Sirius Black was in a foul mood by the time Harry arrived, forty minutes
later than planned.
His long dirty hair and tattered robes against the neatly trimmed grass and tidy, pink and white flower beds of the little park made him stand out even more so than usual, and in full view of everybody walking past he felt hot and uncomfortable.
Even in his dog form he had twice been shooed away by a nervous looking park keeper and now, as Harry approached, he growled-even more visciously than he might have done, when he saw that his godson brough no food for him- and began to walk, haughtily glancing behind him to tell Harry to follow.
They walked for some time, both trying to look as inconspicuous as possible and failing miserably, and finally, they stopped behind a tiny, delapidated old building covered almost completely in graphiti that had perhaps once been a public toilet.
Against the wall, next to two overfilling dustbins, was a tartan blanket and small collection of bones(the previous owners of which, Harry preffered not to guess). He reallised, with a slight feeling of disgust that this was where Sirius had been living.
Once he was sure nobody was around, Sirius changed back into human form and stood glaring at Harry.
"Jeeze Harry! Where have you been?!"
Harry sighed. After being found on the doorstep by his uncle, he had gone straight to his cupboard and fallen asleep, forgetting all about his godfather. On remebering, he had run straight out of the house without explaination, which would undoubtedly get him into even more trouble when he returned. He looked up.
"I'm sorry I-"
But he was interupted by Sirius who caught sight of his bruised and swolen face.
"My god! What happened to you?"
Harry reddened and fidgeted awkwardly, trying to conceal the cuts and bruises on his arms.
The memory of previous evening was still painfully clear in his memory, and made him wriggle with embarrassment.
The truth was, he felt...ashamed of himself. Ashamed of his stupidity and of his weakness. He had heard the stories of the Maurauders. Sirius would never have given up to Dudley so easily, or let himself get into such an embarrasing situation in the first place. There was no way he would let his uncle know how pathetic he was.
"I fell." he said, knowing that this would not fool Sirius any more than it had fooled his uncle.
Sirius narrowed his eyes and surveyed his godson suspiciously.
"I've been in enough fights to know that that was no fall, Harry. What do you take me for?"
"Look, I just fell, ok?"
Sirius raised his eyebrows disbelievingly.
"Alright then." he said with a sigh.
It hurt him that his godson was lying to him, but decided it would not be tactfull to try and squeeze out any more information.
Things didn't get any better that afternoon. Both of them, for their own reasons were unusually reserved and thoughtful, and they were both of them thankful to part, and be left to their own thoughts.
* * *
There was a funny little saying Vernon used to use when he was particularly annoyed about something. Like when he had just washed the car and the rain came on, or when Aunt Marge would unexpectedly come to stay the night he had an important buisness partner over for dinner.
Sods' law.
"It's just Sods law, isn't it!" he would mutter to himself.
Perhaps Vernon knew who this "Sod" was, but Harry certainly didn't.
Despite this, Harry had always been a firm believer in the law of the sod. He knew from experience that however bad things got for him, they could always get worse.
And that is why he was not surprised to meet Abi at Mrs Figgs house on the morning of his birthday...
* * *
His birthday was not even a week after Dudleys, but his Aunt and Uncle always managed to forget it.
Even Harry himself forgot until he heard Vernons angry yells as he met four owls on the doorstep bearing large boxes for Harry.
These of course, much to Harrys dismay, went staright into the bin, along with a handfull of letters and cards.
He sat, sullenly nibbling on his toast and glaring at his unlcle, who avoided his eyes. He hadn't been able to look Harry in the face since he found him on the doorstep.
He had guessed what happened. And although Vernon was nasty and stupid in many ways, he was not a violent man. He just could not accept what his son had done, but instead of blaming Dudley for the incident, he grew even more hostile towards Harry, blaming him for the new way he now viewed his son.
"Did Mrs Figg say she'd take him?" Vernon asked his wife over the top of his newspaper as usual.
"Yes, she said to send him round at about 11 O' clock."
Harry sighed, guessing correctly that they were talking about him.
"Where are you going? I can look after myself, you know."
Petunia frowned at him.
"We're not leaving you here on your own! Don't know what you'll get up to!"
Shirley, who still had not quite given up her fight to get Harry included, but now saw him as mentally unstable and spoke to him as if he was five years old decided to try and reason with him.
