”Ah! Dumbledore, you’re here!”

The older wizard smiled to the people in the room, Cornelius Fudge being the one that had welcomed him.

“Just because he is gone we shouldn’t lose good habits,” Alastor Moody chastised him “We should question even Dumbledore”

Barty Crouch glared at him instead “Are you implying my defenses are ineffectual?”

“Please, we are here to discuss the current location of Harry Potter, we can leave the rest for later”

The other three agreed, Alastor grumbling about vigilance.

When it had become clear that the boy was not in Godric’s Hollow, Dumbledore had decided to consult with the three men, the auror and the two Minister candidates, as they were the most likely to find the information he needed.

“So,” Dumbledore began “Alastor, anything from the aurors?”

The man snorted “Had to lecture a lot of them, you’d think they’d know how to do their jobs, but nothing! No sign of Potter anywhere.”

“What is the possibility that he left the country?”

“Aside from shady deals? Not much and even then, they’d have to go through aurors in all wizarding communities, if they had, we would know.”

Dumbledore frowned, even his less commendable contacts had had no luck, Harry Potter seemed to elude them at every turn.

“Maybe,” Cornelius offered “he is dead as they say”

The silence between the men was oppressive.

Crouch sighed then “That day we captured the traitor Black”

Dumbledore looked at the man.

“He worked with the Death Eaters, betrayed for them” Crouch explained himself “If they are involved in this, he is the man that would know”

“Question Sirius Black about Potter’s whereabouts?” he asked.

Dumbledore had tried not to think of Sirius Black, his whole being had been dedicated to finding the boy, not sparing a thought to the traitor now in Azkaban, the person that had killed his friends just as much as Voldemort did, but then again, who was he to talk about friends?

Maybe this was the solution he didn’t see, the people closest to the case, he should’ve known better. So he agreed with the idea.

“Then,” Alastor said “Tomorrow I will send aurors to interrogate him”

“But if we fail, then,” Crouch said with an air of finality “we will have to give up the search, we are spread too thin, I think we should focus on the Death Eaters”

“I also think we should focus on that filth” added Alastor.

Dumbledore nodded, he would continue his own research even if the others gave up but it was better to just agree for now, he had his own plans that they didn’t need to know.

Because tomorrow, he too, would visit someone.

Someone who also had a hand in the death of Lily and James Potter.

***

Sirius jumped in his cell in Azkaban.

He had another nightmare, only, it wasn’t just a nightmare.

In the nightmares he was back in Godric’s Hollow, the charms and wards on the house were gone and Hagrid stood helplessly sobbing by the entrance, he had gone to the half-giant, desperate, but he could not understand what he was saying, barely catching ‘Harry’ amidst the sobbing he at least figured out that something was wrong with his godson so he ran inside.

Back then, he thought he would be able to mourn his friends later, so he ignored their corpses, now he wished he’d been able to give them a last goodbye.

He entered the nursery, but there was no child and he assumed the worse, was that what Hagrid was crying about? Was Harry dead? But there was no body, no wretched sight of a life cut short too soon, but Harry, alive and smiling, wasn’t there either. Sirius tried every room of the house when Hagrid’s voice reached him.

“Already tried, looked everywhere” and let another sob.

“But where is he?!” he must have looked positively mad, he kept running his fingers through his hair, worry and pain marring his face. All he wanted was to know that Harry was safe.

Hagrid shook his head, clearly he didn’t know either.

Sirius's expression darkened.

There was one person that might know, the same one that had betrayed them all.

“I need to tell Dumbledore” Hagrid explained, still crying heavily “He had asked me to bring him Harry, but now...now I have to tell him”

Sirius nodded and indicated the motorcycle, to reach the disgusting rat he didn’t need it and he’d rather have his hands free, Wormtail had to suffer “Take the motorcycle, I have to talk to someone”

He then disapparated to find a murderer.

”Wake up, Black!” his guards screamed beyond the bars, looking down at him.

He wasn’t sure if their presence interrupting his memories was a blessing or a curse, thinking about that night reminded him of Harry, the bittersweet of the situation kept him sane, something of his godson that the dementors couldn’t take from him.

He looked at them from the corner of his eyes, hoping for a trial was too much in times when the ministry would do anything to say they were saving the magical population in troubled times. So he wondered what they wanted with him.

One of them sneered “You’re in for questioning”

The other added “For the disappearance of Harry James Potter”

So they were going to blame him for that now? He glared at both aurors, his animagus instincts telling him to just attack but none of that would help and after a month in there he felt very weak. He’d rather keep strength for when he discovered where Wormtail was.

They dragged him through a long corridor and down two sets of stairs, the scream of the other prisoners accompanying them.

A third guard opened a door at the end of the path, the room inside was mostly bare aside from a chair, not unlike the one in the Wizengamot, heavy chains binding him once he sat down, the eyes of the aurors on him at all times. Once they performed the necessary charms on the room they closed the door, only them now.

