Awakenings
Chapter 2 — Boxing Sirius
By Lady Alchymia
Harry awoke next morning feeling disoriented. He was on the bed. He had no idea how he got there. Stretching out, he found his shoes were gone and the photo of eleven-year-old Lily was propped up next to his glasses on the bedside table. He donned his spectacles and looked around. Maybe it was the sunshine streaming through the windows, or maybe it was the posters of motorbikes on the walls, or the bikini-clad girls, or motorbikes being ridden by bikini-clad girls, but Sirius’s room didn’t seem near so oppressive to its new owner in the ungilded light of morning. Pushing off Sirius’s cloak, Harry realised he must have missed dinner, but he hadn’t slept so soundly in ages. Hedwig was perched on an open windowsill, as if waiting to check her master was all right before going off to catch her breakfast. Harry went over to her.
"’Lo, girl," he murmured, stroking her feathers.
Hedwig hooted and nibbled affectionately at his fingers. Moments later, a soft knock sounded.
"Come in," called Harry.
Lupin entered carrying two hot drinks. "Morning; how are you feeling?"
Harry accepted a chipped teacup; he got the distinct impression the man had been loitering outside, just waiting for a sign he was awake.
"Better," he said truthfully. "Thanks."
He motioned with his cup for Lupin to sit down in one of two wingchairs by the fireplace, and they sat and sipped at their steaming drinks. Harry gazed around at the scattered evidence of Sirius’s life: piles of laundry, books, shoes; random items crammed atop his dresser: letters combs, brushes, Dark Arts detectors, gag gifts from Christmas. Lupin broke the silence.
"I can pack these things away for you, if you like?"
"No," Harry said quickly — too quickly. "I mean it’s okay, I can do that."
Lupin didn’t press. After breakfast, he took Harry on a wander through the house. Sirius had done a good deal to improve things, but Kreacher had delighted in making the task as difficult as possible. Many of the rooms were beset by Dark Vermin — and they were breeding again. Huge, old, and ugly, the house seemed to know it was under review and cared not a whit. Harry drifted from one tattered room to another, his pace quickening only when the grandfather clock decided to shoot arrows at him. Lupin was still watching him closely.
"Harry, I know the house isn’t in the best state, but I’m sure we could make it more comfortable for you ... a fresh lick of paint, perhaps?"
A fresh Reductor Curse, Harry thought ruefully, trudging down the stairs past a grotesque display of house-elf heads. In his opinion it’d take a lot more than a lick of paint to turn his dark mausoleum into a home. But it wasn’t all bad news. One cramped bathroom was overgrown with exotic orchids. Harry sniffed the air appreciatively, glad to find at least one thing in the house didn’t smell like death.
"Ah, that’d be me," Lupin said, slipping past Harry to switch off some kind of humidifier. He explained that the Ministry permitted him to grow the orchids to sell to the local Muggle flower markets.
"They must fetch a pretty penny," Harry said, pleased. He wasn’t so pleased when he learned that the levies the Ministry charged on ‘beast commerce’ meant Lupin earned a pittance for his troubles.
"But it’s a pleasant hobby," Lupin noted philosophically, "and I do like the smells."
Harry nodded but fumed inside having found yet another reason to detest the Ministry of Magic.
The members of the Order of the Phoenix continued meeting at odd times of the day and night, but Harry didn’t see too much of them; he wasn’t allowed to attend the meetings. There wasn’t even a Hippogriff to hang out with: Hagrid took Buckbeak abroad at the end of term. With too much time on his hands, Harry took to haunting the hallways. He’d imagine Sirius, brooding and lonely, prowling as well, always just around the corner, always just out of reach, sometimes as Sirius, sometimes as Padfoot, always as Snuffles. Loitering in the hall on his third night alone, Harry overheard a few members in the drawing room asking Lupin about him.
"It’s just not healthy," a woman was saying: she sounded like Tonks. "This place even gives me the creeps!"
"It’s the safest place for him," countered the deep voice of Kingsley Shacklebolt.
