Chapter Thirteen: Through the Bones of the Living

Chapter Thirteen: Through the Bones of the Living

The first sorrow of autumn

Is the slow goodbye

Of the garden who stands so long in the evening -

A brown poppy head,

The stalk of a lily,

And still cannot go.

The second sorrow

Is the empty feet

Of a pheasant who hangs from a hook with his brothers.

The woodland of gold

Is folded in feathers

With its head in a bag."

-Ted Hughes, The Seven Sorrows

Petunia pays close attention to the plate she's scrubbing, doing her best not to think past the monotony of the task at hand. Does she have enough soap on the brush? Is the water hot enough? She's careful to remove every speck of food, to rinse off every trace of soap. Every time Lily's name or face or voice surfaces in her mind, she shoves the burgeoning thought down hard, refusing to so much as acknowledge it. She hasn't cried yet, and she isn't about to. Lily made her own choices, and now Petunia's got Harry to deal with on top of everything else, on top of going through Lily's things, which appeared inside the back door sometime last night, everything tidily boxed.

It'll be best to just donate everything to charity. That way she won't have to deal with Lily's clothes, or her makeup, or the thousand little things that might make her suddenly real again; suddenly dead, in a way that the funeral failed to. There's more left of Lily in those neat cardboard boxes than there was in her coffin, and Petunia doesn't want to unpack a sister she might then have to mourn. She doesn't want to find her little sister in the possessions of the stranger she grew into, and be taken unaware by grief.

Petunia realizes what she's thinking, and pushes it out of her mind, turning her attention back to the washing-up. A glance out the window shows her that that bloody cat is still sitting motionless on the driveway, as intent as if it were sitting in front of a mousehole. She shudders, and twitches the curtain shut.

"Vernon," she calls, "Vernon, that cat is still there."

"Well, throw a boot at it, then," Vernon suggests. "My programme is on."

She sniffs. "It's been sitting out there on and off since yesterday."

"What do you expect me to do about it, then?" Vernon asks, irritation surfacing in his voice. Petunia doesn't answer. There's nothing he can do about it; there's nothing that either of them can do about it. She glares at the closed curtains and slams the clean plate into the rack hard enough to make the dishes rattle.

The washing-up doesn't take long, and she joins Vernon on the couch. He's watching the news and making self-satisfied noises into his moustache. He approves of Margaret Thatcher's new domestic policies. Petunia doesn't care much either way, but she enjoys sitting with Vernon, enjoys the calm normalcy of their lives. The news-anchor chatters away, and when the commercials cut in, Petunia gets up and fetches them both a cup of tea. Vernon drinks his right-handed, and she shifts her cup to her left hand so that she can hold his free hand.

He looks over at her, a hint of surprise in his face, but doesn't say anything, which is good. She can pretend she just wants to hold his hand and doesn't have to admit even to herself that she's seeking comfort. He rarely pushes with her, and she is grateful for that.

"Did you have a good day?" he asks after a while.

"Yes," she says brightly. It's half true, anyway, and she is starting to tell him about Dudley's latest exploits when there is a sharp knock at the door.

She looks up at the clock, which is reading 11.43, and panic spikes briefly in her chest, bright and dizzying. Vernon is looking at his watch, impatience written across his features.

"Who could it be at this hour?" he asks rhetorically, already heaving himself to his feet.

"Don't," Petunia says. "Don't answer it, Vernon." There had been more in Dumbledore's letter than 'here's your orphaned nephew', and the warnings those pages contained suddenly feel like more than vague threats aimed at forcing her to care for Harry.

Vernon looks at her in puzzled annoyance. "Why not?"

The words 'it doesn't feel right' die unspoken at the back of her throat. She can't say that to Vernon of all people.

"It's late," she says instead. "Let them come back at a decent hour."

"Oh, come on, Petunia. It could be some poor bugger's broken down outside."

"Then let him try another house!" She hears the shrill note in her own voice. Vernon rolls his eyes and gets to his feet. She's quicker, though, and manages to get to the hall before he does.

"Petunia," he starts, exasperated, then throws up his hands. "Fine. You answer it, then."

She doesn't want to, and the feeling of dread increases as whoever it is knocks again, hard and peremptory, just as her hand touches the door knob. She turns the handle with her eyes closed, only opening them as the door swings past her face.

"Mrs. Dursley?" the man on her doorstep asks. He's tall and slender, with long white-blonde hair and a sneering expression. His clothes are the sort of robes that Lily's friends always wore, only more expensive and somehow more threatening than ridiculous.

