Clean up in the kitchen was awkward. Molly explained to the children that the best way they could help The Order is by cleaning up after they had been fed. There is no small job, she had said. Once the dish washing began, Molly pulled Harriet into the pantry.
"Can I hug you, dear?" She asked sweetly, looking down on Harriet's crossed arm stature. Harriet breathed a sigh and leaned into Molly's chest. "I'm sorry, darling." Molly added quietly.
The hug was full, rich and loving. Something Harriet found herself craving any time she was near Ron's mother.
After they had finished, Molly leaned back on a stack of milk crates and began to get comfortable. "I want to say it before you begin to think otherwise of me. I have no Ill will toward your godfather, Harriet."
"Oh, well" Harriet began, feeling awkward.
"No. I know the way I've carried myself at dinner doesn't agree with that. But I can promise you, I thought highly of Sirius when the Order was formed during the war. Still do, in a way. He's a good man. The Black family..." Molly paused and shook her head.
"They were the worst of the worst. We used to be so very shocked that a boy like Sirius could have come from them. I suppose that made it easier for everyone to believe it when he... when they arrested him. It was as if every good thing he'd ever done got lost in his name somehow. It was a shame."
"My brothers loved Sirius. Gideon and Fabian. They were troublemakers in school. Nothing terrible no, just to have a laugh and Sirius was always down for a good laugh. He and James, your mother, and Remus. Even little Pete in his own way. The younger crowd in The Order. They were the glue for us most days. Arthur and my brothers would be out on missions all the time, people were dying. Loved ones dying. But the boys and Lily, they could find a laugh in the worst of it. Find love in the worst of it."
It was so wonderfully painful for Harriet to hear things like this about her mother and father. About the men Remus and Sirius used to be before their world was torn apart. About Peter Pettigrew.
"I suppose I feel a bit of protectiveness over you, dear. A bit that I will admit I have no right to. But I will say this, when I speak about my family, I am referring to all of you. All of my children. I have always included you in that Harriet. Since the moment you showed up at our home. I want you to know that. And the thing about Sirius coming back for you. There is just so much lost time..."
Molly paused as if she were trying to form her sentences in her head before speaking them. Having an idea of where the conversation was leading, Harriet interrupted.
"Mrs. Weasley, I know. Ok? I promise I've sat and done the math. Thought about what would or wouldn't have happened if Sirius could have... if he would have been around. But it's alright. I don't resent him for it and I don't think it's fair if you do either."
"He would have spoiled you," Molly blurted out, tearing up. "You would have wanted for nothing and needed for less. He and Remus. You would have been rotten with it, they would have loved you so entirely. Everything I have ever wanted for you, they would have made sure you had it darling."
The thought of what could have been made Harriet sick. Biting her tongue she smiled. Nodded her head and smiled deeper. Anything to get out of this pantry that suddenly seemed to be closing in on her.
"Well. That's enough of my sentimental waxing." Molly sighed. "Let's help clean up before Ron claims he's done more than anyone else.
As Harriet sloshed her hands through the dish water, she used every bit of energy she had not to get lost in her thoughts. "...they would have loved you entirely." Molly had said. What would that have felt like?
"If you'll hurry up and stop bathing in the sink we could go to your room and have a good old note comparison." Ron interrupted her thoughts, splashing water from the sink onto cannons shirt she still donned.
"Ron! You weren't supposed to tell her about her room yet!"
"Mione, Merlin's sake she knows she got a bloody room to sleep in! I didn't tell her anything I wasn't supposed to."
"Sirius made you a room," Hermione said softly. Leaning in further to Hari's place at the sink. "Like, ripped the walls out and started over... made you a room."
Ron nodded his head, agreeing with Hermione's exaggeration. "He's been working on it for weeks. Since we all got here at least. I really think that's the only thing that's kept him inside. He's bound to the estate you know. Until he's released."
Harriet did know that. As unplottable and untraceable as the house must be, there was still some shadowed power holding her godfather to the baseboards. A free man he was not.
"He's quite scary when he's angry," Hermione commented thoughtfully. "The night we got word about the dementors and Dumbledore had to keep your Aunt from putting you out, Sirius lost it for a bit."
"He was calling Dumbledore curse words I'd never even heard of. Should have sat down and took notes." Ron laughed.
"Just act surprised is all, you aren't meant to know anything about it."
The trio made their way into the den where Sirius and Remus were walking in from the balcony patio, smelling of smoke. Sirius looked angry and Remus looked as if he had been slapped or told his dog died. Or both, Harriet pondered. However when each of them realized they had an audience, they broke into placating smiles.
