Chapter 24: Normalising
There were three weeks left until the Easter holidays. Dudley received a letter from Petunia.
"Harry," said Dudley, "Get this! Mum's gone back to Privet Drive. She says she'd been away for ten weeks. The Ministry for Magic had approved a Befuddlement Charm on the friend she'd been staying with so that she wouldn't notice how long mum's actually been staying. The Ministry had also made regular payments into her muggle bank account so she didn't really notice costs either. Her friend had said when mum left that, 'We should do this again soon, only this time, you must stay longer.' Mum said it was all she could do to not laugh out loud."
"That's hilarious," agreed Harry, with a chuckle, "Are we going home for Easter?"
"Mum asked if we could, I think she's missed us. She said the neighbours had asked where her and Dad have been. Mum told the neighbours that Dad had an extended business trip to the states, so she went on a cruise to the Caribbean with an old school friend."
Harry rolled his eyes, "Of course she did! Where is Vernon anyway?"
"Mum says he has actually been away on a business trip, but it was only to Bognor Regis. She says dad is home at the moment, but will be away over the holidays. So, you'll come back, right?"
"Sure," agreed Harry, "It sounds like it won't be terrible." What he meant was, Vernon won't be there.
Dudley looked a bit dismayed by Harry's indifferent tone, "It'll be good, you'll see," said Dudley.
The Dementors had been removed from the edges of the castle grounds. No-one realised how much of a dampener they'd put on the place until they left. It wasn't like people had been depressed or anything, but there was a sense of heightened euphoria. The staff let it happen. They decided as a collective to lighten the homework load just a bit and to not be quite so sensitive to rule breaking just until the end of term with the exception of safety related rules.
Dudley found the twins taking advantage of this situation in a disused classroom on the sixth floor.
"You know Snape will go mental if he finds out you're brewing up here, don't you?" Dudley asked.
"Yup. Sweet?" asked Fred, offering him a freshly made and sliced sweet from a block of chewy pink matter.
"What is it?" asked Dudley.
"Told you he'd ask first," said George, "It's our new hair colour sweets. I was thinking of leaving some on the staff table. Imagine Dumbledore's beard!"
"I'm not going to comment on that level of idiocy," said Dudley.
"We know he'll know it's us, it's just perfectly harmless and we think people need a bit of fun," said Fred. "If we've read the atmosphere wrong, there will be a couple of detentions in it. They only go nuts if it's unsafe, or disrespectful to staff."
"Better you than me," said Dudley. "Hey, to change the subject, I wanted to ask you both for kind of a favour, but it's not really a favour, I want it anyway."
The twins heard the awkward tone and Fred put his stirrer down and put the cauldron in stasis.
"What's up?" he'd asked.
"I was wondering if… Would you like… Could you and Ron come visit me and Harry for a couple of days during the holiday?" Dudley finally managed to get out.
"Well of course we would!" said Fred, "How is that a favour?"
"Well, it'd mean you can't do magic. We're all underage and the Ministry knows the address and boy do they monitor it, and well, everything's muggle. I don't know if you'd like it. Oh and there's mum too," said Dudley explaining what he saw as problems.
"So, you want us to spend time with our friends, do stuff we've never done before and mess around with muggle stuff, and you think we'd be doing you a favour?!" asked George incredulously, "And you've met our mum, right?"
"So you will? Like just for a couple of days? "I asked mum, and she said I could have three people stay, cos that'd be three in one room and two in the other."
"We'd love to. Have you asked Ron? Or is Harry asking him?"
"That's the thing," said Dudley, "I want this to be a surprise for Harry."
"Now surprises," said Fred, "Those we can do!"
Remus left Hogwarts as he now usually did after dinner. The other staff had volunteered to take any of his duties, and take any of his detentions. He'd made sure as usual he'd finished his marking and prep for the next day.
He traveled by floo to St Mungo's. He had an arrangement with Healer Jones to floo to his hospital office.
"Good Evening, Remus," said Jones as he stepped out of the floo, "He's in one of his melancholy moods today." Remus paused on his way through his office as the Healer added, "He discovered the identity of two of the inmates on his ward."
"Thanks for the heads-up."
Remus walked straight up to the Janus Thickey Ward. Sirius had a room all to himself before you reached the main open ward. He went in and found Sirius sitting with his back to the door looking through an old photo album.
"You could have told me, Mooney," he said, without turning round.
"It wouldn't have done you any good. In fact, it hasn't done you any good. You can't change the past."
"If I hadn't been in Azkaban I'd still have been in the Order then. We might have gone to help them."
"And then you too might be in here," said Remus firmly. "You can't spin 'might have beens' to how you want. The Healers here have talked about 'Might have been' with us, not just you, us, I was there remember?! We shouldn't dwell on them."
"It's alright for you," said Sirius, "You get to go back to life when you leave here, Hogwarts in all her glory. You get to see James' son. Is he really as good at quidditch as you say?"
