Chapter 28

Blackout

Sirius Black walked quietly alongside Minister Bones as they passed through the heavily muggle area, with not another witch or wizard in sight so far as he could tell. He had no idea what in hell they were doing. Oh, she said they had a meeting, but he had no clue what that meeting was about, or even who it was with.

On top of it, they had travelled here by phoenix.

The past couple of years had been very difficult for Sirius. True, he was free now — but the number one reason he wanted his freedom was no longer available to him. And he didn't know if that was because his godson had escaped, or because he was dead.

It was very difficult to swallow.

From what they now knew, he couldn't blame Harry in the slightest for absconding. He would have done the same — and in some ways had done in his youth by running away from home. Granted that Harry's efforts were far more dramatic in scope, but then so was his situation. He wasn't safe, and nobody was helping him fix it.

Sirius would have helped of course, if he could have. And that was the catch. Regardless of any other considerations, what could he possibly have done? The only thing he could hope to do was write to Madam Bones — which he had actually done in an attempt to arrange for his own trial. That letter had never arrived, because Dumbledore had placed a ward on him to prevent it.

It was a tricky bit of magic, and Sirius had never even thought to check, which was very foolish of him. Of course, maybe Albus had something to do with that, too, given that failing to check was so out of character for him.

So no, he couldn't blame Harry for not coming to him. If he was still out there somewhere, then he had done the best possible thing that he could, and Sirius would not begrudge him that. Given that everyone thought him dead, he applauded one of the most thoroughly successful pranks he'd ever seen pulled.

But if Harry was still alive, then why had he not contacted him?

As they turned to walk down the stairs toward the water, Sirius turned that over in his head for the umpteenth time. There were many possible answers, he just didn't know which one would be the truth. He was hurt by it, if he was being honest with himself, but was that fair to Harry?

He truly didn't know.

He shook from his musing at the sight of the yacht they were about to walk by, with the name Escape Artist painted on the hull. It was a nice looking boat as such things went. More interesting, though, was the lithe blonde lounging at the back of the boat, reading a book. Though as they got closer, he quickly realized that she was far too young to be on the menu.

Not that he was doing more than looking right now anyway; his head still needed some shrinking before he went there again.

To his surprise, the Minister slowed her pace as they approached. The blonde looked up at them a moment later, the slightest of smiles appearing on her face.

"Hello, Emily," greeted Amelia. "It's nice to see you again."

The girl smiled a little more and waved shyly at her, but didn't say anything, which Sirius marked as strange.

"May we go aboard?" she asked politely.

She nodded, and then closed her eyes, seeming to steel herself for something, and then, when she opened them again–

"He's w-waiting in the f-forward s-s-s-salon," she stuttered softly.

"Thank you, dear," she smiled. "We'll leave you to your book."

The girl nodded with another slight smile, and simply watched them.

Amelia started walking again, and Sirius cast another glance at the girl before following. He had no idea what that was, but there was something up with that girl; something was wrong. To that end, he increased his pace a little.

"Who is she?" he asked seriously.

Amelia glanced at him in surprise at his tone. "Her name is Emily Park," she explained.

Sirius reached out and stopped her. Something about the girl just screamed that she was abused, and having experienced that sort of thing himself once upon a time, he wasn't going to let it continue. And Amelia wasn't getting out of more explanation than a mere name.

"Give me more than that, Amelia," he said flatly. "Even I can see there's something wrong there."

Amelia's shocked look at his action melted into a softer one. "Relax, Black," she told him. "She had a hard life growing up. The couple who owns the boat got her out of that situation and took custody of her. She's fine now, she's just very shy is all."

Sirius studied her intently before finally deciding she was telling the truth. "Then I want to meet them," he said honestly. "I know how that kind of thing feels, Amelia, and there are things they'll need to know about how to deal with it."

Amelia motioned for him to start moving again. "I think you'll find that they already know what they're dealing with, Black," she smiled.

Sirius frowned at her, but started walking just the same. He turned that statement over in his head as they crested the top of the gangway and Amelia directed them along the deck toward the front of the yacht. There was something important in what she said, but he couldn't for the life of him figure out what.

The Minister slid a door open, and they stepped through it into a cozy room. He took a moment to close the door and then followed her deeper in, only to come face to face with the biggest shock he'd had in recent history.

Rising from a chair in front of him was his godson: Harry James Potter.

"Harry?" he breathed.

