Take Care Of Yourself
Chapter seven: Breaking out is hard to do
[Characters and setting belong to J K Rowling. Everything else is my own.]
"Finite." Remus waved his wand over the vibrant green gown, and Harry's transfiguration spell faded, leaving his regular grey clothes.
"Moony in a dress," Young Harry burbled.
"Moony was in a dress," Lupin sighed. "Sadly, not for the first time, but hopefully for the last."
"Never say die, Moony. Juice?" Harry ambled through the doorway, a bottle in one hand and several mugs in the other.
"Thanks, yes."
"Juice, Harry?"
"Juice!"
"I'll take that as a yes, then."
"Yes!"
"How was he?" Lupin asked.
Harry poured three mugs. "Awake and talking, if a bit confused. I got him to sign the forms, so that's our safeguard in place if the Ministry finds us."
"Talking? That's good. Did he say much?"
"He thought I was my dad, and wanted to know whether you hated him and why Harry got stuck with the Dursleys."
Lupin nodded and sipped, then made a face. "I'm sure this was apple juice when I bought it."
"I transfigured it into pumpkin juice."
"I hate that stuff. You realise Hogwarts is practically the only place in Britain that actually serves it?"
"I assume Dumbledore's preparing to start a cartel, by getting the students hooked before their brains are developed enough to know it. Where does it come from, then?"
"The house elves make it from those huge pumpkins Ogg and Hagrid grow."
"I never met Ogg. Before my time. But I remember Hagrid's pumpkins from every Halloween." Harry frowned, and put down the mug. "I just had a vivid image of house elves juicing pumpkins with their feet, like wine-makers."
Lupin winced. "Speaking of rampant insanity, did Padfoot seem ...all there? People can go mad in Azkaban pretty easily, and even his dog form can't have protected him fully. Your younger self has just dribbled juice on your pants, by the way."
Harry grimaced and conjured a sponge. "I only had a few minutes with him, Moony, and I'd only just brought him round. He didn't do anything weird, although he thought he was dead at first."
"Okay. Well, we'll see. Any trouble from the Aurors?"
"Nope. Elder wand plus the element of surprise." Harry sank down on the sofa, still dabbing at his trouserleg. "Thank god it's Friday." The toddler Harry took the opportunity to wipe his face on the other leg.
Remus smiled faintly and sat down on the armchair opposite. "Given what you've done in the last fortnight, I thought you were some sort of machine."
"Nope. I've got my sights on a three-year holiday once all this is over."
Hermione rolled her eyes from her portrait above the fireplace. "You're going to be helping to bring up a child, remember?"
"Crap."
"So what's the schedule for the weekend?" Remus asked. "Round up all the Death Eaters, destroy Voldemort's soul, find his inferius weapon, afternoon tea, institute regime change at the Ministry, then an evening in front of the telly?"
"Har har," Harry said, picking up the toddler and plonking him in his lap along with his sipper cup. "You're a mucky pup, you know that?" He addressed the child.
"No," he continued to Moony, "I did have a personal project to work on tomorrow, and I wanted it ready by the time we got Sirius out of hospital. But since he was so lucid, I might push our schedule ahead by a few days and bring him back here tomorrow."
"What? Seriously? How?"
"You'll see."
"Why change the day?" said Hermione, frowning slightly. "We already planned this out. You don't even know if he should be discharged so soon."
"Well, he's awake now. I'm sure the Healers are only keeping him in on the Ministry's orders, and it's not like we won't make sure he keeps up appointments with a mind Healer until he's better. But if we get him tomorrow, he can recover among friends. And then there's the element of surprise, too."
Lupin and Hermione each arched an eyebrow, almost in concert.
"Well, there is," Harry protested. "They'll never expect me to break into the hospital again the very next morning!"
Remus sighed, and scratched his head. "What project?"
"Huh?"
"What was the project you were going to work on?"
"Oh, right." Harry smiled and drew himself up proudly. "I-"
"Animagus transformation," said Hermione.
Harry pouted. "You ruined my big moment."
"Animagus? Really? That's great! You never mentioned you were following in your father's footsteps. What's your form?"
