Summary: Sirius and Lupin investigate. Voldemort plots. Harry gets teased.
CHAPTER 3:
"Of course, it had to be raining, didn't it?"
Sirius Black ducked under the yellow police line, holding it up as Lupin did the same.
The former Defence Against Dark Arts teacher grinned.
"After all these years, we're back at sneaking around in the dark."
"Why, my dear Moony, that's what we're good at."
"Wonderful. That's just what I wanted to do with my life."
They grinned at each other's attempts at humour. It was a bittersweet task, one that brought back many memories. But in those memories, there were two more marauders in the group and they were performing far less serious tasks.
"After you," bowed Sirius, feigning cordiality.
Lupin snorted as he stepped through the open door of the Dursley home.
He felt it immediately: a taint of Dark magic. The werewolf in him howled with anticipation, stirring something in his blood, but he crushed the feeling mercilessly.
Behind him, Sirius shook himself off like a dog, running a hand through his wet, shoulder-length hair.
Lupin brushed off his own coat absently.
It was dark. Various pieces of furniture had been covered with a clear plastic material and the floor was stained with the dirt from numerous shoes, which he suspected came from the police.
The local news had had a field day with the rumours of strange lights and the Ministry was still trying to keep the media under wraps... both muggle and magical. Kidnapping a boy in his own home was not a commonplace crime, and the kidnappers had taken no other noticeable valuables... Kidnapping the Boy-Who-Lived...
The Dursleys had, of course been notified.
"Oh, our poor nephew!" Lupin recalled Harry's aunt saying in an overly melodramatic voice, blowing her nose loudly as the sympathetic reporter patted her shoulder awkwardly. She dabbed crocodile tears from her eyes with a frilly pink handkerchief. "In our own house too! Dudleykins was crushed! We all loved our Harry."
The cousin in question, of course, was trying to cover his laughter by placing his blubbery hands over his face. His gluttonous belly wobbled like jelly.
"You poor boy," the reported had said, mistaking it was a sign of grief.
"Harry was a good boy at heart, really," Mr Dursley was saying to the camera, "But he fell in with the wrong crowd. I suppose some of his deceased father's... marauding spirit was carried over to him (Mrs. Dursley wailed louder). We did our very best to raise him properly but we really should have expected something like this to happen. If only we'd paid more attention-"
"That's a load of bull," Sirius had said, slamming his hand against the television. He growled in disgust. "Lies. I bet they're all to glad to be rid of him!"
It took Lupin a while to get the television working again after that.
"Hey Moony, take a look."
Lupin snapped out of his reverie, walking over to meet his friend.
Sirius was pointing at a small, plain picture frame sitting near the edge on top of the electric fireplace.
As Lupin looked closer he realized it was a family photo.
Now, the Dursleys, being the prejudiced family that they were, had loathed spending any money for photos with or of Harry. They figured it would be dishonourable proof that they had once had the displeasure of raising that "abnormality". However, in this picture, Harry was present.
It had been taken at a professional studio and the photographer, wondering why the wild-haired boy was sitting quietly alone behind him, had asked Harry why he hadn't joined his family.
Mr. Dursley had grouchily ordered his nephew to join them at that point, eyes promising painful retribution for failing to make himself less noticeable, and the photo had been taken.
After that day, Harry was left home whenever the Dursleys went to get a photo taken.
Sirius was smiling slightly, whether at the comical, podgy 8-year-old boy in the photo or Harry's meek face and fiery eyes, Lupin couldn't tell. Either way, it was good to see his friend smiling again.
Lupin's extra-sensitive nose picked up a whiff of a scent and he frowned, eyes glinting dangerously.
"Wormtail," he whispered.
"Yes. I don't know why it took me so long to recognise his scent the first time," the other answered, carefully placing he photo back.
"It's changed. He reeks of... Voldemort, I presume."
"What?" Sirius jumped at Lupin's tone, which had gone dead cold, snapping up from the fireplace he had been examining, almost hitting his head in the process.
Turning, he barred his teeth in a feral grin, growling deep in his throat. For a moment, Lupin wondered why he had ever been surprised when Sirius had turned into a big black dog, that first time.
Lupin stepped back so that they stood side by side, his wand extended forward.
"Wormtail."
Pettigrew smiled.
Harry gave a start.
"How...?"
His host sniffed. "You really are quite famous, you know. Not just in the wizarding world." He turned away. "Hungry?"
"No," replied Harry hastily. His stomach rebelled at the thought of food. Plus, the situation was a little bewildering.
Having lunch with a dragon usually meant that you *were* lunch. Or at the very least, appetizer.
Or was it dinner, breakfast?
Harry signed. How long had he been out?
"Over a day."
Harry jumped again and stared at the dragon.
Was he really that transparent?
"Nope, just young," replied the dragon cheerfully, showing pointed teeth again.
Torn between gaping, rolling his eyes or retorting, Harry ended up looking akin to a fish stranded on shore and gaped quite successfully.
