The Wise One

Book One: Becoming

Arc Three

To Come Home

It's all I wanted most

While it violently repulsed me

I fought a bitter war

To be drawn to this inevitably

Poised on a poisoned edge

While it falls from beneath me

Chaos stills a while

To beckon me enticingly

Love or hate or both

The desires are ever waiting

Watching through shadow

As I plunge still debating

I've been prepared

This moment always summoning

To return here now

To see what I'm becoming

"Asleep

Breakaway the voice is calling

Wake up you're asleep and falling

. . . It's not too late to find out who you are"

Falling Up, "Searchlights"

A/N: I got a few comments on this topic, so . . . Nobody has been looking for Sirius and Harry. Harry is assumed dead, and they are as sure as it's possible to be that Sirius is not in their country and therefore is outside their jurisdiction. Dumbledore and Remus are waiting for Sirius and Harry to come to them since the discovery of Peter's guilt. Crouch isn't amazing, just the only one making the attempt. It's taken him the better part of a year just to hit a dead end in Brazil.

Okay, moment over, and on to the story! Thank you for continuing to read this, and continuing to offer me your thoughts!

Chapter Twenty-One

"Hey!" he heard a shout from the front of the store. It sounded like Anna. "Hey, you haven't paid for that!"

He deliberately placed the book in its proper alphabetized location, left the cart where it sat between two rows of shelves, and walked to the end of the row to see what was happening. There was a young guy darting out the front door with a fat, expensive textbook under his arm, and Anna was hurrying from behind the cash registers to try to stop him. The alarm that tracked the books beeped loudly as the shoplifter went past it.

He broke into a run, moving much quicker than the thief. Anna stopped just shy of the door and stepped back to let him pass. While he ran to catch up, he deliberated. He didn't want to hurt the guy, because he'd get in trouble with the cops. He didn't even want to make a statement to the cops. His false identity, while it had passed the fairly lax background check the bookshop had done on him, would probably not stand up to police scrutiny.

So instead of catching up to the thief and trying to tackle him or some other immensely stupid move to make when you were going to land on pavement, he went wide around the building on the corner when the thief turned down the alley. He knew that the alley came out behind this building and they could meet up again. He put himself into a full sprint, figuring the shoplifter would slow down when he didn't see anybody behind him anymore.

He ran as fast as he could, wondering why in Merlin's name he was trying this hard. He came out in front of the shoplifter. The look of shock on the lanky man's face was priceless, but he didn't have time to enjoy it.

He swept his leg out in a high outward kick, knocking the book quite neatly from the young man's hand. He struck the man in the chest with his flat palm, sending him backwards into the wall of the building and making him whuff out a stunned breath without actually injuring him. He wouldn't have even bothered, but he wanted to be sure the guy left him alone long enough to pick the book up.

He did, and jogged back to the bookshop with only one look back to ensure he wasn't about to get jumped by the thief from behind. When he got there, Anna was standing out front, her blond hair being swept back and forth across her face by the wind of passing cars. The relief that stole over her face when she saw the book in his hand made the whole thing worthwhile. She was only nineteen, and she'd been promoted to assistant manager just last week. She couldn't afford to have a bunch of incidents happen now.

"He dropped this, but he got away," he panted, handing the thick and relatively unscathed book over to her. "Sorry I couldn't catch him."

"That's fine. Thank you so much, Evan." Her eyes were wide over the excitement. She simply stood there in the doorway, staring at him for a moment. He noticed for the first time that her eyes were actually a pale blue, not gray like he'd thought. Then she blushed and hurried back inside.

Harry calmly returned to stocking the books, partly amused and partly worried. Anna was blushing at him? Since when? They'd gotten along well since he'd started working here, but he hadn't thought she was interested in him. She was a curvy and suntanned blonde with a good job and a decent social life, she should be looking for someone to get serious about.

But why would she think he wasn't someone like that?, he reminded himself. Sometimes he forgot that here in Brisbane, Evan Rivers had just turned eighteen years old, not fourteen. Not to mention that he was a Muggle. Sirius had thought even sixteen would be pushing it, but Harry didn't want to be suspected of being a truant. So far, Sirius appeared to be wrong. People would skeptically ask him if he was really eighteen, but then they would accept his affirmative answer and get over it.

"Hey, Evan, will you come back to the office? I need you to sign an incident report about the shoplifter."

He followed Anna to the back, and she was all business, showing him what she'd written, making sure he agreed with it—he wasn't about to correct her and suggest she add in that he'd used martial arts on the guy and let him get off scot-free—and hardly even looked at him. He must have imagined the way she'd looked at him before, and he started feeling a lot better about the situation as he returned the cart of books to be put away. There would just be too many things wrong with Anna having a crush on him. He liked his life the way it was right now. No school, just his personal studies, a worry-free job, and time to himself to do what he liked.

