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"Harry" -Speech

'Ginny' -Thoughts

/Bill\ -Foreign/Non-human Language

Chapter 11: Boggarts, Grim and Hats

Thursday

Potions Classroom, Dungeons, Hogwarts

"If looks could kill, Malfoy would have you six feet under." Ron muttered to Harry as the two Gryffindors prepared a Shrinking Solution.

Harry glanced at one Draco Malfoy, who was indeed throwing him a foul look from where he was seated behind his cauldron. The royal bollocking he had received from Snape had evidently been a heretofore unknown occurrence for the Slytherin Prince. The Potions Master had evidently been displeased that his House had lost points on the very first day, and from Hagrid of all people.

"Ignore him." he muttered back to his friend, "He isn't worth the trouble."

This earned him an approving look from Hermione before she turned back to helping Neville, who still couldn't make a potion to save his life thanks to Snape looming at him. The greasy-haired man had always picked on the chubby boy, terrifying him and making the boy have more potions accidents than the rest of the class put together.

Harry looked back on the first week as something of a good thing so far. Malfoy was sulking because Snape had torn him a new one, both in private and in public, and had only glared and sneered at him from a discrete distance.

Well, discrete for Malfoy, which wasn't saying much.

Ancient Runes had been interesting. The teacher, Bathsheda Babbling, was a gregarious and energetic witch who turned what would be a dry and boring subject into a rather fascinating and lively discussion about the various runes that existed. They were studying Elder Futhark first, which would be followed by Younger Futhark. Some of the simpler runic combinations –pest repulsion, illumination and a simple alarm ward- would only be attempted after they proved to her satisfaction that they had a steady hand at copying them out, as well as naming all of their properties and main uses.

Harry kept noticing, however, that Hermione was disappearing and reappearing with surprising regularity when her classes overlapped, mainly when Arithmancy, Muggle Studies and Study of Ancient Runes clashed with other classes. He knew that Hermione had signed up for all of the electives and that she was a dedicated student, but he couldn't see how she was making it to those classes considering she never missed any of them.

The Boy-Who-Lived carefully cut his daisy roots up for the Shrinking Solution he and Ron were making. Surprisingly, the greasy-haired Potions Master wasn't picking on him during this lesson. It was a novel experience and slightly unsettling. Harry wondered what he was planning.

Later

Corridor to DADA Classroom

Remus Lupin, the last of the loyal Marauders, sighed as he headed towards the classroom where his friend's son awaited him.

'He looks just like James did at that age…but with Lily's eyes.' He thought whimsically.

The similarity to his two old friends was startling. Physically, he looked like James, but his demeanour…that was Lily all the way. She was never one to toot her own horn unless someone (James or Sirius) got her dander up.

All at once, his mood soured as he remembered The Traitor. Remus couldn't believe that Sirius had changed so much since his school days. How could he betray James, his brother in all but blood? How could he kill Peter? Now, to put icing on the cake, he was trying to kill his own godson!

Lupin was determined to protect Harry. He hadn't been able to do so for the last eleven years, but he was determined to do so this year!

This had led him to speak to Dumbledore just a short while ago.

Flashback

Headmaster's Office

"Ah, Remus!" Professor Dumbledore greeted him warmly, "To what do I owe the honour? Isn't your first class with young Harry in just a short while?"

"It's about that lesson that I'm here." Lupin said uneasily, "The first Dark Creature I'm planning on covering is a Boggart."

"Capital. Those things get everywhere and the young need to know how to deal with them." The Headmaster nodded.

"I was wondering…" Remus began haltingly.

"What the likelihood of Harry's Boggart being Voldemort?" Dumbledore finished knowingly.

Remus stared at the old man for a moment. "If I wasn't a werewolf, I'd have sworn that you just used Legilimency on me."

"It doesn't take Legilimency or a great leap of logic to guess why you would be concerned about exposing the Boy-Who-Lived to a shapeshifter that takes on the form of a person's worst fear." The old wizard replied dryly, "In any case, I am confident that Mr. Potter's Boggart isn't Voldemort. I suspect that his fear will be something else entirely."

The old Marauder looked pensive. "Do you have any idea what it might be?"

"Honestly? Harry has shown the ability to suppress his fear when confronted by trolls, traps, incompetent Defence Professors or Basilisks." Dumbledore sighed, "The only thing his fear could be…is fear itself."

