Disclaimer: Universe and characters belong to J.K. Rowling. I make no money off them. I just borrow them for my dreams

PART TWO

PASSION AND PURPOSE

TWO

Remus, my friend. I need that to be true. Our youth has been taken out of us and nothing is the same. What do I have if I don't have you? I might as well rot in my cell. We're the only ones left.

I sit on your sofa bed and listen to the sounds of you doing the dishes in the kitchen. You insisted on clearing away and cleaning the plates yourself, with a sort of 'at least I can contribute this much to the meal!' look on your face.

Why does it have to be this hard? I'm the one straight out of prison, with a mind still demented by Azkaban-fog. The idiot responsible for the death of my best friend. The one who failed you all. Why should you feel shamed in front of me?

- Remus did enjoy the meal I cooked. But he was embarrassed to show just how much. Embarrassed that I should understand just how long it's been since he last had a simple good steak.

Of course he knows I have realised how poor he is. When he stuttered his thanks for the meal and all the food he found in his cupboards, I told him to shut up and consider it rent.

He can keep me as a dog, but not as a man. That's the simple truth of it. If he goes much longer without finding work, he may not be able to feed me as a dog either. Let alone feed himself. Does he have any savings left at all?

He's my friend, not a charity project. He needs a job. Fuck the werewolf legislation and monster vultures like that Skeeter woman!

Remus comes back from the kitchen. Steak and wine and hot dishwater steam have put some colour into his face. He looks more relaxed now. He curls up in his armchair; I lounge on his sofa bed with my legs stretched out. We sip whiskey and pop sweets and the silence between us has something in it I don't want to explore.

There's no light except from the stove and a couple of charmed candles floating about in the air. The lines in Remus' face and the grey strands in his hair do not show in the glow. This is the Remus I remember. This is how we used to sit together, so many times before. Only to be disturbed by James and Peter as they come crashing through the door, boisterous and rude and annoying on purpose, scolding us for keeping all the whiskey to ourselves...

My insides jump. Somebody knocks at the door for real. Remus frowns as he gets up to answer it.

But I don't change. I'm through hiding as a dog. I'm a free man. If it's another one of those sleazy reporters, I'm going to deal with them head on. I touch the good wand in my pocket, almost hoping it's Rita Skeeter herself.

'Dumbledore!' Remus exclaims. 'Why, come in, come in – you want a whiskey in this cold weather, I'm sure – come inside!'

He steps aside and there is Dumbledore against the winter dark, with a beaming face and a large cardboard box cradled in his arms.

'My dear friend!' he exclaims as he comes forward, to place the box on the floor and extend his arms towards me. 'I can't even begin to tell you how happy I am to see you here – free at last, free of all charges and wrongful suspicions, reunited with your old friend – '

The warmth in his eyes, the genuine happiness to see me – I can't help but responding. I get up and let him take both my hands to squeeze them. Now I realise how much his aloof and professional airs at the Wizengamot hurt me.

My former headmaster and Order leader. Who chose to trust and respect me when no one else thought I was worth it. In spite of all the trouble I gave him.

Except James. No one trusted and respected me like James.

Fog seeps into my heart and the warm glow is drained from the candlelight. But I don't want to dwell on it. I try to shake it and focus instead on Dumbledore's face.

James, my brother. How can I live it all down without you.

'I thought I shouldn't disturb you before,' Dumbledore says. 'You needed the rest away from attention, to fatten up and get your strength back, I thought. But when I heard you had been at Ollivander's today – I decided it was time I paid you a visit...'

I feel myself grinning, in spite of the fog in my heart. Trust this man to always have his spies out! Nothing will escape Dumbledore.

Remus offers him the armchair and gets him another glass from the kitchen. I pour him some Firewhiskey. Dumbledore lifts his glass in a toast.

'To old friendship,' he says.

We drink to old friendship. Then Remus and I sit down on the sofa bed together.

It's not awkward. Dumbledore sits with such ease in this humble room, and embraces us both with his full attention. Benign and friendly and full of twinkle. We talk about old times and they fill me in with news and anecdotes about old friends, from the Order and from school.

Too many now live a limited life, far below their once promise, scarred and withdrawn. Moody has retired. Spotting Death Eaters everywhere, too paranoid to be of any use. But Kingsley's still an Auror. Doing fine, Dumbledore says.

They have a lot to tell me. Eight years is a long time to be out of the loop. I try to follow; I really do. Try not to show that I can't muster the kind of interest they expect. Yes, I remember the names, the faces; I even laugh at some of the anecdotes. But they don't mean anything to me. I can't remember the friendship, can't remember how this was once important.

Azkaban took it. The Sirius who cared is no longer me.

But then Dumbledore turns to me with a more serious tone in his voice.

'I must offer my sincere thanks and gratitude for your generosity towards me,' he says. 'But of course, you were never a small-minded man.'

I don't understand what he means. Dumbledore nods.