"Hari, come on I've got something I want to show you!" Sirius strode across the room, grabbed Harriet by the hand and began to lead her up the stairs.
"That's quite alright, Lupin." He said sharply when Remus made to follow the pair, "I'll somehow find my way."
Remus nodded stone-faced, and stayed at the foot of the stairwell.
"What was that?" Hari asked, ever unaware of adult boundaries.
"Lovers spat." Sirius said with a bitter laugh. "Here we are" he led her to the second to last door on the left. "This, is our room should you need to come and find us." He pointed to the door to the right.
"And this," he turned the knob of the door in front of Harriet, "is your room."
The door opened to reveal what Harriet could only call sanctuary. It looked like a bedroom right off the front of one of Aunt Petunia's Home Living catalogues.
The walls were a sea-green with white baseboards and finishings. The bed a cloud of white, tucked into the corner near the window. A small desk across the room and an adjacent floor mirror. It was simple. And thoughtful and perfect. And the most wonderful thing Harriet had ever seen.
"This is my room?" She asked excitedly. "It's for me?"
"Well it most certainly is not for Remus and I. We're queer, however even this would be a stretch."
There was an anchor post by the window holding Hedwig's cage, the snowy white owl still missing from her perch.
In the corner, a wingback white wicker chair with a pale green cushion.
"I grew up in this home, unfortunately. This used to be my room. It's a bit too small for both Remus and I, but I thought it might be perfect for yourself. You should have seen it before. There were... huge posters of, well of muggle women in bikinis." Sirius shrugged causing Hari to let out an unattractive laugh.
"Not sure what I was trying to accomplish with that choice. To prove to myself I liked women or perhaps to just piss my mother off. I was an angry teenager. I don't know..."
Noticing her godfather was slipping off into his memories, Harriet began to walk around the room.
Above the bed was a portrait. White background with black and gold thin lines; there was a creature drawn in the pattern.
"Is... is that a calf?" Harriet asked feeling Sirius' presence behind her back, she looked up at her godfather with a questioning smile. "A two headed-calf?"
"It is." He returned, leaning into her back and folding his arms around her.
"There's a poem. About a two headed calf. I think of you every time I come across it. It's got your favorite word in it."
"The 'C' word?" She asked innocently.
Sirius released a bark of a laugh. "No not the 'C' word, you menace. Freak. It has the word 'freak' in it."
Sirius and Harriet had had a conversation about that word over letters during the summer before her fourth year. She had made mention that Petunia called her a freak from time to time and had done the same to her mother. For whatever reason, it had ate at Sirius. He wrote her paragraph after paragraph about how incredibly untrue it was. How ignorant her Aunt must be to even joke with her about something like that. Harriet had reassured him that it wasn't as serious as she had made it sound, but apparently it had stuck with the man for him to decide to symbolically display it on a wall.
"Well go on then. How does it go?"
Sirius takes a breath and stares back up at the portrait.
"Tomorrow when the farm hand finds this freak of nature, they will wrap him in newspaper and carry him to the museum. But tonight... he is alive, and in the north field with his mother. It is a perfect summer evening: the moon rising over the orchard, the wind in the grass. And as he stares into the sky, there are twice as many stars as usual."
Harriet clenched her jaw in an attempt to calm herself. What an advantage this calf must have to see the world in double vision. His eyes, all four of them doe'd and wattery. Innocent. No more a freak of nature than she is. He is beautiful. And loved. Here in this bedroom, in the fields; he is sheltered. Safe from anyone that might want him on display.
"They would have loved you entirely..." Molly's words echo in her mind as she finally turns and looks up at her godfather. "This is the most wonderful thing anyone has ever done for me." She said quietly, untrusting of her full voice.
"Gave you a bedroom?"
"No," she replied just as quietly. Unable to express herself she looked back up at the calf and shook her head.
Sirius sighed and squeezed her tighter. "It's alright. I know what you meant."
They found themselves there hours later into the night. Sirius' head on her pillow boots on the floor and socked feet crossed. Harriet, bare feet at her godfather's head. She lay facing the calf on the wall. They spoke about everything and nothing at all.
They spoke about quidditch and Harriet's stats. Her grades and her favorite professors. Sirius would pepper in stories of his own that related to Harriet's tales and they would both laugh and try not to think about how well her father could probably tell them.
