The Marauders - Order of the Phoenix - Part Two

LVI: 11 May, 1994

"I solemnly swear I am up to no good."

Remus was sitting on the stairs between the third and fourth floor, the Map spread out over his knees. "C'mon Peter... where are you..." Remus ran his fingers over the corridors and passageways, scanning his eyes along for the name that he hadn't stopped thinking about for four days.

Had he been seeing things? Was he going mad? Was he so bloody desperate to find Sirius and have a reason to believe that his brain was going funny? He ran his hands over his eyes; he'd been staring ceaselessly at the tiny moving print, his eyes were going cross. 

"Och and what is this? Are yeh tryin' to give an old woman flashbacks, Master Lupin?" Minerva McGonagall's voice trilled the air and Remus looked up, meeting her gaze. 

He quickly folded the map and stuffed it in his inner suit pocket. "Good evening, professor."

McGonagall's eyes followed his slight of hand, but she didn't bother asking him questions. She knew from years of experience that the questions would go unanswered, or at least falsely answered if they were given the dignity of one. Instead, she took her greying hair over her shoulder, sweeping it with her palm. It was long when it was down, as it was at this moment, and hung nearly to her abdomen, even swung about her shoulder. It was damp, as though she were on her way back to her quarters after having taken a shower and rung it out.

Remus felt almost shy seeing her in such a vulnerable state, but it was late at night and, after all, Minerva McGonagall had to wash sometime, he supposed.

"Professor?"

"Yes, Master Lupin?"

He paused, trying to determine how to word what he wanted to ask. The expression on his face as he arranged the words for his mouth to speak was one sh recognized - he'd spent many a time in Transfiguration class years ago making that exact expression. So, she settled in. She sat beside him on the step, slowly, her old body not as spry as it had been once upon a time, many, many years before when she'd dashed about the castle after Fleamont and Hermes, or even chasing after the Marauders themselves. Carefully, she started separating her hair into sections and braiding it as they sat in silence.

"Do you remember our fifth year?" Remus finally asked.

McGonagall was just finishing the braid, she was watching her fingers curl between the strands of grey hair. "Yes, I do, of course, Master Lupin," she trilled. "What a year it was..."

"Do you remember Sirius that year? How he acted?"

McGonagall stiffened and shifted her weight uncomfortably, letting her hair fall, the braid complete. "Aye... I do..." she murmured, and Remus could hear the Scottishness of her accent filling itself in a bit when she spoke. It was always thicker the more emotional she was.

"Always over reacting and dramatic, always flyin' off in a passion and doing drastic, stupid things that could be misunderstood if one didn't know better about him..."

McGonagall stared very hard at the carpet at her feet. 

"What if there was... was a misunderstanding... all those years ago... what if there was something we didn't know, something that - that sort of changed nearly everything?"

"Like what, Master Lupin? What could possibly change what -- what happened?"

"What if Peter was alive? What could it mean? If Peter was alive? What would change, d'you reckon?"

McGonagall said, "Remus, my boy..."

"Just... theoretically speaking, Professor," Remus said quickly. Her eyes looked at him with sadness. "Just say that Peter Pettigrew was not killed by Sirius Black. No other facts have presented themselves beside that one fact. What would change?" He had been wrecking himself trying to work the repercussions out.

"Then... then I suppose that -- that Sirius would be guilty of one less of the murders that he was sent to Azkaban for." She paused, then, "But he was still the secret keeper for the Potters, Master Lupin, and it is still their deaths that would hang upon him, however impossible it - it seems."

Remus sighed.

"I've always struggled to believe it myself, Remus..." McGonagall paused, shaking her head, "We both know he was always so passionate." Her eyes filled with tears and she looked up into the heights of the stairwell. "I truly believed things would turn out different for Sirius. Especially after his brother died, I so wanted the boy to have some peace in his life, and for things to be better for him... I thought they had, too, I thought --" she paused, her voice catching.

Remus bit his lips, he couldn't look at her, he couldn't stand the crack in her speech.

"Och when Harry was born..." her voice broke away again.

Remus nodded. "Everything changed when Harry was born... for all of us."

"Aye, everything."

Remus looked over at McGonagall finally. "Minnie."

"Remus?"

"I don't... I don't think that I believe that Sirius is guilty."

She stared at him for several long moments. "But Dumbledore said --"

"I don't care what anyone has said. I made a mistake believing for even a moment that Sirius could have killed James and Lily... I don't know what did happen - I haven't worked it all out just yet, but I truly believe that Sirius didn't do it. At least not on purpose, and possibly not at all. I just wish I knew all the details, I wish I could figure out the answer... I wish... I wish he was here and I wish he would just -- bloody - tell me - what actually happened..."

McGonagall stared at Remus for a long time before she stood up, sighing and dusting off her tartan dressing gown. "When you figure it out, Mr. Lupin... I'll be the first ear waitin' ter hear it."

She walked back to her office, feeling shaky and unnerved. 

When she got there, instead of going to her private quarters, she turned to the shelf with the teacups. She stared at Harry's plain white cup, and the blue of James's pattern. She let her fingers lip over Lily's, past the cup that belonged to Derek Bell and into the back, tucked behind some books, where she'd hidden the cup of Sirius Black. She'd never had the heart to let go of it, despite everything, but she also had been too heart broken to look upon it for a long time. She held the cup and the saucer in her hands, her palms wrapped around it tightly, protectively.