Chapter Six: The Things You Find In An Attic

Summary: Sixth chapter. Forty-three to go. That about sums it up.

Moving in to Arabella's house wasn't really much of a chore. All Harry really had that was his was packed in his school trunk. So all that was left was simply unpacking his things in the room Arabella had given him to use.

Saying goodbye to Sirius had been as hard as the last time. Once again Harry felt he would have done anything if it just meant Sirius would stay a little bit longer. But, explaining the danger of his hanging about too long, and promising to come visit soon, Sirius eventually disapparated with Lupin as he waved goodbye to a very sad looking Harry.

The next day Arabella seemed to strive to outdo herself in making Harry comfortable in his new surroundings. She ordered a wardrobe for him, already packed with clothes. A large four poster bed covered in the thickest, softest comforter Harry had ever felt. When he came in from out in the garden for lunch, Arabella showed him the new desk that had been delivered for his room. By evening he had a set of bookshelves, two nightstands, and a chest of drawers.

That evening at dinner, Harry helped Arabella make dinner and clean up afterwards, then spent a fairly peaceful evening sitting on the sofa watching television with her. Harry was somewhat surprised by the presence of the television. He had never seen one in the Weasley's house and assumed wizards and witches didn't have them. But Arabella put his misconceptions to rest, explaining that many of those in the wizarding world lived fairly close to the muggle world as well, and had adapted to many of the electronic devices muggles used in their own daily lives. For her, having had to live the appearance of a muggle for fourteen years, she had actually come to like television a great deal.

The evening was 'fairly peaceful' due to the fact that every half hour or so Arabella was jumping up because of a bell sounding in the kitchen. When he asked about the frequent bells, Arabella explained that they were 'calls', similar to muggle phone calls, except these calls came by way of a small fire she had burning in a small container set off to the side in the kitchen. The calls themselves were simply 'business'.

Harry tried over the next few days not to worry about Sirius too much, or to mention him too often in front of Arabella.

He had allowed himself the peace of mind of asking if Sirius was all right, which Arabella assured him his godfather was. Harry told himself that that meant Sirius was back at Lupin's . Past that, for the sake of Arabella's feelings, Harry tried not to mention Sirius. And although he did slip a few times, he was always quick to change the subject.

But Harry found excising Sirius completely out of his life was nearly impossible. Especially when he missed him so much. And suspecting that Sirius was as close as a trip by floo powder didn't help much.

Harry allowed himself one letter to Lupin, acting on his suspicion that that was where Sirius was staying. Being careful of what he put in the letter in case it was intercepted, Harry wrote the letter as though he were writing to Lupin, explaining that things were going well and that Arabella was treating him wonderfully. At the end of the brief letter Harry put in a brief word for Lupin to tell 'Snuffles' how often he thought of him and how much he missed him.

Harry also sent letters to Ron and Hermione. But on Arabella's advice, he only mentioned that he wasn't at the Dursley's anymore. He told them he was all right and he would write to them when he could. In the meantime they could send him letter's by way of Hogwarts. Arabella had cautioned him against telling anyone exactly where he was. Voldemort, she explained, likely didn't know where he was any more than anyone else did aside from Lupin, Sirius, and Dumbledore. That small advantage only added to Harry's safety.

But despite everything Arabella did for him, Harry couldn't stop missing his godfather.

Finally Harry's desperation over talking to his godfather got the better of him. One after the other he began formulating plans of ways to talk to Sirius without Arabella knowing. The first of his plans didn't work nearly as well as he had hoped it would. He had waited one night until long after Arabella had gone to bed. He had then snuck downstairs to where the small fire was burning low in the corner of the kitchen. He had shown a keen interest in the fire the day before, asking Arabella to show him how it worked. Arabella, in what Harry as beginning to realize was a style all her own of over explaining simple questions, had spent a half hour explaining the various types of fires used for communication and how one differed from another. But while the principles were fairly complicated, Harry was relieved to find the practical part fairly easy. For most fires, it seemed to encompass little more than tapping the base of the fire with your wand and stating whom you wished to speak to. As long as the receiving party had a fire going, Arabella had explained, the principle was much like muggle telephone connections. You needed only to wait for them to answer.

Creeping down to the kitchen, Harry quietly stepped over to the small brazier in which the fire was merrily crackling away. Pulling out his wand, Harry tapped its base.

"Sirius." He stated. He refrained from using his godfather's last name in case, like muggle telephones, fires could be 'tapped'.