Sirius disapproved. It was the only time they'd really disagreed on anything, so that made it weird. Sirius thought he should be in school, even if he didn't want to be in the same school Sirius was teaching at. Harry had spent only a few weeks there before he'd come to the conclusion that he didn't need it. Due to having been intensely focused for long periods of time on Astronomy, Defense, and Potions, he was far ahead of his classmates in those areas. Even Sirius admitted that he was close to NEWT level in those subjects already. His tutor in South Africa hadn't been the best, but Harry had already had a firm grounding in the basics of Transfiguration and Charms from Sirius before that, and his studies on those subjects were fairly level with the classmates he would normally have. He thought Divination was rubbish and didn't care about it. Except lately. Lately, he'd been worrying . . .

He'd managed to keep Sirius from actively arguing with him about it, at least. He was reading several chapters a week out of a few different books on Charms and Transfiguration theories and applications, along with a few monthly publications on those subjects. He was working from a Potions textbook he'd gotten from the wizarding school on the outskirts of Sydney. It had levels above the school Sirius taught, so Harry had judged it to be sixth to seventh year coursework by Hogwarts standards. He'd definitely slacked off as far as Hogwarts curriculum would go, though, at least as Sirius remembered it. He knew nothing about magical creatures and what he knew about Herbology came from his Potions work. He basically only knew how to use the plants and animals, not how to keep them alive. Things like Arithmancy and Ancient Runes were well beyond him.

"Evan, come on, our shift's over."

Anna's voice startled him out of his thoughts. He glanced at his watch. It was indeed two a.m. and time for them to go. Harry considered himself quite lucky to have found an all-night place to work in that wasn't a convenience store. He was much more of a night person than a day person. He normally didn't wake up until noon, and then he spent some time after work either studying the stars or transforming and exploring the city as an owl for a few hours. When he didn't have to work, he sometimes drove out of the city and went flying on his broom for a while.

"Right, Anna, just one second."

He took his last book from the cart and put it on the shelf, then started taking the cart to the back room. Anna followed behind him, sighing impatiently.

"I want you to walk me to my car."

"I will, right after I put this away."

"You could leave it for somebody else."

"Tsk. Tsk. And you a manager. I'll pretend I didn't hear that."

"Being a manager is overrated," Anna said jokingly. "The pay raise doesn't begin to cover the extra hassle."

"Do you think Plotsky would give me your raise if I let him know he had such an unmotivated worker?"

Anna giggled, but didn't come back with a return, so he stopped joking. At this time of night, after a full eight hours of her new position, she was probably exhausted.

When he turned around, she was only inches from him. He tried not to show how startled he was. She was smiling, but it was a strange, almost manic smile.

"Have I made fun of you for being short yet today?"

He scowled at her and the two inches of height she had on him. This was when actually being fourteen, not eighteen, started to matter. "Yes. Twice."

"Poo, my quota's full, then," she said, giving him a false pout. Then her tongue flicked out and wet her protruding lower lip. "Hey, Evan?"

"Yeah?"

She hesitated. "Nothing."

Then she stepped forward and kissed him. Shocked, his hands dangled limply at his sides and he simply stood there and was kissed. She stepped back, looking frightened.

"Oh, no. Don't tell anyone, please. Plotsky would fire me on the spot. I'm so sorry."

"No, it's okay. I won't. Tell anyone." He was strangely inarticulate, at least for him. That was weird.

He was just as surprised as Anna was when he slid his hands around her arms and pulled her forward again so he could return the kiss. This one was much more pleasant, since they were both involved in it. Very enjoyable, actually. Harry had kissed a girl, once, in Austria. They were both thirteen, and right after the kiss she'd told him that she was the mayor's daughter and he started avoiding her like she had the plague. Anna Kilgore, unlike that girl, knew what she was doing. And she was a totally sexy nineteen-year-old curvy blonde without any parents, much less parents that employed his godfather.

He released her and shook his head regretfully. "Someone might come back here. I'm sorry. We can't do this. Come on, let me walk you to your car."

She did. The whole time they were walking to the front door, Harry was afraid the other employees were going to sense what had taken place in the back room, and they'd both be fired. He would feel guilty as hell if it happened to Anna. She was trying to make something of herself, and it would be his fault if that got ruined because he couldn't stop kissing her. He had no business kissing her anyway. It was not right to let her believe he was the right kind of guy for her.

