With a heavy, shifting crunch of bone and muscle, the black dog dissolved into the gaunt, tall figure of Sirius Black.
"It's good to see you again, Harry," Sirius rasped, his voice rough as sandpaper from disuse, and got a brief, fierce hug from his Godson, "Likewise, Sirius," which came out to be muffled.
Meanwhile, Hermione turned, and when she did, her eyes landed on Lucifer, and her face heated up quickly, her cheeks turning red. He was shirtless, and his toned upper body was in 'full' view for her to see, even if she had seen it numerous times, couldn't help but get the urge to worship or lick him.
She buried her face into Buckbeak's neck to hide her embarrassment. She did peek again to see Lucifer touch and rub his palm over the minor injury on his waist, seeing first hand how cuts were being vanished.
It was really miraculous, 'He never fails to amaze me.' She thought to herself.
"Here's some Chicken and Bread, along with a flask of pumpkin juice," Harry handed over the paper bag of warm food.
"Thanks!" Sirius said happily, tore into a chicken leg like a starved wolf, "I've been living off rats mostly. I can't steal too much food from Hogsmeade, otherwise it'll be suspicious."
Lucifer let out a sudden, involuntary groan, wincing as he clutched his midsection, to put on his clothes back, "Please," he growled through gritted teeth, leaning heavily against the cave wall. "Do not make me laugh or talk about eating vermin."
Sirius stopped mid-bite, his dark eyes sharpening with concern. "How are you feeling, Lucifer? Word on the street and in the papers was that you took a hell of a beating in that lake."
"I'm feeling 'peachy," Lucifer drawled sarcastically, though a drop of cold sweat beaded at his temple. He stopped buttoning his dark shirt, pulling the fabric back to inspect the bandaged torso beneath.
"If you can call being stabbed four times by Merpeople spears 'peachy'," Ron supplied helpfully, staring at the raw, magical scars crisscrossing Lucifer's abdomen.
"Merpeople are vicious bastards when they're defending their territory," Sirius murmured, watching Lucifer close his shirt back up, much to his girlfriend's chagrin, "I'm surprised you didn't turn the lake into boiling water."
"I thought about it," Lucifer said softly, his eyes flashing a dangerous, molten gold for a fraction of a second, "Decided against boiling the Veela..."
"Appreciated," Harry muttered, before turning to his godfather, and finally asked, "What are you really doing here, Sirius?"
"Fulfilling my duty," Sirius said, picking at the bread, "And keeping an eye on the mess around you four. Your last letter raised every red flag I have left," Then went to gnaw on the bone of the chicken leg in a very dog-like way, "Don't worry, I'm pretending to be a loveable stray."
"And here I was thinking you loved the thrill of risking getting caught?" Lucifer asked rhetorically. Just because Sirius was Harry's Godfather, didn't mean he was going to let him off easy, sure the man survived Azkaban, but luck could only get you so far.
All Harry did was glare at him.
"I want to be on the spot, Harry. I've been stealing the paper every time someone throws one out, and by the looks of things, I'm not the only one who's getting worried." Sirius nodded at the yellowing 'Daily Prophets' on the cave floor, and Ron picked them up and unfolded them.
Harry, however, continued to stare at him with outrage, he had taken a micky of Lucifer's words now, "What if they catch you? What if you're seen?"
"You 'four' and Dumbledore are the only ones around here who know I'm an Animagus," Sirius said, a slight smirk on his face as he shrugged, continuing to devour the chicken legs.
Hermione saw Ron nudge Harry and handed him a Daily Prophet paper. She continued to stroke Buckbeak's neck as she couldn't get the scene of licking shirtless Lucifer out of her head. She was worried about doing "Scandalous things."
"They're making it sound like he's dying," Harry said slowly, "but he can't be that ill if he manages to get up here..."
"My brother Percy is Crouch's personal assistant," Ron told Sirius, "He says Crouch is suffering from overwork."
"Mind you, he did look ill, last time I saw him up close," Harry explained to them, "the night my name came out of the Goblet."
