Song Of Songsby Mad Martha 

Part 8

They slept late the following morning, and Remus was the first to wake.  For a while he lay there, idly watching dust motes drifting in a tiny beam of sunlight that had found a chink in the curtains. Then he looked sideways at Sirius.

He was very deeply asleep, utterly relaxed and boneless, and for the first time since his trial his face was smooth of lines.  Ever hot-blooded, he had thrown the covers partially off during the night and if it hadn't been for the strange tattoo on his bicep and some faded scars on his shoulder, Remus might almost have been fooled into thinking he was a teenager again.  Even those small differences didn't make Sirius a whit less beautiful a man.  It took a moment for Remus to also realise that there had been no disturbances during the night; another first for them since Azkaban.

Note to self: shagging him silly beats the nightmares.  For all the humour in this thought, there was relief and gratitude too.  We can recover from this.

Taking care not to wake Sirius, he slipped out of bed and pulled on the bare minimum of clothes necessary for decency, and went downstairs to make breakfast.

One of the immediate benefits of Sirius's hard work the previous day was that owls could now deliver mail to the house; while the porridge was cooking he opened the kitchen door that let out onto the small garden at the rear of the house and had to duck quickly to avoid three of them colliding with him.  Remus had been rather impressed that the wards had managed to stop them in the first place.  Warding against humans, magical animals and 'dark' creatures was one thing, but ordinary animals (including, to some extent, Animagi) took some serious wandwork and even Hogwarts didn't have protections that went that far - hence Peter Pettigrew accompanying Ron Weasley there in rat form, without check.

A small stack of mail was dropped onto the kitchen table and two of the owls swooped out again before Remus could invite them to take refreshment or payment.  The third was Loki and he settled on the back of a chair and accepted the offer of owl treats - although not without attempting to nip Remus in the sneakiest manner in the process.  Remus issued a tart warning to him on his likely end if he kept that up, and scooped the letters onto the breakfast tray along with the porridge bowls, cups and teapot and carried them upstairs.

Sirius woke up when he settled the tray on the end of the bed, but for once it was a slow waking instead of a sudden terrified jolt.  He turned over and blinked at Remus for a few moments before offering him a sleepy smile.

Nothing can ever make it the way it was before, Remus told himself firmly, once again pushing away the impulse to fantasise that it was thirteen years ago.  But perhaps things can be as good for us again as they were back then.

Perhaps it could even be better than that.  There was no denying that the final year before everything went wrong had been a strained one for them.

Stop thinking about the bad stuff.

"Breakfast?" he offered with a smile, and Sirius pulled himself into a semi-seated position against the pillows.  Remus settled the tray between them and took a seat, cross-legged, beside him.

"You've been busy."

"I fancied a little luxury for a change."  This house held more grandeur than he had experienced in his entire life, but Remus's ideas of luxury were a little different to those of the haughty Blacks.  "I even checked the honey dipper for curses first."

Sirius grinned and picked it up, watching the honey trickling gently from the ridged tip onto his porridge.  "Only my family could have an ivory honey dipper."

"By your family's standards it's really very subtle and elegant," Remus noted.  "I like the bees carved on the handle.  Of course, the understated elegance and lack of precious metals probably explains why it was stuffed away in a kitchen drawer with some old Apostle spoons and a Muggle tin opener."

Sirius stared at him.  "A tin opener?  In my mother's house?"

Remus grinned at him.  "Joking!"

"Don't do that to me before breakfast, mate, I'm not up to it!  This porridge is the business, by the way."

"There are many things I'm no good at," Remus said, digging the dipper into the honey and allowing an indecent amount to plop onto his porridge, "but I can at least cook.  The mail finally arrived - I think they're all addressed to you."

"Joy."  But Sirius finished his porridge first before looking through the envelopes.  He grimaced a little.  "Shoester and Slippet ... this looks like Andromeda's writing ... oh hey, this one's for you, Hogwarts crest ... cripes, this is the Ministry's seal - "

Remus accepted his envelope and broke the seal, one cautious eye on Sirius as he tore open the letter from the Ministry.

"It's okay, it's from Shacklebolt ..."

Remus relaxed and turned his attention to his own letter, which was a brief note from Dumbledore, hoping they were both well and requesting that they keep in touch.  It contained a draft on the Hogwarts vault at Gringotts for his final salary payment and Remus wondered how difficult it would be to cash; as a registered werewolf he wasn't permitted to have a bank vault with Gringotts, so he couldn't deposit it.  It might be simpler if he signed the draft over to Sirius for him to deposit in his vault.

