The easy part was getting through the tunnel, releasing the latch, and crawling out through the knot in the whomping willow.

The easy part was slinking through the gloomy grounds to the brush that lined the edge of the castle, pressing close to the stone and crawling over the worm-laden dirt, through cobwebs and past salamanders that peeked out from the clustered branches.

The easy part was slipping in through a broken window in the green houses and, although the new herbology teacher had moved some things about, the black dog was still able to sniff out the spot where a brick was loose in the floor and - after nudging aside a large planter full of herbs that smelled like something that reminded Sirius of full moon nights (aconite, he wondered?) - he scratched and clawed at it until the small hole beneath the students planting tables had opened and he dove through. 

The easy part was digging through a portion of the tunnel that had caved in since his days at Hogwarts - after all, it only had to be a gap large enough for a shaggy dog to crawl through, and this shaggy dog didn't much care if his paws were muddy or if he was disturbing spiders and earthworms to get to the other side of the collapse. He got to the steps that led up, up, up into the castle and slipped out from behind a statue in the hospital wing in what seemed like no time at all. Even sneaking past Madam Pomfrey wasn't distinctly hard. She came down the corridor guiding a student whose nose was spurting blood as he wailed and molted feathers, so she was thoroughly distracted and didn't notice the extra-dark shadow behind Hogwarts' marble memorium to Glover Hipworth, the great wizard who had discovered the Pepper Up Potion.

It was a bit harder sneaking through the castle corridors unseen, but Sirius made use of his memory of the tunnels and secret passageways, of the trick doors, and tucking himself behind suits of armor and long-hanging velvet draperies.

It was a Hogsmeade weekend. He knew that from talk about the village the day before, so luckily the halls were greatly void of students. This of course led him to the harder part - finding a place to lie in wait for the students to make their way down to the Halloween feast. It would be then that the common rooms and dormitories would be empty and he could sneak his way into Gryffindor Tower most easily. There, he knew, would be the hard part. After all, what if he had trouble finding the rat? What if the Weasley boy took that blasted rat with him to the feast? What then? Would he have to lie in wait for them to return? If so, how would he catch the rat? He figured he would catch the little bastard in his mouth and carry him somewhere that he could confront him without traumatizing the children. The trophy room passageway, perhaps? Somewhere he could really savor every moment of blasting the little blighter out of existence.... Yes, that, Sirius Black ascertained, would be the hardest part.

He decided to go and check on the trophy room passageway. Perhaps, he thought, that could be as good a place as any to hide out until the feast had commenced. After all, it was unlikely that anybody these days knew of the passageway. It had been over a decade since anyone had even known the passageway existed, he reckoned, apart from perhaps Dumbledore himself. He ought to be safe there.

That was how Sirius Black ended up discovering that the hard part was not the planning of the killing of the rat, Peter Pettigrew after all.

Sirius was just coming up to the corridor when he heard Argus Filch muttering about filth and slime and leading a young man through the halls. Sirius hid behind a suit of armor and watched them go by before slinking 'round the bend and heading toward the tapestry that covered the entrance to the passage. He crawled, low to the carpet, exposed for anyone to see that may come that way, his heart pounding. He was just about there when he heard the creak of a door and all but threw himself behind a pedestal holding a brass instrument of some sort that some ancient wizard nobody remembered had donated to the school. He wasn't very well hidden, but it was better than nothing, and he pressed to the wall as close as he could get and simply had to hope that whoever had opened the door wouldn't come down the corridor far enough to catch sight of him.

"Professor." Remus's voice filled the hall and Sirius felt his skin prickle. He was glad to hear Remus inside, glad to know that he'd been alright -- after all, last he'd seen him he was out in the Shack and rather torn up and exhausted. He'd been worried in spite of himself. And Remus's voice sounded much steadier than it ever had before when he'd been coming out of a full moon night, Sirius was glad for it.

"And there you are. Poppy said she had found you and returned you to your proper place, but I needed to come and confirm it for meself that you had made it where you ought to be, Mister Lupin!" 

Sirius's heart broke into a hundred thousand pieces at the sound of that beloved woman's voice. He nearly came out of hiding purely to transform and wrap his arms about her. Minnie, bloody hell I've missed you so much, you blessed woman, he thought, and he could almost taste biscuits in his mind at the thought of her.

"I didn't realize my location was such a concern for everyone in the castle," Remus said. His voice pitched with the slightest note of sarcasm.

Some things never changed, Sirius thought, smiling to himself, even in his dog form.

"Of course it is!" McGonagall's voice was kind but stern at once, "Especially with all that is going on these days..."

"Well next time I'll be sure to leave a note on the desk so the lot of you haven't need to resort to reading about where I've gone in tea leaves." Again, the sarcasm was real. Although he had to admit, this attitude was more akin to something he himself, Sirius, would've said than the old Remus Lupin would've done back in their days at Hogwarts. "What?" Remus's voice was more gentle this time, "Sorry, it was only a joke. I know the great Minnie needn't consult divination to be as brilliant as you are." Remus's tone had turned more apologetic. 

And that was more like the Remus that Sirius remembered. 

"It's not that, really," Minnie's voice was clipped. "I rather don't see the situation as a laughing one, and further I don't think many of the students would either, given all that's been going on this week."

