Chapter 9 – A Risk
3 months had passed since Christmas and now it was March. Tomorrow was Anto's birthday and he had been banished upstairs whilst Sirius and Bambi decorated the kitchen for him. Sirius had let Bambi plan out where the decorations would go so it wasn't very well coordinated but it would be more meaningful since it was her design. Once the balloons, banners and confetti bombs were in place, Sirius sat Bambi up to the table to make him a birthday card.
Sirius watched as Anto appeared on the card, his hair three blue lines and his eyes two orange blobs. He was wearing black trousers and a long white apron – how he was often seen in the kitchen. Next to appear was Bambi herself, significantly smaller than Anto's figure, holding his hand with a pink blob on her shoulder he recognized as Ruby Junior the Pygmy Puff. Next he saw a figure appear, with long black hair and a brown jacket, that he recognized as himself. Looking at the rough drawing of his hair he felt that it was about time that he should maybe cut his hair.
After the last figure was colored in, fairly enough in the lines for her age, Bambi opened the card and Sirius knew he would have to spell out what she wanted to write.
"Okay Padfoot, I want to say 'To Anto…"
"Surely you know how to spell Anto after all this time."
Bambi rolled her eyes: "To Anto, thank you for looking after me and being my best friend, I don't like you as much when you are my teacher, but I still love you very much. Love from Bambi."
Sirius felt touched as he wrote down the message, he didn't realize that she felt this way towards Anto but he felt that Anto definitely deserved it with how much he did for her. He had seen the way that Anto adored Bambi when she told him very long and confusing stories she had read or dreamt about. There were very little people Sirius felt he could trust Bambi with as much as he trusted Anto with her.
Once Sirius had finished spelling out the birthday message for her, he put the card into an envelope and put it in the middle of the dining room table next to the card from himself. Next to the cards was a bottle of fire whiskey wrapped in green paper with little Golden Snitches on it from the wizarding game Quidditch that Bambi had recently gotten interested in since getting her toy broom for Christmas. He remembered she had had a similar toy broomstick when she was younger, Lily had sent him a letter with the photo attached of Bambi zooming between James' legs – he still had the letter in his room. But of course, nothing had been taken from the Potters house after that dreadful night and the broomstick was likely amongst the ruins.
It took a while due to her excitement for the following day but eventually Bambi fell asleep and Sirius made his way to his bedroom opposite hers. Outside his bedroom Anto was waiting, his back against the wall and his arms crossed, his face seemed deep in thought. Sirius wondered how long he had been standing there. As he approached Anto, his orange eyes looked up at him.
"Good evening Sirius. I didn't mean to weird you out by standing here like this. On the night before my birthday it used to be Helena who was setting up the kitchen for the day before. Even after all this time I still miss her sorely. That's why I am here, you see; Harriet has always reminded me of Helena. Sometimes when I really miss Helena I will check up on Harriet, it soothes me to know Harriet is safe even if my own daughter isn't."
Sirius felt that he knew, for the most part, how Anto must feel about losing his daughter. If Bambi was ever taken away from Sirius then he knew he would be heartbroken, to him she was his world, like how Helena must be Anto's entire world, especially since his wife died. "You can check on Bambi as much as you like Anto. Whilst you are here entirely by your own will to protect her, you have my complete trust to protect her."
Anto's eyes suddenly filled with tears and he smiled gratefully at Sirius: "Thank you Sirius, that really does mean a lot to me. Now if you will excuse me, I believe I will be woken up at a ridiculously early time by an over excited 5-year-old. Good night Sirius."
"Good night Anto." Sirius watched Anto walk away and upstairs to the next floor where his room was. Then he made his way into his bedroom and pulled out the letter he had kept from Lily. He fell asleep watching Bambi zoom in and out of James' legs.
Sirius woke up to Bambi shaking his arm. At first he was immediately alert, his usual instinctual mode to being woken up. This feeling quickly subsided when he saw that she was smiling.
"Quick Padfoot, Anto is waiting for you so he can open his presents!" she said, continuously shaking his arm even though he was now wide awake. He rubbed his eyes and sat up, feeling very exposed in his wolf pajamas that James had given him for his 19th birthday, somehow they still fit him.
"Okay Bambi, let me get dressed and I will come downstairs. Give me ten minutes."
"Make it 5 minutes." Bambi insisted, in her bossy tone that reminded Sirius of Lily.