“The night you sold Lily and James Potter”

“I didn’t--”

“THE NIGHT you hunted down the innocent Peter Pettigrew after returning to the scene of your crime against the ones that trusted you”

“I wasn’t--”

“THAT same night, Harry James Potter, reportedly alive, disappeared from Godric’s Hollow”

Sirius rolled his eyes, they were questioning him but were unwilling to listen to him, what did they hope to accomplish, the list of his crimes?

“You were their secret keeper and You-Know-Who’s informant, if this is your lot’s fault, you should know”

Sirius glared at the two aurors “I don’t know where Harry is and I wasn’t--”

“We have ways to make you talk, don’t lie to us”

“I’m not lying!” Sirius snarled.

“Well, there is more to that night than we believe and you are the one most connected to the case. Where. Is. The. Boy?” the auror got closer.

“I don’t know where Harry is, I didn’t hide him! I. Am. Not. Guilty!”

He barely felt the chains tightening on his wrists, his whole body now in pain, it wasn’t quite as painful as a Cruciatus, but on a weakened prisoner’s body that wouldn’t be much of a difference.

“Consider it a Christmas present.” The sneering auror offered “Now, answer our questions”

His face hidden by his hair, Sirius growled “I didn’t do anything”

“That’s not what Mr. Crouch said, we know your type Black, even with all the evidence against you, you still want to play the good guy” the guard insulted him, disgusted by the person they believed to be a traitor “After seeing your own friends dead, you’d think one would realize, but I guess you are in too deep, so instead, where is Potter?”

Once more the pain hit him but he refused to scream for the incompetent aurors.

The questioning continued the whole day and only once the torture session, for that it truly had been, ended and he rested his pained body on the prison cot, did Sirius let himself think, a tragic thought, he almost wished for the dementors to it take away.

Can’t believe it’s almost Christmas.

***

Severus Snape didn’t enjoy the holidays, he didn’t enjoy most things really, but that Christmas in particular was going to be his worst, most miserable, one yet.

Was it even worth it when Lily was dead?

He kept thinking that there was more he could’ve done for her, maybe reach her that night and talk like they had done back when they were younger. If only he could’ve been with her then, but what could he have really done? They all thought Black was this incorruptible good person and refused to see what he’d seen from day one on the train.

But she had drifted away from him then and was dead now.

And he was alone.

Vaguely aware of what happened around him, he had refused any contact from the outside, Lucius had sent him a letter but it stood unopened in the same spot it had been left by the owl. He didn’t want to hear about his great escape from imprisonment, he barely cared for his regard anymore, a divide was created between him and Lily when they choose their sides, did he still cared for the Death Eaters?

Lucius had been his prefect and to an extent, a friend.

But Lucius Malfoy was a man whose heart held only so much space, power and his family saturated said space and he wasn’t even so sure he knew which of the two mattered most to the man, people did say that one could only know what they treasured the most once they lost it and Lucius Malfoy had still both. What space did it leave for a friend? One such as him, part muggle, even?

Men like Malfoy didn’t have many friends, tools and minions were most likely, allies at best.

Or maybe he just didn’t want to be near someone that didn’t care about the loss he felt deeply in his soul, was he even still one of them after her death? Snape got up from his place on the ground of the house, he needed a drink, something to numb his mind.

He did find the drink but he also found Albus Dumbledore in the kitchen of his house, calmly seated at the table with two cups.

All things he wanted to avoid.

“Am I going to be arrested?” Snape wondered if the man changed his mind about him yet, either way, he poured himself a drink.

“No, I offered my protection and in return, you had to protect Harry Potter once he arrived in Hogwarts,” the man said and Snape grabbed his cup, drinking it at once.

“Whom nobody can find,” he sneered, he wasn’t all that bothered that Potter’s son was missing.

“True,” Dumbledore nodded before fixing his eyes blue on him, searching for the truth in his dark ones “That is where you are needed”

Snape glared at the older wizard “You are not going to ask me to search for the boy, will you?”

“No, but you must know something about this, if your side--”

“My side? You think the Death Eaters did this?” he asked incredulous, maybe slightly outraged, why would any of them want to keep Potter?

“You would know them better than I did, a professor would only know so far” even as Dumbledore said so, his eyes continued inexpressive and Snape had no way of knowing what the man truly thought.

“Most just care about escaping the aurors” he shrugged “And even if they did, the Dark Lord went alone that night”

Dumbledore frowned, deep in thought.

“So, you say,” the man said finally “that there was no one else besides the four of them in Godric’s Hollow.”

That was the truth as far as he knew it, there was no reason to lie about it.

“I thought you placed wards on the boy, can you not feel them?”

Dumbledore got up from the kitchen table and paced the room twice before standing in front of the window, looking pensively to the outside.

“I did, but the blood wards never latched on as he was not delivered to his aunt, and yet,”

Snape observed the man, conscious that what he could see was only what the wizard let him see.

“Somehow, there is a protection over Harry Potter I did not expect, I can feel it but not reach it”

And that was Dumbledore’s question.

That night, what had been more powerful than blood?