"Yes," Petunia manages to say, despite the hard knot of fright in her throat and the feel of her heart pounding in her chest. The man's smile is one of the most frightening things she's ever seen. He raises one hand lazily, his wand centering on her chest.

She doesn't quite understand what he says, but a jet of white light shoots from the end of his wand at her. Half a second later, it bounces off of some invisible barrier at the door's threshold and rebounds directly at him.

"Protego," he snaps, and the light deflects harmlessly once more. Petunia is shaking, frozen in place. Closing the door will do nothing but block the sight of him, and he'll still be out there hurling curses; he'll get in, and kill them just like...

The cat is no longer on the driveway, she notes absently, then sees the tall, grim woman in black rising up from a shadow on the ground, wand out and raised even as she emerges from the dark.

"Expelliarmus!" the woman shouts. "Stupefy!"

The man twists just in time, avoiding the spells by a hair's breadth. He snarls and raises his wand, aiming at the woman.

"Crucio! " he shouts. She screams in pain and falls to the ground. Petunia doesn't want to watch, but she can't look away.

"Malfoy!" someone shouts. The man looks up, fury contorting his features, then vanishes with a loud crack. The front yard is suddenly full of people either tending to the fallen woman or rushing about casting lights into every shadow.

"Petunia?" Vernon calls from the living room, "Petunia, who is it?"

***

Sirius's addition to the plan provides the noise they need to make the Ministry think they've gone across the Wall, though it's not terribly elegant and involves Stunning their way through a Muggle checkpoint on Friedrichstrasse.

It turns out to be surprisingly easy, despite Remus's initial worries that they will both be shot, and they quickly Apparate north to Copenhagen. Remus is half-dead with fatigue by the time they get there, and the look on Sirius's face says that he feels much the same, though he certainly won't admit it. The last jump, to the Shrieking Shack, is almost more than Remus can handle, and he arrives feeling halfway to splinched and thoroughly nauseous. Sirius is grey with exhaustion and he staggers slightly as they arrive.

"I'm all right," he says, when Remus asks. "Haven't slept well, that's all."

"You're sure?" Remus asks, putting a hand on his arm. Sirius brushes his other hand briefly over it and smiles wearily.

"I'm fine, Moony."

"Still," Remus says, and conjures a bar of chocolate. He gives half to Sirius and eats the rest himself. It's not as good as Honeydukes', but manages to take the worst edge off of their fatigue.

"What now?" Sirius asks when they've finished. "D'you want to sleep here, or go on through the tunnel?"

"Through the tunnel," Remus says. "I want Hogwarts' protections around us tonight. Besides, it'll be easier to avoid notice if the students are in bed. We'll only have to look out for the staff."

Sirius grins at him. "I told you all those pranks would serve us well someday." Then he sobers. Remus supposes that he, too, is remembering James.

"Come on," Remus says. "Let's go."

***

"It wasn't Malfoy," Crouch says grimly. The chaos that is overwhelming the rest of the M.L.E. is held at bay by his office door. Amelia Bones feels as if she's sitting in an oasis of silence, or perhaps in the eye of the storm.

"No?" she asks, because Crouch's silence demands a response.

"He was hosting a dinner at the Manor the entire time. There are thirty witnesses who will swear that he never left the room, eleven of whom are Ministry officials." He sounds disgusted by the whole situation. "We can't even be certain that it was Polyjuice the attacker used. It was all over too quickly."

"And Sirius Black?"

"Gone. Shacklebolt's team spent three hours trying to get through the wards on that bloody house. They still haven't gotten in, but I had to send Kingsley on; Black and Lupin were spotted in Berlin. They blasted their way through a Muggle checkpoint and got across the Wall into East Germany, causing an international incident in the process. We're so tied up in bureaucratic nonsense over there that it'll be a week before we make any headway – and that's if the cursed Soviets let us cross their borders!" His voice rises, sharp with frustration. "Shacklebolt's got his people trying to get into the Cologne house, but the property is apparently blood-warded , as if the Blacks haven't proven appalling enough already."

Amelia agrees with him on the latter point. Blood-wards demand blood sacrifice – human sacrifice – and the thought makes her feel vaguely ill. Crouch pounds his fist on the desk.

"I won't have it, d'you hear me? I want these situations resolved! You-Know-Who is dead, and I won't be made a mockery of by the pathetic rabble that he left behind! Shacklebolt's handling the Black affair; you get out there and figure out who attacked Harry Potter's family."

"Yes, sir," Amelia says, rising.

"I want results," he snaps, and looks down at his papers to signal the end of the interview.