Harry stood impatiently waiting before the fire. In his mind he ran over all the things he wanted to say to Sirius, trying to stick to important things since he knew the 'call' would have to be a short one. But once he knew how to do it, he could call whenever he wanted, as long as it was late in the night.

Harry waited a bit longer.

Nothing happened.

Harry tapped the base of the fire again.

"Sirius." He said a bit louder.

Nothing.

Harry thought for a moment, then tapped the base of the fire again. "Remus Lupin."

Nothing.

Maybe the fire had burnt too low. Harry threw a bit of kindling on it to get it going again. He then went through the same ritual with much the same results.

Standing before the fire pondering his predicament, Harry began to wonder if you could put call blocking on fires like you could on a phone. Maybe Arabella had suspected from his sudden interest that he planned to try and use the fire to contact Sirius and somehow blocked him from being able to.

Giving the fire on last shot, Harry finally gave up.

With a sigh of frustration and disappointment, he gave the fire one last desperate look before heading up the stairs to bed.

For the next several days Harry tried several different methods to contact Sirius, just falling short of sending Hedwig with a letter. That was the one non-fail way he could come up with to contact Sirius. Every letter he had written to Sirius over the past two years, Hedwig had managed to deliver. But Arabella had strictly forbidden Harry to use Hedwig to send letters for the time being to anyone (past the ones he had sent already) until they were a bit more sure of where things stood in regards to his safety. And so not wanting to disappoint hisgodmother by breaking the one strict rule she had given him, he had refrained from using Hedwig.

After a week of trying, Harry finally gave up, resigning himself unhappily to the idea that he wouldn't see his godfather again as long as he was with his godmother.

To distract himself, Harry began exploring his new home. Although it wasn't very large, it had several interesting rooms. The two he found the most intriguing to him were the basement and the attic. In both rooms Harry found boxes of all sizes stacked about. Arabella had had no problem with him looking through the boxes when he had asked if it was all right. She had, in fact, stated how boring the new found entertainment might get for him.

"I'm not even sure what's in half of them anymore." She told him. "Some of them belong to other family members. Some are mine. Some belong to my Aunt Rose. Their likely just old papers, pictures, and books."

Pictures.

The word was a gold mine to Harry. Arabella had known his parents. Perhaps one of the boxes would hold pictures of his parents.

And so for the next several days Harry had the perfect distraction from his thoughts about Sirius as he poked through one box after another.

But Arabella's prediction soon began to ring all too true as Harry's enthusiasm began to wane with each box that didn't yield up the reward he was looking for for his labor.

On the third day, Harry was resolved to give up the search for a while. He was beginning to think that maybe Arabella simply didn't have any such pictures such as he was looking for. There were plenty of pictures stuffed into several of the boxes, but none of the pictures seemed to have his parents in them.

Late one afternoon, Harry pulled the lid off yet another old box to find yet one more stack of pictures stuffed in amongst some old books. Pulling the photos out, Harry flipped through them, looking over people he didn't know waving at him happily. But as he neared the end of the stack, Harry came across a picture that made him abruptly stop shuffling through them. There in his hand was a picture of a woman who looked very much like his godmother, waving at him with a cheerful smile. Standing at her side was a handsome, excited looking young man whose photo self paid little attention to Harry, but continued to stare at the girl next to him with a silly but happy smile on his face. Harry had to study the picture for a few seconds before he realized who the young man was.

Sirius.

'This has to be from when they were in school.' Harry thought, looking over the picture. He quickly moved to the next picture. There were the same two people. The two were standing as close together as possible, with each of them paying no attention to the outside world at all as they stared affectionately at each other. As Harry watched, the man in the picture leaned down and gave the woman a deep, loving kiss.

"Ewwww." Harry moaned, going to the next picture.

Underneath were the same two people. As were the next several. The setting seemed to have been taken at some sort of carnival, Harry guessed, by the looks of the brightly colored tents and various rides that showed up in the background.

The next series of photos seemed to have been taken after the first set. The man and the woman looked a bit older. The woman's hair had gotten a bit lighter and the man's a bit longer. But they still looked very much in love.

As Harry shuffled through the series of photos, he began to ponder the relationship between Sirius and Arabella as Lupin had described it to him. His former professor had insisted that Harry's godfather and godmother were quite an item at one time. That in their last year of school they had been very deeply in love. And the pictures definitely seemed to bare him out. Lupin had even suggested that given time, the fire that had once been between his godparents could easily be re-ignited.

