Sirius leaned back in his chair and twirled his wand thoughtfully as Remus stared at the blackboard and then back at Dumbledore's letter on the desk in front of them. He'd been doing the same thing for five minutes and Sirius couldn't quite stop himself from thinking it wasn't a good sign.
Remus sighed and took a fortifying sip of tea. "Well, I can understand why you've gone this route, Padfoot." He tapped the ceramic mug he held. "Despite my own debt to Albus, I've spent most of this last year alternating between wanting to thank Albus for the opportunity to finally get to know Harry and wanting to hex him for keeping me out of his life to date."
"How did that happen?" asked Sirius curious to know what had occurred.
His friend grimaced but met his gaze. "As soon as I got the news, I came back from Romania just in time to attend the small funeral for James and Lily at Godric's Hollow," he forestalled Sirius's question by raising a hand and answering it, "Potter House including the family cemetery there must have gone immediately under a Death Fidelius and obviously its location would have only been known to someone in the House of Potter."
Like Sirius who had been granted sanctuary in the House of Potter.
"I and the Longbottoms accosted Albus after the funeral both about you and about Harry." He shook his head at the memories. "I wanted to visit both of you – you so I could hex you into a million pieces and Harry so I could confirm he was safe and well. Albus informed me that you had already been sentenced to Azkaban."
Sirius waved away the information. "What about Harry?"
"Well, Albus confirmed that he had taken Harry to Lily's sister in the muggle world and she had assumed guardianship; that it was a done deal. Alice was furious but Albus pointed out you were in prison, they had been under Fidelius and he had no idea who their Secret Keeper was. Anyway, Frank said that was fine but now that they were out of hiding, they would take guardianship of Harry as James and Lily had wanted."
"And then they got attacked." Sirius murmured, trying to piece together the disparate information he'd managed to gather the previous year.
"Actually they were attacked two weeks later." Remus sighed heavily. "In that interim period, the Ministry demanded proof to overturn the guardianship of a blood relative. Well, the Longbottoms' didn't have a copy of the will. The Potters' solicitors Arkam and Arkam claimed theirs had gone missing." He took a breath. "I searched through your stuff at your old place since I had a key but couldn't find a copy there either. Gringotts claimed they couldn't open the Potter vaults without a Potter to retrieve the original."
"My copy of the will is in my vault." Sirius said quietly.
"Of course it is," Remus said, "I surmised as much at the time." He paused. "Frank and I had just agreed that the only thing for it was for him to negotiate with your grandfather to claim the vault under the House of Black and provide them with the will if it was there, but before he could, like you said, he and Alice were attacked."
Sirius shook his head, thinking how everything had conspired to go horribly wrong for Harry's guardianship after the death of his parents.
"Anyway, with the Longbottoms incapacitated and Augusta dealing with one traumatised baby, the whole thing was dropped. I know James and Lily had probably made provisions for if both you and Alice were unavailable and I toyed with asking your grandfather, but knew that unlike the Longbottoms I had no political leverage to get him to give me the will and I didn't want to give him the idea of, well…"
"Making a claim for Harry himself?" Sirius nodded slowly. "Wise. He would have done it. And you remember James and I used to joke that we were cousins? The relationship is a few times removed but…"
"Your grandfather would have run with it, and with you named as guardian in the will, it would have strengthened his claim." Remus took another sip of his drink. "I dropped the idea of guardianship and went back to Albus to request access."
"Which he refused." Sirius determined harshly.
"Said the wards had been set to deter dark creatures and regardless he had promised that interaction with the wizarding world would be minimal until Harry was old enough to attend Hogwarts."
"And by minimal, Albus presumably meant to say non-existent." Sirius said caustically, already upset on Remus's behalf for the dark creature comment.
"I argued with him that he couldn't leave Harry there without any oversight at all. He argued that with the wards he would know if Harry was attacked by Death Eaters. I argued that it wasn't good enough. He eventually conceded that perhaps someone placed locally to observe was a good idea." Remus's gaze darkened. "Then he argued that it couldn't be me as a young man interested in a small child would be suspected as a paedophile."
Sirius growled.
Remus's expression cleared and he gave an appreciative smile. "I know, Padfoot. I was upset too. But I had to concede the point. My interest in Harry would have been deemed unusual."
"At least you got him to put someone in to check on him. Figg, right? The batty old woman who used to come to the Order meetings stinking of kneazles? I saw her when I went there after I escaped." Sirius felt his anger at Dumbledore stir again; felt his certainty that Harry wasn't safe at the muggles grow.
"I never knew who it was." Remus took a calming breath. "After my confrontation with Albus, I was still determined to find some way of being in Harry's life but unfortunately a couple of days later my father had a stroke and was hospitalised. My next few months were filled with trying to look after him, and my mother who was distraught. He died early the next year and my mother a few weeks later, from a broken heart, I think."