"Silencio," said Harry hurriedly, pointing his wand at Hermione's portrait, and then at the locket around his neck. "It's a surprise and nobody is to spoil it. I'll show you and Sirius in a few days, once I'm finished. I've almost got it, I just need to learn how to transform at will, instead of using the meditation and spell each time."
"Siletty-o," younger Harry chuckled. His older form patted him on the head in approval.
Remus was frowning. "That last part – mastering the transformation – took James a week, and he was faster than either Sirius or Peter."
Harry waved his hand dismissively. "He was what, fifteen? Anyway, I'll just take a few extra relative days using a time turner. Lock myself in a different spare room each time."
Lupin blinked. "Oh, so that's how you're finding the time to do everything."
"Harry James Potter!" Hermione's voice suddenly yelled from her portrait upstairs. "Unsilence my pictures right now or I'll tell Remus not just your animagus form, but that you're scared of pixies!"
"...You're scared of pixies?"
Harry sighed and waved his wand at the locket around his neck.
"I'm not scared of pixies."
"He is," Hermione said, appearing in the portrait and looking smug.
"I'm not! They- they have these tiny hands, okay? And – look, just shut up. I'm not really scared of them, they just freak me out. Your boggart is a full moon."
"That's a low blow," Moony scowled.
Harry flicked his fluorescent lighter, and green sparks roared out of the wide brazier.
"Green for go."
"Good," Hermione said. "But screw the casing back on, the last thing you need is to trip over some wires and get stranded."
"Very true." Harry wiggled the curved brass plate into place, then sent the screws into place with a flick of his wand. "What would I do without you, Hermione? Don't answer that. There - done, and dusted." He dusted his hands to demonstrate, and kicked a handful of spare parts under the kitchen table.
"Did you check each connection?"
"Yup."
"Do you have your Floo powder?"
"Yes, mom."
"Oh, don't pretend that you wouldn't forget things like that if I didn't remind you."
Harry grinned at her, then looked across to Lupin, who was watching with amusement. "Okay. I've reconnoitred the hospital-"
"With the number of times you've broken in, they should really just install a door with your name on it. A revolving door." Hermione warmed to her topic. "And perhaps the name could be on a tasteful bronze plate like the doctors' offices have. Harry Potter, MD."
"MD?"
"Menace, Damnable," Remus supplied.
Harry shook his head, and began again. "I've reconnoitred the hospital, and there's only one way we're getting in. They seem to have detected the pattern, since they've stepped up security yet again. Anti-Apparition, anti-Portkey, probity probes, mirrors of True Seeing, the works."
"Honestly. Don't they have dark wizards to catch?" Hermione asked scornfully.
"To be fair, I probably seem – well, if not dark, then at least rogue. You know, what with stunning all those DMLE officers..."
Remus sighed. "With everything you've done, the Unspeakables are probably after you. Are you certain they can't detect your time-turning shenanigans?"
"No."
"Okay. Well, if we're not going soon, you'd better go redo the child ward in the living room."
"We're going, we're going. Keep your pants on."
"So are you going to tell me what this is for?"
Remus tapped one finger against the large engine he was sitting on. It looked like a hefty tractor engine, but was painted bright blue.
Harry walked over with the brazier in his arms, and deposited the metal bowl on top of the engine. "Yup. It's for getting in." With a swish of his wand, the engine roared into life, then quietened to a busy purr.
"That's particularly obtuse of you. What about your, er, disguise? Care to explain that?"
Harry adjusted said disguise. "Nope."
He glanced at his watch, and read aloud, "Sirius: hospital bed; Higgs Memorial Ward. Ah. Clever. Looks like they moved him to a completely different room." He tapped his wand repeatedly against the side of the engine, mumbling "H-i-g-g-s-M-e-m-o-r-i-a-l-W-a-r-d," as he did so.
"Are you holding on tightly, Moony?"
Remus adjusted his grip on the thrumming engine. "You haven't said what it's going to do, yet."
"This."
The engine roared.
The kitchen emptied.
They reappeared in a hospital room.
"Expelliarmus! Stupefy! Ha, got you. Stupefy! Impedimenta! Yeah, eat that."
Harry sent a volley of weaker nonverbal stunners between each of his spells, and had taken down all three of the Aurors before Remus had even relaxed his death grip on the engine.