'I see you don't even understand what I mean. That truly humbles me. But ever since Remus here found Pettigrew alive, it has gnawed on my conscience how I was so ready to accept what seemed like overwhelming evidence against you. I should have pressed harder for a trial.'

'That rat was a lot more clever than we thought. You were not the only one who was fooled,' I choose to say, hoping this will be enough to stop any further development of the topic.

I don't want to go there. I really don't.

'That's true,' Remus nods. 'I didn't care either, that Sirius never had a trial. I didn't believe it would have made even the slightest difference. I was convinced he was guilty as hell. That's how everybody felt back then. Nobody cared about a trial. We all owe you an apology, Sirius.'

'Well OK, apologies accepted,' I say. 'And now Peter gets to pay, so it's all good.'

But Dumbledore will not let the topic rest.

'I'm afraid my sin is bigger than yours, Remus,' he says. 'Because I cared. Yes, the evidence against you were overwhelming, Sirius – there's no denying that. But I was worried. I thought I knew you, knew what kind of man you were. You were the last on my list of suspects for the spy -'

'The first was probably me,' Remus says in a low voice, looking down at the whiskey glass in his hands.

'No – that was Peter.'

We both look at him. Dumbledore looks at me.

'I didn't see Peter as quite as – naive – as you and James maybe thought he was,' he says. 'And I knew he was the weaker character. I saw how he immediately sought out you and James as the strongest and most confident boys in Gryffindor tower. He never challenged you, always applauded you, no matter how headless or wicked your pranks might be. He was far too ready to accept the role of tag-along and mascot, as long as he could bask in a popularity he would never have achieved on his own. He was only too happy to receive your and James' unwavering loyalty and protection, even though it came with a patronising touch. It didn't bode well.'

Tag-along and mascot. That stings.

It was not like that. He had more to offer than that. He was a fountain of dreams and schemes, some of them brilliant, some of them hilarious and some just weird. He was the one who fantasised about tracking spells on professors and prefects so we could trace their movements on a map. He was the one who sniffed out most of the secret passages of the castle and showed them to us.

Silly little berks, fooling around in the playing field that Hogwarts was to us. That it also was to us. Laughing, to keep it all at bay while looking out for each other.

Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs. Always four. Not three and a tag-along.

But maybe it's true. Maybe he never crossed any lines. Maybe he never was a real friend of ours.

It's just an image from a lost dream, the four of us running carefree under the moon. I don't think it was ever wholly like that. We felt the war; we ran in its shadow. Each year looming closer, deepening all conflicts, endangering all quarrels, guaranteeing the safety of no one. Until defense and revenge pushed aside all thoughts of pranks and jokes. Until we were in it for real, fighting the war to end all wars, and we thought that we were losing...

Dumbledore is still speaking.

'I knew Peter would always be tempted to go where the power sits,' he says, 'and would not be very resistant to threats or coercion – very unlike you, Sirius. I felt certain you would never cave to any kind of threat or torture. You would never betray your friends. So when James and Lily were found dead and you were arrested – I was convinced you must have fallen victim to an Imperius spell. But both the Hit Squad that arrested you and Crouch who interrogated you insisted this was not the case - '

'Crouch never interrogated me. No one did.'

'I see. Crouch gave me the impression that he – said you never said anything to defend yourself, only laughed...'

'The Hit Squad threw me in one of their holding cells, and then the Dementors came. I never saw Crouch, or any other Ministry official for that matter.'

Dumbledore lifts a hand towards me, as if he wants to plead forgiveness. Or offer me comfort. Or both.

I don't want either. Leave it be. I don't need this old anger rising, these bitter memories. Give me back what the Dementors took. Talk about the good times more.

Is this why Dumbledore has come to see me? To make this confession, and beg my forgiveness? But I don't need that. Peter bested us all; end of story. Go lay it all on him.

'Aurors are of course trained to both detect and end an Imperius,' Dumbledore presses on. 'In all other cases, their word would have been enough to satisfy me. But in your case, I wanted to judge for myself. So I asked to see you. But I was denied this...'

'But – weren't you the head of the Wizengamot back then, too?' Remus asks. 'Couldn't you have just – ordered them to let you see him?'

Dumbledore sighs. The flame light from behind the glass door of the stove flickers over his face and makes it hard to read his expression. But his body posture seems sunken and sad.

'This was where I failed,' he says. 'It's not as easy as you imply – the head of the Wizengamot does not have the power to instruct the Aurors or the Head of the Law Enforcement Department on how to handle individual cases. But I was not without influence. I could have pulled some strings, stepped on a few sore toes. I'm afraid the real reason why I didn't press the issue was political...'

'Political?'

Remus sounds indignant. But my flash of anger is over and my interest is waning.

It's always politics with the Ministry. Why should my case have been any different? I don't need a lecture in Ministry politics, old or new. Can we please leave this alone?

But I don't say it. I know it won't be over till he's said what he's come to say. If he thinks it's important, Dumbledore will always get to speak his mind.

