Chapter 122: I'm Not Buggered

Music suggestion: I Don't Mind, KONGOS

Eight weeks down. Some number more to go before things eased up for Hermione. Today, devoid of appetite, exhausted, and complaining of bloating, Hermione didn't finish lunch. She left halfway through for a lie down. Harry waited until her footsteps were no longer audible before turning a confused frown on Sirius.

'What does "bloated" mean?' he asked.

Until recently, Sirius had been of the opinion it was a euphemism for feeling fat. He moved out of the way as Kreacher cleared the table of his and Harry's finished plates.

'As I understand it,' said Sirius, getting up from the table, 'it's a reference to having bubbles of air collecting in your guts.'

'… And that's caused by periods and pregnancy?'

Taking his half-finished bottle of Butterbeer with him, Harry followed Sirius up for his Occlumency lesson.

'Seems to be,' Sirius answered. 'I don't know for sure. I don't have a uterus. I've got sympathy for it, though: sounds one step off trapped wind, and that's awful.'

'When have you ever experienced trapped wind?' Harry asked, amused, casting Sirius a sideways look.

Sirius met it with raised eyebrows.

'Do I come off as not being human?' he asked, incredulous. 'What in the world makes people think I don't experience normal human things?'

Harry snickered into a gulp of his Butterbeer. Hermione would have a rejoinder about Sirius being a dog, but Harry didn't say anything more.

'By the way,' Sirius said, turning into the sitting room, 'you know the shelf in the pantry, immediately to your left and about Hermione's head height?'

'Don't touch anything on it on pain of certain death?'

Sirius was going to finish with "it contains every known Hermione craving". It seemed he didn't need to say so.

'Yes,' he confirmed.

'Is there any peanut butter in there for the rest of us?' Harry asked.

'Mm.' Sirius tugged an armchair aside, moving it out of the way. 'Shelf third from the bottom,' he informed Harry, speaking conspiratorially, 'by the excess stew pots. And I stashed a couple extra behind the sack of onions, just in case.'

Harry had set his unfinished Butterbeer on a side table and was pulling the coffee table out of the centre of the room. He chuckled and took it with an accepting nod. He'd been there that morning when the only thing Hermione had been able to get down was peanut butter on crackers and ginger beer. She'd been very grateful Sirius had replenished their stores.

A space clear in the centre of the room, Sirius readied his wand, waiting for Harry to get into position. Instead, Harry rounded the coffee table and walked past Sirius to where he'd left his Butterbeer.

'Where'd you, dad, and Remus get a Jarvey?' Harry asked, quite conversationally.

Sirius's side prickled. There'd been a picture of the Jarvey in the copies of his photographs he'd given Harry. It wasn't too strange Harry might ask him that now. It was that Harry was lingering, casually, by Sirius's side that made Sirius check his footing.

'Fiddle Sticks?' Sirius responded. 'Nicked him, from Kettleburn's menagerie. Then un-nicked him about a week later.'

Harry took another glug of Butterbeer.

'Why?' he asked.

'He was a fast learner,' Sirius said, stowing his wand back away in his belt, 'and wonderfully witty, but he also wrecked our dormitory.' Harry put his bottle back down. Sirius tested his feet on the floorboards. 'Sharp little fangs aren't so cute when they're gnawing an edge out of your prized possessions.'

'Which record did he get at?' Harry asked knowingly.

'None,' Sirius said. 'I had the foresight to keep those away from him. It was Remus's encyclopaedia –'

Harry had stuck a foot to block behind Sirius's heels and shoved him backwards. Sirius turned just enough on a readied leg to redirect his fall and broke into a grin as he yanked Harry down, face first, with him. Sirius landed backside-down with his feet on the floor and his body propped up on his hands. Harry landed on his elbows and knees.

A second's decision, and Sirius spun around, scissored both legs around Harry's neck, and flipped over, pinning Harry's head to the floor. Legs were stronger than arms. Sirius gave Harry a moment to learn that lesson, the boy beating at the back of his legs, before letting Harry go and getting up.