Harry sighed at the thought. From what he had seen of their relationship, that fire couldn't be re-ignited if you threw gasoline on it. The two were cordial enough to each other. But still in love?

Harry continued through the pictures. As he near the bottom of the last group, he found himself abruptly stopping again as he stared in open-mouthed amazement at the picture he held before him.

The picture was of the same man and woman. But the woman now stood proudly displaying a large diamond ring on her left hand.

Engaged?

Harry sat in stunned silence, staring at the photo as the woman in it happily turned her hand this way and that as she admired her ring, then flashed it again for Harry to see. She looked as happy as any one person could possibly be. The man looked positively overjoyed. The picture was unmistakably of two people very much in love.

'The what happened to them?' Harry wondered. 'If they were that much in love, and he purposed to her, why aren't they married?'

Harry sat for a long time staring at the picture. Somehow it gave him a great deal of comfort to know that at one time his godfather had had someone he loved that much. Enough to purpose to. Enough to want to marry. But with the comfort also came a certain amount of sadness that something had come so completely between them as to destroy that kind of love.

"Ohhh, now that's an old one." Came a voice from behind Harry.

Harry nearly jumped a foot straight in the air. A good trick considering that he was sitting on the floor at the time.

He turned about abruptly to find Arabella standing behind him looking over his shoulder.

"Ahhhh..." Was all Harry could think to say at the moment.

'I really hadn't thought anything like that was up here." Arabella continued as she sat on the floor next to him. "Some old pictures of my Uncle Milt, or Cousin Rachael." She took the pictures from Harry's hand as he stared mutely at her, not moving. "But certainly nothing like this." She peered over into the box Harry was sitting in front of. "Any more?"

"Ummm.....a few." Harry admitted nervously. "I wasn't really paying attention."

"Not paying attention?" Arabella gave him a doubtful look. "Harry, you were so transfixed you didn't even hear me calling you for lunch. Or when I came up the stairs."

Harry felt the heat coming into his cheeks and quickly turned back to the box. "I was...looking...to see if you had any pictures of my parents." Harry stated earnestly.

"Well," Arabella replied with a smile, turning the pictures back to him, the woman in the top one flashing her ring at him again, "Let me clue you, these ain't them."

"I...ahhh....figured that out."

"After how many?" Arabella asked, by her expression apparently enjoying Harry's discomfort.

Harry sighed to himself. Caught was caught. "Most of the ones in the box." He admitted quietly.

Arabella peered back into the box with an excited cooing. "Oooooo...really. I had thought those were gone for good."

Harry was dumbfounded at Arabella's reaction to his having found the pictures. He had thought at least she'd have past it off as something of little consequence, trying to gloss over the pictures as no big thing. But she seemed positively delighted at his discovery.

"Ummmm...Arabella?"

Arabella turned back to her godson. "Yes, Dear?"

"I...ahhh....didn't think you'd be exactly happy to see those pictures."

"Why not?"

"Well, their....that's you and Sirius."

"That's right."

Harry gave her a puzzled look.

"Ahh...I see." Arabella said after a moment. "You have questions. All right. Fire away."

Harry looked astonished for a moment at her frankness, then thought for a moment.

"Well....," He pointed to the top picture. "that's an engagement ring, isn't it?"

"Really nice one too, don't you think?"

"Yeah. But....you two....that is...you're not......well, married...are you?" The thought suddenly struck Harry. He hadn't even considered the possibility before that maybe Arabella and Sirius had just forgotten to tell him something. Something big.

Harry half expected Arabella to laugh at least at the question. But instead a very thoughtful look crossed her face.

"No, Harry. We're not married. Nor were we."

"But what happened?" Harry asked before he thought to stop himself. Perhaps the answer was a personal one.

Arabella looked for a moment like she wasn't going to answer him. She leaned over and dropped the handful of memories back into the box. But finally she turned back to him, fixing him with a tired, almost sad stare.

"Azkaban." She said simply.

"Azkaban?"

Arabella took a deep breath before she said anything more. There was no longer anything playful or lighthearted in her mood.

