It was high noon, although the late afternoon mist and the shadows cast by the mainsail could convince a man otherwise, and Sirius Black, only son and sole heir to Lord Admiral Black, was stretched out on the quarterdeck, hiding from his accountant.

It was rare that Sirius would go to the length of hiding from his personal financial manager. In fact, it had never happened before. Over their four-year stint at the New Orleans School for Wealthy Young Men, Sirius had mocked, ridiculed, belittled, scorned, derided, teased, and scoffed at the man, but he had never before resorted to simply hiding. Until now.

They, he, the accountant, and the gracious company of the H.M.S. Ministry, had set out from New Orleans only three days ago, and with the British Isles and home still more than a month away, Sirius swore if he heard the phrases 'financial discretion' or 'sound monetary prudence' even one more time, he would pull a pirate and flog the wormy, little man. Probably to much glee and merry-making on the crew's part.

Of course, then he'd be down one accountant and that didn't show much 'financial discretion,' did it?

Sirius had shrugged out of his jacket and was loosening his tie when the call went up from the crow's nest. "PIRATES!" Shouting and pointing followed, mostly in his direction. Or rather, at something just beyond his shoulder. Without changing position much, he turned and squinted out at the sea behind them.

It took him two seconds flat to decide that the last thing you want to see, when you are the only heir to vast fortunes and vaster estates, is a great bloody pirate flag coming up on the horizon.

Not even a proper flag, Sirius noted with the distaste and uncanny lack of priorities that only real nobility can manage. There was no black, no white, no skull and crossbones. It was nothing like the flags his mother had spun bedtime stories about and that almost bothered him more than the fact that the red and gold flag was steadily catching up.

The scrapping beat of a pegged leg to his left made Sirius turn again and then wince as the muscles in his neck protested.

"Looks like the Gryffindor," grumbled Captain Fudge as he hobbled up. He was a tall man, straight, and so firmly on the Black payroll that the scars and missing limbs hardly bothered Sirius anymore. "Funny. Don't usually see her this far east."

Sirius massaged his neck and turned, once more, to squint at the ship which had become substantially bigger in the few seconds he'd looked away. Even the ratlines could be made out now, slapping at the foremast as the ship put on speed.

Sirius frowned, like that might transform the little galleon into a proper threat. "Is it really a pirate ship?"


"Aye," Fudge snorted, "one of the fiercest. They probably got wind that you were on board, young Lord Black. I wouldn't be surprised if they were after you and your pretty ah--ah--" Fudge stammered before ending, lamely, "allowance."

Sirius raised an eyebrow, as thoroughly unimpressed by this explanation as he was with the not-quite-as-tiny-as-he'd-thought galleon or with the occasional cries of "We're doomed!" from the rest of the Ministry's crew. With a little 'oomph,' he got to his feet and tossed his jacket over one shoulder. A moment later, a distressed ensign came hurtling up the stairs, stopping only a hair's breadth away from crashing into Fudge and forgetting to salute entirely.

"Cap'n! You're needed on the gundeck, sir!"

Sirius thought he caught Fudge rolling his eyes, but it might have been a trick of the light. The pained sigh, however, was clear. "In a moment," Fudge said, and the ensign nodded and dashed off. In a fluid movement, Fudge turned back to Sirius. "Lord Black?"

"Mmm?"

"Perhaps it would be best if you and your...companion were to go downstairs and..."

"Hide?" Sirius suggested.

Fudge made the international 'I'm talking to a man who could have me executed' face and cleared his throat. "Not hide so much as remove yourself from the potential line of sight of anyone who might possibly come looking for you."

"I suppose I can do that."

"And, Lord Black," Fudge looked distinctly nervous now, "if the worst happens, do not tell anyone that you are a Black. You'll be safer if no one knows."

Sirius wasn't sure if his definition of safer meant indefinite captivity (or death) versus a nice, quick ransom (or death), but he wasn't the decorated naval officer so for once he kept his mouth shut and ambled off to find Peter.

---

To no great surprise, Sirius found Peter in their cabin. The boy was seated at a tiny desk near the only porthole, gnawing on the end of a fountain pen. All around him neat stacks of spreadsheets and income/expenditure tables were piled, some bound, others kept in place by solid-looking paperweights.

In truth, Sirius wasn't really sure where all his money came from, or went to for that matter, but he'd never really cared. After all, worrying about his money was what he had an accountant for.

Even though he'd slammed the door when he entered, Sirius had tossed his jacket onto the lower bunk and lost his tie completely before Peter even bothered to look up. When he finally did, the little man blinked his pinprick black eyes and twitched his nose in the way that had always made Sirius think of a giant rodent. If giant rodents wore brown tweed.

"Oh, um," Peter bubbled, trying to stow his pen back in the ink well but only managing to get ink all over his fingers. "Lord Black, I mean, I mean, Sirius, I-- I've just finished with the interest projections for the next year, uh, if you would be interested in looking."

Sirius shook his head. "Definitely not the most pressing issue of the moment, Pete."

