Chapter 8
There were witches abroad in Ottery St Catchpole.
And a few wizards, for that matter.
They moved quickly and quietly through the silent streets in twos and threes, their footsteps scarcely making a sound on the damp cobbles, their breath barely misting in the cold night air. The sky was dark and empty of stars, and the moon was hidden behind the black clouds. Their wands lit the way ahead, bobbing and weaving through the rows of sleeping houses and shuttered shopfronts. They passed through layer after layer of the protective magic emanating from the hill on which the Burrow concealed, and the pressing silence was welcome in its reassurance that there were none present under false pretences. This was the witching hour; the time in the night when the sheep were asleep in the fields, when owls ghosted through the trees and cats stalked along high walls and rooftops. The air hummed faintly with power, the sacred gathering of a scattered coven.
Then Henry Bones slipped in some wet leaves and went down with a yelp, which kind of spoiled the vibe.
"For Merlin's sake, Henry," Valerie Abbott sighed, as if she hadn't done the exact same thing not ten minutes ago. She grabbed his hands and hauled him to his feet.
"Don't blame me, blame these damn muggle shoes," Henry huffed, shaking off Valerie's attempts to brush the leaf-mulch off his coat and hopping on one foot while he tried to scrape clean his shabby-looking brogues. "Who in their right mind makes shoes with slippery soles?"
"You could have chosen better ones," Harriet Vance told him reasonably, appearing out of the shadows with pants-shitting suddenness. Then, "Merlin wept, it's me you jumpy gits, get your wands out of my face."
"Do you bloody mind not doing that?" Henry asked her irritably.
"I'm just saying, no one's forcing you to dress like a down-on-his-luck history teacher. Look at you, you've got elbow patches."
"She's got a point," Eleanor Johnson agreed, wandering up with Emmeline and Catriona in her wake. "Muggles make all kinds of shoes. Did you know they make ones specifically for running in?"
"Really?" Valerie asked, impressed. "Wow. Why don't we have those?"
"How is it that everyone's suddenly an expert in muggle fashion?" Henry demanded. "Have you lot been talking to Ursula?"
"Talking to Ursula about what?" asked Ursula from just behind his shoulder.
There was a pause while they watched Henry recover, clutching his heart with the look of a man who dearly wished he'd just stayed home and taken over the family shop as planned. After a few moments, he straightened up and met their entertained grins with a glare.
"Least favourite food?" he asked through gritted teeth, knowing full well that the security questions were essentially redundant at this point but not particularly caring.
The others humoured him.
It had taken the Order most of the week to contact all their scattered comrades and get them rounded up, especially since most of them had spent the past few weeks either apparating far too many times a day (a practice which invariably caused significant strain on the nerves), or being subject to Ernie the Knight Bus driver's cruel and unusual braking habits (a practice not dissimilar to taking a bludger to the back of the head).
Things only got worse once the last stragglers arrived at the Burrow. The house was shaking dangerously with the amount of people thundering about, and the first thing they were greeted with in the entryway was the ceiling, as a mattress with four or five children on it came shooting down the stairs at a speed probably illegal in most inner-city zones. It barrelled straight into the newcomers and knocked them down like dominoes.
"Sorry, sorry!" Arthur Weasley shouted, charging down the stairs after them. "What have we told you about mattress surfing?" he barked after his children as they scrambled away in various directions, laughing hysterically. "Martin Miggs is not a role model! Charlie! Bill! Come and take this back upstairs this instant!"
He was ignored. Arthur sighed heavily and allowed Valerie to help him wrestle the mattress up against the wall so the others had room to start picking themselves up.
"Shouldn't they be in bed?" Henry grumbled, pushing Ursula's foot out of his face and clambering out of Catriona's lap, and then staggering when they both used his coat to pull themselves to their feet.
"Ideally, yes," Arthur said, removing his glasses and rubbing his eyes. "All the chaos has them a little over-excited. Come on through, they're setting up in the living room. Oh, and mind the doorframe, it's rigged with a small explosive and we can't work out how to defuse it."
"Merlin, who did that?"
"Fred and George. Mad-Eye's been teaching them about defending against home invasions, and they've taken to it rather enthusiastically."
