A Push in the Right Direction – Chapter 20 – emersli1!

Reading Time:
11 Minutes

The alarm blaring through his floo woke Albus from a lovely dream.

He had been invited to several private Beltane parties, having his choice of people to celebrate the festival with, and consequently had returned to Hogwarts very, very late.  Or very, very early depending on your perspective.

Stumbling out of bed and kneeling in front of the floo he couldn’t help but wonder what had gone wrong.  Was this the beginning of Tom climbing his way out of the grave?  If so Albus had less time to solve the problem of a dead Boy-Who-Lived than he’d hoped.

“Albus,”  The head in the flames was Barty Crouch.  That was never a good thing.

“I’m here, old chap.  What’s going on?”

Barty actually looked worried.  Definitely not a good thing then.  “There’s been a breakout from Azkaban.  Sometime in the last two days.”

Well, that wasn’t exactly what Albus was expecting.  “And who is it that has escaped?”

“Sirius Black.”

Albus felt all the blood drain from his face.  Then remembering the tags and trackers he had on the boy, he relaxed.  “Well Barty, I don’t think I’ll have any problem locating him.  But we need to figure out how he escaped.  I really think that’s our biggest issue.”

“I’m in the Warden’s office right now.  We’ve sent for someone who can question the Dementors, but we need you here.  Millicent is on her way as well.”  Barty turned to speak with someone in the room with him.

Dumbledore sighed.  “Alright Barty.  I’ll come through in about fifteen minutes.  I do need time to comb my beard and grab a robe.”

Getting up from the hearth, Dumbledore walked tiredly to his closet.  What were the best robes to wear to a maximum security prison?  Choosing a set of cheerful yellow robes covered in flying green frogs, Albus dressed carefully as he always did.  It was always important to make the right impression, after all.

Once he was presentable, Dumbledore grabbed the pot of floo powder off the mantel.  Shouting his destination and password, he swirled off through the floo to the lonely island in the North Sea.

The Warden’s office was crowded when he stepped out of the floo, but that just meant less time he had to waste waiting on other people to show up.  “Alright Barty, tell me what you know.”  He sat down at the Warden’s desk, leaving the man standing in the corner of his own office.

“Well Albus, Sirius Black was in his cell at bed check the night of April 29th.  The prison was running a skeleton staff on the night of April 30th and through today because of Beltane preparations and celebrations.  The most recent shift change saw a full crew back starting at midnight last night, and they began doing checks.  They started at the top, and when they reached the lowest, maximum-security level … Black wasn’t there.”  Barty consulted the notes he’d made as he’d spoken with the guard crew.

The Warden jumped in at that point.  “We did try to question the Lestranges and a couple of other prisoners on that level, but none of them are really sane.  Of course by all reports neither is Black.  So we’re not sure how he could have gotten out.  The door is still shut and locked.  No magic was performed in his cell.  We just don’t know what could have happened.”

“Hmmm.  I see.  You said something about talking to the Dementors.  What did you learn from that?”  Albus was starting to get actually worried.  A free Sirius Black, one who was sane enough to plan an escape when the prison was on a skeleton crew, could be a disaster to all of his carefully laid plans.

“Well, that’s the thing.  The Dementors say he died and went out through the tunnel under the prison that we usually use to move the bodies when prisoners … er… pass away.”  The Warden gestured towards a man in a necromancer’s insignia.  They’d obviously had to call him in from the continent.  Necromancy was banned in Britain.  But needs must he supposed.

“Albus, this is terrible.  What are people going to think?  We’re going to get pilloried in the Prophet, and the elections are coming up in a few months.”  Millicent Bagnold was painfully predictable in her primary concerns.  No vision, that one.

“Well, it seems rather obvious to me.”  Albus enjoyed the feeling of being the only one in the room smart enough to put it all together.  “Clearly, the man died while your staff was low and the Dementors disposed of his body as is their common practice, taking it out through the tunnel and dumping it in the sea.”

