Author Notes: Ok so its been roughly 5 days since I last updated and
here I am again, updating. I'm crazy mad! Not really, I just have other
projects that I'd like to be able to work on this summer (Like Dangerous
Game and a yet untitled crossover slash. Not to mention school and work)
so, much to you, my reader's enjoyment and pleasure, I am updating again.
In this chapter, which is relatively dull, Mulder and Scully are told the
story of the Potter's death and Sirius' imprisonment. They also find out
why the wizards are in America. This chapter is shorter than the last two,
only 3 pages long, but there is no actual plot either. I promise the plot
returns in chapter 11 with a vengeance! Chapter 11 is already written as
well, and is currently residing in handwritten form within my magical Harry
Potter Dream Journal, home to chapters 7-12 of this little ficcy. If you
review lots and tell your friends about my fic, Chapter 11 will be up
Friday evening or Saturday afternoon. But I have to get quite a few
reviews to do that, because I'm going home this weekend and therefore
cannot live in front of my computer.
Yadda: Mrs Kintner has her reasons for being mean to Sirius and Remus. I of course know those reasons, but you won't find them out until chapter 12 or so. :D You'll also see much more of Stephanie Kintner. And more Quidditch talk. God I love Quidditch.
Het: Monkie. Yeah you heard right. No on all serious accounts, You're on the right track thinking something is not entirely kosher with the Kintners. And the next chapter will explain how a werewolf can pass the silver test…So far our main suspects are the Kintners (both mom and steph) and Linda Fullner.
Bally: Its coming! The plot is forming! It will have a plot (Rats no PWP) and perhaps if I have the courage to do so it will be R or ::gasp:: NC- 17. Naughty Remus/Rupert! Oh and as a side note, Stephanie Kintner doesn't play Quidditch, she plays Quadpot, the American Broom Sport. It involves exploding quaffles. The game will be explained in chapter 12 or 13, but if you want an explanation now go read 'Quidditch Through the Ages'. Its in the Quidditch around the world section under North America.
Kay, Sarah, NBH, Vampire Child, Cocoa, Megumi, Crydwyn, DrM, Orange, Sparks, Pupetta, Phoenix, Animagus-Steph: Thanks for the loyal reviewing. This chapter is fun but the next will be better so tell all your friends to read, read, and read!
Disclaimer: I don't own anything. I'm a poor college student. If you try to sue me all you will get is stolen ballpoint pens and pocket lint.
Ok enough of this hootenanny! On with the fic!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Instinct
Chapter 10: 1981
At the mention of Azkaban, Lupin's light smile dropped and Black froze mid gesture, all cheerfulness drained from both their demeanors. Lupin blinked calmly, "You found my old news paper clippings, then?"
Scully nodded and looked at Black then down at the two visible papers in her lap. One was of a glowing skull and snake floating above a pile of ash that was once a house, the other was of a smoldering city street, lined with dead bodies and a single, laughing man in the middle being forever carted away by men in uniforms.
Black sat down and sighed as Lupin began. "Remember, Agent Scully, how I told you Sirius and another boy named James were my best friends in school?" Scully nodded and Lupin continued, "Back during the 1970's an evil wizard by the name of Voldemort began to gain followers in Britain. He was…the Hitler of our time, calling for the ethnic cleansing of the wizarding world. Voldemort, who was so feared no one dared speak his name in public, wanted to rule all and would destroy anything or anyone in his path. After leaving Hogwarts, our school, Sirius and James joined the Auror Corps, an elite group of highly trained wizards who worked to stop dark wizards like Voldemort."
"Things went well for us…for a while," Black cut in, his voice strangely hollow, "But for some reason Voldemort singled out James and his wife Lily. At this time we suspected that there was a spy amongst our ranks and I very wrongly thought it was Remus."
Remus nodded slowly, "I had withdrawn myself from the group in a fit of mid war depression."
"So," Black said, resuming the story, "When the time came for the Potters, that is James, Lily, and their infant son Harry, to go into hiding Remus was kept out of the loop."
"The Potters were going to use a complex protection charm that would literally keep them invisible from Voldemort and his men." Lupin explained. "The spell, in order to work, requires the people going into hiding to entrust a secret to another wizard. The person they chose as their secret keeper was Sirius."