"I thought they were only three," Harriet said, confused.
Arthur looked at her with the sort of resigned dread usually reserved for environmental scientists and pessimistic soothsayers. "Yes," he said. "Yes they are."
They managed to file into the living room without setting anything off. The space was already at standing room only, with most of the available seats being taken up by exhausted off-duty aurors. Proudfoot was sprawled on the floor with the look of someone who had spent a full week wrestling hippogriffs, or possibly dealing with Ministry bureaucrats. Savage was giving her a shoulder rub. Even Kingsley, usually so efficient with his energy that the other junior aurors revered him as some sort of master of time management, was leaning against the arm of the sofa with drooping eyelids. Ursula did a double-take and went over to annoy him into sitting up straight.
"It's a bloody nightmare," Frank Longbottom was saying to the room at large, slouching forwards on the couch and digging the heels of his hands into his eyes. "We're barely getting any of the convictions to stick. Most of them are claiming Imperius, even Macnair and the Carrows, and we can't prove they weren't under the influence without the alleged spellcaster's wand, which of course has mysteriously disappeared-"
"And the last of the loyalists are all holed up in unplottable houses," Alice added, suppressing a yawn. "We think they've been planning something in the Lestrange mansion, we were going to try and draw them out tonight, but-"
"Longbottoms! stop sharing classified information with the civilians!" Moody barked from across the room, making Alice jump.
"Sorry, boss! Won't happen again!"
"Constant vigilance, we know," Frank added hastily, recognising the expression Moody got when he was about to start ranting.
"Hmff," Moody grunted, and went back to staring out of the window, eyeing the horizon suspiciously.
McGonagall took the floor before anyone else could start commiserating and clapped her hands loudly. "Now that everyone is here," she said over the chatter. "We have a fair amount to get through, so we may as well get started. Miss Johnson, Misses Vance, if you'd please get everyone caught up?"
Somehow, Sirius and Remus managed a whole week of trawling through Wales without making eye contact, trading off caring for Harry and speaking only when necessary. By the time they reached their last stop, a small town not far from the mountains, Sirius was completely closed-off unless interacting with Harry (who luckily was enjoying flying everywhere so much that he didn't seem too affected by their bad moods). Remus was exhausted from too many nights of fitful, interrupted sleep. Both of them were tense, miserable and more than a little pissed off by the time they managed to find a guesthouse and transfigure enough cash to pay for it.
"Can you please just fucking relax?" Sirius snapped eventually, the night before the full moon, after Remus jolted awake for the fourth time since she'd handed off the watch. "What possible reason could I have for putting up with this shit for so long, Remus? If I was going to try something I would have done it by now, you know that."
Remus growled in frustration and scrubbed her hands over her face. "Can't switch it off," she mumbled. "Just-" she put up a hand when Sirius started to say something else. "Just shut up, please. I know, okay? I fucking know."
Sirius glowered; it was easier to be angry that Remus wasn't letting go of her fears when she clearly knew they weren't rational than it was to be hurt by the lack of trust. She considered trying to state her case again, calmly and logically, but was distracted by Harry whimpering in his sleep and turning over. She spent a few minutes making sure he was settled before she looked back across the darkened room. She could just make out Remus' silhouette, sitting up in the narrow bed with her elbows propped on her knees, forehead resting on her crossed forearms. She looked completely drained. In spite of herself, Sirius felt a twinge of sympathy. This was starting to feel familiar.
"It's not just me, is it?" she guessed. "It's the moon as well."
Remus breathed out slowly and leaned back. Her head dropped against the wall behind her with a 'thud'. "Both," she admitted. "The moon's making everything worse, it's all - I can feel it-"
She cut herself off, screwing up her face and jerking her head as if trying to shake something loose. Sirius grimaced - she remembered the way Remus had described the feeling in the past, the way the wolf clawing to the surface inside her made everything feel too loud, too intense and invasive, like sandpaper on the senses.