"Probably getting his comeuppance for sacking Winky," Hermione said with a slight edge to her voice, she never would 'forgive' Crouch for it, "I bet he's wishing he hadn't done it now, double bet he feels difference now she's not there to look after him."
"Hermione has become obsessed with House-elves," Ron said, none too quietly, and cast her a dark look. She in response only glared at him, but Sirius looked intrigued
"Crouch sacked his elf?" Sirius paused, his brow furrowing deep into his haggard face. "Barty Crouch? The man who lives and breathes Ministry protocol?"
"Yeah, at the Quidditch World Cup," Harry explained instead and then launched into an explanation about what went down there; the Dark Mark's appearance, Lucifer mercilessly slaughtering later confirmed Death Eaters, and Winky being found with Harry's wand clutched in her hand, and Mr. Crouch's fury.
When he had finished, Sirius was on his feet again and had started pacing up and down the cave, "Let me get this straight," he said after a while, brandishing a 'fresh' chicken leg, "you first saw the elf in the Top Box. She was saving a seat for Crouch, right?"
"Right," Harry, Ron, and Hermione all said, but Lucifer remained quiet.
"But Crouch didn't turn up for the match?"
"No," Harry said, "I think he had been too busy."
'Thinking back,' Lucifer thought to himself, 'it felt like someone was beside her... like someone else was hiding out of sight...'
Sirius paced all around the cave in silence. Then he suddenly said, "Harry, did you check your pockets for your wand after you'd left the Top Box?"
"Erm..." Harry thought hard, "no... I didn't need to use it before we got into the forest. And then I put my hand in my pocket, and all that was in there were my Omnioculars," he explained. He stared at Sirius, "Are you saying whoever conjured the Mark stole my wand in the Top Box?"
"It's possible..."
"Why did you fall asleep with your wand in your pocket? Were you not at all worried about possibly breaking it?" Lucifer asked with raised eyebrows, a droll unimpressed smirk playing on his lips, "Brilliant tactical mind, Potter. Truly the 'fates favour you."
The look on Harry's face told him that he didn't have an explanation, but his glar told, 'I didn't think someone was going to pickpocket me!'
"We know Winky did not steal that wand," Hermione said confidently, but coolly.
"No, I really doubt that elf was the only one in the Top Box with you all," Sirius said, his brow furrowed as he continued to pace, "who else was sitting behind you?"
"Loads of people," Harry answered, after being down the last time, "some Bulgarian Ministers... Cornelius Fudge, the Malfoys had been before Lucifer scared them off."
"The Malfoys!" Ron said suddenly and so loudly that his voice echoed all around the cave, and Buckbeak tossed his head nervously, "I bet it was Lucius Malfoy before they moved farther down the Top Box!"
"Anyone else?" Sirius asked.
"No one... wait, there was Ludo Bagman as well, commentating the game."
"I don't know anything about Bagman Harry, except he used to be Beater for the Wimbourne Wasps," Sirius said, still pacing, "What's he like?"
"He's okay, but he keeps offering to help me with the Triwizard Tournament."
"Does he, now?" Sirius was frowning more deeply, "I wonder why he'd do that?"
"Says he's taken a liking to me," Harry shrugged with mild grin.
"Hmm..." But Sirius looked thoughtful.
"We saw him in the forest just before the Dark Mark appeared, remember, Harry?" It was Hermione who found not right time for their friend to go into his episodes. She shivered, stepping closer to Lucifer. Naturally, his arm slunk around her waist, pulling her flush against his side. The radiating heat of body was an intoxicating contrast to freezing draft.
"Yeah, but he didn't stay in the forest long," Ron said, eyeing the two with a bad expression, that said go elsewhere, "the moment we told him about the riot, he went off to the campsite."
"How do you know, though?" Hermione asked, keeping her voice calm, "How do you know where he Disapparated to?"
"Come off it," Ron said incredulously, "Are you saying you reckon Ludo Bagman conjured the 'Dark Mark?"
"It's more likely he did it than Winky," Hermione said stubbornly, getting heated as well, "And let's be real, Ludo Bagman's voice sounds a little like the voice we heard!"
