Chapter 7
Sirius came storming back into the room not long after nightfall and threw two stolen brooms down on the floor.
Remus shushed her harshly, pointing at Harry, who was curled up asleep in one of the beds. Sirius didn’t react, but she did move more quietly as she took off her jacket and sat down on the other bed, the mattress squeaking and popping under her weight.
She had a cold, blank, haughty expression on her face that Remus had only seen a few times, but knew far too well all the same. It was the same look she’d had all those months ago when they’d seen each other last, just before she snapped.
It was the same one she’d had after she left Grimmauld Place for the last time, sitting tight as a wound spring in the Potter’s front room, clutching a cup of tea but not drinking it, cheek still stinging red from Walburga’s slap while James’ parents fussed over her.
It seemed almost instinctual, the way Sirius would develop a rock-solid exoskeleton when she was feeling vulnerable or threatened, relying on it to keep her upright, to hide every crack in her armour. She used what came easily to her, what she’d grown up with, what she’d been internalising since day one.
Remus could understand it, as defence mechanisms went – she did the same thing when she needed to, would let her accent get thicker and rougher, would contort her face just so to let her scars stand out, would growl and cuss the way she’d learned collecting glasses at her uncle’s pub as a kid. She knew exactly how to glare at someone in a way that said she was just waiting for them to make a wrong move so she could drive a corkscrew through the back of their hand.
Sirius knew how to keep her face so painfully neutral that everyone in the vicinity would end up watching her warily, terrified for the moment she finally made an expression, because that was generally the moment shit would go sideways (often literally, knowing Sirius’ spellwork). She’d once made a Slytherin twice her size almost piss himself using only her eyebrows.
(Prongs had been in awe and begged her to teach him. He definitely couldn’t pull it off, seeing as James Potter in his worst moods was about as threatening as a hyperactive – if dickish – yorkshire terrier. But it had made Lily Evans laugh, which more than made up for it in his head).
Now that Remus was on the receiving end, she could see exactly why Sirius had been able to swagger through school all those years without once worrying what people thought of her, what they were whispering behind her back. If she didn’t know what Sirius looked like with a dungbomb going off in her face, or screeching about a clump of Drooble’s stuck in her hair, or laughing so hard she snorted firewhiskey up her nose and had to be taken to the hospital wing, she might have even been scared herself.
As things were, she wasn’t feeling particularly sociable either. She got out the map and her lunar calendar and sat down on the end of Harry’s bed, muttering her way through a few navigation spells until Sirius spoke up.
“Where next, then?”
Remus chewed on the inside of her cheek. “Wales. We can start off in Cardiff and work our way inland over the week.”
“And when the week’s up?” Sirius asked harshly, like she was forcing the question out of her lungs.
Remus let out a sharp breath through her nose and circled an area on the map, holding it out so Sirius could see. “Cambrian Mountains. Huge place, low population, decent amount of forest. Basically perfect for a full moon. Might put some sheep in danger and run into another werewolf or two, but it’s the best I can do right now.”
Sirius studied the map with a clenched jaw. “What about Harry and I?”
“You… you two would stay behind. That bit of the mountains is pretty much inaccessible, no roads, no towns. They call it the Desert of Wales. I’d have to apparate in and out.”
Remus didn’t bother trying to mask her reluctance.
Sirius swallowed and leaned back again. “Okay. We finish Harry’s shield and set off first thing. Before sunrise.”
“Good fucking thing we didn’t put in an order for breakfast,” Remus muttered as Sirius lay down and turned on her side, resolutely facing the wall.
“You might have mentioned earlier that you had access to veritaserum,” McGonagall said dryly, watching Albus tip the potion into the water jug he’d requested. “According to Alice Longbottom, the Ministry have locked down all their stores for use during the trials.”
“I wasn’t sure that I did. The acquaintance I procured this from is not the most reliable source,” Dumbledore said absently, stirring the mixture and returning it to the tray Madam Rosmerta had delivered earlier, mumbling about plausible deniability in her own bloody pub as she pointedly avoided looking at anything that was happening in her back room.
Pettigrew’s informant hummed to himself where he was sprawled on the floor, his head and shoulders propped up against the wall. They both glanced over at him and he gave them a slow, dazed smile.
