THEY KEEP TELLING ME THEY WANT IT LONGER, SO HERE'S FIVE FRICKING PAGES,
OKAY? NO, SERIOUSLY. I THINK IT'S PRETTY OKAY. UM, ENJOY!
Throughout the next day, Harry noticed that Sirius' mood had greatly improved. He now watched his godfather carefully, monitoring any signs of drunken behavior and finding excuses to get close enough to him to see if his breath smelled of liquor. Sirius *seemed* sober, but to Harry he had always seemed sober, until the previous night . . .
The look on Sirius' face as Bill and Lupin had struggled to keep control of him had embedded itself in Harry's mind. Sirius' face had been twisted in anger, a mad and violent rage inside of itself as well as in his hands. Harry hadn't been able to unglue his eyes from that expression and now it was haunting him.
He felt the need to do something useful, something that would help Sirius overcome his dangerous problem, and so he decided to start by copying Lupin and disposing of whatever he could find that Sirius might drink. But nothing was there. Harry checked cupboards, shelves, the pantry and nearly every room in the house before a low, growling voice startled him from behind.
"What're you doing there, Potter?" Mad-Eye Moody rumbled, his magical eye searching the cupboard as if to find out the answer for itself.
"Er . . ." Harry searched his brain for an excuse, "My booklist. I haven't been able to find it anywhere. Er . . . you haven't seen it, have you?"
"Booklist . . ." Moody repeated, "Potter . . . Sirius is an adult. Leave him to his own problems." Moody then left, but Harry had the feeling that the magical eye was watching Harry's face.
Harry knew that Moody was probably right, but how could he leave his godfather to such a horrible problem such as this? He wanted to help, he wanted to find a way to make it all go away, and wasn't the surest way of getting a job done doing it yourself? And yet, he didn't want to tell Ron or Hermione. He feared that if they knew, they would think differently of Sirius, especially Hermione. But Harry wouldn't blame it on Sirius like they would. There was always a reason for things like this, and there had to be a reason for Sirius doing it, because he was a good person at heart. That, at least, Harry was comforted that he knew.
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The next day was the day of Harry's hearing. Sirius saw him off in the morning, and then went to find Kreacher. The house elf was lurking around in the parlor, mumbling under his breath when Sirius found him. Kreacher scowled, caught Sirius' look, and walked with Sirius through the hall, up the stairs and into Sirius' room, an irritated expression on his face the entire time.
"Sir claims he does not like dark magic, and yet he uses it on his own elf," grumbled Kreacher as Sirius shut the door behind them and pointed his wand at Kreacher.
"Edisni!" Sirius mumbled, as quietly as he could. An iridescent blue box appeared over Kreacher's head, quite large and bulky-looking. Sirius reached his hand in and took out a bottle, then waved his wand as the box vanished. "Go on, then, leave," he told Kreacher, and the elf slammed the door as hard as his bony hand could on the way out.
Sirius sat down on the bed, his fingers white and shaking like mad as he fumbled to open the fire whisky bottle.
"Oh, no you don't!" came a furious voice from the doorway. Damn! Sirius had forgotten to lock it! "Evanesco! Sirius, *what* is the matter with you?"
It was Mrs. Weasley looking livid after having just vanished Sirius' only escape from his life. They were all on his case, every fucking one of them. Good-boy Lupin had tattled to Dumbledore, and he had warned everyone else.
"Leave me alone, Molly," Sirius mumbled and turned from his back to his side, away from the door, the wall was slightly less entertaining than the ceiling had been. He wished that she would go away. She didn't understand, none of them did, and how could they? Their lives had been so perfect, growing up with loving families and being able to step outside their front door now that they were older. But Sirius was trapped. They could never understand.
Mrs. Weasley stood over Sirius' bed, her hand on her hips. "*This* is what I'm talking about," she said, "when I tell you that you need to be more responsible for Harry. I know you're worried, but you don't see the rest of us sneaking off to drown ourselves in - what was that, anyway?" She made the bottle reappear and her face tensed with anger once more, "Fire whisky, Sirius? Fire whisky?"