"Aunty and Uncle Vernon have to go into town with cousin Dudley to get him clothes for school, Harry." she said slowly, and in such a patronising way, that Harry wanted to slap her, despite her good intentions.
"And Uncle Dermont is taking Auntly Shirley and Dwaine and Damien and Aunty Marge to the zoo for the day. We would love to take you too Harry, but their isn't enough room in the car." She contiued, cocking her head to one side apoligetically as if Harry was about to burst into tears.
"But I'm fifteen yeers old! I can stay in the house on my own!"Harry persisted, emphasizing the fifteen, wondering if anybody would notice.
Nobody answered.
With a sigh, Harry gave up. Maybe before, he would have tried to fight it out, or bring up his insane murderer godfather, but these days, it just seemed like too much of an effort.
* * *
Abi met the strange man in the park every morning for almost a week.
Although they didn't speak so deeply again, both felt they had some kind of bond, and were happy just to sit in each others company.
She often wondered about the man, who seemed so sad, and yet was always laughing and joking with her. However,only once had she asked him about himself.
They had been talking about family, when she plucked up the courage to ask him about his.
"Does your family know where you are?" she asked, blushing a little and hoping he would not take offence.
To her relief, he did not appear to be angered by her curiosity.
"Not at the moment, no. My mother is dead and I haven't seen my father for years."
"So nobody knows where you are?"
He smiled, a litlle sadly.
"A few do. You could say they are my adopted family, in a sense."
"Oh..." Abi was desperate to know more, but the man was obviously reluctant to pursue the subject.
Instead, she asked him something else that had been bothering her.
"I hope you don't mind me asking, but do you have a name?"
The man cocked his head to one side thoughtfully for a few moments before speaking, then he grinned broadly.
"Call me Snuffles." he said, with a twinkle in his eye.
On the sixth day she went to find him, he had gone.
* * *
Abi had met Mrs Figg for the first time, two years back, struggling home with her shopping. After helping the old woman into her house, she had stayed and chatted with her for quite some time.
After that first meeting, she visited her frequently, either to chat, or to help her around the house, and over time, she had become very fond of the crochety old woman.
After finding 'Snuffles' gone, Abi needed somewhere to go that would take her mind off things, and guliltily remebering that she had not visited the old woman for over a week, decided to pay her a visit.
* * * Harry had only been at Mrs Figgs for five minutes when the doorbell rang.
"Harry, would you get that for me, there's a good boy."
Harry dropped the heavy leather album that held a never ending stash of cat photographs on to the sofa, wincing as a huge cloud of yellow dust flew up around it.
"Are you expecting anybody?" he asked as he made his way through to the front lobby.
It took him a while to undo all the locks and bolts and chains Mrs Figg had on her door, but finally, he opened it and found himself face to face with the girl he had been tryng so hard to forget.
To his great annoyance, he felt himself go red and his stomach began to flutter.
Abi seemed just as taken aback.
For the first time, she was lost for words.
Eventually she managed to stutter.
"Harry...what are you...?"
"Mrs Figg is looking after me because I'm incapable of doing so myself."he said coldly, disguising the chaos he felt inside him, and moved aside to let her in.
Abi didn't move.
"I want to apoligise for what happened. I should have-"
"Mrs Figg will be getting cold." He muttered, and Abi entered, blushing a little.
"Abi!" Mrs Figg exclaimed, smiling warmly.
"Thought you'd forgotten about me!"
Abi forced her lips into a smile.
"Of course not. Here I brought you some things from the corner shop."
"Oh she's a treasure, isn't she Harry?"
"Mmm."
"Why don't you two go and unpack everything through in the kitchen, then we can all have a nice cup of tea."
None of them spoke as they unpacked.
As well as putting the new food into the cupboards, Abi emptied them of everything that had gone out of date, including an old chocolate cake with a layer of mould along the top and a tub of green butter.
She then washed out the dusty tea cups and put the kettle on. Finally she plucked up the courage to speak to him.
"Harry, I'm not going to offer any excuses for what happend, but I want you to know I truly am sorry."
Harry raised his eyebrows and continued unpacking, not looking at her.
Instead, he looked out of the window into Mrs Figgs untidy back garden. One of her cats was playing with... with what looked like a tiny grey owl-
"Pig!"