McGonagall sniffed. “The confundus will wear off shortly. We should get started.”
Dumbledore nodded, and waved his wand. The informant was lifted off the ground and dragged over to the table they were standing next to, flopping into one of the waiting chairs like a puppet whose strings had been cut. His head lolled alarmingly – McGonagall sighed and went to stand behind him.
“I’ll prop him up, you help him drink.”
They did their best, but a fair amount of veritaserum-spiked water still ended up dribbling down the informant’s front. Regardless, his eyes lost the glazed quality that came with a confundus charm and took on the peaceful apathy of someone under the influence of a truth potion.
“Is your name Vincent Cornelius Addle?” McGonagall asked, to establish that the potion was working.
“Yeah,” Addle said, his voice much softer than his unkempt appearance would have suggested.
“Do you own a pub in Knockturn Alley known as the Newt Catchers Arms?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you associated with a man named Peter Pettigrew?”
“Yeah.”
“Have you been working for him as an informant for the past year?”
“Yeah.”
McGonagall nodded, satisfied. “He’s finally cooperating.”
Dumbledore dragged the other chair over to sit opposite Addle, looking him directly in the eye.
“What sort of information have you been providing Mr Pettigrew with?”
“Whatever he wanted to know. Who was stopping by the pub. What was getting said about people – the aurors, the Death Eaters, You Know Who. Sometimes he showed me pictures of people, asked if I’d seen them around Knockturn Alley, and if I had who they’d been talking to.”
“And these pictures, they were all of Death Eaters?”
Addle shrugged. “Some of ‘em. Others I didn’t know, reckon they were outsiders. Didn’t look like the sort to be hanging around my pub, unless they were spying like him.”
Dumbledore eyed him contemplatively. “The Death Eaters and their associates must comprise most of your customer base. You knew he was working against them?”
“Yeah.”
“And yet you still provided him with intel? Why?”
“He paid well. Never said where he got his money, but he always met my price, and then some.”
Dumbledore looked up at that, frowning, to meet McGonagall’s eye. She looked equally confused, but raised her eyebrows in a way that said they should set the matter aside until they could talk freely. He nodded and turned back to Addle.
“When was the last time you had any contact with Mr Pettigrew?”
“Couple of weeks ago.”
“What happened?”
“He came by the pub, had me meet him out by the bins like usual. Was even twitchier than normal, told me something was happening.”
“He didn’t say what?”
“No.”
“Did he ask you for information?” McGonagall asked.
“No. He gave me a sneakoscope and an envelope.”
Dumbledore frowned again. “Did he say what they were for?”
“Yeah. He said the sneakoscope was special, wouldn’t work like normal, which was good because it would’ve been whistling all the live-long day ‘round my pub. He said if it did start whistling, I should find his mum and give her the envelope. Then he paid me.”
McGonagall leaned forwards to peer at him. “Did you open the envelope?”
“Yeah. Thought it might’ve had more money in it, but there was just a letter.”
“Did you read the letter?”
“Only the first bit. It was for his mum, said if she was reading it then it meant Pete was dead. I stopped reading after that. No good in reading another man’s death letter, you’d prolly go blind.”
Dumbledore and McGonagall both straightened up to look at each other over Addle’s head.
“And has the sneakoscope been whistling?” McGonagall asked, without taking her eyes away from Dumbledore’s.
Addle reached into his pocket and came up with a small, bright, completely silent object. He waved it around unsteadily. “No. See for yourself.”
McGonagall took the sneakoscope to examine while Dumbledore leaned back in his chair, lowering his glasses to consider Addle further.
“Was that the entire transaction?”
“Yeah.”
“How did he seem when you parted ways? Was he relieved? Afraid?”
Addle shrugged. “Couldn’t tell,” he said, blinking slowly.
“Did he say where he was going next?”
“Nah. Didn’t say anything after he gave me the money.”
“You’re sure?” Dumbledore pressed. “Nothing about any associates? He didn’t mention anything about Sirius Black?”
Addle shook his head again. “Nothing. He just waited ‘til he thought I wasn’t looking, then he turned into a rat and ran off.”
The sudden, vacuous silence in the room was only broken by the loud thud of the sneakoscope hitting the floor.
“Suddenly, a lot of things make a lot more sense,” McGonagall said faintly.