– – – – – Rebirth Chapter 15 – – – – –

The weeks continued to pass after that without any confrontation between Harry or Snape. As far as Harry could tell, Snape had not told Dumbledore about their encounter. He had received a letter from Lucius informing him that Snape had contacted the elder Malfoy to inquire about Harry. Lucius had mostly held his tongue, but he had apparently warned Snape not to mess with Harry Potter if he knew what was good for him, and that he highly recommended trying to mend their relationship for the sake of Snape's future health. Lucius had also admitted to Snape that he and his family had encountered Harry during the summer and it was discovered that Harry and Narcissa were cousins of a sort and Lucius had invited Harry to consider the Malfoy's as extended family. He had also admitted that he and Harry were still occasionally in communication, but that he would appreciate if Severus did not pass that bit of information along to Albus Dumbledore if he could help it.

A Malfoy's word was his honor, and by offering a familial bond with Harry Potter, he was not only gaining Harry's loyalty, but also promising his own. If it came down to a choice between Severus and Harry, he would choose Harry because to a pureblood, family always comes first, even over friends. It was an ideal excuse that Lucius could fall back on without having to use his loyalty to the Dark Lord as an excuse for his actions regarding Harry Potter.

As the days passed, and the end of October drew near, a few things became clear to Harry. The first one was that Hermione Granger was a jealous, annoying, stuck-up little know it all, and he was getting sick of her attitude. She hated being outdone. She seemed to have decided that Harry was her academic rival, and she was going to do anything and everything in her power to out perform him in classes. She also took the ridiculous point system far too seriously. Anytime Harry was awarded points for something, Hermione seemed to go mad until she'd earned the same amount, or more.

At first, he had just ignored her. Then he was mildly amused at her tenacity. Then he started to get annoyed. She was constantly bickering with him on the most inane of subjects. She relied too much on perfectly quoting textbooks, but Harry's memory was even better than her's and he had no qualms with quoting the words of other wizards if it would get her to shut up. He'd read a hell of a lot more books than she had, and had a much bigger mental library to draw from.

However, every time he quoted form a book that she didn't have access to, it only seemed to infuriate her, and drive her on a quest for finding the same text, or another one that countered what Harry had said. The Ravenclaw common room had it's own private library filled with volumes that had been donated by Ravenclaw alumni, and thanks to it, there were even more books to reference from there, then in the school library alone, but Harry really only found that more irritating as far as Hermione Granger was concerned. She would go on these mad research sprees, desperately trying to prove that he was wrong, and her bloody elementary textbook was right.

The problem was that people dumb things down for eleven year olds. That was the simple fact of the matter. Children just weren't ready to fully comprehend the immensity that was pure magical theory. That's why all these hundreds of stupid, specific, spells existed. The less in-tune you were with magic, and the less you understood how to actually feel it, and manipulate it, the more you had to rely on very specific, crafted spells. One spell that did a very specific thing and had a very specific incantation. That spell had been crafted just to do that, and as long as you knew that spell and it's proper wand movements and could do it just as the textbook told you to, you could get the desired effect. Whether you actually had any understanding or control over your magic, or not. That was the sort of rubbish they taught first years.

Of course when you got more advanced, you didn't need a spell for each and every damn thing you wanted to do. In fact, doing it that way was absolutely stupid since you'd end up having to memorize thousands of incantations and wand movements.

It was like all those stupid transfiguration spells they learned in first and second year. A specific spell to turn a match into a needle. A different specific spell to turn a pin cushion into a porcupine. It was stupid. For someone who actually had control of their magic, they didn't need any specific spells to transfigure one thing into another. They just needed to know how to properly manipulate their magic, and know how to correctly visualize the transfiguration process.

But none of the first, second, or even third-year level text books covered that stuff because it was just too advanced for young children. And as far ahead as Hermione had read, she hadn't read that far ahead yet.

When you're a child, they teach you one way to do it, but when you get older, they teach you the right way to do it.

It was stupid, but it was how it worked.

But Hermione Granger wasn't the only person that Harry had determined was exceedingly annoying. No, second place easily went to Ron Weasley from Gryffindor.

Harry had learned a bit about the Weasley family during his time at Hogwarts. First and foremost, they were hypocrites. They were a pure-blood family going back dozens of generations. They almost never even married halfbreeds, and there wasn't a single instance of a Weasley marrying a muggleborn. They had even hidden away a squib born a generation back. And yet, publicly, they claimed to be pro-muggle rights, pro-equality, and very very pro the supremacy of Light magic, and the suppression of the evil Dark.