Sirius's curiosity was piqued. He listened intently as McGonagall told Remus about the new divination teacher, about what a joke her yearly predictions were, and how each year a new student was predicted to die and how, this year of all years, she'd selected none other than --

"Harry Potter, of course, which I found most distasteful!" McGonagall said.

But Sirius blanked for a moment, the name stirring up his mind. 

Because of him, he wagered. The crackpot divination teacher had taken a shot on the news that Sirius Black had escaped prison and used it as her excuse to predict death for the son of James and Lily Potter. Well if that was in the future, then it wasn't at the hands of him! It was precisely the danger that he, Sirius, intended to eliminate. If that rat was capable of betraying a Potter once, he was capable of doing it again, and he, Sirius, refused to allow history to repeat itself. He had to protect Harry - it was, after all, his sworn duty.

Had he not promised Lily and James to look after the boy?

He could still see the moment they'd asked him... could still feel the emotions if he closed his eyes and remembered hard enough.

So here he was, determined to save Harry from the rat that had been the ruin of everything.

"The black dog of death." 

Sirius tuned back in just in time to hear those words and he cocked his head. What about the black dog of death? Did Minnie know about Snuffles? Had Remus told her? Nervousness went through his veins and he hesitated. He'd been so busy assuming that their own pacts to never tell anyone else about the animagi that he'd never stopped to consider that perhaps he was the only one that still felt bound by old promises. After all, James was gone and Peter certainly didn't care about such things as dignity and honor and character. Clearly. 

Perhaps Remus had given up on the old secrets, too.

"Well, Mr. Lupin, I shall let you get on with your resting. I don't suppose you'll be joining us for the feast tonight?"

"I'm far too weak for such festivities," Remus declined, and it struck Sirius how profoundly sad his voice sounded.

Sirius wondered fleetingly if the Halloween feasts were as amazing as they'd once been, if they were still so cool with the floating jack o'lanterns and the decorations and the delicious food - food that nearly set his mouth to watering at the very thought of it. Sirius was sort of sad that Remus wasn't going - after all, following a full moon, Remus needed food and loads of it. What better way to get food enough than at a feast such as the Halloween night feast was?

But then a cold realization struck him.

Of course Remus didn't want to go to the feast to celebrate... for the same reason that he, Sirius, wouldn't want to if their positions were reversed.

McGonagall sounded disappointed that Remus wasn't going, too, but she didn't press the point and Sirius listened as she left, her footsteps disappearing down the corridor.

There was a long moment of silence and Sirius wondered if he'd missed the sound of Remus's door closing somehow while he was thinking about the Halloween feast. He didn't think he had, but Remus was so still... Sirius considered revealing himself, considered again what might happen if he did... 

"Harry? What are you doing? Where are Ron and Hermione?" Remus's voice again.

But then, the reply back came and Sirius felt his heart rush against his chest.

He sounded exactly like James.

"Hogsmeade."

Well, exactly like James but perhaps a bit more defeated in tone than James ever would've admitted to being. Well, except maybe in their fifth or sixth year. Something had been off for James both those years and Sirius remembered how down James Potter had sounded then. 

Sirius wondered what had Harry so down? And why wasn't he in Hogsmeade with his friends? Why was he wandering about the castle alone? Bloody hell, didn't anyone in this school care that a convicted murderer was on the loose? Did they let children wander about willie-nillie, wherever they'd like, despite the fact that getting in had been the easy part? As Harry's god father, he was personally offended and he wished rather suddenly that he could scrawl out a letter and drop it in the owl post for them to know that he, Sirius Black, did not approve of the security in the castle that was supposedly protecting his godson, Harry.

Apparently, Remus was having similar thoughts.

"Harry, why don't you come in? I've just taken delivery of a grindylow for our next lesson."

"A what?" Harry asked.

"A water demon," Remus explained.

Sirius chanced at peek 'round the pedestal to see, though barely, as Harry and Remus both stepped into the office.

Sirius waited for a few moments, crouching in the shadow of the pedestal, wondering if he would ever work up the guts to go and actually talk with Remus... and a wild imagination filled his mind, an abandonment of hope in things that would never be...

He pictured a little house with a little picket fence. He pictured Sunday dinners, holidays and feasts on family tables with him at one head and Remus at the other. He imagined children, he imagined smiles and laughter and Harry Potter with a family, with people who loved him that were more than those lousy muggles on Privet Drive ever could've hoped for. He imagined Nymphadora and Bradley and he imagined Christmas cookies and Uncle Moony and Uncle Padfoot, imagined roasts and popcorn, singing and dancing to records and birthdays with cake and presents and days abroad to Bath or Bristol. He pictured Remus in swim trunks and Harry being taught how to tie his neck tie before a date and showing him loads of memories in a pensive so that he, Harry, could know James and Lily Potter as well as he - Sirius -, and Remus had known them.

Sirius shook the thoughts away.

It could never happen.

He was a murderer, not a godfather any more... 

He heard the door creak open and he hurried away from the door, down the hall, and ducked in behind the tapestry. 

Sorrow filled his chest as he sat, catching his breath, eyes closed.

You. What are you doing here?

Sirius froze. The words had come from behind him. But they weren't words, not from a person, he realized, they were... different. 

They were from a creature.

He turned about and there, piercing the dark, were two great, glowing yellow lanterns.