A/N Just a quick chapter of revenge fluff and filler before we head to the second task ;)
The conversation between Sirius, Harry and Dumbledore about the Horcruxes happens off page. We all know about them and what Harry's scar means for him, so I'm not going to re-write a large part of Book Six here. How Harry and Sirius deal with it is going to be more my angle as time goes on.
For those who PM'd me asking about the vacation villa, I took inspiration from a real place in the Maldives. There's a resort called Soneva Fushi and they have a nine bedroom villa called the Private Reserve if you wanted to get a visual on what it might look like. Sadly, they have no house elves and no unlimited magic or flying carpets. But it still looks pretty fun ;)
*************HP***********
On a cold Saturday morning in the middle of January, a man walks down the center of Privet Drive in Surrey.
He's tall, with firm shoulders that can look both sensuous and intimidating depending on the circumstances. One elegant hand swings at his side while the other is buried in the pocket of his obviously expensive overcoat. His hair, black as his name, reaches just to his shoulders, too well behaved to even blow in the light breeze.
He strides down the road with a confident gait, as if he's a lord to the manor born inspecting the lesser tenancies on his estate. There is no car parked anywhere in the bland, one dimensional, cookie-cutter neighborhood that belongs to him.
He's literally appeared out of thin air.
He walks only for a few moments until he reaches the very boxy home, identical in almost every detail to each of its neighbors with the exception of the number four that hangs on the front door. There is a mid-range sedan parked in the front, indicating that at least one of the adults in residence is home. With a grimace the man walks up to the front door and raps three times.
The long necked woman that opens the door smiles pleasantly enough, her welcoming demeanor part of her forced gracious mannerisms. She doesn't recognize him at first, his current state so different from the wanted poster that had been her last visual reference. But this time he's well groomed and once again quite good looking.
His expensive, exquisitely tailored clothing identifies him as a person of value obviously, so her first reaction is to behave in the appropriate manner for a woman in her position.
"Yes? May I help you?"
"Hello, Petunia. I've come to fix Harry's bedroom."
With a growing horror in her eyes, she physically recoils, wanting to be as far away from one of those people as possible. If she had one of her sets of pearls around her neck this morning, this is when she would be clutching them as she screeches for his husband.
"Vernon! Vernon come quickly!"
The man waits patiently, a sort of grin on his face that doesn't quite meet his stormy gray eyes. Under other circumstances he would find her overreactions quite amusing, but the fact that this woman was the sole maternal figure in his son's life for ten years renders any attempt to make light of the situation moot.
Just seconds later a behemoth of a man lumbers down the narrow hallway. How he can still fit completely within its confines is beyond their guest's imagination. Unlike his wife's poor recollection, the heavy man must have a sixth sense about him as he understands right away what is happening.
"You can't be here," he asserts with his piggy eyes flaring, although his posture is bleeding with fear. "I'll not have your kind in my home!"
The lack of welcome is expected and the tall man shakes his head and retracts his hand from his coat pocket along with his wand. The sight of it makes both the heavy man and his equally thin wife yelp as they cling to each other. The porky man's face becoming more and more red by the second.
"I assure you, Dursley, I have no desire to be here one moment longer than necessary. However I did make an agreement that we would leave Harry's room just as he found it, and I intend to do exactly that."
With a determined stride, Sirius pushed his way in through the door and proceeded to climb the stairs to the second floor where the smallest bedroom in the house lay at the end of the hall. Behind him he can hear the thundering footprints of the rotund man along with his gasping breath as he forced himself to quickly climb the stairs.
"Don't think we will agree to have you back here to do anything else freakish to it in June. If you change it now, it stays that way!"
Sirius rolled his eyes in annoyance as he began the incantations to remove the charms.
"Harry won't be returning in June," he sneered in between his chants. "Or ever, for that matter. So you have no worries on that front."
If he had turned around he would have seen the look in the fat man's eyes as if Christmas had just come around again. Short of breath, he panted for a few seconds, a growing smile on his face at the implication that the boy would never be back under his roof.
"Well," he started gleefully, "that's a different matter altogether. Do whatever you have to do and get out. Good riddance to him!"
It took some highly concerted effort on his part for Sirius to not hex the lump into oblivion for his derisive tone. As deserving and justified as the actions might have been, not to mention personally satisfying, he'd never be allowed to get away with truly harming a Muggle and the last thing he needed was a legal battle on his hands.
He thought of Harry waiting for him back at Celestial Court and stilled his twitchy wand hand in favor of finishing the job he'd come to do.
"How can that be?"
Lily's sister had finally braved the stairs enough to come up and hear their conversation. Unlike her husband's obvious elation, she had a frown on her face as if she'd just heard that twinsets were being banned from fashion.
"We were told that he needed to live here until he was of age," she practically screeched. "What of the protection for this house?"
Of course Petunia would only be concerned for her own little family. She knew how her sister had died and knew that the blood spell would protect the house and its occupants only as long as Harry could call it home.