Draco called them filthy blood traitors, but Harry felt that hypocrite was a more suiting term. They also apparently believed that it was their duty to help grow the Light wizard population of Britain, single handedly. The family was outrageously enormous. There were four of them currently in attendance at Hogwarts, but there were two others that had already graduated, and one more still waiting to get in.

They apparently bred like rabbits. How quaint.

Despite Harry's warning the last time that Weasley had gotten it into his head to try and follow and corner him, the stupid little ginger git hadn't learned his lesson. He had enlisted the help of a reluctant Longbottom and Finnigan again, one more time. Harry had made good on his threat and ended up using a spell called 'Levicorpus' on all three of them – stringing them up by their ankles. While they hung there, wailing to be let down, Harry then proceeded to cast a spell on each of them that dyed their hair green with silver stripes. He then layered another charm over top of it that would prevent it from being removed for a week. He doubted even the hospital matron could remove it after the precautions he took.

Ron spent the rest of the week glaring hatefully at Harry from across the hall, or in any classes they shared, while Longbottom and Finnigan looked appropriately abashed and terribly embarrassed.

Draco, Daphne, Theo, and Blaise all found Harry's spellwork utterly brilliant and they all asked him to instruct them on exactly what he'd done.

After the hair dying incident, Finnigan and Longbottom seemed less inclined to help Ron with his quest to prove that Harry Potter was evil, so all of Weasley's subsequent attempts to follow or spy on Harry were solo attempts. Harry wouldn't have given a damn about any of Weasley's idiocy if it weren't for the fact that he was putting a damper in the time that Harry had to observe the third floor corridor, and had, thus far, made it impossible to try to pay a visit the Chamber.

It wasn't like it was hard to loose the stupid little git. Nor was it hard to detect when the boy was trying to follow him, but Harry couldn't do anything too obviously above the level of a child, so he had to be cautious in what he did when escaping Weasley's notice.

He had taken to 'pranking' the ginger git whenever he tried to follow him. As long as he kept his responses seemingly innocent and childish, and reasonably within the skill range of an adolescent, it wouldn't bring down too much concern or attention from on high. So far Weasley's skin had been turned blue for a day once; his hair had been charmed so it flashed every color of the rainbow another day; his robes had been charmed to randomly turn invisible for thirty seconds at a time another day; his teeth had been engorged so that they were even larger than Granger's were... the list went on. By the third week in October, Harry had even started to get into it, and spent his History of Magic classes trying to think up new and more creative things to do to the stupid little boy the next time he dared to try and follow him.

It was at this point that he was first approached by the ginger git's identical twin older brothers. When Harry had first realized that the Weasley Twins were following him as he made his way down an empty corridor one evening as he was leaving the library, he became rather cautious. As best he could figure, the two boys were likely there to try and avenge their younger brother.

At first he decided to just try and lose them, rather than take them head on. He'd heard some rumors about the Weasley twins, and knew that he would likely have to use some more advanced spells to counter what they could pull off, and he didn't want to reveal too much advanced knowledge if he didn't have to.

But his attempts to lose them were quickly proving ineffective. No matter where he went, they were able to track him down. They were also a lot better at being stealthy than their worthless younger brother.

Harry had to admit, he was impressed with both their in-depth knowledge of the school and it's secret passages, as well as their ability to keep tracking him, while dodging Filch, the Bloody Barron, and Peeves – all three individuals who he had tried to lead them into while he was attempting to get away.

Finally he went into an empty classroom and turned to face the door with his wand drawn. He was sick of trying to run from these two and would just face them head on.

The door slowly opened and two identical mops of red appeared, looking into the room cautiously. They spotted Harry and wide grins appeared on their freckled faces.

"Looks like he finally stopped running, George!"

"That, he did, Fred. Almost disappointed, I am. That was quite a romp through the castle!"

"Quite a romp, indeed! Never would have expected to find an ickle firstie who knew even more about this castle than us!"

"Nor did I, brother o' mine! That passage behind the tapestry on the fourth floor was a total mystery! That one isn't even on our fancy little guide!"

"I know! Totally shocked by that one!"

"Shocked, indeed!"

