Title: Everything's All Right
Disclaimer: I do not own any person, place or thing you may recognize. I do, however, own St. Elizabeth's Orphanage, Sister Anne, Philip Charles and Violet Mary Potter, renaming Harry as Kurosaki Haru, the names of Hermione's previously unnamed parents and Athens Compendium of Arcane Arts.
Rating: K+
Warnings: mentions of child abandonment and neglect; mentioned canon character 'death' (Voldemort)
Series: Shoot the Moon
Fandoms: Harry Potter and Bleach
Characters: Sirius Black; Masaki, Isshin and Ichigo Kurosaki; Harry Potter (Kurosaki Haru); Hermione and Helené Granger; with appearances by Caspian Granger and mentions of James, Lily and two OC Potter children; Lord Voldemort; Remus Lupin; Peter Pettigrew; Albus Dumbledore; Molly, Fred and George Weasley; Narcissa and Draco Malfoy and an OC nun.
Summary: Sirius Black has spent the last year and a half searching for his godson after the Potters abandoned him at a muggle orphanage. He's finally found the family that adopted young Harry. Now he just has to work up the courage to knock on the door.
Word Count: 2,769
Author's Note: So I know that in most stories where Dumbledore chooses the wrong twin, Sirius often goes right along with the Potters in ignoring Harry in favor of the other twin, while Remus is the only one who finds anything wrong with that.
I wanted to do something different. I love Sirius and wish he had gotten more character development in the series. JKR could have done a lot with him, but she chose not to.
Anyway, as the summary says, Sirius has finally managed to track down Harry, almost two years after the Potters abandoned him, which I explained in "Just Awesome Like That". You don't have to read that one first, as this one does stand on its own, but it will make more sense if you read them in order.
Edit: So I had originally posted this a while ago, however as I was working on later pieces in the 'verse, I began to completely revamp everything, changing who was related to whom and a bunch of other things. As a result, I decided to rewrite this and the other pieces I had already posted.
I made a couple of revisions to this piece. Most of them were stylistic choices as to word choices and sentences structure, as well as a more in-depth explanation as to why James, Lily and Remus were so quick to believe Dumbledore about the whole Boy-Who-Lived thing, but I did make four additional changes.
First, I changed how Hermione was related to Ichigo and Haru, making them third cousins through their mutual great-grandfather, though they have different great-grandmothers. Second, as much as I love Karin and Yuzu, they didn't fit in with where I wanted to go in this series, so I took them out.
The third change is major in a broader sense as it affected the entire series rather than this particular piece. I decided that their parents' generation- while not necessarily magical themselves- were aware of the magic that had run in their family for several thousand years and had already introduced the children to the magical world before Sirius arrived.
Finally, while I was rearranging who was related to whom, and how, I ended up playing with the various timelines in order to make things fit. As I mentioned in the A/N of "Just Awesome Like That", I pushed the Harry Potter timeline up a bit, having Hermione and Harry born in 82 and 83 respectively, rather than 79 and 80. As a result, this story is set in early 1991, with the children being 8 and 7, rather than 11 and 10 and getting ready to start Hogwarts.
Other than that, this piece is essentially the same. It's not necessary to reread as everything in it will come up again in other pieces of the 'verse, but I would appreciate the feedback as to whether everything makes sense.
Either way, let me know what y'all think.
Fae
19 February 1991
Sirius stared up at the house in front of him, snitches fluttering around in his stomach. It had taken two long years, but he had finally tracked down where his godson had ended up.
His face darkened at the thought. He still couldn't believe the people that used to be his best friends. They had just- discarded their oldest son as if he were yesterday's rubbish.
Not that they knew that, of course. There was some sort of mix-up at birth. One of the twins had breached the womb first, but the second had been fully removed first. The midwife had declared that that twin was the firstborn and James had named Philip Charles his heir without being bothered to verify the midwife's words through magic.
No one had thought to question it, not even Sirius. Why would you doubt the midwife, whose very livelihood depended on their trustworthiness?