"The protections wards here have already failed," Sirius informed her with a smug smile on his face. "From now on Harry will be with me where he belongs. That is where his home is and that is where the protections are."
Dursley, finally getting with the program, immediately turned red with rage.
"That's not the agreement we made! We only took the boy in because we were promised that our son would be protected from your kind too!"
At this point Sirius had had just about enough out of the both of them. These were the disgusting beings that had abused and starved his child. Had locked him up like an animal and treated him worse than a worm in their garden. Whipping around he advanced on Dursley, holding his wand out in front of him like a saber ready to do battle.
"I don't give a damn about what you were promised, you great fat article!" he hissed as Dursley wisely backed up. "If I had my way, you'd both be locked up for the rest of your unnatural lives for what you did to Harry."
Petunia opened her mouth, about to protest, when the bedroom door down the hall opened and a boy roughly the size of a baby whale came lumbering out to see what the commotion was all about.
"Dudders, go back inside your room!" his mother shrieked, desperate to keep her son away from the angry man with the wand and the crazy eyes.
Sirius chuckled at her antics, remembering how Lily always described her sister as quite the drama queen. As if he would ever harm a child, no matter how poorly behaved and unruly the child was.
"Your son has nothing to fear from me, Petunia," he scoffed, keeping his wand trained on her and her husband. "Unlike some, I don't vent my anger and frustration on children.
Dudley looked from his terrified parents to the black haired man with the wand and automatically looked around for his cousin since this was clearly a situation involving those freaks as his parents always referred to Harry and his kind.
"Who are you?" he demanded, narrowing his beady eyes at Siruis. "My freak cousin isn't supposed to return here until the summer."
Sirius' eyes flared at the boy's tone and use of words. If he hadn't promised his son that he would keep his temper while he was here, the little lump would have found himself hanging upside down with his enormous trousers around his ankles and a constant barrage of cold water spilling over him.
"Harry isn't returning," he snapped instead. "Not this summer. Not ever. He has his own home now."
Dudley's eyes went wide and at first a look of sheer joy passed over his face until he began to frown.
"What do you mean he has his own home? We're the freak's only family. Who else would've wanted him?"
Vernon Dursley must have seen the murderous rage in Sirius' eyes to have been able to summon the courage to move and place himself in between the furious wizard and his mouthy kid like he did. In other circumstances he would have applauded his son's words, but he did have enough self-preservation to realize that this one was not someone to be tampered with.
The fury raging in Sirius' mind almost completely broke his brain, but he managed to somehow summon enough calm to settle over him so that his ire was only on a slow boil. It allowed him to take a few seconds to compose himself and inspire a different tactic.
"As it happens," he began conversationally, "I'm his godfather and legal guardian." He paused to let that sink in for a brief second before continuing. "I'm also filthy rich. Why wouldn't Harry want to live with me instead of here in this little dump of a house?"
All three of the Dursleys immediately took exception to his disdain of their very neat and tidy home. Vernon turned practically purple as he sputtered nonsensically, while Petunia became apoplectic with indignation.
But it was to Dudley that Sirius directed his next words.
"I don't think our world was ever properly explained to you, since you don't seem to understand what Harry gives up every summer to come back here to this non-magical hovel. Come and let me show you what we can do."
Dudley, who had been incredibly curious as to what his parents had been trying to hide about his former second bedroom since last summer, pushed his way forward through their protesting arms and came to stand at Sirius' side with a scowl on his face.
"Go on," Sirius encouraged. "Take a look inside."
Since he had only just begun removing the enchantments, the magically enlarged residence was still mostly intact save for the spells rendering it unplottable. So Dudley was able to see the entire transfigured room in all its detail. When his parents attempted to shout their objections to their son entering the large residence, Sirius hit them with both a full body bind and a silencing charm to keep them quiet and out of his way.
Dudley was so intrigued by his incredible surroundings that he didn't even notice his parents going still and mute.
With a large grin on his face Sirius let the boy wander around for several minutes, amused by Dudley's shocked silence as he took in the unbelievable size of what his brain rationally knew to be the smallest room in their house. The longer he walked around, the more angry his face became as the green-eyed monster of jealousy slowly took over his instinctual disdain for anything magical.
Before long he was stomping out of the residence and back out into the hallway to bellow at his paralyzed parents.
"Why does Harry get a room like that!" he raged. "I want one too, Mummy! I want a bigger one! A better one!"
Smirking even more, Sirius released the Dursleys from their enchantments, eager to see the fallout. As soon as she felt herself able to move, Petunia rushed over to pet and soothe her son.
"Duddikins, you don't want any of that freakishness!" she insisted. "It's not normal. But when it's back to the way it was, you can do whatever you like to it. Okay sweetheart?"
"I don't want it back the way it was!" Dudley howled as he pushed her hands away from him. "I like it like that! And I want my room made bigger too! I want three - no four bedrooms in mine. With a game room and a telly room and a...and a..."
Petunia was trying desperately to assuage her infuriated offspring as Dursley glared daggers at Sirius.