Internally Remus sighed. Oh, that kind of melancholy mood. The one that oscillates between depressed and a weird reality. Sirius was going to be here for a while.
The Healers were good. There was Jones, he was the lead on the case, there was also Healer Strout and Healer Buchanan. They were good Healers. They were patient with Sirius. The Healers on this ward were used to long term mental illnesses from spell damage. No-one was used to long term Dementor damage.
They'd run a battery of tests on Sirius and found him in surprisingly reasonable physical health. Sirius had explained he'd been absolutely wretched by Christmas. In summer he'd been thin, it wasn't like he'd been overfed in Azkaban, but he hadn't been gaunt. But with both muggle and wizard news bulletins flashing his picture everywhere he'd had to stay as a dog most of the time, and even as a human had no idea where to filch food from. Then Sirius had told them all about the phrase dumpster diving in muggle towns. That had been an education for everyone. Sirius would leave Hogwarts and Hogsmeade every few days during the night and go to the muggle town 10 miles away. He traveled as both dog and human as necessary. He'd dumpster dive the local supermarket in the small hours and carry back as much as he could. He'd stash it in the Shrieking Shack and stay as a dog until he needed to do it all again.
Mentally, Sirius was all over the place. He could deal with facts, but in an abstract way. The Healers had done sessions catching him up on ten plus years of life. He was fine with it, but his frame of reference was a long time ago. Some people and places didn't exist. Random little things had made Sirius irrationally angry, odd stuff like finding a pastry shop in Hogsmeade had closed five years ago.
The Healers had said this was a normal reaction to reintegration. Lupin had been taken aback by that until he'd realised it was reintegration. Lupin himself had had to do a few mental somersaults to come to the castle last summer, but he couldn't imagine what it was like for Sirius.
Lupin brought his mind back to the current conversation.
"Sirius, Harry isn't James. In fact he's very unlike James. His quidditch prowess is about all I see in him that's like James. I grant you, the physical resemblance is there, but when you meet him, you'll realise like I did, that they're very different people."
"He does know I'm his Godfather, doesn't he?" asked Sirius.
"He does. But he doesn't know you. You're a stranger to him. He'd know you if he'd grown up with James and Lily. But he's grown up with his cousin, aunt and uncle." Lupin did not elaborate on Harry's upbringing.
"When I'm better, do you think he'd spend time with me, like come to stay?"
"Sirius, any kind of conversation like that is a long way off. And neither of us should presume about what Harry wants."
Sirius nodded slowly.
"Do you have any questions about what you've read in the paper today?" This was a regular feature of Mooney's visits. They'd discuss articles in the paper to bring Sirius up to date on contemporary things.
"So mum asked if you wanted to stay over Saturday and Sunday nights of Easter weekend," said Dudley. Ron, Hermione and the twins were lounging in the Gryffindor common room one evening. Well, the boys were lounging; Hermione was adding an extra foot to her Charms homework.
"Sure," said Fred, "Mum and Dad said they had no preference to when we come over. It's easy with you being on the floo."
"Are you not coming, Hermione?" asked George.
"My parents have booked to go to Normandy for ten days. But honestly, I live in a Muggle house and do muggle things all the time. Anyway, I'm pretty sure Mrs Dursley wouldn't want girls staying over with boys."
"Yeah," said Dudley, "Imagine what the neighbours would think. They'd think mum was running a brothel!"
"Dudley!" exclaimed Hermione in scandalised tones.
"Hey, she's my mother, I know what she'd say!"
Everyone else was laughing at Hermione's outraged expression.
"Good evening, Headmaster," said Jones, stepping into Dumbledore's office.
"Take a seat, can I offer you anything?" asked Dumbledore.
"No, no, I'm fine," said Jones, quickly, hoping to not get plied with lemon drops this visit.
"Not even a lemon drop? They're very good you know,"
"No, honestly, I'm fine,"
"So, how is everybody?" asked Dumbledore, "At the going rate you'll be seeing half the school soon!" he added with a twinkle.
Dumbledore met with Jones once a fortnight. Jones updated him on any of the students under his care that Jones was seeing. There were only around half a dozen at the moment, but sometimes it felt like more.
"How's Mr Dursley?"
"He's writing in his journal. It's constructive. For some reason, in the last fortnight he's been a lot better. I've not pried it out of him yet, but there's something he wants to tell me. I think he's waiting for something. But," he said, seeing Dumbledore's expression, "From his attitude, it's something positive."
"Mmmm," said Dumbledore noncommittally.
"I know you think he's getting off too lightly for Umbridge, but I think he's better for it," said Jones in tones that said he knew what he was talking about, don't argue.
Dumbledore let it go.
"Now I know he's not under my care, and I respect the Healer Oath, but in general terms are you able to tell me how Sirius is?"
"I can do more than that," said Jones, "Because that's what I'm here to talk to you about."
"Oh yes?"
