Parting Ways
by Morgan D.

"Collier Street, Godric's Hollow!"

Stan Shunpike's yell was loud enough to wake up the dead, but Remus Lupin didn't even stir. Biting his lip, Harry shook him by the arm. "Professor? Professor Lupin? We're here."

The werewolf opened his eyes immediately. Despite his obvious exhaustion, he looked very much alert. One glance out the window and he was already on his feet, urging his former pupil to the door of the Knight Bus.

"Greatta see you again, 'Arry!" exclaimed Stan. "Ainnit, Ern?"

The driver waved to the boy, who returned the gesture with a yellow grin.

Lupin rested a hand on Stan's shoulder and said in a grave, confidential tone, "I'd appreciate if you would keep Harry Potter's presence in Godric's Hollow to yourselves. Understand?"

Stan blinked, exchanged a startled look with Ernie, then nodded effusively. "Ar, sir, we know 'ow that sortta fing is, don't we, Ern? We won' say a word."

"Thanks," Lupin smiled, and led Harry out of the bus.

The two walked in silence down the quiet street, toward a large terrain encircled by tall walls of buff flagstone. Crookshanks' ears could be seen sticking out from the bag the boy carried over his shoulder — a backpack borrowed from Dudley, who had been willing to give Harry anything when he was told that there was a werewolf in the house.

Only after hearing the clamorous BANG of the triple decker's departure did Harry murmur to his companion, "They won't keep it to themselves. Even if they do, there were a dozen passengers that heard him say my name loud and clear."

"Good. I'm counting on them to spread the word."

"You are?" Harry frowned. They certainly didn't seem to be travelling incognito. Muggles might not be able to see the Knight Bus, but Harry knew there was always someone from the Order watching over him at Little Whinging, and Lupin had flagged the Knight Bus right in front of number four, Privet Drive.

The werewolf had fallen asleep two seconds after lying down on the bed Stan had chosen for him, so Harry hadn't had the chance to ask him about that. Or about any other details of their enterprise, for that matter. At any rate, even if Lupin hadn't been in desperate need of rest, the crowded vehicle wasn't the place to hold a conversation beyond the absolute trivial. So Harry had sat on the next bed and withstood Stan's animated chatter, ignoring the passengers' stares under the excuse of keeping an eye on an also slumbering Crookshanks.

"The Order must be very unhappy about my taking you out of your aunt's house without Dumbledore's permission," said Lupin. "They'll be looking for us."

"What am I, a prisoner? You sound as if they might accuse you of breaking me out of jail!" Harry readjusted the backpack on his shoulder a bit too briskly, being rewarded with an indignant hiss of a now wide-awake Crookshanks. "Sirius was in the Order too, wasn't he? Wouldn't they want to...?"

"Sshhh," Lupin hushed. "Not so loud."

Harry looked around discreetly. There were only a few people out in the street, and no one seemed to be paying them any mind. Judging by the Crups, Jarveys and Fwoopers in the gardens, they were in a wizarding neighbourhood, so Lupin's robes weren't that conspicuous there. "Wouldn't they want to help us? If they knew what we intend to do?"

"Tell me the truth, Harry. Do you sincerely believe my story?"

"Er..." The boy winced. "I don't think you're lying or anything like that."

"But do you believe we can do what I told you we can?" Lupin insisted.

Harry decided it was a good time to pay attention to the irregularities of the sidewalk. In all honesty, he wasn't all that confident in Lupin's tale, especially since he hadn't understood a word of it. Apparently the man had had some sort of mystic revelation after ingesting hallucinogenic beads dissolved in the water of the lake at Hogwarts, and was now convinced that he knew how to cast this unconventional spell to bring Sirius back from wherever he was. Not the most encouraging or creditable tale, but what did Harry have to lose anyway? If there was an infinitesimal chance to save his godfather, he simply had to try it. And Lupin had never let him down, had he?

Furthermore, it wasn't like the tale of Sirius' death was any more creditable or fathomable. He had vanished after stumbling through a blasted curtain, dammit! There was no body, no explanation, no nothing! So if Lupin had showed up in Privet Drive babbling that a white rabbit had told him that they would be able to resurrect Sirius if they managed to win a chess match against the Queen of Hearts, Harry wouldn't have hesitated before following his former teacher down the hole to Wonderland. He had seen far weirder stuff since being admitted to Hogwarts...

Lupin seemed to think Harry's silence was eloquent enough. "I'm glad you're willing to come, even if you think I'm... well... off my rocker," he smiled fondly. "Unfortunately, our other friends are more likely to think I've gone mad with grief, and that I'm filling your mind with unachievable delusions. As a matter of fact, I'm counting on them checking with the bus driver and coming to the conclusion that the grief over my best friend motivated me to bring you here." They had got to a broad gate between the flagstone walls. A silver-plated sign formed an arc on the top of the entrance: McKenna Cemetery.

Harry's eyebrows were knitted together as he pushed to the back of his mind the memories of the graveyard where the Riddle family was buried. This place was totally different, bigger, cleaner, more magnificent-looking, and not at all scary in the morning light. Still, it was a burial ground, a place to store the remains of the dead, and Sirius had left no corpse behind. So what were they doing there? He asked no questions though, and followed Lupin silently inside.

However, the werewolf didn't go far in before crouching behind a large gravestone and pulling Harry down with him. "Sorry, Crookshanks," the man murmured, unhooking the backpack from Harry's shoulder and letting the cat out. "Time to stretch your legs a bit."

Crookshanks leapt to the ground, yawning, and sat between Harry's feet.

Sticking his hand inside the bag, Lupin pulled out some of the contents they had packed before leaving Privet Drive: Harry's school hat, Uncle Vernon's old reading glasses and one of Aunt Petunia's hair rubber bands. "Make sure the brim covers your forehead," he said, setting the hat on the boy's head.