'You want to fall on your arse,' Sirius advised, offering Harry a hand up. 'You can pivot on your arse, you can kick at knees or groins if someone comes near, and you can get up in a way that lets you hurry backwards. If you don't know what else to do, just make sure you fall on your arse.'

His glasses straightened, Harry grasped Sirius's hand. He eyed Sirius as he stood.

'How am I supposed to do that when I'm the one doing the shoving?' he asked. 'I was trying to not fall at all – I checked my feet this time!'

'You've only got two feet,' Sirius pointed out. 'There's always a direction you can be pulled over. Anyway, landing on your arse is a defensible position. If you're the attacker, just don't end up face-down next to them.'

Harry levelled a disillusioned look at him. He gave his head a twist, then reached a hand to rub his neck.

'Occlumency you can teach,' Harry said, 'this: you're not as good. How am I supposed to do that?'

'I expect you to be up to something,' Sirius said. 'But my centre of gravity is higher than yours: try a throw that uses that against me.'

Harry was getting irritated. He dropped his hand from his neck and glowered at Sirius.

'You just said you're expecting it,' he pointed out. 'The moment I grab your arm you'll punch me in the gut!'

It wasn't easy to punch someone in the gut unless the person trying the throw hesitated. On a step forwards Sirius grabbed Harry's wrist, spun around, swinging Harry's arm over his head, and shoved the boy down by the elbow. He pulled back on Harry's arm a split second before Harry hit the floor, keeping Harry's head from slamming into the hard wood.

'Where in there,' Sirius asked, lowering beside him, 'would you have had the chance to punch me?' He locked Harry's arm bent up at the elbow, and bent Harry's fingers slowly back. 'And if you got me down and pushed like this,' he went on, bending Harry's fingers back just enough to hurt a little, 'you'd have kept me down for a bit. It hurts a lot if you squirm.'

Harry met Sirius's eyes.

'Ow,' he uttered.

Sirius let go.

'Give it a try,' Sirius said, grabbing Harry's hand and hauling him up. 'I'll walk you through it.'

There was a murky line, Sirius found, between going easy on Harry so he'd learn and not get hurt and making sure Harry got used to responding to the tough reality of someone who wouldn't go easy on him. Sirius's instructors, way back when, hadn't gone easy on him at all. Hard reality, according to Bloodworth, was the whole point. But then, Sirius's own learning process had begun with just doing whatever the hell he could to protect himself against someone he hated, rather than respected, and then developed the ability further alongside other novices, whether those were James and Remus wrestling with him as boys or the other trainees in his Auror class.

But the hard reality style of teaching, even with other trainees to practise with, hadn't worked for those who'd grown up expecting mentors, not people who'd just shout at you to fight back. Sirius remembered a few in his Auror class who'd found it just about impossible to learn in that environment: a bloke who'd dropped out of Auror training rather than come back after a break and a girl he'd noticed sobbing after a class before she too left. And Sirius had nothing to justify the line that they weren't cut out for being Aurors. They might well have been, if they had been trained differently. Just get used to it was the hard-edged style of training that seemed grown up and functional, but did bugger all to teach anyone it didn't work on.

Harry saw a mentor in Sirius, not someone who'd just beat you to the floor and expect you to find some way to get out of it before they gave you praise. So Sirius had been trying to find a happy medium. Even to Sirius himself, it was rather too understandable that this area of teaching, unlike all the spells and potions he'd helped the students with, was the one he found hard to determine that happy medium in. Harry was right, he wasn't a great teacher when it came to fighting, but Sirius did his best.

'Go through it a few more times – just the motions.' Sirius shook his arms out, facing Harry. It wasn't easy to let yourself fall when you knew what was coming. It especially wasn't easy when every time Harry tried the boy hesitated and Sirius had that second to thwart the attempt. 'It's muscle memory. Eventually you won't need to think through which arm to grab and which way to turn, you'll just do it. It's practise.'

Harry was rubbing his wrist. Sirius fought a grimace. He'd twisted back when Harry had grabbed him, and it wasn't an action Sirius had done for teaching purposes. It'd been instinctual.