Harry narrowed his eyes at the two as they spoke cheerfully to each other as if he weren't standing there, aiming his wand at them.

"What do you want?" he asked in a cold, sharp voice.

"Oh, no worries, ickle Raven. We mean you no harm."

"We come in peace."

"Offering a white flag."

"Throwing a flock of doves into the air."

"In fact, we come baring a proposal of cooperation!"

Harry raised a single brow into his forehead, looking at the two as if they were insane... which they clearly were.

"Riiight... so you're not here to get revenge for all the stuff I've done to your brother?" Harry asked, skeptically.

"Oh, no. Not at all."

"We thought all that stuff you did was –"

" – Absolutely brilliant!"

"Masterful, even."

"Genius."

Harry blinked at the pair, feeling like he was watching a tennis match as the two bounced back and forth with their words.

"Yeah... oh-kay..." Harry said slowly, still feeling a considerable amount of trepidation, as he stood in their presence. It was at that point, however, that something that one of them was carrying caught his attention. Sticking out of the pocket of one of their robes was a bit of folded parchment. To the common eye, it wouldn't look the least bit extraordinary, however to Harry's Black Sight, it was glowing with an incredibly powerful array of charms.

But that alone wasn't what was really catching Harry's attention. It was the magical signature attached to those charms that was drawing him in. They were very... familiar.

Remus' magical signature was all over it. That one was obvious. It was especially easy to pick out since he saw Remus' magical signature every week in class. However, there was another signature in there that, while Harry had never actually seen it before, he had felt it. It took him all of thirty seconds to search his memory to try and pinpoint exactly where he knew it from.

It was his father's magical signature.

"Where did you get that?" Harry blurted out before he could even realize what he was saying.

The two twins, who had continued on with their bizarre twinspeak stopped mid tennis volley and looked at him in confusion for a moment before looking down to where he was pointing. They realized he was pointing at the parchment that was sticking out of one of their pockets and their expressions instantly became guarded.

"Got what?" one asked, innocently.

"That parchment in your pocket," Harry replied. "It's got my dad's magical signature on it."

"You're dad?" the other twin echoed with surprise. Then his eyes widened and he looked over at his brother, who also looked rather wide-eyed.

"What do you mean, it's got his 'magical signature' on it?"

Harry shrugged. "It's a thing I can do. I sort of see magic. I also have perfect recall. I remember people's magical signatures like some people remember people's faces. My dad's magical signature is all over that bit of parchment sticking out of your pocket. So is Professor Lupin's, for that matter."

"Professor Lupin?" the both echoed, simultaneously.

"Yeah. That's right. So where'd you get it?"

The twins turned to look at each other, and seemed to have a silent conversation between them before they turned back to Harry.

"We nicked it –"

"From Filch's office –"

"Our first year here."

"It was in his confiscated contraband drawer," they volleyed back and forth.

"So what is it? I can see it's powerful. It's got a mountain of charms cast on it," Harry said, almost whispering the last part to himself as his eyes remained locked on the parchment.

"You can really see magic?" one of the twins asked with a bit of awe in his voice.

Harry shrugged, acting as if it were nothing. "Always have. Was born with it, I guess."

"That's wicked."

"No wonder they're all saying you're some sort of prodigy."

"Yeah, right... sooo... the parchment?" Harry prodded, getting impatient.

"Right!" one exclaimed.

"The parchment!" the other added.

Harry gave them a flat, slightly annoyed look.

The one with the parchment in his pocket pulled it out and held it out in front of them. Harry leaned in closer, looking at it more closely. It appeared, for all the world, to be nothing more than a blank piece of parchment.

He saw the bit of magic left in it from his father reacting to him and his eyes widened. Suddenly text began to appear on it. The twins apparently weren't expecting this, because they just gaped at it.

Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs

Purveyors of Aids to Magical Mischief-Makers

Have detected the blood of one of their own

Who is this new prankster who handles our map today?

The three boys stood staring at the parchment for a moment. Harry suddenly barked out a bit of a laugh.

"The Marauder's," he whispered with an oddly sentimental smile on his lips at the thought of finding this object that had belonged to his father and his friends.

The twin's heads shot up and they gaped at him. "You know about the Marauder's?" one of them asked.

"Are you saying that you dad was one of them?" asked the other.

"Yeah, my dad's nickname was Prongs," Harry said, pointing to the word 'Prongs' on the map. "Professor Lupin was Moony. You could ask him about it all, if you really want."