"Safety’s not everything," Tonks muttered.
Harry smiled slightly; he knew what Mad-Eye Moody would say to that.
"Harry’ll be fine," Lupin said. "He just needs some space. And time to think things through. He’ll surface when he’s good and ready."
"Yeah?" challenged Tonks. "Just because you like to crawl into a hole and refuse help. Look, he’s fifteen years old! He needs to get out and have some fun!"
"Tonks, he’s just lost the closest thing to a father he’s ever had," said Lupin. "You don’t get over that overnight."
Harry’s smile faded; he’d heard enough.
Back in his room, he sat slumped at Sirius’s oak desk. My desk, he corrected himself. The desk was cluttered with old letters, broken quills, and piles of newspapers. Harry swivelled in the chair and traced a finger along the stamped-leather inlay, trying to remember what was in the last letter Sirius wrote to him. He probably wrote it sitting right here. Harry’s chest tightened. Never again would he receive an owl from his godfather — not a letter, not a paw-print ...
"Arghh!" Harry angrily swept the newspapers to the floor. "Stop feeling sorry for yourself!"
Grabbing fists full of his wild hair, he pulled hard to give himself something different to hurt about. It didn’t work for long. He ached to see Sirius one more time. From the top of his trunk, Harry pulled out the drawing things Hermione sent him. He’d done beautiful, happy pictures of her and Ron; he didn’t understand why he couldn’t draw Sirius, too. Making space on the desk, he tried again — and again — but every time he tried to draw Sirius, he opened his eyes to see the demon from his nightmares blackening the page: his own face horribly contorted with righteous fury.
"Sirius!" Harry hissed in frustration, turning over a new sheet. "Sirius!"
It was no use. The harder he tried to push aside his hatred of Lestrange and focus only on his love for Sirius, the more frightening his demon grew: black hair that previously lengthened and cracked into whips now morphed into fanged snakes growing straight out of his head; eyes merely bloodshot before now cried tears of blood; his teeth grew longer and sharper, and his jaw stretched into shapes it really shouldn’t. Slamming shut the pad on himself, Harry knew he was seriously messed up. He resorted to reading all of the instructions; surely this was not normal.
‘… Charmed Charcoals assist in reaching deep into the artist’s psyche, unleashing subconscious hopes and fears about the artist’s subject. They can be especially revealing of that which may lie hidden or repressed from conscious thought.’
Looking at the drawings of Ron and Hermione, Harry was flummoxed. They looked fine — better than fine. Hermione was reading serenely from her book, peaceful and happy; Ron remained aglow with the joy of winning the Quidditch Cup. Harry knew his best friends weren’t perfect (in fact, they could be dead annoying sometimes), but he understood and accepted that about them. He didn’t think there was anything he hid from himself about them. Maybe their drawings reflected that?
Turning through his pages of demons, Harry regarded his subconscious with dismay. Whatever was going on in there, it wasn’t pretty. But demon or not, he couldn’t understand why his face kept coming out instead of Sirius’s. He wondered what would happen if he actually tried to draw himself — deliberately. Although it was slightly worrying to think of what his subconscious might decide to throw at him, Harry was not one to give in to fear. Turning to a fresh page, he closed his eyes and thought hard about himself. When his hand halted, he opened his eyes on just an ordinary specky git — not a demon at all. Initially relieved, the longer he watched his self-portrait, the more uneasy he felt. He never realised he looked so — so haunted — his shifting expression that of a boy who’d seen far too much pain and suffering. Harry found it hard to argue with himself on that.
Next morning, when Lupin brought him yet another cup of tea, Harry noticed the man’s eyes lingering again on Sirius’s things still scattered around the room.
"Do you need a hand unpacking your trunk?" Lupin offered hopefully.
Harry’s school trunk stood open but unpacked at the foot of the bed.
"Come on," Lupin urged him, "you might feel more at home with some of your own things around you, don’t you think?"
With a half-hearted shrug, Harry knelt by his trunk and started pulling out clothes and books. Lupin sat on the edge of the bed, separating things to be cleaned or mended. He seemed to find an awful lot of things that needed to be cleaned. Harry dug his hand under a fat textbook to pull out his Quidditch jersey.