"Shacklebolt has all our stuff that was confiscated as evidence," Sirius said, breaking in on his thoughts.  "He wants to know where he should bring it."

"Can he enter the house if he's led inside?" Remus asked.

"Should be able to, yes.  I'll send him some directions.  I wonder what old Shoester wants ..."  He ripped the second letter open and scanned it.  "Oh bloody hell!  We'll have to go and empty the lock-up today or tomorrow.  He says that despite me paying the rent while I was in Azkaban, a landlord does have a legal right to reclaim his property if it's left untouched for ten years.  We can stall things for a while, but he doubts a magistrate would take kindly to that."

"We'll go after breakfast," Remus said, resigned.  "At least we can stash some of the gear here for now."

"Yeah, that's something.  Now what's this he's going on about ..."  Sirius moved on to the second page of the letter, his lips moving silently as he read through it.

"May I deposit my money in your bank vault?" Remus asked him.

"Of course," Sirius said distractedly.  "Oh, Merlin's big saggy bloomers!"  He tossed the letter aside and flopped back against the pillows, putting an arm across his eyes.

"Padfoot?"  Remus grabbed the sheets of parchment but hesitated to read the letter himself.  "What does Shoester say?"  Sirius groaned.  "Come on, Padfoot, don't make me decipher his god-awful handwriting!"

Sirius removed his arm to reveal an expression torn between dismay and hilarity.  "How would you like to own not one but two unsaleable death-trap properties?"

Remus's brows went up.  "The Ministry's giving you back Black Manor?"

"Yeah."  Any humour slipped from Sirius's face and he sighed.  "Unfortunately."

"You knew it was likely," Remus pointed out reasonably.

"That was before I'd spent nearly a fortnight trying to fix this place."

"You don't know that the Manor will be a mess like this house."

Sirius gave him a cockeyed look.  "What do you want to bet that it is?"

Privately, Remus wouldn't want to wager anything on the chance, but he was anxious that Sirius's new, more positive mood shouldn't be dampened by the prospect.

"Well, if it is we'll just have to deal with it," he said calmly, and weathered the quizzical look Sirius gave him.

"How?!"

"I don't know until I've seen the place, Pads.  Let's not fret ourselves into an early grave about it just yet, hm?  When do you want to visit it?"

"Never," Sirius grumbled.  He sighed again at the look Remus gave him, and amended this.  "Not today.  Let's empty out the lock-up first, since I don't feel like letting the landlord grab all our stuff."

"Not just our stuff," Remus said sadly.  "Some of it belongs to people who died during the war.  We'll have to pass it back to their relatives - if there are any living now.  I think the McKinnons are all dead."

"Yeah," Sirius said heavily.  He pushed back the covers resolutely.  "But before we do any of that, I'm going to take my life in my hands and have a shower.  If the plumbing kills me, sell the family silver and take Harry to live in Canada."