"Tell me something, Hari" Sirius started after Harriet retold the story of Ron using the telephone. Screaming into her Uncle's ear under the impression he was doing everything perfectly right. "Have they always treated you like this?" He poked her leg with his finger, gesturing to the lines on her posterior.
"Oh well," she shrugged and stared up at the ceiling. She could lie, she supposed. But she had been lying her entire life and all it had gotten her was fools gold. Everyone knew the truth. Everyone. Even Dumbledore. It did not seem to faze him, so how bad could it be? "Yeah, I guess they have." She finished finally.
"Elaborate, if you could please." Sirius said patiently.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean... they have always abused you, is what you're saying."
"What? No. I didn't say they abused me." Harriet shook her head and leaned up on her elbows to see her godfather's face.
He shirked an eyebrow up, giving her a look of disbelief.
After a moment of silence, Sirius looked back to the ceiling and began speaking in his story telling voice once more.
"When I was sixteen, my father held a banquet in my name. Invited the entire family. Distant and immediate. We dined downstairs, exactly where we ate today. We carried on into the den after our meal and had drinks, socializing. The Blacks, the Lestranges, the Malfoys, the Notts. The Who's-Who of Voldemort's regime. At the end of the night my father raised a glass to me. Announced to the family that I had made the decision to join the fight to ensure purity among Wizard Britain. He wanted me to take up the Dark Mark. This was not something we had discussed beforehand. However, my father knew my opinions. Knew who my friends were. I suppose he thought it would be quite hard for me to tell him no in front of our whole family."
Sirius chuckled softly and uncrossed his ankles.
"And it was hard. To tell him no. I'm not quite sure the version of events that would have happened if I had said yes. In my sixteen-year-old mind I imagined Lord Voldemort himself swinging down from the chandelier and carving the mark into my arm with a pocketknife while everyone refreshed their drinks. Even to this day, little is known about the ceremony. You see, once you have been marked, the chances of you coming back from it are slim to none."
"Snape-" Harriet began.
"Snape being the exception. He was marked quite young as well. Seventeen. The same year as my younger brother. I suppose he could tell us the spooky stories, but Dumbledore has always made it very clear that that is not what he is here for. Anyways. Not the point. We were meant to be talking about our shit families."
Sirius leaned his head up off the pillow with a smile.
"So I told him no. Actually, I believe I said were "I would rather eat my own shit". I will spare you the details, but father made me live up to my words. They never hit us, you see. Would never be so low as to punish us in a way a muggle might. There were spells for that. Ferumicculum, Tementes Seculus, Lacrimosa; which is like a childhood version of the torture curse. That was more their style. Honestly before school, I do not remember a time in which they were ever violent with Regulus and I. But as I got older, father and I would butt heads. Mother was worse in some cases; her words could cut deeper than anything father was capable of. I shudder to think what they would have done had they ever found out about Remus."
"After that night, I was dead to them. For a time, I convinced myself they were forced to disown me. The Family being such a tumultuous being to be up against, what choice did they have than to be rid of me. However now, I believe they were fine with their choices. Love in a household like that one was only ever a conditional kind of love. If I could not serve them, there was no love for me here. Fortunately, there was plenty of love where I ended up. Your dad's."
"My dad's house?" Harriet asked, wide eyed.
"The very same. Now I could be wrong but from what I gather; your dad was a bit like Ron Weasley seems to be for you. James's was a home away from Grimmauld place. It was somewhere I already spent most of my summers. Monty, your grandfather; had an open-door policy. When the war began, their home became headquarters for the original Order of the Phoenix. But before that, it became headquarters for a few strays. Remus and I were a pair of them. Lily in her own way, too. She had good parents, but they were lost on what to do with her. Muggleborn parents can be that way sometimes. Or that might be a stereotype and I'm being bigoted. Don't repeat it just in case."
Harriet nodded her agreement.
"Long story short, I know what it's like to be in an abusive home." Harriet rolled her eyes at the term, but stayed silent and listened to her godfather make his comparative wrap up.
The pair stayed silent for a while after. So long in fact that Harriet was convinced she wouldn't be able to speak even if she figured out the words to say. Then, the old script came back to her.
"They're afraid, is all. They just don't understand magic. Anytime-"
"That's bullshit, lovely." Sirius interrupted with a sweet condescension.
"Those muggles are not afraid of a child. Remus said your Uncle is 30 Stone on his lightest days, that fat fucker is not afraid of you."
Harriet had never been spoken to by an adult like this. Sirius was so reckless with his words, so randy and real. It felt nice to hear something that was not dripping in sugar.