'So everything you do,' Harry said doubtfully, looking up at Sirius, 'is a learned movement?'

Not really… A lot of it was. Then there was the panic Sirius was getting worse at ignoring the longer this impromptu teaching session went on. He didn't like falling when he didn't have control of it. There was a moment in losing balance that he just didn't respond to well.

'It's like learning to play Quidditch,' Sirius said. 'The final product comes from practising all the skills involved, and the better you get at it the more combining different actions or trying something new feels driven by instinct.'

'Quidditch I had an instinct for at the start,' Harry retorted. 'This: nothing.'

Likely in part because Harry's instinct was to learn from Sirius, not hit him back. That raised an argument for Sirius going harder on him until Harry did, but Sirius couldn't bring himself to do it. Other trainers could take that role with Harry, Sirius would aim to give him a start so he did a good job in that environment.

So Sirius walked Harry through a few throws, focusing on those that wouldn't put Harry's back out if he took Sirius's weight inexpertly. For all Harry was a great athlete on a broom, on his own two feet his ability was a beginner's. Balance and remembering to use his legs wasn't Harry's forte, and, whatever directions or reminders Sirius gave him to use his weight, use the power of his legs, the bespectacled wizard wasn't remembering it when he went to give a move a go.

Harry's latest attempt was good from the waist up. Keeping his arm up he'd mastered on the first instruction to, but his stance was feeble at best and he needed to shift Sirius's weight to get anywhere, something Harry just wasn't getting. Sirius held firm, bracing a leg behind him, leaning forward to counter Harry's arm and getting low. Harry pushed harder against Sirius's throat, and Sirius shoved back. Harry stumbled, and Sirius hung onto his arm, steadying him as Harry untangled his feet.

'I'll make you do squats,' Sirius threatened, letting Harry go.

'Will that help?' Harry asked flatly.

'Probably.' Sirius considered, then went on, 'Shelve that for now. Sit down on the floor.'

Harry blinked, then did as instructed. He looked up at Sirius expectantly.

'This your arse-down defensive thing?' he asked.

'Yup. Your legs are longer than your arms. Use your arms for stability on the floor and only your legs to fend me off.'

'So you want me to kick you?'

'Do whatever,' Sirius responded, and moved in. Harry raised a foot and, not quite in the swing of it, aimed a lacklustre kick at Sirius's knee. Sirius grabbed his ankle and hauled his leg up. There he paused, waiting. Harry had two legs. Harry eyed him, trying to keep his torso up on his hands as Sirius pulled his leg higher, then the boy gave it a shot, lifting his other leg and taking vindictive aim at Sirius's crotch.

Sirius dodged it, and Harry squirmed his leg out of Sirius's grasp. Sirius picked up his pace, getting Harry into the tussle, staying on his feet and dodging around Harry as Harry gave it a solid go, the wizard even ending up hooking an ankle behind Sirius's as he kicked out. It got Harry moving on the floor, hoisting himself up on his hands, using his other leg for stability when kicking out; doing what he could to keep himself balanced and moving on the ground.

A dodged kick to the side of Sirius's knee had Sirius shoving Harry's leg up again, keeping it straight and putting painful force on the stretch of Harry's hamstrings. This time, Harry flipped onto his side, pushed himself against the floor and hooked his other leg behind Sirius's knee. One yank with that leg and a shove from the other and Sirius was toppling onto his backside.

'Good job!' Sirius said, impressed. 'You put your whole body into it.'

Breathing heavily, Harry rolled back to sit on the floor.

'Now get up,' Sirius directed.

Watching him warily, Harry did, pulling his feet in, leaning forward, and manoeuvring with a hand to the floor to do it.

'Not like that,' Sirius said. 'That leaves you vulnerable the whole way through. You want to get up quickly into a position that either leaves you ready to defend yourself or run away.'

Harry watched as Sirius demonstrated: bracing himself on one leg and one arm and swinging the other back, rising to upright in a low, stable stance. Then Harry gave it a go, and fell over.

'I wondered what the banging was…' Hermione's voice said from the doorway.

Harry had landed on his sore wrist. His face pinched, he turned back to sit on his backside and tested it cautiously.