The necromancer spoke up at that point.  “Well, it didn’t say that the Dementors carried the body out.”

“Frankly, the creatures are barely sentient.  They’re tightly constrained by the spell that keeps them here.  They wouldn’t stop to think about it.  They’d just do what they’ve been instructed to do for hundreds of years.  I’m not surprised their report wasn’t comprehensive, but the important parts were there.”  Albus felt much more secure now that everything pointed to Sirius being dead.  Poor boy.

Seeing that at minimum the Warden and the unknown necromancer were hesitant to buy into his sequence of events, Albus offered them certainty.  He’d really rather do this in private in case something … unexpected … happened.  But … “I can do a search for him.  I took the precaution of setting a tag on his magical core before he was brought here.  Just in case, you understand.  I can certainly track it.  And just to be more secure, I’ll even do a family line search.  My mother was related to the Blacks.”

It would be magickally expensive, but Dumbledore was still riding his Beltane high.  He should be able to handle it.

“Alright Dumbledore.  Go ahead and look for him.”  Barty Crouch glared at him from the visitor’s chair he’d claimed as his own.

Sighing, Albus settled his mind and sank into his core.  First he tugged on the mark he’d left on Sirius.  Nothing.  No response at all.  Well, that was clear enough.  “There’s no response to the core tag.”

“And what if he found a way to break it?  We need to be sure, Albus.”  Millicent was determined to get an answer she could take to the press.

Feeling much put upon, Albus settled deeper and cast the Family Magick search.   Unlike his search for Harry last year, this time several people showed up.  Three of them were here in the prison, one was in the mental ward at St. Mungo’s.  One was in Wiltshire.  That would be Narcissa.  And the old spider himself, Arcturus Black was in Kent.  There were a lot of links that had been broken.  Albus assumed that those were people like Andromeda Black who had been thrown out of the Family Magick.

What there wasn’t, was Sirius Black.  He was nowhere to be found in the Black Family Magick.  Unlike the panic he’d felt in finding Harry Potter dead, Albus felt a sense of deep relief.  Sirius had always been a loose end.  Now that was neatly tied up in a bow, and Dumbledore could act freely as Harry’s guardian (when he found someone to be Harry) without worrying about interference.

And Sirius was with his friends and his godson now, so things had worked out for the Greater Good for all.

Albus smiled in satisfaction, then realized quickly that was the wrong reaction to show to this room full of people.  “Sirius Black is dead.  He is nowhere in the Family Magick.  Arcturus will have no doubt felt him die.  And the goblins will have enacted his will.  I’ll have to check with the bank … or Minerva will.  Anyway, the point is … the Potter’s betrayer and mass murderer Sirius Black is dead.”

Corvus woke up to the feeling of two little boys jumping on the bed.

Thad and Matty had obviously gotten tired of waiting.  

“Where is he, Papa?  Did you get there in time?  We’ve got his room all ready…”

“An’ Avi helped us put the furn’ture together and get the family space ready…”

The boys were so excited they were talking over each other in their eagerness to tell their Papa all the preparations they’d made for their new little brother.  And they couldn’t wait any longer to meet him.

Looking over to the side of the bed, Corvus saw the little cot his father must have transfigured for the child.  But no sign of the little boy.

Leaning up Corvus finally spotted him, curled in one corner with his arm over his head shaking.

Apparently three for the mind healer, then.

“Boys, I think you’re scaring him.  He’s still very young, and he was in a very bad place.  We’re going to have to be gentle with him for a while.”   Corvus reached into the cot and pulled the mite out carefully, bringing the little boy onto his lap.  Cuddling him securely, Corvus looked at his older sons who had immediately stilled and settled on the covers expectantly.

“Nathaniel, your brothers want to meet you.  They’ve picked out all the best things they could find to make your room nice and give you warm clothes and things to play with.  And Avi is making breakfast, so as soon as we get you changed for the day we can all go eat.”  The little guy had buried his face in Corvus’s chest, tiny fingers clutching tightly in his nightshirt.