===[~]===

Harry watched as Madam Bones entered the room with Sirius in tow. The man missed him at first glance — not surprising given that it was very bright outside, and relatively dark in the room by comparison. He paused to close the door, turned around and walked in further, and then stopped dead in his tracks.

Harry had no idea how this was going to go, and quite frankly he was terrified. Would Sirius be mad at him? Would he spill the secret and ruin Harry's quiet life? And even if everything went perfectly, what would happen?

He had no idea, and that made him nervous as hell.

"Harry?" breathed Sirius.

"Hi, Sirius," he said quietly.

Sirius blinked stupidly at him for a moment, and then suddenly strode forward and grabbed him up in a solid hug. Harry slowly forced his arms around the man, even as he fought down the sense of panic that the move elicited. Being touched was bad enough, but being hugged — especially if it wasn't the gentle sort — made him feel deeply trapped.

Only Ginny's hugs didn't generate that reaction in him, though Emily was also making inroads there, not that she hugged him often. Like him, though for very different reasons, she was relatively touch averse. For her, she just hadn't had much experience of it in her life, and so naturally shied away from it most of the time.

Finally the man let him go and stepped back, and Harry took a deep breath to steady himself as Sirius studied him intently. The man hadn't truly known he was alive, so Harry could understand his reaction. That didn't make it any more comfortable though.

"Are you okay?" asked Sirius finally.

"I'm fine, Sirius," he said quietly. "A lot has happened, but all of it is good."

Sirius gave him another once over before he finally seemed satisfied. "Good," he said bluntly. "I've been worried sick. Why didn't you contact me?"

Harry blanched, and rather than answer immediately, waved him into a seat. Luckily, his elves were on the ball; as he took his own, Winky popped in with tea. A sip told him it was her special tea that calmed his nerves so well, for which he was grateful. They were less than a minute into the conversation, and he was already far too stressed.

It was just too bad that Ginny had to go deal with a problem with their fuel supplier. They had to get that sorted or they wouldn't leave Britain on time, and that was not an option he really wanted to contemplate. The longer they were here, the more jittery he got, and he really wanted to leave as soon as possible.

Speaking of the devil–

You okay? came drifting in.

I'm fine. I need to focus here, though, he told her.

Liar, she sent back with a wave of gentle amusement. Just tell me if you need me to knock some sense into him, love.

Harry struggled to keep the resultant smile off his face, and simply sent a wave of love back to her. Thankfully time seemed to pass differently when they had conversations in their heads; they went by in the blink of an eye. Now he just needed to find an answer that Sirius would accept.

"It's complicated," he finally said.

"What do you mean?" asked Sirius, frowning slightly.

And Harry was having a very hard time reading his mood. This was the problem: he didn't actually know Sirius well at all. And that meant he had no idea what the result of this conversation would be. He wasn't going to lie about it, but how would the man take it?

Taking a deep breath, Harry settled himself a little deeper into his chair. Minister Bones had appropriated one a little way away from them; she would leave if he asked her to, but her presence was actually comforting. He filed that away to think about later.

"One of the reasons is because it wasn't a conversation for a letter, let alone one that might be intercepted," he said quietly. "This is a face to face sort of thing, and this is the first time I've been back here since."

Sirius' head tilted to the side slightly, and Harry suspected that he'd picked up on the hidden implications there. Specifically, that Harry had no intention of sticking around. Fortunately, he didn't say anything about it.

Yet.

"There are more?" asked Sirius.

"Many," sighed Harry. "No matter her intentions, Skeeter did me a massive favor, Sirius, and I don't think you understand just how massive."

Harry leaned over put his head in his hands for a moment. Why was it so hard to explain this to Sirius? He couldn't quite put his finger on why he thought he would get a bad reaction to things from the man. That made it hard to figure out how to prevent it, and he really didn't like that.

Finally, he looked up. "I had no future until she killed me. Not one I could stomach, anyway."

"I'm not sure I understand," Sirius said in a softer tone. "Take a deep breath and just talk. Don't worry about me, just talk and explain."

Harry closed his eyes at that. "I wasn't a person," he said quietly. "I was an object. When I walked down the street in the magical world, people mobbed me, or stared at me… I had no privacy, and that's before Dumbledore got involved and stripped what little I did have."

Harry sighed heavily and opened his eyes again. "Everyone was so certain they knew me. They wanted things from me. They expected things from me. I was supposed to be and do exactly as they expected, and woe betide me if I didn't give them what they wanted.