Without explaination, Harry hurried outside, leaving Abi standing with a bewildered expression on her face.
She watched, bemused as he chased the cat away, shouting and waving his arms at it, then he bent to pick up the little bird, who was holding on to something in its beak.
Once he was inside again, ignoring Abi, he poured some water into a saucer and set the owl down on the table, urging it to drink. To his relief, it seemed unharmed.
"You dropped this." Abi said, holding out a small, crumpled birthday card in her hand.
Harry took it from her without a word.
"When's your birthday?"
"Today."He mumbled, without turning around.
The card was from Ginny, and had fifteen kisses at the bottom.
There was a letter on Pigs leg, and Harry opened it, excitedly.
'Hi it's me again. Ginny got all upset when we told her we'd already sent your birthday stuff, so we sent Pig on a mission. Chances are, you wont get either of our owls, as you don't seem to be getting many of my letters. Anyway, seeing as the muggles have been giving you such a hard time, mum said you could come and stay with us early. We are meeting Hermione in diagon alley in two weeks time, so if you meet us there, you can just come back with us. If you want to come, write back straight away and dad will set up a portkey for you. Hopefully see you soon Ron PS Happy brithday if you didn't get the first owl!'
For the first time in a very long while, Harry smiled.
"Do you have a pen?" he asked Abi, sounding almost civil.
She handed him one and he quickly scribbled on the back of the parchment.
'That would be great thanks! See you then, Harry'
Then, he tied it to Pigs leg and let him out the window.
"Thanks." he said, awkwardly, and handed Abi her pen.
"So it's your birthday today?"
"Yes."
"Are you doing anything nice?" She reddened, feeling foolish.
"Yes my aunt and uncle are throwing me a huge party and inviting all my adoring friends relatives."
"Oh...well happy birthday." she said, knowing that he was being sarcastic.
"Thankyou." he answered, his irritation growing by the second.
There was an awkward silence.
Abi felt utterly miserable. Even having him yell at her was better than this icy politeness.
"Harry, if there's anything I can do to make it up to you..."
"Yeah there is." said Harry, flaring up, more angry at himself for so desparately wanting to forgive her.
"You can leave me alone!"he said, and stalked out of the kitchen.
His long dirty hair and tattered robes against the neatly trimmed grass and tidy, pink and white flower beds of the little park made him stand out even more so than usual, and in full view of everybody walking past he felt hot and uncomfortable.
Even in his dog form he had twice been shooed away by a nervous looking park keeper and now, as Harry approached, he growled-even more visciously than he might have done, when he saw that his godson brough no food for him- and began to walk, haughtily glancing behind him to tell Harry to follow.
They walked for some time, both trying to look as inconspicuous as possible and failing miserably, and finally, they stopped behind a tiny, delapidated old building covered almost completely in graphiti that had perhaps once been a public toilet.
Against the wall, next to two overfilling dustbins, was a tartan blanket and small collection of bones(the previous owners of which, Harry preffered not to guess). He reallised, with a slight feeling of disgust that this was where Sirius had been living.
Once he was sure nobody was around, Sirius changed back into human form and stood glaring at Harry.
"Jeeze Harry! Where have you been?!"
Harry sighed. After being found on the doorstep by his uncle, he had gone straight to his cupboard and fallen asleep, forgetting all about his godfather. On remebering, he had run straight out of the house without explaination, which would undoubtedly get him into even more trouble when he returned. He looked up.
"I'm sorry I-"
But he was interupted by Sirius who caught sight of his bruised and swolen face.
"My god! What happened to you?"
Harry reddened and fidgeted awkwardly, trying to conceal the cuts and bruises on his arms.
The memory of previous evening was still painfully clear in his memory, and made him wriggle with embarrassment.
The truth was, he felt...ashamed of himself. Ashamed of his stupidity and of his weakness. He had heard the stories of the Maurauders. Sirius would never have given up to Dudley so easily, or let himself get into such an embarrasing situation in the first place. There was no way he would let his uncle know how pathetic he was.
"I fell." he said, knowing that this would not fool Sirius any more than it had fooled his uncle.
Sirius narrowed his eyes and surveyed his godson suspiciously.
"I've been in enough fights to know that that was no fall, Harry. What do you take me for?"
"Look, I just fell, ok?"
Sirius raised his eyebrows disbelievingly.
