"Talk about a bad day at work; just our luck that we were the ones on duty when Gaunt decided to lose it again." Sirius pulled the blood red robes of the Auror Division up over his head, upsetting his hair into a mass of ebony curls. He shook them back into a somewhat more manageable state in much the same way as a dog would shake out its fur and reached for his civilian robes. "At this rate he shouldn't make it out of government custody again, so we'll never have to worry about being called out to another scene. At least, no one caused by him, which comes as a bit of a relief don't you think, Prongs?" No response. "Prongs?"
He looked up in a mixture of confusion and concern, of half a mind to think that his best friend and partner on the job had left him in their office and that he hadn't heard him walk out. That he'd been talking to himself, and an otherwise empty room, this entire time. It wouldn't be the first time something similar had happened.
But that wasn't the case; the other man was sitting behind his desk with his head propped up on one of his hands, glasses askew on his nose and hazel eyes glazed distant behind them. Sirius hadn't seen that look on his friend since History of Magic class with Binns back when they'd still been in school.
Smirking slightly at the memory-James either staring off into empty space willing class to go faster or assisting him in lobbing things as Snivellus who sat across the room from them, Peter out cold on the desk and Remus shooting glares at them while simultaneously attempting to take notes and keep himself from laughing-Sirius crossed the office in a few short strides and waved his hand in front of the other man's face. No response. Raising an eyebrow, he leaned down and shouted "James!"
The brunet left both his chair and the ground and nearly toppled head first over his desk. Laughing hysterically and more than prepared for the Stinging Hex he shot at him, Sirius grinned at his now glaring friend. Still in his work robes, despite their shift having ended almost twenty minutes before.
"Bloody hell, Padfoot!" He groused, reaching up to straighten his glasses as he lowered his wand. "What was that for?"
"For checking out on me mentally; that you'd insinuate with your actions that I'm anywhere near as boring as 'Dusty' Binns is quite hurtful Prongs." He said. "You completely zoned out on me."
"Did I?" he looked down at the watch on his right wrist and gave a mild start when he realized that the stars and planets decorating its face were in an entirely different place then they had been last that he remembered. "Shite! Lily is going to skin me alive if I'm late for dinner! What were you saying?"
Sirius leaned back against the edge of the other man's desk, watching him scramble about gathering his things and changing out of his work clothes.
"I was just saying that it's a relief that this is most likely the last time we'll have to deal with Morfin." He said, running a hand through his hair in an effort to tame it back from the grip of the static which changing his clothing had caused. "Since he's already been exposed to Dementors for a number of years before now, and given that he's attacked the same Muggle as he did the last time again he'll definitely be sent back for at least a short while, by the time he gets out, if he's still alive, he'll be so bloody barmy that he'll be sent to Janus Thickey for a permanent stay."
"Morfin isn't the reason that I'm glad we'll probably never have to see that town-what was it even called again? Little Hangleton?-again."
"Little Hangleton, yeah. I think." He said. "Why? It isn't that much smaller than Godric's Hollow; sure it seems completely Muggle but I didn't think you, or I for that matter, were the type of Purebloods who really cared about that sort of thing. Of course, it did look a little bit run down."
"It has nothing to do with the town, Padfoot." With everything that he needed to take with him gathered, his cloak on and his wand in its sheath James picked up his bag and started towards the door of their office. Sirius fell into step with him after a brief moment. "The town was fine. Quaint, even. Muggle, rundown and quaint. I'm talking about that kid!"
"What about him?" he asked, shrugging as the lift trundled loudly to a stop in front of them; the brass grate swung open and they both stepped inside. "He was a little odd, sure, and had quite a bit of potent accidental magic but that's not entirely unusual, with his age and the stress of the situation."
It wasn't often that Sirius got the chance to play the 'voice of reason' in their group dynamic and felt rather proud of himself for coming to such a rational conclusion. He thought that Moony would be proud of him as well as it seemed to be just the sort of conclusion that he himself would come to.
James just shuddered and shook his head, briefly appearing as if he'd just come face to face with a Dementor. "You didn't see it, Sirius?"
"See what?"
"His eyes."
"Atrium." The lift supplied brightly in a cool, female voice. The doors rattled open again. "The Ministry of Magic wishes its visitors and staff a pleasant evening."
"What about his eyes?"
That same hollow look passed over his face once again as they stepped out of the lift and into the Atrium, joining the throng of people heading both home and in to work for the night shift. The peacock blue ceiling pulsed with alternating golden symbols as they made their way towards the Floo chimneys.
"You didn't see their color?"
"…Blue?" he couldn't manage to work out what, exactly, had terrified his friend so badly no matter how hard he tried.
"They weren't blue. At least, not at first." The woosh of the Floos whisking Witches and Wizards away to their respective homes rose and fell beneath their conversation like the swell of the ocean tide. They shuffled steadily forward with the progression of the line. "When we first got there, when he first looked at me, his eyes were red, Sirius. Red and slit pupiled like a snake's. That was not a normal child."