The two Twin's shared a stunned, and yet elated look.

"You mean to tell me that one of our professors was a Marauder?" one twin gasped.

"Do you know who the other's were? Are they still alive?"

Harry frowned slightly. "Well, Padfoot was Sirius Black," he said, and the twin's paled considerably. "Wormtail was Peter Pettigrew. They were dorm mates back when they went to Hogwarts. But anyway, what else does it do? The parchment, I mean?"

"Right, right!"

"I think he deserves to see it."

"And I concur."

With that, the one holding the parchment brought out his wand, tapped it against the parchment and said "I solemnly swear that I'm up to no good."

The text from earlier disappeared, and the parchment was suddenly filled with an incredibly complex, animated map of the entire school. But even more interesting, was the fact that every single person in the school was labeled on the map with a little animated set of footprints that went where ever in the school that they went. Harry even found the classroom that he and the twins were standing in with three pairs of static footprints, labeled Harry Potter, Fred Weasley, and George Weasley.

The next twenty minutes was spent with the three sitting at one of the tables in the classroom, examining the map, and discussing what Harry knew about the Marauder's. Harry discovered that the twins had not come after him with malicious intent, but rather, they were planning to recruit him, or enlist him as their student. He obviously did not have anything to learn from them – if anything, he could teach them a thing or two about pranking, and pranking had never been his thing.

The more Harry saw about the map, the more intrigued he was. He doubted that the twins would hand over their copy, straight up, but he still wanted it. The three made plans to meet in Professor Lupin's office the following day after classes had ended to discuss the map. The twins wanted to do it so that they could get some stories out of Lupin. Harry wanted to do it so that he could get some details out of Lupin on how the map was constructed. It was obvious that the majority of the charm work in the map had been done by Remus – which made sense, since he knew that in their school days, Remus was the most studious of the group.

The following day they met up and Remus was obviously overwhelmed, both by the twins, and by the sight of the map. He got all nostalgic about it, and the twins easily got their stories out of the man. While Remus reminisced, and the twins soaked up tales of the Marauder's and their pranks, Harry sat to the side, examining the map with his Black Sight, as well as a number of advanced charms used for reverse engineering complex spells. He had a piece of parchment and quill and was making notes as he went. The others were distracted enough that they didn't pay him any mind.

Over the next week, Harry borrowed the map from the twins a few more times for additional study. They seemed to think he was using it to perform some covert pranks, and wished him luck. They continued to attempt to persuade him to join them in their own pranking efforts, but for the time being at least, he refused.

– –

It was the day of October's full moon and Harry was making his way to Remus' office. It was still light outside, but the sun would be setting in a few hours, and Harry knew Remus was responsible enough that he likely locked himself away far earlier that was absolutely necessary.

He knocked on Remus' office door and let himself in after hearing the man call out from within.

The man looked up from his desk with a tired grin on his face.

"Harry..." Remus said in a quiet voice as he set his quill down and sat up straighter in his seat. "What brings you here today? Don't you usually have your study group on Thursdays?"

Harry shrugged. "They know I won't be there tonight. I would much rather spend this time, keeping you company."

Remus looked touched, but ducked his head a bit. "You don't have to do that, Harry. Besides, I'll be heading out in about forty minutes, and you can't go with me, after that."

"Why not?" Harry asked simply.

Remus looked up and blinked at him. "Harry, you know why you can't come. It's too dangerous. Even with the Wolfsbane potion, having a human nearby could aggravate Moony."

"But what if I wouldn't be there as a human?" Harry replied with a smirk.

Remus' brow furrowed for a moment in confusion before he chuckled and shook his head. "Harry, I don't know what you're suggesting, but it's not –"

"I'm an animagus."

Remus stopped mid word and gaped at the young boy still standing opposite his desk. "Harry, that's impossible. There's simply no way –"

"I did it accidentally when I was younger. I don't know how, but I did it. Several times. Obviously, the first time it happened was pure accidental magic, but I was sort of a weird kid. Every time I did accidental magic, I would practice and practice and practice until I could make it happen on purpose. Obviously, I had no idea what an animagus was, when I was a kid, but after hearing your description of them, and doing a lot of reading, I've come to realize that's what I did. I trained myself as one, and I can do it on purpose, whenever I want."

"You've got to be kidding me," Remus choked out, looking utterly disbelieving. "You're only eleven!"