"Alright then." he said with a sigh.
It hurt him that his godson was lying to him, but decided it would not be tactfull to try and squeeze out any more information.
Things didn't get any better that afternoon. Both of them, for their own reasons were unusually reserved and thoughtful, and they were both of them thankful to part, and be left to their own thoughts.
* * *
There was a funny little saying Vernon used to use when he was particularly annoyed about something. Like when he had just washed the car and the rain came on, or when Aunt Marge would unexpectedly come to stay the night he had an important buisness partner over for dinner.
Sods' law.
"It's just Sods law, isn't it!" he would mutter to himself.
Perhaps Vernon knew who this "Sod" was, but Harry certainly didn't.
Despite this, Harry had always been a firm believer in the law of the sod. He knew from experience that however bad things got for him, they could always get worse.
And that is why he was not surprised to meet Abi at Mrs Figgs house on the morning of his birthday...
* * *
His birthday was not even a week after Dudleys, but his Aunt and Uncle always managed to forget it.
Even Harry himself forgot until he heard Vernons angry yells as he met four owls on the doorstep bearing large boxes for Harry.
These of course, much to Harrys dismay, went staright into the bin, along with a handfull of letters and cards.
He sat, sullenly nibbling on his toast and glaring at his unlcle, who avoided his eyes. He hadn't been able to look Harry in the face since he found him on the doorstep.
He had guessed what happened. And although Vernon was nasty and stupid in many ways, he was not a violent man. He just could not accept what his son had done, but instead of blaming Dudley for the incident, he grew even more hostile towards Harry, blaming him for the new way he now viewed his son.
"Did Mrs Figg say she'd take him?" Vernon asked his wife over the top of his newspaper as usual.
"Yes, she said to send him round at about 11 O' clock."
Harry sighed, guessing correctly that they were talking about him.
"Where are you going? I can look after myself, you know."
Petunia frowned at him.
"We're not leaving you here on your own! Don't know what you'll get up to!"
Shirley, who still had not quite given up her fight to get Harry included, but now saw him as mentally unstable and spoke to him as if he was five years old decided to try and reason with him.
"Aunty and Uncle Vernon have to go into town with cousin Dudley to get him clothes for school, Harry." she said slowly, and in such a patronising way, that Harry wanted to slap her, despite her good intentions.
"And Uncle Dermont is taking Auntly Shirley and Dwaine and Damien and Aunty Marge to the zoo for the day. We would love to take you too Harry, but their isn't enough room in the car." She contiued, cocking her head to one side apoligetically as if Harry was about to burst into tears.
"But I'm fifteen yeers old! I can stay in the house on my own!"Harry persisted, emphasizing the fifteen, wondering if anybody would notice.
Nobody answered.
With a sigh, Harry gave up. Maybe before, he would have tried to fight it out, or bring up his insane murderer godfather, but these days, it just seemed like too much of an effort.
* * *
Abi met the strange man in the park every morning for almost a week.
Although they didn't speak so deeply again, both felt they had some kind of bond, and were happy just to sit in each others company.
She often wondered about the man, who seemed so sad, and yet was always laughing and joking with her. However,only once had she asked him about himself.
They had been talking about family, when she plucked up the courage to ask him about his.
"Does your family know where you are?" she asked, blushing a little and hoping he would not take offence.
To her relief, he did not appear to be angered by her curiosity.
"Not at the moment, no. My mother is dead and I haven't seen my father for years."
"So nobody knows where you are?"
He smiled, a litlle sadly.
"A few do. You could say they are my adopted family, in a sense."
"Oh..." Abi was desperate to know more, but the man was obviously reluctant to pursue the subject.
Instead, she asked him something else that had been bothering her.
"I hope you don't mind me asking, but do you have a name?"
The man cocked his head to one side thoughtfully for a few moments before speaking, then he grinned broadly.
"Call me Snuffles." he said, with a twinkle in his eye.
On the sixth day she went to find him, he had gone.
* * *
Abi had met Mrs Figg for the first time, two years back, struggling home with her shopping. After helping the old woman into her house, she had stayed and chatted with her for quite some time.
After that first meeting, she visited her frequently, either to chat, or to help her around the house, and over time, she had become very fond of the crochety old woman.
