Somewhere in his subconscious, he found himself taking a twisting path, along the winding corridors of the Ministry, until at last he came to a small office. Hurriedly, he tried the door “ it wasn’t locked and he knew why: this office and this department were not deemed important by the Ministry.
The Department of Magical Records “ he’d not been here for years. Not since that last day when he’d collected his father’s things because his mother “ as a Muggle “ had been unable to attend. The furniture had long since been rearranged, and where John Lupin’s single desk had been, there were now two tables pushed together. Remus remembered picking up a photograph from the desk of himself and his mother. At the time he’d felt bitter because the picture was old, taken long before he’d been bitten, but now he realised that his father had simply wanted a reminder of happier times.
He wondered briefly, as he looked around, whether his father would approve of his current actions. Deciding that John Lupin would certainly not be amused, Remus smiled grimly and then Apparated out of the Ministry.
“One advantage, you see, Padfoot,” he explained later, laughing, “of being a werewolf and also one who until recently had a responsible job as a professor--” He grinned as Sirius raised one eyebrow sardonically. “”is that I’ve undergone so many checks and counter-checks through the Ministry over the years that the various departments have got bored with me.”
They were sitting under a tree in a small park near Remus’ home, leaning back against the trunk and discussing the events of the night before. Sending a message via his Patronus, Remus had thought the open space of this place would be far more agreeable to Sirius than his basement flat.
“And that meant you could Apparate in and out easily?” Sirius replied. He sounded interested, and Remus was heartened that some of his old friend appeared to be returning.
Remus nodded. “Mmm, I have a level of clearance not enjoyed by the average wizard. Of course, now that I’m no longer employed by Dumbledore, and half the Ministry are convinced I either helped you, ate Buckbeak or both, then I doubt I’d have had another chance to rescue ““He paused and reached under his robes. “- this!”
“OH, Merlin!” exclaimed Sirius. “My wand. My actual bloody wand! How did you“? What did you“?”
“Albus knew where they were kept,” Remus explained. He smirked mischievously. “And I had help from a certain witch of our acquaintance who broke possibly every rule in her new Auror’s handbook to help you.”
Sirius looked alarmed. “Auror? Which bloody Auror is going to help me?”
“Your cousin, Nymphadora Tonks,” Remus replied calmly. “I told you about her last time. She’s as sharp as you are, and as feckless. I’d have brought her along, but she’s currently in St Mungo’s, having Stunned herself with my wand rather too enthusiastically.”
Sirius frowned. For a moment, Remus thought he was going to ask some more questions about Tonks but instead he touched the wand to his lips reverentially. “God, I thought they’d destroyed it!”
Remus smiled again, relishing the delight on his friend’s face as he twirled the wand between his fingers. As Sirius laughed, Remus saw the years and Azkaban’s toll temporarily leave his face. “They don’t destroy them, Padfoot. They wanted to study it “ see if they could fathom your evil mind!”
Sirius looked at the wand in awe, turning it over, touching it lovingly, but then he paused. “If they studied it, then surely they knew I hadn’t used it to kill all those Muggles.”
“They thought you’d disarmed Pettigrew and used his,” Remus replied. He shifted around slightly and began to unpack a rucksack. “Food, Padfoot?”
Sirius grabbed at the pasties and hunks of bread and cheese with both hands. Not hungry, Remus watched his friend and then tipped his head back to look at the stars.
“Can’t see your star tonight,” he said conversationally. “Must be in hiding, like you.”
Sirius swallowed some more bread and then, after swigging some water, he grinned. “You never could find it, could you, Moony? You look too high. Sirius is an exceptionally bright star, seen at sunrise and sunset.” His sudden bark of a laugh made Remus start. “I sound like an Astronomy teacher. It’s too late at night to see, and we’re in the wrong place.”
“Huh?”
Sirius resumed eating, but after a while, he started talking again. “My star is best seen in the Southern hemisphere. It likes the hot weather.”
“Like its namesake,” Remus replied, remembering the lazy days spent by the black lake when they’d all swam and enjoyed the summer sun.
“Mmm,” Sirius agreed. “That’s where I’m heading “ somewhere sunny.”
“When?”