She was bearing down on him, his own mother had done the same thing when she was alive. Sirius could tell that she was doing this to him, in contrast to his mother, because she cared about him. But that didn't make her understand any better.
"Sirius? Can you even hear me? Are you there?" she was treating him like a delinquent child who needed discipline. He was anything but that.
"Sirius!"
"What?" he screamed, surprising even himself by jumping up to face Mrs. Weasley.
Mrs. Weasley leapt back a little, startled. "What? You, that's what! You cannot be responsible for Harry and keep this up!" she waved the whisky in the air in front of Sirius' face.
"Leave Harry out of this!" Sirius yelled back, "And what makes you think you can butt into my business like this?"
"If you're going to be taking care of Ari, it's the entire Order's business!"
"Who the hell is 'Ari' that makes my business that of the Order?"
"Ari Dengised, Sirius! He will be staying here, under your care, and Dumbledore told you that you are not to drink, at all, while he's here. I'd think that you'd be at least *trying* to keep that up now, before it hits you full blow. And I won't have you drinking at all while my children are around; I don't want them picking up any habits - you *know* they adore you and if they see, then -"
"Just leave me alone, Molly. I don't need you telling me how much I'm screwing myself over. I know, alright?"
"Fine," said Mrs. Weasley huffily, "but if I ever catch you anything but sober when my children - or Harry or Hermione - are in the house, you'll hear from me again!"
And she turned and stormed out of the room. Sirius angrily began to pace across the floor. He shrieked and yelled inside his mind at various people who had made his life as bad as it could possibly be, then at himself for blaming those whose fault it most obviously wasn't.
Knock, knock.
"Yeah?" Sirius sighed, opening the door to find Ginny Weasley standing in front of him.
"Harry'll be back soon," she said simply, "are you coming downstairs to greet him when he gets here?"
Sirius nodded and followed Ginny down the stairs. For some reason, the fact that Ginny had no idea that Sirius was addicted to alcohol was so overwhelmingly comforting that he felt inclined to hug her. But Harry didn't know, either . . . Harry still trusted him, and that was important, too.
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Harry was let off. Harry was let off. Harry was let off. Harry was let - damn! Sirius was so pleased and so disappointed at the same time that he simply sat at the kitchen table once everyone else had gone to bed, repeating those words over and over, hoping that at one point he would believe them. Harry was let off.
(Author's note: I am not going to describe how Sirius is feeling in great depth, because I do not want to either mess with or copy Rowling how she had Hermione say it in the book. I'm going to leave it at the fact that Hermione was quite accurate and that Rowling knows this better than I do, and that I cannot replicate it and am declining the possibility.)
Life was sliding down a muddy hill, pushing Sirius in front of it; the landslide of any hope he had had left and more than ever he wanted to scream his throat dry. And he couldn't even get away from it, now that Mrs. Weasley was on his case along with everyone else. Sirius let out an audible groan. He badly wanted to drink it all away, the pain, the anger and the tears that he had been holding back for fifteen years.
Azkaban truly had changed Sirius. It had pulled away his trust in humans and it had weighed him down with much more than he could take. But he took it all, it was what he did, and he did not complain. Now, though. Now, if he could just drink away the memories for one more night before this Dengised character got here . . . it would all be worth it . . . it would all be worth it . . . oh, damn, Harry was let off . . .
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He knew nobody would be there, he knew that it was useless. Harry had decided that every night he would go down to the kitchen and check to see if anyone was there, just in case. In case Sirius needed his help.
"You ca'ot dishobay derrec-t orders!" Came Sirius' distinct but slurring voice from the other side of the door, "Shtand . . . sti-wl!" A stiffled whimper sounded from the kitchen, then a crash and a thunk.
"Edisni," Harry heard Sirius say, and then there was silence. It took Harry a lot of energy not to run in the opposite direction and pretend that none of this had happened, but he felt like he needed to help Sirius, it was his duty, really. Thus, Harry stepped inside the kitchen, trying hard not to give himself time to think.
"Sirius?" Harry asked tentatively as he entered the haphazard scene. Apparently it had been Kreacher Sirius had been yelling at, because the elf was on the floor on his back, looking quite unconscious. The pieces of a broken glass bowl were scattered around his head. Harry wondered what Kreacher had done this time.