While Harry did his best to conceal the lightning-shaped scar under his fringe and the brim of black felt, the werewolf used the rubber band to tie his own hair up in a ridiculously short ponytail, using spit to tame the locks that escaped. That made the white strands much more visible, and with Uncle Vernon's glasses to complete the picture, Lupin looked over two decades older than he really was.

"You think that's enough?" Harry asked worriedly.

"No." Lupin pulled his wand from his robes and took a deep breath. "Simple charms... shouldn't wear me out," he mumbled just before tipping the frame of the boy's spectacles. "Fuscate vitrum."

The world suddenly went darker, as if night had fallen between blinks. An instant later Harry realised his spectacles had been turned into sunglasses. "Blimey!"

"Can you see like this?"

"Yes." The spell hadn't affected the lenses' properties or gradation. "Nifty spell."

"It's a short-term charm, it'll be gone in four or five hours. Now what's your least favourite colour?"

"Erm... pink?"

"Brave boy," Lupin laughed. "Roseus Colorate."

Harry's blue, overlarge tee shirt — a hand-me-down from Dudley, of course — was now painfully bright pink. "EWW!"

"It's for a good cause," the werewolf reminded him. "Purple trousers to go with it?" Without waiting for Harry's opinion, he flicked his wand again. "Tyrianthinus."

And purple the trousers became, causing Harry to wonder if pink was really his least favourite colour after all. "Gosh, if Ron sees me like this..."

"Someone who wears the Chudley Cannons' colours shouldn't be allowed to say a thing about taste," Lupin snorted.

Harry eyed his former teacher with an evil sneer. "Oh, so orange is your least favourite colour, isn't it?"

He was glad to see the man flinch. "Oh, all right, fair is fair. Flavesco." Another twirl of the wand, and Lupin's robes had been turned from muddy green to flaming orange. "Good grief, I'm going blind..."

"It's for a good cause," said Harry, deadpan.

"I'll make Sirius wear red polka-dot robes when this is all over, I swear."

"I know the Colorate charms wear off in about forty minutes. What about the others?"

"They're from a completely different branch of Remodelling Charms, I'm afraid," Lupin sighed. "They'll need a counter-spell."

Which meant that the purple trousers and the orange robes would probably stay that way until their mission was completed — or officially defeated —, since Lupin could not afford wasting his already scarce energy with unimportant things. However... "We don't look that much different from how we came in, Professor."

"As long as we look somewhat different." Standing up, Lupin hid his wand and Dudley's pack inside his robes. "Now just give your arm to your old grandpa and let's get out of here."

Harry let the man lean heavily on him, and he couldn't help wondering if it was all an act or if the Remodelling Charms had indeed exhausted the werewolf that much.

Your godfather would have thrown a fit if he saw me out of bed so soon. Harry worried about how much magic would be necessary to bring Sirius back to life. A werewolf the day after the full moon, and an underage wizard who wasn't allowed to perform magic during the holidays... Would they be up to the task?

They stepped out of the cemetery back to Collier Street, while Crookshanks climbed onto the flagstone walls and followed them from up there. Still no one in the vicinity seemed to pay much attention to them. Garish colours were not at all unusual for wizard garments — Harry remembered overhearing some animated quarrel involving Hermione, Lavender and Parvati about whether Muggle clothes were discreet and pragmatic (Hermione's opinion), amusingly exotic (Lavender's) or just plain boring (Parvati's). He felt odd wearing such lively colours near a graveyard, but then Harry wasn't even sure if black was the colour of grief among wizards.

"Hmm... Prof... I mean, Grandpa?" said the boy in a low voice.

Lupin's effort not to laugh was noticeable. "Yes?"

"Why did we come here?"

"Like I said, our friends must be wondering where we are. They'll find only natural for me to bring you here."

"To a cemetery?"

"We're grieving. That's where grieving people come to grieve."

"But the one we're grieving for isn't here, is he?"

"The one we're grieving for has left nothing behind that we could grieve over," Lupin replied grimly. "Our friends know this very well. So this is the best next place I could have brought you to."

"Why?"

The man glanced at him with some surprise showing on his face. "I thought you knew. Your parents are here."

The two of them almost fell over when Harry stumbled on his own feet. "Th-they are?"

"Haven't your aunt ever brought you to see their graves?"

"She won't even say my parents' names," the boy hissed between gritted teeth. He gazed back at the large iron gates from which they were walking away, longing to run back there... but Lupin, perhaps sensing this, held his arm more firmly, tugging him down the street.

The tombs of his parents. What would they be like? James and Lily Potter had died as heroes to the wizarding world, martyrs of the war against Voldemort... Would the community have built a grand memorial for them? Would there be epitaphs on their gravestones? Would they mention the baby son they had left in this world?

It was getting increasingly hard to walk forward.

"I wanted to bring your godfather here," Lupin told him. "I thought it would have helped him to... to move on, I suppose. Alas, there was never an opportunity."

"But there will be, right?" Harry pulled Lupin's arm, urging the man to look at him straight in the eye. "You will bring us both here pretty soon, won't you?"

The older wizard held the boy's gaze for a moment, then nodded solemnly. "You have my word."

Crookshanks only came down from the wall when his two companions crossed the street, and followed them two blocks down the street in an uneven pace: sitting still and licking his paws now, dashing ahead of them the next moment. Harry wondered if the cat knew where they were going, or if he was just as confused as Harry himself.

Lupin guided them to a small red-bricked shop, with several old broomsticks on display behind the dusky windows and a sign saying Rent-a-Broom over the door. "Here we are."

Harry escorted him inside, not exactly surprised. It was unlikely that Lupin had magically shrunk the Firebolt and told Harry to keep it in his pocket if they were going to make the whole trip to wherever they were going in the Knight Bus. And although one broom could hold two people — and maybe even a cat —, the extra weight would make it too slow and unreliable.