Flashback End

Quite what the Headmaster had meant by that Lupin didn't know, but he was reassured that he wouldn't have to deal with students panicking over a Boggart-Voldemort, or Boggmort as the more Marauder portion of his mind had dubbed the combination.

When he entered the classroom, he immediately spotted Harry, with his two friends Hermione Granger and Ronald Weasley sitting to either side of him. Remus' inner wolf was howling in delight at finally having one of his Pack back. Well, in a manner of speaking anyway.

"Good afternoon." He greeted the class warmly, "Would you put your books back in your bags. Today will be a practical lesson."

This got the class muttering in interest. Lupin suppressed a frown, as practical lessons were the key to mastering spells. According to Dumbledore and the lesson plans left behind by his predecessors, these kids had only had one practical lesson in two years, which was a disgrace. And even that one lesson had been a fiasco, with Lockhart running away from Cornish Pixies and leaving it up to the students to sort them out.

Leading the class to the staffroom was uneventful, except for an incident with Peeves the Poltergeist, but a little application of the Waddiwasi charm saw him off. He had always underestimated the Marauders, much to the mischievous spirit's chagrin when they got the better of him.

As he led the class into the staffroom, he almost sighed as Severus Snape sneered up at him from one of the armchairs. The man still carried a grudge against him from an incident in their school years that Lupin hadn't even been a willing or knowing participant! How utterly infantile.

"Leave the door open, Lupin. I have no desire to watch an abysmal attempt at spellcasting as you are almost certain to get from Longbottom...unless Miss Granger is there to hold his hand through it and practically do all the work for him." He sneered before stalking out of the door.

Remus noticed that Harry had a resigned expression on his face at Snape's reaction before throwing the Longbottom Heir a bracing look. Evidently Severus victimized Neville a lot, to the point that it was expected for the Potions Master to say or do something to that end when near the boy. Well, he'd have to cheer the boy up.

"It's a shame that Professor Snape chose to leave," he said aloud, drawing his class' attention, "As I intend to have Mr. Longbottom take first stage in this operation, and I am certain he will prove more than equal to the task."

He hid a frown when Neville blanched pasty white. What the hell had Augusta Longbottom done to her grandson? He was acting like someone who had been abused or something. Lupin made a note to have a word with Professor McGonagall and the Headmaster about this.

Just then, the wardrobe where the staff kept their cloaks shuddered violently, drawing attention from poor Neville.

"Pay it no mind; it's only a Boggart." He said with a practiced negligence. He noted that some, mostly the Muggleborn, looked blank at this, while Neville looked terrified and Seamus Finnegan was definitely apprehensive.

"Boggarts are very fond of enclosed spaces, such as wardrobes, cupboards and the undersides of a bad." He stated, "Because of this habit, in muggle superstition, they are known as the bogymen, the ones who cause fear to children. Can anyone tell me why?"

When one hand shot up faster than any of the others, he wasn't surprised to see that it was Hermione Granger. He had been told about the girl's desire to prove herself and that her intelligence and knowledgebase bordered on the frightening, so he was curious to see how she reacted here.

"Miss Granger?"

When she gave him a textbook perfect answer, he wondered if she had memorised the book.

"A Boggart is a shape-shifter. It can take the form of whatever frightens us most."

"Very good, ten points to Gryffindor." Lupin said, "For bonus points, what form does a Boggart take when nobody is around?" he asked. This would determine if she was just knowledgeable or intelligent to go along with it.

Hermione hesitated for a moment before replying, "No one knows because no one has seen a Boggart that hasn't assumed the form of what someone fears."

"Excellent, another ten points to Gryffindor." Lupin said with a nod, "So in this wardrobe, the Boggart doesn't know what will frighten whoever it sees first. We have a natural advantage over the Boggart; we outnumber it. This means that unless someone moves out of the group, it will be hard pressed to choose what to become. I saw a Boggart once try to become something that would frighten both someone who was afraid of flesh-eating slugs and someone afraid of a headless corpse. It changed into half a dead slug. Not remotely frightening."

This earned him a few small smiles.

"The charm that repels a Boggart is really quite simple, yet it also requires force of mind." Lupin continued, "Laughter is one of the things that a Boggart cannot abide, thus the charm forces it to assume a shape that amuses you. The charm is Riddikulus. Say it with me please."

