THE SEARCH FOR LIFE AND DEATH

Chapter XXII

Interlude 1 - What Else Is Happening

The house was too quiet.

Sirius didn’t like the quiet. For all that Azkaban had been filled with moaning and mad screams, the place had been silent of conversation, silent of life. The only noise there had been misery and memories, and here in this house, he was reminded of that silence.

But he was in Remus’ house! This was Remus’ house! He tried to remind himself that the floors were not made of stone but wooden boards. The walls weren’t grey but a lovely shade of cream, accented by a red paper border across the center. There were many windows and though they were spelled to allow no one from outside to see him on the inside, they still let in an ample amount of light, making the rooms seem open and inviting. Absolutely nothing like Azkaban.

Except for the silence.

Sirius was lying on his back beneath the window, right where a wide splash of sunlight was crafting a block of gold upon the hardwood floor. His eyes were open and he was staring up into the blinding rays, watching the dust motes dance through the air, and doing his best to note every bit of warmth the sun was caressing him with. It wasn’t the same as being outside, standing beneath the sun and smelling the chill of coming winter on a cool breeze, but it was a fair sight better than an island in the middle of a relentless sea.

I’m lying in the sun, Sirius thought to himself. He shut his eyes, staring instead at the back of his eyelids, turned pink from the light. I’m lying in the sun and it’s bright and warm. There are birds singing outside and there is a breeze blowing in, bringing with it the scent of pine and wildflowers. I am outside. I’m lying in a field. The grass is tickling my bare arms and Moony is there.

A smile curled across his face at the thought and he could see Remus in his mind, stretched out on his back. They were schoolchildren again, lying in a field surrounded by the trees of the Forbidden Forest. They’d ditched their cloaks over by the trees, and their trainers. Sirius had taken off his shirt and tossed it over the limb of a tree and Remus had rolled up his sleeves to his elbows.

As he watched, Remus rolled over onto his stomach and crossed his arms in front of him, the better to talk to Sirius. He didn’t know what they were talking about, but it must have been something good, because Remus was smiling that honest smile, the one he didn’t give very often and only with those people he knew he could trust with his secrets. He had undone his tie and the loose ends dangled from either side of his neck as he pushed himself up to lean over Sirius.

Sirius said something and Remus laughed, his eyes brightening in that way they did, and he bent down over Sirius, whispering something. His hair was dangling around his face and there was this adorable blush on his cheeks. Sirius’ eyes moved to his lips and he thought that Remus was almost close enough that Sirius could kiss him if he wanted to.

And he wanted to.

He wrapped an arm around the back of his neck to hold him in place and sat up quickly, lips seeking out Remus’.

He met only thin air, rising up out of his dream as he caught his balance in a sitting position. Sirius blinked, startled, and looked around. He saw hardwood floor, dusted grey in the moonlight, the cream walls faintly silver. He sighed and let his head fall into his hands.

Sometimes he missed the dementors. At least when he woke from one of their nightmare-fueled visions, he was relieved, not disappointed.

Reanna Garda* removed her glasses and pinched the bridge of her nose with a weary hand. It had been a long day and an even longer month. She was working through eleven high priority cases at the moment and a few lesser on the side. It was all beginning to take its toll on her and she was very tired.

The seasons were changing, the days already beginning to grow shorter. She needed a vacation, somewhere sunny and warm, where she could lay on a beach and forget about how cruel people were.

Replacing her glasses, Reanna turned back to her desk with a sigh, eyes scanning over the paperwork. She had just received official confirmation of one Dudley Dursley’s successful Obliviation. There had been a brief consideration on what to do with the boy past that and it was decided that he would undergo a series of health treatments, consisting of a strict diet and potion regiment, among other aspects, to bring his weight down to a less dangerous level. He would then be placed with one of the couples who were on file as foster families for Obliviated witness protectees, of which Dudley Dursley was now one. Reanna had dealt with other such cases in the past, but rarely ones so disturbing.

Vernon and Petunia Dursley were both in prison, although that situation was likely temporary at least for Petunia. It had been discussed and appeared likely that she, too, would be Obliviated and sent off with the memories to begin an entirely new life, possibly with restrictions to remain in America. Vernon Dursley, despite the success of the Obliviated Witness Protection Program, was very likely to remain in prison and well away from any chance of his ever getting back to Britain.

Reanna was somewhat ashamed to admit even to herself that she knew contacts that could have him killed and that she had considered forking over the money to have such a man removed from the planet. She had a son of her own and the idea of someone like that breathing the same air as her little boy terrified her.

You’re in the wrong job, Rea, she thought to herself. Why did you ever think this was a good idea?