An auburn-haired man with a rather professional smile rushed from the back of the shop to meet them. "Good afternoon! May I help you?"

"We're looking for a broom for this boy," answered Lupin, patting Harry's shoulder paternally. "Nothing fancy, just until tomorrow morning."

"Quidditch? Racing? Trekking?"

"Racing, I'd say. Always challenging your cousins to beat you to Filey Bay, aren't you?" Lupin grinned proudly at Harry, much the way Uncle Vernon always did at Dudley.

The salesman examined Lupin up and down, clearly estimating how much this new customer would know about brooms, and how many galleons those threadbare clothes might be holding in their pockets. "I have some Tinderblast models over here," he said, indicating the display to their right. "And this is of course the latest Shooting Star."

Harry pretended to examine the Nimbus collection near the door, trying to mask his annoyance. Obviously the git was being very pessimistic in his estimates; the latest Shooting Star model had been released in 1978! At least he could have offered a Swiftstick, or one of the newer Comet models...

1978... His father had finished seventh year by then, hadn't he? And he had been the captain of the Gryffindor team... What kind of broomstick had he used then? And Sirius, had he played too? He had never mentioned it... and Harry had never asked, had he?

"Don't you have anything more stable?" Lupin was asking. "Up to long distances, I mean. Maybe an Oakshaft 520?"

With a heavy sigh, Harry looked around, searching for Crookshanks. The cat had stayed at the door, staring outside attentively, looking remarkably like a guard dog. Was he trying to impersonate Snuffles? Well, those two had spent a lot of time together. Perhaps Crookshanks had even got to know Sirius better than the man's own lousy, selfish, bothersome godson...

"Howard? Come take a look at this one, will you?"

"Er... sure," the boy blinked, hurrying to Lupin's side.

Howard. If he had to change names, couldn't it have been for a better one?

The salesman was reciting a preposterously overrated praise of the speed and aerodynamics of a decently preserved Oakshaft 555. There were scratches all over the handle, but the birch twigs of the tail were fairly aligned, if a bit jagged. "Fourteen Galleons and twelve Sickles until tomorrow at noon. Thirteen and six, if you bring it back before nine o'clock. Half now, half on return. And of course, I'll need an adult to endorse the leasing pact."

"Of course," Lupin nodded. "Do you have my wallet, Howard?"

Harry promptly handed the werewolf his own leather sack of gold. He had paid for the trip on the Knight Bus too, since Lupin didn't seem to have a single Knut on him. The salesman opened his hand to receive six coins of gold, eleven of silver and fifteen of bronze, while Harry marvelled at how quickly the two men had calculated the half of thirteen Galleons and six Sickles. Even after five years among wizards, the teenager still had trouble with the conversions.

"Your sleeve, sir," said the salesman, fishing from his pocket what seemed to be a rubber stamp.

Lupin pulled up the left sleeve of his robes, exposing a pale arm with a broad, strange-looking bandage around the wrist. The salesman gave him an odd look but kept his curiosity to himself; he stamped the inner side of Lupin's arm, imprinting the logo of the shop in crimson ink about three inches from the elbow.

"Tomorrow, nine o'clock, sir. Have a good day."

"Thanks. Let's get going, Howard."

As they were about to leave the shop, Crookshanks let out a hissing growl, his fur bristling wildly. He was staring up the street with a fierce scowl on his squashed face. Frowning at the strange behaviour, Harry followed the direction of the cat's gaze... and gasped.

A female frame with slender limbs and short sea-green hair was standing right before the gate of the cemetery. A second later, three other figures had Apparated beside her.

Nymphadora Tonks, Dedalus Diggle, Elphias Doge and Molly Weasley. Four members of the Order of the Phoenix.

"Come, quick!" Lupin snapped under his breath, pulling Harry by the arm. They hid behind a hedge in the narrow lane between Rent-a-Broom and the flower shop beside it.

Crookshanks jumped into Harry's arms, almost making him drop the Oakshaft. "Ouch!"

"Hush!" Lupin urged him. "They've got here faster than I'd expected."

Through a breach in the hedge, Harry tried to see what the four newcomers were doing. Mrs Weasley ran inside the cemetery, Diggle right on her heels. Tonks and Doge stayed outside, looking around, talking to the few pedestrians passing near the flagstone walls.

Struggling to balance a long broomstick and a heavy cat in his arms, Harry tried to reach his wand... but stopped as soon as he felt the wood between his fingertips. Using magic now would only make things much, much worse. It wouldn't be just the Order, then; the bureaucrats from the Improper Use of Magic Office would also be coming after him. "What if they find us? I know you said they won't believe your story, but..."

"And they won't. Tonks might give me the benefit of the doubt; she liked Sirius, even if she didn't know him that well. But Molly will say I'm ill or crazy or stoned, or all the above. And the others will probably back Molly up on this."

"So what are we going to do? You can't hold them off all by yourself!" Four against one were rough odds, even when the latter wasn't falling from fatigue.

"Are you that eager to hex your best friend's mother?"

Harry grimaced. He was eager to hex half the world and blast the other half into non-existence. Mrs Weasley, despite all the jumpers, pumpkin pasties and motherly hugs she had given him, made part of that world of people he couldn't quite forgive now, for all the animosity against Sirius, and for using the word 'love' to bind him to her authority.

She wasn't like Dumbledore. She had in fact helped Harry to make his stay with the Dursleys slightly better, sending him food and other stuff, and had even sheltered him when his guardians became insufferable. Still, if once he had been willing to accept her affection unquestioningly, now he had been introduced to a reality where love and good intentions consorted shamelessly with sordid manipulation and secret agendas. And he wasn't only The Boy Who Lived, a silly epithet he had done nothing to earn. He was also Dumbledore's beloved weapon, the one in the prophecy, the one destined to be the murderer of the Dark Lord — or die trying. He was the poor love-hungry orphan everyone wanted to beguile and manipulate.