"So I was chosen as the Potter's secret keeper. There were very little people who knew this, but one of them was another school 'friend' by the name of Peter Pettigrew." Black could not keep the venom out of his tone. "Pettigrew came to me with what I thought was a brilliant idea. He suggested that I choose someone else as the secret keeper, someone less obvious than James' best friend. The little bastard then suggested to the Potters and me that we use him as the secret keeper. So, last minute and with out telling anyone, the Potters made Pettigrew their secret keeper."
"Let me take a guess that the spy was this Pettigrew fellow?" Mulder asked. All Black could do was clench his jaw, look down, and nod. "So what happened? Did Pettigrew go to Voldemort?"
"Yes," Lupin said, "And when he did the charm protecting the Potters was broken. On Halloween night, 1981, Voldemort broke into the Potters house and killed Lily and James.
"Voldemort tried to kill their infant son, Harry, but Lily, before her death, cast some sort of powerful an ancient spell on the boy. When Voldemort cast the killing curse, it bounded off Harry and hit Voldemort, destroying his body and in turn the house as well. He had so much dark magic in him that just the out lash of his 'death' was destructive."
Mulder nodded, "Like the emperor on Star Wars…"
"What happened to the boy, Harry? Is he the 'Boy Who Lived' the paper mentions?" Scully asked.
The two wizards nodded and Lupin spoke, "Harry was sent to live with relatives. He now attends Hogwarts."
Scully quickly flipped back to the headline about the "Hogwarts Champion" and held it up, pointing to a picture of a skinny 14 year old boy with wire rim glasses, messy black hair, and a funny scar on his forehead. "This is Harry?" The wizards nodded again.
"So what happened after Voldemort died?" Mulder asked.
"Voldemort didn't die; he was cast out of his body. There's a difference." Lupin said quietly.
Black nodded and continued the story, "I went to the Potters house as soon as I realized something was wrong, but I was too late. I knew it was Pettigrew who betrayed them and I went to find him. When I caught up to him the next morning in London he started yelling how I had betrayed the Potters. I pulled my wand to try to stun him and return him to the aurors, but he used his own wand to cause a massive explosion, killing 12 nearby pedestrians. I was blamed for the whole ordeal and carted to Azkaban, the wizard's prison and what I now colorfully refer to as Hell."
"The largest piece of Pettigrew they found was his finger." Lupin added his voice still soft.
"I remember that explosion." Mulder said, "I was going to Oxford University at that time but I was in London that day…I wasn't too far away when it happened. They said that there was a homicidal maniac who dropped a bomb in the sewer."
"That was the explanation muggles were given." Lupin said.
"And I always thought that story was a little odd. Anyway…Pettigrew committed suicide and you were framed?" Mulder said, asking Black. Mulder looked down at the sneakoscope in his hands while waiting for an answer.
"Sirius wasn't even given a trial. In the days following the Dark Lord's fall there was a move to imprison anything and everything dealing with Voldemort."
Scully flipped to an August 1993 dated paper, "But you broke out of prison?"
Black nodded, "I had found where Pettigrew had been hiding all those years."
"I thought Pettigrew was killed."
Lupin frowned, "As did the rest of the world. But what the rest of the world didn't know was that, like Sirius, Peter is an animagus. He can turn into a rat."
"When the slimy little bastard blew up the street, he cut off his own finger to leave as evidence, transfigured into a rat, and scurried away into the sewers. He found a wizarding family and became a pet for two of the boys in it." Sirius said, standing and walking over to Scully. He riffled through the papers and pulled out a clipping of a large family standing in front of the Egyptian pyramids. He pointed at the youngest boy in the picture silently.
It took Scully a moment to realize what she was looking at but soon realization dawned. "My god…the rat on the boy's shoulder…it's missing a toe. Mulder, look." She said, handing Mulder the wizarding picture of the waving family. "That's Pettigrew?"
"The boy attends Hogwarts and, is incidentally, best friends with Harry Potter. I knew from the article he would be at Hogwarts so I broke out to go find him."
