A/N: Hey yall, this one's a bit shorter and a day late I apologise. My long-term girlfriend actually broke up with mid writing this. I'll probably be pressing pause for a little and seeing about rewriting this chapter if there are any inconsistencies or if I feel it isn't as good. Obligatory I don't own this content
Harry hesitated. Who was this strange man? Why did he look like that? How did he know him? So many questions raced through his head as he considered what to say to the man, what to do. He didn't know if he should run away, as this man was a stranger but something about him was familiar, almost like his aura seemed to remind Harry of happier, safer times.
"Harry… it's me… it's Padfoot… but what, what are you doing here? It's not safe for you to be on your own! Pettigrew… That rat is still at large! Has nobody told you? Do you not know?" The man stuttered, seemingly rambling to himself like someone deranged. Harry was still weighing his options up when a look of complete resolve came across the man.
"OK. Harry, my name is Sirius Black. I knew your parents. We need to leave now, I will tell you everything once we are safe, but anyone could be here right now and I really can't be caught." The newly identified Sirius held out his hand to Harry.
"Hang on a second. I don't know you, why would I trust you to go somewhere else? How do I not know you're trying to lure me away? Maybe you're a death eater!" Harry said, stumbling to his feet and away from the outstretched hand, whipping his wand in front of him and pointing it at him.
"We don't have time for this… Okay, take the Knight Bus to diagon alley and rent a room in the Leaky Cauldron. I will come under disguise and meet you there tomorrow at 6am, you'll know it's me, and then we'll talk about this somewhere else okay? I can't explain anything right now but just trust me? I don't have a lot of time and neither do you." He explained, pleading with a look of feral desperation in his eyes.
"The Knight Bus?" Harry asked, not sure if he had heard right.
"Yes, the Knight Bus. Stretch out your wand hand and it'll come to you and take you wherever you need to go. I have to go now Harry, I'll meet you tomorrow at 11am in the Leaky Cauldron. Please, keep an open mind."
With that, Sirius faded back into the shadows and completely disappeared from Harry's view. He contemplated what this meant, who Sirius was and if he was a friend of Harry's parents, why hadn't he come to get him sooner. So many questions swirled inside of his head, but he couldn't help remembering the look of desperation on his face when asking him to trust him. He felt too familiar for Harry to be able to dismiss that this man might be a strange Death Eater, although he couldn't quite pinpoint where he knew him from.
Then he remembered, Sirius had said something about a Knight Bus. Harry stood up, dusted himself off and hesitantly stretched out his right hand, holding his wand. Suddenly, there was a loud bang and a massive, 3 story purple bus appeared in front of him. A man at the door was wearing what looked like a conductor's uniform, only a bit filthy. He had a rather shabby looking badge that said his name was Stan.
"'Ello, my name is Stan Shunpike and I will be your conductor for this evening… Wha's your name?" He suddenly paused in what sounded like a very scripted and boring introduction to peer down at Harry, no double judging his hand me down clothes and rather scrawny appearance. "Uhh… Neville. My name's Neville" He said, hoping Neville wouldn't mind that he had used his name, especially as he realised he might be on the run from the Ministry as he had performed underage magic again.
"Ooright Neville? Where is it you're 'eading then?" Stan asked, still eyeing him somewhat suspiciously.
"The Leaky Cauldron." Harry replied, fishing out some money from his pocket.
"The standard ride is 11 sickles but if you like we can add a hot chocolate or–" Stan started, but Harry cut him off, becoming more and more aware of the situation he now found himself in.
"No, I'll take the standard ride. Here." He handed Stan the sickles and then grabbed his rucksack and trunk and heaved it on board, following Stan to where he said he was meant to be. As he sat and got comfortable, Harry worried about the fact that he had broken the law again, albeit this time it was actually his fault, and what the consequences for that would be. He pondered this, anxiously considering if he'd need to withdraw all his money from the bank and go on the run as a criminal, hiding out in muggle places until they forgot who he was or why he was on the run in the first place.
Harry noticed that the Knight bus did not act like a muggle vehicle, as it hit speeds that seemed impossible, took corners that it shouldn't have been able to and even squeezed between two double deckers in London. He asked Stan about this, who responded with a very dim sounding "Well, Tha's magic, innit." and went on to talk about how blind and clueless muggles were to magic. He then pulled up a newspaper, in which the cover was startlingly familiar.