"Here, I'll get your door." He fumbled open the door of the little beat-up station wagon she drove, the one he'd made fun of so many times because the hood was black and the rest of the car was blue, the one she'd sworn she would replace as soon as she had the money saved up. "Goodnight, Anna."

"You could come home with me," she said, instead of reiterating the farewell. "If you want."

He opened his mouth, and then shut it again. He did want. Merlin, did he want. But it would really be a bad idea. An insanely bad idea. Fourteen, you're fourteen years old, dammit. If she knew that, she'd be in her car and breaking all the traffic laws to get away from you. But for once, to wake up frightened and worried about what was happening to him, and able to feel someone lying next to him . . .

"I know I'm being really forward," she apologized, her face bright red and her eyes on the ground rather than on him. "I'm sorry for acting like such a hussy. It's just, I got this apartment with my boyfriend, and ever since he walked out on me, it's been so quiet there and I— Oh, god, I'm sorry, you don't need to hear any of this. I'll stop talking. Goodnight, Evan."

He had never seen her cry. Not when Plotsky yelled at her, not when she'd told him that her dad died of cancer last year, not when an old lady had a heart attack right there in the store and Anna had to perform CPR on her. Anna was really tough when she had to be. But she had tears in her eyes, either from embarrassment or from whatever pain was left over from what her asshole ex-boyfriend had put her through. He didn't even read her thoughts on purpose, just accidentally saw them as they were roiling so close to the surface and out of control. Her ex was a piece of shit, indeed, and she was desperately in need of a someone to help her put some of that behind her.

Oh, well, he thought, taking her in his arms and kissing her again. How old do you have to be to understand that?

Sirius shuffled in his favourite slippers (which had been a birthday gift from Catalina over three years ago and were falling part, hence the shuffle) to the kitchen to start a pot of coffee before he showered. He opened the kitchen window and admired the rising sun. Six o'clock in the morning was beautiful in Brisbane, if too damn early to be awake. He could have slept in a bit longer, but then he wouldn't have time to read the morning paper or eat his breakfast in peace before he went to work.

Shame he couldn't share it with Harry, he thought. He was starting to believe that this whole thing had been a huge mistake. Harry usually didn't come home until four in the morning or so, and then he was more often than not already at work by the time Sirius came home. He'd wanted Harry to have the opportunity to be a normal boy for just a while longer, but Harry seemed to be using this time to grow up too fast instead. He'd argued with Sirius until Sirius gave in, just to shut him up, about the age they put on his Muggle identity. Sirius hadn't even wanted to get him one of those, as he wasn't keen to meet the criminal underworld here, but this was Harry's time, and Harry wanted to hang out with Muggles.

He might not agree, but he'd decided to hold his tongue as much as possible. Sirius could argue with him about it, or he could give the boy his chance to live his own life while he still could. Harry was still reading voraciously, and he was likely at least a year ahead of his peers if Sirius was being honest with himself, at least in most subjects, so he really didn't have a leg to stand on about Harry not being in school. But Harry had turned into a surly, moody teenager seemingly overnight, and Sirius found himself reacting by coming down on him in a way he never had when Harry had been younger. He knew he was getting them caught in a cycle. Harry wasn't used to Sirius setting rules or trying to tell him what was best for him, and he reacted by arguing and doing what he wanted despite the objections. Sirius responded to this attitude with yet more attempts to restrict, and so on. He didn't know what he was going to do about it, beyond keeping his mouth shut when he really wanted to open it.

It was at that point Harry walked through the back door, yawning, his hair even more unruly than usual.

"You're just getting home?" Sirius asked with wide eyes.

"Uh-huh," Harry said, sounding exhausted.

"I'm glad I thought you were in bed, I'd have been panicking."

"I'm fine, as you see."

"Where were you, anyway? Did you drive out of town to go flying?"

"No, I was just with one of my coworkers. Talking, mostly."

Sirius took a sip of his coffee, deliberated over whether or not this was a moment to keep his mouth shut, then he realized just exactly where Harry was getting home from. He nearly spat his coffee out.

"What's her name?" he asked, hoping his voice was level.

"Who says it's a girl?" Harry responded, pouring himself a cup of coffee. Why on earth he was drinking coffee when he was going straight to bed, Sirius couldn't fathom.

He set his coffee cup down on the table, laid his hands out flat on top of his newspaper, and fixed Harry with a sharp look. "You had sex with her, didn't you?"

Harry raised his eyebrows, looking at Sirius over his own cup as he took a sip. "Mmm," he said, answering in the affirmative.

"Merlin, Harry, you're—" He snapped his mouth shut.

"What?"

"Never mind. We'll talk about it later, when you're not so tired."