"Oh, um," was all Peter had the chance to say before the crack of cannon fire ripped through the air. The floor heaved under Sirius's feet, and he almost lost his balance, bracing himself against the wall at the last moment. Peter, on the other hand, was thrown from his seat to the floor. He scrabbled about the floor as another shot was heard. "What! What's going on?"

"We're under attacked," Sirius answered brusquely, jumping past Peter and climbing onto the desk so as to peer out the porthole. He couldn't see much, only smoke billowing over the water, but the sound of fire didn't let up.

From the floor, Peter quavered, "Attack?"

"Yes," Sirius looked over his shoulder, "by pirates."

If Peter had been pale and shaken before, he went practically catatonic now. "P-- P-- P-- Pirates?"

"Yes," Sirius said again, twisting so he could sit almost comfortably on the edge of the desk. "Fudge says it's the Gryffindor, and they're--"

Peter shrieked, actually shrieked, when the last syllables of Gryffindor were past Sirius's lips. In a violent motion, he grabbed one of his fallen books and held it up in front of his face like a shield. "Not the Gryffindor! You can't be serious! They say her captain is a monster! They say he eats his victims and howls at the moon and sacrifices virgins to the Devil in return for satanic powers!"

It irritated Sirius a little that he seemed to be the only one who'd never heard of this Gryffindor and its fearsome captain, but, rather than show it, he sniffed and ticked his chin up. "Guess you're out of luck then, eh Pete?"

Which was probably not the brightest thing to say considering Peter looked like he was either going to faint or flip. He chose flip, shooting to his feet and just standing there, shaking all over.

“How can you be glib at a time like this!” he demanded, voice jumping two octaves. At any other time, Sirius would have laughed but even he could recognize homicidal rage when he saw it. “We are going to die! We are going to die! We are going to die, and your father is going to blame ME!”

Sirius opened his mouth to point out that, with even just a little bit of good behaviour, Peter would probably never meet the good Lord Admiral in the afterlife, but then he closed his mouth and frowned. Everything was silent all of the sudden, no gunfire or clashing of steel or cannons. This was either very good or very, very bad.

“Jacket,” Sirius snapped, “off!” Peter looked confused but obeyed, fumbling with the buttons as Sirius stooped and began to collect Peter's books and papers off the floor. “Get mine too,” Sirius ordered, and again, Peter obeyed without a word.

When he had everything, all his fancy clothing and documentation laid out on the desk, he and Peter forced the porthole open and began tossing things out. Peter managed to keep his wits until it was time to toss his files at which point he nearly broke into tears.

“But...Sirius!”

“Shut up,” Sirius hissed, snatching back the papers Peter had been trying to rescue and pushing him away. “If those stupid, bloody pirates come, they can't find out who I am, ok? Which means we have to dump everything that could tell them.”

Peter whimpered, still looking uncertain, but said nothing as Sirius tossed the papers, pens, and books out the window and into the sea.

Just in time too, because there was a bump and a gruff curse from the hallway before a voice Sirius had never heard before called out:

“Ouch!”

Another voice, farther away than the first, called back, “Sorry, Potter! Forgot t' warn you about that first step.”

“Yeah, yeah. Idiot Weasley,” was the man called Potter's mumbled reply. Peter edged his way to Sirius’s side and pulled at his sleeve, nearly gibbering in fear. With a half-hearted glare and a little swishing motion of his hand, Sirius signalled for quiet.

“You guys finish up there and come down here,” Potter was saying. “The captain wants everyone cleared off the ship before we sink it.”

Peter, who Sirius swore had the worst sense of timing in the known world, chose that moment to shriek again. Running footsteps followed, and Sirius only had time to cringe and mutter “oh god” before the door burst open, and he came face to face with his first pirate.

He was young. While the first things Sirius should have noted were the cutlass in the pirate's hand and the pistol stuffed in his belt, the first thing Sirius actually noticed was that this Potter was very, very young. And well groomed. And in full possession of every one of his limbs and both his eyes (even if they were behind glasses).

So far these pirates seemed to be ignoring all the rules of what a decent pirate ought to be, and Sirius wasn't very impressed.

“So,” Potter swaggered towards them. The point of his cutlass dipped a bit as he relaxed his guard, comfortable, it appeared, in his knowledge that Peter and Sirius were no threat at all. “Cabin boys, eh?” He grinned lewdly.

Sirius felt rather than saw Peter collapse to the floor, grovelling.

“Please don't hurt me! Please! Please! I'm just an accountant, and I'm not even a very good one. Actually I'm really quite bad at it, please!”

Potter, like Sirius, didn't quite know what to say to this, so they both ignored him and measured up each other.

“If he's an accountant, what does that make you?” Potter purred, fingering the point of his sword and giving Sirius a silky smile. “A lawyer?”

A better man would have been frightened by Potter's tone and the way his brown eyes flashed, but Sirius had never been a better man. He was a British nobleman, goddammit And so he pulled himself up straight and scoffed.