"Now see what you did!" he growled.
Sirius merely shrugged as he smiled broadly. Not nearly done with them yet.
"I'm sorry, Dudley. Your parents were very clear that the room was to be returned to its previous condition once Harry had moved out."
Returning to his task of removing the rest of the enchantments, he chuckled to himself as he heard the pleadings and platitudes spilling forth from Vernon's and Petunia's mouths as they desperately attempted to assure their son that he didn't need a magically enlarged bedroom to be happy.
"Why don't we go out shopping today, Popkin?" Petunia wheedled as Dudley smacked her hands away again. "We'll get you five more late Christmas presents."
"That's right," Dursley chimed in. "That'll make forty-six gifts for Christmas this year," he gloated as he looked over at Sirius with triumph in his piggy eyes.
The offer seemed to settle Dudley down for the moment as his greediness began to formulate a wish list in his head. There had still been quite a few things he unhappily did not find under the tree during the holiday.
"Only forty-six?"
All three Dursleys immediately whipped their heads around to see Sirius staring pitifully at Dudley now as the doorway behind him showed that the bedroom had been returned to its tiny state.
"That's very unfortunate for you, Dudley," Sirius tsked sympathetically. "That's less than a third of what I gave Harry for Christmas, and that didn't include the ten days we just spent on a tropical island in the Maldives."
The utter look of hatred and betrayal that crossed Dudley's face as he turned on his parents practically had them backing up in fear. The boy was so enraged that he didn't even have the ability to speak at the moment.
"What's the matter, Vernon?" Sirius asked, turning to where Dursley was fuming. "Is it money troubles? Did that failed business deal with Mr. Mason a couple of years ago mean economic ruin for your company?"
Before Dursley could even sputter a word, Sirius silenced him again, tired of hearing his loud mouth.
"Dudley," he called, getting the boy's attention away from his hysterical mother. "It's too bad really. I don't know if you realize this, but even though your mother isn't a witch herself, she has magic in her family. So that means if she had married one of us instead of that great lump that is your father, it's very likely that you would be a wizard just like Harry."
Understanding dawned in the boy's simmering eyes. He never would have admitted it to his parents, but he'd always been secretly jealous of the things that his cousin could do. Harry was too much of a goody-goody to do anything really cool with his gifts, but Dudley would have found a lot of creative ways to use them.
The idea that he could have been magical too only made him even more irate.
Dudley was now glaring at both of his parents with unbridled hostility and Sirius, feeling that his work here was just about done, turned his attention to where Petunia was cowering. Knowing that this was most likely his last chance to have his say in Lily's name.
"She loved you, you know," he hissed. The memory of his sweet, beautiful friend causing a sharp pain in his chest.
"Even after all the vile and cruel things you said to her, she never stopped. She always felt horrible that you were jealous of her. Did you really think she didn't know about the way you would break into her trunk to try on her school robes? It's why she never locked it over the summer. She wanted to share her life with you."
Petunia visibly flinched, but she kept her pursed mouth closed, refusing to rise to the bait. Unfortunately for her, Sirius wasn't finished.
"And because you resented her, you abused and neglected her only child," he continued with a sneer. "When you know she would never have done the same to yours. If it had been you and that fat oaf who had died, Lily would have raised Dudley as her own without hesitation. But you? You've never treated Harry like a son."
Sirius glanced over to the portly boy still simmering over the removal of the enchanted room and regarded his enormous size and petulant demeanor with disdain.
"Although, given the state of your own son, that's probably the one kind thing you actually did for Harry."
"I wouldn't have wanted my son to be raised with those freaks," Petunia spat out, her words dripping with hatred.
Sirius rapidly advanced on her and she recoiled in fear from the glare in his eyes trained on her. She was visibly trembling as neither her husband nor her son came to her aid.
"But you forget," Sirus snarled menacingly. "In our world, your son would have been the freak! But Lily would never have allowed him to be treated like one. She would have loved and cared for him just like she would Harry. That's the real difference between the two of you. Not the magic."
He stared her down for another moment before straightening back up to brush invisible lint from his impeccable black coat, as if just being in their house made him dirty. Turning to Dudley, he was about to unload on the boy too until he remembered just how big of an arrogant toe-rag, in Lily's words, he and James had been at fifteen.
People do change as they get older, and maybe, just maybe, Dudley might grow out of his bullying phase. Just like Sirius and James had.
Taking a deep breath he regarded the boy briefly before making up his mind.
"I'm done here. I have to get back home as Harry has several of his friends visiting for the weekend and they're having a party tonight," he bragged with unnecessary smugness just to get the boy's attention. "Not that I mind since our manor is large enough for a small army to stay and we have plenty of domestic help to take care of the cooking and cleaning."
Dursley and Petunia fumed as Dudley's eyes narrowed in absolute jealousy. And Sirius probably shouldn't have taken as much pleasure out of their reactions as he did, but in all honesty he just wasn't as good of a person as his son was.