"Bugger that," Remus said to his retreating back.  "Have you any idea how cold it can get in Canada?"

~~~

Emptying the lock-up took most of a day but, as Remus had noted, at least they now had somewhere to temporarily stash their belongings.  His own biggest concern - aside from the stomach-churning knowledge that they had a crate and a bandbox to be returned to two long-bereaved families - was his printing press.  Unlike the small one his grandfather had bequeathed to him while he was at school, and which was still in storage with Professor Flitwick, this press was full-size and more difficult to take apart for storage.  They put it in the dining room at Grimmauld Place for the time being, but Remus wondered if their eventual permanent residence would have room for it.  He rather hoped it would; he might not have much luck in finding formal employment, but if he could set up his press again he thought he might be able to make some sort of a living and that would be a help with their finances.  Besides, he hated being beholden to anyone, even Sirius.  It went against his ingrained work ethic.

Sirius's stash related almost exclusively to his bike, but he unearthed one elderly leather trunk which, when opened, proved to contain a number of articles that had once belonged to James Potter.  He said nothing about this to Remus for the time being, but took the trunk back to Grimmauld Place along with everything else.  There might be things in there that Harry would like to have.

It was Remus's firm belief that dealing with unpleasant things was best done straight away, although if he could have come up with a better reason than "It's been twelve years already, what's another day?" he would have willingly put off trying to locate the relatives of the late Fabian Prewett and Marlene McKinnon.  Fabian, as he recalled, was the brother of Molly Weasley, which didn't make him feel much better about the business.  Contacting Arthur Weasley was probably the best way of going about it, but that didn't stop him castigating himself for a coward.

Marlene he hadn't known so well and he rather doubted Sirius did either.  She'd been a friend of Lily Potter, but Lily had had a lot of friends he wasn't particularly acquainted with.

"Dumbledore will know who to owl," Sirius said, when he mentioned the matter to him.

"Yes, I suppose he will."  And Remus made himself send Loki off to Dumbledore with a note before he talked himself out of it.

"What's in the trunk?" he asked as he set potatoes to boil that evening.

Sirius was sitting at the side of the kitchen table with the leather trunk at his feet.  "I forgot this was in the lock-up," he said.  "It's got some bits and pieces of James's in it."

"Oh."  Remus watched him open it with misgiving, but his partner seemed quite calm.

First item out of the trunk was a t-shirt with a bright gold phoenix on the front; it was grubby and had received some abuse before its owner put it aside.

"I forgot about those stupid t-shirts the pair of you insisted on wearing," Remus said quietly.

Sirius stared at it for a moment or two, then folded it up carefully and put it on the corner of the table.  A similarly abused pair of jeans followed; he turned them over in his hands and fished something lumpy out of a pocket - a baby's dummy, wrapped in a monogrammed handkerchief.

"Why was this stuff in the lock-up anyway?" Remus asked him.

"He kept a change of clothes there for a while," Sirius said.  "After Harry was born, he didn't like going home covered in singes and smelling of curses.  That was before they went into hiding, of course."

He put the jeans, dummy and handkerchief on the table too, then pulled out a pair of grass-stained trainers and an Auror's robe.

"Is it all clothes?"

"No - here's his spare wand and a copy of the Aurors' Manual … oh look, there's a handful of those propaganda notices you printed up for Dumbledore, remember?"

Remus took them from him and sifted through them.  The headlines came back to him all too easily:

Have You Asked Yourselves This Question?

Six Lies Told By The Supporters Of You-Know-Who.

Don't Believe Everything You're Told!

Do you REALLY Know What's Happening Under Your Roof?

Your Right To Know ALL The Facts.

"Much good they did us," he said wryly.

"Oh, I don't know - you never can tell how people will respond to that sort of thing.  It's enough to make them question themselves."  Sirius pulled out something wrapped in very old, brown greaseproof paper.  "Oh God - should I open this?"

"Why, what is it?"

Sirius made a face, peeling back a corner of the paper.  "Lunch," he said, and he tossed it into the range's firebox.

~~~

When Sirius went to meet Kingsley Shacklebolt the following morning and lead him to number 12 Grimmauld Place, he was mildly surprised to see Professor Dumbledore waiting with him.

"We didn't expect to see you, did we, sir?" he asked, privately wondering how someone as colourful as Dumbledore could escape his Muggle neighbours' attention.

"Do forgive the imposition, Sirius," the headmaster said apologetically.  "I had reason to visit the Ministry this morning and happened to encounter Kingsley just as he was setting out.  Which I could only feel was fortuitous after receiving Remus's owl yesterday.  I hope I am not an unwelcome guest."

"Of course not," Sirius said.  "Sorry about the odd arrangements, but my mother was very sincere in her desire to be left alone here."

The strength of the Misdirection Charm was enough to make it necessary to lead Shacklebolt towards the house, and while Dumbledore managed to resist its compulsion without assistance, even he was impressed by it. 

"Had I not already known the location and been in your company, Sirius, I feel sure it would have fooled me too," he remarked.  "Dear me!  I believe Walburga became quite paranoid in her later years, of course."

"We've been trying to work out how my mother made it so strong, but it looks like blood magic," Sirius said as they climbed the steps to the front door.  "I shouldn't be surprised, I suppose.  Now - when we go inside, we need to be quiet until we leave the hallway, as there's a portrait of her there and she'll kick up a devil of a fuss if we wake her up …"

"I'm sorry we have to receive you in the kitchen," Remus said, when they all arrived there.  "Despite our best efforts, it's the most hospitable room in the house right now."

"Are you planning to live here?" Kingsley asked. 

Sirius had to admire his poker face; he managed to look casually enquiring as he asked the question, rather than as incredulous as Sirius was sure he must feel.