'Is this…' Hermione said slowly, 'fighting practise?'

'No,' Harry said, disgruntled. 'I failed the fighting practise. This is getting up lessons.'

'You didn't fail it,' Sirius said. 'You just need to learn to use your whole body.'

'Is that what this is?' Harry asked. 'Leg manoeuvring practise?'

'Do it well and you'll feel it in your side too,' Sirius advised.

His wrist seemingly not in too bad of a way, Harry put his hand back on the floor. He nodded to Sirius.

'Show me it again, then.'

Hermione watching on as well, Sirius sat back down and demonstrated.

'You need to push your body up higher while you're pulling your foot back,' he told Harry. 'Otherwise you catch your heel on the floor. Do it slowly until you get a sense of what you're doing.'

Hermione, thankfully, seemed to decide against trying it herself. She took a seat on the sofa with her books and notes as Harry went through the move again and again. Going slowly, Harry could do it. It was doing it in one quick, smooth motion that had him scraping the sole of his foot on the floor and toppling or only just managing to catch himself on both feet and dancing backwards to avoid falling. Practising that, Harry should do, along with probably some squats and a decent amount of stretching: Harry's flexibility needed some work.

'Can you touch your toes?' Harry shot back at Sirius, his fingers a couple inches off.

'Yup,' Sirius said. He'd taken the instructor's seat on a sofa. He had a cup of hot chocolate provided him by Kreacher. He wasn't about to get up to demonstrate.

Harry eased his hamstrings, standing straight.

'When do you stretch?'

'Before I go for a run,' Sirius responded.

Harry eyed him, considering.

'By touch your toes,' he said, 'I meant can you do it as a human.'

Sirius cracked a smile. He did get himself up then, bent over, and got his knuckles resting down on his toes.

'That was the question I answered,' he said, flumping back into his seat and retrieving his hot chocolate. 'Your hot chocolate's getting cold.'

It wasn't. Kreacher had charmed it not to. It was a break Sirius was angling for, where Harry could shelve his questions for the sake of a sweet beverage. And it wasn't for Harry's benefit Sirius was angling for it.

Restless and irritated, like a subterranean disquiet Sirius had been suppressing, wasn't how he wanted to go into an Occlumency lesson. There was a lot in his head he really didn't want to show Harry, and Harry, whatever his earlier troubles with the discipline, had gotten worryingly good at turning Sirius's Legilimency back on him.

An ability to trust his own mind… That was something Sirius needed. Depended on, likely more than he depended on anything else. Sirius sipped his hot chocolate, feeling the warmth of it. He wasn't convinced it was a cure. That subterranean restlessness just felt more deeply seated. The break ended far too quickly.

'So try to keep you out or push back into your head?' Harry asked, readying himself stood before Sirius. Harry's wand had been left on his vacated armchair.

Sirius's shoulders felt wrong. As though they were in an unnatural position. He relaxed his back on a deep breath, and turned his mind away from the sensation. His shoulders were fine, he was just tense.

'There's benefit to practising that,' he said honestly. 'But you should also attempt to control what you show me. That's how you lie.'

Harry's eagerness was for his own suggestion, not Sirius's. He took Sirius's reminder with little more than an uninterested nod.

'Okay,' Harry said, shutting his eyes. 'I'll be ready in a moment…'

Sirius cast the spell the second Harry opened his eyes. His Legilimency met the barrier of Harry's determination, and Sirius gave it a few seconds before pushing it harder. In this, Harry always did better if, especially the first time, he was given the chance to exercise his defence against a slowly increasing force. That's what Sirius had done before, and it had done great things for Harry's confidence. It had also dried out Sirius's eyeballs.

Sirius could feel his eyes growing sandy. He had a moment to recognise how disinterested he was, this time, in ending up with sore eyes. Then Harry kicked his penetrating force back at him and Sirius blinked, dropping his wand arm.

Harry looked pleased with himself. For the first time, Sirius wanted to point out how easy he'd been going on the boy. He didn't. He swallowed the urge, felt a strong desire to give this Occlumency session the toss and get the irritation out of his muscles with a run, and smiled.

