The Marauders - Order of the Phoenix - Part One

Eureka

It was the longest that Sirius Black had ever stayed silently focused on something he was reading. Remus had to marvel a little bit at the level of concentration that his husband was displaying - for the first time ever - at reading a page with so much jargon that it seemed an unending sentence. Even Remus was getting a bit bored wading through the quagmire of the medical text in Anne Veigler's folder, but he trudged on, determined not to lose focus so long as Sirius was still bent over the pages laying on the table in front of him.

The only movement Sirius had made was to scratch absently at his head as he turned pages.

"Bloody hell."

Remus looked over at James, and so did Sirius. "What?" Sirius asked, "Have you solved it then?!"

"No but look at this. Anne Veigler was admitted to the Janus Thickey ward for claiming that the man visiting her wasn't her husband. They called her mad and popped her into the ward. They started looking into it, but then she just... snapped out of it and recognized her husband again." James lowered the sheet and looked from Remus to Sirius.

"Madness," murmured Sirius.

"More like imperius," Remus said.

"Ohhh. Yes." Sirius pointed at Remus, "That."

James nodded, "That's what I was thinking, too. But thing is, she was married to the Auror Grant for some time before going into Mungo's - and he's a mate of Underhill's - so she must've really been married to Grant... yeah?"

Remus pursed his lips, thinking, then said said, "Maybe the bloke's using polyjuice and has everybody blinded, ey?"

Sirius said, "But it would've been years he's been at it. Underhill would never have been fooled by an imposter of his own mate!" James cleared his throat and Sirius looked abashed, "Oh," he murmured, sheepish, his eyes clouding with guilt. "Right."

"Perhaps he's been himself until very recently," Remus suggested, "And has only been switched out so to say since Anne Veigler got sick?"

James asked, "So why's he been killed by the Deatheaters if he's part of their diabolical plots? And better, why would they be targeting Anne Veigler and Marjorie?"

Remus rubbed his chin.

Sirius asked, "To go after Ned?" He scratched the back of his shoulder and on up to the side of his neck as he spoke, head tilting either with the question or with the itch... perhaps a bit of both.

"Assuming Ned has any affiliation, really, with Anne," inserted Remus quickly. He leaned away as Sirius's scratching got more persistent.

James mused, then sighed and turned back to the document. "Well, it's interesting at any rate, and I'm sure it plays in somehow - just HOW is the question."

Sirius nodded, leaning back in his chair and looking up at the ceiling with a deep-thought sort of expression on his face. Remus figured that twenty minutes of concentration on Sirius's part was just about as much as anyone could've asked for, and turned back to his own sheets of information as Sirius tilted his chair backwards. The back of the chair rested against the sink counter and his face contorted and rearranged every now and then, twisting about, eyes slightly unfocused and heavy leather boots up on the extra chair at the table. He was thinking so hard that even his scratching ceased.

Remus's eyes scooted along the mumbo-jumbo of the text before him, flitting now and then up to check that Sirius wasn't about to tip himself right over leaning back like that.

Suddenly there was a shout and a thump and Sirius's chair came crashing forward as he sat up abruptly, his eyes wide. "Eureka!"

James and Remus both looked up.