She used to know what to do when Remus got like this. They'd figured out a system years ago, her and the others. James would crack jokes. Peter would make tea. Sirius would put music on. They'd all sit up together into the night, talking and laughing, playing drinking games or planning pranks for as long as it took for the tension to leave Remus' shoulders, for her to smile properly, for her to ignore the scratching in her head and focus on looking forward to the part where the four of them would let loose and raise hell tearing through the forest.
Of course, that had all gone out the window with everything else once the war had scattered them across different cities and hideouts and Remus started spending full moons with the werewolf packs she'd infiltrated. Sirius could only think of one thing that might work now, a small and pretty stupid idea that she couldn't quite dismiss. She turned it over in her head, weighing up the risks, measuring her anger against the desire to chase that warm, easy feeling she'd glimpsed before she slipped up on the train out of Manchester. The memory of it glowed like candlelight against the fog of grief and stress that surrounded everything else; small moments where they hadn't just been going through the motions, falling back into old habits because they didn't know how else to interact. For a minute there, it had been real.
Merlin, but she wanted to get that feeling back. She wanted Harry to know what happy, functioning people looked like. She wanted the twisting sensation in the bottom of her stomach to go away. Even if it meant sacrificing some of her pride. Even if it meant being a little bit vulnerable.
She went back and forth for what felt like hours, but eventually made up her mind. She leaned over one more time to make sure Harry was properly asleep, tucked in safely with all his protection spells in place. She stood and double-checked the perimeter, the wards around the windows and door, ignoring Remus' questioning glance. Then, without saying a word, she slipped into her other form.
Padfoot climbed up on the bed next to Remus, nosed through the bedding and flopped down alongside her. This form always made it difficult to focus on details, but she heard the choked noise Remus made, half-laugh and half-sob. She felt a hand bury itself in the fur on her head. Her tail thumped briefly on the mattress, unbidden.
"I'm so fucking tired," Remus confessed quietly to the still air, her voice breaking just a little. "I'm tired of not trusting you. I want to sleep. I want my friend back."
Padfoot shifted her head so it was leaning against Remus' hip, a warm, solid weight. She made a small whuffing noise and hoped Remus understood what she was saying; I'm here. I'm right here.
The living room of the Burrow was unnaturally quiet. Everyone was staring at Dumbledore with expressions ranging from disbelief to annoyance to outright anger. He was standing at the front of the room with his hands clasped behind his back, looking thoroughly unconcerned.
"Thus, to recap," he was saying. "Based on the interrogations of Evgeni Rosier and Vincent Addle, and the additional information acquired by our friends in the auror department, it has become our working theory that Sirius Black's primary objective in abducting Harry Potter was not to deliver him to the Death Eaters. This is supported both by the fact that the remaining loyalists have been trying and failing to find and attack our fugitives since Halloween, and by the fact that Black's movements have not changed in accordance with the denial tactics now being adopted by the majority of You Know Who's followers."
"We are working under the assumption that, as Harry's legally-appointed godmother, she is instead concerned with the question of the boy's guardianship," McGonagall added. "Remus Lupin's negative reaction when I filled her in on the plan to grant custody to Petunia Dursley also offers plausible explanation for why the two have decided to work together despite their recent estrangement."
"In light of all this, we are turning our attention to the increasing likelihood that Peter Pettigrew has played a much larger part in this, ah, fiasco, than previously thought," Dumbledore finished.
There was another lull while this sank in, until Ursula broke the silence.
"So what you're saying, professor," she said in a tightly controlled voice. "Is that we've spent the best part of a fortnight apparating all over the country, chasing down two scared young women who were only trying to keep their friends' baby safe? For the sole reason that you are astoundingly terrible at respecting custody law?"
"That would be the long and short of it, yes."
"Right."
"Hang on, there's something I'm not understanding," Henry cut in. "If what you say is true and Black did pass the primary secret-keeper role onto Pettigrew, why wasn't this considered a possibility before?"
"Probably for the same reason Black would have picked him in the first place," Kingsley said, rubbing his jaw contemplatively. "She saw him as as trusted friend, but she also would have known how everyone else sees him - all of his tactics so far in this war have relied on him being underestimated and overlooked. The possibility that he could have been anything more than a bystander caught in the crossfire didn't even enter our heads."
