After that day, Katherine truly kept her word, taking a stroll around the vicinity of Privet Drive every evening.
Kate had no idea how the Dursleys felt about two wizards loitering near their house day after day, but for Harry's sake, she never went looking for him again.
Then, several days later, the two of them had just returned home from their walk and hadn't even taken off their shoes when Katherine's expression suddenly shifted. "A creature carrying magic has arrived."
She seized Kate's hand at once, and together they Apparated to an unfamiliar neighborhood.
"Where is this?" Kate immediately searched for a nearby street sign, only to find the words Magnolia Crescent written on it.
Wasn't this the very place where Harry had stormed out of his house and then run into the great black dog?
"Let's split up and search," she suggested at once.
Under normal circumstances, Katherine would never let an underage wizard go hunting for a wanted criminal, but this neighborhood was simply too large.
Besides, Kate's own strength already far surpassed that of an ordinary adult wizard. Even if she ran into Sirius, protecting herself would be no trouble at all.
She nodded then and there. The two agreed on a rendezvous time before parting ways.
This stretch of neighborhood was hardly bustling. It was only eight or nine in the evening, yet great swaths of the surroundings had already gone dark.
Kate followed the dim streetlamps, deliberately seeking out the narrow, shadowy alleys.
She had no idea how long she'd walked, until her legs began to ache. Only then, near a small lane, did she feel a strange prickling sensation, as if someone were watching her from the shadows.
With one hand she flicked on her flashlight, and with the other she hid her wand behind her back, breaking into a quick jog toward that pitch-black alley.
The moment the light fell upon it, a great black dog was tearing at food scraps in a trash can. Sensing someone's approach, it lifted its head warily.
In the instant their eyes met, Kate could all but confirm that this dog was Sirius, that this was his Animagus form.
Only, according to official records, just seven people had registered as Animagi in the twentieth century. The others, Sirius included, had never officially registered.
So by rights she ought to pretend she had no idea who he was.
"So it's just a dog. You scared me half to death."
She let out a soft breath, tucked the wand from behind her back into her trouser pocket, then unwrapped a sausage she'd just bought from a shop she'd passed. She bit off half herself and tossed the other half to him.
The black dog didn't move, its glowing eyes still fixed warily on her.
Kate shrugged helplessly. "Looks like you don't trust me. Never mind, then."
With that, she faced him and backed out of the alley one step at a time, until she reached its mouth. The ham she'd thrown earlier came flying back after her.
Oh my, what keen vigilance.
Even though there wasn't the slightest bit of poison in that sausage.
But it didn't matter. She only needed to wait a little longer.
She stood at ease by the mouth of the alley for seven or eight minutes. Reckoning that about enough time had passed, she stepped inside again, delighted.
Under the beam of her flashlight, she could clearly see that the black dog, so full of spirit moments ago, now lay collapsed and powerless on the ground, disbelief showing in its weakened eyes.
"Confused, aren't you? You didn't eat my food, yet you still fell for it."
Kate crouched down cheerfully, studying his filthy, matted fur, her eyes curving. "It's because you didn't trust me, little doggy."
The sausage really wasn't poisoned. In fact, it even contained the antidote.
Before she'd stepped into the alley, she had scattered along the way an improved Sleeping Draught that Horace had lovingly brewed for her. Just a trace of it, evaporating into the air, was enough to knock a person out cold.
If Sirius had eaten her sausage, it would actually have cured him, leaving no hidden danger at all.
"Truth be told, even if you had eaten the ham, you'd have picked up my special tracking powder. That's a very convenient little alchemical product."
In short, whether or not Sirius ate her sausage, she had a countermeasure either way.
Smiling as she watched the furious-eyed dog, Kate waited a while, then heard Katherine's call from outside.
She answered, and before long Katherine came jogging over. Seeing her safe and sound, she let out a breath of relief. "Didn't we say to meet at the rendezvous point in an hour?"
"But I found him." Kate pointed at the big black dog before her.
"Him?" Katherine noticed she hadn't used the pronoun for an animal. Rather puzzled, she bent down and drew her wand to examine the black dog thoroughly.
Soon, Katherine's expression changed slightly.
As an extraordinarily advanced form of Transfiguration, the Animagus state couldn't be detected by ordinary spells, but there were too many things about Sirius that proved he was no ordinary black dog.
"Soaked all over, yet it hasn't rained in London lately, which means he's been in water. His whole body is covered in wounds, but they're all wounds caused by magic." Kate recounted it all in a calm voice. "He also triggered the alarm wards you set against magical individuals and appeared near Harry's house. I'd say it's nine times out of ten that he's Sirius."
On the ground, the black dog's eyes went suddenly wide.
And though Katherine was startled by her reasoning, she still accepted the guess. "If he escaped Azkaban by turning into a black dog, that really could have let him slip past the Dementors' pursuit."
After all, Dementors could only sense human emotions, not those of animals, so escaping prison in an animal's form was, in theory, entirely feasible.
"What do you plan to do?" Katherine asked instinctively. "Hand him over to the Ministry of Magic?"
No sooner had the words left her mouth than the black dog, which had been unable to move, began to thrash violently.
But under the strong influence of the Sleeping Draught, the harder he struggled, the more readily the potion took effect.
Before long his struggles grew weaker and weaker. In the end he couldn't resist the potion's erosion, and fell asleep with his eyes still open.
"See? He not only understands what we're saying, he even fights back this fiercely." Kate reached out and closed his eyes for him.
Katherine could tell something was off about her attitude, and asked tentatively, "You're not thinking of taking him home, are you?"
This was a wanted criminal. How could they possibly bring him home!
"Why not?" Kate looked up, and seeing disagreement written all over Katherine's face, she spread her hands. "Fine, I'll listen to you. We won't send him to the manor."
Not sending him home just meant she could send him somewhere else.
Katherine had the nagging feeling she was still planning to do something. She'd just started to ask when her head went dizzy.
"Oh, right," Kate said, rising just in time to steady her. "I dosed him with a bit of potion earlier. After it evaporated into the air, it seems to have affected you too."
What?!
Katherine's mind was a muddled blur at that moment, and then she heard her dear niece say, "The antidote is that half a sausage at the mouth of the alley. Want to have a bite?"
Her eyes flew wide. She meant to open her mouth and curse, but her head tipped to one side and she toppled straight into Kate's arms.
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