Sirius shrugged. “Not sure, yet. I need to lay a false trail for the Ministry, somewhere far away from Hogwarts ... and then I’ll fly off with Buckbeak.”
Helping himself to an apple, Remus took a bite and munched slowly. Swallowing, he turned his gaze back to Sirius. “Padfoot,” he said slowly. Sirius eyed him warily. Remus ploughed on. “Tonks-”
“No!” Sirius replied sharply.
“You don’t know what I’m about to say yet,” Remus protested.
“You want me to meet her.” Sirius sounded sarcastic.
“Yes,” agreed Remus, adding persuasively as he placed his hand on Sirius’ arm. “What’s so wrong with that?” There was silence so he continued. “She’s not a child any more. She’s not going to be scared of you ... or ... repulsed.” Sirius tried to shrug off his hand but he gripped tighter. “She put her job on the line for you last night. You owe her.”
“I didn’t ask her too!” Sirius muttered angrily. He closed his eyes and this time successfully threw off Remus’ hand. “You’ve just told me she risked her job to help me. I won’t let her do that again. If she tries to meet me she could end up in Azkaban “ do you want that to happen?”
“No, of course I don’t,” Remus said vehemently. There was a long, long silence as he thought about Sirius, Tonks and the risk. He sighed. “You’re right, I know you are, but I know she’d say the risk is worthwhile.” He laughed suddenly. “Sirius Black, I do believe you’re showing caution.”
Sirius stared at him, and then looked away. “I’ve dredged my memories, since you told me about her, trying to remember. Merlin knows my mind is a mess after thirteen years of Dementors. And I do remember her “ or bits of her “ pink hair, then red and Lily ... our Lily... adoring her.”
“She’s not that little girl anymore, Padfoot,” Remus said, his voice as soft as the summer night’s breeze.
“I know and that’s what I don’t want to see ... not yet. Does that make any sense, Moony?” He laughed, but Remus could hear something that sounded like a sob at the back of his throat. Sweeping his long straggly hair back from his face, he leant back against the tree and gazed at the stars. “So, I want somewhere warm to fly to. Any ideas?”
“You could try Romania,” Remus said idly, recognising that the subject of Tonks was closed and finally realising why Sirius would not meet her. “It was hot there “ even hotter with the dragons.”
Sirius shook his head. “Too many wizards. I’d be discovered in no time. How long were you there for?”
Remus reached over and took the flask. Swigging at the cool water, he smiled as he remembered Charlie, Catalina and especially Tonks. “About a year. It was good work. Exhausting, but interesting.”
“Will you go back?”
“I don’t know. I’d like to, but there are other things I need to do first,” Remus said. He handed the flask back to Sirius and staring at him, he continued. “I want to find Pettigrew.”
“Pettigrew!” Sirius looked at Remus and laughed loudly. To Remus it sounded like a howl. “How the hell will you do that?”
“You found him!” Remus declared. “You were locked up, yet you still managed.”
“Because he was stupid enough to appear in a photograph, you dim werewolf,” Sirius reposted. He looked at Remus again, his eyes alight with scorn but also interest and looking far more like his old self. “What are you going to do? Search through the whole sewage system of Muggle Britain?”
“No, no, of course not,” Remus muttered. He was unsure why he’d told Sirius of his plans. He knew there was only a slim chance he’d ever find Pettigrew, but ... “I have to try, Padfoot. I have to do something, and finding that bloody rat is the least I can do ... for James, Lily ... and you.” He paused and rubbed his eyes. “He killed them, and nearly broke you.”
“Nearly?” muttered Sirius mirthlessly. “I think he’s done that already.”
“Nothing is irrevocable, Sirius. You’re not dead, and we know the truth now. Harry knows the truth and he’ll be glorying in the fact that he has a godfather.”
He stopped speaking and leant back against the tree, staring at the stars and the waning moon. He heard Sirius take a swig of water and then sigh.
“Was Harry right?” he asked at last
Remus kept his eyes closed. “Right about what?” he asked.
Sirius leant across and tugged on his arm. “Would Prongs have spared him?”
Remus considered. He thought about the brave and loyal friend he knew, the one who had dared all for his friends. The one who’d worked hard to become an Animagus, who’d helped Peter- encouraged Peter. He thought of James Potter “ Chaser, Quidditch Captain and Head Boy. Popular James Potter, who even the teachers indulged. James Potter who had a habit of hexing people when he was annoyed ... or for fun.