"Not in a thousand years," he said dryly.

"No - we're in agreement there," Remus added.  "I've lived in some fairly unappealing places, but this house is in a league of its own.  If I didn't know better, I'd believe it was deliberately putting up a resistance to being cleaned."

"Unfortunate!" Dumbledore said sympathetically.  "Especially as the protections on it seem to be formidable."

Sirius tried not to take this in bad part.  He knew Dumbledore well enough to know that he wasn't deliberately rubbing salt in the wound.

"Yes, well, at the moment we're reviewing our options.  We were hoping to sell this house and use the proceeds to find somewhere more congenial, but that doesn't look as though it'll be possible."

"Not without laying out a lot of money we can't afford to hire specialists to fix it," Remus said.

"Added to which, we now have the Manor on our hands too," Sirius finished gloomily.

Dumbledore's irrepressible twinkle appeared.  "An embarrassment of riches!"

"No, just an embarrassment!"

Kingsley chuckled, but although Dumbledore was clearly amused his smile was also kindly.  "One never knows what manner of use such mixed blessings may prove to be, Sirius.  Don't despair prematurely.  Have you visited the Manor?  Is it also in a dilapidated state?"

"I only heard about it yesterday morning, Professor.  We've had some other business to conduct, but I suppose we'll have to visit soon and see what sort of condition it's in."  Sirius grimaced.  "I'm not holding out much hope for it, to be honest."

"I remember it as a large house, some three storeys high, with corner towers and a central courtyard," Dumbledore mused.  "Mind you, I visited it only once or twice when your grandfather was alive.  He was a curious character."

"That's a generous description!  Mind you, I liked him better than my father - I always knew where I stood with him."  Sirius helped Remus to set out cups and saucers and pour the tea, then took a seat next to his partner, across the table from the other two men.

"I've brought your things," Kingsley said, and he produced a number of spell-shrunken boxes from his pockets.  "The department owes you both an apology - there are things here that ought to have been returned to Lupin as soon as he was cleared of complicity, and the treatment of your possessions generally was deplorable.  The war seems to have been used as a blanket excuse for the most shocking abuses and mishandling of evidence, and I must say that I find it highly dispiriting to discover that the worst culprits in the department got away with it without a word of censure from higher up."

"Alastor Moody resigned from the Aurors after the war, in protest at the behaviour of some of his colleagues," Dumbledore noted heavily.  "He was persuaded to return, but I know he's unimpressed by the management of the department these days.  No one doubts Rufus Scrimgeour's dedication and honesty, but he's too political."

"Some of it's the training," Kingsley noted.  "Standards have slipped.  We still have a good crop of witches and wizards being enrolled, but not all of the mentors are of the calibre I'd personally like to see."  He looked at Sirius.  "You trained under Moody, didn't you?"

"James and I both did."

"You were probably the last ones.  They won't let him mentor the trainees anymore - afraid he'll infect them with a healthy degree of suspicion, I imagine."

Sirius grinned despite the gloomy words.  "What they don't seem to have noticed is that Moody is still alive.  Most of the others of his generation are either dead or behind desks, I'll bet."

"You'd win that wager."

Remus took the opportunity to speak to Dumbledore.  "Did you receive my owl, Professor?  I'd like to return these boxes to the next of kin, but I'm not sure how best to approach Molly Weasley and I don't even know if any of the McKinnons survived the war."

"If you will entrust them to me, I will see they reach the right hands," Dumbledore replied.  "I suspect it will be best to pass the box to Arthur and let him choose the best way to tell Molly.  Dear me, yes - a very raw wound for her, even after so many years.  As for Marlene McKinnon's things, you are right in thinking most of her family died.  I believe there may still be a cousin in Dundee, however, in which case I will ask Minerva McGonagall to enquire."

"Thank you.  I'll shrink them for you before you leave."

"There were some things of James's in the lock-up too," Sirius said abruptly.  "Nothing of any great account, but his spare wand was there.  Do you think Harry would like to have it?"

Dumbledore hesitated.  "He may well, Sirius, as he has very few mementoes of his parents, but I would advise against sending it to him at Hogwarts.  Perhaps if you were to set it by for him for later?"

"There must be a stack of stuff at The Rose House," Sirius objected.  "Hasn't he seen any of it?"