"What's to talk about?"

That flippant response dissolved his ability to hold back until Harry had slept. "The fact that you're fourteen, by Iseult and good witches everywhere!" Sirius exploded, rising up out of his chair. "You are definitely not old enough to be getting yourself into relationships at this level, not to mention that you are lying about your age to do so! Do you know what James and Lily would say to me if they could see the way you're behaving? Do you?"

"No!" Harry shouted back. "No, I don't, because I never knew them, did I? You think I should just be like every other fourteen year old and be complaining about homework and having my biggest concern be whether or not I'm better at some sport than my friends are? Well, news report for you, Sirius! I'm not normal, and I'm never going to be! I've got to worry about whether the man who murdered my parents is going to come after me! And you know what? If that's going to happen, I'd rather not die without some experience!"

Sirius was almost too angry to sort out words into their proper order. "So that's it, then? You've already decided how it's going to end? What happened to you? I thought you weren't going to let that prophecy dictate your life!" He really wasn't sure how this had stopped being about inappropriate sex and started being an argument about this, but he was suddenly frightened as much as angry. How could Harry think he was going to die? Sirius couldn't think about Harry dying. He just couldn't.

"It's not prophecy I'm worried about, it's Voldemort!" Harry shouted back. "He's such a fucking believer, and he'll kill me without even waiting to see if I am! He's the one running things!"

"Oh, so you don't believe in prophecy, but you'll let some creep with an idiotic set of values control you, instead? You'll let Voldemort decide how you live your life—or don't live it?"

"That's the problem, isn't it?" Harry nearly screamed. "Me not living! I've only got so much time before he comes after me, and I want to do things before then. Yes, I want to have sex! And I want to have a job! And I want to fly on my broom, and cook dinner, and drive to Sydney with my friends, and play stupid video games! I just . . . I don't want to die, okay?"

Then Harry did something extremely unexpected. He burst into sobs that so racked his body that he slumped to the floor, unable to stand up. Just like that, the argument was over and Sirius was looking at the frightened little boy he'd known five years ago. He knelt down on the floor beside the teenager and put his arms around him. His anger was gone. It had disappeared at the sight of his godson's tears.

"Shh, it's okay, Harry. It's all right."

Harry turned his face into Sirius and sobbed harder.

"Hey, calm down. You're not going to die, Harry. You're not. I'm right here, and everything is fine."

"It's not," Harry choked out. "It's not fine, Sirius. I'm having these dreams, except I don't think they're dreams at all. I think . . ." He took a deep, shuddering breath. "I think I'm seeing into Voldemort's mind. I think the dreams I've been having are really happening. I tried to believe they weren't, but I can't anymore. Crouch is in France, and he's way off our trail, but . . . how is it that I can see this? Why should I even be able to know that? I don't understand this."

Sirius, reeling from this blow, asked the only question that swam to the front of his mind. "Crouch? Who's that?"

"Bartemius Crouch, Junior. I don't know much, only what he told Voldemort that I overheard. His father had him Imperiused, but he threw it off and escaped, and Voldemort set him looking for us. He's really lost us for now, but we can't wait for him to find us. Voldemort . . . he wants me for something, Sirius. He wants me for some kind of ritual that will give him his body back. He needs the blood of his enemy." Harry placed his hand over his forehead, covering the scar that was always concealed by makeup when he left the house. "I guess that's me."

"And you know all this because you've been dreaming about it?"

"Yeah. There's some kind of connection. I know there is. It's more than just dreams, I can feel things . . . I think I'm using Legilimency on him, but I don't mean to. How can I do that without even casting the spell? I think maybe he's the one sending projections toward me. I just don't know." Harry finally looked up at him, his eyes red and his face exhausted. "I don't know what's happening to me. I don't know what to do."

Sirius placed his hand, surprised by how steady he was, on Harry's scar. "I don't know anything for sure, but I'd be willing to be the answer is right here. Why didn't you tell me? How long has this been going on?"

"I've been having the dreams almost since we moved here. I think it's just that Voldemort's getting stronger again. I didn't feel anything at first, but now I know exactly how he feels."

The confession seemed to be good, if draining, for Harry.

"Why didn't you say anything?" Sirius asked again.

Harry lowered his eyes, ashamed of his cowardice. "Because I like it here, with Anna, and my friends. I like just flying out in the desert and watching the stars. I'm not ready for this. I . . . We have to go back, don't we?"

Sirius held him closer, grief and fear warring in him. "If we want answers, I think we do. There's only two men I know of who could help us now, and one of them wants to kill you."

"The other one?"

"Is currently the headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry," Sirius answered softly. "We have to go see Dumbledore."