“Harry thinks he’s perfect. Most young boys think their dads are heroes, we both know that. Then, when they grow up, hit their teens, they realise that their dads are just normal men “ with flaws. Harry will never know that. But really Harry didn’t want Pettigrew spared; he just didn’t want us to be killers.”
“You haven’t answered the question, Moony,” Sirius urged. “If Pettigrew had sold us out and it had led to our deaths, would Prongs have spared him?”
Remus stared into the silver grey eyes of his friend, and again considered the question. “Peter was a Marauder. If either of us had died, then James would have handed him over to the Dementors “ or at the very least to the Aurors. He would have tried, I think, to understand. But ...” Remus swallowed hard and said harshly, “I don’t think he would ever have forgiven Pettigrew for the death of Lily. He’d have killed him where he grovelled with no thought to his own freedom.”
Sirius swept back his long straggly hair from his face and chewed on the last of the bread. “Where are you going to look first?” he asked, and this time there was no mockery in his voice or in his eyes.
“Janet Pettigrew,” Remus replied promptly. “He was always close to his mum.”
After spending one night in St Mungo’s, Tonks returned to work and some intense questioning by Rufus Scrimgeour.
“You say there was no one in the APE room when you entered?”
Tonks looked him directly in the eyes. “No one, except for the front desk clerk. At least I didn’t see or hear anyone.”
“Describe again what happened,” Kingsley said in a kinder tone.
She sighed. She’d already gone through this twice, but having rehearsed in her hospital bed, she knew her story off by heart. “I entered the room, took a chit from the clerk for Fletcher’s wand, and then walked to the third aisle to check it in. I labelled it, and then, just as I was thinking about leaving, I thought I heard a noise.”
“The clerk remembers you saying you’d dropped something,” Kingsley continued. He leant back in his chair studying her carefully. Tonks turned away from his sharp-eyed scrutiny and addressed her testimony to Scrimgeour.
I dropped my wand and it sparked,” she said and grinned sheepishly. “Sir, am I allowed to know if anything has been stolen?”
Scrimgeour pursed his lips; he glanced back at Kingsley who was looking at him enquiringly, and then nodded. Kingsley leant forwards “ his elbows on the table between them.
“We believe someone was in the Azkaban wand aisle,” he admitted. He paused. “We’re not sure exactly what’s missing as the objects have all been mislabelled.” He raised one eyebrow at Tonks and she bit back the urge to giggle.
“Did you see anything, Miss Tonks, anything at all?” Scrimgeour’s voice cut across her thoughts.
She took her time to reply, appearing to mull things over in her head. “I saw Jacob chatting to the clerk, sir.”
“You said you heard a noise,” Kingsley said, staring at her.
Tonks dragged her eyes up to his and nodded. “I’m not sure from where though. It could have been Jacob coming through the door. All I remember is hearing a noise, coming out from the aisle and seeing Jacob and the clerk on the floor. Then something caught me on the side and I went down.” She paused. “Who do you think it was in there?”
Kingsley smiled lopsidedly. “Could be souvenir hunters, Tonks. Snatching a felon’s wand to sell on. Some of them can be quite macabre. Or...” He stopped speaking and leant even further forward. Tonks blinked but didn’t move away; this time she kept eye contact. “It could be Sirius Black.”
She laughed nervously but then, correcting herself, she turned the laugh into a bellow. “Black?” she queried loudly. “I don’t think he’d have bothered with Stunners. Wouldn’t he have just killed us all?”
Kingsley raised one eyebrow. “Excellent point, Tonks. But he could have had an accomplice.” He moved his hand down to the table and began, very slowly, to tap his fingers on the surface.
Tonks smiled to herself; she knew exactly what he was doing. It was an interrogation technique that Mad-Eye had shown her “ lulling the suspect with a monotonous beat and then cranking up the pressure with a sudden question. She was surprised at Kingsley; he must know that she knew the manoeuvre.
“You brought in Mundungus Fletcher,” he began. Tap. Tap. Tap.
Very well, Kingsley, if that’s the way you want to play it, I’ll play along, she thought.