"You see, Harry," she began, "Sirius and I were to be married during the time when Voldemort was coming to power. Things were so crazy, we felt if we were ever going to be together, we had best get on with it. But shortly before our wedding day, your parents....that was when your parents were killed." Arabella paused, turning to her hands as she wrung them nervously in her lap. "Sirius was absolutely devastated. I was sure he wanted to call off the wedding. But he said 'no'. That we should go through with it for James and Lilly. Because...because they had teased us so much about it. But he said that first he had to set things right. That he had to find who killed them and bring them to justice. I begged him to leave the matter to the ministry. But he was obsessed with the idea. He said he knew who was responsible for your parents deaths and he was going to avenge them. That we couldn't have any life together until he took care of what needed to be done.. The rest of that story you know. Peter managed to make it look like Sirius killed him and all the muggles, and everyone already believed he was responsible for your parents deaths. So your godfather was sent to Azkaban."

"But you believed he was innocent? Didn't you try to convince them of it?"

"I tried day and night. I spoke...or more yelled...at anyone who would listen. But in the end I'm afraid I did more harm then good without realizing it."

"Harm?"

"I was viewed as being slightly...biased...in my views about Sirius...for certain reasons."

Harry stared up at her. "Because you were in love with him."

Arabella nodded. "And unfortunately, the more I proclaimed his innocence to the ministry, the more those idiots believed him guilty." Arabella paused for a moment in her story, then continued in a slightly lower tone of voice. "I wrote to him constantly at first. Every day. Sometimes twice a day." Arabella paused again as she wiped the back of her hand over one eye. "When he never wrote back...I eventually began to believe that maybe...maybe he no longer could. I had heard stories of what became of people in Azkaban. How they would...slowly go insane. I feared that was what had happened to Sirius. And so eventually...I stopped writing.

It was shortly thereafter that I heard the horrible rumor. People at the ministry whispering he had died in Azkaban."

"You thought he had died?"

"Not just that he died, Harry." Arabella corrected, staring down at him. "They were saying that he had killed himself."

Harry looked horrified for a moment, but then suddenly remembered that his godfather was very much alive. "But you found out the truth?" He asked.

"I tried for a very long time to find out for sure. I went back to the ministry and asked everyone who would see me for any word of truth to the story. But no one would say anything officially about him. Even just to confirm or deny the rumor I had heard."

"But why? Why wouldn't they just tell you the truth?"

"I never was given any reason. Finally I went home. And for a lot of years I tortured myself with the thought of what had happened to him. At first I told myself it was a lie. That he was still alive in there. But as the years went by, I began to doubt he was. And finally it was simply easier to believe he was dead."

"But you found out the truth?"

"Oh yes. Years later when the papers started reporting on the infamous escape from Azkaban."

"But you didn't do anything."

"Years of sitting alone on your sofa can do some very strange things to you, Harry. To how you see things. And...I spent a lot of those years blaming Sirius for why I was sitting there alone. I told myself it was because he had deemed something else more important than me. More important than us. And that was something I simply wasn't able to forgive him for. I believed that had he been less stubborn...less obsessed...had he listened to me and left Peter to the ministry, we would have spent the past fourteen years together...not apart. You would have had a home and a family with us." Arabella stopped as she reached over and pulled the top picture out of the box. "By the time I stopped blaming him for all my troubles, it was simply too late."

"But Sirius had no idea what was going to happen, Arabella." Harry quickly jumped in to defend his godfather. He certainly didn't blame Sirius for his ending up with the Dursley's. Or what the twelve years he lived with them had encompassed. And Sirius had risked everything to come to his rescue against Peter.

"I don't blame him anymore, Harry." Arabella told him, dropping the picture back in the box and closing the lid on it. "But Sirius and I are very different people now from the ones in those pictures. We both have different lives."

"But you...you still care about him, don't you?"

"I'll always care about Sirius, Harry. He's a very special man. But we are two very different people from the one's in those photos."

"But Professor Lupin said..." Harry began, but was grateful when Arabella cut him off abruptly, not really wanting to tell Arabella what Lupin had said.

"Oh no, I can just imagine what Remus had to say on the subject. Well, let me tell you a secret about your former Defense teacher, Harry. Remus Lupin is an old romantic. Thinks all the problems in the world can be solved by 'love'." She said, making a sweeping gesture with the word. "Well, I'm a practical person," she added, dropping her arms, "and I know better."

Harry looked up at her, unable to hide the disappointment in his eyes.

Arabella gently caressed his hair, feigning trying to smooth it down. "I know those probably aren't the answers you were hoping for, Harry." She said softly. "But take a lesson from them. I'll always tell you the truth."

Harry paused, then nodded.

"Come on then," Arabella said, holding out her hand. "Lunch is waiting."

Harry looked back at the box once more, then took Arabella's hand and let her pull him to his feet, finally following her downstairs.