"Riddikulus." The class chanted.

"Excellent. Now, what you have to cement in your head is what your fear is and how to render it amusing to you." The werewolf said firmly, "This is important. If you cannot visualise something to render your fear amusing, the Boggart will become more powerful and more frightening for you. If I see this happening, I will step in and neutralise it, so none of you have to worry about that. Now, Neville…you will be going first. What scares you the most?"

"…" he muttered inaudibly.

"Sorry, didn't quite catch that." Lupin said cheerfully.

"Professor Snape." Neville said softly, a quailing note in his voice.

'OK, that does it. Severus has got to be talked to.' Lupin thought, 'No schoolchild should have one of his teachers as the scariest thing he knows!'

"Severus is rather intimidating, isn't he?" Lupin said with a thoughtful look at the boy, "You live with your grandmother, don't you Neville?"

"Y-Yes, but I don't want the Boggart to turn into her either." Neville replied nervously, earning a few nervous chuckles from those who had met his formidable grandmother for themselves.

"No, no, no." Lupin hurriedly assured him, "Could you tell me what clothes she usually wears?"

"Umm…" Neville looked startled, but complied, "A long green dress…a tall hat with a stuffed vulture on it…sometimes a fox-fur scarf…"

"And a handbag?" Lupin prompted him whilst privately thinking that some of the older generation of wizards and witches seemed to have the most eccentric tastes in clothing. Augusta Longbottom and Dumbledore being the most eccentric to him.

"A big red one." Neville confirmed.

"Right. What I want you to do is to visualise Professor Snape being forced into your grandmother's clothing when you say the Boggart banishing Spell." He said jovially, which elicited shout of laughter from the class. This aggravated the Boggart, the creature reacting violently again, making the wardrobe shudder again.

"Now, once Neville is successful, the Boggart will turn from him and look for someone else to scare." Lupin told the rest of the class, "I want you all to line up, the order doesn't matter. As each person defeats or is defeated by their personal Boggart, they are to move to the side. Let me stress that failure to overcome your Boggart is not a sign of weakness. The greater your fear, the harder it will be to turn it into something amusing. Some people never manage to overcome their Boggarts. Conversely, if it is a slight fear, it will no doubt be taken care of rather easily."

As he looked around, Lupin noticed Ronald Weasley muttering something under his breath, his face white. Whatever he was afraid of, it obviously terrified him. Lupin had always found Boggarts to be fascinating creatures, because the fears they exposed with their shape-shifting said something about the person themselves. His own Boggart was the Full Moon, which most people mistook for a crystal ball thankfully.

"Ready Neville?" he asked. The boy didn't look ready, but nodded gamely nonetheless as he drew his wand. "OK then. Everyone back off so Neville can get a good whack at the Boggart."

The class did so and Lupin pulled his wand out, relishing the warmth that he felt every time he picked it up. It was comforting to know that at least one thing wouldn't leave him.

"On three, Neville." He said, pointing his wand at the wardrobe door, "One…two…THREE."

Lupin sent a silent Alohomora charm at the door, releasing the Boggart. The sinister form of Severus Snape pushed the door open and stepped out, his usual sneer on his face as he strode towards Neville, his robe billowing menacingly as he walked.

This was the Boggart magnifying all the traits that made the form it took physically frightening for Neville, Lupin knew. He was about to step in when the Longbottom Heir shouted, "Riddikulus!"

With a sound like a whip being cracked, the Boggart-Snape was dressed in the clothing of Augusta Longbottom, making the class laugh, even the Slytherin students. Lupin applauded his effort but frowned slightly when he saw Neville's wand.

Putting it to the back of his mind for the moment, he sent Neville to one side and beckoned Daphne Greengrass forward. With another crack, the Boggart changed…into a copy of Daphne, except very much in her persona as the infamous 'Ice Queen' of Slytherin. Haughty gaze with a scathing look on her face, body drawn up ramrod straight with an untouchable air about her…

"Riddikulus!" Daphne growled as she pointed her wand at her doppelganger. The Boggart turned into a statue of ice and started to melt. Very morbid, but he could see why she would find it amusing. So she was most afraid of being stuck as the untouchable Ice Queen for the rest of her life? Interesting.

Next up was Parvati Patil. Her Boggart was an undead mummy, which could indicate that she feared desecration after death but not death itself. After she made bandages unwrap on it, making its head fall off, Tracey Davis was sent forward.