"......"
"You do that a lot. Are you always this eloquent?"
"Could you... not read my mind," Harry asked a little indignantly. He wasn't used to being teased and if he was reading his host correctly, then the dragon was on the verge of breaking out in laugher. "Please," he added as an afterthought, remembering exactly whom he was speaking to.
Kyram chuckled, the sound echoing through the cave.
"I'm no psychic."
Noticing the boy's dubious glance, the dragon shrugged, as well as a dragon could.
"I'm not. I'm just your average, run of a mill talking dragon," he grinned. "Call me Kyram. I've been called worse."
"O-kay..." came the skeptical reply.
Kyram smirked. This was actually kinda fun. He'd never really had anyone to pick on before. "Actually... It might be longer... depends really. Time's a little faster here than it is there...(Harry thought 'here' and 'there' were extreamly helpful references) which, I suppose is typical if you've watched all those alternate dimension type movies."
How a big green dragon managed to get past cinema security was beyond him. Kyram at the movies would be about as inconspicuous as a bright green neon sign declairing "Free food. You're it". But then again, a lot of things were beyond him. Like talking dragons, mind reading dragons and advanced placement physics (none of which, of you really, really think about it, is something you want to meet in a dark alley... or cave... for that matter).
I'm dreaming. That's it.
Anytime now, his alarm clock would go off, beeping incessantly... or Hedwig would start fidgeting in her cage, demanding to be fed, waking him up...
"Now let's go," the green blur ordered, standing and making his way out of the cave.
Harry pinched himself. Ow...
He glared at his arm, which was turning slightly pink.
The dragon just smirked and gave him a look.
"Go where?" Harry asked suspiciously. Images of Boy-Who-Got-Roasted came unbidden to his mind, still not quite convinced that this dragon wasn't going to decide to eat him. Or, with his extremely danger-prone luck, throw him into a volcano as sacrifice or-
Where the heck am I getting all these ideas from?
"Home." The dragon turned back to gaze down at his guest, its odd golden eyes were glinting with laughter again. "You didn't honestly think I lived in a cave, did you?"
Harry opened his mouth and closed it again.
Kyram kept mumbling as he thumped out of the cave.
"Honestly, humans know nothing at all... fairy tales are such untruthful forms of propaganda. I'll have to roast whoever thought them up.. oops.. I didn't say that-!"
Harry followed.
Clambering down the slippery wet boulders was quite a task, but Kyram didn't seem to notice.
The rain had stopped a few moments ago and Harry found himself being carried away by the beauty of the landscape, blurry though it was. The sun was peeking out of the last reminants of stormy clouds and lighting dewy trees, giving everything a golden luminescence. The breeze was cool and crisp against his skin, smelling of fresh rain.
It was the forest in al its natural glory; a sharp contrast to the Forbidden Forest that Harry was used to.
"How do you like it?"
Harry wished he could see properly.
"It's beautiful."
The dragon nodded its huge head, seeming to swell with pride.
"It's been like this for ages: still untouched by man. You're the first human we've seen around here in a long, long time."
That wasn't hard to believe. It really was very peaceful here... well... excluding the green dragon's occasional outcries at the chirping birds, who seemed oddly smug about something...
Harry fiddled with his broken glasses with a sudden pang.
I wish Ron and Hermione were here.... and quite possibly Charlie too...
He fingered the wand in his pocket.
"Who was here before me?"
Kyram stopped, almost causing Harry to bump into him. His tail started to twitch again.
The youth watched the dragon in tense silence, not wanting to speak out again. Apparently that was the wrong question to ask. His current travelling companion was stock still, forebodingly so.
He breathed a small sigh of relief when the dragon's large form finally started walking again.
"A man named Salazar Slytherin."
"What?" Harry yelped, stopping in his tracks. "Slytherin?" He frowned, fingers reaching for his wand again.
"Oh would you not do that? I thought we'd already established at I was non-threatening to your health."
"Slytherin?"
"Yeah," Ky growled. "Can we change the topic? I'm-"
"-getting a headache," Hermione sighed. "Now I remember exactly why I hate flying."
Ron looked at the source of the disembodied voice, knowing roughly where Hermione flew under the cover of the invisibility cloak. She didn't really need to, at this point. But hey, it was a warm cloak.
"Flying is fun," insisted Ron stubbornly.
"Give me a desk job and I'll be happy."
Ron snorted. "You would... with all your stuffy books..."
Hermione glared before remembering that Ron couldn't see her.
"And what, pray tell, is wrong with books?"
"What's wrong with flying?" Ron countered.
"Ever heard that saying 'what goes up, must come down'. The coming down part isn't exactly encouraging."
"It didn't say 'what goes up must crash land', did it? You're being paranoid."
"Ron, I could re-define air sickness."
"Books give you paper cuts."
"And that would compare to falling to your death... how?"
"Stop... your starting to sound like... a sarcastic Neville. You know how scary that is?"