Harry gave him an unapologetic shrug. "What can I say? I'm a freak among freaks?"

"You're no freak, Harry. You're incredible! I can't even begin to imagine how... accidentally learning to be an animagus? It's just... It shouldn't be possible! I don't believe it!" he shook his head, incredulously.

"Do you want to see?" Harry asked, giving his best, excited, innocent, child face.

Remus just nodded his head.

Harry closed his eyes, pulled in a slow breath through his nose and then let it out through his slightly parted lips. Suddenly his body began to shrink and morph, and in the blink of an eye, where once stood a young boy, was now a very small, dark black-ish-brown, furry bat, clinging to the stone floor.

Remus choked out a startled sort of noise and stood up. He walked around his desk cautiously, never taking his eyes off the small bat on the floor.

"Merlin's beard, I don't bloody believe it," Remus whispered. "A bat?" he asked after a moment.

The small bat, maneuvered around, extended his wings and then flapping them and taking flight. He flew up and sort of hovered in the air, directly in front of Remus' face. His wings were about 18 inches wide from tip to tip, but his body was only about 6 inches long from head to tail.

His wings were highly articulated, and the thin, flexible membrane covering his joints made for a tremendous amount of control of his flight. He stopped hovering and quickly flew around the room a few times, before clinging to the wall, and scaling up it, as if gravity were not issue at all.

Then he pushed himself off the wall, flew back over to hover in front of the still dumbstruck professor, and flawlessly transformed back into his human form.

"This shouldn't be possible," Remus muttered dizzily.

Harry just shrugged and grinned at him with a rather smug expression on his face. "It's magic," Harry said, as if that were enough to explain everything. And honestly... it was.

–

Harry made Remus promise not to tell anyone about what he could do. Part of Remus had wanted to run to Professor McGonagall and gush in all his intense shock and awe, but Harry was adamant that no one could know. Harry had no intention of registering his animagus form, and didn't want the attention that would no doubt come with being the youngest wizard to ever accomplish the animagus transformation.

That night, Harry slipped out of the Ravenclaw dormitory after telling his dorm mates that he was feeling under the weather, and sealing the hangings on his bed shut with some privacy wards. Then he flew down to the shrieking shack and kept Remus company, all night long.

He'd seen werewolves before, but he'd never personally witnessed the transformation to and from before, so it was actually rather fascinating for him. Thanks to the Wolfsbane potion, Remus retained all of his mental faculties during his transformation, instead of turning into a snarling, bloodthirsty, monster. However, the fact remained that neither could actually converse with the other while they were both in animal forms. Still, they managed to keep themselves entertained, and come morning light, when Remus transformed back into himself, Harry helped him to the Hospital wing where he left the man in Madam Pomfrey's care, while he made his way back up to the Ravenclaw dormitories to sleep the day away. He didn't give a damn about his classes, and had told the matron that he was sick and had gotten permission to skiv off his classes.

– –

Halloween came and went with no apparent fuss. The feast was overdone and had way too many muggle influences as far as Harry was concerned. The following day, he received a letter from Lucius stating that the previous night, his mark had burned slightly, but there had been no summons. He had been in contact with several of the other inner circle members, and a few outer circle members, and all reported the same. A slight burn, but no summons.

Harry's frustration only grew from this news. It was confirmation that Tom was active and up to something, but he still had no idea what it was, or how to track the man down. What was even more annoying was that his scar hadn't even reacted to whatever had happened, even though the Marks did.

He tried slipping along the tether that connected he and Tom together, but was once again met with a solid, impenetrable, Occlumency wall.

He replied to Lucius, thanking him for keeping him informed, and then went to stew in the Room of Hidden Things, and continue his work on his copy of the Marauder's map. Not only did he need to continue it, but it was a good distraction, and he at least felt like he was doing something productive towards his goals.

He planned to make use of the damned thing to steal the Stone. His version of the map was even more complete than the one his father and his friends had made. For one thing, it included the entrance to the Room of Hidden things on it (although it could not include the room itself, since it was undetectable by the school's wards). His version also included numerous hidden passages and several secret rooms that the Marauder's had failed to discover.

He had also managed to include the room at the end of the third floor corridor, and the string of secret rooms extending from the trap door in the floor. He was only able to map out the general location and size of the rooms, since he had no idea what was in them now, or if anything had been moved or changed in the fifty years since he and Tom had explored the rooms.

