*Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Warner Brothers or anything and I'm not JK Rowling, aka our Queen. I just love it a lot.*
"The second man turned at the sound of their footsteps. He too broke off in mid-conversation, his cold gray eyes narrowed and fixed upon Harry's face.
'Well, well, well… Patronus Potter," said Lucius Malfoy coolly.
Harry felt winded, as though he had just walked into something heavy. He had last seen those cool gray eyes through slits in a Death Eater's hood, and had last heard that man's voice jeering in a dark graveyard while Lord Voldemort tortured him."
-Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Ch. 9: The Woes of Mrs. Weasley, p. 154
Sirius Black sat in the dark, silent kitchen of the house he'd grown up in – the house he hated, but couldn't escape. But it wasn't his own problems that were bothering him. He was worried about his godson, Harry Potter, who'd be leaving for Hogwarts in just a few hours, where Sirius couldn't protect him or reassure him.
All summer, Sirius had worried about Harry. How was he dealing with Cedric's death, away from his friends and stuck at Privet Drive with the horrible Dursleys? Sirius couldn't help but think that he was failing his best friend by leaving his son with people who didn't care about him, and by not helping the Order in the fight.
He pressed shaking hands to his face, remembering the broken look in Harry's eyes that had been present ever since he returned from the graveyard; how Harry, polite, independent Harry, had bravely told him he understood that Sirius had to leave and alert the Order when his godson needed him most. He couldn't get the image of Harry's dead body lying on his floor next to a sobbing Mrs. Weasley out of his head, even if it had been a boggart and Harry had been right there, alive and whole.
"Merlin, James," he thought to himself. "I'm so sorry I haven't been keeping our boy safe. But suddenly, his thoughts of shame were interrupted when he heard footsteps on the stairs and the light of a wand blinded him momentarily.
"Sirius," said a hoarse, quiet voice.
"Harry?" he asked confusedly, before a voice that reminded him of Lily told him to act like an adult for once. "Never mind that you shouldn't be doing magic — what are you doing up? The Hogwarts Express leaves in a few hours."
But Harry just looked down at his bare feet, not at all the confident boy he usually was. In those few seconds, Sirius looked at his godson, really looked at him, and saw the way he had an arm folded around himself as if for protection, the defensive but defeated stance he was taking. He was getting more concerned with every weighty second that passed. Finally, Harry answered him.
"I – I had a nightmare."
Sirius's heart ached when Harry's voice cracked on the word nightmare. He cleared his throat and lit the lamp on the table with his wand.
"Why don't you sit down, Harry?" Harry moved tentatively forward, then sat down across from Sirius, but remained silent.
"Harry, please tell me what's wrong. I can't help if you don't tell me what's wrong."
"There's nothing you can do, it's already happened," Harry snapped, just as his face suddenly twisted into a grimace of pure pain and he pulled in on himself more, almost curled up in his chair.
"Harry! Harry, what's wrong? Are you hurt?"
A thousand thoughts ran through Sirius's head as he leapt from his chair and knelt next to his godson.
Did he hurt himself when the Dementors attacked? Did… did the Durselys do something?
The teen's tears fell on Sirius's hands that covered Harry's own as Harry spoke in a voice no louder than a whisper, his skin pale and clammy in the flickering light.
"I've had… a lot of nightmares since what happened in June," he confessed. "Of Cedric dy-dying. Of my parents. But it's never been like this. I can feel it again."
Sirius frowned in concern, unable to shake the feeling that something was very wrong.
"I'm sorry you're having nightmares, Harry. I wish like hell you'd never been through that night, never seen those things. But what do you mean, you can feel it?"
Because something told Sirius that Harry wasn't talking about feeling fear or sadness. At last, his godson met his eyes, and the pain visible in them shook the Azkaban escapee as Harry spoke again.
"When Mr. Weasley and I were leaving the Ministry, we ran into Fudge and – and Lucius Malfoy," Harry choked out. "The last time I saw him, he was wearing a Death Eater hood and laughing. Laughing while Voldemort… hurt me."
Fear and rage warred within Sirius, and he asked the question to which he knew he didn't want to know the answer.
"You told Dumbledore and me that you dueled Voldemort, but you never said what exactly… Harry, how did Voldemort 'hurt' you?"
That was when the Boy Who Lived and had escaped Voldemort so many times in his short life truly broke down, sobbing and clutching at his godfather.
"He used the Cruciatus Curse on me! It hurt so much, Sirius, both times I just wanted to die! I wished it would all end! And then seeing Mr. Malfoy like that today… in my nightmares tonight, He was cursing me again. And even after I woke up, my whole body ached. I'm still getting flashes of it now. I'd never felt the curse again before tonight."
Stunned, Sirius hugged his godson, rubbing circles on his back, unable to believe he'd never realized the ways Voldemort had tortured his godson, using the Cruciatus on him twice! Harry had never mentioned this to him or Dumbledore, and Sirius had been too worked up to notice the trembling in Harry's limbs that must have been present, an after-effect of the curse.
He'd heard sometimes victims felt phantom tremors, had seen Order members experience it, and though he had felt the curse's blinding pain before, he'd been an adult and hadn't felt lingering effects like Harry was now. The Unforgiveable Curses were about the only thing Sirius had luckily escaped growing up in the Black family with pureblood fanatics all around him, and that was a miracle in and of itself. The sight of someone from that terrifying night must have brought it all back for Harry.
"Shhh, Harry. It's okay. It'll be alright, he soothed. "Just hold onto me, that's it…"
There was nothing Sirius could do but try to give Harry strength and support. He decided right then that he'd owl Madam Pomfrey and Professor McGonagall in the morning to make sure they knew to keep an eye on Harry. He knew he could trust them both.
At last, the teen fell into an exhausted and tense sleep, and Sirius gathered him into his arms, carrying him up the steps and to the boy's bed, old pains and a night of torture clear on his face. And there Sirius stayed until he heard Arthur and Molly awaken and Order members knock on his door, dwelling on the wearing night.
He stood from the rickety chair, kissed Harry's forehead, and left the room, realizing exactly why and how he was going to accompany his godson to Platform 9 ¾. "I'll do my best for him, James, Lily. I swear to you."