Sirius was slumped over the table, surrounded by tipped over and broken bottles of what looked like fire whiskey, and he looked up as Harry came in, but did not smile.
"Harry . . ." he said, sounding as though he was trying very hard to pronounce every syllable correctly. "You - go bac-k to slip. A'm fine. Don'- t worrrry abou-t mmme," He was clutching another bottle, which seemed to still contain liquid. Sirius tilted back his head and took another long drink, closing his eyes as he did so.
Harry suddenly was hit by the blow of what he had come down here to do. Shakily at first, then determined, he ran forward and wrenched the fire whisky out of Sirius' hands, then surprised at his own daring, dropped it on the floor where it shattered.
The eyes of a madman turned on him. Sirius' face was once more twisted in fury as his fist swung at Harry's head. It was easy to duck, but all the same - Sirius had just tried to injure Harry. One of the only people he still felt that he could wholly trust . . . Harry could not believe it, and he was momentarily stunned into a frozen position, which cost him a new blow, which hit him right in the stomach.
"Harry, get out of there!" a new voice shouted, and footsteps came into the kitchen. Harry's eyesight was still a little blackened from having the wind knocked out of him by his own godfather, but before long he noticed the form of Lupin pushing him away from Sirius and stepping in himself, apparently trying to control Sirius.
Harry saw Lupin struggle with Sirius's arms for a while, which he seemed to be after the most, in hope to what? Restrain them? And yet, Lupin was taking blows to his face and torso from Sirius' fists much more than he was gaining any control over the drunk. Harry rushed forward to help Lupin.
"Here," he started, but Sirius had grabbed a candle holder and it collided with Harry's head and Harry fell to the ground with a "hey!" and blackness closed around him. He was unconscious after he hit the ground, but before Sirius' foot made sharp contact with his side.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Heavy, no? Well, I'm completely stuck now, so I'm pretty much immobile unless you guys tell me any ideas for this fic. Who should find Harry and Lupin if Lupin ends up unconscious too? Should this be kept secret or should Mrs. Weasley, Moody, or Dumbledore find out? Tell me what you think. I actually care about what you say.
Throughout the next day, Harry noticed that Sirius' mood had greatly improved. He now watched his godfather carefully, monitoring any signs of drunken behavior and finding excuses to get close enough to him to see if his breath smelled of liquor. Sirius *seemed* sober, but to Harry he had always seemed sober, until the previous night . . .
The look on Sirius' face as Bill and Lupin had struggled to keep control of him had embedded itself in Harry's mind. Sirius' face had been twisted in anger, a mad and violent rage inside of itself as well as in his hands. Harry hadn't been able to unglue his eyes from that expression and now it was haunting him.
He felt the need to do something useful, something that would help Sirius overcome his dangerous problem, and so he decided to start by copying Lupin and disposing of whatever he could find that Sirius might drink. But nothing was there. Harry checked cupboards, shelves, the pantry and nearly every room in the house before a low, growling voice startled him from behind.
"What're you doing there, Potter?" Mad-Eye Moody rumbled, his magical eye searching the cupboard as if to find out the answer for itself.
"Er . . ." Harry searched his brain for an excuse, "My booklist. I haven't been able to find it anywhere. Er . . . you haven't seen it, have you?"
"Booklist . . ." Moody repeated, "Potter . . . Sirius is an adult. Leave him to his own problems." Moody then left, but Harry had the feeling that the magical eye was watching Harry's face.
Harry knew that Moody was probably right, but how could he leave his godfather to such a horrible problem such as this? He wanted to help, he wanted to find a way to make it all go away, and wasn't the surest way of getting a job done doing it yourself? And yet, he didn't want to tell Ron or Hermione. He feared that if they knew, they would think differently of Sirius, especially Hermione. But Harry wouldn't blame it on Sirius like they would. There was always a reason for things like this, and there had to be a reason for Sirius doing it, because he was a good person at heart. That, at least, Harry was comforted that he knew.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The next day was the day of Harry's hearing. Sirius saw him off in the morning, and then went to find Kreacher. The house elf was lurking around in the parlor, mumbling under his breath when Sirius found him. Kreacher scowled, caught Sirius' look, and walked with Sirius through the hall, up the stairs and into Sirius' room, an irritated expression on his face the entire time.