'Yes. Political,' he confirms. 'Voldemort's sudden downfall had an enormous effect on the Ministry. During his reign of terror, everybody had been united against him – well, almost. But as soon as he was gone, the Ministry fell apart in competing fractions. Millicent Bagnold had a hard time keeping it all together. She advocated forgiveness and reconciliation to heal the wounds of war, while the public was bent on punishment and revenge. There was a regular campaign to replace her with Crouch. The campaigners said Bagnold was not a legitimate Minister because she had not been appointed according to normal procedure. She had only recently been made Minister for Magic, in a time of crisis when the former Minister suddenly died -'

'Crouch,' Remus remarks, contempt dripping from his voice. 'Wasn't he the one who first recruited Dementors to be the prison guards of Azkaban? Only for the Death Eater terrorists and traitors he assured us – but we all know how that went down. And then he sent his own son to his death in their clutches! How anyone could have wanted him for Minister is beyond me.'

'Oh, he is thoroughly dethroned now – but in those days, Crouch had a large following. Mostly due to his fervour in hunting down the Death Eaters. Surely Remus, you must remember the public feeling in those days? Shortly after Voldemort's fall, when so many Death Eaters were still at large, still killing and torturing people?

'But I was firmly against Crouch's candidature. I feared his rule would have been nothing short of draconic. I made no secret of this, and Crouch was very well aware of my opinion. He was also aware of the fact that another substantial fraction within the Ministry wanted me to replace Millicent Bagnold. I was firmly against that, too – government is not my calling. But Crouch didn't believe that. He maintained that my clear denial of a candidature was only a show, a manipulation. Said I was instead pulling strings behind the scenes to secure support for my case...

'So – there it was. I feared that if I did pull strings behind the scenes to secure you a fair trial, Sirius, I would only give Crouch more ammunition for his campaign. He would have presented it as another case of Bagnold's supposed weakness. Proof that she was a mere puppet in my hands. This might have helped him to achieve his goal and become Minister – because throwing you in Azkaban without a trial was a very popular move in those days, I'm afraid. There was an intense public hatred against you. Crouch could have arranged for a public execution, and people would have showed up in droves to cheer the executioner on...'

Remus turns to me with a pleading look.

'It's true,' he says. 'It was like that back then. We didn't know. I'm so very sorry, Sirius.'

'Yeah, you told me that already,' I say, trying to keep the edge out of my voice. 'And we agreed to forgive and forget. Each other. Remember?'

Remus holds his breath. But then he gives me one of his old, small and knowing smiles, and a quick acknowledging glance. I give him a short grin in return.

For a moment, I recognise the Remus and Sirius that was. Moony and Padfoot. Before the suspicions. Before the spy. Before our world went under.

But Dumbledore is not finished.

'Of course, the evidence against you were overwhelming,' he says. 'So I feared my uneasiness at your arrest might only be due to my own vanity – a reluctance to admit that I had been so wrong about one of my students and handpicked Order members – I, who had always prided myself on my outstanding skills in the judgement of character...

'The thought that Peter had somehow framed you did occur to me. It was only that all the surviving witnesses claimed he had vanished the moment the blast hit. He could of course have Disapparated – but his finger and bloodied clothes on the scene seemed to contradict this. Of course, had I known he was a rat Animagus –'

'I knew,' Remus says, his voice very low. 'And still the thought never occurred to me that he could have framed Sirius. I was so certain Sirius had been the Secret-Keeper...'

'That was indeed the most damaging evidence. I, too, found it hard to believe they could have trusted Peter with a secret of such magnitude – '

'Yeah, I fucked it up, okay?' I say, not holding any edge back now. 'We all agree on that one. Everyone did what they thought best, while Peter sat in the gutters laughing his arse off. But he's not laughing now. Now he sits in a cage in the Ministry's dungeons, crying his eyes out. And I'm not accusing anyone else, so I don't need to listen to anyone's apologies. Can we please change the subject now?'

I look Dumbledore straight in the eye and I swear the man is again all twinkle.

'Point taken,' he says. 'And well put, too. I'm defending myself against my own accusations, not yours. That is very true. Like I said – you were never a small-minded man, Sirius Black. Forgive me my need to get this anvil off my chest. I'll stop dumping it on yours. Now, let's move to the real reason why I came here this evening - '

He gets up to drag closer the large cardboard box he placed on the floor the moment he came in the door. Remus and I both lean in to watch him as he puts its lid flaps back and lifts some of its content out.

A framed photograph. He hands it to me and suddenly I sit staring down at Lily on a sofa holding baby Harry in her arms. Right next to her is James, holding around her shoulders, grinning at my face.

He did grin at me. I was the one who took that photo. Baby Harry waves his arms, Lily smiles and tickles him and I hear the sobs and wails and Hagrid takes off on my motorbike...

I put the photograph down. My hand trembles and my mouth is dry. Remus sits holding another, bigger picture in both his hands.

'Where did you get hold of these?' he asks, looking up.

Dumbledore beams at us.