'Good job!' he praised, readied his wand, and held himself back from casting the spell again without giving Harry warning.

'Go harder next time,' Harry requested. He shut his eyes again.

Then opened them. Take Harry on his word, or follow his own compass? Sirius had a moment to decide.

Control yourself.

Sirius hit Harry harder, but not that hard, he didn't think. He felt the flex in Harry's defences, then the shove back. Good, he thought. Sirius pushed harder, then harder still as he felt Harry push him back. He could go even harder. Sirius could feel the itch to do so. To smash into the boy. But that would be hurting Harry.

The breath whistled into Sirius's nostrils. Cooling. He calmed, relaxing; increasing the pressure on Harry's mind only by degrees. There was no reason to be angry with the boy. He was only trying to learn.

Sirius's eyes prickled, kept staring open as minutes ticked by under him. He pushed harder and harder, but slowly, letting Harry have the time to push him back. His eyeballs were drying. He had very little patience for drying eyeballs.

Tunnel vision. Sirius stared through it at a murky image of Harry, the boy's eyes looking very green; very set against him. Sirius shoved harder. He felt the repercussion like a blow to the head and hit back hard. He met concrete. Harry mightn't do well against a sudden heavy penetrating force, but if Sirius built it up, he got a solid wrestle in return.

It was good. Like holding a tiring position at length. Sirius could ramp up the intensity, but then he'd win and be devoid of the draining exertion. He was pretty sure his endurance was greater than Harry's. He could keep this up for a while yet. Forget his drying eyeballs, this was an outlet for Sirius's restrained irritation.

He leant harder on Harry; harder and harder, and started to feel the boy's resistance cave. In a split second's decision, Sirius eased back, not ready for the tiring exertion to end just yet, and received a furious kick to the skull.

Sirius blinked, once again dropping his wand. His brain throbbed, but he felt far clearer. Rather than a distorted view of Harry, between squinted eyes Sirius saw the sitting room fully, Harry standing a few feet from him. Harry was breathing heavily. He rubbed his eyes under his glasses.

Not an adversary. All Harry was was a young man with good reason to be more interested in turning Legilimency back on Sirius than controlling the memories and thoughts going through his own head. Sirius took deep lungful's of air, feeling like he'd sprinted the length of Charing Cross Road. All Harry wanted was to see memories he didn't have.

'You've gotten really good at resisting it, Harry,' Hermione said from the sofa. 'Sirius is right, though: that's only so useful. You should really try practising controlling what memories you show him.'

Harry took that with a noncommittal 'Yeah…' Sirius couldn't begrudge him his reluctance so much anymore. He steeled himself. There were memories he could show Harry. Plenty of them.

Harry didn't let Sirius in on his third try. Sirius knew he could. Harry had lowered his defences when Sirius was practising the Imprint. But Harry didn't now. The boy didn't even try to control the memories he showed a Legilimens. He hit back at Sirius with more force than previously the moment Sirius lifted his wand and said the spell. And, though it did nothing to ease that deep disquiet, Sirius let him in.

Might as well let Harry get his fill. Harry's motivation to control his own mind wouldn't be high until he did. Sirius could control his mind. He could pull up memory after memory – let Harry experience them.

So he showed Harry what he could remember of the Potters being a family – showed Harry his parents, showed Harry as a baby being cared for by them; the full list of happy memories Sirius had ready to show. And then he pushed Harry out of his mind, letting the both of them return to the sitting room in the here and now.

Hermione was eyeing him. It was an enigmatic look, and one that made Sirius think she had a pretty good idea what was going on, though she wasn't about to say so. If she did, she was probably in a better position to put it into words than Sirius was. What he knew was conflicting emotions.

'For people locked up in their house,' Harry remarked, 'they were in good spirits.'

Lily and James… they'd appeared in especially good spirits to Harry because them in good spirits were the memories Sirius had let him see.

'They did sneak out,' he told Harry. 'Under the invisibility cloak, here and there.' He shrugged. 'Everyone gets stir crazy eventually.'