"Sir claims he does not like dark magic, and yet he uses it on his own elf," grumbled Kreacher as Sirius shut the door behind them and pointed his wand at Kreacher.
"Edisni!" Sirius mumbled, as quietly as he could. An iridescent blue box appeared over Kreacher's head, quite large and bulky-looking. Sirius reached his hand in and took out a bottle, then waved his wand as the box vanished. "Go on, then, leave," he told Kreacher, and the elf slammed the door as hard as his bony hand could on the way out.
Sirius sat down on the bed, his fingers white and shaking like mad as he fumbled to open the fire whisky bottle.
"Oh, no you don't!" came a furious voice from the doorway. Damn! Sirius had forgotten to lock it! "Evanesco! Sirius, *what* is the matter with you?"
It was Mrs. Weasley looking livid after having just vanished Sirius' only escape from his life. They were all on his case, every fucking one of them. Good-boy Lupin had tattled to Dumbledore, and he had warned everyone else.
"Leave me alone, Molly," Sirius mumbled and turned from his back to his side, away from the door, the wall was slightly less entertaining than the ceiling had been. He wished that she would go away. She didn't understand, none of them did, and how could they? Their lives had been so perfect, growing up with loving families and being able to step outside their front door now that they were older. But Sirius was trapped. They could never understand.
Mrs. Weasley stood over Sirius' bed, her hand on her hips. "*This* is what I'm talking about," she said, "when I tell you that you need to be more responsible for Harry. I know you're worried, but you don't see the rest of us sneaking off to drown ourselves in - what was that, anyway?" She made the bottle reappear and her face tensed with anger once more, "Fire whisky, Sirius? Fire whisky?"
She was bearing down on him, his own mother had done the same thing when she was alive. Sirius could tell that she was doing this to him, in contrast to his mother, because she cared about him. But that didn't make her understand any better.
"Sirius? Can you even hear me? Are you there?" she was treating him like a delinquent child who needed discipline. He was anything but that.
"Sirius!"
"What?" he screamed, surprising even himself by jumping up to face Mrs. Weasley.
Mrs. Weasley leapt back a little, startled. "What? You, that's what! You cannot be responsible for Harry and keep this up!" she waved the whisky in the air in front of Sirius' face.
"Leave Harry out of this!" Sirius yelled back, "And what makes you think you can butt into my business like this?"
"If you're going to be taking care of Ari, it's the entire Order's business!"
"Who the hell is 'Ari' that makes my business that of the Order?"
"Ari Dengised, Sirius! He will be staying here, under your care, and Dumbledore told you that you are not to drink, at all, while he's here. I'd think that you'd be at least *trying* to keep that up now, before it hits you full blow. And I won't have you drinking at all while my children are around; I don't want them picking up any habits - you *know* they adore you and if they see, then -"
"Just leave me alone, Molly. I don't need you telling me how much I'm screwing myself over. I know, alright?"
"Fine," said Mrs. Weasley huffily, "but if I ever catch you anything but sober when my children - or Harry or Hermione - are in the house, you'll hear from me again!"
And she turned and stormed out of the room. Sirius angrily began to pace across the floor. He shrieked and yelled inside his mind at various people who had made his life as bad as it could possibly be, then at himself for blaming those whose fault it most obviously wasn't.
Knock, knock.
"Yeah?" Sirius sighed, opening the door to find Ginny Weasley standing in front of him.
"Harry'll be back soon," she said simply, "are you coming downstairs to greet him when he gets here?"
Sirius nodded and followed Ginny down the stairs. For some reason, the fact that Ginny had no idea that Sirius was addicted to alcohol was so overwhelmingly comforting that he felt inclined to hug her. But Harry didn't know, either . . . Harry still trusted him, and that was important, too.
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Harry was let off. Harry was let off. Harry was let off. Harry was let - damn! Sirius was so pleased and so disappointed at the same time that he simply sat at the kitchen table once everyone else had gone to bed, repeating those words over and over, hoping that at one point he would believe them. Harry was let off.