"OUCH!" he yelped. Blood spurted from his index finger. A sliver of broken glass was wedged under his nail. His hand shook.
"Hold still!" ordered Lupin, but Harry’s shaking just got worse.
Harry tried to tell himself it didn’t matter — that it was just a piece of glass. It didn’t work. Something inside him ached to scream but couldn’t work out how to escape. Lupin teased out the splinter and conjured cotton wool to press against the wound.
"Harry?"
"All that time," Harry rasped, his voice ragged but not from the pain in his finger, "all that time I could’ve used it."
"Use what? Harry?" Remus knelt down beside him, holding pressure to Harry’s finger with one hand and rubbing Harry’s back with the other.
"Don’t," Harry begged; he couldn’t bear Lupin’s sympathy.
"Harry, tell me," pleaded Lupin.
"Sirius," Harry croaked miserably, "his mirror — a two-way mirror. He gave one to me. He gave me — he gave me this package at Christmas. He said to use it if I needed him. I didn’t want to open it — I didn’t want him leaving the house." Lupin had gone very pale. "I didn’t even know what it was — I didn’t know I could talk to him. I was so stupid!"
Lupin shook off his stupor. "Harry — Harry, don’t do this to yourself, please. Harry, look at me!"
"Can you ever forgive me?" Harry rasped.
"Forgive you?" moaned Lupin. "Merlin, Harry, any one of us, Sirius included, could’ve told you Voldemort might try to trick you into going to the Department of Mysteries, but we didn’t warn you. You weren’t to know! Harry, look at me — you couldn’t know it was a trap!"
Harry shook his head. He didn’t want to hear it. "I had it for months — all that time — all that time I could’ve —"
Lupin twisted him around by the shoulders. "Harry, we all made mistakes that night — Harry, look at me! We all made mistakes — you made mistakes, too, but you are not responsible for Sirius’s death."
A sob caught in Harry’s throat; he wanted so much to believe that. "But the mirror ..."
There was an odd hungry look in Lupin’s eye. "Do you still have it?"
"What? Yes, I mean, no — I smashed it. I found it too late. I tried to use it — it didn’t work."
"What did you do with it?"
"I told you; I smashed it!"
Lupin stared into the trunk, a mixture of longing and apprehension on his face.
"It didn’t work!" Harry repeated, getting angry now.
"Do you have all the pieces?"
Harry froze in shock, hope duelling with despair: was there a chance he could talk to Sirius again?
"Can you make it work?" he breathed. Lupin’s eyes shot up.
"Harry, listen to me," he said very seriously. "I have no idea — I’m serious, I just don’t know. There might be some arcane spells — seriously, I really don’t know."
Harry was already lunging into his trunk. His cauldron went flying, landing somewhere with a great clatter. As devastated as he’d been bare moments before, he now felt like his heart might just burst through his chest. Scrambling around the rubbish in the bottom of his trunk, he shredded his hands on jagged splinters he found there; he felt no pain at all.
"Harry, Harry, stop! Stop!" Lupin grabbed at Harry’s hands. "Calm down — I can summon them!"
But Lupin didn’t summon them. Instead, he fussed over the new cuts to Harry’s fingers.
"It’s nothing," groaned Harry in great annoyance, trying to yank his hands free. As feeble as he might look, Harry discovered his werewolf guardian had a vice-like grip. "It doesn’t matter!"
But Lupin refused to fix the mirror until he’d dressed all Harry’s cuts. After what Harry felt was an interminable delay, Lupin finally summoned the shards of the two-way mirror. Harry stared, mesmerised, at the razor sharp splinters hovering in the air between them, glinting and reflecting the sunlight shining through the open bedroom window. Lupin stopped and regarded Harry carefully.
"Harry, all I’m going to do right now is repair the glass; I have no idea what we might be able to do after that to make it work — or if it’s even possible."
Harry nodded impatiently. Lupin lowered his wand.
