"As I said, wizard... keep your distance."
Will the Pukwudgie's voice was low and warning. To a passing observer, it was a
very strange sight indeed—a small, sharp-featured creature in a waistcoat
talking to a stray dog.
A witch walking by paused to stare, her curiosity piqued by the Pukwudgie's
one-sided conversation. Before she could make sense of it, Will gave the leash a
firm tug, and the shaggy black dog followed him into the shadows of a side
alley.
Sean watched them go from the steps of Flourish and Blotts. Seeing the skeletal
fra of the dog—Sirius Black—brought many thoughts to his mind.
He knew he needed to make a trip to the forests of Albania soon. While the
chances of actually stumbling upon the Dark Lord were slim, Sean wanted to test
the expanded capabilities of his Soul Sanctities. Specifically, he wanted to see
if he could forcibly drag Voldemort's fractured spirit into a Dreamscape.
Furthermore, now that he had retrieved Slytherin's Locket from the Black
ancestral ho, Sean found himself thinking of a hero long lost to the dust of
history: Regulus Black.
Returning Regulus's remains to his older brother, Sirius, was a debt of respect
Sean felt he owed to the young Slytherin who had defied the Dark Lord. Beyond
that, once the locket was destroyed, Sean would need to track down the snake,
Nagini. He suspected Sirius's knowledge of dark magic and the inner circles of
the old Death Eaters might prove invaluable.
Whatever the cost, Sean decided he would et with Sirius one more ti.
As these thoughts swirled, Sean noticed Harry snapping out of his daze.
"The Grim..." Harry whispered to himself. He was staring at the exact spot where
the black dog had vanished into the shadows.
Harry's mind flashed back to the cover of the book, Death Ons. The dog on the
cover—large as a bear, with glowing, baleful eyes... it was a mirror image of
the stray he had seen.
"It can't be a Death On," Harry muttered, though his pale face suggested he
wasn't convinced. "It's just a dog."
The "Death On" was currently pacing the floor of Room 10 in the Leaky
Cauldron.
Inside the dim parlor, the man who looked more like a skeleton than a human
pressed himself against the wall. Even a single glimpse of Harry through the
window had been enough to send his emotions into a violent storm.
Sirius opened his mouth, but no sound ca out. He simply let the tears carve
tracks through the gri on his gaunt face.
"Is it really worth it?" Will the Pukwudgie grumbled, setting down a bowl of
water. "Are all wizards as thick-headed as you?"
"If you knew everything... if your Master is as powerful as you say..." Sirius
let out a raspy, bitter laugh. "Then you would know exactly how foolish I am."
"Hmph. My Master is the Great Green. I am rely his butler," Will said, though
he looked at the man with a flicker of genuine interest. "Tell , wizard—how
did you get out of that place? Master says the Dentors are supposed to strip a
man of his sanity within weeks."
"You want to know?" Sirius raised his bloodshot eyes.
"Mildly curious," Will admitted honestly.
"It seems you don't know everything then. That's a relief. It makes you almost
normal." Sirius wiped his eyes with a trembling hand. He knew he had work to do,
and this mysterious boy, Sean Green, might be his only hope.
"Loyal butlers do not pry," Will sniffed, but then he glanced at his Magic Hand
Mirror, which had begun to ripple with golden light. "Actually... the Master
will be here at six o'clock this evening. He will see you then."
Sirius recognized the mirror. It looked like a smaller, more elegant version of
a Two-Way Mirror, but the craftsmanship was beyond anything he had seen. It was
clearly a new piece of Alchemy.
"Now, tell how you did it," Will prompted.
"I don't know if I can explain it," Sirius began slowly. "The only reason I
didn't lose my mind was the knowledge that I was innocent. It wasn't a 'happy'
thought, you see. The Dentors couldn't feed on it. It didn't give joy, but
it kept centered. It kept knowing who I was."
He swallowed hard. "And it allowed to keep my magic. When things got...
unbearable... I could transform in my cell. I beca a dog. Dentors are blind,
you know."
He took a shaky breath. "They sense emotions. When I was a dog, my emotions
were... simpler. Less human. They thought I was just losing my mind like the
other prisoners, so they didn't pay any mind. But I was weak. No wand, no
hope of fighting them off."
"What changed?" Will asked.
"The newspaper. When Fudge ca for an inspection, he had a paper with a
photograph of the Weasley family. I saw that rat... and I realized he was at
Hogwarts. He was right next to Harry. If news reached him that the dark forces
were rising again, he'd strike. He's a coward, but he's a survivor."
Sirius's eyes flared with a deep, ancient hatred. "He'd realize his cover was
blown. He'd look for an ally... he'd offer Harry as a gift to the Dark Lord to
buy his way back in. If he could hand over the boy who lived, Voldemort would
welco him back as a hero. I had to act. Because I'm the only one who knows
Peter is alive."
Will didn't fully understand human sentint, but the raw power of Sirius's
hatred was palpable.
"It was like a fire lit in my brain. The Dentors couldn't extinguish it. It
wasn't a happy thought—it was an obsession. But it gave strength. It gave
clarity. One night, when they opened the door to bring food, I slipped past them
as a dog. They couldn't sense properly. I was so thin... thin enough to slip
through the bars. I swam to the mainland... I headed north... I just wanted to
see him once. And then your Master found ."
Sirius finished his story. The room fell into a heavy silence, until the door
creaked open.
"Mr. Black," Sean said, stepping into the room.
"Mr. Green." Sirius glanced at the clock. It was six o'clock precisely. Not a
second off.
"You wished to see ?" Sean asked softly.
"Why?" Sirius asked, the question he had been harboring for days finally
bursting out. "Why are you helping ? Just because I'm innocent? There are
plenty of innocent people in this world who suffer."
"Because our goals are aligned, sir," Sean replied.
"Our goals?" Sirius barked a self-deprecating laugh. "Opposing You-Know-Who?
Don't make laugh, boy. You're just a student."
But then, Sirius rembered the headlines. He rembered that this "student" had
already unmasked the Dark Lord's servants twice. He rembered the look in
Sean's eyes—the look of a man who didn't just study magic, but commanded it.
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