Harry nodded, unsurprised, though he was watching Sirius closely.

'So you'd babysit me,' he stated.

'Usually,' Sirius responded.

'Show me that?'

The pretence was gone, if it had ever really been there in the first place. Sirius could show Harry that. He was already thinking up memories to share. Sharing the memories would be nice. There was something… reaffirming, perhaps, in doing so. It was just… sharing memories with Hermione was easier. Perhaps it was that this was Harry: there so many more things Sirius was cautious not to show him that weren't a concern with Hermione. Or perhaps it was allowing that vulnerability that was jarring to Sirius right now, even if it wasn't at other times.

Either way… Sirius shifted to distract a shudder.

'You'll have to fight me for it,' Sirius warned, readying his wand yet again.

Harry did. And, despite Harry's fight, rather than just let Harry in, this time it took a conscious effort for Sirius to ease his resistance enough to allow Harry to see what were memories already prepared for Harry's perusal.

The memories were good. There just weren't many of them. Most of the time Sirius had spent babysitting the little black haired baby had been filled with what he assumed were mundanities that had long since been lost to time. Feeding, nappy-changes, and putting Harry down to sleep – babies didn't do much. At least, that was why Sirius assumed he only had a few moments he could think up from the times he'd been the only one there to look after Harry. Sirius's memory, considering all his brain had been through, was usually reassuringly good.

A memory of Harry trying to fit his head into the sleeve of Sirius's jacket neared its end. Sirius pulled up one of the mishap James and Harry had had with a tube of Lily's lipstick, and followed that with the time he and James had been unable to find a clean nappy, so had just stuck Harry in the bathtub. And of the memories Sirius wanted to relive, that… was all he could think of.

He closed his mind down and pushed Harry back. Like intruders peeking out from the back recesses of Sirius's mind were those memories at the top of the no-show list. Always there, the memories he never wanted to view, they chose that moment to scratch harder at Sirius's thoughts, fighting for purchase.

Sirius shut them out. Shut everything out firmly, focusing only on pushing Harry back as gently as he could.

Harry relented. Sirius felt the relief of the boy's presence easing out of his mind.

And then the relief was gone. Whether that emotion had been what broke Sirius's control or whether Harry had pushed back hard all of a sudden, Sirius didn't know. What he knew were a lot of thoughts at once: that he should have called quits to this lesson before he'd started, that his control was never as good as he wanted it to be – that this had been a foregone conclusion –

Sirius panicked, and kicked himself for panicking; furious. His mind was freefalling, disorientated, and for that horrible moment Sirius knew he had nothing to hang on to. Just blackness in a complete loss of control – and then –

The stench of smoke; ash. Like punching a sore muscle: a self-destructive allure to seeing it; feeling it, despite knowing the crushing horror of it. A jean-clad leg, strewn with no dignity, visible through the ruins. There was a face, not far away in the memory – Sirius knew it well: how often had he relived this?

Sirius yanked away. He wasn't going to see it again now. But he couldn't leave that day to blackness. Instead, no better, he knew a different face, though he couldn't see it. Heard the wailing of a terrified infant. Like a siren call through the wreckage.

The stairs, damaged but still standing. The hole blown through the roof and side of the house. The sense that Sirius, in a home he'd laughed with company in time and time again, was alone. The only one here. The first one here. The wind whistled: too easily able to be felt inside.

A corridor with the stars twinkling overhead. A body – a woman Sirius didn't need to check was dead. She was dead. Never that lifeless in life. Would never be lying there like that while her baby screamed from the cot behind her.

That baby was more alone than Sirius was. A solitary voice, screaming out into the night. Fat tears streaming down his pudgy face; his cheeks flushed.

Standing on his two little feet, he'd been rattling with all his might at the wooden bars of his cot. Imprisoned, unable to do anything to help: he was only a baby.

Sirius had to step over Lily's body. He only realised that once he'd already done it. Why it was only the tiny child still standing in this house he'd learned later. But he saw the gash on the boy's forehead. Saw it as the boy quieted; stopped fighting with the bars of his little cell.

