After the Dawn:
Chapter Seven: Lessons
Harry walked in through the huge front doors of Potter Mansion. He and Sirius rarely got the chance to come back here, in fact, it had been four months since last he had since this place.
"Home," he breathed, as Sirius came to stand over him.
"That it is," the older man agreed.
"Master Potter, Master Black! You is back!" A voice squeaked, and seven blurs of House Elves streaked over to throw themselves on the returning duo.
"So we are," Sirius laughed. "Could you take our bags up please? We'll be staying for two weeks over Christmas."
Amid the happy squeaks of the house elves, Harry and Sirius settled themselves in the place that they both called home.
Soon Harry gave Sirius the slip and headed away into the house that had belonged to his family for generations beyond count.
Pictures lined the walls, smiling witches and wizards who all turned to watched the Heir to their name walk through the halls. Harry walked almost silently, gazing reverently around him.
"Psst, over here," a soft male voice haled him. Harry turned and hurried over to a life sized portrait of a tall man with black hair and friendly brown eyes.
"Hello dad," Harry said shyly.
"Hi there son. Come this way, I'll show you something," James said, smiling. "You haven't been to the secret library, have you?"
"No," Harry replied, eager to see more of the house that would one day be his. At the moment it was really Sirius's, because Harry wasn't of age yet.
"Come on then, I'll show you," James offered. Harry nodded eagerly and followed as his father walked out of his portrait. Winding through the Mansion, Harry came to places he'd never been before.
"There are many rooms in the Potter Mansion. It changes, sometimes, making some rooms into bedrooms when there are more people here, then changing them back to other things when the people leave," James explained. "I don't doubt that you'll soon know every nook and cranny!"
Harry laughed. He'd met his parents portraits on a few occasions, but he never tired of spending time with them. Following his father with a cheerful smile, Harry wandered through the hallways until he was hopelessly lost.
"Say 'Arae Potter'," James told his son. Harry obeyed, and a large section of the wall folded inwards. Harry walked inside, staring wide eyes around him. Bookshelves rose to a high vaulted ceiling, packed with books of every shape and size.
Harry turned to look for his father's portrait, but found it gone. The six year old shrugged. James did that sometimes. Walking through the huge bookshelves, Harry stared at the texts that varied in size and subject, some gory, some pleasant …
Until he found the huge tapestry. "The Ancient And Most Nobel House of Potter," it read at the top. So many people – it overwhelmed young Harry, the sheer amount of ancestors he saw there.
Down at the very bottom, a gold line of embroidery linked Lily Evans and James Potter, and then, beneath that a link of silver embroidery led to Harry Potter. Harry smiled slightly, his hand tracing those two links lovingly.
"Kiby!" he called, realising he was lost. There was a crack and the desired elf appeared immediately beside him.
"What is Master Harry wanting?" the elf asked. "How is Kiby serving Master Harry?"
"Not 'master' anything," the six year old said. "Just Harry. And I'm lost."
"Follow Kiby, master!" the elf replied, ignoring Harry's words. They had not called him Master when he was younger, at his request, but a year ago, they'd started stubbornly refusing to call him anything other than Master.
The elf led Harry easily back to the boy's room. "Kiby is being told by Mister Black that Master Harry is to meet him at the family living room at lunch time, Master Harry," Kiby said, before disappearing.
It was still half an hour till the time Sirius wanted Harry to meet him, but, since he didn't have anything else to do, Harry went straight there.
Ten minutes later he walked into the family living room – it was smaller than the living room that was used when guests were entertained. Sirius was there already.
"Hello kiddo, where were you?" he asked.
"Dad took me to the family library. There was a huge tapestry with all the Potters on it," Harry replied.
"All of the oldest Wizarding families have one of those, they were created over one thousand years ago, when Hogwarts hadn't yet been built. There's only about … four left in existence. Yours, the Black family, the Malfoy family and the Crouch family. Those four are the oldest of the Wizarding families," Sirius replied. "I'd like to see it some time."
"If I can find it again, I'll show you," Harry promised. "What did you want me for?"
"It's time you learned to use magic," Sirius replied, smiling slightly at the ecstatic look on Harry's face. "I've got your fathers wand here, you can use that."
"How did you find his wand?" Harry asked. "Didn't he have it with him when Voldemort attacked?"