***

"This is becoming intolerable," Lucius snarls. MacNair gives him a sullen look from under lowered brows, but says nothing. Lucius half-wishes that the man would give him an excuse to vent his fury, but MacNair is apparently intimidated into silence by the Malfoy name and temper.

"The next time I am involved against my will in one of these little schemes," Lucius continues, modifying his tone to one of calm threat, "I will find out who is behind it. Then, I shall have the offender fed to the plants in Greenhouse Three without bothering to kill him first. The Dark Lord is gone, and I am tired of these repeated threats to the security of my name and of my family."

"When the Dark Lord returns –" MacNair says.

Lucius laughs at him, resisting the impulse to go for his wand and make the man scream for his stupidity.

"If the Dark Lord returns," he says, "then it will be to his benefit to have followers with some sort of social standing. A penniless fugitive is of no help to our cause."

"Is that why you betrayed Bellatrix and Rodolphus? Because they were useless?"

"No," Lucius says coldly. "They brought the Aurors down on my sleeping family. You've been warned, MacNair. Tell the others."

***

The kitchens seem a lot further from Gryffindor Tower at night than they do in daylight. The school is spookier, too; it's easy to imagine students getting lost in echoing corridors, never to be seen again. Bill feels like an adventurer, exploring lost tunnels in search of fame and treasure. The house-elves are the guardians of the treasure, dispensing it only to the worthy... Lost in thought, he almost doesn't hear the voices until it's too late.

"...to Dumbledore's office? At this hour?" It's a man's voice, an unfamiliar one – most likely one of the professors he doesn't have. Bill presses back into the nearest alcove, ducking behind a suit of armor. It turns to look at him, then shakes its head and resumes its earlier position.

"...better idea?" a second voice is saying. "I don't fancy running around the school without his knowing about it."

"We used to do it all the time." Bill is listening intently now. Whatever this is, it isn't a conversation between two professors. He's dreadfully curious and a little afraid. The men are talking about going to Dumbledore, so they can't be that bad, but Bill is old enough to understand a little of what worries his mum so badly that she doesn't sleep some nights.

"Things are different now, Pads," the second voice says wearily. "We're adults, for one thing; for a second, we're being hunted by every magical law enforcement agency in Europe. He has a right to know we're here."

"He's probably asleep."

"Then we'll wake him up." The tired voice sighs. "Come on, Sirius. Stop being difficult."

Bill freezes, caught between terror and a fierce surge of protectiveness. That's Sirius Black out there, in Hogwarts, and no one but Bill knows that he's here. If he makes a stand, if he's loud enough... Bill is stepping out from behind the suit of armour before he's finished the thought, and he reaches the middle of the corridor just as Sirius Black and his friend come around the corner.

"Don't move!" Bill says, pointing his wand at them. A corner of his mind is embarrassed by the shrill, frightened sound of his own voice. The rest of him is frightened almost senseless.

The two men freeze, twin looks of surprise and dismay crossing their faces. It would be funny, Bill thinks distantly, if he weren't so terrified: two grown wizards startled into obedience by an eleven-year-old boy.

"Bugger," says the dark-haired man – Sirius Black, Bill thinks. "Moony, why didn't we think of this?"

"Because we forgot what devils we were at that age?" the other man says. He looks at Bill. "We're not going to hurt you, lad."

Sirius Black looks at him curiously. "You're a Weasley, aren't you? Arthur's eldest?"

"Yes," Bill says. His voice is still stupidly high-pitched, and he isn't sure why he's not shouting the roof down. They were talking about going to Dumbledore, says the small, unpanicked corner of his brain.

"You're in Gryffindor, right?" Black is still talking, using the calm, even tones that grown-ups use when something is wrong and they're trying to hide it. "Remus and I were in Gryffindor, too. Really, we won't hurt you." He moves forward and Bill jumps back, raising his wand higher.

"I'll scream," he threatens.

"Don't do that!" the other man – Remus – protests. "Look, what if we let you take us to Dumbledore? We won't reach for our wands, or anything like that."

Bill puts his head to one side, considering this. He's bound to get loads of house points for capturing Sirius Black, even if he does wind up in trouble for being out after hours. If they go first, he should be able to keep an eye on them both.

"Fine," he says, gesturing with his wand. "But you walk in front of me."

"We wouldn't have it any other way," Remus says reassuringly.

***

Author's Notes: As always, thanks ever so much to anyone who's taken the time to read/review. Thanks also to my beta, the lovely Marauderswolf, without whom there would be no more story.

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