"The year Sirius broke out of prison was the year I was teaching at Hogwarts." Lupin added. "I didn't know Sirius was innocent or Peter was still alive until the end of the school year. We nearly caught Peter, but because of my forgetting about the full moon that night he got away again. Sirius went back into hiding, only 5 or so other people knowing about his innocence. The day after all of that happened my lycanthropy became public knowledge and I resigned my teaching post."
"So the two of you are here in the US hiding out?" Mulder guessed, looking at some of the news papers he had grabbed from Scully.
"Actually, that's not why we're here." Black said, moving behind the bar and pouring himself a drink. "We're here because back in June Voldemort was resurrected."
"Voldemort, the scary guy who killed your friends? I take it there was some magical way they restored him to his body?" Mulder asked with surprisingly little sarcasm.
"Exactly," Lupin sighed, "Sirius and I are here in the States to garner support from the American Wizarding Community. It has been slow going. You muggle Americans might like sticking your noses in other country's affairs, but it's a completely different matter with American wizards."
"All the werewolf problems aren't helping either." Black added, pouring vodka into a small glass of orange juice.
"Ahh…Can I have one of those, barkeep?" Mulder asked, putting down the newspapers and sneakoscope before heading to the bar.
"Why certainly, my good man." Sirius said, making another screwdriver for Mulder.
Scully sighed and thought a bit. She didn't think it was possible to learn as much as she and Mulder had today. All of the investigating they had done earlier: the farms, the antique shop, the silver test, the clinic, and the Kintner's all felt like they had happened weeks ago. She thumbed through one more of the recent newspapers and sighed. "I feel like I'm going to wake up and find out this has been just one big, weird, dream." She said out loud to no one in particular.
"I know it's a lot, Agent Scully," Lupin said gently, "But it's true." Scully looked over at him to see him quietly packing the trunk.
Scully looked at her watch, frowning at the little hands pointing to 1:05 AM. "When did it get to be so late?"
"I think sometime between Quidditch and Azkaban…" Lupin quipped dryly, smiling at Scully as he packed up the last of the magical memorabilia into the trunk.
Scully yawned and got up. "I'm…I'm going to go to sleep. I need to sleep on this…"
Lupin nodded, "That is more than understandable. Good night, Agent Scully."
Scully smiled and bid Mulder and Black goodnight as well, but the two dark haired men were preoccupied with their new mutual friend Comrade Vodka.
It was all too much to think about. Scully began to wonder if anything they had learned of the "truth" so far was real. Perhaps all the things about the aliens and government cover-ups and her cancer were lies as well. She sighed and got ready for bed. She would talk to Mulder about it tomorrow. Tomorrow...God if I learned all of this today, Scully thought, what will I learn tomorrow?
Yadda: Mrs Kintner has her reasons for being mean to Sirius and Remus. I of course know those reasons, but you won't find them out until chapter 12 or so. :D You'll also see much more of Stephanie Kintner. And more Quidditch talk. God I love Quidditch.
Het: Monkie. Yeah you heard right. No on all serious accounts, You're on the right track thinking something is not entirely kosher with the Kintners. And the next chapter will explain how a werewolf can pass the silver test…So far our main suspects are the Kintners (both mom and steph) and Linda Fullner.
Bally: Its coming! The plot is forming! It will have a plot (Rats no PWP) and perhaps if I have the courage to do so it will be R or ::gasp:: NC- 17. Naughty Remus/Rupert! Oh and as a side note, Stephanie Kintner doesn't play Quidditch, she plays Quadpot, the American Broom Sport. It involves exploding quaffles. The game will be explained in chapter 12 or 13, but if you want an explanation now go read 'Quidditch Through the Ages'. Its in the Quidditch around the world section under North America.
Kay, Sarah, NBH, Vampire Child, Cocoa, Megumi, Crydwyn, DrM, Orange, Sparks, Pupetta, Phoenix, Animagus-Steph: Thanks for the loyal reviewing. This chapter is fun but the next will be better so tell all your friends to read, read, and read!
Disclaimer: I don't own anything. I'm a poor college student. If you try to sue me all you will get is stolen ballpoint pens and pocket lint.
Ok enough of this hootenanny! On with the fic!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Instinct
Chapter 10: 1981
At the mention of Azkaban, Lupin's light smile dropped and Black froze mid gesture, all cheerfulness drained from both their demeanors. Lupin blinked calmly, "You found my old news paper clippings, then?"