He didn't want to harm Ron's mother. He didn't want to have to explain to Ron something like that, didn't want to put yet another chasm between him and his friends. But for Sirius... if he had to...

Tonks was talking to Doge now, and gesticulating. She pointed right to the spot where they were hiding.

Lupin dragged him down, and they both sat on the cement ground, Crookshanks lying unnaturally quiet on Harry's legs. "Clever girl," the werewolf whispered, peeking through the hedge.

The boy was becoming more and more uneasy with the situation. They were about to be spotted — by a frigging Auror, no less! —, and now they were crumpled to the ground, where they would be sitting ducks. Even clumsy Tonks would have no trouble stunning them both with a single spell. "The Cloak!" he murmured urgently.

"Too much noise," Lupin hissed, and Harry was unsure whether he was talking about their chatting or about the task of getting the Invisible Cloak from the bottom of the backpack that the werewolf had hidden under his garments.

Harry craned his neck, trying to have a glimpse of the street through the thick hedge, but his former teacher was holding him tight. He managed to see a brief blur of sea green as he heard high-heeled footsteps on cement hurrying closer... then stepping onto wood and going mute.

Tonks had entered the broom shop.

Harry turned to Lupin, who smiled and pressed a finger to his lips.

As if the whole of Britain weren't capable of hearing Harry's heart thumping madly in his chest.

They couldn't hear a sound coming from the shop. Was it protected by Silencing Wards, like Flourish and Botts in Diagon Alley?

Minutes passed, or was it hours? Crookshanks was growing increasingly heavy on Harry's legs. The boy had already mentally listed five ways of disabling a person with an old rented broomstick, but had yet to come up with one that would work on a wand-armed adversary.

Eventually, more hurried steps approached, coming to stand right on the other side of the hedge, only two feet away from their hiding place. Harry could actually see Mrs Weasley's dawn-tinted skirts through the leaves.

"We've searched the whole place," announced Diggle, agitated. "No sign of them."

"I've talked to this girl in front of the Potter mausoleum," added Mrs Weasley, sounding out of breath. "She's been in vigil there since the Ministry acknowledged the return of You-Know-Who. Praying for the spirits of the martyrs to protect us all, she said."

Harry winced. Of course there would be lunatics worshipping at the grave of the parents of The Boy Who Lived, what had he expected?

"Anyway, she's been there all morning and she didn't see anyone that fitted their descriptions," said Mrs Weasley. "Where's Tonks?"

"In the broom shop," Doge's wheezy voice informed them. "She thinks they might have been there."

"She did, huh? For crying out loud, why couldn't Alastor have come instead?"

"Give the lass a chance, Molly," said Diggle.

"How can they have disappeared like this?" Mrs Weasley huffed. "Harry's face has been all over the press for the past few months, if anyone needed to know how he looks like now. Someone would have recognised him!"

"They could be disguised," Doge suggested. "Remus has his wand."

"Oh, Elphias, you haven't seen him!" said Mrs Weasley. "Those potions Professor Snape had me giving him turned his brains inside out. He probably doesn't even remember he's a wizard."

Harry's eyes widened. Snape?

"He had enough presence of mind to kidnap the Potter boy right under Dedalus' nose," Doge pondered.

"Hey, it was Remus!" said Diggle defensively. "And he looked fine enough when he greeted me, before entering the house..."

"I don't even want to think of what sort of crazy ideas he might have put into Harry's head," Mrs Weasley snapped. "Isn't it enough that that godfather of his had to get himself killed and break the poor boy's heart... Remus was always the sensible one!"

Had to get himself killed. Harry was gritting his teeth so hard he could almost hear them scraping. Did she honestly believe that Sirius had decided to drop dead because he was bored? Couldn't she at least concede that the man had died trying to be helpful? Trying to give a hand beating the bad guys? Trying to do what everyone kept saying he didn't have the guts to do? She could cross the country to save 'poor Harry' from 'loony Lupin', but when Sirius tried to rescue his godson...

Crookshanks was looking up at him, scolding him with those big yellow eyes of his, which seemed to glow ominously through the dark lenses of Harry's spectacles. Maybe he was making too much noise with his teeth.

"Sad thing," Diggle was saying. "I've seen it happen before. Remember Glenda Aegrimony, that girl that worked in the Leaky Cauldron? Was out of her tree after her fiancé was killed. Just couldn't accept it, you know? Drowned herself in the bathtub six months later. Sad, sad thing."

"Goodness, Dedalus!" Mrs Weasley screeched. "Keep your stories to yourself, will you?"

More sounds of high heels on concrete, and Tonks' voice cut in sharply. "They were here."

Harry cringed. So much for Howard and his old grandpa...

"You're sure?" Mrs Weasley asked her.

"They were wearing disguises and using false names, but I'm positive it was them. They rented a broom. We must have missed them for no more than ten minutes."

Doge cursed viciously, then quickly asked the ladies to forgive his impolite outburst.

"Any idea where they went?" asked Diggle.

"Remus specifically asked for a fast broom for long distance travelling," Tonks muttered. "And anti-Glumbumble wards."

Mrs Weasley sounded like she was having trouble breathing. "No... they can't..."

"They'll be flying over the Wykeham Forest then," Doge snarled. "Only place around here that's so infested with them that could be a problem for flyers. They're going south..."

"Back to London," Tonks agreed. "Damn, I hate when Mad-Eye is right."

"But how... what are they thinking?" Mrs Weasley was panicking. "They can't possibly think they can bring him back, can they?"

Harry felt icy water running inside his veins, freezing his heart into numb hopelessness. They knew. They knew and they would never let him or Lupin try to...

"Out of their tree, I told you," Diggle insisted. "Just like old Glenda."

