The large, black dog lay in the shade of the fence around the small yard, head on his paws, and watched the little dark-haired boy toiling in the tiny herb garden alongside the back wall of the house. The boy had been outside for almost an hour now, and had yet to put down the trowel. Though the boy seemed fit enough, he did not seem happy at his work, frowning slightly and with a tongue poking out between his lips, as if he had to concentrate hard at what he was doing. The large dog had to keep from growling as he watched the boy, for nearer to the door into house, sitting in the damned shade with a tall glass of something cold with ice, and watching to make sure the boy kept working, was the scrawny, hook-nosed bane of Padfoot's existence: Snivellus Snape.
Thank goodness being in his Animagus form kept Padfoot from experiencing extremes of emotion, or he would have been enraged enough to have already bitten through Snivelly's throat and left him to bleed to death in his own backyard. But he knew that, no matter what, James' son didn't need to see any violence of that sort. The boy had already experienced enough trauma in his short life, from seeing his mother killed in front of him and the horror of You-Know-Who trying to kill him, too. He didn't need to have someone -- even a man as terrible as his kidnapper -- ripped to shreds in front of him.
But Padfoot would see Snape in Azkaban for this, at least! Dementor Kissed, too, if he could arrange it. He simply could not understand how Dumbledore could be allowing this . . . this Death Eater anywhere near his godson. It was a travesty! In fact, Padfoot's whole journey to find his Harry had been one unpleasant surprise after another, from the moment he'd heard the awful words from the mouth of Cornelius Fudge, that something was wrong at the house of Harry's guardians, all the way until now, at the house of his oldest enemy. Nothing in this rescue attempt had gone as planned.
Unable to keep from growling low in his throat as he remembered the news from Fudge, that despicable man, Padfoot hurriedly lifted a hindfoot to his ear and scratched a few times before lying back down on the dirt. A week ago, Fudge had come into Sirius' cell, looking pompous and acting like the fucking prick he was. He had obviously wanted to taunt Sirius Black with news about the godson he had not seen in years, and seemed disappointed when he got little reaction from the convict. But Sirius had learned a long time ago in Azkaban how to control his emotions; the prison was a harsh classroom. The human guards were bad enough if a prisoner got worked up; the Dementors were far worse. It was not an exaggeration to say that less than an hour in their presence could make a man wish he had never been born, and one of those creatures could literally eat a man's soul for breakfast. The sound of their approach through the cells -- the rustle of their tattered cloaks over the soft grind of their dessicated bones, and the low cries of tormented inmates they left in their wake -- was a sound Sirius would never forget. He feared that sound above any other thing on earth now. More than looking into the face of You- Know-Who. More than death itself.
If he never heard that sound again before he died, he would die a happy man.
Unless he failed to free his godson from this monster, who was treating him like a slave.
Sirius knew Snape had probably taken Harry from his relatives because he wanted complete control over James' son, wanted to treat Harry like a slave, but he could not discount the possibility that he was acting on the orders of one of the many Death Eaters who had managed to avoid Azkaban. Lucius Malfoy came to mind. He'd been a N.E.W.T. student when Snivellus (and the Marauders) started school, but Sirius remembered Malfoy acting as a guide to young Snivelly, showing him the ropes in Slytherin, such as they were. No doubt, they had conspired from the very beginning to take revenge on the boy who had brought down their Dark Lord, no matter what Sirius had heard at Hogwarts to the contrary.
The memory of what had sent him looking for Harry at Hogwarts brought another faint growl to his throat, and he swiftly stilled it before Snivellus looked up from his book. When Sirius had escaped from Azkaban, right after Fudge's visit, he had first gone to Surrey, traveling as Padfoot so as not to raise suspicion -- who would notice one more stray dog on the roads of Britain? In Surrey, however, he had been unable to find Harry. He had found the house in Little Whinging where Lily's sister and brother-in-law lived, of course. At first, though, he had thought it was the wrong address since he had found no trace of Harry there.
The Dursleys were an odd bunch, he had decided. When he first arrived at their cookie-cutter house, Sirius had just watched them go about their day. The couple staggered around the place almost like Inferi, pasty-faced, dull-eyed and nearly silent. All three sported huge, dark circles under their eyes, as if none of them had slept in ages. Their whale of a child had been lying on the divan, and he whined constantly about food: wanting it, wanting something different, or just being hungry. His eyes were red from his constant crying, and snot streamed in twin rivers out of his nose, which he swiped at over and over with his fat, grimy fingers. When Sirius went in for a closer look, and even sneaked inside the Muggle house, he found a mess he guessed had been months in the making, with dirty clothes, stale food and their containers scattered on furniture, the floor and counters. Harry's uncle stared at the Muggle velly-tision, barely blinking and clutching an empty beer bottle in one massive fist. Petunia's eyes were hardly open as she slumped in a kitchen chair, her blond hair -- which Sirius recalled from long ago being nearly spell-proof with shellac -- now hung in dull, greasy strands.
Sirius had been unable to figure out what exactly happened to them, but he had no doubt that Snivellus had done something to Harry's relatives, tortured them or cursed them somehow in order to get the boy. When he absolutely had to ask them where Harry was, since the boy was not to be found at the local school or anywhere in the house, the Dursleys had been far less riled up by his appearance than Sirius would have imagined. He could recall them, on previous occasions, behaving like loons in the presence of wizarding folk, and James had regaled him with a tale or two of their utter Mugglishness in reference to wizarding culture. Even Lily had once described her sister as 'a screechy prude,' but the woman Sirius spoke with was anything but, stuttering when she spoke and jumping at every sound or motion. She did, however, say that a 'horrid, nasty creep of a man,' had taken 'the boy' from them and then come back days later to gloat about the fact and to torment her 'poor, dear family.'
That description fit Snape to a tee, or Sirius' Animagus form was platypus.
Deciding from that meeting that he needed extra help in finding Harry -- and realizing Fudge had been right about there being something weird going on at the Dursleys' place -- Sirius had become Padfoot again and traveled to Hogwarts. He hoped to find out something of Harry's whereabouts from Dumbledore, if the Headmaster had not already tracked Harry down and brought him to the safety of the school.
By the time he reached Hogsmeade, he knew the Ministry was aware of his escape from Azkaban, and he had nearly been caught while in the Three Broomsticks. Ach, even now, he could hardly believe his stupidity in that escapade. Thinking the barroom empty, he had -- only briefly! -- changed into his human form so he could question Rosmerta -- who had always flirted with him when he'd been at Hogwarts -- about what, if anything, she had heard about Harry from the school. Alas, the room had not been empty, and one of the old Order was there, Fletcher, he thought now. Dementors had been called to Hogwarts before the end of the day.
Keeping to his Animagus form, since he could get past the wards that way, just as he had at Azkaban, Sirius had entered the school and learned that Harry was in residence. Or he had been, till recently. But he had been even more shocked to hear that Snivellus not only was employed by the school -- as a Potions Master, no less! -- but that he had custody of Harry and claimed to be Harry's father!