Because she’d wanted to protect children the way she and her brother hadn’t been, she reminded herself. Because she knew what it was like to feel like everyone was against you, to be scared and alone and have no one on your side. She’d wanted to be there for the kids who didn’t have anyone else. Kids in situations just like the one she had been in when she was little, with just her older brother there to protect her against a family of monsters.

When she’d started this job, she’d thought there would be a lot more interaction with the children, and as a trainee there had been. Once she’d been promoted and given her own office, however, all she seemed to deal with was paperwork and the monsters who had hurt the kids. It just kept hammering against her, the darkness of the world, and she was finding it harder and harder to want to stick with it. It was no wonder these kids never had anyone. The people who wanted to be there for them were locked up in cubicles and hidden away.

Speaking of cubicles, the Dursley house was still tucked neatly inside the corner cubicle of the office. No one had figured out how to return it to its original size or how to remove it from the office, so it had so far remained. Reanna wasn’t overly concerned other than she thought the house likely contained evidence that could be used to convict Vernon and Petunia Dursley and shouldn’t be lost, even if they were both hanging by their toes on the guilty edge of the knife.

And she certainly didn’t want someone other than her department or law enforcement coming upon such information, like a reporter. Wouldn’t that be a treat?

Flipping the file closed, Reanna massaged her left temple. “Mari,” she called out, “where are we on compensation?”

Mari, a thin, short woman with light brown hair and hazel eyes swept into the office with a file in one hand and a cup of coffee in another.

“It hasn’t been officially decided yet,” she said, dropping the file in front of her boss and setting the steaming cup of coffee next to her left hand as she continued to talk, “but they’re calling the thirteen years he’s spent in their care torture, for which the compensation is quite high. The house is probably beyond fixing for him.”

Not that he would likely want to return to that place, Reanna thought, picking up the coffee and taking a large gulp.

“But the lot has been placed on the realtor’s market. Arguments have been made by the commiserations department that the lot should belong to the boy, as well as a monetary satisfaction fee.”

“Harry.”

“Sorry?” Mari asked, confused.

“Harry,” Reanna repeated with a frown. “Don’t call him “the boy.” It’s worse than recognizing him by case number. His name is Harry. Harry Potter.”

“I… yes, ma’am,” Mari replied, chastised. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right, you’ll get it,” Reanna reassured the younger woman. She hadn’t been at the position long and still had a lot to learn, but she was picking up on things quickly. She always seemed eager to learn something new.

“Now,” Reanna said, “if those boys down in compensations need a tie-breaker, then I suggest they combine their ideas and just liquidate the whole shebang. Ignore the house as an aspect at all, no one would want to return to the place where they’d suffered so many bad memories. Sell the lot, sell the Dursley’s stocks, and combine them with the rest of their assets. Award Harry with the lot of it as compensation for what he’s gone through.” She thought for a moment. “On second thought, split the mass in two. Half goes to Harry, the other half to his cousin, Dudley.”

“Dudley?”

“Umm… Bruce, I believe, was his new name. Bruce Thompkins.”

“Right, the protectee.” Reanna nodded as Mari jotted this down on her notepad. “That’s a good idea and might solve some of the arguments about him getting nothing. Split the lot fifty-fifty?”

“They’ve both suffered, just on opposite sides of the spectrum. Compensate them both. The Dursley certainly won’t have a use for the funds where they’re going.”

Mari nodded. “I’ll take this suggestions down to compensations immediately. Is there anything else I can do for you, ma’am?”

Reanna eyed the clock for a moment, thinking of how her son would soon be getting up to get ready for school, and how his father would drive him because she was stuck here at work dealing with wackos who liked to hit their kids.

She glanced back at the pile of files on her desk, the ones with the names Harry Potter and Dudley Dursley sitting on top of ten other files with thirteen more children’s names on them.

She sighed.

“Another cup of coffee when you have a minute, Mari. I’m going to be here a while.”

The Slumber of Ages potion was an incredibly old potion, having ostensibly been crafted around the time of the Hogwarts Founders. As such, a lot of the records about it had been lost, including most of the notes on how (and why) it was initially created. A talented Potions Master, such as Severus Snape, would be able to recreate and even, possibly, alter the potion based on what few notes still remained.

This was what he had done for both Dumbledore and Voldemort, although the two leaders of their sides did not receive the same type of potion.

It was the Slumber of Ages potion, to be sure, but both of them received slightly altered versions to the original. Voldemort received the version of the potion most well-known, which limited the drinker’s time in the Realm decided to seven days before negative effects like starvation began to kick in. The potion that Voldemort received was also not altered to equip creatures beyond normal witches and wizards, so Snape had no idea how it was going to react to Fenrir Greyback.

Frankly, he hoped the potion turned the werewolf’s insides to mucus.