"Dudley, if you ever grow up and realize what a horrible little boy you've been and want to make amends with your only cousin, your parents know how to contact Harry's school. I can't promise that he'd ever want to talk to you again, but he is an exceptionally kind boy. He might find it in his heart to forgive you some day."
With a final glare, Sirius turned and strode determinedly down the stairs and out the door. Glancing around to make sure no one was watching, he turned on the spot and apparated into the backyard of Celestial Court.
He could hear the loud commotion coming from their home Quidditch pitch before he even entered the stadium. The weather was brisk but there was no snow on the ground in the region where their home was so it wasn't entirely uncomfortable to spend time outside. Off to the side he could see Remus, Neville and Hermione bundled up against the cold and cheering on the others who were shooting around in the air.
Although everyone had just returned to school from the Christmas holidays, Sirius had been desperate to distract his son from the painful news of what his scar and the night terrors really meant. Unsurprisingly, Harry had given the appearance of being calm while hearing about it all as he sat in Dumbledore's office with his father and headmaster the day after their arrival from the Maldives, but Sirius knew his child well enough to know that Harry was shaken to the very core.
Quite like Sirius was himself.
It hadn't been easy to explain the concept of a Horcrux to him. The very evil nature of it was abhorrent to any wizard or witch of the light, and the idea that even a tiny fragment of the monster that was Voldemort was carried inside of him had the boy going pale. Even though Harry was desperately trying to keep a very British stiff upper lip about it all on the outside, Sirius knew he was clearly flailing on the inside.
He also knew that his reactionary and headstrong son wasn't likely to take the necessary time to process it all at length, especially when the boy was a person of action. Always ready to jump right into a problem and solve it.
How many times had Harry already proven that?
And Albus, damn his eyes, had even dared to hint around the possibility of Harry joining the search now that he knew about them.
Of course Harry had immediately jumped at the chance. Forgetting once again that he was still just a boy who really should only be worried about nothing more than exams and pretty girls and who already had a target on his back with that blasted Tournament.
If Harry had his way, he would be out on the hunt right now to track down any of the potential objects that Dumbledore suspected also had significant meaning to Voldemort.
Something that Sirius had absolutely forbidden and left no room for interpretation.
There were other trusted wizards and witches in their inner circle who were much older and more experienced than his fourteen-year-old son.
But past events showed that Harry was going to stress himself about it to the point of insanity, regardless if he was actively involved in the hunt or not. So it had been the worried father's idea to convince Minerva into allowing him to bring Harry and some of his friends home to Celestial Court for a weekend of frivolity in an attempt to get his son's mind off of dark and troubling thoughts and remind him of the fun things in life.
They'd had such a good time on their holiday and Sirius was anxious that the high spirits his son had come home with continued to remain for a little while longer.
Most of Harry's Gryffindor friends had already been to their home over the summer for Harry's birthday party and their families were comfortable and familiar with the security measures in place. The kids themselves were thrilled with the idea of having a weekend there to play Quidditch since they were all missing the game at school. Angelina especially was excited as she was going to be team Captain next year and being able to have unexpected practice time on a full sized pitch that the other teams wouldn't get was an advantage she couldn't turn down.
It had been all too easy to get permission for them all to stay at Sirius' and Harry's house for a couple of days and it gave Harry something else to focus on besides the terrible truths that his father had been forced to share with him.
As he made his way to the front of the stands, he caught sight of his boy soaring high above the rest as he sought out the tiny gold ball. Remus must have transfigured some rudimentary uniforms for the group as half of them wore red jerseys while the other half wore gold ones. And while there weren't quite enough of them to make two full teams, with Ron and Ginny Weasley as well as Dean and Seamus joining the entire remaining Gryffindor Quidditch team players, they had enough to fudge it well enough for practice.
Sirius stood and watched his son's skilled flying as he streaked through the sky and it wasn't very long before Harry had found his quarry to the joy of the other red team members. The boy held the Snitch up triumphantly as he descended towards the ground to where he had seen his father waiting for him. Dismounting from his broom, he was beaming as he trotted over, blushing from Sirius' enthusiastic clapping.
"That's my boy," Sirius cheered proudly, holding out his arms to his son.
Harry unabashedly fell into the hug, not caring what the others thought as he gripped his father tight. Besides himself, only Remus, Ron and Hermione knew what Sirius had been doing that morning and Harry needed the affection right now. Pressing his lips against his son's messy mop of hair, Sirius held him close, both of them thinking the same thought even though they didn't speak.
It was over.
Finally over.
Life at the house on Privet Drive was now only just a sad memory.
***********HP*********
"Did you brush your teeth?"
Smiling, Sirius walked into his son's bedroom after knocking, the obscene amount of sweets Harry had undoubtedly consumed that evening worrying him.
Dobby and the Celestial Court house elves had outdone themselves with a late night dessert buffet for the teenagers. The pride of Gryffindor lions had taken over the entire first floor of the large home when the weather became too biting to remain outdoors and one sure fire way to keep a bunch of energetic kids safely occupied for a few moments was by feeding them.