"And in reality, nobody knew a single bloody thing about me at all."

He paused for a moment, and then met his godfather's worried gaze. "Even you, Sirius," he said softly. "Not that we had much time together, but this is still the first time you're seeing who I really am, because I didn't dare show that to anyone before Skeeter killed me."

Harry fell silent and waited for Sirius to absorb it.

Sirius nodded slowly. "Okay, I'm with you so far," he nodded, his tone calm. "I just don't understand how that translates to not being able to contact me, even just to tell me you were okay."

Harry took a frustrated breath and closed his eyes, unable to look at the man at the moment. "You didn't know me," he repeated, "and I didn't know you either, Sirius. We had what, maybe three or four hours total, along with a few letters?" Harry shook his head. "I couldn't predict your reaction, and I still can't. I don't know you."

Finally opening them again, he looked directly into the man's eyes, unsurprised to see confusion and perhaps some hurt there. "I want to know you or you wouldn't be here," he said bluntly. "But until we could talk in person I couldn't risk it, because I can't predict your reactions."

Harry sighed, "I finally have the opportunity to have an actual life of my own," he admitted. "With how this world works, the tiniest little slip could take it all away from me, and I will never be able to get it back again."

"I couldn't afford the risk," he said heavily.

Sirius nodded slowly. "Your life here really sucked, didn't it?" he wondered.

"Like you wouldn't believe," Harry sighed. "Just look at the Tournament. I swore a Merlin-bedamned magical oath, in public in Gryffindor tower, that I would not enter either directly or indirectly. And when my name came out, did anyone believe me?"

Harry shook his head. "People refused to see me for who I am, or even for who I was pretending to be. No, they just wanted their fucking hero, and I had to be exactly what they wanted, or else."

He could see Madam Bones from the corner of his eye, and noted that she was in deep thought about what he was saying. He doubted anything useful would come of that — at least, not unless he got outed. He was admittedly curious where her train of thought was going, but left it alone in favor of more immediate matters.

"I think I understand," Sirius nodded. "And you have anonymity wherever you live now? America I assume?"

"Yes," he nodded. "They think I was named after a dead hero. I take some ribbing for that, but beyond that I'm just a normal bloke there." Harry blinked. "Well, not normal, but not a celebrity anyway. They treat me like everyone else, at least so far."

"I'm sorry you had to go through that," frowned Sirius. "I wish I'd known how bad it was, but I doubt I could have done anything about it, so that's water under the bridge. And I think I get why you didn't tell me. I'm not going to out you, Harry."

"Thank you," he breathed.

"In this case?" Sirius went on, "you probably made the right call anyway. Albus mucked with me pretty badly, and telling me anything in a letter might have alerted him. Or maybe even just plain telling me. And you're right, you didn't know me, so you had to protect yourself. I can respect that."

Harry let out a breath he didn't even realize he was holding. There was still a long way to go, but the door was open. That was the most important thing at the moment.

"With that out of the way, let's change the subject a little," suggested Sirius, "starting with your current situation. I take it whoever owns this barge took you in?"

Harry looked at him oddly, and then tried very hard not to look at Madam Bones, who was struggling not to crack up at the question. "Sirius," he said slowly, "you did catch the name on the back of the boat, right?"

"What, Escape Artist?" he frowned. "What about it?"

"Think about it," snorted Harry. "It'll come to you."

Sirius stared at him for almost a minute before his eyes suddenly widened. "No!" he breathed.

"Yup," nodded Harry, vaguely amused by his reaction. "We restored her from the hull up. She's all ours."

Sirius blinked. "We?" he frowned.

Harry just couldn't resist. "My wife and I," he said bluntly. "I told you, a lot has happened."

Amusingly, Sirius rolled his eyes. "Okay, you had me going there, but that took me right out of the joke," he said in exasperation.

"You might want to look again, Black," said Amelia, sounding truly amused.

Harry was holding his left hand up, using his right to point at his ring. Sirius looked at him, spotted it, and paled significantly. It was all Harry could do not to burst out laughing. Madam Bones was trying to control her expression again, too.

"You got married," said Sirius flatly.

"Not… exactly," grinned Harry. "Magic married us, but we didn't ask for it. Not that we're complaining."

Sirius blinked a few times. "Ginny Weasley?" he asked.

"Yup," nodded Harry. "She ran with me for her own reasons, and this happened fourteen days into the cruise we took to get out of Britain."

"I really don't get it," frowned Sirius. "I think you're telling the truth, but I really don't get it."