The events of Samhain eighty-one had merely cemented the Potters' belief that Philip was the firstborn.
The family had gone into hiding because Voldemort was targeting the twins. No one really knew why. At least, Sirius hadn't, and if the Potters had, they weren't sharing. Sirius and Remus had been on a mission for the Order, so when Lily had gone into labor, Peter was the only one available to babysit.
It had been a false alarm (Violet Mary hadn't been born until almost a month later, towards the end of November), but it had given the rat enough time to contact Voldemort.
No one knew for sure what happened that night, but the end result was that Voldemort was driven from his body after turning his wand on the twins. By the time Dumbledore, James, Sirius and Remus had arrived at the house, the back wall of the nursery was gone, with debris from the ceiling and walls blocking the crib.
Philip had been standing up, clutching at the bars of the crib and bawling his eyes out. He had a jagged cut on his forehead that almost looked like a 'V' while Harry was curled up under a piece of drywall, fast asleep.
Dumbledore had taken one look at the scene, performed a single scan over each twin and announced that Philip was the one who had defeated Voldemort. James and Lily had soaked it right up. Remus had been skeptical, but he had eventually been swayed by Dumbledore's reasoning, especially when Harry appeared to be a borderline squib after that night.
Sirius had called bullshit. Yeah, maybe Harry stopped having any obvious bouts of accidental magic, but to Sirius, that was all the more reason to believe that Harry was the one who had defeated Voldemort somehow. Clearly he had depleted his magical core and it just needed time to recover.
Either way, it didn't matter. No matter what he said, everyone believed that Philip was the Boy-Who-Lived and slowly but surely, Harry was pushed aside and neglected in favor of his twin.
Sirius hadn't liked the blatant favoritism or the fact that Harry was always blamed for anything Philip did. It had reminded him too much of how his mother had treated him and his younger brother. He hadn't liked it, but he had understood it.
The Ministry classed magic certain ways. They labeled certain Families light and others dark. They banned certain types of magic for various reasons, most of which came from the fact that the Ministry had no way of controlling it, or those who practiced it.
The truth was that Magick herself had created the distinction between Light, Dark and Gray. Dark Magic was primarily offensive and destructive in nature, while Light Magic was primarily healing and creative. Gray Magic was primarily defensive in nature, while also allowing its practitioners to use some of the other two types.
There had to be a balance, of course, so each person's magical core had a stronger affinity towards one or the other. For most people, that affinity followed family lines. If your father, grandfather and great-grandfather were all Light Wizards, chances were, you would be, too. The same applied for those who came from a line of Dark or Gray Wizards as well.
The only exception was in the case of twins. Twins split the core, with one twin gaining the Dark half and the other gaining the Light half. That's why twins were so much stronger when casting together as opposed to casting by themselves.
In some families, it didn't matter so much that one twin had a Dark core. In the Weasley family, for example, no one really paid much attention to the fact that the older twin had the Dark core while the younger had the Light. They weren't an important enough Light family for it to matter all that much.
The Potters, on the other hand, were considered by many to be one of the Leaders of the Light, even more so after Voldemort's defeat. It wasn't as if they could admit that the Dark twin had defeated the Dark Lord. There would be an uproar and the Ministry and the sheep would be calling for Harry's head, claiming that he was setting himself up to be the new Dark Lord.
So Harry was pushed aside while the Light twin got all the glory and attention.
Sirius did understand the reasoning behind James and Lily's actions, but that didn't mean he had to like it. The Black Family had always been the Potters' opposite. They were the Leaders of the Dark. Sirius had done his best to distance himself from his family's reputation, but only because they had started falling for the common belief about the distinction between Light and Dark rather than because he didn't want to be a Dark Wizard.
He was a Dark Wizard and he was damn proud of it, but that didn't mean he wanted anything to do with the persecution of muggleborns. Magick had given them Her gift for a reason and what right did he or anyone else have to say that She was wrong?
And the only reason he had said that he was ashamed to be a Black was because he felt that they should have more pride than to bow before the whims of a madman who was just as likely to torture his followers as he was to do the same to his enemies.
The Black Family was one of the highest ranked Families in Wizarding Britain. They had been one of the founding members of the British Ministry and they had had a large role in shaping the International Confederation of Wizards.
They did not bow to anyone.
Recent generations of Blacks had disgraced the Family name and that was why he was ashamed to be a Black.
Still, he was fundamentally a Dark Wizard, which was why he felt such a kinship with his godson. He did what he could to make Harry feel loved and wanted, but it was hard since he kept getting sent out on missions to round up the Death Eaters.
Just after Harry's fifth birthday, Sirius had had enough. He had gone to Gringotts in order to name Harry his heir. That was where he found out about the mix-up in regards to the older twin. He had wondered if perhaps it was an honest mistake, but then he remembered that the midwife in question had been Molly Weasley.
They may not be a very prominent Light family after losing their Wizengamot seat some generations back, but they were a solid Light family who practically worshiped the ground Dumbledore walked on. Regardless of anything that came after, there is a certain prestige that came from being the firstborn of any wizarding family. Some theories say that it even gives the child an extra dose of the family's magic.
Sirius wouldn't put it past molly to have decided that the Dark twin couldn't be the firstborn and heir of such a prominent Light family.
However that was nothing more than speculation. The fact was that according to the test he had had done on Harry, Magick considered him the Heir of the Potter Family. And while that was a good thing as far as Sirius was concerned, since it would be the ultimate revenge on the Potters for the way they had been treating Harry, it also put a crimp in his plans.
Since Harry was already the Potter Heir, he couldn't become the Black Heir without James being alerted to that fact. And if James were to find out that not only was Harry now the Black Heir but that he was also the Potter Heir, he would be furious and would more than likely disown Harry so that Philip could inherit instead.
That wouldn't do, as Sirius got a sadistic thrill out of the idea of the neglected Dark twin eventually becoming the Lord Potter and controlling the fate of that family.
Instead of officially making Harry his Heir, he changed his will, leaving Harry everything that wasn't entailed to the Back title. That was almost everything, as one of the past, more paranoid Lord Blacks had un-entailed as much as he was legally allowed to, so that the bulk of the Black estate would go to someone else when his Heir murdered him to become the new Lord Black.
(It was an unnecessary precaution. The Lord died of dragon pox late into his nineties, while the Heir had been killed in a duel some time before that. The entire estate fell to a cousin from a minor branch of the Family.)
But the damage was done and most of the estate could be divvied out as the Lord saw fit instead of being given only to the new Lord. So Sirius left everything to Harry, with the exception of the Black title, the London townhouse, a barmy old house elf and two of the thirteen vaults, all of which went to the next Black male, his cousin Cissa's little brat.
The Potters wouldn't receive a knut.
Of course, then he had gone and nearly died on that next mission for Dumbledore and by the time he finally made it back to Britain, ten months had gone by and the Potters had taken advantage of his absence to abandon Harry at a muggle orphanage, though they hadn't officially disowned him, fortunately.
They had been annoyingly vague as to where exactly they had left their son, so he had wasted several more months tracking it down and once he finally had, it had taken even more time to find out who had adopted Harry and where they had taken him, mainly due to all of the red tape surrounding the adoption.
He had finally managed, though, which was why he was currently standing outside the Kurosaki Clinic in Karakura Town, just outside of Tokyo. He took a deep breath and walked up to the house connected to the clinic.
A woman opened the door. "Can I help you?"
"I hope so. Are you Masaki Kurosaki?"
"I am."
"My name is Sirius Black. Two years ago, my godson's parents abandoned him at a London orphanage. Ever since I found out, I've been trying to find him."
"Why?" she asked, slightly suspicious.
"I want to make sure he's okay. Sister Anne told me that he had been adopted and I have no intention of taking him away from you. I just want to see him and make sure he's happy."
He must have looked miserable, because Masaki took pity on him and stepped back. "Please come in. We have some family over at the moment, but I'm sure Haru would love to know that his Uncle Siri is alive. He was under the impression that you had died."
"I came very close," Sirius admitted as he followed her into the house. "I was in the hospital for a while, then spent some time in New York City, unable to remember anything. As soon as I got my memory back, I rushed home to make sure he was all right, only to discover what the Potters had done. I was furious and I've been searching for him ever since."
They entered the living room where Sirius found a couple sitting on one couch, a man sitting on the other and three children playing on the floor.
"This is my husband, Isshin; my cousin Helené and her husband Caspian. Their daughter, Hermione, is on the floor with my children, Ichigo and Haru. Everyone, this is-"
"Uncle Siri," the boy whispered, staring at Sirius with wide eyes.
The boy looked much healthier and far happier than the last time he had seen him, but Sirius would know those eyes anywhere. "Hey, Pup," Sirius said with a gentle smile.
"Uncle Siri!" Harry exclaimed, launching himself into Sirius' arms. "You're alive! They told me you were dead!"
"I'm not dead, Pup, but I was very seriously injured. As soon as I healed up, I started looking for you."
"You're not going to take him away, are you?" the orange haired kid demanded, scowling up at him.
"Ichigo," Masaki said in warning.
"No, I'm not. Like I told your mother, I simply want to make sure that Harry is happy."
"It's Haru now, Uncle Siri," Harry informed him.
"My apologies, Haru. I am so sorry I wasn't there for you."
"It's not your fault, Uncle Siri. And it worked out. I never would have met Ichigo if they hadn't taken me to St. Elizabeth's that day. I was only there for a couple o days before I got to go home with Mom and Dad."
"I'm glad. I was furious with them when I found out what they had done."
"It worked out in the end," Masaki said. "Ichigo was quite insistent that Haru join the family and we all love him."
'Thank you," Sirius said seriously. "I still can't believe they would do something like that. They aren't the Lily and James that I used to know."
The girl with bushy brown hair walked over to Sirius and tugged on his trousers. "Can you really turn into a dog?" she asked.
Sirius sputtered. "How did-"
The other four adults laughed at his reaction.
"My wife's family may not officially be a Wizarding family, but they are still a Magical Family," Isshin said. "Additionally, there is some non-human blood in my family. Ichigo, Haru, Hermione and two of their other cousins are in their second year at the Compendium."
Sirius stared at Isshin. "You don't mean- The Athens Compendium of Arcane Arts. That is the single oldest, most exclusive schools of magic in the world. It predates Hogwarts by almost two thousand years! How in the world did you get them enrolled in such a prestigious school?"
"Magic is in our blood," Masaki explained. "Helené and I are from one of the oldest and most powerful Magical Families in the world. We can trace our Family back to the two thousand BCs. Several of our ancestors were involved in founding the Compendium. Isshin can trace parts of his family back even farther than that and his human family was one of the founding memebers of the Japanese Council for Magic. Thanks to those and other connections, our children were granted a place at the Compendium, though they have had to prove that they deserve it on their own merits."
"They were especially welcoming after learning that we were from Britain," Helené said. "I assume Hogwarts is your alma mater, however almost no one here in Japan, or anywhere else outside Western Europe has anything good to say about the school, its teachers or its curriculum. To be honest, we're rather dreading Hermione's eleventh birthday."
Sirius frowned slightly. He was rather partial to Hogwarts, yes, considering that was where he had gone to school, but he could admit that the teaching standards were rather ridiculous. He had seen the international standings. They were rated near the bottom of almost every list. And he could admit that there really was no contest when comparing it to the ACAA.
He mentally shook his head. "I'll tell you what, Hermione," he began, looking down at the girl and finally answering her question. "If it's okay with Haru, I was thinking of finding a house nearby, one with a tall fence and a private yard so the neighbors can't see inside. Then I'll introduce you to Padfoot. How does that sound?"
"Yeah!" the three younger kids exclaimed, making the adults laugh.
Oh, yeah, Sirius thought. Everything was going to be just fine.
