Padfoot Returns
Remus just stared, mouth open. Sirius was there, standing in front of him, looking absolutely dreadful. Almost unrecognisable in fact. He was very, very thin, cheeks hollow beneath a wild beard. His skin was pale and papery and he was filthy, hair matted with dirt, clothing torn. He had no shoes on and his feet were encrusted with mud and dried blood. As he stepped forward into the room, the light from the window illuminated his face and Remus could see his eyes. He was in there, somewhere.
‘Hey Pads,’ he said, eventually, voice catching in his throat.
They stood there for a minute, just staring. Despite his poor assessment of Sirius' physical condition, Remus had a sudden inexplicable urge to check his own appearance. He hadn't even looked in the mirror this morning.
Sirius made to step forward again but stumbled slightly, and that was all it took. Remus crossed the room in two strides and caught hold of him, arms wrapping tightly around him, pulling him in. Sirius folded forwards, and they sank, together, to the filthy floorboards. Remus closed his eyes and focused on nothing but the beat of Sirius' heart that he could feel in his own chest. Very slowly they drew apart.
‘I could smell the bread,’ Sirius said, eventually, gesturing to the bag Remus had dropped under the window, ‘as Padfoot, coming up the stairs. Can I have it?’
Wordlessly, Remus pulled the bag across the floor and handed Sirius the loaf. Sirius pulled off a chunk and stuffed it into his mouth. Remus watched him chew.
After a few mouthfuls he finally looked up, meeting Remus’ eyes. ‘What are you doing here?’ he said, ‘finally decided to come over to the dark side?’
His tone was sarcastic, but Remus looked at him, nonplussed. Was he joking? At a time like this?
‘I know about Peter.’ he said, bluntly.
Sirius choked slightly on the bread. ‘How? Where is he? Have you seen him?’
‘Not in person,’ said Remus, ‘but I have the map - he’s showing up on the map,’ he pulled it from the bag and opened it up, laying it carefully across the floor. ‘I’ve been teaching at the school this year and I, sort of, found it again. I couldn’t believe it when I saw it this morning, I went straight down there but he wasn’t there, or wasn’t visibly there anyway. I assume he’s hiding as Wormtail. All this time, I believed he was dead.’
Sirius laughed quietly, his eyes wild, Remus shifted back just a fraction, suddenly a little afraid of the expression on his face. ‘Ah yes, my great crime. Twelve years in Azkaban for a murder I didn’t commit.’
‘What happened then, what happened?’ Remus burst out, voice was shaking, finally asking the question he had waiting so long for an answer to ‘When I got back, Mary was at the flat, she told me…’ he couldn’t say it, but he ploughed on, ‘I went straight down to the Ministry but they wouldn’t let me see you, you had already gone. I begged and begged them, I went to Dumbledore, but it was no use…’ he tailed off. Sirius was looking at him, eyes shining.
‘After you had gone,’ Sirius began, ‘I had no one to talk to - James and Lily were off grid, Pete was always ‘working’, Marlene was… dead. Andy sent me an owl, telling me to be careful, she said that Ted had had to stop work so they could hide - something about Bella deciding to clean up the stains on the family tree. I couldn’t stop thinking about what we’d talked about, about it being obvious that if there was a secret keeper then it would me. I swear I wasn’t worried for myself, I was just worried that they’d somehow get it out of me, that I would let James down, and then I thought - Peter. No one would suspect Peter. It was perfect, who’d think of him? And he was one of us, he loved James, he’d loved him since they were children… I convinced James it was the best idea, he wasn’t sure, I told him it was the safest plan, and so we switched.’ Sirius paused, he was breathing heavily, as if the weight of the story was too much for him. Remus found he was trembling.
‘The night they died I’d arranged to meet up with Pete, I thought I’d just check in, but when I got there, there was no sign of him and it felt - off. I set out for Godric’s Hollow straight away but when I got there, it was too late. The house was destroyed, and they were there, in the rubble…’ Sirius was crying now, the tears leaving streaks down his dirty face. ‘James was in the hallway, there was nothing I could do, Lily was upstairs - and Harry. Harry was just standing there in his cot, screaming. I went in and he reached up to me and I didn’t know what to do. I picked him up, I was going to take him home, but Hagrid arrived, said Dumbledore had sent him to collect him.’
Sirius was rocking slightly where he sat, staring at the floor, his hands clenched, knuckles white. Remus put a hand out to steady him and he looked up.
‘I found Peter. It didn’t take long - he’d come to find me. I realised afterwards it was all part of the plan. When I cornered him, he yelled for the whole street to hear that it had been me, that I’d betrayed Lily and James, and then he blew the street apart and transformed. I tried to help those people, those Muggles, but it was too late, and then the Aurors arrived and no one would listen to a thing I said. We’d been right, I was the obvious choice for secret keeper, everyone believed it had been me. But of course, in the end, it was me. It was my fault. I convinced them to switch, I thought Peter was the safe option. It never crossed my mind that he could be the traitor.’
It never crossed your mind, because you thought it was me, thought Remus. He almost said it, but stopped himself. Now was not the time for self-pity.
‘How did you know he was at Hogwarts now?’ he said instead.
Sirius drew his own piece of paper out of his pocket, laying it on top of the map where Peter’s name still hovered in Hagrid’s hut. It was a photograph, torn from a newspaper. Remus picked it up to examine it - it was the Weasleys, in Egypt maybe? It was hard to make out the landscape behind them as they filled the frame. Percy, Ron and the twins standing front and centre, Ginny to one side beside her mum, and there, on Ron’s shoulder…
‘It was in the paper, in the summer,’ said Sirius, ‘I recognised him immediately - his front toe -.’
‘I wasn’t reading the paper in the summer,’ Remus said, slightly pointlessly. ‘I didn’t see it.’
‘It said in the article that the children were at Hogwarts, where Harry was. I had to do something, so I slipped through the bars as Padfoot, swam back to the mainland and headed for Scotland.’
Remus couldn’t take his eyes off the photograph. All this time, Peter had been there, right under their noses. And in the care of Ron Weasley no less, sleeping in Harry’s dormitory. He thought he might throw up.
‘He’s Harry’s best friend,’ he said, throat tight, finger pointing to Ron, ‘this boy, in the photograph, they’re inseperable.’
‘Then we need to go now!’ said Sirius, clambering unsteadily to his feet. ‘We need to get back to Hogwarts and find him! Before he does anything to Harry!’
‘Wait,’ said Remus, ‘just wait a minute. What we need is a plan to catch him. If we are going to prove this, then we need to think this through.’
‘Sod catching him, I want to kill him!’ said Sirius, with such viciousness that Remus shrank back a little. ‘I’ve been in prison for twelve years! It’s time I committed the murder I was sent there for!’
‘And then what happens?’ said Remus, suddenly furious. ‘The Dementors take you back and kiss you and then what? Is killing him worth that? What about Harry then? What about me?’
Sirius looked at him, eyes wide as if he was considering something that had never occurred to him before, and then softening ever so slightly. ‘What about you?’ he said, so quietly, it was almost a whisper.
‘We need a plan,’ Remus repeated, gesturing back at the map. ‘I think we need to find him, catch him, and then take all of this to Dumbledore. We need a witness.’ he paused and looked away, ‘One that’s… not a werewolf.’
Sirius came forward then, and crouched back down beside him. Remus thought he might reach out, but he didn’t. ‘OK then, you’re the Professor, what do you suggest?’