Her Boggart was a Dullahan or Gan Ceann, a headless horseman with its head carried under one arm. With a jolt, Lupin realised that the head was that of her father, Lord Hubert Davis. So she feared that someone was going to cause her father to die, as Dullahans were a powerful death omen.

"Riddikulus!" she snapped, turning horse and rider into…a toy troll mounted on a My Little Pony action figure.

Blinking at this, Lupin waved Seamus on to replace her. The figurines turned into a woman in a white dress with floor-length black hair and a skeletal face. A bean sídhe, a Banshee, another death omen. In Irish and Scottish superstition, multiple Banshees were supposed to wail at the death of a great person while a single one was an omen of the death of a family member.

So the Irish boy feared the death of someone in his family. How very Gryffindorish.

As the Banshee opened its mouth to wail, Seamus made it lose its voice, and the boy scurried back. Next up was Padma Patil, who changed her Giant King Cobra into a jack-in-the-box. Lavender Brown trapped her rat-Boggart in a mousetrap, while Susan Bones had a fright by seeing the dead body of her Aunt Amelia appearing on the ground. She managed to change the body into a Barbie doll before staggering back with tears in her eyes.

'So, fear of retaliation, fear of unhygienic situations and overwhelming fear of the possible death of her only living relative.' Lupin concluded. King Cobras were, in Indian superstition, supposed to have the image of their killers embedded in their eyes for their mates to see and track down the killers, while rats had always been associated with disease in Europe since the Black Plague. Boggarts were almost never what they seemed to be. What you saw was usually an indication of the true fear.

When Dean moved forward and the Barbie doll changed into a severed hand, Lupin saw the boy wince and rub his hands before pulling the same trick with the mousetrap that Lavender had. He recalled hearing that the boy had a love of art, so losing his hands would be bad for him.

When Ron came forward, the trapped hand shifted into an Acromantula, a giant spider from Borneo. As Ron let out a whimper of fear, Lupin realised that in this case it was an exception to the normal rule; Ron had rather severe Arachnophobia, a fear of all spiders.

His solution was to put roller-skates on the beast, which Remus had to admit was quite amusing, not to mention practical. Now it was stuck spinning its wheels Ron could retreat quite easily.

At last, Harry walked forward, wand clutched in a white-knuckled grip. Remus watched as the Acromantula blurred into…oh no.

A Dementor. Black robed and floating fear incarnate. How could he not have seen that this was Harry's Boggart?! He could feel the aura of the Dementor-Boggart reaching out, draining all of the happy memories from those present, the temperature of the air falling as it sucked in the memories.

Just about the only good thing about the situation was that a Boggart, when it became a magical creature, had severely reduced abilities compared to the real McCoy, so this aura was something like two-thirds weaker than an actual Dementor's aura.

Still, he could see the aura taking effect on Harry. The raven-haired boy swayed before he managed to grunt out, "Riddikulus!"

With a whip-like crack, the Dementor was replaced with…a snowglobe? Yes, a snowglobe with a tiny Dementor inside it. How novel.

"Neville, you finish him off!" Lupin ordered.

More confident now, the Longbottom Heir came to the fore and cast the Boggart Banishing Spell, even as the Boggart tried to shift into Snape. He let out a loud 'ha!' as the Snape-Boggart appeared. This was as much as the Dark Creature could take, as it exploded into wisps of smoke and vanished.

"Excellent." Lupin said with a proud smile, "Five points to everyone who faced the Dementor, ten for Neville as he faced it twice. For homework, to be handed in on Monday, read and summarise the chapter on Boggarts. Those who did not face the Boggart this week, have no fear, as there is another in a cupboard that I will use next week, to allow you all to face your fears. See you on Monday. That will be all."

As the class filtered out, he saw Hermione and Ron stick close to Harry, who still looked worse for wear after his Boggart. He made a note to get the Hogwarts House Elves to deliver some chocolate to the boy. Without some, the shivers from Dementor Exposure took days to recover from.

Right now though, he had to see McGonagall and the Headmaster about Neville Longbottom.

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With Sirius Black

Outlying Areas of Hogwarts Grounds

Padfoot glared down from the top of the large cairn he stood on at the numerous floating black figures that wandered around the grounds.

Dementors! At Hogwarts! Who would be stupid enough to order that done!?