Dumbledore’s Slumber of Ages potion had been altered in a number of aspects. For one, it wouldn’t kill the drinker’s after seven days or if they were unsuccessful in their mission. It had also been altered to accommodate Remus Lupin’s unique brain chemistry and physiology, especially considering that the potion was to be drunk on the evening of the full moon. Snape had needed to make sure the potion could mix well with the Wolfsbane Potion.

There had been other minor alterations made, mostly to make the potion more stable and less dangerous to take. Unfortunately, that had given it a somewhat acidic disposition, which caused it to burn the throat and sinuses of its drinker as it made its way into their system, only ceasing this sensation once the body had begun to metabolize its effects. It was one of the reactions that Snape, due to the time constraints he was working under, was unable to circumvent. He hadn’t appreciated it himself, disliking feeling like his throat was being scrubbed raw.

There were other side effects to the potion that no one had become aware of until after it had been taken. For one thing, it affected people differently if their brain chemistry was altered in any way. For instance, if one was a natural Occlumens or, say, an Animagus. They didn't stay in a constant slumber during the potion's active period, but woke up and fell asleep at completely random intervals. This was, of course, even more dangerous than being unconscious the whole time, as they couldn't go about their regular lives with the potion's effects potentially activating at any given moment. For the most part, they had been confined to Grimmauld Place even during their conscious moments. The only exception had been when Bill and Charlie had snuck out to attend Harry Potter's belated birthday party, for which they had received a stern lecture from Madam Pomfrey.

It had been worth it, though, even if they had been grounded by the medi-witch and forced to remain in Grimmauld Place for the duration of their mission.

It was for this reason that Charlie, Bill, and Severus were sitting at the kitchen table in Grimmauld Place, playing cards. They each had a handful of cards in hand and a bottle of firewhiskey and were doing their best to avoid going stir crazy.

Charlie threw his handful of cards at the table with a snarled, “I fold.”

The not going stir crazy bit wasn’t going so well.

“I’m done, too,” Bill said, flattening his sour hand to the table and pushing the handful of galleons they had been betting across the table to Snape. “You win, O Dungeon Bat.”

Severus’ lip curled in response to the moniker as he swept the galleons in his palm and pocketed them. “If you were still a student of mine…”

“I suspect I would have fled the castle in terror at this point,” Bill interrupted, his lips quirking at his former Potions professor. “You were right terrifying when I was in school.”

Charlie snorted, nodding in agreement. “I was never happier to escape having to take my NEWTs with you,” he admitted. “I hear you’re still scaring the pants off Gryffindors.” He raised an eyebrow, daring the man to lie.

“Your brothers keep you well-informed, I see.”

Bill snorted. “They don’t need to. When it comes to Gryffindor, you’re fairly easy to predict. Although rumor has it the twin terrors have been known to linger in the dungeons even when they don’t have a detention. Imagine that.”

Severus scowled at the two Hogwarts graduates before him. He remembered both of them well - a Weasley was hard to forget. Bill had been one of his best students, completing all seven years of Potions with high scores and going on to gain a prestigious job as a cursebreaker working for Gringotts and traveling the world. Charlie had dropped Potions after completing his OWLs, successfully getting an OWL in the subject but declining continuing his education on the subject. He had gone on to become a dragon handler, a job that, while not as prestigious in the professional world as Gringotts cursebreaker, was still a job viewed with no small amount of awe, especially as there was a level of mystery to be had by those who “wrestled dragons” for a living.

Both of them had been good students who were followed by Percy Weasley, who was not bad at Potions but whom Severus did not like because of the holier-than-thou attitude he carried with him everywhere. Of course, Severus generally handled Percy Weasley by ignoring him whenever possible and this seemed to work well for them both.

It hadn’t worked for the Weasley twins.

Fred and George Weasley, the twin terrors of Hogwarts, were a bane upon Severus Snape the moment they were sorted.

Severus had never liked pranksters. James Potter and his lot of pranking Gryffindors had turned him off of that type of behavior sharply, nevermind that Severus had always been a very serious person, even as a child, having little time for pranking as he focused on his studies and tried not to draw too much attention to himself - a plan which hadn’t worked very well, considering he was the main focus of the Marauders’ humiliations.

When he discovered that is was the Weasley twins who had been pranking the school students (and professors), Severus had very nearly lost his temper completely. It was only halted by the fact that he had never been subjected to one of these pranks and by the fact that the house to suffer the majority of the pranks had been Gryffindor, the twins’ own.

Instead of confronting the two pranksters, Severus had watched, waiting for the opportunity to come when the twin terrors would perform a prank that they would need to be immediately reprimanded for and their prankster habits dealt with swiftly and decisively.

But it was third year before Severus had any interaction with the twins outside of the Potions classroom and brief passings in the halls.