"They might be going back to Surrey though," Doge cogitated, in a tone that implied he wasn't giving much credit to his own supposition. "Maybe Remus came back to his senses and is taking the boy home."

Tonks' voice sounded hollow and dispirited. "He'd have contacted us and requested an escort, then. A sensible Remus would know he's too worn out from last night to protect Harry all by himself." She rubbed a slender heel on the cement sidewalk. "No, it's just like Mad-Eye said. They're going to try and break into the Death Chamber again."

"Oh Merlin, we've got to stop them!" Mrs Weasley yelped. "If they try and go through the veil..."

"Now calm down, Molly," Tonks soothed her. "They're just minutes ahead of us. We can Apparate and Harry can't, and Remus seems determined to take the kid with him. The Oakshaft 555 might be pretty fast in a straight line, and along with Harry's Firebolt they can make really good time, but it's not like we can't outrun them."

"We can gather more people and form a blockade just past North York Moors," Diggle suggested.

"What if they escape the blockade?" Mrs Weasley stomped her feet on the ground. "What if we miss them entirely?"

"Mad-Eye and Kingsley have our people watching the Ministry since you warned us about Remus' disappearance, don't they?" informed Tonks. "And your husband is keeping an eye on everyone going down to the Department of Mysteries. They won't let anyone near that veil, so don't worry so much. Harry will be all right. Remus wouldn't do anything to put him in danger."

"He's already done that," snarled Mrs Weasley.

"Let's go," Doge urged them. "We have to warn Mad-Eye."

Three crack sounds, an "Oops!" from Tonks as she dropped her wand and caught it back, then a fourth crack... and Harry started breathing again.

"That went well," murmured Lupin, leaning back against the outer wall of the broom shop.

"Well?" the teenager gasped. "Didn't you hear them, Professor? They know exactly where we're going and what we're trying to do, and they already have a squad or something waiting for us there." And they were convinced Lupin was out of his mind, an opinion Harry was beginning to consider more seriously now as he saw the man close his eyes tiredly and grin.

"Mad-Eye is always prepared for the worst," the werewolf replied.

Was there an emphasis on that last word? Harry waited for the other to say more, but nothing came.

Alastor 'Mad-Eye' Moody was known for his acute paranoia and for going to great lengths to ensure protection from all sort of attacks. Barty Crouch and Wormtail had together managed to subdue the retired Auror and all his defences in his very home, so that should prove he wasn't prepared for all contingencies. But sure, he was prepared for the worst at all times. People made fun of him because, well, not everyone that came near him had murder plans in mind, so his extreme precautions seemed highly disproportional at times. It was in his nature to expect everybody to be an impostor in disguise, waiting for the chance to do something horrible...

And then, finally, the penny dropped. "We're not going to London," Harry stated, knowing that there wasn't the need to make it a question.

"No, we're not."

"But you knew he'd think we would because that's the worst thing we could do..."

"Well, he probably also considered the possibility that I might be a Death Eater, or that the wolf's mind might be affecting me even after the Change and I'm about to devour your entrails," Lupin smirked. "You learn a lot about people by playing chess with them. He's a tough enemy, always wondering if you're trying to trick him or not. But he's not very good at the 'he-wants-me-to-think-that-he-is-going-to-think-that-I-am-going-to-think-that-he-is-going-to-attack-from-this-side' thing. He sees too many possibilities and tries to be prepared for everything, and really, that's just not humanly possible."

"And you knew that he'd go to London and wait for us there instead of coming after us? So we wouldn't have to worry about him looking through walls and hedges and spotting us?"

Lupin let out a nervous laugh. "Uh, no, I was expecting Mad-Eye to come. But not so soon that we'd still be here to be spotted. I thought we would be well on our way when the Order got here. Either those guys in the Knight Bus gave us away faster than I had anticipated, or the Order figured it out on their own." He looked Harry in the eye, a mix of fear and exhilaration on his face. "We were very, very lucky."

Ironically, the boy felt more at ease after Lupin's confession. For a moment, he had thought he was again in the company of another master manipulator. Now, Lupin didn't look very different from the Weasley twins tricking Umbridge out of her office so Harry could use her fire.

"I thought we were going to London from here." Harry admitted. "Actually, I thought we were going there from my uncle's house, but then you asked the driver to bring us here."

Lupin pulled the rubber band off to loosen his hair again, and used the hem of his sleeve to dry the sweat off his forehead. "No, London isn't on our travelling schedule today. Out of my tree or not, I know better than to try and sneak into the Department of Mysteries less than a month after it was raided by Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters."

"So we're not going to... go through that veil."

"Definitely not."

Crookshanks leapt to the ground and started clawing the laces of Harry's plimsolls. The boy watched the cat for a long while, afraid to put the next question into words, afraid the answer would sound as rational as 'winning a chess match against the Queen of Hearts'. "So... how are we going to find Sirius?"

Lupin opened his eyes to give him a very amused look. "Think about it, Harry. If in the whole country there were only one door to enter the realms of the dead, there would be more Englishmen living in this world than stars in the Milky Way."

Harry chewed his lower lip, wishing Lupin would make an effort to look more sober. "There's only one star I care about."

"The brightest in the night sky," the werewolf nodded. "Shouldn't be too hard to find. Here, this is yours." Lupin was handing him back the now almost empty leather sack Harry had lent him to pay for the broom. "Don't worry. You'll have your money back soon."

"Doesn't matter," Harry shrugged, and he meant it. If gold could buy the life of his godfather back, he was willing to offer the entire contents of his vault at Gringotts to the deities of death. Harry knew it probably wouldn't be that easy, though. "What is that thing in your arm?"

"Bandages. Firenze saw to my injuries this morning."

"No, I mean that stamp thing."

"This? Just a leasing pact. Never seen one before?"

"No."