'One Cornelius Oswald Fudge!' he snarled to himself. The fat little man was probably shitting himself that he would be blamed for Sirius' breakout, so he had deployed the Dementors here. How he knew that Sirius would come to Hogwarts he didn't know, but he guessed the human prison guards had heard him talking in his sleep. All prisoners in Azkaban talked in their sleep, an irritating side effect of the Dementors and their aura.

This complicated things immensely. How the devil was he supposed to get into Hogwarts without being affected by the Dementors? They were even in Hogsmeade. This rang a bell in his memories and he sifted through them before realisation struck him like a thunderbolt.

'The secret passages! Of course!' he thought, castigating himself for not thinking of it sooner. Azkaban must have banged his mind up more than he'd thought. There were more than a few passages in and out of Hogwarts, all of which were known to him.

Unfortunately, most of them were ruled out because the cantankerous caretaker, Argus Filch, knew them as well. He'd met the man on a visit to the castle during the War against Voldemort and had come away feeling unclean. The man was a walking ball of spite and resentment and that damned cat of his was just as bad.

So, eliminating those passages, that left three. The one under the Whomping Willow was not useful, as it only took you into the grounds not the castle proper. That left two; the one that led to the mirror on the Fourth Floor and one that went to the statue of the Humpbacked Witch on the Third Floor. The mirror passage was the easiest to get to, so he'd try for that one first. Scout the way out, so to speak, before heading in for real.

He loped away from the edge of the Hogwarts grounds and towards the village of Hogsmeade. Snuffling around, he skirted the edge of the village proper before finding a small cave set in a nearby hill. Walking in, Padfoot trotted through until he saw, through the monochrome vision of his Animagus form, a pile of rocks.

Changing back to his human form, Sirius croaked out, "Transitus Petram."

With the grating sound of rock-on-rock, the pile of rocks shifted to one side, revealing a tunnel. The Black Heir changed back into Padfoot and trotted through the opening, which ground shut after him. The tunnel wasn't too long, just winding and twisting. Suddenly, he walked into a wall and he yelped in pain as his delicate nose was rammed into an immovable object.

Changing back so he could rub his abused appendage, he glared at the large pile of rocks that barred his way. Shit. The passage had become unstable and collapsed at some point over the years. Well, that only left the passage under Honeydukes Sweet Shop. That meant he would have to sneak past the Dementors and break into the shop circumspectly after business hours without leaving a trace of his coming and going.

Not that it would be all that hard to do, but it was more things to worry about possibly going wrong. After he got into Hogwarts, he had to take the back passages to avoid any of the enchanted portraits that reported to Dumbledore, somehow break into Gryffindor Tower, find that rat Pettigrew and change him back into human form before killing the traitorous bastard. Then, he'd drag his carcass before Dumbledore and…

Ok, so it wasn't a good plan, but at least it was a plan of some sort. Plans had been more Prongs and Mooney's forte. Sirius had been a tactical thinker, acting and living in the present. He was also feeling very…disjointed after so long in Azkaban, as if, to coin a term he'd heard Lily use once, all his cylinders weren't firing properly.

He thought it had something to do with cars or motorbikes, but he could be wrong there.

Anyway, he needed to find a place to hide in…oh. He could just make the cave outside this tunnel his little base now that he didn't have to worry about people coming down this way through the now-defunct secret passage.

Sirius yawned. He had gotten precious little rest on the journey up here and the lack of cover hadn't exactly helped in the torrential English weather, so he had been wet for a good portion of it. Good thing dogs can't catch a cold.

A good night or two's worth of sleep and he'd see about scouting his old stomping grounds. And killing the rat bastard who had stolen over a decade from him.

Later

Headmaster's Office, Hogwarts

Albus Dumbledore was disturbed. This did not happen often.

"Are you certain, Remus?" he asked.

"I am." The werewolf confirmed, "Minerva, how did you miss this?"

The Scottish woman shook her head faintly. "Not a clue. Now that you come to mention it, it is odd how…repressed Mr. Longbottom is. A word with Augusta from you ought to be apropos, Albus."

"Yes…I think I will do that, Minerva." The venerable headmaster sighed.

"While you're there, convince the woman to buy Neville a proper wand instead of making the poor boy use his father's." Remus added.

"Whit?!" McGonagall snapped in shock, "Yon daft besom makes the bairn use Frank's wand?!"