After Sirius and Remus had apparated to London and back, returning with twenty-five enormous pizzas that most of the pure-blood kids in the crowd had never tried before, every corner of the chateau's massive ballroom had been piled high with cakes, tarts, ices and truffles. It's a wonder that Harry and his friends had managed to stumble their way to their bedrooms considering the absolute food coma they must all be fighting off.
"Yes, Papa."
Harry rolled his eyes at his overprotective father's inquiry, but he was smiling as he climbed under the covers of his bed. As happy as he'd always been at Hogwarts, there was nothing like sleeping in his own room again. Contrary to the original plan of spending weekends during the school term at home, this was actually the first time he'd been back to Celestial Court since the weekend he was chosen as a TriWizard Champion and that hadn't exactly been a relaxing stay.
Strolling over to the bed Sirius reached down to wrap a warm comforter around his son, eliciting an indignant huff from the boy. He knew that Harry wasn't actually complaining about the gesture. On the contrary, he snuggled into it and settled himself as Sirius sat down on the edge of the bed.
Only Ron's room and Hermione's were located in the chateau's family wing where Harry and Sirius had their rooms. Harry's other friends were given rooms in the guest wing which was on the other side of the house, so there wasn't much of a chance for anyone else to oversee Sirius going in to Harry's room to tuck his son in for the night.
Not that Harry would have really cared if they did.
He'd spent too many years as an unwanted child and he wasn't going to apologize for enjoying the fact that he now had a father that loved him and willingly gave him affection without reservation.
"Did you have fun today?"
Nodding, Harry gave his father a small smile. A good day of flying and camaraderie hadn't exactly drowned out the dark voices in the back of his mind that whispered scary thoughts to him, but it certainly quieted them down a little. He knew how hard his father was trying to help him deal with the unpleasant reality that they'd found themselves in and he was grateful that Sirius cared so much.
But he also knew that it was just a temporary reprieve.
Sooner or later, there were going to be some hard choices that needed to be made.
"Thank you," Harry said quietly as Sirius took the eyeglasses that Harry handed to him and placed them on the night table next to the bed. "For bringing me here for the weekend."
Sirius breathed in a deep sigh and reached out to tuck a lock of wild hair behind Harry's left ear.
"I think it was important to both of us that you spend a little time in your own home right now. Especially today."
Harry nodded in agreement. Privet Drive, while technically being his home for many years had never felt like anything more than a residence to him. A place where he lived, but had no warmth or love for him in it. Where a stranger coming in off the street could look around the obsessively tidy house at the photos on the walls of a happy family of three. With a father, mother and their son, and never even realize that another small boy lived there among them.
Both Celestial Court, and even their residence in the Astronomy Tower, told a far different story.
Sirius had already scattered around photos in both places of Harry and of the two of them together, as well as photos of Harry's parents and grandparents. Even some of Harry and his friends.
At Celestial Court there were pairs of his muddy trainers discarded by the umbrella stand near the door to the backyard. Books and rolls of parchment still sitting on the tables in the library from his studies over the summer. A program and other souvenirs from the Quidditch match they'd attended over the summer arranged in a little display on the breakfront in the sitting room.
The residence in the Astronomy Tower, being significantly smaller in scope, had even more evidence of him strewn about. Quills and books. A spare house tie that never seemed to get moved from where he'd flung it on a side table in the corner. His favorite snacks in a basket on the kitchen counter.
There was even a vinyl copy of an album called Republic by a Muggle band named New Order. The music had been playing on every radio station in Britain for the past year and both Harry and Hermione had admitted to enjoying it as a guilty pleasure. Sirius was planning to do some tinkering with their gramophone so that Harry could listen to it in their magical home.
Small things. Not much of anything really. But clear signs that in these two places lived a boy named Harry who was happy there.
"You need a haircut. You're starting to look like Hagrid."
Scowling, Harry looked pointedly at his father's shoulder length black tresses and cocked an eyebrow at him over the blatant hypocrisy.
"My hair behaves itself," Sirius defended with a laugh as he reached out further to tousle the boy's unruly locks. "James did you no favors by passing down the Potter family rat's nest to you."
Harry ducked out of the way of his father's long fingers and huffed.
"I like it this way."
Chuckling softly, Sirius leaned over to kiss Harry on the forehead and was happy to see a little smile peek out from his son's pouting mouth that let him know that the boy wasn't truly upset with the teasing.
"Well, we'll see. But now it's already way past your bedtime and you need to get some sleep. Pleasant dreams tonight, little one."
He moved to stand and extinguish the lamp on the night table but was abruptly pulled back by a sharp tug on his wrist. Startled he turned to see his son's worried face staring up at him.
"Harry? What's the matter?"
His son just gripped tighter until Sirius used his other hand to cover Harry's tense fingers soothingly. The boy absently chewed on his bottom lip for a moment. Seemingly gathering his courage to speak.
"Papa, these dreams I've been having. Or visions...or whatever they are. This connection between me and Voldemort. What if the reason for it is that I am becoming more like him?"