"Harry is unaware that The Rose House exists," Dumbledore replied, and Remus wondered if he was imagining the caution in the professor's voice as he said this.  "His aunt and uncle are, to the best of my knowledge, also unaware that he is the heir to a considerable fortune.  I deemed it safer not to enlighten them, although they receive a regular sum of money from Harry's trustees for his upkeep.  He has his own vault at Gringotts containing the monies from his parents' vaults which were deposited there when they died, and in accordance with the settlement made upon him by his grandfather he receives a monthly allowance which is paid directly into his vault.  He knows nothing of this arrangement either; because he is a minor, Gringotts only deal with him inasmuch as to assist him in accessing his vault once a year to withdraw such funds as he will need for his school year.  For everything else, they deal with the family solicitors and trustees."

Sirius looked stunned for a moment.  "He doesn't know about The Rose House," he repeated finally.

"There seemed little point in telling him when the information will be useless until he reaches his magical majority," Dumbledore said, rather apologetically.

"And he doesn't know he's the heir to one of the foremost First Families?"

"Let us rather say that he hasn't been told he is by any of the adults around him," the headmaster said.  "He shares a dormitory with the heirs of two other First Families, so it may be that one of them has enlightened him at some point, but I have seen no evidence to suggest it.  Or he may simply choose not to believe it - I suspect he has little reason to do so, after all.  His present circumstances would lend no colour to the story."

When Sirius seemed too stunned to comment on this, Remus quickly stepped in.  "With respect, Professor, that's a little worrying.  A lot of expectations come with being the head of a First Family - if he grows up not knowing that, he's going to be at a terrible disadvantage when he finally inherits everything."

Dumbledore peered at him over the top of his spectacles.  "I'm not sure I agree with that assessment, Remus."

"But - he's going to inherit a seat in the Wizengamot for a start!" Sirius said.  "Not to mention more money than Petunia Evans - Dursley - could imagine in her wildest dreams!"

"Indeed.  Do you think that knowing these things at his age would be good for him?"

"It's not as though he can touch the money yet!" Remus objected.

"No, but the idea would be there."  Dumbledore smiled a little.  "He already possesses a great deal of money, Remus - the sum left to him by his mother and father was considerable and was left to accumulate, together with his allowance, for ten years.  By contrast I believe his aunt and uncle to have given him very little throughout his childhood, and Harry now believes that the money in his vault (which he doesn't realise is still accumulating) will need to last until he takes up some manner of employment when he leaves school.  Consequently he is admirably careful how he spends it, for he understands its value."

"So he's less likely to play ducks and drakes with his inheritance when he grows up," Kingsley remarked, and his brows went up.  "No bad thing.  There are enough money-happy First Family brats on the loose already, quite frankly, and they're a damned nuisance."

"The money isn't the point," Sirius said, finding his tongue again.  "The point is that he's growing up with no idea of his heritage or the expectations people will have of him.  He has a right to know these things!"

"And he will know them in due course.  Forgive me for saying this, Sirius, but I know Harry a little better than you at this point.  One of the reasons why I decided on this … deception, if you will, is that I have seen many young witches and wizards from First Families grow up over the years.  It cannot hurt him not to know that he is, or rather will be, privileged beyond the dreams of many of his peers.  This knowledge will inevitably come to him in due course.  But for now he believes himself to be nothing more than an orphan with a somewhat unwelcome degree of celebrity due to his name."  Dumbledore's tone became rather dry.  "He does not believe himself to be better than those around him, which I believe can only be a good thing."

"You placed him with that shrivelled harpy of an aunt entirely for his own safety, eh?" Sirius said, his own tone heavy with irony.

For a split second Remus saw Dumbledore's sharp blue eyes flash; then they subsided back into rueful good humour.

"His safety must be the paramount consideration," he said mildly, "but I'll not deny that there were other benefits.  Harry wasn't without his champions when his parents died, you know.  Morag MacDuff would willingly have taken him to live with her kindred in Scotland, while Petuarius Pettifer made a great many representations to me on the wisdom of letting him raise the boy in his household.  Do you think I wasn't tempted?  I'm sure you are correct in your assumption that you know Petunia Dursley better than I, but nevertheless I am far from unaware of her feelings towards her sister's family.  I knew Harry's life would not be easy under her roof, but I believed then and still believe now that it can only be a good thing that he has grown up apart from our society.  I hope that it will encourage him to question everything we pureblooded wizards take so much for granted!"