Scully nodded and looked at Black then down at the two visible papers in her lap. One was of a glowing skull and snake floating above a pile of ash that was once a house, the other was of a smoldering city street, lined with dead bodies and a single, laughing man in the middle being forever carted away by men in uniforms.
Black sat down and sighed as Lupin began. "Remember, Agent Scully, how I told you Sirius and another boy named James were my best friends in school?" Scully nodded and Lupin continued, "Back during the 1970's an evil wizard by the name of Voldemort began to gain followers in Britain. He was…the Hitler of our time, calling for the ethnic cleansing of the wizarding world. Voldemort, who was so feared no one dared speak his name in public, wanted to rule all and would destroy anything or anyone in his path. After leaving Hogwarts, our school, Sirius and James joined the Auror Corps, an elite group of highly trained wizards who worked to stop dark wizards like Voldemort."
"Things went well for us…for a while," Black cut in, his voice strangely hollow, "But for some reason Voldemort singled out James and his wife Lily. At this time we suspected that there was a spy amongst our ranks and I very wrongly thought it was Remus."
Remus nodded slowly, "I had withdrawn myself from the group in a fit of mid war depression."
"So," Black said, resuming the story, "When the time came for the Potters, that is James, Lily, and their infant son Harry, to go into hiding Remus was kept out of the loop."
"The Potters were going to use a complex protection charm that would literally keep them invisible from Voldemort and his men." Lupin explained. "The spell, in order to work, requires the people going into hiding to entrust a secret to another wizard. The person they chose as their secret keeper was Sirius."
"So I was chosen as the Potter's secret keeper. There were very little people who knew this, but one of them was another school 'friend' by the name of Peter Pettigrew." Black could not keep the venom out of his tone. "Pettigrew came to me with what I thought was a brilliant idea. He suggested that I choose someone else as the secret keeper, someone less obvious than James' best friend. The little bastard then suggested to the Potters and me that we use him as the secret keeper. So, last minute and with out telling anyone, the Potters made Pettigrew their secret keeper."
"Let me take a guess that the spy was this Pettigrew fellow?" Mulder asked. All Black could do was clench his jaw, look down, and nod. "So what happened? Did Pettigrew go to Voldemort?"
"Yes," Lupin said, "And when he did the charm protecting the Potters was broken. On Halloween night, 1981, Voldemort broke into the Potters house and killed Lily and James.
"Voldemort tried to kill their infant son, Harry, but Lily, before her death, cast some sort of powerful an ancient spell on the boy. When Voldemort cast the killing curse, it bounded off Harry and hit Voldemort, destroying his body and in turn the house as well. He had so much dark magic in him that just the out lash of his 'death' was destructive."
Mulder nodded, "Like the emperor on Star Wars…"
"What happened to the boy, Harry? Is he the 'Boy Who Lived' the paper mentions?" Scully asked.
The two wizards nodded and Lupin spoke, "Harry was sent to live with relatives. He now attends Hogwarts."
Scully quickly flipped back to the headline about the "Hogwarts Champion" and held it up, pointing to a picture of a skinny 14 year old boy with wire rim glasses, messy black hair, and a funny scar on his forehead. "This is Harry?" The wizards nodded again.
"So what happened after Voldemort died?" Mulder asked.
"Voldemort didn't die; he was cast out of his body. There's a difference." Lupin said quietly.
Black nodded and continued the story, "I went to the Potters house as soon as I realized something was wrong, but I was too late. I knew it was Pettigrew who betrayed them and I went to find him. When I caught up to him the next morning in London he started yelling how I had betrayed the Potters. I pulled my wand to try to stun him and return him to the aurors, but he used his own wand to cause a massive explosion, killing 12 nearby pedestrians. I was blamed for the whole ordeal and carted to Azkaban, the wizard's prison and what I now colorfully refer to as Hell."
"The largest piece of Pettigrew they found was his finger." Lupin added his voice still soft.
"I remember that explosion." Mulder said, "I was going to Oxford University at that time but I was in London that day…I wasn't too far away when it happened. They said that there was a homicidal maniac who dropped a bomb in the sewer."