"We won't need to take a lot of this with us," Sirius said with some relief, surveying the boxes on his kitchen floor. "I know I've inherited my family's home, so we won't need to worry about furniture or anything."

"We have to take it somewhere, though."

"What do you mean?" Sirius asked, frowning at Harry, who was standing at the refrigerator looking for food. He'd been doing that a lot lately. Sirius knew that if he bothered to check, Harry would have grown a few inches since they'd moved here.

"We have to make it look like we're just moving, not running away. It'll help Crouch find us that much faster if it looks suspicious, and I for one don't want him figuring out that we've come back to England."

"Well, me, either," Sirius admitted. "That's why I gave two weeks' notice instead of just up and leaving. You submitted a resignation at your job, right?"

"Yeah," Harry said glumly, shutting the refrigerator door and swigging directly out of the carton of orange juice he'd grabbed. Sirius scowled. "It's almost empty," he protested, holding up the carton and sloshing the contents to prove it. "All the glasses are dirty, anyway."

"Here," Sirius said, tossing him a drinking glass out of an already packed box he'd dragged out of a rarely-used cupboard. He didn't worry about whether or not Harry would catch it. The kid couldn't drop something if he tried.

Harry just set the glass on the counter and carried the carton with him as he headed for the door, pulling his keys out of his pocket.

"I forgot, you said you were going somewhere tonight. What are you doing?"

"Nowhere," Harry muttered, starting to close the door.

Sirius snatched his wand from the kitchen counter and arrested the door, though he left Harry free.

"Tell me."

Harry gave him the evil eye, and he returned a hard glare. He might pretend to be an eighteen-year-old Muggle, but he was very much an adolescent wizard with a guardian who had the right to some respect. Harry sighed.

"Anna knows this couple that likes to 'experiment,' and she's interested in doing something with them. I feel bad about having to tell her I'm leaving, so I'm humouring her. As far as I know, the plan is to get drunk, get naked, and see what happens. All four of us." With that announcement, Harry finished off the juice and set the empty carton down on the counter as he exited the house.

Sirius gaped, his brain momentarily disabled. "Wait a second. Harry. Harry!" he shouted, standing up. Harry had already shut the door and gone. He stood there, dumbfounded. "No. He didn't just say that. Wake up, Padfoot, wake up."

The back door opened. Harry stood there with a perfectly straight face.

"You actually believed me, didn't you?"

Sirius blinked a few times, then launched himself at Harry with a roar. Harry found himself in a headlock, getting tickled in the ribs, both of them laughing like mad. He threw off the hold, a move which Sirius knew how to counter but didn't, since he was nearly crying with laughter.

"Thank . . . Merlin . . ." Sirius gasped. "I would have . . ."

"What would you have done, honestly?"

"Sent you off to your mother and father with my compliments," he growled goodnaturedly. He clutched a stitch in his side, trying to return to normal breathing. "Ow. I thought I was going to have a heart attack."

"That's what you get for believing me. I thought you learned your lesson when I came home and told you I wanted to start a band."

"I ought to have remembered your music classes," Sirius agreed. Harry had a really unfair ability to say anything with a straight face. Apparently it was all a matter of disciplining one's mind.

"Well, this was fun, but I really am going to take off for a while," Harry said, moving toward the door again.

"What are you really doing?"

Harry shrugged, giving him a helpless smile. "Saying goodbye to Anna."

Sirius gave him a disgusted face. "You've been with her for all of what, two weeks?"

"Yeah, but we've been flirting for six months. She deserves something from me, especially after I was fool enough to get involved when I knew what was coming and should have left her alone. I didn't say this was going to be an easy goodbye."

"Thank you for giving yourself that speech so I don't have to."

Harry flashed him an impatient look and headed back out. "Bye, Sirius."

"Home before dawn, and I mean that!" Sirius called back. He knew that Harry would obey, even if he wasn't thrilled by it. There had to be some kind of limit.

He turned back to the kitchen and eyed the mess with distaste. "I could just vanish it all," he muttered. Instead, he picked up the drinking glass from the counter where Harry had left it, and went to return it to its box. "Huh, we never unpacked these. This newspaper's got to be from last year . . ."

On a whim, he picked it up and scanned the page to see what was in it. The Daily Prophet classifieds from last summer, how funny. He read down the page, smiling when he realized he was browsing the ads for stuff that wasn't available anymore. Funny to think all the things listed had changed hands by now.

One caught his eyes.

"What?" he whispered.

Found: a pet garden rat, missing a toe on the front paw. For information, contact Moony in London.

Though what he saw stunned him, he had to laugh.

"This might be easier than I thought."