September 17th
Harry's room is a glum place. It's where Bellatrix and Narcissa stayed as children, the smell of dead roses still lingers there. But rather than move Harry, today I began decorating the room around him while he slept. I'm painting the walls dark blue, and if he likes it, might do some stars as well. The next time Tonks is here I'll ask her what the kids are into and buy him some posters – a boy's room should be a shrine of mess. I still have the Muggle stars of the day on my wall, because I cleverly stuck them there with a sticking charm so potent, even I can't reverse it; there's Meat Loaf who began my interest in motorbikes and Kate Bush who began my interest in scantily clad Muggle ladies. I ought to ask Harry about his musical interests and his Quiddich team, etc, it's a crime that we only ever get to speak about the war.
When I had almost finished the first coat, Harry came around. He was confused again, I think the fever gives him nightmares. He said "Mum!" and then fell silent and stared at me like he saw me for the first time. I gave him tea and toast and spoke to him gently to calm him. He has begun to eat everything he is given. His outcry made me think of Lily – a horrible abstract idea occurred to me that Lily was not a pile of bones somewhere, but an invisible ghost, unable to reach her son. As though she was in the room but could not make herself seen or heard. I imagined her wanting to nurse Harry, weeping because she could not. Ugh.
"What are you doing?" asked Harry, looking about at the walls.
"I'm doing your room," I said, awkwardly. He seemed surprised. I thought he would have been thinking of this as his room by now. I would rather take him somewhere quiet and rural, but since that is unlikely to happen soon… "What's your room at the Dursleys' like?"
"Nothing like this," he said. I bloody bet it isn't.
"Until I was eleven I slept in a cupboard."
I smiled grimly, but Harry returned me a slightly affronted stare. My God, he wasn't joking! FUCK! I could KILL those Muggles! Who could treat their sister's child like that? "A cupboard?"
"Quite a big cupboard."
I kicked the opposite bed in annoyance. Then, looking back to Harry, I saw that his face was very timid. "I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't mean it to happen. You've no idea… That night-" It's always that night to us, "I went to your parents' house and saw them… I broke down when I saw your father, and hugged him to me. I've no idea how long I was there because the world seemed to have stopped. I lay there with him in my arms and through a gap in the blasted ceiling I could see the stars growing brighter. It must have been late. Maybe I was there for five minutes, or perhaps five hours. I was completely insensible, I just wanted to lie there and let the darkness swallow me up. Then I heard you, crying. It split the dark open – it was shocking and beautiful, like the end of a drought. I ran up the stairs and flailed around the rubble… and saw your mother. And you were in your cot." My baby. That very child sat on the same bed as me now, finally understanding what I could not tell him that night.
"Hagrid came to take me," he said.
"That's right. Dumbledore had decided to send you to the Muggles. Hagrid and I argued, but I was never going to win, I knew the Ministry would already be after me. But Harry, I really believed I'd see you again soon – I'd never have given you up if I thought it would be this long. I thought once I'd stood trial and handed Pettigrew in, I'd win you back."
Harry leant back on his pillows, already exhausted. The shallowness of his breath tore at my heart. "Do you still love me?" he rasped.
I brushed his hair from his dampening face, and removed his glasses so he could sleep again. "I never stopped loving you," I said.
"For twelve years?"
"Yep. Twelve years, Azkaban, it's nothing to love."
"But how could you love me when you didn't know me?"
I shifted to let him wriggle down further beneath the covers. "Very rarely do you love people because they're funny or interesting," I said. "Love is usually something that exists on its own, especially between families. I'd love you even if you were gone forever, or if you were Snape's best student, or if you were a Death Eater!"
"Or if I'm not like my father?"
It hit me like a blow to the chest. Somehow I'd convinced myself he'd forgotten about that day in the fireplace, but all through the entrapment here and his sickness, he'd had to think about that as well. The shame was almost paralyzing, so I couldn't have apologised as much as I'd like. But I said, "I'm sorry, Harry. You'll find it hard to believe, but I said that because I love you: because I wanted to see you so badly that the thought of you not wanting to see me hurt. So I tried to hurt you back, and that was wrong of me."
"I can't give you all I'd like to," said Harry solemnly. Like James, he must be virtually blind without his glasses, so he was staring mildly at the ceiling. "I wish I could be him for you, and give you your youth back, but I can't."
Tears prickled my eyes at this; I could only say, "I know, I love you," and close the door. Life is full of things we should have said.
Midnight
I have just had one of the worst frights of my life. After dinner (eaten alone in the kitchen as usual), I went to check on Harry – I can hardly write for shaking – and found him pale as a ghost and completely still. His breath, if he was breathing at all, was too shallow to be visible. My brain went hectic, I think I screamed and I certainly shook him violently enough to wake the dead, but I could not rouse him.
His skin was almost blisteringly hot, but thank GOD he wasn't cold! Tears, which I have found so hard to conjure even with all my misery, flooded down my face so hard that I spluttered them from my mouth. I yelled for Kreacher at the top of my voice, so loudly that I would have thought the Muggles on both sides could hear me, so loudly that it was more a howl than a word, and I said something that I have never said before – "Kreacher, help me!"
The elf popped up before me, unable to conceal a grin as he looked at my poor limp boy. I told him to get Remus as quickly as he was able and tell him to bring a healer here. Of course as soon as he had left all I could do was wait, and even for that I had to be a dog. Just as I wept as a man, I could not control my desperate whining as a dog. Don't leave me, I thought, you are all I have. I am not ashamed to confess here that I vowed that if Harry did not make the night, I wouldn't either. I could not let him leave alone.
Remus was heroically quick. The old healer had been on duty at St Mungo's and was there in a trice. When he set eyes on Harry, the little colour in his face faded. I gave an involuntary bark.
"What can we do?" said Remus.
"He needs sanguinacy," said the healer in a hurried voice.
"Isn't that rather extreme?" said Remus.
"It can bring him back from the brink!" said the healer. There could be no stronger argument.
Oh my poor kid! The healer knelt at his side and took a small goblin knife from a pouch in his belt. I flinched as he opened Harry's skin at the elbow. He inserted his wand and Remus turned almost green, covered his face, staggering backwards into the wall. Sanguinancy is horrifying to watch, I have no idea who could want to be a healer. He muttered the incantation and the sparks flew from his wand, up inside my boy, visible through his thin white arm. Spark, spark spark, they pulsed about his body like lightning; he began to shake. He gasped.
We all drew back.
The shaking throbbed into regular movements – thrashing, thrashing wildly about him, trying to push the healer away. He felt the pain in his arm. He was alive. He is alive.
A/N: There you go, a new chapter. I hope you enjoyed it, and you liked the Harry-Sirius conversation. Please leave a review!
