A/N: Hey gang! Still working out the lengths of chapters and the perspectives, so please let me know if there's something unclear, or if you're left wanting. Enjoy!
In Little Whinging, there's only one play park the children like to spend their time in during the summer holidays, and it's the one past the neighborhoods, closest to town, where you can smell the chippy if there's enough of a breeze.
There are around twenty children around, but not a parent in sight. It's been three days since term ended, and the parents of St. Grogery Primary school are already at wits end with their children. Even Petunia Dursley, who's been known to wax poetic about her son to anyone who'll listen, sent her children off to play, so she could lounge in the cool kitchen, spying on Mrs. Next Door.
Of course, Mrs. Dursley will also tell anyone who'll listen she only has one child, and that the spare is simply that, a spare.
Harriet Euphemia Potter did not look like her aunt, uncle, or cousin. For starters, her skin was a warm brown color, and the most color the Dursleys got was patchy red from being in the sun too long. Her hair was a wild mane of black curls, long for a six-year-old. No matter how Petunia hacked at it, it simply grew back, unkempt as ever.
They'd sit in the kitchen, Harri kneeling between Petunia's bony knees, as she yanked a comb through the veritable sheet of curls.
"This is all your father's fault," Petunia would hiss, holding up the latest comb that had been sacrificed to Harri's hair. There would always be teeth that had snapped off, the plastic unable to hold its own against the thick curls.
"Unkempt!" she'd snarl. "It seems to be hereditary."
Harri would try to explain that she always took care to comb her hair after her bath, and it sat nicely then, but she couldn't plait her hair, so it always became messy. However, Aunt Petunia was not a fan of that excuse.
"Why won't you ask one of your little playmates to plait it for you," Aunt Petunia would sniff, pushing Harri away. Harri would frown, wondering why she'd ask knowing full well Harri didn't have any friends. "I certainly don't have the time to sit there every morning and plait your hair."
Harri also had bottle green eyes, a stark variation from her 'family's' pale blue eyes. Aunt Petunia would bring herself to tears over Dudley, who had fine blond hair and pale blue eyes, calling him a "darling angel, a gorgeous cherub." Personally, Harri rather thought he looked like a pig in blond wig, considering his immense size. He looked to be about nine or ten, instead of six. Uncle Vernon would chortle and ruffle Dudley's hair, blathering on about all the hearts he'd break one day.
Harri was small, too. In fact, she looked more like a child of four than a soon to be seven-year-old. Her arms and legs were twiggy, her frame slight. Her ribs poked out and the notches of her spine were prominent. Still, she didn't look sickly or frail, and for this reason, she was a favorite target for the bigger boys.
Today, Harri plays at the corner of the park, away from the equipment. She's playing potions, a favorite of hers. She could only play out here, because the last time she'd played in the house, Uncle Vernon had absolutely lost his top, turning so profoundly red, he looked like a radish with a mustache. He'd grabbed Harri by her wrist and swung her into her 'room'—which was really the cupboard under the stairs—and bolted it shut, hissing she'd have no more meals until she'd had time to reflect on her actions.
This was a favorite punishment of Uncle Vernon's. He was employing it currently, because Harri had come home on the last day of term with a bad conduct mark. Apparently, the school had found her climbing the building, though she'd insisted over and over again that she hadn't. How she'd found herself on the roof was a mystery. She'd been trying to hide from the boys of class 1A, her cousin's class, when she run to the side of the school, where the bins were. All she'd planned on doing was hopping up onto the bins, perhaps hiding there, but a sudden burst of wind had carried her up.
"You are a very naughty little girl," Headmistress Roemmele had said. "It's very unladylike to be climbing at all!"
So Harri had been dismissed from the house without her breakfast or lunch, but she didn't mind. In fact, she'd been excited to have the afternoon to herself, to mix her potions.
"Oi," someone calls. "Potty!"
Harri stiffens, pretending not to hear. If she cried, the boys would call her a pathetic, wet little girl, but if she fought, the girls would call her a beast. Harri figured eventually, once the boys stopped picking on her, she could get some of the girls to play dolls with her. She even had one now. A few weekends ago, Aunt Petunia had gone shopping, and was forced to tote Harri around as well, as Mrs. Figg, the woman who usually watched her, had bridge Saturday afternoons.
Harri had been admiring a particularly interesting doll, so old and faded her skin almost looked brown, when the shopkeeper had smiled and asked Aunt Petunia if she'd wanted to buy it for her. Harri had almost laughed right then and there, and Aunt Petunia looked as though she'd swallowed a lemon.
