Sirius
"You are truly your father's son, Harry…"
Tired and hungry, Sirius dragged himself on shore, away from the water. Teetering unsteadily on his feet, he shook himself, shaking away water from his water-logged mane. Tongue lolling out of his panting mouth, the black dog padded slowly up the gentle slope, towards the trees and the shade where he could rest.
Two years ago, Sirius had broken out of Azkaban once he saw the picture of Pettigrew in Egypt with the Weasleys, and found strength in his desire for revenge. Hunting down Pettigrew in Hogwarts was not easy, even with the help of a Gryffindor girl's cat, Crookshanks. Once the rat had heard the 'mass murderer Black' is out, Pettigrew had holed up with his owner as often as possible. Remus found Sirius after following Crookshanks one night. Luckily, his old friend had heard him out.
Sirius patrolled around Hogwarts for half a year before he finally found his chance, and concocted a plan with Remus. Remus had asked Ronald Weasley about his rat, and commented that he might have something to help the animal if it was suffering from something Dark. The poor kid was so anxious about his rat that he agreed, and brought 'Scabbers' in a cage to the professor's office. The rat had gotten so frenzied as it neared Professor Lupin's room, and had started scratching frantically. Inside, Professor Dumbledore was called by Lupin via the floo network and was waiting, not knowing what was going on.
Remus shooed Weasley off to one side while taking the cage to a table, then stunned the rat and opened the cage, letting the limp body fall out. Sirius had bounded out of the back room in his dog form and watched as Lupin casted the revealing charm, producing a stunned and balding man, lying on the table.
The rest passed by as a blur to Sirius. From the Veritaserum, Peter had confessed everything, with three witnesses – Professor Dumbledore, Ronald Weasley, and Snivellus. The greasy git was the one getting the serum at Dumbledore's request. In the next month, a proper trial was held, and he was freed, cleared of all charges and left the Ministry with a hefty sum of compensation money. To comfort the distraught Weasley, Sirius bought a midget of an owl to Ron, who seemed to enjoy his gift despite his grumblings about the animal's energy. But all throughout the year, there was no Harry.
After the trial, Dumbledore had invited Sirius into his office, with Lupin and McGonagall present. The headmaster told him the truth.
"Sirius, my boy, regarding Harry–"
"Where is he?"
"…I'm afraid, that he is currently missing."
"What? What do you mean, missing?"
"Now, Sirius, calm down, and let us explain." Remus laid his hand on his friend's shoulder.
"Three years ago," McGonagall started "when we sent the Hogwart's acceptance letter, there was no reply from Mr Potter at all.
"There was a problem, so Rubeus was sent to induct Mr Potter."
"He returned without young Harry, carrying the most troubling news." Dumbledore took over, staring out the window sadly. "Harry is not within the residence of the Dursleys.
"Arabella Figgs was not close to the Dursleys. The few times she had seen a young boy with black hair going in and out of the Dursley home turns out to be young Dudley Dursley's friend. She never got close enough to ask for the boy's name, and had thus thought him to be our Harry.
"We had sufficiently suppressed the media and diverted their attention from Harry's disappearance. The story was that young Harry will be joining Hogwarts few years down the track, as he preferred to be taught privately for now.
"How long has Harry been missing?" Sirius sagged down into the armchair behind him, shocked.
"Severus had questioned the Dursleys. Harry had disappeared one night, soon after his fifth birthday."
"Why hadn't they said anything about it then? Why didn't they contact you?" Sirius asked frantically. Dumbledore looked sorrowfully at Sirius. It was McGonagall who answered with a scowl.
"They abhorred Mr Potter. According to Severus, they are 'glad that the freak is gone'."
Dumbledore turned away to look at Fawkes, petting him absentmindedly as the phoenix crooned comfortingly at him, the guilt evident on his aged face.
Sirius stared numbly at his hands. He spoke softly.
"Well, do you know where his is now? It's been three years after all…" Sirius trailed off as he saw the dejected looks on all three faces in front of him.
"You didn't find him?" He croaked out feebly.
"We're doing all we can, my boy, but we cannot find him. We have people looking all over for him, extending our search well beyond England, but alas…" Dumbledore sighed. Pale blue eyes, twinkle long gone, looked into Sirius' eyes.
"We cannot find him…"
For the next year and a half, Sirius had joined the frantic search for one Harry Potter. Each and every time, they come back empty-handed. It was now a quarter of the way through what was supposed to be Harry's fifth year already. That horrid woman, Umbridge, was creating mayhem at the school. Fudge was getting increasingly paranoid about Dumbledore stealing his 'rightful position' as Minister of Magic, and refused to believe in the return of You-Know-Who. Snape could be seen coming in and out of Hogwarts, and Sirius does not envy him, knowing what temper the Dark Lord could unleash upon his followers for not finding the missing boy, so eager was the dark wizard to get his hands on the 'privately tutored' Harry, intent on getting to his target before Harry comes into the safe confines of Hogwarts.
Sirius still hated the greasy git, but he no longer hounded Snape about his Mark. After watching the Potions Master clenching his left arm with a white face and thin lips for a year, Sirius decided to let the issue go. No one knew better of the error they made by serving the Dark Lord than Snape.
Then, by a miracle, they got a lead.