"Yes, he did. Before I went after Peter, I found your parents, and their wands, and brought them back here to be buried in the family tomb. I kept the wands, because James told me to," Sirius replied. "It's probably not a perfect match, but for the moment, it will have to do."
He pointed to the table, where the wand lay, its wood shining faintly. Harry walked over to the table and lifted the wand reverently. He could feel … something … teasing at his fingertips, tugging at his mind, but he couldn't quite place it. The wand felt wrong, somehow, in his hand.
"It doesn't feel right," he told Sirius.
"I'd hoped you wouldn't say that," Sirius sighed. "Oh well, I'm sure it'll be good enough to try with for the moment… Or do you want to try your mother's wand?"
Harry thought for a moment. "Try mums," he replied.
"This way, it's in my room," Sirius said, taking Harry's hand and leading him from the room. Harry followed happily. He knew that it was annoying Sirius a little, but he wanted to see what his mums wand felt like.
Soon enough they reached Sirius's room, which was only a few doors down from the small room that had been serving Harry as a bedroom in Potter mansion.
Sirius went over a walk-in cupboard, and reappeared a moment later to offer Harry a second wand, different from the first.
When Harry took it, he felt the same feeling as before, but the sense of wrongness was less with this. "Better," he said. "But still not right."
Sirius hesitated. "Try my wand," he offered after a moment, offering it to Harry. "Maybe it will work better – I know I can use your fathers wand, we sometimes swapped wands in school, to try and prove that it wasn't us that did something."
Harry took Sirius's wand, and smiled. "Much better," he proclaimed. "Not exactly right, but much better than mum and dads."
"Well, you have a wand, kiddo," Sirius smiled. "Now you just have to learn how to use it."
Harry smiled eagerly. He'd been waiting a long time for this. "Teach me," he said simply, sitting down in front of Sirius and smiling.
"It's not quite so easy as that," Sirius remarked, grinning. "I'll show you how to hold your wand first, because you haven't got it quite right. Which hand does your wand feel most comfortable in?"
Harry swapped the wand from hand to hand, "neither," he said finally. "It feels the same in both hands." Harry was ambidextrous.
"That's fine, your mother was the same," Sirius said, smiling slightly. "You don't usually get that with wizards – some say that those who can do that are more powerful than others … Or better learners. I know your mother was, in some ways. Ok, show me how you're holding the wand … No, no, not like that … Yes! That's it!"
Harry held the wand before him, and remembered some of the simple spells he'd heard Sirius use. "Lumos," he murmured, staring at the wand tip, willing light to come there, as he'd seen happen to Sirius. Immediately, light appeared there, shining over the room, illuminating Sirius's ecstatic expression.
"You picked up really quick! Then again, with your parents, I wouldn't expect any more."
Harry, however, was confused. He'd felt something when the spell took effect, but it hadn't come from the wand, he didn't think. Then he pinpointed the feeling – it was how he felt whenever he gave off the bursts of magic that made him and Sirius move. Whenever he was scared or frightened and his magic got away from him.
Had he really used magic, then? Harry decided to check, and focused his mind once more on the light. Go out! He thought, though he'd never heard Sirius use the counter charm to Lumos before.
Immediately, the light winked out completely. Harry blinked, his eyes adjusting quickly. "How did you do that?" Sirius asked, surprised.
"I thought it," Harry replied. "And I think I thought the light there, as well."
"How do you mean?"
"I didn't feel anything in the wand. I felt the same as I do when my magic gets away on me and we have to move … Don't we have to leave here? Will the Ministry be able to pick up on me again?" Harry asked, concerned.
"No, kiddo. This place is so old that magic is seeped into its very being – Potter Mansion is alive, and she hides her treasures from outside eyes. No one can detect use of magic here, whether it be underaged or anything else," Sirius reassured his godson. "But how do you mean, you felt the same as you do when your magic gets away on you?"
"I've heard about this," a soft, powerful female voice spoke out suddenly, and both Harry and Sirius turned to see a red-haired witch with Harry's eyes smiling at them from a picture frame.
"Lily?! What do you mean, you've heard of this before?" Sirius had more or less gotten used to Lily and James's portraits appearing where they shouldn't normally be.
"When a person is born to two powerfully magical people, they often have such a gift for magic that a wand hampers them, it doesn't help. Harry darling, see that," Lily asked pointing to a picture frame with a small picture of Harry in it, sitting on Harry's bedside.
"Yes," Harry nodded.
"Put down the wand, and try to make it rise in the air," Lily instructed him.