Sirius' heart shattered from the broken tone in his son's voice. Harry had already been through so much, it just wasn't fair to saddle him with even more uncertainty and guilt over things he couldn't control.
"I feel so angry sometimes without really knowing why," Harry admitted quietly, with an almost shameful tone in his voice. "And what if, after everything that I've been through... something's gone wrong inside me? What if I'm becoming bad?"
The words and the desperation they were laced with hit Sirius like a punch to the stomach. Why his poor child thought for even one minute that he could ever possibly be even remotely like that monster was inconceivable.
He leaned over to take his son's fretful face between his hands and looked directly into the anxious green eyes and willed his son to believe his words.
"I want you to listen to me very carefully, Harry," he stated firmly. "You're not a bad person. You're a very good person who bad things have happened to. You understand?"
Harry nodded but his father could see that he wasn't even remotely convinced. Once again Sirius damned the Dursleys in his head for giving his child such a low sense of self worth that he could even think to equate himself with the scourge of the wizarding world.
"Besides," he continued in an attempt to make the boy see reason, "the world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters. We've all got both light and dark inside of us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That's who we really are."
Sirius could see that his son wanted to believe his words, but there was still a large measure of skepticism apparent on his young face. Overcoming that kind of insecurity wasn't going to come easily for a boy who'd spent the majority of his life ignored and was then thrust into the spotlight as a hero of a brand new world with no real help to navigate it at first."
Knowing that all he could do at the moment was to keep reassuring his boy that he was no worse than any other occasionally hot tempered teenager, he leaned over to give Harry's forehead another kiss.
"Someday this will all be over and we'll have the quiet happy life that we always should have had," he promised his son. "You'll see."
Harry took in a shaky little breath before he reluctantly nodded and slipped further under his covers. Standing, Sirius flicked his wand and extinguished the lamp and cast the room in a shadowy darkness.
"Would you like me to stay awhile?"
He could see the gears grinding in his son's head as Harry thought it over. Ultimately, the boy looked as if he might feel just a bit awkward about it considering the number of his friends staying in their home at the moment and he slowly shook his head.
Not fooled by his son's reluctance, Sirius offered an alternative.
"How about if Padfoot kept you company? For just a bit anyway."
This idea was obviously much more palatable and Harry immediately nodded and slid over more to the side to make room on the bed. Throwing his son a warm smile, Sirius shifted and a few seconds later the bear-like dog jumped on Harry's bed, circled around a few times and then curled up next to him.
Both were asleep within minutes.
*************HP**************
At some point during their weekend stay at Celestial Court Hermione and Ron seemed to have declared a detente.
Sitting with Harry around the dining table in their residence in the Astronomy Tower Sunday evening, the three teens were playing a very aggressive game of Exploding Snap while Sirius and Remus nursed tumblers of Firewhiskey in front of the hearth.
While they were still in the Maldives, Sirius had given Ron a copy of Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches and Ron had returned from their trip with a delicate shell necklace wrapped in fancy paper that he'd presented to Hermione while everyone else was gorging themselves on pizza.
Sirius hadn't been sure whether it was the thoughtful and, for them, appropriately meaningful gift, or the fact that Ron was willingly forgoing a feast in order to speak to his still standoffish ex-girlfriend privately that softened Hermione's attitude towards him.
Probably a little of both.
"So is it done?"
Remus' softly spoken question pulled Sirius out of his thoughts and he turned to look at the concern on his oldest friend's face.
"Yes. All set as of this afternoon."
Despite the serious conversation he'd had with his son regarding a potential relocation to the safe island so far away, after meeting with Albus in his office and having his fears about the truth behind Harry's scar clearly spelled out for him, Sirius had decided to go ahead with his initial idea of purchasing one of the villas.
The exceptionally large one they had stayed in, as a matter of fact.
Not that he and Harry would be moving there any time soon, necessarily, but the fact was that Sirius and Harry now owned it.
Reluctantly, Sirius finally agreed with his son that running away from their problems was not a solution and the fact that his fourteen-year-old was so much wiser than he was himself was slightly damaging to his ego. But he put it down to Harry fortunately having his mother's intellect and common sense as opposed to the headstrong carelessness that had often got both James and Sirius himself into trouble.
That didn't mean, however, that the worried father was about to leave everything to chance.
Until the threat of Voldemort was gone from their lives for good, their island villa would remain as a life-raft in case they ever really needed to run at a moment's notice. Of course it wasn't an ideal scenario, since no one knew better than Sirius and Harry that going into hiding didn't always equal safety, but it was an option if things suddenly went south.
After Harry's friends had all been sent back to school via the Floo connection at Celestial Court after lunch, Sirius had apparated with Harry and Remus to Diagon Alley to authorize an enormous withdrawal from the Black Family vault while he had Remus drag a very unwilling Harry to the barber.
