rule.
"And on top of that, their leader is Greyback himself. Moony said just recognizing him was hard enough..."
"Wait." Harry couldn't help a jolt of shock. "Greyback? The one who bit Lupin?"
"That's the one."
Sirius let out a long sigh.
"Harry, the only werewolf you've ever really known is Remus, so you feel for him—you know he can't control himself once he's transformed.
"But Greyback isn't like that at all. On the full moon, he moves in close to his prey on purpose, to make sure the attack lands.
"Everything he does is calculated. He genuinely believes werewolves should feed on blood, that they should take revenge on ordinary people.
"You could say he embodies every single prejudice wizards hold about werewolves—cruelty, bloodlust, cunning..."
Harry fell silent.
He could imagine exactly what it must have felt like for Lupin to spend day after day with the very man who'd bitten him, forced to play along the whole time.
After a moment of quiet, he asked again.
"So, was it Greyback again this time?"
"No, Harry—that's exactly what I was about to get to."
Sirius shook his head, tossed back the last of his butterbeer, and spoke quickly.
"After a while undercover, Remus realized there was simply no way to reason with Greyback.
"As it turns out, Greyback's become the one Voldemort uses to rally the werewolves.
"So, once he'd gathered enough information, Lupin decided it was time to pull out for a while.
"With Tonks covering him, he got out without much trouble.
"That happened to be right when Amelia and I were going to meet them—"
Sherlock glanced at Sirius.
"—and just before we could all link up, Remus and Tonks were ambushed by Death Eaters."
Sirius's expression turned grim.
"You both know neither of them is weak in a fight.
"Remus especially—he seems gentle enough most of the time, but when he actually fights, he can be even wilder than I am.
"But the Death Eaters sent after them weren't pushovers either. Leading them was my dear cousin—devoted body and soul to Voldemort—and Barty Crouch Jr.
"I have to say, thank god Dumbledore had Tonks with him this time. Her gift for disguise and concealment made all the difference. Even so, by the time Amelia and I got there, the two of them were nearly at the end of their strength—"
Here Sirius's voice suddenly turned lighter.
"I knew Amelia had remarkable talent as a witch, but this time she outdid herself, far beyond what I'd imagined.
"If it had just been me alone, I'm not sure I could have gotten Remus out at all."
Even saying this, Sirius still looked faintly shaken by the memory.
"Thank goodness we finally managed to break free...
"Tonks and Amelia took Remus straight to St. Mungo's together.
"I figured that if you were still here, I'd come back and tell you first."
Sirius had never had much of a gift for telling a story—certainly nothing like Harry's. And yet, even so, both Sherlock and Harry could feel the danger and adrenaline of it all coming through in his account.
Listening to how the four of them had fought off wave after wave of Death Eaters, forcing their way out through sheer stubbornness, Harry found his fists clenched tight without meaning to.
"So, Bellatrix and Barty Crouch Jr. are that strong in a fight?"
"Yes—very strong."
Sirius answered without a moment's hesitation.
"Much as I hate the pair of them, I have to admit they're genuinely formidable.
"Bellatrix fights like a mad dog. Barty Crouch Jr. is honestly a cut above even her.
"Fudge is an absolute idiot—when they had him locked up, they should have just let the Dementors give him a kiss and be done with it!"
Sherlock nodded slightly.
Setting combat ability aside, just from how Barty Crouch Jr. had managed to impersonate someone else and hide undetected at Hogwarts throughout their fourth year, the man could fairly be called both cunning and formidable.
"So why were Professor Lupin and Tonks discovered by the Death Eaters in the first place?"
After a moment's silence, Sherlock put the key question. "Was he exposed?"
"I don't know," Sirius said, shaking his head, "but the werewolves with Remus shouldn't have seen through his cover."
"How is he doing now?"
"I don't know—but there's certainly no danger to his life."
At that, Harry let out a long breath.
"Let's wait here a while."
Sirius said, his expression serious.
"Amelia and I agreed—once Remus was safely at St. Mungo's, Tonks would stay behind, and Amelia would come back here to tell me how things stood."
All in all, this particular ordeal could be counted as a close call, but not a disaster.
Harry summoned Kreacher at the right moment, having him bring Sirius another butterbeer.
Since Sirius had been away for so long, father and godson genuinely had endless things to talk about.
Sherlock, meanwhile, walked over to the window and stood quietly, watching the passersby on the street below—turning Sirius's account over in his mind.
As far as he was concerned, though, Sirius's account alone wasn't enough to go on. The man's temperament ran to the extreme, and plenty of what he'd described carried an obvious tinge of subjectivity.
Still, judging from what he'd said, once he could hear Amelia's version of events, that ought to fill in the rest.
About half an hour later, Amelia arrived as promised.
She looked much as she had at Peter Pettigrew's trial—short grey hair, a square jaw, a monocle fixed in place. She looked every bit as sharp and capable as before.
"Remus is fine, though he'll need to stay at St. Mungo's for a while to recover."
Her very first words laid the matter to rest, and all three of them let out a quiet breath of relief.
"Excellent!" Harry said. "Miss Bones, you have no idea how frightening what Sirius just told us sounded."
"Do you mean the part where he was nearly killed by Bellatrix?"
"You mean what?"
Harry froze completely at those words.
Sherlock gave a small smile.
He'd already worked it out—Sirius had glossed over the worst of it while telling the story, leaving certain things out on purpose.
And now, it seemed, that was exactly confirmed.
Sherlock, at least, took it calmly. Harry did not.
"Sirius, you—"
"It wasn't that bad," Sirius said quickly. "Amelia, why would you go and scare him?"
"Scare him?"
Amelia Bones said coldly:
"If you don't consider it frightening to have the Killing Curse pass within an inch of your body, then I really don't know what to say to you."
Sirius: o(一人一+)
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