"Harry, listen to me — listen to me! I know it’s going to be no use telling you not to get your hopes up, but whatever may, or may not, eventually come from this, all that is going to happen right now is to fix the broken glass. Nothing will have changed. The mirror still may not work and you’ll feel all the same things you felt when you smashed it. Do you think you can handle that?"
Harry’s first impulse was to say ‘yes’ and ‘just get on with it, thank you very much’, but a small doubt niggled at him. Could he handle the disappointment if they couldn’t make it work? He wasn’t sure but nodded anyway; he had to know. Lupin took a moment longer to appraise him then nodded.
With a curling swish of his wand, he declared, "Occulus Janus Reparo!"
The glittering fragments spun and whirled back into a single piece. But something was wrong; there weren’t enough splinters; it was still only a shard of the original. Harry’s heart couldn’t take much more of this. Lupin peered anxiously into the trunk.
"There must be more pieces."
He executed summoning charms through all Harry’s belongings in and out of the trunk, but all he recovered was a bit of extra glass-dust. Harry called Sirius’s name into the shard anyway, again and again, but there was no response. Crushed as surely as by a giant’s hand, Harry stared bleakly into the mirror’s reflection of one emerald-green eye.
"It was always going to be a long shot," Lupin said shakily.
Harry dragged his eyes from mirror to man, seeing Lupin as if for the first time. He’d known in his head Lupin had to be grieving for Sirius, too, but it hadn’t hit him how much until just then. Setting the broken mirror carefully to one side (for there remained a slim chance they might find the rest of it somewhere), Harry struggled to think of something — anything — to say that would be of any comfort to the man. He couldn’t even imagine how he would’ve felt if Ron had been the one who died. Then he recalled Luna Lovegood’s consoling words about the whispers they’d heard from beyond the veil.
"It’ll be okay," he said bracingly. "I mean, it’s not as if we’ll never see him again, is it ... this would’ve just let us talk to him — sooner."
Blinking back the moisture in his eyes, Lupin nodded mutely. Averting his eyes to give the man some privacy, Harry’s gaze fell on the untouched piles of Sirius’s robes and shirts and shoes around the room. Suddenly, they were just clothes.
"I’m going to need some boxes, Moony," he said quietly.
Harry would never know who reached out first. Gripping Lupin’s back, he buried his head in the man’s thin shoulder, knowing he was giving as much comfort as he was getting.
That day, with his new guardian’s help, Harry packed away Sirius’s belongings in boxes for the attic. He wasn’t yet ready to rifle through Sirius’s most private and personal papers and asked Remus to pack up the contents of Sirius’s desk for him. Remus understood.
"Pack!" declared the wizard with a jab of his wand, and the contents of Sirius’s desk obediently fluttered into two red boxes marked ‘Sirius — Desk’, which Harry stowed under his bed.
Homes were found around the room for Harry’s own novelties, games, and gifts, but there were things of Sirius’s, too (notably, some of his more interesting posters). The photographs on the mantelpiece stayed, as did Sirius’s writing things. The Black family seal, novelty paperweights, and gold-nibbed quill pens were arranged neatly on Harry’s newly uncluttered desk. Harry decided to keep Sirius’s winter cloak, too. It was far too big for him, just yet, so he folded it to put it away in the top of the wardrobe. He tugged down a dusty suitcase to make room then realised it wasn’t a suitcase.
"I didn’t know Sirius played the guitar," Harry said curiously.
"He did," Remus said, squinting in memory — or perhaps it was pain, "for about two months. Drove us all nuts."
Harry opened the case and extracted a stylish, glossy-black guitar. Apart from a few broken strings it looked to be in pretty good nick — until Harry turned it over and found a head-shaped hole in the back.
"Kreacher?" he suggested hopefully. Remus chuckled softly.
"Regulus more likely but I wouldn’t be surprised." He reached for the guitar and turned it over appraisingly. "Pity the wood’s gone. Leave it with me; I might be able to do something with it."
"Cool," Harry said contentedly.