Using the Black Family money had been an initially difficult decision to make. As a rule, Sirius avoided touching any of the gold and treasures in the main family vault. The origins of such staggering wealth had always made him feel very unclean and he regarded it all as tainted and unsavory.
Day to day he didn't really need it as he already had plenty of money in his personal vault. More than he and Harry would ever need to lead exceptionally comfortable lives, in fact. Because while Uncle Alphard had been a member of a cadet branch of the family, all Black family heirs were inherently wealthy.
It was just the way it had always been.
Truthfully, once he'd been disowned by his parents, it never even occurred to Sirius that he would ever see another sickle from the main family vault. Regulus was to be the heir, and as far as Sirius was concerned, his little brother was more than welcomed to it all.
But then Reg had died when he was just eighteen years old and later that same year their father passed away as well, and although Sirius had never been told the manner of either death, he could guess that Orion's death might have been a direct result of the premature loss of the only son left that he claimed. Whether it was from despair or fear or retaliation, Sirius didn't know.
It wasn't uncommon in those days for the families of Voldemort's followers to be targeted if one of them displeased him.
Deep in his heart, Sirius had always hoped that his little brother had seen the light at some point, realized he'd made a stupid childish mistake in who and what he believed in and attempted to escape. Although everyone knew that taking the mark of a Death Eater meant you were in it for life. It wasn't really the kind of club that you could just walk away from without repercussions.
But his little brother had still died young and their father probably died angry and that had left Sirius as the only male heir left in the main line of the family. In truth he'd expected his stern, prejudiced pure-blood grandfather Arcturus to have written him off as well when Orion and Walburga had, but apparently he hadn't.
It had come as a great shock to him when he was on the run to find out that he had, in fact, inherited the bulk of the family fortune at Gringotts upon the death of Arcturus in 1991 as well as the Black family London home at Grimmauld Place. Of course his own mother's personal wealth had gone into the vault of his detested cousin Bellatrix LaStrange, but that was a mere pittance compared to the riches under Arcturus' control.
The surprise inheritance didn't sit well with Sirius since he was fairly sure that the only reason his grandfather had not disinherited him was because he believed Sirius to actually be guilty of the crimes he was accused of.
Far from being horrified by a grandson who was imprisoned for being a mass murderer, Arcturus would have been proud of Sirius for handing over a blood traitor and his mudblood wife to the Dark Lord, as well as killing twelve Muggles.
The commitment on his grandson's part that it would have taken to deceive his friends for so many years, only to betray them to a wizard of such enormous power was positively Slytherin and would have definitely once again given him value in his grandfather's eyes.
In fact, Sirius was pretty sure that, had it been in Arcturus' power to do so, his grandfather would have certainly paid the corrupt Ministry officials whatever gold was necessary to secure his grandson's release from Azkaban so that he could take Sirius under his wing as his eventual heir and head of the family.
Unfortunately, due to the notoriety surrounding Sirius' arrest and imprisonment, even someone as powerful as the head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black didn't wield that kind of clout, regardless of how much he was willing to pay for it. The Ministry may be rotten at its core, but it still had to at least appear that it answered to the public.
Something in Arcturus must have made him sure that Voldemort would rise again, leading him to keep his only remaining grandson as his heir for when that great day came and Sirius would be freed. Sadly for him, Arcturus died before seeing his dream come to fruition. So while still imprisoned, Sirius became the unwilling beneficiary of generations of Black family ill gotten gains and, up until this afternoon, had no legitimate reason to want to touch any of it.
The price tag on the enormous villa that would ensure Harry's safety was hefty, and while Sirius could have managed it with his own vault, it would have meant a significant hit to his personal finances.
Under other circumstances, he may have still chosen to do it anyway since there was nothing more important or precious to him than his son. But in the end he'd decided to take the gold out of the main vault simply because the idea of spending that much of their filthy wealth on a residence where none of them would have ever been welcome gave him enormous satisfaction.
The very idea that a small part of the fortune that his dark and bigoted ancestors had acquired over the years was being spent on something that absolutely forbade Dark Magic was simply too deliciously ironic to turn down.
And from a practical point of view, it was also a good business decision.
Once the general manager had divulged the staggering asking price, he'd immediately gone into his salesman pitch to outline all the financial benefits of ownership on the pleasure island. The nine bedroom residence was routinely rented for almost half the year on average, but Sirius would only need to collect rent for one month to cover the annual operating expenses.
Not that he needed to, considering that the purchase was negligible compared to the fortune left in the main vault, but it was nice to know that they wouldn't be out of pocket any additional monies if they didn't want to be. Sirius, as the owner, would always have the final say on when and if the villa could be rented out at any time. So it could be as occupied or empty as they wanted it to be.
Tomorrow he would received a perpetually activated portkey that could be repeatedly charmed to recognize only the magical signatures that he chose and with it came the assurance that he would always have a safe haven to bring his son to in case of an emergency.
With any luck, they would never need to use it in that way, and it could just become a place where he and Harry could pop off to for a break now again. Hopefully, someday, it would become the family holiday spot after Harry was married with children of his own.