"It's only 90 p," the shopkeeper offered. To Harri's immense surprise, Aunt Petunia huffed and began digging through her purse for change. She produced a single quid and thrust it into Harri's hand. Harri had happily made her purchase and thanked Aunt Petunia until she snapped that Harri's voice gave her a headache.
So far, though, Harri had not been asked to join the other girls to play princess, but she hoped it would only be a matter of time.
"Oi, Potty! We're talking to you!" Piers Polkiss, one of Dudley's mates, grabs her shoulder and spins her around. "What's the little girl got?"
"You're playing potions," Dudley sneers. "You're not allowed. I'll have to tell Mummy and Daddy!"
"Gonna go crying to mummy then," Harri sneers right back, hands planted on her hips. "Go on, Diddy."
Several children, who'd stopped to watch this exchange, snicker, and Dudley goes puce. Harri smiles sweetly at him.
"Go on, Dinky Diddydums," Harri says, triumphant. "Go on and tell mummy all about the naughty girl who scared ickle Diddykins."
"Shut up!" Dudley roars, throwing himself at Harri. She sprints away, dodging his blows. Piers looks decidedly uncomfortable as one of the bigger kids makes his way over, just as Dudley grabs her by the hair and shakes her about.
"Oi!" he says. "Leave that girl alone! Can't you see she's not even in school yet?" The entire play yard snickers as the boy, perhaps the oldest here at 11 years old, crouches down.
"Do you know where you live?" he asks, as if he's talking to a very small child. Harri blanches. "I'll help you home."
"I am in school. I'll going to class two at the start of term!" The boy rears back, surprised.
"Oh," he says, stepping aside. "Tetchy little thing, innit?" Piers and Dudley decide this is much funnier than anything they could've dished out and begin howling with laughter. The boy shrugs, hiding a smile and going back to his own mates.
Harri stalks off, abandoning her game. For a while, she wanders around, going up and down the main street, looking longingly into the chippy. She watches the ducks in the pond for a bit, but this becomes boring, and she ends up back at the park, rebuilding her set.
The sun is low in the sky now, but Harri doesn't mind. Harri loses herself in her game. There, she's a girl in a traveling show, who makes special potions. She's making a potion to make friends, to give to all the people who come to see the show. Harri hums tunelessly, ripping up grass and sprinkling it into the puddle she's been playing it. She stares back at her handiwork, but it needs something.
"Flowers," she mumbles to herself. Harri spots a bush nearby, with little yellow blooms dotting it. She heads over and that's when she see's it. The dog.
A huge, black, bearlike dog.
She blinks at it and it blinks back. Harri stands there frozen. The dog takes a step forward and she flinches, shutting her eyes and waiting.
Sirius makes his way through Corsham carefully, stealing into one of the shops and filching an old overcoat. It does nothing for the heat, but it hides his prisoners robes well enough. Then, he nabs a phonebook. It takes hours, but he finally finds the Dursley's, or at least, Vernon. He's listed as head of sales for a company called Grunnings, which sounds appropriately tedious.
Sirius hangs around in as many consignment shops in London as possible, building up an outfit and a spare, all shoved into a rucksack. He feels terrible for stealing, but he's got no money, nor can he do any magic, lest the Department of Magical Law find him.
Grunnings is a huge building in Surrey's bustling city center. Sirius hangs about, watching the people coming and going, trying to guess which one was Vernon Dursley. He finds after a few hours, one of the last stragglers, looking just as big as Sirius remembers, clutching a bag of pastries.
Following him home is a bit difficult, but Sirius manages, and he finds himself in Little Whinging, a quiet sort of town where all the houses looked the same and all the husbands worked for the same few companies.
Sirius watched the house as Padfoot carefully. He hid in a bush across the street, waiting for a glimpse of Harri. He got it the next morning, as the children were going to school, and he simply stood there, surprised. This was not the scene he'd imagined at all!
He'd recognized Harri immediately, but she was small in the extreme, dwarfed in her school uniform. Her cousin—Sirius couldn't remember his name—was much the opposite, big and hulking which was surprising, considering they were the same age.
Petunia, looking as thin and horse-like as ever, gives her son a good hug, pressing kisses to his pink face. Harri stands a few feet away, looking decidedly uncomfortable. Petunia looks over to her, frowning.