He knew Sirius. Knew Sirius as someone to trust – someone who'd give him comfort. Sirius saw it: the moment he was recognised. Harry's scrunched face softened; relaxed. The baby reached for him. Tiny hands gripped Sirius's top. If his godfather was here, then Harry wasn't alone.

A soft, small body. Already in his pyjamas. Trusting. Tired from all his screaming. Harry relinquished against Sirius, delicate arms splayed across Sirius's chest and a heavy head on his shoulder. Taking a rest, now an adult was here to deal with it.

But Sirius couldn't deal with it. Clutching the small body against him, all he saw was destruction. Red hair strewn across the floor. The floor creaking under him. And he'd been the one to cast the Fidelius Charm. He'd thought someone other than him a better candidate for Secret Keeper.

Tuck the little boy's head against his shoulder. Harry would get no reassurance from the sight of Sirius's face. This was everything Sirius had feared, and nothing he'd thought would actually happen.

Back through the house. Back out to his motorbike. There was no good way to secure Harry to it. And nowhere Sirius knew to go. But being outside… would just be being outside.

Hagrid had arrived by portkey. It was Sirius's guess. He hadn't noticed it. And there his memory skipped ahead, the moments in between unclear. Some realisation, somewhere in there, that Dumbledore thought this his fault. And thought it for reasons other than the ones Sirius had. Somewhere in there was a need to find Pettigrew – sometime on the side of the road. The memory, when immersed in it and not, was a muddle there. It looked it, chugging past Sirius's vision in a discombobulated blur. Had he tried to modify it? If he had, Sirius didn't remember doing so.

What he remembered, where the memory settled itself, was that moment. The one that had burned its own spot in Sirius's brain, right next to walking out on Regulus, right next to standing there beside Pettigrew as he cast that charm for the titchy rat; next to hesitating as Chione's last few horrendous seconds of life disappeared; or next to sitting like a good boy in that courtroom as Hermione was escorted out.

Why? Why had Sirius handed Harry over? Here the memory was modified. Not by trying to change history, but from all the times Sirius had been back over it. Again and again, trying to understand what was hard to remember.

Missions, where babies had no place. That had been his year before that moment. And finding Peter felt like a mission. There were reasons for it, and revenge was only one of them. Hagrid didn't look at Sirius any differently. Dumbledore would. The Order would. Once they heard what Dumbledore thought he knew.

And the memory tumbled, past half-comprehended rationalisations, to that one moment. Harry had fallen asleep against Sirius's shoulder. Sirius was standing, just outside the house, on the pavement. Just standing on the pavement with a drowsing baby that trusted him. And Hagrid had his orders. To take Harry to his aunt's. Sirius knew Harry's aunt. But Harry wouldn't have to be there long. He was a baby. He wouldn't remember the short stay he had with that woman.

Sirius didn't remember arguing it. He remembered Harry waking as he handed the small boy over to the half giant. He remembered the confusion on Harry's face. The wail. The reach for him. The fight Harry put up in Hagrid's big arms. And Sirius remembered the emptiness in his chest – remembered that guilt, watching that. He remembered fighting it, giving that baby reassurances and a smile that felt like a lie on his face. And then the memory went blank, Sirius unable to see – to feel – any more of it.

And instead, he saw steam filling a bathroom. Saw a naked body crumpled on the floor of the shower, her skin a lurid pink. Heard a new voice screaming. Felt that guilt. Felt that fury. That horror. As though things that kicked him from all those three directions was all his brain could give him to see.

And Sirius flailed, done with it all – sick of his own mind. He'd done enough of this! Been through it all – been through that first one time and time again – countless times! Only to see the second one? If the first had tormented him as a memory on repeat, obvious behind his eyelids, the second had done the same from a silenced and shrouded corner of his mind.

Enough!

Sirius didn't know if he'd thought it or shouted it. He was back in the sitting room. Oddly warm and bright. Oddly tangible. Like his cell had been every time the memories had faded to a moment of clarity. Only this wasn't a stone cell. This was a brightly painted house, Hermione worrying beside him, her hand on his shoulder, and Harry staring back at him from four feet away.