Harry did as she asked, giving Sirius's wand back to him, and concentrating on the picture frame. Rise, he commanded it mentally.
Slowly, oh so slowly, the picture began to rise into the air, until it hovered, about a foot up from its former position. Harry gave a smile of triumph, before his rolled up into his head and he collapsed backwards in a dead faint.
Sirius yelled and leapt forward, Lily pressed herself against the portrait frame, eyes wide with surprise, then she relaxed slightly, as Sirius cradled Harry's head. "Of course, using the magic consciously will tire him out. I think it best that you teach him this form of magic, Sirius, and leave him to learn to use a wand in Hogwarts."
"Why do you say that?" Sirius asked, lying Harry gently down on the bed.
"Because it's a gift that few learn to develop. If he learns that magic can only be accessed through a wand, he'll end up a much weaker wizard than he shoulder, and there are very few people who know of the gift of Wandless magic."
"Most wizards can use it though," Sirius said, confusedly.
"When they are young, yes, before they learn to use a wand, but it comes in bursts, as inconsistent as the wind. They are taught to use a wand to control the magic within themselves, but after that, they can only rarely use Wandless magic after that, and then only in extreme circumstances," Lily said. "He'll have to learn to use a wand as well, I think, because otherwise he won't know spells, he'll just know how to make things do things. Perhaps just before he goes to Hogwarts, and when he has his own wand, you can start teaching him to use it."
"I'll do that. Thanks for the advice Lily."
"Any time, Padfoot," Lily smiled, before walking out of the portrait to go and find her husbands picture.
Kiby suddenly appeared in the room with a slight pop. "Is Master Harry being alright, Master Sirius?" she asked anxiously.
"Yes, Kiby, Harry's fine. He just over taxed himself slightly, he should be up and about again very soon," Sirius replied.
"Kiby is being grateful. Is there anything Kiby is being able to do?" the elf asked.
"Go and tell Nelly and Sally to make only light foods for dinner tonight," Sirius replied. "But that is all, I think."
"Kiby will do this, Sir!" with a crack the elf was gone, and Harry stirred groggily.
"Hey there mate, you ok?" Sirius asked, going to sit beside his godson.
"Headache," Harry replied thickly.
Sirius whipped up his wand and cast a pain relieving charm on his godson. "Better?" he asked.
"Much," Harry replied, smiling. "Can I go to my room though? I'm tired."
"Of course, come on, up you get."
Sirius led his godson three doors to the left of his own room, and tucked the boy into a large four poster bed with red hangings. "I'll send Kiby up with some food in a little while," he said with a slight smile. Harry didn't answer – he was already asleep.
Next day, Harry woke completely refreshed. "What are we doing now?" he asked Sirius eagerly.
"Well, you have to keep up with your studies in the Muggle world," Sirius replied. "Didn't your teachers give you some homework for the holidays?"
"Yes," Harry replied with a faint sigh.
"Well, do some of that, then we'll practise a bit of magic, but we can't do too much, because your body isn't able to cope with it," Sirius replied. "If you're still feeling fine, then we'll go and do some flying."
"Yay!" Harry replied, grinning widely. "I'll go and get my homework now," he raced off eagerly.
Sirius smiled slightly. A sure way to get Harry to do something was to offer to go flying after it was done. Harry loved the freedom of the open air as much as Sirius himself did.
A moment later, Harry was back, carrying several books and a stack of parchment. Sirius took out a book that he was reading, and the pair of them settled down in silence.
After awhile, Harry broke that silence. "Sirius, do I have any blood relatives left alive?" he asked.
"No, Harry. You don't have any … what brings this one?" Sirius replied slowly.
"Didn't I have an aunt, mum's nasty sister?" Harry asked, not answering Sirius's own question.
"You did. She and her husband gave you up, left you in a city where they hoped you'd die, and where you would have died if I hadn't come along," Sirius said.
"What happened to her? Isn't she still alive?" Harry asked.
"No, she isn't," Sirius told him, eyes going misty as he looked back into the past.
When Harry had been four years old, Sirius had left him with Kiby in Potter Mansion and ventured out in dog shape, heading towards the town called Little Whinging, where the Dursley's lived. It was time to pay them back for what they'd done to his godson.
Eventually he reached his destination, and found the house at Number Four, Privet Drive quite easily. He slipped up the driveway, the thought of revenge sweet in his mind.