Remus wondered if it would.  Setting aside the natural perversity of teenagers, he thought that Harry was a unique enough character that no one - not even Dumbledore, perhaps especially not Dumbledore - could tell how he might react to discovering this staggering windfall when he reached the first of the wizard majorities at seventeen.  He might indeed react temperately; his measured reaction to the contents of his vault argued that he might.  After all, that must have been a shocking amount of money for a boy who previously had nothing.  James, as Remus recalled, had always had ready access to vast quantities of Galleons when they were boys, so the amount in his regular vault at the time of his death must have been significant, and Henry Potter, as patriarch of a wealthy First Family, would undoubtedly have settled a respectable allowance on his son's heir.  All the same, to discover that his vault was the merest residue of his total inheritance could easily turn any boy's head.

As for the rest of it, vast wealth, automatic political power, respect and guaranteed friends at home and abroad thanks to his grandfather's extensive influence … what would a disenfranchised orphan raised by Muggles make of it?  Remus thought of Harry's smooth expression, shuttered eyes and determined lonerism, and simply couldn't imagine what it would mean to him.

"Is the estate entailed?" he asked.

"Yes," Dumbledore replied.  "That is - the house, its contents and grounds, and the various family holdings, comprising investments, bullion and certain collections of jewellery, are all naturally entailed, although I confess I'm unclear who would inherit after Harry at the present moment.  The collateral lines must have diverged by many generations, for the family has been reduced to single heirs for as much as two hundred years."

"So there are limits on what he can touch when he inherits everything."

"Not much of a comfort," Kingsley remarked.  "The amount he can touch is enough to make my eyes water!"

"I believe it is the political power he will wield which is the greater concern," Dumbledore said dryly.  "I feel it to be of the greatest importance that he learns the disadvantages of the world - and of the possession of wealth and power - before he is placed in a position where he may influence the fortunes of those around him."

"In that case, you might as well let him come to live with us here," Sirius commented.  His tone was more temperate than Remus expected.  "There are enough disadvantages of pureblood mania on display in this house to put anyone off."

Dumbledore's eyes regained their irrepressible twinkle at this.  "I would not be opposed to Harry receiving limited exposure to your family's - ah - oddities if you could convince me he would survive the experience, Sirius!"

Sirius had to agree to this, if somewhat wryly.  "Still … there's a lot to be learned from the protections on the house."

"And perhaps at the Manor?  I would imagine the protections there are quite formidable.  It would be strange indeed for your mother to fortify only this house and not the ancestral home of your forebears."

"In that case we may never know," Remus said.  "If the fortifications are more powerful than these, we may not be able to get inside."