Albus winced. Minerva's scots dialect was showing through.

"I was in the same year as Frank." Remus replied, "I'd recognise that wand anywhere. Again, how did you miss this, Minerva?"

"I have no excuses." The Deputy-Headmistress sighed, "I never looked at his wand properly. Oh, this is appalling."

"Now Minerva," Dumbledore said with a sigh, "You have a lot on your plate, what with having three posts to fulfil. Would it be that I could ease your burden."

He would have preferred to leave Minerva as Transfiguration Professor and Head of Gryffindor, but he needed someone he trusted as his Deputy. Not that he didn't trust Severus, Filius or Pomona, but he knew that Minerva was loyal to him and that she had the right mentality for the job. She wasn't convinced that adversity builds character like Filius, she wasn't coddling like Pomona and she wasn't a bully like Severus.

"Sorting Hat," Albus addressed the first relic of Godric Gryffindor, "I know the Founders put enchantments on you to prevent you from discussing what you discover when you sort the new students, but can you confirm yea or nay that we are right to be concerned about Mr. Longbottom?"

The rip near the brim opened and the hat replied, "Headmaster, I cannot divulge anything, unless it is serious torture. That is the way I was designed. Things were a lot…rougher…for children back in the time of the Founders, as you well know. What can be considered illegal nowadays was the norm back then."

To a politician as experienced as Albus, those words might as well have said 'yes, the boy is being emotionally beaten down by his grandmother!' but it wasn't a sure thing, not one that would be accepted by others.

"I see. Thank you." the old man said aloud, "Minerva, kindly owl Madame Longbottom and ask her to come for a meeting at her convenience. Remus, thank you for bringing this to our attention. Do tell, how did Harry do against the Dementor-Boggart?"

"You could have told me that his Boggart would be one of those foul things." Lupin grumbled, "Yes, he did very well. Turned it into a snowglobe. I could still see how badly even a weakened Dementor aura affected him though. Albus, you have to get those things away from here or who knows what might happen!"

"Sadly, Cornelius continues to be obdurate about it." The Headmaster sighed in irritation, "Amelia Bones, Arthur Weasley and several other members of the Ministry who have children here marched up to his office and demanded the immediate removal of the Dementors of Azkaban, but he persists in his belief that they are needed to keep Sirius Black at bay from Harry. Especially since there were reports of Black in Lothian."

Remus slumped. "I just don't understand!" he whispered, "Sirius loved Harry! He loved James and Lily! He wouldn't have betrayed them! He loathed the Dark Arts and his family! So why…?"

As Minerva put a comforting hand on the poor man's shoulder, Albus grieved with him for a moment. He too knew what it was like to be betrayed by someone you counted as a close friend. To have your former friendship sundered by spellfire and treason. Black's actions had struck Albus far too close to home, reminding him of Gellert Grindelwald's actions which had ended in the death of his sister Arianna and the permanent estrangement between himself and his brother, Aberforth, so he had refused to see him after he had been incarcerated and had put him out of mind over the past decade.

Now though, with Black on the loose, Dumbledore was wondering the same thing as Remus, now the wound was no longer quite so raw. Sirius had indeed loathed the Pureblood Supremacy agenda espoused by his family. Not to mention that harridan of a mother of his, Walburga Black.

That hatred had not been unfeigned, as Albus had covertly used Legilimency on the man when he had inducted the Marauders into the Order of the Phoenix. Sirius had been an exemplar of a Gryffindor, brave, courageous and unafraid of doing the right thing, as well as being immensely loyal to his friends. The betrayal of Lily and James and the murder of Peter Pettigrew and the twelve Muggles was very much a sharp departure from his usual character.

'Could he have been captured and force-fed a potion that would force a personality or ideological change on him? Perhaps an enforced slave contract or geas contract?' he wondered, 'It wouldn't be the Imperius Curse, not with his Occlumency training as the Black Heir. It would affect him like water off a duck's back.'

Dumbledore hardened his resolve. If Sirius Black entered Hogwarts, he would capture him and get to the bottom of this by means hook or crook. He owed it to Remus, James and Peter to discover if their friend had been forced to betray them or had done it of his own will.

On his perch, Fawkes trilled a soothing song as Remus passed him, calming the werewolf down and driving his dark thoughts away.

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Next Chapter: Black Halloween

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