The original map created by the Marauder's worked by tapping into the castle's wards. Everyone in the castle was registered and tracked constantly by the wards, from the moment they set foot within the Hogwart's protective wards. Some of the places in the castle, however, were unplottable even by the castle's own wards – the Room of Hidden things was one of them, and the Chamber of Secrets was another. Fortunately, the set of secret rooms leading from the third-floor corridor were not.

Harry had managed to link his map into the wards in the same way, and was just about finished with it. He'd managed to subtly question Remus on a few things that had confused him or when he'd hit some road blocks. He could tell that the man had been a little confused by Harry asking some fairly advanced theoretical charms questions, but he'd come to expect Harry to act considerably beyond his age would normally dictate, and had fortunately shrugged it off.

By the first weekend in November, Harry had his map functioning, and he started using it to observe the third-floor corridor and the room leading to the set of secret rooms. Interesting enough, there was a name listed as always being inside the room on the third floor that Harry knew had the trap door in it. Judging by the name, and the fact that the name was always in that room, he suspected that the owner of the name wasn't human. The name was 'Fluffy'.

Since his first tea with Hagrid, Harry and dropped by for additional visits twice. Harry already knew from his previous life that Hagrid had a ridiculous tendency to acquire dangerous creatures and keep them as pets. From his additional visits these last two months, he learned that Hagrid's tendency had only grown in the fifty years that had progressed. As a part of his job as grounds keeper, Hagrid was in charge of the Hogwarts stables. He tended to the herd of Thestrals the school kept, as well as assisting the Care of Magical Creatures teacher, Professor Kettleburn, tend to all of the animals used in class.

With this knowledge, Harry figured it was probably safe to assume that Hagrid probably knew something about 'Fluffy'. His assumptions were only solidified when, late one Saturday night, he saw a dot labeled 'Hagrid' making his way through the third floor corridor, greeting Professor Flitwick who was currently on guard duty, and then making his way into the room where he was greeted by 'Fluffy'.

Two days later, also late at night after curfew, Hagrid came again, but this time he was accompanied by Professor Sprout, the Herbology teacher. Hagrid went in first and spent a few minutes doing whatever it was he had to do to subdue 'Fluffy'. Then he stepped out, and Harry assumed he was calling Professor Sprout in. She went in, and her dot stopped in the center of the room, right over the trap door and disappeared from the room. The dot labled 'Pamona Sprout' then reappeared in the room that was directly below. She spent about twenty minutes in there before climbing back out. She and Hagrid left the room and Filch appeared to take up the post of guarding the corridor.

Taking what he'd observed, Harry figured it was safe to assume whatever was in the second room, was some sort of dangerous magical plant.

In all the time that he spent over the next few weeks observing the map, he never saw anyone go any further than that second room, so it was likely that whatever protections existed beyond the first two were self-sustaining and did not require any maintenance. It made sense for the live obstacles to be the first two, but Harry highly doubted that they were the only protections down there.

–

During the third week of November, when he went into Remus' office after his classes to help the man with his papers and to chat, as he had been doing for months now, he was caught off guard when he looked upon the man and saw a surprisingly devastated expression on the man's face.

"What's wrong?" Harry asked, instantly put somewhat on guard by the man's posture and face.

"Ah... Harry... I," Remus hesitated and ran a hand through his slightly graying hair before heaving a very heavy sigh. He picked up a folded letter from his desk and pushed it towards the end nearest Harry. He made his way over, picked it up and sat down in the chair opposite the desk.

Harry's brows rose slowly into his forehead, but he didn't show any other outward reaction on his face.

"So what does this mean, exactly?" Harry asked flatly, not looking up.

"It means that Sirius never got a trial. He was never even questioned after being apprehended," Remus said with a heavy sigh as he sank back into his chair looking far older than his years.

'I already told you that he wasn't the secret keeper," Harry said, still not looking up.

Remus nodded his head slowly and kept his eyes lowered. "You did. And... well, the more I've gotten to know you and the things you can do – the things you can remember – I came to believe it more and more, it's just that..."

"At the same time you didn't want to believe it," Harry finished for him. "It would mean that Dumbledore let him stay there and rot without a trial. It would also mean that your friend really wasn't guilty of betrayal, but you hadn't once tried to contact him, or fight for him, in a decade."