"Stan… who's that?" He asked, nodding towards the front page.
"'Ho's tha'? Have you been living under a rock or summit boy, Tha's Sirius Black tha' is, 'e's a murderer! Killed 13 muggles! 'E's the one who betrayed the Potters to you-know-'ho. 'E's escaped from Azkaban, the wizarding prison." He said, shaking his head in befuddlement at Harry's lack of knowledge.
However, Harry's whole perspective had been turned upside down. Sirius Black, the scared and dishevelled man who had approached him in the street and given him a way to Diagon Alley was the one who betrayed his parents to Voldemort, was the reason they were dead? His hands clenched. He wondered if Black had been toying with him, if he had planned to meet up with Harry at their designated time and place and then murder him and parade him around for everyone to see, bragging about how he finally finished the last of the Potter's off, spouting his pureblood supremacy and his undying support for Voldemort. This made Harry's blood boil. Well, now he knew, didn't he, and he was going to catch Black off guard and hand him in to the police so he could watch them throw him back in Azkaban. Or better yet, he might be able to get some revenge for himself, for every kick and punch and smack the Durley's gave him, for every night he went without food and was frozen on that tiny little mattress in the cupboard under the stairs. He would make Black pay.
Thoughts like these and more swirled around Harry's head as they slowly made their way to each destination, passenger after passenger getting off in Wales, in Edinborough, in Lancaster and so on. He wondered if it would be much longer until he would be at the Leaky Cauldron where he could plot his revenge against Black for what he did. It wasn't much after he had this thought that the bus screeched to a halt outside a familiarly dingy pub in the middle of London; the Leaky Cauldron.
As Harry began hauling his things off the Knight Bus whilst Stan watched with lazy amusement, a small stubby man in a bowler hat came huffing and puffing out the door, searching around wildly for someone. Finally, his eyes landed on Harry and he seemed to let out a sigh of relief, before plastering a greedy looking smile on his face and reaching out to grab Harry by the shoulder.
"Harry m'boy! We've been looking all over for you." He said, half dragging Harry down from the last step on the Knight Bus, abandoning his things on the curb.
"Sorry, did you jus' say 'Arry? As in 'Arry Potter?" Stan half shouted, which earnt a glare from both the small man and Harry himself.
"I'm sorry sir, but who are you?" Harry asked, trying in vain to pry himself away from the clammy little hand grasping me.
"Oh ho ho, very funny m'boy very funny indeed. I'm Cornelius Fudge, the Minister for Magic. Of course, you knew that didn't you m'boy? How could you not, being such a prominent member of our society!" The Minister chortled. "Excuse me… Yes, bring Harry's bags into the Leaky Cauldron will you? That's a good chap." Fudge vaguely waved in the direction of Stan, who was so shocked at having been in the presence of the boy-who-lived and then the Minister for Magic himself.
Inside the Cauldron, Fudge gently guided Harry to a private room that Tom seemed to have prepared for them and explained that the situation at home with his family and aunt had been dealt with, and that it was extremely foolish of him to run off like that given the circumstances, which Harry could only assume he was referring to the escape of Sirius Black. He told Harry that a private room had been paid for by the Minister himself for the last three weeks of the summer holidays before Hogwarts commenced, as he believed it'd be best to give his family some time to cool down from the incident.
And with that, he left, stuttering his thanks out to Tom and trying his very best to come across as a fatherly role model but being more creepy than anything. This was fine with Harry however, as he took the meal offered by Tom to his room and began planning how he would capture Black, how he would make him pay for what he did and if he would hand him into the authorities straight away or question him himself first. After all, Harry believed he deserved answers and he had a rather bad history of people in power, specifically the Headmaster, hiding things from him, believing him to be too young or not important enough to know, and Harry was sick of being kept in the dark about his own life. First about magic, and now about this Sirius Black business; what else was being kept from him?
With that line of thought, Harry prepared himself for bed, changing into his comfiest cast offs and hiding his wand under his pillow in case Black decided to ambush him in the middle of the night so he'd be ready. After a while, he began to drift off into a very broken and light slumber, that consisted of dreams with a flashing green light and a high, cruel laugh.