Sitting with Remus on the floor, he emptied an ebony jewellery box full of cufflinks, shirt studs, earrings, dragon tooth neckbands, and the like onto the rug. Remus picked out a ruby cravat pin and smiled at it.
"Haven’t seen this in years," he said fondly, holding it a moment longer before passing it over to Harry. "Your father gave it to Sirius on his coming of age."
Harry closed his bandaged fingers around the ruby and was very startled when an image of his father’s face flashed across his mind, and he felt a strong sensation of affection and warmth, as if he’d just drunk a pint of hot Butterbeer.
"The Animula Charm," Remus explained, "the ‘little soul’. It allows you to invest an object with traces of strongly felt emotions."
Harry closed his fist around the pin once more and smiled. He already knew how Sirius felt about James, but it was good to know how James felt about Sirius.
The jewellery box went back up on the mantelpiece and Remus and Harry continued sorting through the rest of Sirius’s possessions. They could have gotten through the task much quicker, but Harry savoured all the little smiles and stories Remus shared as they picked through the strange and whimsical souvenirs of Sirius Black’s life. It went the other way, too, with Remus being just as interested in hearing the tales behind some of Harry’s things. Harry took great delight in suggesting Remus try solving his Golden Egg clue from the Tri-Wizard tournament. Remus loosed some decidedly colourful language when he got a full blast of Mersong in his ear. The sound set off Mrs Black, but it was worth it to Harry — he hadn’t laughed that hard in ages. When Remus returned from dealing with Mrs Black, he noticed Harry’s box of Charmed Charcoals.
"Do you use these a lot?" he asked interestedly. "I’d love to see your sketches."
Harry wasn’t about to risk Remus seeing his demon faces. Reaching for his drawing pad, he carefully tore out just the happy pictures of Ron and Hermione.
"These are exceptional, Harry," Remus said, holding them to the light. "You should frame them."
"Do you really think so?"
"Come here," Remus said.
He laid Hermione’s drawing on the desk and ordered Harry to sign it. Feeling a bit foolish, Harry obliged, signing H.J. Potter in the corner. Smiling broadly, Remus drew his wand and cast a framing illusion around Hermione’s picture. Then he used a removable sticking charm to mount the black-framed picture onto the wall where Harry could see it from his bed.
"You can move it around wherever you like," explained Remus. "It’ll re-stick."
Harry smiled up at the picture. Hermione’s softly drawn face moved ever so slightly as she read peacefully from her book. His bedroom suddenly felt just that much cosier. They framed the second picture, too. Harry mounted Ron’s beaming mug on the back of a bright-red motorcycle.
"Nice," said Remus, chuckling. He changed the colour of Ron’s frame to a matching, fire-engine red. "Do you have any more?" he asked, waving his wand casually towards the drawing pad, the edges of which betrayed the existence of more artwork inside.
"It’s nothing; it’s rubbish."
"I’m sure that’s not true," Remus said warmly. "Don’t worry; you don’t need to share them if you’re not ready."
Remus said no more on the topic, and instead turned to admiring Harry’s Firebolt. Perversely, now that Harry was not obliged to reveal his demons, he had an overwhelming urge to do so, but the moment passed.
"It really is a beauty," Remus said, testing the broomstick’s balance on his outstretched fingertips. "Magnificent. Must be a phenomenal ride."
"You have no idea," Harry said, sighing deeply. He reminded Remus that Dolores Umbridge banned him from flying and confiscated his Firebolt for good measure. "Eight months ago … I haven’t even had a chance to ride it yet," he said, staring wistfully out the window onto another fine afternoon.
Remus followed his gaze but said nothing. He didn’t have to; Harry knew he’d never be allowed to go joy-riding without half the Order of the Phoenix trailing after him. Perhaps mindful of this, over lunch the next day Remus had a treat for him: he’d repaired the hole in the back of Sirius’s guitar. He’d cut a veneer of wood to the same shape of the body of the guitar and glued it straight over the back, trimming and shaping it to fit at the edges.