"Very practical. Either I'm back here tomorrow at nine o'clock to have this removed — and only the same stamp can do that — or the ink will start eating my flesh away."

Harry's stomach twirled in horror. "But... there's not enough money left in the sack for when we return the broom! We'll have to go to Gringotts..."

"That won't be a problem."

"What do you mean, that won't... Your arm! If we don't..." A chill ran down Harry's spine. "Will we even come back here? To return the broom?"

"I don't think we'll have to, no."

"Because we'll be dead?"

It all came to that, didn't it? The only way of getting to Sirius was following the same path...

"Optimistic, aren't you?" Lupin snorted. "No, we'll be alive. At least I think we will. We won't have to return the broom because we'll never had rented one in the first place."

"What?! How? Are we going to change the past?"

"That's impossible. What we'll do is take the past someplace else and have it rebuilt." The former teacher got on his feet with some difficulty, taking the Oakshaft from Harry and leaning on it as if it were a cane. He took off Uncle Vernon's glasses, and the boy noticed that the circles under his eyes were getting even darker. "Time to de-shrink your Firebolt, Harry. We're flying to meet our star."

As experienced as Harry was with flying a broomstick, he had never used it for a long journey. His longest route so far had been the trip from Little Whinging to London the year before, and then he had had the advance guard to guide him. His other experience in lengthy flights had been going to Hogwarts in Mr Weasley's Ford Anglia, when he and Ron had simply followed the train tracks from above.

So this was the first time Harry had to acknowledge his lack of navigation skills. He had the vague idea that they were going north, or maybe northwest, and away from the Order's blockades. Other than that, he was completely lost. He didn't even know if they were still over England or if the hilly landscape around them already belonged to Scotland. And the contents of his conversation with Lupin were far too intriguing to allow him to pay attention to their itinerary. "Snape was drugging you?"

"Regularly. Since the next day after the battle in the Department of Mysteries. Some kind of anguish-numbing potion, or maybe a beatitude serum. No mild stuff, I'll say. My recollections of the last month are considerably blurry."

"Do you remember meeting the Dursleys in King's Cross, when the term ended?"

"Vaguely. I remember thinking your uncle was a very agreeable man."

"Man, were you stoned!"

Lupin laughed. "How did I look to you?"

"Er... okay... A bit tired, maybe, but..."

"Not like a man who had just lost his best friend."

Harry bit his tongue, remembering the resentment he had felt to see Lupin looking almost indifferent to Sirius' death.

"Those potions might have saved my life," Lupin sighed. "The wolf is aware of my emotions when I Change, so by numbing my sorrow before the full moon, they made sure it wouldn't tear its own body — my body — into pieces."

"Why would Snape care if it did? I thought he hated you."

"Does he? Well, it wasn't his idea. He was following the Headmaster's instructions."

Harry wished he could see Lupin's expression now, see in his eyes what his true opinion of Snape and the Headmaster was. But the Disillusionment Charm made it impossible to see more than the bleary silhouette of the older man embossed in the clear blue summer sky. "So Dumbledore was just looking out for you? You really believe that?"

"Yes, I do," said Lupin.

But Harry detected some hesitance there. "You do?"

"Which doesn't mean I wouldn't have preferred being consulted before having all those potions poured down my throat," the other conceded. "It's one thing to have my fate designed by a higher power, and another to have my peers making decision for me."

Harry failed to see much of a difference in the two scenarios; it seemed to him that both came down to trusting others to decide what was best for them, and Lupin himself had said before that the powers behind fate sometimes didn't even have a good plan. "I used to think Dumbledore had no peers on Earth..."

"I meant existence-wise, of course," Lupin amended. "No one is up to his level in this world, as far as I know. But he's subject to the whims of countless fates, just like us. And according to Firenze, he knows that and doesn't like it."

"Doesn't like anyone deciding things for him, does he?" Harry snorted.

"I'm not sure if that's the problem. What Firenze told me was that there is one fate that greatly favours the Headmaster, and that he resents the others."

Crookshanks stuck his head out of the backpack, which Harry had now attached to his chest, giving his camouflaged profile what must look somewhat like a pregnant woman's belly. The cat, clearly upset about being so distant from solid ground — although they were flying relatively low to avoid the chilling temperatures —, was making his contempt very clear by hissing rancorously every few minutes in the werewolf's general direction.

At least Crookshanks knew exactly who was in charge, whom to blame for his distress. Lupin had again tried to explain the vision he had experienced, and Harry had genuinely tried to understand the meaning of the soundless, ever-changing scenes between the strike of the waves. However, the more he thought about it, the more he felt Lupin was indeed talking about parallel dimensions, about different realities where history had taken different turns, just like in the television shows. But then the man would start prattling about communicating fates, fates that drifted apart from each other because of either deference or malice, and about how some fates were sometimes arbitrarily aborted, causing the universe to freeze in mid-motion forever. At that point Harry started wishing Hermione had come along; she could often translate their teachers' lecture into something more intelligible. And that was so frustrating! He had never had trouble understanding Lupin's lessons back when he was teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts.

On the other hand, Harry could already hear Hermione trying to persuade him to give up this enterprise, saying it was too dangerous, and listing about two hundred reasons why he shouldn't trust Lupin — even if she always had — and why the best thing for Harry to do now would be sit back and do his summer homework. No, Hermione here and now would be more hampering than helpful, even without her constant criticising of Sirius.

The world shone brightly before Harry on that instant, and he had to squeeze his eyes to block the sunlight; the charm to darken his glasses had worn off. Wow, had they really been flying for that long? "Won't the Order warn Dumbledore that you've... kidnapped me?"

"Must have been the first thing they did when they find you gone."

"And you're betting he'll believe we're going to London too?"

"I won't deny it's a very risky bet... but yes, I am. Because of Snape."

"Of Snape?"