(Author's note: I am not going to describe how Sirius is feeling in great depth, because I do not want to either mess with or copy Rowling how she had Hermione say it in the book. I'm going to leave it at the fact that Hermione was quite accurate and that Rowling knows this better than I do, and that I cannot replicate it and am declining the possibility.)
Life was sliding down a muddy hill, pushing Sirius in front of it; the landslide of any hope he had had left and more than ever he wanted to scream his throat dry. And he couldn't even get away from it, now that Mrs. Weasley was on his case along with everyone else. Sirius let out an audible groan. He badly wanted to drink it all away, the pain, the anger and the tears that he had been holding back for fifteen years.
Azkaban truly had changed Sirius. It had pulled away his trust in humans and it had weighed him down with much more than he could take. But he took it all, it was what he did, and he did not complain. Now, though. Now, if he could just drink away the memories for one more night before this Dengised character got here . . . it would all be worth it . . . it would all be worth it . . . oh, damn, Harry was let off . . .
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He knew nobody would be there, he knew that it was useless. Harry had decided that every night he would go down to the kitchen and check to see if anyone was there, just in case. In case Sirius needed his help.
"You ca'ot dishobay derrec-t orders!" Came Sirius' distinct but slurring voice from the other side of the door, "Shtand . . . sti-wl!" A stiffled whimper sounded from the kitchen, then a crash and a thunk.
"Edisni," Harry heard Sirius say, and then there was silence. It took Harry a lot of energy not to run in the opposite direction and pretend that none of this had happened, but he felt like he needed to help Sirius, it was his duty, really. Thus, Harry stepped inside the kitchen, trying hard not to give himself time to think.
"Sirius?" Harry asked tentatively as he entered the haphazard scene. Apparently it had been Kreacher Sirius had been yelling at, because the elf was on the floor on his back, looking quite unconscious. The pieces of a broken glass bowl were scattered around his head. Harry wondered what Kreacher had done this time.
Sirius was slumped over the table, surrounded by tipped over and broken bottles of what looked like fire whiskey, and he looked up as Harry came in, but did not smile.
"Harry . . ." he said, sounding as though he was trying very hard to pronounce every syllable correctly. "You - go bac-k to slip. A'm fine. Don'- t worrrry abou-t mmme," He was clutching another bottle, which seemed to still contain liquid. Sirius tilted back his head and took another long drink, closing his eyes as he did so.
Harry suddenly was hit by the blow of what he had come down here to do. Shakily at first, then determined, he ran forward and wrenched the fire whisky out of Sirius' hands, then surprised at his own daring, dropped it on the floor where it shattered.
The eyes of a madman turned on him. Sirius' face was once more twisted in fury as his fist swung at Harry's head. It was easy to duck, but all the same - Sirius had just tried to injure Harry. One of the only people he still felt that he could wholly trust . . . Harry could not believe it, and he was momentarily stunned into a frozen position, which cost him a new blow, which hit him right in the stomach.
"Harry, get out of there!" a new voice shouted, and footsteps came into the kitchen. Harry's eyesight was still a little blackened from having the wind knocked out of him by his own godfather, but before long he noticed the form of Lupin pushing him away from Sirius and stepping in himself, apparently trying to control Sirius.
Harry saw Lupin struggle with Sirius's arms for a while, which he seemed to be after the most, in hope to what? Restrain them? And yet, Lupin was taking blows to his face and torso from Sirius' fists much more than he was gaining any control over the drunk. Harry rushed forward to help Lupin.
"Here," he started, but Sirius had grabbed a candle holder and it collided with Harry's head and Harry fell to the ground with a "hey!" and blackness closed around him. He was unconscious after he hit the ground, but before Sirius' foot made sharp contact with his side.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Heavy, no? Well, I'm completely stuck now, so I'm pretty much immobile unless you guys tell me any ideas for this fic. Who should find Harry and Lupin if Lupin ends up unconscious too? Should this be kept secret or should Mrs. Weasley, Moody, or Dumbledore find out? Tell me what you think. I actually care about what you say.