“Yes,” she replied, making her eyes dart to his fingers and back to his face. “I suspected he was in possession of a Dark object “ or at the very least a Muggle-baiting one.”
“It isn’t,” Kingsley commented. Tap. Tap. Tap. “Although it may be that the charm has worn off now.”
Tonks morphed a blush on her face. “Oh, how stupid of me.” She glanced at Scrimgeour. “Sorry, sir. What a waste of everyone’s time.”
He acknowledged her apology with a nod of his head. “I don’t think you were actually on duty that night, were you, Miss Tonks?” he said, sounding faintly indulgent. “And Fletcher is known to the Law Enforcement Department so it’s hardly surprising you wanted to bring him in. He’s a sneak-thief, though, and not a Dark wizard.”
“He was friends with Black,” Kingsley stated mildly, and stared at Tonks.
She jumped. Hell, she didn’t mean for Mundungus to get caught up in this. An overnight stay in a cell and not a stretch in Azkaban was all he’d bargained on.
Tap. Tap.Tap.
Tonks breathed again. Classic technique, and Kingsley was good, she had to give him that. “Edwin Savage locked him up in the cell. He couldn’t have got out.”
Kingsley removed his fingers from the table and pushed his chair right back. “True, true,” he mused. “And that would have been far too neat.” He turned his head around to the Head Auror. “Rufus, we’re not even sure what is missing and until we are, we can’t arrest anyone. Perhaps if the wands were perfectly catalogued, then we could move further forward. But for now, all the evidence points at a mischief-maker caught where they shouldn’t be. I’ll lean on my source at Bourgin and Burkes “ see if anything turns up there.”
Scrimgeour considered Kingsley’s words and nodded decisively. “I’ll leave it in your hands.” Then he shot a glance at Tonks. “Perhaps Nymphadora could take charge of cataloguing the wands.”
Tonks groaned as he swept out of the room. Cataloguing wands sounded like the most boring job in the world.
“Count yourself very lucky, Tonks.” Kingsley’s voice cut across her groans.
“What do you mean?” she demanded, very puzzled at Kingsley’s abrupt change in demeanour.
Kingsley assessed her. There was a long pause, and as he stared, Tonks felt as if he were looking right into her mind. She held his gaze. He walked away. “Personally, I’m wondering why on earth you didn’t turn a blind eye to something as ridiculous as a Toby-jug.”
“D-Dark object,” she spluttered, thinking fast.
“I interviewed the suspect and Fletcher told me he was arrested in The Hunchback’s Hump.” Tonks eyed Kingsley warily. “That’s not a Muggle pub, Nymphadora, so how could he have been Muggle-baiting?”
The automatic response to the use of her hated first name did not spring from her lips as she watched him leave the office. Instead, her mind worked overtime trying to work out why he’d let the matter drop when he obviously didn’t believe her.
Standing up, she walked back to her desk, noticing with a faint pang of guilt that Jacob Proudfoot was still looking despondent after his interview with Kingsley and Scrimgeour. As a more experienced Auror, it had been felt that he should have detected an intruder in the APE room. The fact that he’d been chatting up the pretty clerk had not gone down well with the Head Auror, but Tonks thought Kingsley had smothered a smile when he’d led Jacob into the interrogation room. Catching her eye, Proudfoot smiled lopsidedly at her.
“Have you got a detention as well?” he asked ruefully, his tone friendly for a change.
“Cataloguing the Azkaban wands,” Tonks replied and yawned theatrically. “Can’t think of anything more boring. What about you?”
He groaned. “I have to assist that clerk ... what’s her name ... Malafda? Mallady? - you know the one that works in the whatsit office. She sends all those letters out to underage wizards and witches when they’ve used magic.”
“Malfalda Hopkirk, you mean?” Tonks said, thinking of the wispy haired witch from the Improper Use of Magic Department. Jacob nodded. “She used to send me letters all the time. At least you’ll be detecting spells and things, that’s not boring.”
“Er, no, I’m stuck doing the paperwork for a week,” he complained. He paused and leant back in his chair. “At least it’ll be finished by the time the Quidditch starts. Are you going at all, Nym... I mean, Tonks?”