"He genuinely trusts Snape," said Lupin, sounding oddly amused. "And all the Order's conjectures about my state of mind are consistent with what he knows Snape has done to me. The only thing Snape has to explain is how I managed to escape Grimmauld Place last night. I'm rather curious about what he's come up with."

"You reckon Dumbledore will be at the Department of Mysteries too, waiting for us?"

"He might. On the other hand, with Lord Voldemort and the Death Eaters running loose in Britain, I doubt he would have left for Beauxbatons if he didn't have important business to deal with over there." Lupin shifted on his Oakshaft, looking for a more comfortable position. "Besides, even without beatitude serums or post-Change fatigue, the two of us would not stand a chance against the Order, no matter how disorganised the group might seem sometimes. There's very little reason for Dumbledore to get personally involved in your... rescue."

Harry gazed at a distant mass of clouds on their right, thinking of the times Dumbledore had left him to fend for himself, the times he had discreetly aided him from backstage, and the times he had effectively joined the fight. He wished he could see a clearer pattern in the Headmaster's behaviour. "So we don't have to worry about Dumbledore trying to stop us?"

"I sincerely hope not, Harry. That's not a battle we'd be able to win."

It felt weird to be playing against Dumbledore. It also felt so right to be on the opposing team this time, which made the situation even weirder. The word that came to Harry's mind was 'liberating', even if the thought of having the Headmaster as an enemy was far from heartening.

On the other hand, given the nature of the mission they were trying to accomplish, Dumbledore was possibly the least of their problems. So far, everything seemed to have conspired to keep Sirius away from Harry's life. There had been so many 'if only' factors in his godfather's path... If only he had been the Potters' Secret-Keeper... If only the Ministry had given him a fair trial, or Veritaserum... If only Lupin had remembered to take his Wolfsbane Potion the night they had captured Wormtail... If only Sirius had told Kreacher to go to a specific room of the Blacks' house instead of just yelling, "Out!"... If only their timing had worked a little differently and Sirius had not been tending to Buckbeak when Harry used Umbridge's fire to call him... If only Harry had seen Kreacher for the danger he represented, instead of trusting his word... If only he had opened the package Sirius had given him and found the two-way mirror, so he wouldn't have needed to use the fire in the first place... If only super-bloody-powerful Dumbledore had used that same invisible-line spell with which he captured a Death Eater to keep Sirius from falling through the veil... If only Harry had stayed away from the Department of Mysteries altogether...

"Is he really dead?"

Harry was a bit shocked that he had actually said that aloud. He kept his eyes firmly on the tip of his Firebolt, but sensed Lupin sliding closer to his side. "Yes, I believe he is."

"But... Professor? What exactly killed him? It wasn't the curse..." Bellatrix Lestrange hadn't used the killing curse on Sirius, of that Harry was positive.

"No, not the curse. It was the metaphor."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Ever heard the expression, 'he went beyond the veil'?"

"Er... no, not really."

A soft chuckle. "You don't read much, do you?"

"Yes, I do!"

"Literature, I mean. Poetry. Or maybe some spiritual reading?"

"I don't have the time for that," Harry moaned. "With all those schoolbooks..."

"...and Quidditch magazines..."

The boy was suddenly very glad for the Disillusionment Charm. With his whole face painted sky blue, Lupin wouldn't be able to see him blushing. "I've read some of my cousin's books too."

"Good for you. Personally, I don't know how anyone can live without regular dosages of fictional literature."

"So... what does it mean, going beyond the veil?"

"In certain contexts, it's a commonly known metaphor for death, for crossing to the Spiritual World, for meeting the Creator. In other contexts, it means disclosing the truth by removing the shroud of ignorance or prejudice... Then again, many believe that only in the afterlife we can truly find enlightenment and harmony, so it's not like the two concepts are that dissimilar."

"But what does that have to do with what happened to Sirius?" Harry frowned. "That veil in the Department of Mysteries... what is that thing after all?"

"It's not a thing, in the sense that it's not real. Or rather, not concrete."

"Er...?"

"Tell me, Harry, is a hole a thing?"

Harry gazed down at the shape of Dudley's bag. "Yes. Well, no. It's more like the lack of a thing." The lack of fabric was what created the hole through which Crookshanks' head was sticking out...

"Exactly. A hole, a passage, an entrance, an exit, a path... none of those are concrete things. We represent them by the objects that surround them: a doorframe, a corridor, a road, an archway... The matter composing those objects is solid and real, but what they symbolise are merely ethereal concepts."

"So... that veil was... a symbol?"

"Yes. A figure of speech, abstract in its deepest sense, but turned tangible by the power of magic and fate."

"And that symbol means death..."

"Not exactly. Like every symbol, it might be interpreted differently according to the context."

"The context?"

"Have you ever learnt the name of that room where the archway was?"

"Dumbledore called it the Death Chamber," Harry recalled.

"There you have it," said Lupin, as if that clarified everything.

"I thought it was called the Death Chamber because that archway was there," the boy said slowly. "You're saying it's the other way around? That the archway kills whomever goes through it because it's inside the Death Chamber?"

"Yes."

Harry took a while to digest that. Such a simple inversion of cause and effect, but it changed the entire understanding of the situation. "Let me see if I get this straight. The veil is a metaphor, and its meaning depends on the context. In other words, if someone crosses it, it'll do different things depending on where it is?"

"That's how it works, yes."

"So if the archway had been somewhere else when Sirius crossed it..." Harry thought of the room where that Death Eater had had his head turned into that of a baby. "...like that Time Chamber..."

"...it might have sent Sirius back in time," Lupin speculated.

"And if it were in the Prophecy Chamber..."

"...it might have sent him to a vision of the future."

"In the chamber with the planets?"

"It might have sent him across the universe."

"What about the chamber with all those throttling brains?"

Lupin faltered. "I don't know what would have happened to Sirius then. And to be honest, I'm glad we don't have to find out."