The werewolf blinked at the white lights, rows of beds, and trio of unconscious wizards. "What the hell was that? Some kind of weird portkey?"
Harry was sealing up the door. The alarm had been raised almost immediately, but his transfiguration of the entire wall and doorway into a lattice of steel and titanium should work. It had practically drained his magical energy, but would take quite some time to dispel. He cast a final variant of the Impervius charm which Dumbledore had suggested, and turned away from the wall.
"You know the Knight Bus? Turns out Australia has the same system, except they have a couple of vans trundling round the whole continent. I bought up an old engine from the company, at an extravagant price, and brought it back in time."
"Why would that let us- wait, how does the Knight Bus work?" Remus frowned. "I've never really thought about it."
"It's a funny thing," Harry said, adjusting his disguise again. "When wizards want to travel, they always think of broomsticks, Apparition and Flooing. But there's so many esoteric alternatives – phoenixes, portkeys, thestrals, Vanishing cabinets, house elf apparition, flying carpets …and the Knight Bus."
"Essentially, the Knight Bus Apparates into commute-space, and then just drops out back into real space according to an algorithm that reads muggle signposts," Hermione said from Harry's neckline. "Things like anti-apparition wards won't even detect it coming in, let alone stop it, since the entry is only the cessation of a magical effect."
Remus scratched his head. "But they'll stop it getting out, if it Apparates to- whatever you said."
"Which is why we have the portable Floo, since it has the exact opposite problem," Hermione was saying. "It can travel from anywhere, but only goes to places we've specially set up."
Harry had walked over to the sole occupied bed in the room. The gaunt figure of his godfather was slowly clapping in admiration.
Remus followed him. "Hello, Padfoot. You're looking well."
"Moony!"
The two clasped hands.
"Prongs says you ...know what happened? About us switching Secret Keeper?"
"He's not Prongs," Remus said, a note of sadness in his voice. "But yes, I know. We're here to bring you home, Sirius, unless you're having too much fun watching the nurses come and go."
"They're all old and gnarly," Sirius said, eyes a little wild. "Old nurses! They never tell you about those before you go and land yourself in Hospital. They could halve their intake!"
"I suppose they can't afford to lose the business."
"As much as I hate to break up your reunion," Harry broke in, looking pleased that the two had immediately started conversing, "That sound of muffled spellfire means we have to speed things up a little."
Sirius looked at him in confusion, and with good cause.
Harry was wearing an outrageous moustache, obviously fake. The first clue was the pink plastic nose it was attached to. And then there was the elastic.
Why he would be wearing an obviously fake disguise was unclear, especially since he had also gone to the effort to magically grow a huge, lush beard on his chin.
Harry beamed down at him, and waggled the plastic moustache. "Pretty good, huh?"
"James-" Sirius shook his head. "Whoever you are. ...Alright, I'll bite. Why a horrendously fake moustache and a real-looking beard?"
Harry leaned in close. "This way, if I'm seen, they'll only notice the ridiculous moustache part of my disguise. So they'll assume the beard is real! Then they go off chasing after a man with a beard. By which time I've shaved it off."
Sirius nodded slowly.
Remus stared at Harry for a moment, then turned. "Come on, Padfoot, up you get."
"I'm not sure I can walk." Sirius rubbed distractedly at his side. "The Healers put me on muscle restorers, muscle relaxants and muscle bloody everything once they saw I was awake."
"Fine. I'll help you." Lupin reached out, then paused and wrinkled his nose. "If you're naked under those sheets, now's the time to say."
Padfoot lifted the blanket and peeked. "No... but I think it's one of those open-backed hospital gowns."
Lupin grimaced. "Delightful."
"Allow me." Harry leaned over, tugged down the sheets, and transfigured Sirius' hospital clothing into a tracksuit. "Now, let's blow this Ice Mice stand."
His walk back to the engine turned into a jog as a boom shook the room. The wall suddenly dented inwards. Someone was yelling some sort of demand on the other side, but it was too muffled for them to hear it properly.
A shrinking charm turned the engine into a curious paperweight, which Harry put in his pocket, and he lit the brazier.
Remus staggered up with Sirius in a fireman's lift.