"Me sounding like Neville?" asked Hermione, exhasperation thick in her voice.
"No, a sarcastic Neville. It's almost as scary as umm..."
"A singing purple dinosaur?"
"What?"
"Never mind."
Good grief, I'm losing it.
"Good grief, you're losing it," said Ron, with a carefully alarmed look on his freckled face. "Should we stop? Should you lie down? Should we go to a library?"
"Oh be quiet or I'll give you a paper cut as soon as a book is made available to me."
They'd spent the whole night looking but either Hedwig's built-in homing system was malfunctioning or Harry was constantly on the move.
Sometimes the white owl would stop in mid-flight, give an exasperated hoot, and start flying in a new direction. It was all getting rather tedious.
They'd been forced to stop before, because of the rain.. and to stop for a bit of food...
"I'm a growing boy," Ron had shrugged, having the decency to show a little bit of embarrassment. His stomach started rumbling so loudly at one point, Hermione thought he'd wake up the sleeping neighbourhood below.
They had, after all, missed dinner.
Of course, just then, the aforementioned owl did stop again, but this time, she started flying back down towards ground.
"Finally!" muttered Ron. Hermione nodded, gratified, utterly forgetting the fact that she was invisible.
Sirius stared at his former friend with an expression of intense loathing. Once the shock of seeing him in the Dursley household had semi-worn off, he pulled out Harry's wand.
"Where's Harry?" he snapped.
Wormtail frowned at them with an irritated expression of superiority.
Beady eyes flashed in shadow. Lupin could practically smell the twisted confidence that radiated from his former friend. Faith in the power of his master. Faith in black magic.
"Sirius, Sirius, Sirius, such ineloquence."
"Peter, Peter, Peter..."
Wormtail's eyes narrowed.
"Now that we're on a first name basis, where's my godson?"
"You are hardly one to be making demands," Wormatil sneered, keeping his cool appearance, "You are, after all, hunted and helpless."
"I'll show you helpless..." Sirius growled, looking like he had every intention of beating the smaller man up with his bare fists.
"Padfoot!" Lupin hissed. "Stop it! He's just an apparition!"
"Hullo, Moony... Always the cautious one, you were. Yes, do listen to the werewolf, Padfoot. You might live a little longer."
Sirius glowered silently, noticing for the first time that the traitor's form was indeed semi-transparent... a detail that was hardly noticeable with so much shadow.
No wonder I didn't smell him.
Beside him, Lupin looked as close to livid as Sirius had ever seen him. He looked much less worn when he was angry.
"What did you do with Harry?"
Wormtail smirked.
"By the time you find out, it will be far too late," came smug reply. "My Master was very pleased."
Sirius glared. "Not if I can help it..."
Wormtail laughed. It was a hollow sound, shocking in its emptiness and more than a little insane.
"Listen to yourself, Black. What on earth do you hope to accomplish, waving around the boy's wand. You have his only feeble hope of any sort of protection and no way to get it to him." He faked a resigned sigh. "Pity the boy doesn't realize it."
"And what are you? You're a lap dog, Wormtail. You're lower than your nickname. You really think Voldemort-"
"Don't say his name!" Wormtail hissed, his eye twitching, his mouth pressed into a thin line. "How dare-"
"Lumos," Lupin snapped, light blossoming at the end of his wand. Wormtail's form now looked much less solid.
"Listen here, you transparent, snivling, four fingered vermin. That's James' son-" Sirius started.
"James, James, James!" Pettigrew squealed, eyes widening to the point where they were almost bulging out of his face. "Always James! James is dead-"
"Because of you!" Lupin barked.
"Yes," Wormtail smiled a little insane sort of smile. "Me." He appeared to mull over the thought with great satisfaction, smiling at Sirius mockingly (much to Sirius' increasing aggrivation and guilt). "Have a nice day, gentlemen," he said, his voice once again taking on a smug tone of all-knowing superiority.
"Wha-"
"FREEZE!"
Wormtail sneered in satisfaction, giving them a last burning look of contempt as he vanished in a haze of crimson light.
Sirius turned slowly, mirroring Lupin's movements as they confronted the wild-eyed face of a young police officer. The man was holding a muggle object Lupin recognised to be a gun: a weapon.
"Please tell me we weren't just duped by his royal squeakiness," Sirius muttered in exasperation.
"You are under arrest for the charge of...of..." the officer broke off, eyeing Lupin's glowing wand jumpily, "You are not obliged to say anything, but anything you do say will be taken down and used against you..."
Lupin sighed. "Oh bother."
AN: Yeah yeah. Short I know. I'm trying! Really I am... I just have the undeniable
urge to clip off my fics at supposedly intense moments. Forgive me. I'm not as talented at some other writers.
BTW, go to my webpage, go to my webpage, go to my webpape! And... go to my webpage! The address is up at the top but in case you've missed it, it's https://www.angelfire.com/anime2/loft1050/
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