Remus' face crumpled in despair and he brought his hands up and buried his face in them. "What have I done, Harry?" Remus whispered in a hoarse, broken voice. "I was his friend... I should have been there for him! But I just..."

"You trusted Albus Dumbledore. You certainly wouldn't be the first one to blindly follow that man. To believe that you could rely on him to do what was right. What was just. That's his line, right? He's supposed to be the good guy. He's the one with the power, and the high moral ground, and the desire to fight for what is good and right in the world. You allowed yourself to have blind faith in one man. That's your only crime, Remus."

Remus shook his head furiously. "No. Sirius was my friend!"

"And so were my parents. You believed that Sirius had betrayed them. Everything that you knew at the time, and Albus Dumbledore, said so. You were hurt and angry. You felt betrayed and you had just lost everyone. You lost my parents, you lost Peter, and you lost Sirius, all in one swoop."

"I hadn't lost you..." Remus whispered. "But I didn't fight for you. I should have... I should have at least made sure you were okay. I should have checked on you."

Harry looked away, choosing not to respond right away. "You couldn't have saved me from them, Remus," he finally said in a quiet voice, and he knew that Remus knew exactly who 'them' were. "If you'd tried to 'rescue' me, Dumbledore would have acted against you, just like he acted against Sirius. He probably would have exposed your condition to the public, just to guarantee that you could never legally be allowed near me."

Remus looked up at Harry with an expression that seemed to shift between denial, horror, anger, and fear. Harry knew that Remus didn't want to believe that Albus Dumbledore would do something like that to him, but at the same time, he also probably realized that Albus Dumbledore probably would have done just that, if Remus had tried to claim custody of Harry.

"What does he want you for?" Remus finally asked, as his brow furrowed with confusion and anger. "What could be so important that he thinks it's okay to destroy people's lives? You're life. Sirius' life..." Remus shook his head, and his expression was slowly shifting back to the devastated look that had covered it before.

Harry paused, going over in his mind what possible scenarios might unfold if he told Remus what he knew about the Prophecy. What gains he could get out of it, if he played his cards right, and what could possibly go wrong if things didn't go smoothly. He decided that the risks were definitely there, but the possible benefits made the option viable.

"Remus... did my parents ever tell you why we had to go into hiding?" Harry asked.

Remus looked up at Harry and frowned slightly before shaking his head. "Not... exactly. They said that You-Know-Who was after them... well... you. That, for some reason, he wanted you dead."

Harry nodded his head, looking thoughtful. "You know how I can remember things, even from when I was a baby?" Harry asked, rhetorically and Remus nodded his head. "Well, obviously none of this stuff made sense to me then, but I can look back at those memories now that I have all this knowledge about our world and magic and people, and I can put the things I heard back then into context. If I go back and re-examine my memories, they mean something now, where before, it was just nonsense."

Remus' eyes flashed a bit with understanding. He no doubt had wondered about this, and Harry's explanation finally made some things seem a bit more logical and plausible.

Harry continued, "It's like the Peter being the secret keeper thing – obviously I didn't understand what any of that meant back then. Dumbledore casting it; Sirius being a decoy; the 'fidelius charm'. None of that meant anything when I was a child, but I still remember it. And now, when I look at those memories, they mean something. Well, there was another thing that I overheard when I was a baby..."

Remus sat forward on his chair, looking at Harry with anxiety and trepidation all over his face.

"There was a prophecy," Harry said in a low voice. "Some seer made a prophecy and Dumbledore heard it. Apparently one of the Da... one of Voldemort's followers heard it too, and told him, because Voldemort knew what the prophecy said to... or maybe he only knew what a portion of it said. I'm not really sure. Anyway, I never actually overheard my parents say the entire prophecy in my presence... I think they were trying to avoid talking about it around me when they knew I was awake because they didn't want the stress they were under to be too obvious to me... which is ridiculous, because I could tell that something was wrong, even then..." Harry sighed and rolled his eyes slightly before refocusing. "But I did hear the first few lines. Apparently the first line says 'the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches.' The next two basically give clues as to who this 'one' is, and both Dumbledore and Voldemort agreed that those clues pointed right to me and my parents."

Remus' face was slackened with shock. But then he frowned and shook his head as if he were internally arguing with himself. "But that doesn't explain why he's still trying to control your life like this! You already 'vanquished' You-Know-Who! He's gone! Why not leave you in peace? Why leave you with those horrible people? Why leave Sirius to rot without a trial and with a soiled name?"