"Your aunt had over half her life to suck it up and learn what it meant to live with someone magical. She chose not to. She chose to mistreat your mother. Not because she was afraid of her, but because she was jealous. And yeah, maybe she had her reasons. Maybe Lily's parents made such a difference between her and her sister that Tuney could not hardly stand it but that has fuck all to do with you."
"So, tell me. Tell me so I know, Harriet. What happens in that house? What do they do to you?"
This part, Harriet did not like. Suddenly she felt invaded.
"Why do you want to know? Why the hell do you even want to talk about this?"
"I want to know because I made you a promise and I intend to make good on it."
"…. We'll be a proper family," Sirius had said out by the womping willow all those months ago.
"Dumbledore says I can't leave. Says my mother intended for me to be protected by her blood. By my Aunt Petunia."
"Well yes. That's what he has told me as well, but Remus looked into it. Blood protections are strong. But no stronger than a Labilitis spell, a Fidelius charm. There are ways, is all I am saying. You would have to ask Moony, he is the brains of this outfit. There are ways to protect you. If Dumbledore thinks I wouldn't protect you with my life, he has forgotten a lot about me during my time away. So give me the run down. I have to know, Hari J."
"Hari J" was a new one. Remus had joked once that if Sirius loved you he hardly ever called you by your given name. She had been "Darling", "Baby", "Love", and "Sweetheart". She had been "Hettie", "Curly", "Four-foot", and "Pommy". Last year, after having quite literally outran a dragon broom-side, Sirius had referred to her as "Speed Racer" in his next three letters.
Harriet James was her parents' version of a joke played in the long game. Remus had told her that while Lily was pregnant, James was dead sure she was having a boy. So much so that he would go around telling friends and coworkers they had already chosen a name for 'him'; Harry James. When Harry came out a Harriet, Lily thought it the peak of social comedy to slightly tweak the first name and leave her middle the same. So, when friends and coworkers came to call upon the new family, excited to poke fun at James for calling it too early and being wrong; they could say "oh, well no actually. Her name IS Harry James. Is… is there something wrong with it?" Lily loved to watch them stammer. Stutter their way through an apology only to go on to compliment her little girl's name.
Harriet smiled at the nickname and memories she could only witness second hand.
"Please, Hari." Sirius's desperate voice brought her back to reality. To her new bed in her new bedroom, the second to last door on the right. In what could someday be her new home with her new family.
"They have always treated me like this. Yeah." She responded quietly. "They hate me."
"Hate you? Do they tell you that?"
"No? they don't have to though; I know they do." Flashes of memories began to float through Hari's mind. Her Aunt's screaming voice. Vernon's puce colored face.
"They hate me. They always have. I have a hard time, remembering." She was not talking any higher than a whisper. Could not bring herself to admit these things with her speaking voice. "I don't remember being very young. It's like its all been wiped out of my mind. The first memories I have are literally school age. I can remember being in Year 1 and Aunt Petunia having to come to the school to have a conference with my teacher. I couldn't read. I was probably six and I couldn't read. I remember thinking "wow Uncle Vernon is going to beat me to death when we get home," because my Aunt had had to take off work to come down for the meeting. I could hardly see, I needed glasses. But beyond that I seriously just couldn't read. No one had ever worked with me. And I remember she was so angry with me. That I had caused such a fuss just because I was stupid and couldn't keep up with the other children in the class."
Sirius didn't speak. He only nodded and prodded for her to continue. Once she did, she found it was quite difficult to stop.
"Aunt Petunia has never really… treated me like Vernon does. She might slap me in the face if we're fighting or something but she's really weak," Harriet laughed at her Aunt's expense. "She would much rather talk down to me or take away my house privileges or something like that."
"Your house privileges? Like what? Using the… the Telly?" Sirius asked waving his hand in the air in a circular motion as if it would help the word for muggle contraptions come to his mind quicker.
"Oh, well no." Harriet replied. "I'm not allowed to watch their telly, but that's not a punishment. I'm just not allowed to watch it. I meant other things. Like eating. Or having a door in my bedroom. Or sleeping in a bed. Or getting to use the bathroom."
"You are not allowed to use the bathroom?" He asked slowly, leaving space between each word as if he were speaking in another language.
"Well, mostly just use the shower in the bathroom. Not actually not being allowed to use the bathroom anymore. That only really worked when I was younger." At her godfather's clueless face she continued, "when I was younger it was like… embarrassing you know? If I had lost bathroom privileges and had an accident or something. But the older I got the less it would phase me. I would just get angry. I guess Aunt Petunia got scared I would get so fed up with it that one day I would just… I don't know, piss on her carpet or something." She laughed into the silence of the room.