"Cool, thanks," Harry said. He actually thought it looked a bit naff, but he was quite accustomed to making do with broken hand-me-downs.
"There were some spare strings in the case," Remus said, "but I don’t know if they’re the right ones. I think you’re supposed to use different weights."
Harry strummed the guitar with his bandaged fingers. It sounded wrong — muffled. Harry didn’t know if that was him or the instrument.
"Do you know any chords?" he asked Remus, but Remus was as clueless as Harry about such things, so Harry blithely experimented — with truly uninspiring results.
"Merlin, that’s awful," Remus said, laughing. "I think I’m going to need to dig out my Charmed Earplugs."
Harry grinned back at him. "Yeah? What do they do?"
"Block out anything you don’t want to hear. Excellent for living with teenagers."
Harry strummed blandly and said with an innocent air, "So, cracked that egg yet?"
By the end of his first week in his dim and dirty old house, Harry started to feel more settled within himself, but his new guardian seemed to appreciate he was in dire need of fresh air.
"We could go into Diagon Alley tomorrow, if you like," he offered over dinner. "Maybe pay a visit to Fred and George’s new shop." Harry nodded emphatically; his teeth were busy trying to render edible one of Remus’s gristly sausages. "We should pick up some supplies for the house, too. Try to cheer the place up a bit. Anything in particular you’d like to do first?"
Harry was still chewing. He looked around the dingy basement, his gaze taking in the dark pantry where he’d been attacked that afternoon by a gang of Doxys that had gotten drunk on a loosely corked bottle of mead. In the opposite corner was Kreacher’s fetid den, its decaying wooden door warm to the touch from the boiler inside that kept hot water clanking through the mansion’s ancient pipes.
"Well," Harry said, puffing out his cheeks, "I’d be happy just to clear out the vermin and other dark stuff. Wouldn’t mind getting rid of the old house-elves’ heads," he added darkly.
"I got a tip from Elphias on some new potions for unsticking permanent sticking charms," Remus offered.
Harry brightened at that and scooped up a forkful of Remus’s soggy peas.
"Right," Remus said brightly, "we’ll go in tomorrow; I’ll see if Mad-Eye’s free."
"Didn’t know Mad-Eye had an eye for interior decorating," Harry said archly.
"It doesn’t have to be Mad-Eye," Remus said reasonably. "Tonks might be available. Or Kingsley."
"I can handle myself you know."
"I know that, Harry, but you can never be too —"
"Oh, come on," Harry groaned. "You’ll be with me, then I’ll be smack dab in the middle of hundreds of people. If Death Eaters want to off me in a public place, they’ll just as easy get me on the way to school or in Hogsmeade or whatever. And what about when I just want to go out for a walk? If you want to have me followed, fine, but don’t ask me to parade around with a dozen Aurors."
"Hardly a dozen," said Remus.
"Feels like a dozen," Harry muttered under his breath.
Remus said nothing to that, but when they travelled into town next morning, Harry was pleased to discover it was just the two of them (or that if there were more, they were hiding themselves well). Strolling down Diagon Alley, Harry drew quite a few curious looks and whispers, which he studiously ignored; he was determined not to let anything spoil his day out. As they passed the Quidditch supplies shop, he stopped to inspect the new broomstick models. An arm reached around his shoulders, steering him away from the window.
"Don’t even think about it, Harry," Remus said, chuckling as they walked away, still with his arm draped around the boy’s shoulders. Harry leaned in a little. It occurred to him that it felt very good to belong to someone again.
Further down Diagon Alley lurked a flamboyantly cheerful new shop. Harry smiled up at the explosive window displays and at the sign etched in the window: Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes. Remus stretched a hand to the door, but it flew open before he could even reach the handle. A young girl burst through the entrance, holding her tongue and sobbing uncontrollably before fleeing down the alley. Harry and Remus jumped out of the way of a harassed-looking woman racing after her. Trailing in their wake ambled a smirking little boy clutching a cellophane bag full of bow-shaped purple toffees.
"Harry!" George Weasley roared. "Come in, come in!"