The two had come to his office one day after lunch to ask if they could use the potions labs to practice some potions they weren’t sure of. Severus hadn’t been certain of how to respond. Yes, the duo were a couple of pranksters, a fact well-known throughout the school by this point, but three years of watching the two of them and listening to rumor mills and hearsay had told the professor that though the twins pranked people constantly, they did so under the limitations of a sort of code.

For one thing, they pranked everyone. Teachers, students, first years, seventh years, regardless of House or age or blood status. They even pranked ghosts, though how they had managed to turn the Bloody Baron yellow and make him smell like banana muffins flummoxed Severus to this day.

They never pranked someone while they were on the Quidditch pitch; that seeming to be sacred ground to the two Gryffindor Beaters. They never pranked anyone who was in the middle of anything delicate, like trying to tame a beast in Care of Magical Creatures, hold a spell steady in class, or brew a potion, all of which could be dangerous if something was added incorrectly or the delicacies of the brew upset. They also seemed to take a perverse pleasure in using their pranking as a means of conditioning against bad behavior. Severus had heard numerous tales in the staff room of students coming to them because a fifth year Ravenclaw or a fourth year Gryffindor was teasing one of the younger years and for the professors to seek out these bullies, only to find that they had been pranked in the most interesting of ways.

One person, who had insisted on calling one of the first year Hufflepuffs a rather foul word, had been hexed to sprout white feathers all over their body and to only be able to speak for a few seconds before their speech dissolved into clucking and crowing.

In another instance, a Slytherin third year who had hit a second year in the head with a textbook, causing a concussion, had found his own head attracting every textbook they passed within three feet. It became so bad that the student ended up hiding in a disused broom cupboard for two days before Professor Flitwick finally found them and removed the attraction charm.

In both instances, the bullying habits had ceased abruptly after the prank, and while Severus had never cared for pranking, he liked bullying even less. If he had to choose between the two, he knew which one he would prefer.

There was also the fact that, with everyone else in the school being pranked regularly, Severus and his Potions classroom had never once suffered in three years.

He had chosen to make a deal with the terrors, that they could use Potions Lab 3 whenever they wished, so long as they promised that Severus and his classroom would remain beyond the reach of their pranks. The twins had agreed and Severus had never had a problem with their pranking, as per their agreement. In fact, the only problem he had with the twins was the fact that while their classwork was acceptable, their pranking prowess and successful brewing in Lab 3 suggested that they could have taken their NEWT Potions exam in fifth year and passed with Os.

No amount of his badgering would change their actions, however. Not if rumor of the Weasley matriarch’s temper was true and she had failed to budge them. There was no animosity between Severus and the twin terrors, unlike between he and the youngest Weasley boy and his group of Gryffindor miscreants, like Potter. Severus had no intention of upsetting this delicate balance he had going for him and setting another set of Marauders loose on Slytherin.

This was the twin terror’s final year at Hogwarts, after all. He hoped it would be a calm one.

Rita Skeeter had not been having a good summer. It had begun, after all, when she was captured by a fourth year Gryffindor and imprisoned in a jar, trapped in her beetle form. It might have gotten better if she hadn’t been kept in that jar all summer, forced to eat the leaves and sprouts dropped in for her and to be treated like a bug that a small child had captured and was keeping as a pet, instead of as the highly-successful reporter that she was.

Worse than that, however, was the fact that Rita’s plans for after her release from her prison were quickly being wiped from possibility. The girl who had captured her, Hermione, had tried to strike a deal with Rita - she would release the beetle animagus on the condition that the reporter never write another scathing and untrue article about her friend, Harry Potter, The-Boy-Who-Lived.

Of course, Rita refused. How could the girl expect her to give up her rights to write juicy articles about such a goldmine of a child? The boy was practically a blank slate just waiting for people to fill in the blanks, and filling in the blanks was what Rita was good at. Awkward silences during interviews were nothing when you had a mind like hers. She knew how to make an interview shine.

Except now, with Rita having refused the deal, it seemed unlikely that she would be turning out any more shining articles. In fact, from the look on Hermione Granger’s face, Rita wouldn’t be coming out of that unbreakable jar anytime soon.

The beetle animagus shook her forelegs as another leaf was dropped into the jar for her to eat. She had never wanted a cheeseburger more than right this moment.

“It looks like I’m going to have to find a better home for you than this,” Hermione said thoughtfully, and Rita really wished she could speak in this form. She had a few choice words for the stupid Muggleborn.

But Rita had been given her chance to say the right thing and she had refused, so now the plans had changed. She was still a beetle in a jar and Hermione was a girl with a wand in one hand and a quill in the other.

Rita knew from personal experience that the latter was the more powerful weapon, and knowing someone else was aware of that scared her half to death.

Rita took a contemptuous bite out of the leaf. If she ever got out of this stupid jar, the first thing she was getting was a cheeseburger.

The second thing was revenge on a certain Muggleborn.