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He had forgotten how long he had been in this cell. The only thing that kept him sane was his obsession with being innocent and his ability to turn into a dog every once in a while. The dementors were starting to get into his head again and he was starting to feel the familiar feeling of hopelessness closing in and threatening to drag him into the depths of despair. This was usually the time that he turned into a dog for a couple of days and thought about what he would do if he ever caught that no-good traitor rat of a friend, those thoughts usually helped keep the dementors at bay. He had been a dog for only a short while this time, however, when he saw that an important visitor had arrived. Based on the entourage with him, Sirius assumed this was the Minister of Magic. He saw that the man was carrying the Daily Prophet and noticed a picture of a happy family on vacation. Suddenly needing a reminder of what it was like to have family, he asked the man if he could have the paper, using the excuse that he wanted to do the crossword. This request had the added bonus of seeming to unnerve the man as well and Sirius was given the newspaper.
Sirius surprised himself by actually enjoying the crossword for a time while the important man finished his visit to the prison. Sirius spent the next few days staring at this picture of the family on vacation in Egypt. He noticed that the mother was the Prewett twins’ elder sister and the father was someone Sirius had seen occasionally at the Order’s headquarters. They had an unusually large number of children all of whom seemed exceptionally happy to be on vacation. Most of the children looked to be of an age to be attending Hogwarts. He wondered then if one of them was in school with Harry. Was Harry old enough to be at Hogwarts already? He looked at the date on the newspaper and realised that, yes, Harry would be starting his third year and the youngest boy in this family looked to be about the same age. Sirius began studying him in the hopes that staring at another boy of the same age would give him some insight into how Harry was doing. He noticed that the boy had a rat on his shoulder and thought briefly of his friend’s betrayal before returning to daydreaming about Harry and how he would be doing at Hogwarts. He kept staring at the boy in the picture until he had memorised nearly everything about him. He looked at the rat again and realised that it did look familiar, so much so that he forgot entirely about Harry and the boy in the picture and began counting the rat’s toes. NINE. He counted again. NINE. He counted again. NINE! He fell asleep thinking of this rat that looked so familiar and only had nine toes. He dreamt about his friend that betrayed them all and he knew that Peter was at Hogwarts and the only thing Sirius could think about was getting out of this prison and killing the rat who had left him to rot in here. Sirius finally had a reason to leave, finally had a reason to go looking for the life that he had lost. He didn’t stop to plan anything. He knew the dementors had trouble keeping track of him when he was a dog, so he transformed and just walked out, keeping to the shadows until he reached the shoreline. He then waded into the choppy, freezing water and began to swim towards shore. He couldn’t risk being human until he was far away from Azkaban. Once he had reached the shore, he looked back to see that the Dementors were beginning to realise that he was gone. He lost no time in watching and began to run as fast as he could to the nearest town.
He began to think about where Harry would be right now and wondered who would be taking care of him. He knew James’s parents had died during the war and Lily’s parents had died even before that. The only relative that Sirius could think of was Lily’s awful sister, but he had no idea where to find her. He had a vague memory of Lily saying that Petunia had married an equally awful muggle named Dursley and that she had moved to Surrey. He set off in that direction and hoped that he was right and that Harry would be there.
They had always hoped to become a professor one day and Dumbledore was just the type of crazy to maybe allow it to happen. Remus took a deep breath and knocked on the Headmaster’s door. “Come in,” Dumbledore called. Remus stepped into the office and was not at all surprised to see that it had not changed since the last time they had been in here. If they remembered correctly, it was because of the rather large scale prank that they had all pulled to celebrate the end of school just after exams in their seventh year. Remus smiled at the memory and pulled his attention back to the present day. Professor Dumbledore was waiting patiently for Remus to take a seat, so they hurried forward and sat down across from him. “Mr. Lupin,” he began. “Mx.” Remus automatically corrected before remembering that they had never told Dumbledore about their identity. Dumbledore took the correction with grace, simply nodding in acknowledgement and starting again, “Mx. Lupin, I understand that you would like to become a professor here.”