Suddenly he saw black man shapes prowling closer to the house in the darkness, and he smelt bad on them. Immediately, he knew who they were – Death Eaters!
He shifted form back to man and used a quick concealment charm on himself, so that he would not be seen, and slipped into the garden of the house without a sound.
He quickly made it inside, looking around himself at the neat walls and carpeted floors, the pictures on the mantle piece that showed a fat blonde boy doing numerous activities with his parents.
Upstairs, he could hear, with dogs senses of smell and hearing, the breathing of three people. One of them was snoring horribly, and sounded young, one breathed lightly, Sirius thought this was Petunia, and one was grunting in his sleep every now and then. Vernon Dursley, the one who'd left Harry in London.
Sirius stayed downstairs, hiding himself under the couch in the living room. He knew that the Death Eaters would bring the family down here eventually.
He watched as some of the Death Eaters crept upstairs, while others walked around the downstairs of the house. Sirius knew that even as they were looking for Harry, they were casting silencing charms so no one would hear anything that went on here.
Soon enough, he heard screams from upstairs, tortured screams of agony. The Dursley's wake up call. They were dragged downstairs and dropped unceremoniously on the floor of the living room about five minutes later.
All of the Death Eaters met up. "Where's Potter?" one of them asked.
"Ask them," another snarled, kicking at the fat boy Sirius assumed was Dudley Dursley.
"Where's Potter? We know the ministry lied! He's still alive, and you've got him here, hidden somewhere," he addressed Vernon.
"We don't know what you're talking about," Vernon said, whites showing all around his eyes, voice shaking with terror.
"Oh, but we think you do. Where's Harry Potter? Crucio!" Vernon screamed in pain, and Petunia whimpered. Dudley passed out in terror.
Sirius, had he been in human form, might have smiled. Had the Dursley's not done what they had to Harry, he might have helped them. All he felt now was mild disappointment that the Death Eaters would take care of the Dursley's and he would not be able to.
After a few minutes, the torturing had stopped. "Now, where is Potter?" the Death Eater asked again. "If you don't tell us, we'll kill your son, so speak!"
"He's probably dead by now," Vernon snarled. "I don't know and I don't care. I haven't seen him since I left him in London the day they gave him to us."
"So you abandoned him … Dammit!" Snarled the Death Eater. "You could've spared us a lot of hard work if we'd learnt of this earlier."
He muttered something, a charm that killed slowly but one that, if the counter curse was performed within twenty minutes, could be stopped. The Death Eaters disaparated.
Sirius slipped from his hiding place under the couch, resuming human form as he removed the charm of invisibility. Petunia screamed and Vernon started painfully.
"Who are you?"
"An enemy of yours, but an enemy of the ones that did this to you also," Sirius replied.
"We haven't seen you before, wizard, so why are we your enemies?" Petunia asked.
"Because of what you did to my godson."
"We haven't touched your godson," Vernon snarled.
"My godsons name is Harry Potter – if not for me, he would have died in London that day … Had you not done that, I would have halted the charm that is killing you. You'll be dead by morning, all of you, payment for the life you nearly took," Sirius replied.
"Please," Petunia begged. "Please help us!"
"Like you helped Harry? Like you helped your sister? I was James Potter's best friend, you might remember Lily saying something about me, my name is Sirius Black."
"The mass murderer?"
"I've never killed anyone," Sirius replied calmly. "Except for people like the one's you just met. They don't like non-magic people, no more than you lot like wizards."
"Please!" Petunia cried, breaking down and crying.
"Good bye," Sirius replied, and disaparated.
"I doubt that any other wizard would have
gotten there in time," Sirius said. "So I'll assume that they are dead."
"Wasn't that a little mean?" Harry asked.
"I suppose it was, but I was furious with them for what they did to you … I couldn't bring myself to help them when I knew that they'd left a helpless baby in a backstreet in London without a qualm," Sirius replied.
"Oh…"
***
Hey look, no cliffie! Lucky people! And the chapter was 3400 words! Thanks for all of your lovely reviews (individual thanks are on the next chapter), and please review to tell me what you think, again. For those of you who don't review signed in and would like to be notified when I put a new chapter up, just a) send me an email or b) leave an address in your review. The same goes for people who do not display their email addresses on their bio pages. Can we try to get to 360 reviews in this chapter? I'm on 323 at the moment, so it's only another 37 reviews! Not that difficult at all!
~WolfMoon~