"Padfoot, tuck your arms and legs in, or you'll clip the sides of the fireplace. Just stand in the dish, Remus, and Floo like normal." Harry fumbled in his pouch for a handful of Floo powder, and threw it into the flames."
Moony stepped into the dish without hesitation, groaning under Sirius' weight, and called, "Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place!"
Harry caught the start of Padfoot's anguished wail as the pair disappeared.
Harry fell out of the fireplace, landing heavily on Moony and Padfoot, who were grumbling on the tiles.
A moment later, the brazier itself tumbled out after him, unfolding from a peculiar chrysanthemum shape in the middle of a ball of green flames. It rolled across the kitchen floor, setting fire to Lupin's trousers.
"That Floo thing," Remus said, struggling out from under Sirius, "Is really, really clever. Aguamenti."
"It hijacks the nearest Floo connection," Harry said, sitting up and brushing soot off his clothes. "Lets you jump in, as long as there's nobody currently using it. Unfortunately, it causes haywire with the grid unless it's been specially upgraded to work with roaming connections. I probably knocked out the Floo of half of London just now. No idea how it works, I'm not sure even Hermione knows all the ins and outs. "
"I'm getting there."
"So how did...?" Remus began, helping Sirius prop himself up against the table. "Oh, you can stand, you great git."
"The Canadians invented it, at some point in the future, since they rely on Floo a lot."
"Really?"
"Oh, yes. It's quite fascinating. The Americans learn Apparition very early, because they don't have a public Floo network at all. The Europeans, on the other hand, use some clockwork system the Swiss developed. And there's this thing they have in India, where they draw these concentric circles with coloured sand..."
Harry met Padfoot's eyes gravely. "It's not too late to go back to St Mungo's, you know."
Sirius wasn't sure exactly where he was. He'd thought it was meant to be the Black home, but there were colours around him.
Moony and the man with the stupid beard who looked like Prongs were helping him to a bed, that bit he understood. The stairs were difficult to navigate, and everything was so weirdly clean.
He also had no idea why they had arrived at the first floor landing, only to have a portrait of a young lady with bushy hair shout "PUREBLOODS! PUREBLOOD SCUM IN MY HOUSE!" and then grin infectiously at him.
But he recognised the small grey creature that had popped onto the stairs in response and was staring avidly at him.
"Please let this be a bad dream."
"Oh, dear," Hermione muttered.
"Kreacher was tricked," the house elf squealed, hopping from one foot to the other and wringing at his ears. "Oh, how Kreacher was cruelly tricked. Kreacher was promised a magnificent new Lord Black, not the wretched, traitorous scion. Take it back! Bring a new one! A fresh Lord Black for Kreacher!"
"Oh gods," Sirius moaned. "Oh Merlin, kill me now. Not Kreacher too, on top of the ancestral home. I don't want to have to deal with this."
"Do you realise he was on the same side as your Master Regulus, fighting Voldemort?" Harry asked the house elf brightly.
"Does not matter. Was cast out. Was blood traitor. Was..." Kreacher's hand began inching towards a heavy-looking vase standing on a plinth.
"Kreacher! Go to Regulus' room and stay there!" Sirius managed.
The house elf began to turn an angry red colour, but snapped his fingers and disappeared.
Remus and Harry negotiated Sirius up the stairs between them, and he collapsed into a bed in the master bedroom. "Legs a bit iffy still," he admitted. "Give me a few days. Now, really this time, who are you? You're not James," he said, looking grimly at Harry. "James was an idiot when it came to engines. He thought my motorcycle ran via tiny dragons. So, the question is, who?"
Harry grinned wildly, and stroked his lush false beard. "As you can see, I'm Hairy at the moment, but what I don't understand is - why are you looking so Serious?"
Padfoot's serious look disappeared, to be replaced with the more familiar one of one of tired confusion.
"I'll tell you all about it once you're rested," Harry smiled. He took in the strain lines on Sirius' face. "For now, listen to this." He opened a small music box, and left it to play its strange tune on the bedside table.
Remus yawned, and quickly left the room, Harry on his heels.
Sirius drifted off immediately.
Author's notes:
→ As always, thanks for reading and I'd love to hear from you in a review. Fame and glory to anyone who guesses Harry's animagus form!