Once Bambi had left and Sirius had closed the door behind her he quickly pulled on whatever clothes he could find easily, brushed his hair that was getting a little too long for comfort and pulled on his black boots, his wand in his back pocket.
Downstairs Bambi was waiting quite impatiently in Sirius' usual seat, Anto sat next to her listening to her impatient complaints, looking at her fondly. When Bambi spotted the movement of Sirius she jumped out of her seat, grabbed his hand and started dragging him to his seat.
Once they were all seated, Bambi immediately started piling envelopes in front of Anto, watching him with admiring eyes. Sirius was surprised by the amount of envelopes, he didn't realise so many people knew Anto.
"Stop! Stop!" Anto said, raising his hand. "I want the one from you first, Bambi."
Bambi beamed and started making a mess of the envelopes trying to find the one from her. When she found out she put the envelope a little too close to Anto's face. He smiled and took it from her, moving it away from his face and opening it with a green letter opener he seemed to pull from nowhere.
He smiled as he read the letter and, it may have been a trick of the light, but, it seemed as though Anto's eyes were filled with tears. He put the card down and put his arm around Bambi:
"Thank you, Bambi, that means the world to me. Now, where is Padfoot's card?"
It seemed to take a while but eventually Anto had opened all but one of his cards. Sirius watched him carefully as he seemed to observe this card almost as if it was explosive. The envelope was canary yellow and the writing, which was too small for Sirius to read from his seat, was neat and tidy, a woman's handwriting.
Anto sighed and started opening the envelope. The card he pulled out had a picture of two bears, a big bear and a smaller bear and the writing read 'Happy Birthday Daddy".
Sirius was taken aback, he was sure that Anto had said that his daughter didn't talk to him, and he hadn't had a card from his daughter in the past birthdays he had been here for either. Sirius suddenly felt uneasy, hadn't Anto mentioned that his daughter was associated with You Know Who. But You Know Who was dead so surely she was no longer a risk?
Anto looked up from the card and turned to Sirius, his face was very pale and his hair was turning white. Sirius felt the urgency of the situation and turned to Bambi:
"Okay Bambi, I think we should have a little break in the present opening for now, why don't you go and play in your room for a little while and I will call you to come back when Anto is ready." Sirius said softly to Bambi, hoping she would take the bait.
Bambi shrugged and frowned slightly but with one glance at Anto's white hair she nodded softly, suddenly shy and ran off upstairs.
Sirius turned to Anto who was staring at the card in disbelief: "What is it?"
Anto's mouth opened and closed for a couple of seconds before he finally found his words: "Its Helena, she says that she has found sense and she wants to reunite with me. She has been in hiding since the fall of the dark lord but she wants to know if I have a safe place where she can come and see me."
Sirius could tell where this was going, the safest place that Anto had right now, was their home, Bambi's home. He felt very uncomfortable with the thought of having this ex-death eater in the same house as his precious Goddaughter. Anto seemed to sense that Sirius was not okay with this and kept speaking, he seemed desperate, Sirius was taken aback - Anto had always been calm and collected:
"We could charm the house, make it so that only we can go upstairs and hide Bambi upstairs. We wouldn't even have to tell her the address, we could use a portkey to bring her here, or get Kreacher to bring her here, he is loyal to you and would have to do your bidding if you asked him to bring Helena here."
Sirius was finding it hard to come up with an argument against this, Anto was coming up with some reasonable ways to protect Bambi but there was always room for things to go wrong. He had sent Kreacher to work at Hogwarts years ago but he would be tied to Sirius until he or Sirius died.
"I want multiple charms keeping her away from Bambi, plus I will invite friends over for extra protection. I will call for K-R-E-A-C-H-E-R when the time comes, we just need her location to send him to." Sirius negotiated, he had to spell out the house elf's name because if he said it out loud it would summon him.
"Okay Padfoot, I will do this all by your rules. It is your house after all. The main priority is protecting Bambi. We can discuss this more tonight but for now, I don't think we should have Bambi wait any longer." Anto left Sirius to go and find Bambi.
Sirius stayed where he was, he had a bad feeling about Anto's daughter. It was the kind of gut feeling you got when you saw children playing near a busy road or when you saw people swimming in dangerous areas in the beach where there were danger signs, you know there is a risk to their life but at the same time there isn't. He definitely had a bad feeling about Helena and it frightened him in a way that he hadn't been frightened for years.