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Tell Me Where He Is


“WHERE IS HE?”

Sirius Black’s face was scarlet with anger, his eyes laced with a hatred so absolute that Severus Snape had absolutely no doubt in his mind that he could kill him. It was a wonder - a miracle, really - that the anger hadn’t already exploded out of him.

Sirius’s wand pressed into Severus’s jugular so hard, his hand shaking, his fist tight ‘round Snape’s shirt, holding him fast.

“TELL ME OR I’LL BLAST YOUR FUCKING HEAD OFF! I SWEAR TO MERLIN, I’LL DO IT!”

Severus Snape cowered against the window.

There was really only one way to play this.

Remus was behind Sirius, pulling his shoulder, trying to make him back off, and Sirius bucked him away. “LET GO OF ME!” he bellowed, “DON’T TOUCH ME!” He glared at Severus. “TALK, YOU CURSED SCUM!”

“Sirius. Please.” Remus begged, looking over his shoulder.

Aurors were coming.

People were drawing their wands, brave souls seeking to stop whatever it was that was going on. Remus was sick. He didn’t know what the hell happened, what was making Sirius act like this… Had Sirius gone mad, for real gone mad?

Aurors came up and pulled Remus away, grabbed onto Sirius’s shoulders and Sirius shrieked with an unholy anger, shaking, dropping his wand as he was yanked back, and in the commotion, as he kicked and bellowed, Severus Snape saw his moment and he ducked away.

“SIRIUS!” Gideon Prewett had Sirius’s left leg in his grip as literally four aurors had to hold him in the air - one on each limb. “SIRIUS! CALM DOWN!” Gideon looked desperately around at some of the aurors that were backing him up. “Somebody get word to Charlus Potter and Dorcas Meadowes. Something’s wrong with the boy.”

“LET ME GO! LET ME GO!! HE’S GETTING AWAY!” Sirius bellowed, “LET ME GO! HE’S GOT JAMES!”

“Sirius please!” Remus cried from the sidelines as Sirius bucked and cried and raged. “Please, you’re going to get into so much trouble.”

“I NEED TO FIND JAMES!” Sirius wailed, “HE’S GOT JAMES! HE’S GOT JAMES SOME PLACE, MOONY! ASK MY BROTHER! ASK MY BROTHER, HE’LL TELL YOU, REMUS, HE’LL TELL YOU WHAT HE TOLD ME!”

Gideon and the three others that were restraining Sirius pulled him away from the crowd - another auror grabbed Sirius’s wand - and they disapparated with him in a flash and a crack.

Remus stared at the place they’d been with a pale face. What just happened? Where were they taking Sirius? What would they do to him? He felt frantic and he looked about to find James, so they could figure out what to do, where to go to help Sirius, but… And so it was that it wasn’t ‘til after Sirius and the aurors that had caught him were gone that Remus realized James Potter had disappeared, too.

Without even waiting to see what was wrong with his mate.

Attacked or no, James Potter would never leave Sirius Black so coldly as that.

Not loyal-to-a-fault James Potter.

Remus’s heart rate picked up and he looked about as people started talking about what happened - That was one of the Black boys, they were saying, You’ve heard of that family haven’t you? Death Eaters, the lot of’em… - and Remus drew his wand and ducked ‘round the corner of Quality Quidditch Supplies, carrying the wand in his fist.

This was the only way that James could have gone the way the crowd had been surrounding them, Remus deducted quickly as he went, ducking ‘round barrels of butterbeer that loomed, waiting to be tapped at the Leaky Cauldron… and he came ‘round a bend and found he’d come to a dead end and there, sitting on an old crate, loosening his tie and doubled over, catching his breath, was Severus Snape.

Remus’s grip on his wand tightened.

“Afternoon, Severus,” he said quietly.

Severus looked up. He drew his wand, too.

Except it wasn’t his wand.

It was James Potter’s wand.

And it was all the evidence Remus needed.

“Expelliarmus!” they both shouted it at once and both wands were chucked from their respective owners’ grasp and their eyes met and they both dove forward for the wand. But Severus Snape had been smarter - he’d run for Remus’s wand as well as had Remus. James’s wand lay on the ground in the opposite direction, and Severus grabbed onto Remus’s wand before Remus could and turned quickly. “Accio!” he shouted and James’s wand flew across the alleyway into his grasp and he looked at Remus as Remus rolled over on the dusty stone, his knees scraped from the rock, and stared up at Severus, who had both James’s wand and Remus’s wand aimed at him.

Remus raised his eyebrow, and slowly pushed himself up to his feet, and held his hands, palms up. “Severus…” he said warily. “I don’t want to fight with you.”

Severus didn’t lower the wands.

“Where is James, Severus?”

Severus’s jaw tightened. “I don’t know.”

“I think you might,” Remus argued quietly.

“I don’t,” Severus replied. “I really don’t.” He lowered the wands and he stared at Remus. He shook his head - and tossed Remus’s wand to his feet.

Remus bent down and picked the wand up and, carefully so Severus could see him do it, he put the wand into his pocket.

For a moment, Remus thought that the emotion flickering on Severus Snape’s face might be something akin to remorse. Severus’s fingers massaged his forehead, and he sighed heavily and stared at the ground… wrinkles in the skin between his brows. Then, “Wherever he is, he’s with the Dark Lord and he’s getting what he deserves.”