“What are you You aren't even a proper pirate! Look, you've got all your limbs!” Sirius gestured at Potter's legs for emphasis. “You don't even say arrr! And how old are you, anyway?”

Potter looked, for lack of a better word, completely flummoxed. “What? Uhm, just about 19, I think.”

“I'm even older than you!” Sirius raged, well aware that if he made it out of this alive he'd have some higher being to thank for it. “See here,” he said, gesturing toward the door, “this won't do, so you can run back to your captain and tell him that if he wants to sacrifice us to the Devil in return for satanic powers, he had better send a real pirate along.”

There was a beat of perfect silence, and then Potter shook his head, utterly confused.

“What? Look, I don't think you understand. I'm the pirate here, and you're just a cabin boy, so you are going to come with me and get tossed overboard like the rest of the crew, or I'll kill you right here if you prefer.”

“His name is Sirius Black,” Peter announced suddenly, in a rush so that it almost came out as one word. “He's the only son of Lord Admiral Black, so you better not kill him or the Admiral will hunt you ALL DOWN LIKE DOGS!” The last came out as a full scream of rage, but with his outburst past, Peter sank back into tight-lipped silence.

Sirius didn't resist the urge to smack his forehead. In fact, he embraced it. “Thanks, Pete,” he muttered, pulling his hand down to cover his mouth.

Potter was recovering well from his shock and now looked reflective, a look which Sirius wouldn't have dreamt him capable of.

“Are you really?” Potter mused in a soft, rhetorical voice. He assayed Sirius, nodding slowly and looking him up and down. “Well, that changes things. You're coming with me. Both of you.”

This new tone of voice did what the old could not: it made Sirius worry. “Where?” he asked, with more caution than he'd ever exhibited in all nineteen years of his life.

Potter smiled, a little lopsidedly. “To meet the captain.”

---

Half a decade ago, if someone had told Remus Lupin that one day he would be one of the most feared pirates north of the Spanish Main, he would have laughed in their face. Or, more accurately, he would have asked them politely not to joke about things like that and then gone on with his day like nothing had ever happened.

Not much surprised Remus any longer, if only because so much had surprised him in his early life that he no longer felt it worth the energy to be surprised or angry or any number of other emotions.

But the dark-haired young man James and Arthur had dragged out of the hold was surprising at the least. He was giving Remus a steel-blue glare that was painfully familiar; Remus had been on the receiving of end an identical stare twice before in his life, and neither occasion was one he would soon forget.

“Cap'n ” James crowed, obviously proud of his prize. “You'll never guess what I found. This,” he gave a little tug to the dark-haired man's shirt, “is--“

“Sirius Black,” Remus guessed and got all the confirmation he needed by the way Black's glare tripled in intensity.

James deflated visibly. “How did you know?”

“A guess,” Remus replied with a small, brief smile. He took a step towards Black, and the man didn't flinch, didn't look away for so much as a moment. That took courage, even if it was rather misplaced in the current situation. “What is a Black doing here?”

“Hiding, actually,” James smirked. “Other than that? No idea. He hasn't been exactly co-operative.”

“Damn right I'm not co-operating!” Black growled, shaking off James's restraining hand, and Remus half expected him to shake his fist threateningly to match. “You have no idea how much trouble you're in right now. You're going to have the whole British navy down your throat in seconds. My father's the Lord Admiral, and if you don't let me go, he'll--“

Remus held up a hand, palm outwards. “We've met.”

That made Black pause, and he seemed to actually think about his response this time. But, well, he was a Black in the end, and Remus had never known one to give up when a certain line of reasoning appealed to them.

“Good! So you know what will happen if you don't let me go on my way.”

“Indeed.”

Remus approached Black again, not in challenge this time, simply in curiosity. He looked very little like his father but very much like the Other One, suggesting that all that black hair and the fair skin must come from the mother's side. Black's blue-grey eyes were the Lord Admiral's, though, without a doubt, and Remus wondered if that was the only thing the son had inherited from the father.

If possible, Black's scowl deepened. “What are you looking at?”

“Nothing of importance.” Remus stared for a few moment longer, but eventually: “Bring them with us,” he ordered.

Twin cries of “You've got to be kidding!” echoed from James and Black, and they pinned him with two equally exasperated stares. Remus permitted himself a quiet chuckle before catching James's eye and giving his head a quick shake.

“I have got to be nothing, Mr. Potter. You know that.”

“This is completely bloody stupid!” barked Black. “If you think I am coming with you, you sod, you better think ag– ”

There was a crack, and Black’s eyes unfocused, his legs folded up underneath him, and he toppled to the deck. His companion screeched.

“Sorry,” said James, still holding his pistol butt at neck height. “I’ve been wanting to do that since I met the little wanker.”

Remus smirked. “Understandable, I do believe. All right men, bring them with us and sink this ship. One less pawn in the Admiral’s game.”

Remus’s eyes fell on Black. One less pawn...or maybe two.