“H’lo Nat.  I’m your big brother Matty.  I’m gonna take care of you, and read to you, and inner-duce you to Mir’Belle and the chickens.”

“And I’m your big brother Thad.  I’m gonna draw with you, and play poshuns with you, and we’re gonna sing songs and play games.”

Nathaniel cautiously turned his head to look at the two strange boys claiming to be his brothers.  He didn’t understand a lot of what was going on.  But this house didn’t feel like it was angry with him.  And nobody had made him hurt yet.  And it sounded like he was going to get breakfast.

This might be the best day of his life.

Or it might be a trick. 

Sometimes they did that.  The Mean Lady and The Angry Man.  They would hold him and love him and show him off to people, but when the people were gone …

He would have to wait and see what these new people would do.

Corvus shooed his older boys out of the bedroom so he could get dressed and get Nathaniel ready for the day.  His Pare had obviously prepared for this, bringing a small selection of play clothes down for Corvus to hold up. 

“Do you like the red shirt with the puppy, the green shirt with the dragon, or the white one with a squirrel on it?”  he asked the tot.

Hesitantly, the little boy reached a hand toward the red shirt with a Cerberus puppy on it.

Smiling, Corvus grabbed the shirt and a pair of small trousers and got his youngest son cleaned up and ready for his day.

Moving out of his bedroom into the great room caused the toddler to clutch at him in a panic.  “Hey… hey… it’s ok little man.  It’s just your brothers and Avi.  Nothing bad here, baby.”

When the little hands relaxed, Corvus placed the boy in his chair at the table and then raised it to the proper height.  Ambrose filled a small bowl with a little bit of fluffy scrambled egg and some fried potatoes.  Two link sausages were put on a little plate and placed in front of the boy as well.

Nathaniel’s eyes got rounder and rounder as the food was placed in front of him.  He’d never been given this much to eat before!  Not even on the best days.  Looking at the man who said he was Papa, the toddler bravely asked, “Is all ‘Tanil’s’?”

If Walburga and Orion weren’t already in prison, Corvus thought he might have to hunt them down.  He opened his mouth to respond, but both the older boys beat him to it.

“Yep.  It’s all yours.  Avi and Papa make sure we have good food.”  Matty nodded seriously, waving a fork with a sausage speared on it for emphasis.  “He’s got a plan and everything.”

Thad quickly chimed in with his agreement, forgetting in his excitement not to talk with food in his mouth.  “Tha’s right.  Papa wants his boys t’ grow up strong an’ healthy, so he makes sure we al’ays have the right ‘mount of food.”

“Your brothers are right, Nathaniel, though one of them needs to remember his manners.  I will always make sure you have the right food to help you grow up well.  If you’re not used to eating much, it might take a while for you to be able to clear your plate, but you’ll get there little one.”  Corvus backed his sons up, reassuring the toddler next to him that it was fine to eat the food he’d been given.

Slowly, carefully … Nathaniel reached out and picked up a sausage, beginning to nibble on the end.  Hmmmm.  Looked like they were going to have to have a few lessons on flatware.  And maybe he should get some toddler-sized silverware for the child to work with.

Looking at the little boy sitting next to him enjoying a breakfast sausage, Corvus took note of the changes in the toddler’s appearance.

The most startling change was the hair.  The black hair of the Blacks had been replaced by a deep golden hue.  The crystal blue eyes had shifted to turquoise, and the lashes were long and curling.  In such a young face, there was no telling how the features would really develop.  Time enough to find out in the future.

And just like his brothers, Nathaniel had the gently pointed ears of his father.

Smiling slightly in satisfaction, Corvus looked over his family.  Destra was having a bit of a lie in this morning, but everyone else was safe and present.

This was a blessing, and Corvus thanked the Lady for it.

Now, what to do about Remus?