Somewhere that Sirius would one day be able to play in peace with his grandchildren and great-grandchildren when the threat was over.
"Snap!"
Hermione's cry rang out a split second before the explosion and all three of the teens got pelted with bits of smoking embers. Ron coughed loudly while Harry grumbled under his breath and brushed the ash from his newly cropped hair.
"At least you don't have to worry about your entire head being set on fire," Hermione huffed irritably as she patted the tiny sparks out of her own longer tresses. "There's not enough left for any real damage."
Ron couldn't entirely suppress the snort that escaped through his nose as Harry glared hatefully in his father's direction.
"Yes, well, I didn't really get a choice," he spat out crossly. "Apparently, I'm old enough to fight dragons but not old enough to decide how long I'm allowed to grow my sodding hair."
Frowning, Sirius thought that Harry must still be really put out with him if the boy risked using that kind of language in front of his friends. If he'd been in a less satisfied mood over his recent purchase he more than likely would have Scourgified his son's fresh mouth right there and then no matter who was visiting. As it was, he wasn't about to let Harry get away with a childish tantrum over something as silly as a haircut.
"Do we need to have another conversation about this, young man?" he asked ominously, knowing without looking up from the paper he was casually reading that he'd just caused the boy to blush.
Harry's face had indeed gone furiously pink as he gritted his teeth to bite back a retort that would have only been considered a challenge. Feeling decidedly cross over the forced grooming, he'd already spent twenty minutes that afternoon with his nose stuck in a corner for talking back to his father one too many times after they arrived at the residence from their excursion.
He also knew that Sirius could and certainly would put him right back into that corner in front of Ron and Hermione if he kept up his current attitude.
Taking a few deep cleansing breaths, with the faces of both of his friends clearly encouraging him to show a little humility, he backed down.
"No, sir."
Sirius looked up with a poker face, inwardly relieved that he wouldn't need to take the matter any further at the moment. He really had to remind himself of all the shirty remarks he had made to authority figures at Harry's age. An age when you weren't a small child anymore, but you weren't quite as grown up as you thought you were and still needed to have your behavior curbed.
He got up from his chair and extracted a box from the pocket of his cloak that was filled with Harry's favorite treacle fudge that Sirius had picked up at Sugarplum's Sweets Shop before meeting Harry and Remus at the barber. Setting it down in front of his son, he reached out to lift Harry's face to meet his eyes.
"Why don't we sweeten up that sour little mouth of yours, hmm?"
Harry didn't say anything as he blushed even harder from the mild scolding, but there was an apology in his green eyes as he unwrapped the box and politely offered the first pieces to his friends before taking one himself.
"Besides," Sirius continued as he reached into the cold cabinet for a jug of milk and then summoned three glasses. "It's your fault you had to get your hair cut. If you'd just used Sleekeazy's like I told you to, you could have kept the length you wanted. Your grandad went through a lot of trouble to make it after all."
Hermione just about choked on the sip of milk she had just taken. "Your grandad? What does he have to do with Sleekeazy's Hair Potion?"
"Harry's Grandfather Potter invented it," Sirius said, smiling at her as he passed a full glass over to Ron. "You don't think Harry is the only Potter with that crazy, unmanageable mane do you? James' hair was so wild as a little boy that it drove his poor mum insane. His dad locked himself up in his lab until he found something that worked just to calm her down."
"Your grandad invented Sleekeazy's?" Ron asked in amazement. "Blimey, Harry. That's like, one of the most popular beauty potions ever sold."
Bewildered, Harry just shrugged and turned questioning eyes at his father who looked momentarily amazed and then incredibly sad.
"I'm sorry, little one," he said apologetically. "Sometimes I forget that no one ever told you much about your Dad's family. When really it should be my job to do that now. Yes, Ron. Harry's grandfather was a brilliant potions master with many creations to his name. Sleekeazy's just happens to be the most famous. He sold the company for quite a tidy sum before he retired. That's where Harry's vault gets a large part of its gold."
While both Harry and Ron processed that little tidbit of information, Hermione started to squirm uncomfortably.
"I believe you have some experience with that particular product, don't you, my dear?" Sirius teased.
With a quick blush of her own, Hermione nodded and then straightened back up into her usual unflappable posture.
"Yes, I used it for the Yule Ball," she admitted, daring anyone to say a word about it. "It sadly takes quite a bit of time to apply, so it's not terribly practical for daily use in my opinion."
Harry wasn't stupid enough to go anywhere near that remark, but to Sirius' and Remus' amusement, Ron fidgeted for a moment, cleared his throat and then spoke almost too quietly for anyone to hear.
"You looked really amazing that night. Not that you don't always look amazing anyway, potion or not."
Hermione's breath hitched. Ron blushed all the way up to his red hairline. And Harry grinned widely at his two best friends, happy to see them getting on again.
Sirius moved over to lean against the arm of the squashy chair Remus was sitting in and bent down to speak low into his ear.
"Looks like someone finally read Chapter 7: Compliments."
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