After finding 'Snuffles' gone, Abi needed somewhere to go that would take her mind off things, and guliltily remebering that she had not visited the old woman for over a week, decided to pay her a visit.
* * * Harry had only been at Mrs Figgs for five minutes when the doorbell rang.
"Harry, would you get that for me, there's a good boy."
Harry dropped the heavy leather album that held a never ending stash of cat photographs on to the sofa, wincing as a huge cloud of yellow dust flew up around it.
"Are you expecting anybody?" he asked as he made his way through to the front lobby.
It took him a while to undo all the locks and bolts and chains Mrs Figg had on her door, but finally, he opened it and found himself face to face with the girl he had been tryng so hard to forget.
To his great annoyance, he felt himself go red and his stomach began to flutter.
Abi seemed just as taken aback.
For the first time, she was lost for words.
Eventually she managed to stutter.
"Harry...what are you...?"
"Mrs Figg is looking after me because I'm incapable of doing so myself."he said coldly, disguising the chaos he felt inside him, and moved aside to let her in.
Abi didn't move.
"I want to apoligise for what happened. I should have-"
"Mrs Figg will be getting cold." He muttered, and Abi entered, blushing a little.
"Abi!" Mrs Figg exclaimed, smiling warmly.
"Thought you'd forgotten about me!"
Abi forced her lips into a smile.
"Of course not. Here I brought you some things from the corner shop."
"Oh she's a treasure, isn't she Harry?"
"Mmm."
"Why don't you two go and unpack everything through in the kitchen, then we can all have a nice cup of tea."
None of them spoke as they unpacked.
As well as putting the new food into the cupboards, Abi emptied them of everything that had gone out of date, including an old chocolate cake with a layer of mould along the top and a tub of green butter.
She then washed out the dusty tea cups and put the kettle on. Finally she plucked up the courage to speak to him.
"Harry, I'm not going to offer any excuses for what happend, but I want you to know I truly am sorry."
Harry raised his eyebrows and continued unpacking, not looking at her.
Instead, he looked out of the window into Mrs Figgs untidy back garden. One of her cats was playing with... with what looked like a tiny grey owl-
"Pig!"
Without explaination, Harry hurried outside, leaving Abi standing with a bewildered expression on her face.
She watched, bemused as he chased the cat away, shouting and waving his arms at it, then he bent to pick up the little bird, who was holding on to something in its beak.
Once he was inside again, ignoring Abi, he poured some water into a saucer and set the owl down on the table, urging it to drink. To his relief, it seemed unharmed.
"You dropped this." Abi said, holding out a small, crumpled birthday card in her hand.
Harry took it from her without a word.
"When's your birthday?"
"Today."He mumbled, without turning around.
The card was from Ginny, and had fifteen kisses at the bottom.
There was a letter on Pigs leg, and Harry opened it, excitedly.
'Hi it's me again. Ginny got all upset when we told her we'd already sent your birthday stuff, so we sent Pig on a mission. Chances are, you wont get either of our owls, as you don't seem to be getting many of my letters. Anyway, seeing as the muggles have been giving you such a hard time, mum said you could come and stay with us early. We are meeting Hermione in diagon alley in two weeks time, so if you meet us there, you can just come back with us. If you want to come, write back straight away and dad will set up a portkey for you. Hopefully see you soon Ron PS Happy brithday if you didn't get the first owl!'
For the first time in a very long while, Harry smiled.
"Do you have a pen?" he asked Abi, sounding almost civil.
She handed him one and he quickly scribbled on the back of the parchment.
'That would be great thanks! See you then, Harry'
Then, he tied it to Pigs leg and let him out the window.
"Thanks." he said, awkwardly, and handed Abi her pen.
"So it's your birthday today?"
"Yes."
"Are you doing anything nice?" She reddened, feeling foolish.
"Yes my aunt and uncle are throwing me a huge party and inviting all my adoring friends relatives."
"Oh...well happy birthday." she said, knowing that he was being sarcastic.
"Thankyou." he answered, his irritation growing by the second.
There was an awkward silence.
Abi felt utterly miserable. Even having him yell at her was better than this icy politeness.
"Harry, if there's anything I can do to make it up to you..."
"Yeah there is." said Harry, flaring up, more angry at himself for so desparately wanting to forgive her.
"You can leave me alone!"he said, and stalked out of the kitchen.