The fifth owl to be sent with Harry's Hogwarts letter came back, but this time, without a letter. This could be because of interference from the weather or by people, but it was something. They decided to send another owl, a snowy white owl called Hedwig that was meant to be Harry's 11th birthday gift from Hagrid. They attached another Hogwart's letter, with Hedwig's name in it for Harry to keep the owl, and spelled a homing spell on the owl. Dumbledore also put a spell on the letter to translate the contents into whatever language Harry is speaking when he opened the letter, just in case he had, on the off chance, forgotten English.
They sent her off.
A few weeks later, the homing spell alerted Dumbledore that the owl had come in contact with somebody. It showed that Hedwig never left that person's side. For Hedwig, who knew that Harry Potter was going to be her master, would never stay with someone voluntarily for long periods of time unless it was Harry. If Hedwig was kept without her will, a protection spell Dumbledore had put on Hedwig would go off and transport the owl back immediately.
They were ecstatic. They had found Harry! A closer look at the homing spell, which showed up as a holographic map above a diamond, indicated that Harry is somewhere in Asia, near Japan. Sirius decided to go and investigate.
It wasn't until a month later that Sirius stumbled upon something, completely by accident. At the beaches of Shikoku (Sirius have no idea which town or city he's in except the general area of which part of Japan he's in), Sirius felt the brushes of magic. It was like not other magic Sirius had encountered though. He decided to head further east and bordered a ship. It was a cargo ship, heading to somewhere call Saipan, but Sirius doesn't mind. He sneaked in in his dog form.
To the east of Japan is a great expanse of nothing, unless you count the little islands dotted here and there. Halfway to the destination, Sirius did the stupidest thing. He slipped and fell off the side of the ship.
Sirius could've transformed back into human and use magic, but the shock of hitting the water rendered him unconscious instantly.
He could've died.
His body could be lost in the oceans between Japan and Saipan, and no one would know where his body will be. But he didn't die. Instead, he had woken up at a shore.
Sirius reached the shade and peered out behind the tree trunk. Just up ahead was a village dwelling of some sort. Forget shade, perhaps he could beg some food there.
The black dog padded steadily towards the houses. As he neared, he spotted the market. Tongue lolling out in a friendly doggy grin, Sirius headed towards the crowd. After some begging, Sirius is happily eating a chicken leg (with more chicken in the bucket next to him, given to him by a generous stall owner.
Sirius noticed a significant change though. The people were speaking in another language. They spoke enough of Japanese to allow Sirius to understand through the translation potion that he drank, though there were differences here and there to indicate that he was not in main land Japan anymore. Another thing he had noticed was the strange men and women wearing odd clothing (odder than kimonos anyway, Sirius simply couldn't tell the benefits of wearing those) and had a strong smell of metal and blood.
Listening in some more, he gathered that these are 'shinobi', which are ninjas, which are something that Sirius didn't read up a lot on when he was preparing to go to Japan.
After a day of lolling around the town, Sirius found that he was in the 'Wave Country', just outside the 'Fire Country'. Names which Sirius had never even heard of and was pretty sure that they were not on the Atlas he had read back in England.
He slept outside in the trees. The next day, strength restored, Sirius trotted out of the town to explore. He arrived at 'The Great Naruto Bridge' (what a Naruto is he had no idea) and stilled. Prior to leaving, Dumbledore had handed him a blanket of Harry's to sniff at, to get his scent. The scent had faded, but with the dog's superior sense of smell, he got hold of it. Harry smelled like Rowan and citrus – a weird combination, but that was Harry's unique scent.
Sirius smelt Rowan and citrus now – along with the heavy scent of blood. Blood had faded, but he estimated that it was probably just over a month ago. Sirius immediately followed the trail. He headed back into the woods, and had to back-track quite a few times to catch that fading scent. It helped that he smelt the musky and sweet scent of Hedwig.
With growing excitement, Sirius turned back into human and spelled himself to be able to smell scents ten times more powerful than normal. Changing back into his Animagus form, he continued the much clearer trail, tracking well into the night.
Three days later, an exhausted but triumphant Sirius sagged under a tree, staring at the rickety motel in front of him. Harry was travelling with another person. To Sirius, the other male smelled like the morning dew on grass and lime. What concerned Sirius was the both males smelt heavily of blood and metal. He spotted something white fluttering towards a window in the second level of the building, and saw the unmistakeable form of Hedwig. A pale hand opened the window, letting the owl to land on the covered arm.
Sirius sighed in relief. He swiftly changed back into human and dispelled the scent increasing spell before turning back into a dog. He could afford himself some well-deserved rest before coming into contact with Harry.
Before falling asleep, Sirius wondered what his godson's like.
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Author's Note: There is a poll going on concerning the relationship between Haku and Zabuza, so please vote and help me make up my mind!
These are the choices:
1 Mentor/Teacher and Student or Collegues
2 Master and Subordinate (they're already like that, but make that relationship stronger)
3 Friends (or as close as they can to friends still with master/subordinate in it)
4 Lovers (or going to be lovers in the near future, which means this story will be yaoi in T rate)
5 Undefined/Complex (All mentioned relationship combined. Haku may have some feelings for Zabuza, but doesn't know it yet)
6 Complex (similar to Undefined/Complex, but without any amorous feelings towards one another)
6 Other (please PM author for your opinion in this case)
The poll for 'Hogwarts and the Lost Shinobi' is officially closed. And the the poll for 'All For You' is officially open!
Deadline for 'All For You' is indefinite right now, but the ideal deadline is on Friday, May 8th, GMT+10:00 at 5pm. PLEASE VOTE.