Keeping the surprise off her face, that Jacob had stopped himself from saying Nymphadora, Tonks replied, “Yeah, my dad got some tickets, so we’ll be at the final “ although we have to arrive three days before. I have tickets for the England game as well.”
“Against Transylvania?” He sounded impressed. “How did you swing that? Are you back with Avery?”
Tonks stopped herself from blushing and said, “I’m friendly with one of the former England players “ Martha Macdonald. I’m joining her in the stand where the former players sit.” She grinned. “It should be a lot of fun.”
“I saw Martha two summers ago,” Remus said conversationally the next night. He’d packed a larger bag of food, complete with raw chickens for Buckbeak because Sirius had mentioned that the Hippogryff was eyeing the sheep in the field nearby hungrily. “She was still playing for the Cygnes in Calais.”
Sirius paused as he munched on a slice of cold egg and ham pie. “She played Seeker, didn’t she?” he asked, unsure if his memory of the blonde girl soaring in the air was a real one or not.
“Mmm,” Remus reassured him. “She’s back in England now, plays for the Harpies.”
“Married?”
Remus shook his head, and opening two bottles of Butterbeer, he handed one to Sirius. “She’s become quite friendly with Tonks, you know,” he said slyly.
Sirius raised an eyebrow. “Your conversation has an alarming habit of returning to my cousin’s daughter. Where you always this persistant ... and ... boring, Moony?”
Remus looked away. It was a different place tonight. He’d chosen a run- down area of London that was supposedly being redeveloped, but he’d discovered that the Muggle firm in charge had run out of money and weren’t even employing night watchmen. There were a few tramps sleeping rough, clutching bottles of cheap whisky, and not caring about a couple of equally shabby-looking men.
“Any luck finding Janet Pettigrew?” Sirius asked.
“No. She’s not at the house Peter grew up in, and the forwarding address the neighbour gave me doesn’t exist.” He stopped talking and frowned as he thought about Janet Pettigrew. “We never knew much about her, did we? I can’t even remember if Peter had any other relations.” He stood up and rubbed his eyes. “I knew about the Potters and the Blacks, I even knew about Lily’s family ... but Janet Pettigrew?”
Sirius closed his eyes. “He had a cousin, I think. A Squib.” He opened his eyes and looked startled. “Merlin, how did I remember that?”
“You can’t remember the cousin’s name, can you?”
Sirius shook his head. “Only that he was a boy, the same age as Peter, but not a Pettigrew. Sorry, not much help, am I?”
“Actually, that’s very helpful ... there’s a Squib register, isn’t there? I can probably track him down from that.”
Sirius got up and began to pack the remaining food up in the bag. “I’m going to get back to Buckbeak. I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah.”
“Oh, okay,” Remus replied, surprised Sirius was leaving so quickly. Perhaps the walls of these half-built houses were oppressive to him. “I’ll arrange somewhere else, and send you a message.”
Sirius smiled, and for a moment he looked like the teenage boy at Hogwarts just before he was about to play a prank. “Don’t worry about it. Now I have my wand, I’ll send word to you.”
Remus nodded, and kept lookout as Sirius transformed. Holding the bag in his mouth, Padfoot trotted off past the drunks who were now shouting in their sleep. As he watched the black dog being swallowed up by the darkness, he raised hand in salute. A strange shiver ran through him; he felt as if he were saying goodbye.
The work was boring. As Tonks sifted through the Azkaban wands, checking them against a list from Ollivander, she came across the Cherry wand that had been placed in Sirius’ box. Scanning the list, she realised it belonged to Barty Crouch junior. She remembered the stories about him being sent to Azkaban “ with no real proof of his guilt. Her mum had recounted the trial to her once, how she’d sat there and watched as her sister proudly declared her eternal allegiance to Lord Voldemort. But the Crouch boy, who’d still been a teenager, had screamed his innocence. He’d died in Azkaban, Tonks had found out later, and his dad hadn’t wanted to collect his effects. Carefully she studied the wand, wondering the truth about Barty Crouch. There was a ‘D’ by his name “ deceased. The wand would be destroyed in two years time, fifteen after Barty’s death.
She saw Mr Crouch sometimes at work. He would come in to see Rufus Scrimgeour mainly to discuss foreign visits and the need for Aurors to be present. She wondered how he felt about his son being declared a Death Eater “ then remembered, with a start, that her mum had told her Mr Crouch had presided over the trial.