“Yes, sir. I have been thinking about it for a long time now and with Harry being in school now and everyone who knows about my… condition having left some time ago, I thought now might be a good time to ask. I was hoping to be able to be present in Harry’s life since I’m the only one left…” Dumbledore looked at him thoughtfully for a while as if considering something, so Remus went on, “There has also been some progress made on my condition recently, the new Wolfsbane potion is supposed to help tremendously, though I haven’t any idea on how to brew it,” they stopped talking when they noticed that Dumbledore simply looked amused. “Yes, the potion is supposed to work wonders and I do believe that our current potions master should be more than up to the challenge and it just so happens that we have an open spot on our teaching staff this year for the position of Defence Against the Dark Arts, which was your best subject, was it not?” Remus nodded their ascent with a grin that was much wider than they had anticipated, the excitement of the prospect beginning to well up inside them. A knock at the door made Remus startle and they looked at the door just in time to see a familiar hooked nose poke through as Dumbledore told the newcomer to enter. The excitement that had begun quickly died and Remus had to turn their exuberant grin into a polite grimace at the sight of Severus Snape. Remus knew that Dumbledore had spoken in defence of Snape when he had been charged with being a Death Eater, but it didn’t make it any easier to come face to face with him after all this time. “Ah, Severus, I wished to make it known to you that Mx. Lupin will be joining the teaching staff this year as the new Defence Against the Dark Arts professor. I do hope you will be up to the task of brewing the Wolfsbane potion every month? Wonderful!” Dumbledore gave Snape no time to react or reply, knowing full well the history and animosity that lay between these two former pupils of his. Snape glared at Lupin but did not appear to wish to argue with the headmaster. Snape simply appeared to have a glint of satisfaction in his eyes that made Remus incredibly suspicious, so when Snape spoke, Remus was alert for any hints of sarcasm or attempts to defame their character. “I was wondering if either of you had managed to read the Daily Prophet yet today? No? It appears that one Sirius Black has managed to escape from Azkaban.” Remus wasn’t sure if they had heard that right. Snape was sneering in that way that he always had when he knew something the others did not and that it was, in fact, the truth. Remus didn’t want to believe it, no one had ever, it wasn’t possible, why now? Their ears started ringing and their eyes lost focus. Was their heart about to beat out of their chest? Was Dumbledore speaking? Remus had forgotten why they had come here, where was here again? The room was spinning and they couldn’t seem to breathe properly, the edges of their vision became tinged with black and the last thing that Remus saw was a greasy smirk swimming through their vision.
Flashes of Sirius’s face kept running through their head. His mischievous smile, his grey eyes sparkling in the sunlight, the way he always brushed his hair behind his ears when he was focusing, his screams as he was led away to Azkaban. Remus woke up abruptly in the hospital wing. Madame Pomfrey gave a slight start as if she hadn’t been expecting them to wake up so suddenly. Remus glanced around and their heart ached a little bit for all the times they had woken up here to the faces of their friends staring at them. Madame Pomfrey came to the side of the bed and looked down with a melancholy expression similar to how Remus was feeling. She handed them a piece of chocolate with a little wink and asked how they were feeling. The memory of what had happened in Dumbledore’s office came flooding back and their face paled, “Is it true? What Snape said?” They couldn’t bring themself to say his name. “I’m afraid so, it happened yesterday if the paper is to be believed, though I’m sure the headmaster would like to talk to you, if you’re feeling up to it?” Remus nodded, wanting to get this over with. Dumbledore surely would not allow them to teach here now. They had just made a fool of themself in his office and, of course, no one would trust them with Sirius on the loose, Remus was known to be one of his closest friends. Although, they didn’t know what they would do if they saw Sirius now. The thought almost made their head start spinning again. “Eat the chocolate, love, it’ll help,” Madame Pomfrey said, kindly. Remus nibbled at their square refusing to let it help, despite the fact that it did very much help.
Dumbledore came in a little while later to talk. Remus was reading a book and resting per Madame Pomfrey’s instructions. They put the book down to look at Dumbledore with eyes that still hoped to be told that none of this was true. The headmaster looked sadly at Remus while he took a seat next to the bed. “There are a few things that we need to talk about before the school year starts, Professor Lupin.” Remus stared at Dumbledore for a moment trying to process what he had just said. “Yes, I am still offering you the position if you still want it?”
“Yes! Of course, I still want it,” they replied breathlessly.
“Good,” Dumbledore went on, “then we can begin to talk about what will happen when Harry arrives at school in a few weeks. I need to make you aware of the fact that Harry knows very little about his parents and nothing about their friends, especially not Sirius and the fact that he is Harry’s godfather.” Remus stared at Dumbledore in disbelief, Harry doesn’t know anything about them? Was Harry never told about anything? What did Harry actually know? Remus was supposed to be one of Harry’s godparents, Harry was supposed to call them Moony, but now they were being told that Harry didn’t even know that they existed? Dumbledore seemed to understand all of this in Remus’s expression and had the decency to look apologetic, but continued speaking as if he hadn’t noticed, “Harry is currently safe at his aunt and uncle’s house until it is time for him to return to Hogwarts. I have been informed that the ministry will be sending Dementors to patrol the school. There is good information that Sirius will be looking for Harry and knows that he is at Hogwarts. Sirius will of course not know that you are here as well. I believe that I can trust you not to let him in?” Remus stared at him and then realised that they were expected to answer. They nodded slowly. Remus did not think that they could face Sirius again, they would not go looking for him. “Good, that shall put Severus’s mind at ease, that appears to be his biggest issue with you teaching here, though I imagine there are more.” His eyes glinted knowingly with that statement. Remus almost smiled.