"Stop trying to raise my hopes," Sirius said, and they exchanged grins.

~~~

It turned out that Kingsley hadn't hung around for Remus's excellent tea-making skills.  When Sirius returned from escorting Dumbledore off the premises, he was waiting with a determined look on his face.

"What are you planning to do with yourself, now that you've been exonerated?" he asked bluntly.

"Pardoned," Remus murmured as he tidied away the cups and teapot.

The Auror gave him a frowning look and turned back to Sirius, waiting for an answer.

"I have to sort out some sort of accommodation for the two of us and - I hope - Harry," Sirius said.  He dug his hands into his jeans pockets, a mannerism that wasn't nearly as casual to Remus's eyes as it probably was to Kingsley.  "Somewhere that, for obvious reasons, isn't here."

"I'm not talking about your domestic arrangements.  What are you planning to do with yourself until Gringotts, the Ministry and your solicitors have finished their death-match over your family's money?"

"I have some money of my own," Sirius said warily.

Kingsley quirked a brow at him.  "The pot of gold your uncle left to you?  How long will that last?"

"How do you know about that?"

"I made it my business to know everything about you when you flitted out of Azkaban.  I assume you didn't become an Auror for the fun of it when you left school."

"You'd suppose wrong," Remus said, sotto voce.

"It'll last a while," Sirius said after a pause.

"Not long, even with the stipend for caring for the Potter boy - always supposing you get custody of him.  Accommodation, day-to-day living expenses, solicitors' fees … these things add up and eat quite a hole in your wallet.  If the legal squabble over your family's funds takes a year or more, you're going to need to get a job to support yourself."  Kingsley gave him a meaningful look.  "Could be tricky, even with the exoneration - excuse me, pardon."

"And your point is?"

"You led us a rare dance after your escape, Black.  As I told you at Hogwarts that day, you were an education for all the Aurors trying to track you."

"I'm flattered."  Sirius was beginning to bounce slightly on his toes, a sign of agitation that Remus watched with hidden concern.

"I'm not flattering you."  Kingsley's tone was dryly matter-of-fact.  "I'm making a point.  You were one of Moody's final trainees before he was manoeuvred into resigning after the war, one of the last ones to receive the traditional Auror training, not the milk-water programme Fudge approved when he took office - "

"And how did you escape that?" Sirius demanded.  "I don't remember you from when I was at the department!"

"You wouldn't, I didn't do my training in Britain."

"Look, what's your point?"

Remus braced himself at the belligerence in his voice and glanced warily at Kingsley, but the Auror seemed unmoved.  Surely someone of his experience couldn't miss Sirius's rising anxiety?

"My point is that we need Aurors of your skill and experience, and you need a job," Kingsley said calmly.  "There's a job offer on the table if you're interested."

Silence.

"Not as a field Auror, surely," Remus said eventually.  "Even with the official pardon - no one at the Ministry is going to want Sirius Black back at the sharp end of magical law enforcement."

"I want him there," Kingsley said.  He raised his brows at Remus, then looked at Sirius.  "Moody wants you there.  I can name quite a few Aurors who are interested in the idea."

"You and Moody aren't in charge of the Division," Sirius said.  His expression was suddenly very blank.

"No, Rufus Scrimgeour is in charge of the Division and Amelia Bones is in overall charge of the Magical Law Enforcement Department.  Scrimgeour is … how shall I put this? intrigued by the suggestion?  He's agreed to the idea in principle.  And Madam Bones has indicated a willingness to listen to any arguments in your favour."  Kingsley made a there you go gesture with one hand and folded his arms.  "Are you interested?"

The two men stared at each other for a long moment.

"Am I interested in working for a bunch of people whose standards you've freely admitted have slipped?  The same people who put me in Azkaban without a trial, without even questioning me under Veritaserum, who allowed the real murderer and traitor to escape without bothering to follow up my version of events?"  Sirius's voice began to rise.  "The same people who harassed Remus for the crime of being married to me and carried on harassing him for twelve years?"

"Padfoot - "

"Did you think I wouldn't guess that they were making your life a misery while I was in prison?" Sirius demanded.  "I'm not stupid, you know, I know the kind of crap some of them used to dish out to any werewolf they came across, so they must have had a field day with you - the mass-murdering Death Eater's boyfriend!"

Remus drew a breath and shut his mouth.  He didn't see the point in saying anything; it would only upset Sirius more, he thought, and in any case Kingsley was well able to take care of himself.  Besides, it couldn't hurt for him to see just what state Sirius was in - and then judge for himself whether it was a good idea to invite him back into the Auror Division.

Although it was possible he wouldn't see a little traumatic instability as a problem.  God knew enough of the current Aurors weren't exactly stable either (Moody being the most shining example Remus could think of).

"All good points," Kingsley acknowledged.  "But it's become clear to me over the last few years that nothing will change if we don't start within the Division.  I can't do that with a handful of admittedly good but wet-behind-the-ears Aurors with less experience and seniority between them than the office teapot.  And Moody's support isn't always helpful, for obvious reasons."

Sirius looked down for a moment and when he raised his head again Remus was distressed to see that he had regained all the lines and premature ageing in his face that he'd shed over the past few days.

"Two of my dearest friends died because of me," he said harshly.  "Their son was orphaned and my partner spent twelve years on the breadline.  And I spent twelve years in prison, with a bunch of Dementors for company and the dubious pleasure of watching my brother die and my cousin go insane.  Do you really think that's going to make me some sort of pin-up boy for reform in the Division?  Because I don't."

Kingsley studied him for a long moment.  "I'm not asking you to make a snap decision - "

"Pity!  Because the answer is no."

Sirius turned on his heel and stormed out of the kitchen.

Remus decided that an apology was not in order on this occasion.

"He has a very good point, you know," he said, when Kingsley didn't say anything.  "Aside from anything else, I really don't see how he could just take up his old job again as though nothing has happened.  I mean, surely for every Auror who wants him there, there must be another three who believe the claptrap Fudge burps out every time he opens his mouth?  They can't be that unrepresentative of the general population."

"He'll have the same problem wherever he goes," Kingsley said.  "Whatever he does, he'll have to face up to that, and at least as an Auror the kind of scrutiny he'll get will quickly disprove any lies about him."

Remus wished he had Kingsley's faith in the other Aurors.  Personally, he was more worried that a resentful colleague would try to stitch Sirius up; they certainly had the means and knowledge to do so without too much difficulty.  Saying this seemed unnecessarily provocative, though, and he suspected it would also be redundant.  Kingsley must know his colleagues better than anyone.

"Perhaps so, but right now he's not exactly stable," he said instead.  "Putting him in the front line in a stressful job like that can't possibly help and in fact I think it would make him a lot worse.  He needs time - "

"I know he does.  I'm not suggesting he rejoin us tomorrow, or even in a few weeks.  The pair of you have too many other demands on you at the moment.  But when his domestic life is more settled he may want to reconsider." Kingsley shrugged.  "The offer will stay on the table for the foreseeable future - all he needs to do is contact me.  And consider this, Lupin; once you've sorted yourselves out, once he comes to a standstill, then having a job will offer him something to direct his energies into.  A man like Black, after all he's experienced, needs mental and physical occupation.  I believe you know this already.  And we have the facilities to help him if the instability is more than passing reaction to his imprisonment - "

"He's not insane!" Remus interrupted sharply.

"I didn't say he was," Kingsley said, unmoved.  "But there's no denying that his family history tends towards ... nervous disorders."

"If you're referring to Bellatrix Lestrange - "

"She was mad before she went to Azkaban, according to her records.  And the brother - Regulus? - he wasn't dealing a full deck either."  Kingsley tilted his head on one side, studying Remus for a moment.  "Has Black told you how his brother died?"

Remus felt himself go cold.  "No, but I got the impression that Regulus, that he ... he hurt himself, didn't he?"

"According to the report filed afterwards, he went insane fairly quickly," Kingsley said.  His tone was clinical, but something in his expression told Remus that this was his 'professional' voice and not a reflection of his true feelings.  "When he started hurling himself at the bars of his cell non-stop, they chained him to the wall by one wrist, but he became so desperate to escape the restraint that he chewed his hand off.  By the time the human guards realised what had happened he'd bled to death."

At Remus's stricken silence, Kingsley raised his brows.  "I assume Black knows that?"

It took an extraordinary effort to find a voice to reply to this.

"He could see him.  He was in the adjoining cell, an arm's length away."