“It was a horrible sight, Nymphadora,” Andromeda whispered. “That poor boy looked so young and screamed for mercy. Old Crouch wouldn’t give way. He could have had someone else try them, but he said it was his duty “ that no one could exempt him.”
“What if they were wrong?” Tonks asked her mum.
Andromeda scoffed. “The Ministry will never admit to being wrong! And anyway, it’s too late for young Barty; he died in Azkaban.”
“Tonks!”
Peering around the aisle, Tonks saw Kingsley walking into the room, searching for her. “Over here,” she called as she placed Barty Crouch’s wand in the correct box.
“How are you doing?” he asked staring at the boxes piled up to her right.
“Not bad, actually,” she replied and indicating a small pile on her left, she told him, “I’ve only got this lot left to sort through. Ollivander’s list was incredibly helpful. She opened the lid of the box in front of her. It was a black, hard looking wand and she felt a shiver run through her as she picked it up. Through narrowed eyes, she studied the list carefully and then with a grimace, continued, “Bellatrix Lestrange “ of course. I should have known.”
Placing it in the correct box, she closed the lid firmly and then “ as an extra precaution “ she locked it with her wand. “If one Black can escape, then I’m sure the other one will follow,” she explained when Kingsley raised one eyebrow.
“Have you found his wand yet?”
Tonks shrugged and turned away from his intense scrutiny. “Not yet. I suppose it could have been taken. I mean, someone was certainly in here.” She yawned. “Merlin, I’m tired. I think I’ll take a break, if that’s all right with you.”
Kingsley nodded. “That’s fine. I was after you anyway. I need you to go through some paperwork for me, whilst I go on surveillance.”
Tonks groaned silently; paperwork was even more boring than cataloguing the wands. But she had to stay on the right side of Kingsley, who she knew was very sharp. “Where are you going on surveillance?”
“Building site in East London,” he replied vaguely. “We had a report from a source. Possible sighting of Black.”
He was still staring ahead, not looking at her, and so Tonks had time to adjust her expression of utter shock and panic to one of intense interest. “And you believe this witness?” she asked, praying her voice didn’t sound shaky.
“He has proved reliable in the past, but less so recently,” Kingsley admitted. “Name of Shunpike.”
“OH!” Tonks exclaimed, a faint note of amusement in her voice. “Stan Shunpike? He’s the conductor on the Knight Bus. In Hufflepuff but two years above me at school.” She laughed. “He’s a bit of a storyteller, Kingsley.”
They walked across the corridor to the Auror office where Kingsley indicated the paperwork on his desk.
“Yes, I’ve read the background to Shunpike, but I should investigate anyway. He reports seeing two men. He thinks one of them was our man.”
“And the other?” Tonks asked, this time unable to disguise the nervous quake in her voice.
“He didn’t see his face, wearing tatty robes and carrying a bag “ that’s all Stan saw. Mind you, all the Muggles in that area are scruffy, so he could well be mistaken.” Kingsley smiled at her. “Still, I need to look into it before that Skeeter woman accuses us of doing nothing.” He started to leave, but then turned his head around to look at her. “Just fill in the forms and file them for me, will you, Tonks? It shouldn’t take you long, and then you can get back to those wands.”
“Thanks,” she muttered sardonically, but waved goodbye to him before she picked up the report from Stan. She read it in alarm. To her eyes, it looked as if Stan really had seen Sirius ... and the man he was with could only be Remus. Hurriedly, she got up and left the room, desperately thinking of ways to get a message to Remus. He, she knew, used a Patronus to send messages, but she hadn’t learnt that form of communication yet. He wasn’t connected to the Floo network, and the red tape involved in the use of a Ministry owl for an unauthorised message would take far too long.
“Oh, hell!” she muttered. “I’ll have to Apparate.”
Finding a dark corner, Tonks turned sharply on the spot, “Remus Lupin’s flat,” she murmured.
But as she spun, she felt a hand grab her. Shrieking with alarm, Tonks looked at the person holding onto her arm with a Kappa-like grip. It was Kingsley.
“Now why would you be going to see Remus Lupin?” he hissed in her ear.