Sirius shuddered as well. "Well, let's hope that the kid abides by the law; that way we'll never have to see him again. I do pity his father, though; poor bastard, to be stuck with a child that's that…stone cold and to be a Muggle on top of it…" he frowned. "Reminds me of my parents, actually. He's probably in Slytherin just like they were too, though Merlin knows he'd be eaten alive for having even a drop of Muggle blood in him. But hey, at least Harry isn't like that right?"
At least. "Small mercies." James sighed. Only two people were in front of them, now.
"I've neglected to ask before now: you and Lily are going to be sending him to Hogwarts, aren't you?" he asked. "I know that there was some consideration to homeschooling made, but that wasn't ever a serious one was it?"
"We didn't really want to, no, but it was still an option for Harry in case he didn't want to go off to Scotland. You know how he can be a bit shy at times, especially with new people, and Lily was worried about how he'd hold up. But once he realized that Ron would be going, and that Fred George and Percy would all still be there, he decided that he wanted to go."
"And how has Gabriel been?" he asked. "Has he stopped demanding to go to school early? Or to get a wand before he's eleven?"
James shook his head with a slight smile. "No, he hasn't yet. And I doubt that he will." He said. "If he's anything like I am we'll never hear the end of it. Not until he gets his own acceptance letter, at least."
Both men chuckled and stepped into the fire. Green flames licked up around them and the Ministry's Atrium spun out of view. James stepped out of the hearth into the sitting room of his home in Godric's Hollow, Sirius just a step behind, and bent to brush soot from the tails of his cloak. The entire house was filled with the delicious smell of his wife's cooking and sunset had begun to stain the world outside a pale violet.
"Welcome home, darling." Lily said as she stepped into the room, drying her hands on a towel. Her long red hair was tied behind her back. "Hello, Sirius. Staying for dinner?"
"If you wouldn't mind having me, Lily."
"Never a problem; our boys both love it when their Godfather comes to visit." Her smile dimmed slightly into an expression of mild concern. "Could you go and speak to Harry before dinner, James? Dumbledore came to visit earlier and he spoke to him about the Houses; I think…he may be having reservations again."
James sighed as he put down his bag. "He's worried about what will happen if he isn't sorted into Gryffindor, isn't he?"
"Yes, I think so."
He nodded. "When will dinner be ready?"
"Ten minutes."
"Right. We'll both be down in five." James left the room, heading up the stairs to the second floor and knocking quietly on the door. "Harry, are you in there?" no response aside from a quiet shuffling. He opened the door and walked in. His son was sitting with his knees against his chest and his back against the head board of his bed, gripping his ankles and staring out the window of his room. His wire framed glasses, so like his own, were sitting sideways on his button nose and formed a thin barrier between his unruly dark brown hair and his mother's emerald eyes. His son didn't look at him as he sat down on the edge of his bed. "Harry, your mother sent me up here to talk to you about the Houses: she said that you went over them with Dumbledore today."
Harry nodded, shifting his weight slightly to one side. "He told me about them, yes."
"You know that it's alright if you aren't in Gryffindor, don't you? Sure, that's practically our family's House, but plenty of great Witches and Wizards have come out of Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw as well." He said. "There's nothing wrong with wit or loyalty."
"I'm not worried about not ending up in Gryffindor. I'm worried about ending up in Slytherin!" He turned large green eyes onto him, glistening brightly with unshed tears. "I don't want to be a Dark Wizard, dad!"
"Who told you that you were going to be a Dark Wizard?"
"Dumbledore said that no one ever came out of Slytherin who wasn't a Dark Wizard! What am I going to do if I'm put there? I don't want to be evil!" He curled up even tighter, his knuckles turning white as his fingers dug into his narrow ankles. "I don't want to be evil."
This wasn't the sort of thing that James was the best at handling. He reached out and gently squeezed his son's shoulder. "The House you're sorted into doesn't dictate who you are." He told him. Did he like Slytherin? No. Did he want Harry to end up in that House? He'd prefer that he didn't. Would he do anything ridiculous, like disown him, if he did? Of course not! "Look at Sni, I mean, Severus. He's a Dark Wizard, and he was in Slytherin, but he's one of your mother's closest friends. He isn't evil, is he?"
"No, but he's mean! That's basically the same thing!"
James snorted. "You know that there are two types of 'Dark Wizards' don't you? There's the type like Grindlewald, that your Godfather and I hunt, and then there are people who simply have a dark oriented core. It's true that people who go to Slytherin are more prone to having dark cores than those who go to Gryffindor, but the same thing can be said about Ravenclaw too. Hufflepuff is the only House that can claim with any truth to never have had a Dark Wizard of any kind come out of it. And even if you do end up in Snake House, you're not in completely terrible company."
"I'd certainly call Snape 'terrible company'!"
Better not let your mother hear you say that. He thought, struggling not to laugh. "The Head of Slytherin, the Potion's Master, Horace Slughorn isn't too bad. Wasn't the fondest of me but he loved your mother. And then, of course, there's Slytherin's most famous member."
"Who?"
"Merlin." Harry blinked at him in owlish surprise, then scrubbed tears from his eyes. "Feeling better?" he nodded. "Come on, then, and help me drag your brother out of his room. Dinners almost ready."