~~~

Remus went looking for Sirius some time later.  It wasn't hard to locate him; he was doing something in one of the bedrooms and quarrelling noisily with Kreacher over it.

Remus wondered whether he would have bothered to even take notice of the house-elf when he was a boy ... and if Kreacher would have been able to argue with one of his masters back then.  It raised questions over what had happened to the relationship between them, given that the bond between master and servant was supposedly a magical one that placed considerable restrictions on elves.  But Remus was in no mood to ponder the philosophy of house-elf enslavement at that moment.

From the decaying grandeur, and the very dark and almost martial design of the furniture, Remus deduced that the room had once belonged to Sirius's father.  It was as dusty and neglected as the rest of the house, but more chaotic now for Sirius was engaged in going through every cupboard and drawer and throwing out the contents.  Apparently Mrs. Black hadn't disposed of her husband's belongings after he died.  Every item of clothing he pulled out and tossed into a messy pile on the floor Kreacher would try to retrieve, loudly declaring that Master was making a mess while muttering bitter and spiteful reproaches as asides.  Sirius would snatch them back, sometimes getting into a tug of war with the elf before he could throw them back onto the pile and return to the wardrobe to pull out yet more antiquated pairs of trousers, waistcoats, shirts, socks and innumerable other garments.

Remus watched for a few minutes, but when one argument between Sirius and the elf ended with a shirt ripped in two and Kreacher howling his outrage, he decided he'd seen enough and stepped through the door.

"That'll do, thank you, Kreacher.  You can go," he said firmly.

Kreacher didn't look at him, but said in a deeply hostile tone to a handful of cotton shreds, "The beast is trying to give Kreacher orders, but Kreacher knows who he must give service to.  Kreacher knows his mistress is never permitting beasts and mudbloods inside her house and never shall Kreacher - "

"You will obey Remus Lupin as you obey me," Sirius snapped.  Then he rather spoiled the crispness of this order by grumpily adding, "Not that that's saying much!"