Remus closed his eyes in anguish at the thought of James Potter with Voldemort. At the things that must be happening to him...

“What he deserves?” Remus echoed, opening his eyes to look at Severus Snape. “Does anybody deserve what the Dark Lord does to them?”

Severus Snape hissed, “He does.”

“For what? Pulling down your pants once at school?” Remus demanded.

Severus Snape scowled. “You don’t know what it’s like to be bullied, to be pushed about, to be humiliated before the entire school! You don’t know what it’s like to have him treat you like you’re a bit of rubbish!”

“Well whose fault is it that he does, Snape?” Remus demanded, “Whose fault is it?

“No one deserves what he did to me.”

“No one deserves what the Dark Lord is doing to him.”

They stared at one another.

Finally, Remus won the staring contest and Severus dodged to get away, heading back toward Diagon Alley. Remus ran after him, “Tell me where he is, Snape, please, tell me where is!”

Severus snapped, “I don’t know!” and he turned around, facing Remus again, and Remus, not expecting it, nearly slammed into him. “I really don’t know. Alright? I’d tell you if I knew.” And Severus paused, then he did something surprising. He threw James Potter’s wand onto the ground at Remus’s feet, drew his own wand, holding it in his fist, and then he turned and ran, ducking out of the alley where they stood and into the crowded street beyond.

Remus bent and picked the wand up, turning it over in his hand.

Had they fought him for it? Or had he given it up in defeat?

He probably forgot it, thought Remus.

The thought turned his stomach.

He had to get home - he had to tell the Potters what was going on - he had to find Regulus Black and find out what was happening, what Sirius knew…




“LET ME GO! I NEED TO SAVE JAMES! LET ME GO LET ME GO LET ME GO!” Sirius screamed the words, bucking against the aurors that held him. They pushed him down the hallway at the Ministry and Gideon Prewett nervously looked ahead down the corridor toward Barty’s office, the direction that they were taking him in…

“Guys, let me take care of it. We don’t need to be bothering Mr. Crouch with this,” he said. He looked at Sirius with a meaningful glare and Sirius, shaking with anger and anxiety, somehow managed to shut up and stop acting like a wild man, and Gideon grabbed him by his forearm and pulled him into his own office.

“Sit down,” Gideon demanded, pointing to the seats where Sirius, James, Remus, and Lily had sat during the summer, after the incident with the flying Morris Mini and motorbike over London.

“I can’t sir!” Sirius cried as Gideon shut his office door and waved his wand to lock the door behind them, “I can’t bloody sit. Gideon, Voldemort’s got James Potter!”

Gideon said, “Sirius, I don’t know what’s gotten into you but I saw James Potter at Diagon Alley myself. Me and hundreds of others.”

“That wasn’t James Potter!” Sirius said. “I’d never hurt James like I want to hurt Severus Snape just now!”

“Severus Snape?” Gideon looked confused.

“He works for the Dark Lord,” Sirius pressed, “He works for him and he’s polyjuiced himself to look like James Potter. Just ask my brother, Regulus. He’ll tell you.”

“That’s a very serious accusation to make,” Gideon said.

It said something of the gravity of the situation that Sirius didn’t make a joke.

“It has something to do with Mopsus,” Sirius said, throwing caution to the wind. “Voldemort is after Mopsus and he thinks James knows where he’s at.”

Gideon’s eyebrow went up, “Mopsus?”

“Yes,” Sirius said, “He’s looking for Mopsus’s clock.”

Gideon stared at Sirius for a long moment. The meeting with Newt Scamander the year before, talking about a Time Thief, echoed about in his mind…

”I found this,” Newt Scamander had said, gesturing to a clock upon Albus Dumbledore’s desk.

Gideon had stared. “A clock?”

“Yes,” New replied.

“What’s a clock got to do with anything?” Fabian had questioned.

“Horaladrao,” Newt replied.

“Whoawhatty?” Gideon and Fabian both had been so very confused.

“Horaladrao,” Newt repeated. “Time thief. Mr. Prewett… it’s a sort of a magical entity that is part human… they take the form of human and that’s how we interact with them, but they - they have unnaturally long lives, very unnaturally, because they steal time from the lives of others. They’re very parasitic and very hard to identify and by rid of because they, uh, tend to be very careful about their victims. But… but it seems this one got a bit sloppy.”

“Steal time?” Fabian had questioned.

“From the lives of other people?” Gideon had echoed.

“How?” they’d both aked together.

Newt drew a deep breath, and gestured to the clock on the desk again. “Clocks.”

Gideon’s eyes flickered over Sirius as he sat there.

Clocks.

Sirius said, “Mr. Prewett… please… we need to find James. There isn’t any time to waste. He could be torturing him right now… Please.”

Gideon nodded.

He took out his wand and waved it and a brilliant white peacock appeared before them, the plumes long and dragging upon the floor behind him. “Go and tell Albus Dumbledore that he’s needed immediately,” Gideon told the peacock. “Tell him it’s a matter involving the Blind Seer and James Potter. Go.”

And with a poof, the patronus was gone.