"I have a request. On behalf of the Healer team. There's three of us working with him. We've had him in our care for just under three weeks. Physically he's well. Far healthier than we thought he'd be. But he's mentally in need of more care."
"To give you some background, if you don't know it, he left school aged 18. His uncle left him a fortune, to seriously annoy his relatives and to let him start his life as he wanted to. He therefore didn't need to work. So he didn't. He joined the Order as you know. Life was, to say the least, unstable back then for all of us. He had nothing to keep him grounded. That was three years of his life. The Potters going into hiding and the constant assumption everyone was a spy for Voldemort took its toll. And then his best friend died, killed by another long time friend, when he'd assumed his other best friend must have done it. He was arrested and sent to Azkaban with all the guilt, trauma and anguish associated with that. He's been institutionalised in Azkaban for twelve years."
Dumbledore nodded, "While yes, I know most of that, I feel this is going somewhere."
Jones nodded. "If you think about it, the only safe, stable environment he's known is Hogwarts his entire life. His family certainly was neither safe nor stable. In the three weeks we've treated him we've seen regression. Not him regressing, but the fact that he'd already regressed. He wants to live somewhere around 1979, with the carefree attitude of his schoolboy teenage years. As you can imagine, this isn't a good place for him to be. We need to move him on. We need to demonstrate he's outgrown the safety and security of Hogwarts, the only place he was safe, so that we can move him towards his own independence."
"And how do you propose to do that?" asked Dumbledore.
"I believe it's the Easter holidays soon," said Jones, "And apart from a handful of eager or terrified N.E.W.T students everyone tends to go home. I'd like to move him here for one week. His regimen will be the same as at St Mungos. Both physical and psychological therapy. We have a daily routine set with him. But he could do it here, when the school is nearly empty, so that he can realise he's an adult in a child's world. Sure, he can do enjoyable things here, walking in the grounds is beautiful, and no-one can fault the quidditch pitch. Many adults come back to escort their children once or twice for a bit of nostalgia, but I want him to realise he's outgrown the place."
Dumbledore considered the suggestion. There was no safety problem. Sirius wasn't a mass murderer. He wasn't unstable. He'd simply be another castle guest. The students remaining would be older and could be told not to gawk. Younger students could be encouraged home. It was a reasonable suggestion.
"Is this the right time?" asked Albus, "Would summer be better?"
"It's where he's at now," said Jones, "We don't want him to stay in this regressed mindset longer than we can help it. We need to move him on."
Dumbledore nodded, "I think it sounds a very reasonable suggestion."
"Thank you, Headmaster," said Jones gratefully. "Have I given you enough time to prepare? It's only one week until the holidays."
"The elves will sort everything out," said Dumbledore. His face slipped a bit as he had a thought. "Have Remus, Sirius or Severus spoken to you about their time here? Specifically regarding each other?" asked Dumbledore.
"Remus once mentioned that him and Severus didn't get on back then, but they seem to have gotten over that crack in the road."
"I think Severus and Sirius might be more of a chasm," sighed Dumbledore.
Dumbledore announced to the staff that evening that Sirius would be staying in the castle for one week over the holidays. Albus expected the eruption right there and then. Even Minerva and Filius swiveled an eyeball in Severus' direction. Stoney silence.
Albus was unsurprised to find Severus was following him back to his office, his robes snapping behind him, a sure sign of his angry stride. Albus didn't even bother closing his door. He simply stood in front of his desk and turned back to face the door. Sure enough, under five seconds later Severus stalked in, face like thunder.
Albus wasn't in the mood for a tirade. Severus would end up doing as he was told, he always did. Albus just didn't want to be on the receiving end of an ugly diatribe first. He knew what he was about to do was somewhat cruel, but it would save everyone's blood pressure.
Snape opened his mouth to start said diatribe, but Albus, voice backed by magic got in first.
"Enough!" he thundered, the door behind Severus slammed shut from the residual magic. Severus' mouth shut with an audible click.
Albus continued in normal tones, firmly, but softly, given what he was going to say.
"A long time ago you said 'Anything'." Severus' eyes never left his. "This is one of those things." Albus raised an arm and simply pointed at the door.
Moments passed. Severus turned on his heel and stalked out in silence.
Albus did feel guilty about doing it like that, but it had shortened the war by an hour.
The students were relieved when the last day of term rolled around. Potions this week had been harrowing. Slytherin house collectively exhaled when the Hogwarts Express pulled out of Hogsmeade station. Their head of house had been terrifying all week.
Harry and Dudley were picked up at King's Cross by Petunia. By sheer coincidence Hermione's parents were standing next to Petunia on the concourse. On being re-introduced (neither remembered the other from their initial meeting two years ago in Diagon Alley) both parties exchanged pleasantries that ended up being a competitive conversation around which was better, the Caribbean or Normandy. The students prayed the competition would end quickly and in letters they exchanged afterwards, declared it a no score draw. Parents!