Fred Weasley popped up from beneath the counter, butterfly net in hand.
"Mr Potter," he cried pompously, "how good of you to call!"
Harry looked around in amazement, his mouth hanging, as the twins greeted Remus.
"Careful, Harry," warned George, "you might want to close your mouth before —"
George broke off as something loud and buzzing zoomed past Harry’s ear. Harry ducked in surprise. "What the ...?"
Fred, net in hand, pounced at Harry, who jumped out of the way.
"Got him!" Fred cried, forcing whatever it was back into a large black hive.
Curious, Harry squinted through a small window in the side of the hive.
Fred leaned down to murmur in Harry’s ear, "Don’t ask." He picked up the hive and hurried with it into a back room of the shop.
"Muggles let you out of your cage for the day, Harry?" George asked him.
"Or did you just blow them up?" Fred suggested cheerfully, returning from the back room.
Harry stared around mesmerised.
"Left them ..." he said absently. "Is that what I think it is?" He pointed to a tiny perfect swamp inside a glass dome.
"Left them?" George said curiously. "What do you mean?"
Harry dragged his eyes away from the shop displays and looked over to Remus.
"Meet my new guardian," he said proudly.
The twins were delighted and hearty congratulations and much hand pumping ensued. Remus pulled George aside and spoke with him in low whispers about something. Harry thought he heard the word ‘birthday’ and smiled at his feet. They could have their little secrets.
"Try this," ordered Fred, offering him what looked like a mint. Harry laughed; did Fred think he was born yesterday?
"Okay," he said, eyeing the mint suspiciously. "What’s in it?"
Fred just wiggled his eyebrows. Harry wasn’t too worried: never since the Tri-Wizard Tournament had the boys slipped him anything really nasty. He put the mint in his mouth, chewed and swallowed. For a fleeting moment, he felt light headed then nothing.
Harry looked blankly at Fred. "Is something supposed to happen?"
Fred just smiled. "Tell me how you feel."
"I feel good."
"Tell me this is the most fabulous joke shop on the planet," commanded Fred.
"This is the most fabulous joke shop on the planet."
"Tell me Snape is an absolute dear."
"Snape is an absolute ass," Harry said, bemused.
"Humour me, Harry. Try to say Snape is an absolute dear."
"Snape is an absolute d-" Harry frowned; he felt physically unable to say the word. He tried again. "Snape is an absolute d-d — git!"
Harry felt briefly light-headed again and looked up at Fred in confusion.
"Soothsayer Mint!" Fred declared. "It’s got a tiny amount of Veritaserum in it. Enough for a sixty second interrogation!"
Harry guffawed loudly. "That’s fantastic! They must take you ages to make!"
"A whole month," Fred agreed. "We’re having just a teeny legal problem actually selling them but nothing a little creative marketing won’t get around."
Harry spent the next hour exploring the shop’s merchandise and accumulating a large pile of items to buy. He felt a little embarrassed he’d chosen so much when Fred and George absolutely refused to take his money. On leaving the shop, Remus cast a dubious eye over Harry’s joke-shop booty.
"I can just tell I’m going to regret this," he observed.
Next stop was Apollo’s music shop, where Harry picked up some new guitar strings and a couple of Weird Sisters’ songbooks. They had little diagrams for where your fingers went on the strings, so Harry expected he’d have it all sorted out in no time. He and Remus spent a good deal of time collecting state-of-the-art cleaning sprays and unsticking potions from the Apothecary. Heavily laden on the train home, it suddenly occurred to Harry that he should have paid for the household shopping; Remus Lupin was hardly made of gold.
"Er … Remus," Harry started tactfully, "let me know what I owe you for all this stuff and I’ll fix you up."
"You don’t need to worry about that," Remus said lightly. Harry’s face must have betrayed his scepticism because Remus added, "Sirius was determined you have a real home; he made ample provision for property maintenance in his Will. Quite an extraordinary amount, actually. I believe he was planning to gut the place and start afresh."
"Right," Harry said, quite relieved. "Um … he didn’t by chance leave any money for food, did he?"