"I told you," Ron said, looking meaningfully at Sirius, "she's obsessed with House-"
But Sirius held up a hand to silence, "When the Dark Mark had been conjured, and the elf had been discovered holding Harry's wand, what did Crouch do?"
"Went to look in the bushes," Harry said, trying to remember the scene a few months ago, "but there wasn't anyone else there."
'It is weird, though...' Lucifer thought to himself, 'Crouch was so insistent on finding someone else in the bushes... did he find who he was looking for? I believe Hermione that Winky didn't do it, so Crouch... he had to find someone else, but the question is, who did he find?'
"Of course," Sirius muttered, pacing up and down, "Of course, he'd want to pin it on anyone but his own elf... and then he sacked her?"
"Yes," Hermione said, trying to keep her frustration to a minimum, "he sacked her, just because she hadn't stayed in her tent and let herself get 'trampled---"
"Hermione, will you give it a rest with the elf!" Ron snapped at her.
"Watch yourself, Weasely," Lucifer said, his eyes down on the ground in front of him.
Sirius, however, was shaking his head, "She's got the measure of Crouch better than you have, Ron. If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals." He ran a hand over his unshaven face, evidently thinking hard, "All of these absences of Barty Crouch's... he goes to the trouble of making sure his House-Elf saves him a seat at the Quidditch World Cup. but doesn't bother to turn up and watch. He works very hard to reinstate the 'Triwizard Tournament,' and then stops coming to that too... It's not like Crouch. If he's ever taken a day off work because of illness before this, I'll eat Buckbeak."
Buckbeak looked at him and made an indignant sound.
"With the way he's been acting, it's almost like he's possessed or something..." Lucifer said absent mindedly.
"Do you know Crouch, then?" Harry asked, everyone simply ignoring the previous words.
Sirius' face darkened, he suddenly looked as menacing as he had the night Hermione met him up close, when he was still believed to have been a murderer, "Oh, I know Crouch all right," he said quietly, "he was the one who gave the order for me to be sent to Azkaban, without a trial."
"What!?" Hermione exclaimed.
"What was he... afraid of to just send you straight to Azkaban without a trial? No Veritaserum, nothing?" Lucifer asked, but Sirius shook his head, he knew the man had even made the 'final' call on his son Barty's trial as well, "That's the kind of person you don't need as the 'Head of Magical Law Enforcement."
"You're kidding..." Harry was having a hard time wrapping his head around.
"No, I'm not..." Sirius took another great bite of chicken, "Crouch used to be Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, didn't you know?"
"I think Lucifer may have said something about it as an off-hand comment," Hermione regretted paying not enough attention to his words.
"He didn't tell us if he did," Ron said, still a bit upset from a little while ago.
"He was tipped for the next Minister of Magic, he's a great wizard, Barty is, powerfully magical and power hungry. Oh, never a Voldemort supporter," Sirius said to Harry, whose face was a bit shocked, "No, Crouch was always very out spoken against the Dark Side... but then a lot of people who were against the Dark Side... well, you wouldn't understand... you're too young..."
"That's what my dad said at the World Cup," Ron said, with a trace of irritation in his voice, "try us, why don't you?"
A grin flashed across Sirius' thin face, "All right, I'll try you..." he walked once up the cave, back again, and then said, "Imagine that Voldemort's powerful now. You don't know who his supporters are, you don't know who's working for him and who isn't; you know he can control people so that they do terrible things without being able to stop themselves."
"The Imperius Curse..." Lucifer said quietly, and then he connected some dots, but still had no evidence for it.
"You're scared for your life," Sirius continued, "and your family, and your friends. Every week, news comes of more deaths, disappearances, more torturing... the Ministry of Magic's in disarray, they don't know what to do, they're trying to keep everything hidden from Muggles, but meanwhile, Muggles are dying too. Terror everywhere... panic... confusion... that's how it used to be," he then sighed, "Well, times like that bring out the best in some people and the worst in others. Crouch's principles might've been good in the beginning, I wouldn't know. He rose quickly through the Ministry, and he started ordering very harsh measures against Voldemort's supporters...."
"The Aurors were given new powers, powers to kill rather than capture, for instance. And I wasn't the only one who was handed straight to the Dementors without a trial. Crouch fought violence with violence, and authorized use of the 'Unforgivables' against suspects. I would say he became as ruthless and cruel as many on the Dark Side."
"He had his supporters, mind you, plenty of people thought he was going about things the right way, and there were a lot of Witches and Wizards clamoring for him to take over as 'Minister for Magic.' When Voldemort disappeared, it looked like only a matter of time until Crouch got the top job. But then something rather... unfortunate happened..." Sirius smiled grimly and almost cynically, "Crouch's own son was caught with a group of Death Eaters who'd managed to talk their way out of Azkaban. Apparently they were trying to find Voldemort and return him to power."
"Crouch's son was caught?" Hermione asked, slightly shocked.
"Yep," Sirius said, throwing his chicken bone to Buckbeak, flinging himself back down on the ground beside the loaf of bread, tearing it in half, "Nasty little shock for old Barty, I'd imagine. Should have spent a bit more time at home with his family, shouldn't he? Ought to have left the office early once in a while... gotten to know his own son." He began to wolf down large pieces of bread.
"Was his son a Death Eater?" Harry asked.
"No idea," Sirius said, still stuffing down bread with Soda, "I was in Azkaban myself when he was brought in. This is mostly stuff I've found out since I got out. The boy was definitely caught in the company of people I'd bet my life were Death Eaters, but he might've been in the wrong place at the wrong time, just like the House-Elf."
"Did Crouch try to get his son off?" Hermione asked stupified.
"Anything that threatened to tarnish his reputation had to go; he had dedicated his whole life to becoming Minister of Magic. You saw him dismiss a devoted House-Elf because she associated him with the Dark Mark again, doesn't that tell you what he's like?" Sirius asked the other three, and Hermione nodded, feeling foolish for not seeing it like Lucifer had.
"Crouch's 'fatherly' affection stretched just far enough to give his son a trial, and by all accounts, it wasn't much more than an excuse for Crouch to show how much he hated the boy... then he sent him straight to Azkaban."
"He gave his own son to the Dementors?" Harry asked quietly.
"That's right," Sirius said, and he didn't look remotely amused now, "I saw the Dementors bringing him in, watched them through the bars in my cell door. He can't have been more than nineteen. They took him into a cell near mine. He was screaming for his mother by nightfall. He went quiet after a few days, though... they all went quiet in the end... except when they shrieked in their sleep..."
For a moment, the deadened look in Sirius' eyes became more pronounced than ever, as though shutters had closed behind them.
'A father doing that to his own blood..." Lucifer murmured softly, his gaze drifting down to the cavern floor. A dark, shadow passed over his eyes a flicker of personal, cosmic irony that only he understood. "Poetic, isn't it? The lengths 'righteous' fathers go to crush their disappointing sons."
Hermione felt the sudden surge of cold bitterness off Lucifer and squeezed his hand, to show she was there now.
"So... he's still in Azkaban?" Harry asked, being somewhat shaken.
"No," Sirius said dully, "No, he's not in there anymore. He died about a year after they brought him in..."
"What?" Hermione said in barely a whisper.
"Malnutrition and dehydration, right?" Lucifer gave away, even though he knew the story to be fake, Barty was currently held like a Dog in Crouch's house, pretending to be under 'Imperius Curse.'
"Yeah, because most people go mad in there, they stop eating, some even stop drinking water that's brought to them. They lose the will to live. You could always tell when a death was coming, because the Dementors could sense it, they got excited," Sirius said and Lucifer couldn't stand the thought of a Dementor feeling excited about something.
"That boy looked pretty sickly when he arrived. Crouch being an important Ministry member, he and his wife were allowed a deathbed visit. That was the last time I saw Barty Crouch Senior, half carrying his wife past my cell. She died herself, apparently, shortly afterward. Grief, no doubt. Wasted away just like the boy. Crouch never came for his son's body. The Dementors buried him outside the 'fortress; I watched them do it..." Sirius threw aside the bread he had just lifted to his mouth and instead picked up the flask of pumpkin juice and drank from it. "So old Crouch lost it all, just when he thought he had it made..."
"Life has a sick sense of humor," Lucifer said drolly.
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