"That's just it, Remus. Voldemort isn't gone. He's going to come back, and Dumbledore knows it. He needs me under his control so that he can properly prepare me to fulfill this stupid ridiculous prophecy when Voldemort makes his return. I don't know exactly how or why he thought leaving me with abusive muggles would help him in that department, except that maybe he expected them to beat me into submission. To break me, so that when I came back here, I would be more malleable or something. I don't know. It seems incredibly illogical to me, but I've come to realize that using logic in regards to Albus Dumbledore is a pointless affair. Also, I'm sure that he wasn't expecting me to be anything like I am. I'm sure the fact that I actually remember all of these things is far outside any of his plans, and I worry what he'll do to try and recover from his mistakes when he realizes that I know what he's done."

Harry huffed and pushed some loose hair strands that had escaped form his low pony-tail, back behind his ear. "As for why he would leave Sirius to rot without a trial... you know, I've actually been thinking about that a lot lately and it's got me wondering... basically, if Sirius had gotten a trial and they'd actually put him under veritaserum, they could have realized that he didn't betray my parents and that he wasn't a Death Eater, but he still would have ended up in Azkaban because of the murders of Pettigrew and those muggles – right?"

Remus nodded his head slowly.

"In that scenario, I still would have been under Dumbledore's control because my godfather still would have ended up in prison. What if, getting a trial would have shown something bigger? What if Sirius is completely innocent? What if he didn't kill anyone? A trial would have shown that, and he would have gone free. The only motive that Dumbledore has for making sure that Sirius never got a trial, is if Sirius was innocent. Totally and completely innocent. And Dumbledore knew it."

Harry suspected that if Remus' eyes had gotten any wider in that moment, his eyeballs would have fallen right out of his skull. Remus started to shaking his head slowly side to side as if he were trying to deny the potential truth behind the words, but Harry could see the cogs turning behind the man's yellow-gold eyes and knew that the man couldn't really deny it.

Harry and Remus spoke for a while longer after that, quietly trying to decide what to do with their revelations. Harry hadn't been entirely convinced that trying to get Sirius out of Azkaban would legitimately benefit him in the long run, except to potentially have another adult ally. The magical guardian issue was likely to eventually rear its head in a negative way, though, so there was a potential value in exploring this avenue. Remus was on his side, but the man had no legal standing to stand up for Harry if anything should go wrong. And the fact that Remus was a werewolf only left his standing that much more shaky and unreliable.

Harry also realized that Remus needed to try exploring some options to free his old friend. So in the end, Harry decided, internally, that he would try to get Sirius Black's name cleared. But he would have to be careful how he did it. He emphasized to Remus how desperately imperative it was that Dumbledore not start to have any suspicions about Harry; his behavior, his intelligence, and especially, about what he was doing in regards to Sirius, until it was at a point where it would be too late for Dumbledore to do anything about it.

It had only taken two months, but Harry was satisfied in how easily he had totally crushed Remus' unwavering faith in Albus Dumbledore. He was positive that the man was far more loyal to him, than the old man, and he hadn't even had to lie much at all to gain Remus' trust. He had obviously left out a lot, and twisted a number of other things around, but generally speaking, he'd only told Remus variations on the truth. And that had been more than enough.

Harry decided that he would try and contact someone with a lot of power and influence in the Ministry and see if he could get something started in regards to Sirius' case, while keeping it all as quiet as possible. Initially, he thought that he might try contacting Lucius and getting a name of any Death Eaters who had managed to get themselves into a powerful position in the Ministry, but he instantly tossed that option aside. He couldn't risk an actual Death Eater being associated with trying to clear Sirius' name, since they were trying to prove that Sirius wasn't a Death Eater.

Remus' suggestion was that Harry should try contacting Amelia Bones. She had been friends with Sirius and Harry's dad – they were all Aurors together, and now Bones was the Head of the DMLE at the Ministry. Remus said that she was a good woman. Trustworthy, and strong willed. In addition, she was a strong proponent of making sure that Justice was served.

Harry said he would consider it, but actually had another alternative in mind. His mind was brewing up a scheme, and while it was potentially risky, he was fairly sure that he could make it work. He didn't explain any of it to Remus, and the man hadn't exactly liked that, but Harry had insisted that he needed to work through his ideas more before he shared them.