"It couldn't be anything worse than what we have," Harry groaned. "You're telling me he died the moment he went through that veil."

"Unfortunately, yes."

"If we do what the Order thinks we're up to... if we go back to the Department of Mysteries, find the archway in the Death Chamber and walk through it..."

"We would die instantly, just like Sirius did."

Harry bit the inside of his cheek. Was that the only way he would see his godfather again? "Can't Sirius come back on his own?"

"The dead can't come back."

"So everyone keeps telling me," Harry huffed impatiently. "When are you finally going to tell me how we're supposed to bring him back, then?"

This time Lupin's smile was so broad and shiny that the boy could see it even with the Disillusionment Charm. "What about... right now?"

Harry smirked. "I'm all ears."

"It's quite simple, actually. We have to find the veil in a different context, some place where its metaphor can be interpreted as a safe passage to where Sirius is."

"But where is he?"

"Back where we all came from, I presume. Isn't that what death is all about? From dust to dust, from ashes to ashes?"

"Can we get there? Alive, I mean."

"Like I said, we just have to find the veil in the proper context."

Harry knitted his eyebrows in concentration. "You mean... in a place where the veil will mean a path to this... land where we all came from, without meaning death."

"Ten points to Gryffindor."

"Professor... please tell me you know where this 'proper context' is and that we're not just flying around waiting for it to pop up in front of us."

"It's in the place I saw when I went across the lake to see behind the waves," Lupin told him, his voice growing a bit misty. "I don't know exactly what it is, but it's where... it was the only place I didn't exist, where no one I've ever seen existed. I'm sorry I can't explain this any better," he sighed in frustration. "I just know it's the only place where the veil will work the way we need it to."

The boy sighed as well, equally frustrated. He wished he could be surer of the ground on which he was standing. Metaphorically speaking.

"Never mind. I'll see it when we get there." Another dark thought crossed Harry's mind. "You do know how to get there, don't you, Professor?"

"We'll have to build a portal to it."

"Build a portal? Like a... a pandimensional portal?"

"You do like that multiple dimensions analogy, don't you? Something like that, yes."

"Can we really do something like that?"

"Sure, any third-year can." At Harry's embarrassed cough, Lupin cleaned his throat. "Pentagram Sortilege. You must have studied it already. It's basic theory for Arithmancy, Divination and Ancient Runes."

"I've only done Divination," the boy muttered. "Professor Trelawney mentioned the use of the Pentagram in an invocation to determine which in a group of five will be the first to die..."

"...and you, very understandably, lost interest in the rest of the lesson," Lupin sniggered.

"I do remember how to prepare the Pentagram," Harry countered defensively. "I just didn't know it could be used to build portals."

"Pentagram Sortileges are possibly the best way to travel, actually. Faster than brooms, cleaner than Floo powder, safer than Apparating, and not regulated by the Ministry like Portkeys. Practically no one uses them that way though, since it takes about half an hour to draw them properly, and figuring out the correct elements for each of the five points is always tricky. And sometimes you might have to go to the other side of the world just to get some of those elements, and if you have the means to do that, you probably don't need a Pentagram Sortilege to travel in the first place."

"The elements would vary according to the place we would like to go, right?"

"Right."

"And do we know what elements we need for our Pentagram?"

"I saw them in my vision," said Lupin. "We're carrying two of them with us, and we're now flying to where we'll find the other three."

Leaning forward a bit — the most he could without upsetting Crookshanks —, Harry tried once again to identify the landscape beneath them. He really couldn't spot anything familiar, but Lupin's words, added to the vague notion that they were travelling north, allowed him to draw a conclusion. "Hogwarts?"

"I suppose you weren't expecting to come back so soon."

It was a sorrowful surprise for Harry to realise that for the first time in his life the prospect of going back to school didn't fill him with giddiness and excitement, didn't blow promises of wonder and joy in his ears, didn't make him wish he could stay there forever. It didn't feel like going home any more. Something immensely sacred had been shattered and corrupted beyond repair when Sirius was taken away from him and the best explanation Dumbledore had had to offer was, "I seem to have forgot what it was to be young, lately."

As a matter of fact, the idea of entering the castle to search for the tools they would need for their mission was nothing short of appalling. "I thought being caught by Dumbledore was the last thing we wanted."

"It is," said Lupin. "That's why I sincerely hope he'll either stay in Beauxbatons or wait for us in London."

"Are you expecting Hogwarts to be empty, then?"

"Oh no, the school is never completely empty. Part of the staff will be there."

"But those people are loyal to Dumbledore!"

"Unless we have yet another traitor in our midst, yes."

"And you want us to knock on the door and ask them if we can borrow some stuff for a Pentagram Sortilege?!"

"Good grief, Harry, what a low opinion you have of me!" exclaimed Lupin, noticeably affronted. "Of course we'll do no such thing. We're going to Hogsmeade, break into the Shrieking Shack, go through the tunnel below the Whomping Willow, enter the castle under your father's cloak, use the Marauder's Map to avoid any unpleasant encounters with dear Mr Filch and that charming cat of his, pick up what we need, and run out of there before the Headmaster comes back. Is that a plan for you?"

Harry would have laughed, if it weren't so evident that the werewolf was not joking. "You can't be serious!"

"That old, silly, over-used paronomasia... Of course I'm not Sirius. I'm Moony, the one who taught Sirius most of what he knew about being up to no good."

This time the boy did laugh, loud and heartily. As he realised he hadn't laughed at all for so long that he couldn't even remember, he laughed louder, almost hysterically. He let his chortle resound through the air until it crammed his lungs and painted tears under his eyelids. Remus Lupin was indeed out of his tree after all, and they were about to build Alice's rabbit hole so they could go to Wonderland and rescue Sirius, victim of a deadly figure of speech.

And right now, Harry couldn't think of a better way to spend the holidays.