"Now it's mostly just showering. Or just being in the bathroom for more than five minutes. Really, she just wants to pretend I'm not there. So, she likes to just send me to my room and not let me come back downstairs for a few days."
"And Vernon…" Sirius said, emotionlessly.
"Well Vernon, he's a bit different. He has a short fuse when it comes to me. Most anything gets him upset so I just try to stay out of his way. Dudley has always been a problem for him. I mean, me and Dudley arguing or anything. Anything that would make Dudley look inferior. If I ever got smart with him, or got upset that he was being rough with me and pushed back, that's all it would take for Uncle Vernon. Hence the…" Hari gestured to her legs.
"That is because of your cousin?"
"Well no. It's because of the dementors," Harriet laughed. "Dudley was… they really did a number on him. By the time I got him back to the house I don't think he knew what was his mouth and what was his ass. It scared Uncle Vernon. He kept screaming at me to put him right. I couldn't convince them it had nothing to do with anything I had done. The letter from the ministry claiming I had used magic didn't help of course."
"Why didn't you threaten them? Not that… I'm blaming you, but why did you not threaten them with magic?"
"Because it was an empty threat." Harriet shrugged as if it were obvious. "I mean, they knew I went off to a magical school every year. I never once brought anyone back with me to set them right. I did threaten them for a bit last year with you," she giggled. "It worked for a while but after the third or fourth time I think Vernon decided I had made you up. And besides, they know what I'm like. They know I could never hurt anyone."
Sirius sighed deeply and covered his face with his hands. After a moment, he scrubbed his face roughly and crossed his arms behind his head.
"Has Vernon ever? Has he ever touched you?" he asked quietly.
"Like? What do you mean?"
"Like touched you, H. Or had you touch him?"
"Oh!" Hari exclaimed loudly, "Oh no. no. Gah." She gagged slightly at the thought of it.
Sirius laughed, relieved.
"Alright. Good. That is good. Merlin. I'm sorry." He laughed again, awkwardly. "I am sorry. I had to ask. Remus. He put it in my head and it's been eating me alive. He was your professor for a year, you know? He noticed things."
"Noticed things?!" Harriet asked, incredulously.
"Noticed things." Sirius repeated. "You were thirteen and already boy crazy, Pet. That is a bit young wouldn't you say?"
Shocked, Harriet laughed in a reeling breath. "Boy crazy? Are you serious? What does that even mean?"
"It means when Remus caught you and your boyfriend up in the Astronomy tower after third-year curfew swapping spit, he got a bit nervous! He also told me about the Malfoy boy! I'm ashamed at you," Sirius said in a teasing voice. "my own second cousin once removed. Moony said the two of you could barely pay attention in class without flirting or fighting."
"That Rat!" Harriet laughed, shaking her drying hair. "Here I was thinking you and Remus were at home last year huddled up, being my biggest supporters. No, you were both talking down on my name. You should have done an interview with the Prophet." Sirius barked a laugh at her dramatics.
"Besides, Draco Malfoy is the biggest pain in the ass I have ever met. I will die and come back to life before I ever thought about him like that. And as far as Cedric goes, yeah I guess that was a bit much." She shrugged. "But it's over now so… nothing to worry about this year."
The room suddenly got a bit colder. Cedric had been put so far out of Harriet's mind these past two months. It was all she could to not wake up and replay the entire night through her head before she got out of bed in the morning, she realized early on that if she were to allow herself a thought of him. Give herself the chance to miss his presence, she would well and truly lose the plot.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Her godfather asked soothingly.
Harriet chucked and sat up from her place at the end of the bed, "who are you? My therapist?"
Sirius joined in on her laugh and began to rise from the bed as well. Once he was standing, he leant over the side of the bed and cracked his back in a twist. With a grunt, he stood up straight and caught Harriet's eye. "I would be. If that is what you needed from me. I have no way to prove it just yet, P. but I'll be anything you need me to be."
As they made their way back down the stairs, passing the odd houseguest doing their nightly routines, Harriet became overwhelmed with what Sirius had said. How honest and laid-bare he was with his emotions, especially when it came to showing Harriet how devoted he was to her. She wondered if he knew how badly she needed it. How had Remus described it at dinner again? What a curse it is to be loved so fiercely? What a curse, indeed.