"That was the explanation muggles were given." Lupin said.
"And I always thought that story was a little odd. Anyway…Pettigrew committed suicide and you were framed?" Mulder said, asking Black. Mulder looked down at the sneakoscope in his hands while waiting for an answer.
"Sirius wasn't even given a trial. In the days following the Dark Lord's fall there was a move to imprison anything and everything dealing with Voldemort."
Scully flipped to an August 1993 dated paper, "But you broke out of prison?"
Black nodded, "I had found where Pettigrew had been hiding all those years."
"I thought Pettigrew was killed."
Lupin frowned, "As did the rest of the world. But what the rest of the world didn't know was that, like Sirius, Peter is an animagus. He can turn into a rat."
"When the slimy little bastard blew up the street, he cut off his own finger to leave as evidence, transfigured into a rat, and scurried away into the sewers. He found a wizarding family and became a pet for two of the boys in it." Sirius said, standing and walking over to Scully. He riffled through the papers and pulled out a clipping of a large family standing in front of the Egyptian pyramids. He pointed at the youngest boy in the picture silently.
It took Scully a moment to realize what she was looking at but soon realization dawned. "My god…the rat on the boy's shoulder…it's missing a toe. Mulder, look." She said, handing Mulder the wizarding picture of the waving family. "That's Pettigrew?"
"The boy attends Hogwarts and, is incidentally, best friends with Harry Potter. I knew from the article he would be at Hogwarts so I broke out to go find him."
"The year Sirius broke out of prison was the year I was teaching at Hogwarts." Lupin added. "I didn't know Sirius was innocent or Peter was still alive until the end of the school year. We nearly caught Peter, but because of my forgetting about the full moon that night he got away again. Sirius went back into hiding, only 5 or so other people knowing about his innocence. The day after all of that happened my lycanthropy became public knowledge and I resigned my teaching post."
"So the two of you are here in the US hiding out?" Mulder guessed, looking at some of the news papers he had grabbed from Scully.
"Actually, that's not why we're here." Black said, moving behind the bar and pouring himself a drink. "We're here because back in June Voldemort was resurrected."
"Voldemort, the scary guy who killed your friends? I take it there was some magical way they restored him to his body?" Mulder asked with surprisingly little sarcasm.
"Exactly," Lupin sighed, "Sirius and I are here in the States to garner support from the American Wizarding Community. It has been slow going. You muggle Americans might like sticking your noses in other country's affairs, but it's a completely different matter with American wizards."
"All the werewolf problems aren't helping either." Black added, pouring vodka into a small glass of orange juice.
"Ahh…Can I have one of those, barkeep?" Mulder asked, putting down the newspapers and sneakoscope before heading to the bar.
"Why certainly, my good man." Sirius said, making another screwdriver for Mulder.
Scully sighed and thought a bit. She didn't think it was possible to learn as much as she and Mulder had today. All of the investigating they had done earlier: the farms, the antique shop, the silver test, the clinic, and the Kintner's all felt like they had happened weeks ago. She thumbed through one more of the recent newspapers and sighed. "I feel like I'm going to wake up and find out this has been just one big, weird, dream." She said out loud to no one in particular.
"I know it's a lot, Agent Scully," Lupin said gently, "But it's true." Scully looked over at him to see him quietly packing the trunk.
Scully looked at her watch, frowning at the little hands pointing to 1:05 AM. "When did it get to be so late?"
"I think sometime between Quidditch and Azkaban…" Lupin quipped dryly, smiling at Scully as he packed up the last of the magical memorabilia into the trunk.
Scully yawned and got up. "I'm…I'm going to go to sleep. I need to sleep on this…"
Lupin nodded, "That is more than understandable. Good night, Agent Scully."
Scully smiled and bid Mulder and Black goodnight as well, but the two dark haired men were preoccupied with their new mutual friend Comrade Vodka.
It was all too much to think about. Scully began to wonder if anything they had learned of the "truth" so far was real. Perhaps all the things about the aliens and government cover-ups and her cancer were lies as well. She sighed and got ready for bed. She would talk to Mulder about it tomorrow. Tomorrow...God if I learned all of this today, Scully thought, what will I learn tomorrow?