"We were making assumptions which didn't allow us to explore every avenue," Dumbledore agreed. "But now perspective allows us to factor in Black's increasing paranoia, the fact that she has been near the top of the Death Eaters' kill-list since she joined up, her falling-out with Lupin... if she thought she was compromised, it would make sense that she saw Pettigrew as the safest option for a replacement secret-keeper."
"Wait," Alice Longbottom said, leaning forwards with a frown. "So far I've not heard any hard evidence to suggest that Peter was even involved in this, other than the fact that no one can find him and he has some dodgy informants."
"She's right," Moody said. "This is all circumstantial at best and outright speculation at worst. If he's the traitor, we need some facts to work off."
"The facts are as follows," Dumbledore said. "Pettigrew has not returned to his last known hideout since around a week before the attack in Godric's Hollow, and has not checked in at any of his alternate rendezvous-points. We presumed that this was because he was dead, but we now know for a fact that he is alive. We also know that he was aware of an imminent attack in the week leading up to it, and that he has been paying his informants far better than the Order's budget or his own income would allow, indicating an alternate source of revenue. We questioned the goblin who handled most of Pettigrew's dealings at Gringotts and discovered that a significant amount of money was deposited into his vault by an unknown figure. Going by the goblin's patchy recollection of the transaction, we are almost certain that the imperius curse was involved."
"That still wouldn't be enough for a conviction, especially not with most of the Death Eaters denying everything left, right and centre," Savage said.
"We'd need him in custody and under the influence of veritaserum to get a confession that holds up in the Wizengamot at this point," added Frank. "And for that we need to find the git."
"Ah, yes. We were afraid of that."
The aurors stared at Dumbledore with apprehension.
"What does that mean?" Proudfoot asked.
Dumbledore exchanged an uncomfortable glance with McGonagall, and cleared his throat. "It has come to our attention that Peter Pettigrew is an unregistered animagus," he said, to general uproar.
"Oh, Merlin's balls," Frank groaned somewhere in all the shouting. "What does he turn into? I bet it's a pigeon or something, we'll never find him..."
"That makes so many things so much harder," Proudfoot half-wailed, burying her head in her arms.
No one bothered to try and restore order. In the chaos, McGonagall sidled up to Dumbledore and murmured, "I take it we're staying quiet about the werewolf issue for now?"
"At the risk of spreading further alarm and despondency, that would be wise, yes," Dumbledore replied. "I think we would need Madam Pomfrey present as a character witness, and there's only so much of her annual leave she's willing to spend on our nonsense, as she puts it."
"And she's completely certain there's nothing to worry about? The full moon is tomorrow, Albus."
"Poppy monitored every one of Remus Lupin's transformations over the course of her adolescence. If she says that Lupin would never even entertain the possibility of being in a position to endanger other people, least of all a child, I am inclined to believe her."
McGonagall sighed, but nodded all the same. In the background, the mayhem had subsided slightly. Molly Weasley had appeared at the sound of anguished groans and was taking people's tea requests. Alice filled her in on the situation while Henry took his time deciding if he wanted chamomile or something "proper".
"An animagus?"
"That's right. He's probably off hiding in a forest somewhere," Alice said miserably over the sound of Henry loudly debating with Valerie over whether or not it was acceptable to drink breakfast tea at night. "We're doomed."
"I wouldn't be so sure," Moody said, causing every head in the room to swivel in his direction. "If I were Pettigrew, I'd want to keep an eye on the situation, make sure no one was onto me."
"What, you think we'll just stumble across him trying to eavesdrop on the Burrow?" Savage scoffed. "Not everyone's as paranoid as you, Mad-Eye. Face it, if Pettigrew's the traitor, he's long gone."
Moody ignored him and turned to Molly. "Seen any strange-acting animals about?" he asked.
When Molly didn't immediately dismiss him, the rest of the room turned to stare at her. She was pursing her lips worriedly.
"What kind of animal?" she asked.
"A rat," Dumbledore said, watching her carefully. He saw it when her expression shifted.
"Right," said Molly, her voice slightly strangled, as if she were doing everything in her power to hold back a lot of horrified shrieking. "Right. Um." She swallowed. "Yes. You may need to talk to one of my sons."