That question drew a rather more arched look.
As usual, the Order was meeting after dinner, leaving Harry at a loose end. When Remus came back upstairs, he found him sitting on his bed, lovingly polishing his broomstick. The man stood in the doorway a moment, looking conflicted.
"Everything okay?" asked Harry.
"Sorry? Oh, yes, everything’s fine. Very quiet, actually. All the patrols have been coming up clear."
Harry waited but Remus didn’t say anything more. He took out a dog-eared notepad from his robes and flicked back and forth through what looked like long lists of numbers and symbols.
"Six hours," he murmured to himself. "Should be enough …"
"Enough for what?" asked Harry curiously.
Still examining his notepad, Remus peeked from beneath his lowered brows, a decidedly Marauder-like grin twitching his lips.
"Meet me on the roof — and bring your broom."
Disillusioned, his hair mad, his eyes watering, Harry soared high over glittering London town knowing this was what it meant to be alive. His guardian flew more sedately, eyes peeled for danger, but couldn’t help but smile and laugh at Harry’s exuberance. Every few minutes, like some airborne puppy, Harry flew rings around Remus, letting loose whoops of joy, just to let him know where he was. They flew for hours following the snaking Thames with more twinkling stars visible from below than above. At last they came in to land in a dark field where Harry stumbled from his broom and collapsed, grinning, onto his back. His Disillusioned body immediately turned green. His grassy chest heaving, he watched Remus drinking from his wand. The man’s hand was shaking.
"You okay?" Harry said, scrambling back to his feet.
Remus waved him off. "I’m fine — fine. Water?"
Harry put out a hand to steady the spurting wand and gulped down a long drink. He was amused to see his hand turn to wood-grain, but he didn’t like how grey and fatigued his guardian looked — and he didn’t fuss a bit when Remus suggested calling it a night. Having had his fun, Harry was content to fly back at Remus’s pace, chatting amiably about nothing in particular. It was nearly one in the morning when they landed back on the roof of Black House. It was a Saturday night and loud music blared from a stereo a few doors down, along with the sounds of jeers and laughter then glass breaking — and more raucous jeers. Seemed like someone was having a party. Harry leaned out over a roof gable, turning into a terracotta gargoyle, watching drunken Muggles tripping down Grimmauld Place, the girls in skimpy skirts, the boys in Burberry. He wondered what Ron and Hermione were getting up to this summer …
"Harry?" There was a clear note of panic in Remus’s voice.
"Sorry, I’m here." He picked his way around the gables and chimneystacks to the flat middle of the roof, where Remus stood, looking tense and alert.
"Inside," he ordered abruptly, not letting Harry dally. He didn’t relax until Harry was safely back in his bedroom and relieved of his Disillusionment.
"Thanks heaps, Moony!" said Harry, full of beans and grinning madly. "Tonight was just brilliant!"
Remus’s smile was weary but warm. Harry pressed his luck and asked if it would be okay for Ron and Hermione to come for a visit. Remus agreed but suggested waiting until after the full moon, which was due in a few days’ time.
"Sleep well, Harry," Remus said, messing the boy’s porcupine hair on his way out.
"You too. Night."
Before bed, Harry sat down to write to his friends but found himself at a complete loss. No words he could think of came close to conveying just how much it meant to him to have a place in a real home at last. He’d even started sleeping properly. He decided his friends would just know how he felt, so he simply penned two short notes, dropping not very subtle hints that it would be great if they could come to visit for his birthday. The moment he sealed his envelopes, Hedwig fluttered down from her perch, executed three dainty hops across the desk and gracefully extended a taloned foot.
"You are such a diva," Harry said, chuckling as he tied the envelopes to her leg. Hedwig cooed demurely before flying purposefully out the window.
Slipping at last into his soft, warm bed, Harry glanced at his clock. In six hours, Remus would be tapping on his door with a hot cup of tea. Harry was growing surprisingly fond of tea.
As he closed heavy eyes, just visible over the London rooftops a plump moon was rising.
Author Notes: