Disclaimer: Except for a few characters borrowed with permission from whydoyouneedtoknow, this is Jo Rowling's beach, and she has been kind enough to allow persons such as myself to play here. All I'm laying claim to is the design of this sand castle.
When the Wind is Southerly
by MercuryBlue
Chapter 3: Slings and Arrows
Harry blinked up at Black, stifling a yawn.
"Have a nice nap?" Black inquired.
"Sort of," Harry temporized. What's he mean, nap? I couldn't be napping; I wasn't asleep. I was just outside the cave, and then I was back in the cave. I wasn't asleep.
"Hungry?" Black asked, sitting against the wall. Harry sat up and noticed two full paper bags next to Black. "I got sandwich makings and some crisps and all sorts of chocolate. I figure it'll be difficult to ruin any of that in the cooking. And disposable plates and silverware to eat on."
"I can cook," protested Harry, moving to the bags and rummaging in them. He pulled out bread and peanut butter and the packages of paper plates and plastic knives with which to make his sandwich. Black was right; it would be very difficult to make any of this inedible.
"Good, that means the next shopping trip can be a bit more ambitious." Black tore open the bag of Hershey's Kisses, stuffing five into his mouth and leaving the foil crumpled in little balls on the floor.
Harry started tearing apart pieces of bread, crumpling them into half-inch balls, and tossing them across the cave to Hedwig. Black went through eight or ten more Hershey's before starting in on the peanut butter sandwiches. There was absolute silence for several minutes, except for the clicking of Hedwig's beak around the bread balls.
This doesn't make sense, Harry thought. Hermione—here—unless this is France, which is just as likely as its being England. Though it could as easily be anywhere else in the world—France and England are just nearest the Channel.
And Hermione with—a kid brother? Right hair, anyway. Wrong eyes—no, Mr. Granger has blue eyes. So he could be her brother. Except she hasn't got one. Especially not one who looks like—on second thought, I don't know who he looks like. Other than her. Somebody I know, though. I'll figure it out eventually.
And no parents in tow, either. So going mountain hiking wasn't their idea, and I know she's not the mountain-climbing type. She'll read about climbing Mount Everest to her heart's content, but the only thing that will persuade her to try anything like it herself is if the library of Alexandria is waiting for her at the top.
Yeah, this makes absolutely no sense at all.
But she saw me. I know she saw me. She must have heard me. So she knows where I am—so I ought to be rescued soon.
I hope.
But Black said I was sleeping—I wonder—
"Can that owl of yours take a letter to someone it's never seen before?" Black said finally, giving Hedwig a contemplative look and jolting Harry's train of thought off its tracks.
"Her name is Hedwig, and she's never had a problem before," Harry answered, looking at him suspiciously. "Why?"
A shadow crossed Black's face. "I shouldn't have been in Azkaban," he said flatly. "I didn't kill anyone. I know why they think I did—best cover-your-arse ploy I've ever seen—but I didn't." A corner of his mouth flicked up. "Of course, I can hardly stroll into the Ministry and tell them that."
"So you're going to write them instead?" Harry guessed.
"Nah. Nobody'd believe me. What I'm going to do—or I should say, what you're going to do, since I'm left-handed and it's my left wrist you broke. Filling out the Gringotts withdrawal form was more than enough writing for one day. Anyway, you're going to write an old friend of mine, and you're going to put enough hints in the letter for him to figure out what really happened."
"Why not just tell him straight out?"
"He's not going to believe me either. Not if I just tell him. But if he figures it out on his own..."
I don't see the difference, myself, Harry thought.
"See, one of the people I'm supposed to have killed is the one who framed me," Black continued bitterly. "Which will be blindingly obvious, or it ought to be, once Remus figures out Peter's still alive."
"How did you get convicted for the murder of someone who's not dead?" Harry asked, incredulous.
"Bad choice of words, Harry. Convicted implies trial. There was no trial."
Harry stared at him, speechless.
"Oh, I understand why they did it—this was right after James and Lily died, we were still in a state of war, and like I said, Peter did the best cover-your-arse ploy that's ever been. There were a good fifty people on that street who thought they saw me kill Peter and twelve other people with him. With all that evidence, they didn't have any reason to ask my side of the story, and since everyone who'd cared about me was either dead or fled or thought I was a traitor and a murderer, and a nut job to boot, nobody cared enough to get me a trial. Then or ever."
Nobody cared? Do these people even know the meaning of the word justice?
But no sooner had Harry thought this when he realized, no, of course not. Hagrid hadn't killed Myrtle, either, nor Petrified anyone, and he'd still gotten expelled, and tossed into Azkaban for two months after the Petrifactions of Hermione and Penelope Clearwater, and this with no more evidence against him than that something very similar to what had been happening just before his expulsion was happening again. And they'd been wrong then, too.
If he's telling the truth.
"Enough wallowing in misery," Black said suddenly, grabbing another handful of Hershey's and tossing three or four at Harry. "Finish your sandwich and grab some parchment, and we'll get started."
xXxXx
Gertrude Granger lay in the hammock her son had bought her, tied between the two trees in the back yard, a glass of club soda on the ground just within reach (lemonade was traditional, but she despised it) and her book open upside-down on her lap. Most unusually for her, she wasn't reading.
It was a cheesy romance novel, nothing she particularly cared about, but of course romance novels had a distinct tendency to include two or three romantic sex scenes. Which naturally got her thinking about her own sexual fantasies. Dreams, usually, part or all of the night, nearly every night, and it was sexual fantasy with the emphasis on the fantasy. Most women's sexual fantasies, after all, didn't include philosophical discussions with the significant other.
As well, most women's sexual fantasies involved men who either starred in movies or looked like they ought to. Her fantasy man was only a few years older than she was, with prematurely graying light brown hair and scar lines across his pale face, and looking nothing like a movie star. Beautiful eyes, though. Ocean blue eyes she could drown in. Literally, once, or as literal as a dream could be.
Most women's sexual fantasies didn't involve scenes of family life, either. Especially not family life where son and parents all were inveterate pranksters, or where the husband was a werewolf and a wizard. Well, that was what had first told her it was a dream. Her fantasy man was naturally as near a perfect husband and father as was humanly possible (except for the pranking bit, but life would be so boring otherwise), and if magic worked the way it did in the dreams (the question was emphatically not whether magic existed; she had only to look at her son to see it), life would be so much easier.
But then, she had always prided herself on not being most women.
It wasn't real, of course. That hurt sometimes, knowing that it wasn't real. But her fantasy man didn't exist; he couldn't. It wasn't possible.
But oh, how she wished it was...
She closed her eyes. Very often, she knew, slipping into sleep with her fantasy man on her mind would send her straight into dreams where he waited for her. Equally often, once she began dreaming, she need only wait a few minutes and he would join her. About half the time, Alex had beaten them both there, and if Alex was there, odds were that Neenie was too, or would soon join them.
By the same token, about half the time it was just the two of them...
"I wondered if you'd be coming today," said that oh-so-familiar voice.
She opened her eyes and smiled at the blue eyes an inch from her own. "Couldn't stay away." An arm around his neck brought his lips down to meet hers.
Some time later, she was cuddled up against him, the peculiar methods of dreams having been employed to supply them with a light blanket. "Bit of excitement this morning," she commented idly. It was a habit of theirs, to relay the events of their lives to each other. Of course she knew that she was really talking to her subconscious mind, and that it was making up everything he was saying, but dreams were like that, unfortunately. "Seems Petunia Dursley's nephew got kidnapped last night. By Sirius Black."
She heard a quick intake of breath. "Tell me," he whispered. "Everything you know."
"I don't know much. Petunia was too shaken to tell us much. I gather she was the only one capable of giving the police a coherent account of events, though. She certainly seems to have been kept at the station longer than the others. All I know is Black broke into their house, the nephew took him on, the Dursleys ran for it, and when the police came to investigate, Black, Harry, and all Harry's things were gone too."
"Not—Harry Potter, by any chance?" he asked softly. He had gone very still.
"Yes, as a matter of—oh my god." She bolted upright and turned to stare at him. "That's your friends' son."
He had told her all about James and Lily Potter, and all he knew of their son, but neither 'Harry' nor 'Potter' were what one could call uncommon names. It had never once, therefore, occurred to her to connect the quiet, shy boy from two streets over, the curious, intelligent boy she had met on his class trips to the library, the brave, noble hero of the school playground of her son's stories, with the child her dream lover had spoken of.
Especially as neither James nor Lily Potter was reputed to be precisely shy.
If Harry Potter of Little Whinging was the same child as Harry Potter of Godric's Hollow...
But how could he be?
But if he was...
...then her dreams...
...could this be real?
"Dreamweaver," he said softly, probably to himself, because she didn't have a clue what that meant. "You must be a dreamweaver." He sat up as well, his arms going around her by habit. "I don't think this is just your dream. Or just mine."
"But how can this be real?" she asked in a tiny voice. How many times had she woken up alone in her bed? How often had she wished on a star, as childish as that might be, that she could find someone like this man from her dreams? "How?"
"I've got an idea. It's not very common at all, but it's the only thing I can think of...But we both need proof that this is real before we start thinking about how this is possible. I think I am going to wake up and go to Foyles Books on Charing Cross Road in London. You live in Surrey, don't you? So you, Alex, and Neenie should have no problem getting there, right?"
"Alex and me, no. Neenie's in Paris."
He snorted. "We'll figure out something. See you there?"
"Absolutely."
They kissed once, then he faded out of sight as she threw herself into the blurring of the world that meant she was waking up.
Seconds after that, she was lying in the hammock again, staring up at the treetops. It hadn't been all that long; her club soda was still cool.
Five minutes after that, she was pulling out of the driveway, her emotional state somewhere between anticipation and elation, whistling the tune to "Once Upon a Dream" from Disney's Sleeping Beauty (it seemed appropriate, somehow), with a severely confused ten-year-old in the back seat of her pickup.
Please, please, please...
xXxXx
"Think it's done?"
"I can't think of anything to add."
"Anything you want to tell me, you mean." Harry blew across the last line of the letter, drying the ink. "Why do you want him to tell me about it, anyway? And why don't you want to tell him anything straight out?"
"I told you that already." Black—Sirius—leaned back against the wall, hands behind his head, then winced and changed his position so no weight rested on the broken wrist. "He's not going to believe a word I say unless I can prove it to him. I can't prove anything to anyone unless I can show them Peter alive and well. I can't go get Peter for several reasons, among them being that I really want to kill him, and I can't prove Peter's been alive for the past twelve years unless I can show them that he's alive now. And if I make him explain things to you, he'll have to think about them for himself. Which I don't think he ever really did."
"If you say so." Harry folded the parchment over twice, wrote the recipient's name on the outside, and tied it shut with a bit of string. "C'mere, Hedwig."
A few moments later, Sirius was carrying Hedwig out the entranceway to send her off. Harry took the moment to duck into the alcove that was serving as toilet facilities. (How Sirius had arranged it so that what usually went into a toilet instead disappeared as soon as it appeared, without stinking up the cave en route, Harry did not know, and wasn't sure he cared enough to ask.) Then he headed for his trunk. He did have essays to finish, after all.
"What're you getting there?" Sirius asked, reentering the cave.
"Homework," Harry explained, trying not to let it come out in a tone of just-how-dumb-are-you, but succeeding poorly. "Eeny meeny miny moe, catch a tiger by the toe—"
Sirius burst out laughing.
"What? I can't decide which essay to work on first, and that's as good a way to pick as any."
Sirius made an effort to stifle his laughter. "You're going into third year...still got Binns?"
Harry flopped down on top of his trunk, cushioning his face with his hands in the common I'm-going-to-sleep-now sign, and began snoring. A bit theatrical, perhaps, but it provoked another wave of laughter, which was the intended effect. Though it wouldn't have worked, Harry reflected, if Binns hadn't been around long enough to have taught Sirius as well.
Sirius finally managed to choke it down, though, and waved Harry over to the seat beside him on Harry's bed. "Let's get him out of the way first, shall we? Or did you finish the history work already?"
"Not yet."
"Let me guess. Witch hunts."
"Is he that predictable?"
"Dying didn't change his routine, Harry; what makes you think time will?"
"True." Harry thumped down next to Sirius and opened A History of Magic to the appropriate chapter, putting the book on Sirius's lap so that he could use the Charms text as a writing surface. "What do you think of what I've got?"
It might have occurred to him, if he hadn't been so focused on the essay, that it was truly an odd scenario, either for a kidnapper, reputed murderer, and prison escapee to be offering homework help, or for the kidnappee to be so comfortable with the kidnapper as to accept it without question.
Sirius scanned the three paragraphs. "What exactly is your essay topic?"
"'Witch-Burning in the Fourteenth Century was Completely Pointless. Discuss.'"
"Yep, word for word. Want to see something I don't think anyone's noticed for twenty years?"
Harry shrugged. "Why not?"
"He specifically said fourteenth century, correct?" Sirius didn't wait for an answer, instead taking the Charms book from under Harry's essay and flipping through it. "I believe one of your textbook examples is one Wendelin the Weird, of the fourteenth century?" The name Harry knew, and the date sounded right, not that he had a chance to answer. "Who supposedly got caught and burned some forty-odd times, surviving each time by use of a Flame-Freezing Charm. Well, take a look at this." Sirius turned the book towards Harry and tapped a finger on the right-hand page.
The section indicated was indeed about the Flame-Freezing Charm, Flammafrigido. Flick, swish—not that hard. Disperses heat of flames, rendering them harmless and mildly tickling to living things, though still capable of burning firewood and cooking food. Useful for cooking, for exactly that reason. But what...
"Look at the date."
Oh, yeah. History of the charm. The section nobody ever bothers to read. Wait—did someone screw up these dates?
"Yes, that says the charm was invented in 1786. Which in fact it was. My five-greats-grandfather Sirius left a diary in the family library, stating among other things how proud he was of inventing it. Apparently my five-greats-grandmother Lucinda was fond of cooking, but couldn't go more than a week without scorching herself on the kitchen fire."
Harry took another look at the history book. Wendelin the Weird's death date was quite some time prior to 1786.
"Oh, I'm sure it's possible that Wendy there got herself burned as often as she said she did. Lily thought she'd figured out how, too, though she said she had no idea where Wendy was getting herself burned, since witches in England apparently never got burned, only hanged or drowned. Anyway, she found an old story that says Godric Gryffindor could command fire and never got hurt by it, and since the same story says his kids had the same trick, probably anyone descended from Godric has it too. Since nobody knows anything about who's descended from the Founders, Wendy could easily have been a descendant of Godric's, and that's how she kept the fire from hurting her. But it certainly wasn't a Flame-Freezing Charm she was using to do it."
"That doesn't make sense, though," Harry said slowly. "Did Madam Bagshot make a mistake, or..."
"Or are they lying to you? I've no idea. Write your essay. I think you've got plenty to write about, now. Pity nobody but Binns will ever see it."
Harry snorted and set to work.
xXxXx
It was not often, Remus Lupin reflected, that one knew the place and time at which he would meet the girl of his dreams.
It had been an hour, or nearly, since waking up from the dream in which he had realized that Gertrude Granger was a dreamweaver. It couldn't take much longer than that for her to get to London from Little Whinging. She liked fantasy books, he knew, as, she knew, did he, so the fantasy section was a logical place to wait.
He was a patient man. That didn't mean he was fond of waiting.
"Excuse me," said a child's voice.
A familiar child's voice.
Remus half-turned, taking a step back, eyes automatically sliding down to the approximate height of the speaker. He was a boy of about ten, as expected, brown-haired and pale, and slightly scruffy-looking. And very, very familiar.
"Alexander?" Remus asked hoarsely.
"Yes, Da—er—yes, sir." The boy's blue eyes shone with joy, despite the flash of chagrin at his verbal stumble. Almost without thought, Remus stretched out a hand to ruffle Alex's hair, as he had done so often in dreams. Alex grinned.
Someone cleared their throat behind Alex. Remus looked up.
Chocolate brown eyes, a cascade of brown curls, even the navy denim shorts and "Stella Iter: audacter ire ubi nemo ante iit" T-shirt she'd been wearing earlier that afternoon. As if his dream had come to life.
Perhaps because we've been living in a dream...
"Danger," Remus said in greeting. "I don't suppose you recall who won at hearts two nights ago?"
She frowned. "Alex, of course. Somehow it always is." She paused. "Making sure I am who I look like? All right, smart guy, who lost?"
Remus winced. "Me. Repeatedly." Getting the Queen of Spades six times in a row had seriously dented his morale along with inflating his score. Losing the next three games they'd opted to play hadn't helped his mood any. "Have I told you lately that you're beautiful?"
"In your dreams."
Several heads turned towards them, obviously wondering what the trio found so hilarious.
Ten minutes later, the three were settling down to shepherd's pie at the Leaky Cauldron. Explanations, of a great many things including why Danger hadn't seen the pub till her son pointed it out, were easier to deliver when the people who weren't currently talking had something with which to occupy their mouths, preventing them from interrupting and by extension keeping the discussion on track.
That was the theory, anyway. In practice, the initial explanation of magic got quickly side-tracked into mind-magic, particularly dreamweaving. That segued into a discussion of lycanthropy, which took a left at Albuquerque because Remus didn't want to get into anything regarding Animagi and headed off in the direction of rights accorded to various classes of magical beasts, beings, and spirits, which via a query about Nearly Headless Nick became a game of Twenty Questions about Hogwarts, which...
In short, the conversation was very long.
It was nearing eight-thirty when someone held the door to London open for a minute, letting out someone else with a few packages too many to carry one-handed, and letting in a snowy owl with a folded piece of parchment in her beak. The owl soared overhead straight to the table where Remus, Alex, and Danger sat, dropped the parchment into the center of the table, and landed neatly on the back of the empty chair.
Remus picked up the parchment and looked at it, and kept looking for a long moment.
"Something wrong, love?" Danger asked.
"Yes. No. Maybe. I don't know."
"Descriptive," Alex commented.
Remus sniggered, but sobered almost immediately. "If I didn't know better," he said slowly, "I'd think this was James Potter's handwriting."
"But since he's dead...his son?" Danger wondered quietly.
"Only one way to find out, isn't there?" Remus said rhetorically. He undid the string and unfolded the letter, scanning its length.
When he reached the signature, he stared at the letter for a moment, then began again at the top. It could not possibly be what he thought it was. No, it was signed Harry Potter, in a handwriting incredibly like James's, and the first paragraph named James Potter, Lily Evans, Sirius Black, and Aletha Freeman in such a way that only people who'd been at the wedding (and read Much Ado About Nothing) would understand...
Just how stupid am I? Remus thought suddenly. Danger had told him Sirius had taken Harry. She'd told him straight out. And he, fool that he was, had missed that little detail entirely, focusing instead on the fact that if they had both seen the same person in the flesh, then neither could be a creation of the other's dreaming mind.
Remus John Lupin, you are an idiot.
"We've got to go," Remus said abruptly, rummaging in a coat pocket for some gold to pay for the half-eaten shepherd's pies. "This has to get to the Ministry."
"Why?" Alex asked.
Remus explained about the Boy Who Lived and the man who had betrayed his family, as tersely as he could, on the way out the door. The Ministry visitors' entrance wasn't close, but it wasn't far either, and the explanation took up most of the walk.
Then they were there, at the decrepit phone booth. Remus waved Danger and Alex inside, squashed himself in after them, and grabbed the receiver. "Six, two, four, four, two," he muttered, poking each button as he named it. Danger and Alex snickered. Remus ignored them. Owning a Muggle telephone himself, he had long since figured out that M-A-G-I-C was entered as 6-2-4-4-2.
"Thank you for visiting the Ministry of Magic," said the pleasant voice of the greeter spell. "The Ministry is presently closed. Please return at nine a.m. on Monday, or make an appointment. Thank you and have a pleasant evening."
Alex gawked. Danger muttered something unpleasant-sounding. Remus cast a Silencing charm on himself and began systematically swearing the air blue.
A/N: Reviews are good. Flames are bad. Praise is nice. Constructive criticism is preferred. Questions are welcomed. Proper grammar is appreciated. Email addresses are required if you want a reply. Clear enough?