"Behave yourself, today," she says sharply to Harri, who sighs before nodding. "Don't be rude!" With that, she pinches Harri's arm before pushing her along. Sirius snarls, low and guttural. Harri doesn't yelp or cry, but she does flinch.
And so, it goes, for four days, that Sirius sits outside of Number 4 Privet drive and watches as Harri is prodded, poked, screamed at, and ignored. He seethes with silent fury every time she's made to do a chore she's not old enough for. Every muscle in his body tenses when Vernon grabs her by the shoulder or wrist, always shaking her tiny body.
Harri never yells back, but she mutter a great deal under her breath, and sometimes, when she's made to be tending the garden—what six year old should be handling a push mower?—he can hear her clever little remarks.
She's incredibly intelligent, witty, and resilient, and Sirius's heart breaks for James and Lily who never got to know just how wonderful their kid was.
On the last day of term, the second day of Sirius's vigil, Petunia drags Harri inside, hissing vitriol. From what Sirius can make out, she's in trouble for climbing to the top of the school, which in and of itself is odd. He sincerely doubts she'd be able to make the climb with her spindly little limbs.
This, however, doesn't occur to the Dursley's because Sirius can hear them yelling clear all the way outside, even as a human. They shut her up in house all weekend, only worrying Sirius further. What kind of punishments could they give her, if they could treat her like they do normally.
Sirius thinks back to his own painful childhood, of being forced inside the airing cupboard when he was "naughty", of suffering Walabugra's pinches and slaps, of Orion's sharp hits and kicks. He remembers being sixteen, caught in a fight with his father, wondering why the hell he put up with this, and just as Orion's fist collided with his jaw, Sirius had decided "no more" and left.
Harri isn't sixteen, though, and she'll need someone to decide for her. That job falls to Sirius. So, on the fourth day of his Vigil, as Harri and her cousin are banished from the house, Padfoot follows them to the park, finding a place in the bushes to hide and watch.
He watches as Dudley and his mate torment her, as the older boy embarrasses her, and finally, hours later, as she plays quietly by herself. Potions, he thinks with a smile. Lily would be so damn proud.
It's then that she sees him.
Harri stands there, eyes shut, waiting for Sirius to make his move. He's a little surprised she hasn't screamed, but then again, she's got that old Gryffindor spirit in her. He transforms back, standing carefully before her. He's dressed in his muggle clothes, old jeans and an pale grey woolen jumper. It was the only this he could snatch, so he'd risked a cooling charm on the jumper.
"Hello," he says, clearing his throat a little. Harri opens her eyes, astonished to find Sirius there. She looks around, then back at Sirius.
"Hello," she says politely. "Excuse me, but, have you seen a dog? A great, big black dog? He was just here."
"Maybe he'll be back," Sirius says noncommittally. "What are you playing?"
Harri regards him curiously, and suddenly, Sirius can't imagine how this looks, a grungy looking man talking to this small child.
"Er, it's just," he fumbles to explain. "My name is Padfoot."
"Hullo," Harri repeats. "Mine's Harri, er, Harriet." Sirius quirks an eyebrow.
"Which is it? Harri, or Harriet?" he asks. Harri looks a bit lost but raises her chin.
"Just Harri, thanks.
"Do you often play alone Harri?" he asks, squatting beside her. Harri shrugs without looking at him.
"Sometimes," she admits softly. She clears her throat and looks at him head-on with clear, unafraid eyes. "I don't mind."
"Is your cousin always like that," he asks, moving back so she can pluck the flowers from the bush.
"I can mind Dudley," Harri says, which, without answering the question, says a lot.
"Do you like your aunt and uncle?" This earns a peculiar look from Harri, who regards him a little coolly.
"Do you know them?" she asks. "I'm not supposed to talk to strangers."
"I did know them," he confesses. "Actually, I knew your mum and dad, as well." Harri's eyes light up and a slow smile spreads across her face.
"Really! You know them?" Harri stops, considering the flowers in her hands. "They're dead though. They died in a car crash a long time ago, when I was a baby. It's how I got this." She brushes back her fringe, revealing the thin lightning shaped scar. Sirius grits his teeth, surprised.
"A car crash? Who told you that?" he asks, working to keep his voice level. What a cruel lie to tell to a child.
"My Aunt Petunia," Harri says simply, walking back to her puddle and depositing the flowers. She stirs the concoction with a stick before nodding at it. "How did you know my parents?"
A/N: Hey gang, hope you enjoyed! We're getting into some explanations, so stay tune and leave a comment telling me what you thought.