"Soul Bond," explained Harry. "It's something Magic does, and it's not well known. We were pretty bloody confused until someone explained it to us about a week later."

"Huh."

Silence reigned for a minute as Sirius processed that. Harry had to admit, it was a lot to swallow. People his age did not typically get married, let alone people two years younger. Not in this country anyway, nor in any other they had stopped in.

Suddenly Sirius frowned. "Wait, you own this boat, right?"

"Yeeees," said Harry slowly.

"Then according to Amelia, you have custody of that Emily girl," he frowned.

Harry instantly went serious. "Yes, we do," he nodded. "She's family. Why?"

"Because I know abused children when I see them," he said flatly, looking Harry in the eye. "To be clear here, I know you wouldn't do that, and from what little Amelia told me, you rescued her."

"Yes," nodded Harry. "And I might know a thing or two about abused children as well, Sirius."

Sirius blinked at that. "I know," he admitted. "I'm just trying to figure out how all this fits together, but her ticks are more than just minor. Is she really okay?"

Harry sighed and sat back. He knew Sirius had been abused as a child, and as an abused child himself, he understood where the man was coming from. That was the only reason he didn't take offense to the prying; Sirius had far better reason to pry than most, and he wasn't accusing Harry of anything.

"What do you think?" sighed Harry. "She will be, but no. Right now she's even more socially broken than I am, and that's really saying something. She's getting better, but it's going to take a lot of time."

"You're not socially broken," frowned Sirius.

"Oh yes I bloody well am," snorted Harry. "I'm also a master Occlumens, though, Sirius. I can hide it pretty well because of that, but that doesn't mean it's not there."

"Bugger," swore Sirius. "How did I not see that? Now that you mention it, you have all the signs of extensive Occlumency."

"I try to cover those too, but you can only do so much," nodded Harry.

Another brief silence fell, but this time it was much more comfortable. Sirius stared off into space, and Harry let him get on with it. He had a lot to process, and Harry suspected that his questions about Emily were more a sideshow to give himself some breathing room. Not that he wasn't serious, but it served another purpose in letting him get some distance from the prior conversation.

"Okay," nodded Sirius, focusing back in on him. "So how do we go forward in your view?"

"One day at a time," shrugged Harry. "We're leaving back to America on Sunday. We're only going to visit here once every couple of years or so, and that's if you're lucky. You can visit us in America any time you want, though, as long as you don't get followed. Letters are out unfortunately, because they're way too easy to intercept."

Sirius nodded. "Okay," he frowned. "I can easily take a few weeks and fly over the muggle way. I want to spend some proper time with you so we can actually get to know each other, and we can go from there. Assuming you're okay with it of course."

"I am," nodded Harry. "We start school again in September just like here, just so you know. It's a long cruise, about three weeks back to the States, so we should be back some time late July if the weather doesn't delay us. So early to mid August is probably best."

It was about that time that Emily wandered in. She stopped short, though, when she realized that they were still talking. Harry smiled; she was easily one of his favorite people, and if not for Ginny he might have tried to figure something out with her.

"You can come in, Em," he told her, "we're just wrapping up the hard stuff."

She wandered slowly further into the room, her gaze bouncing from Amelia to Sirius and back — and he could tell that she was far more comfortable with Amelia for the moment. Not that this was surprising, since she hadn't gotten to know Sirius at all yet.

Finally, she focused in on Harry.

"T-the f-f-fuel barge j-just showed up," she stuttered softly. "I d-d-didn't see G-Ginny, though. I n-need the k-k-keys."

Harry reached into his pocket and tossed his keys to her. "You want me to come help?" he offered.

Emily shook her head. "I'm f-fine."

Sirius snorted. "Girl, you're in a room with two of the people who invented that phrase and all of it's myriad uses," he grinned.

Emily nodded. "T-then y-you know I'm f-f-fine," she said with a slight nervous grin. And then she waved and wandered out again.

"I like her!" declared Sirius.

Harry couldn't disagree.

===[~]===

A/N: Finally, Sirius gets a scene! I'm vaguely unhappy with the conversation, but yet it seems to work. And so here it is.

Sorry for the delay; life happens. I'll throw out another one in a few hours to make up for it. =)

Urgazhi: Isn't she, though? That's why she keeps ending up with screen time. I just couldn't stop writing her. This really needs an extended edition so I can flesh her personality out, it would just be a very extensive project. =)

More soon!