A/N: I own nothing, JKR owns the characters and everything else but the
idea - so there.
A/N: Yea for the weekend. Candelot, I didn't e-mail you since I've stuck to my schedule of at least one a day.
A/N: Tell me your thoughts --- share with me.
A/N: Acacia, he did turn into an animal. After the ancient Egyptians, every other culture has adopted the Greek version of the sphinx which has the head of a woman, that's what Harry has going on. He's a sphinx with the head of his mother; I think it's legit.
CH20 Sickly Sirius
"Where is he?"
"Come on Harry, Remus. I'll fill you in while we walk. He's in my office now. I'm afraid he's very hurt. Some Death Eaters caught us listening in at one of their meetings. We didn't think they would recognize Sirius in his animagus form since he doesn't really have any distinguishing marks but apparently Pettigrew told all of the Death Eaters that Sirius was a black dog. And it seems that all the Death Eaters have been attacking every single black dog that's crossed their path."
Harry found himself getting angry with the headmaster again. They were Death Eaters. These people tortured muggles for fun. How could he be surprised that they would attack every black dog they saw? He was also wondering why Sirius wasn't in the hospital wing if it was so serious. Of course he knew that Sirius' identity had to remain a secret but how important was it to keep a secret if that secret killed the person it was about? He was getting madder and madder until they finally reached Dumbledore's office.
"Hey, I know you," Sirius said while trying to feign a laugh. He looked awful. He was lying on the couch obviously trying to put up a front for Harry's sake but it wasn't working. He was badly bruised and since he was coughing up blood, Harry guessed that he had severe internal injuries. Harry was just standing at the doorway gawking at the probably fatal wounds his godfather had.
Lupin went past Harry and knelt down beside his friend. "Padfoot, don't worry --- you look worse than this when you get up in the mornings." His friend forced a smile. "Padfoot, what can we do to help?"
Dumbledore interjected, "it's best if he doesn't talk but tries to rest instead. I've already given him something for the pain and he needs to try to sleep. I wanted him to see both of you so he would rest a little easier."
"Dumbledore, just give him some sleeping potion if he needs to sleep."
"I can't Remus. He's had a lot of potions already today and I don't want to give him any more. Too many potions weaken each other and we need to give the healing potions a chance to serve their purpose."
"How was the rest of your day Harry?" Sirius asked weakly.
Harry was still standing at the doorway. Lupin turned around to face Harry. "Tell your godfather what you did this afternoon while he was busy getting himself beaten up." Harry walked over to Sirius and told him all about his session at the quidditch pitch with Lupin. Harry quit talking when he realized Sirius had passed out.
Dumbledore knew it would be pointless to try to get Remus or Harry to rest. Although he was worried about everyone in this room (all for different reasons) he couldn't stop thinking about the pressures on Harry. He didn't know how things would turn out with Sirius but even if he fully recovered, he knew this would take a toll on Harry. The young wizard had been through so much already and Dumbledore knew how much was still yet to come.
After a couple of hours Sirius awoke but only for a minute. He asked for some water and then passed out again before even finishing it. Dumbledore conjured up some sandwiches but no one ate. Some time later, in the middle of the night, Sirius began coughing up blood again. He didn't look good. Dumbledore finally told them he didn't think Sirius would make it through the night.
The headmaster caught Lupin's eye. Lupin nodded and slowly followed the headmaster out of the office. He put his hand on his friend's shoulder on the way out. "What is it Dumbledore?"
"He's not going to last the hour. I think we should let Harry spend some time in there alone. Besides I think we need to let Ron and Hermione know what's going on too. They played just as large a part in Sirius' freedom as anyone and they deserve to see Sirius before he leaves us. Besides, it'll be better for Harry if he doesn't have to be the one to tell them. Let's go tell them." Remus didn't want to leave Sirius but he knew the headmaster was right, as usual. Ron and Hermione deserved to know and he sure didn't want Harry to have to go through any more than he already had.
Harry didn't want to cry in front of Dumbledore and he was grateful to the old wizard for leaving him alone with Sirius. He couldn't hold back his tears any longer. It wasn't fair. First his parents died before Harry ever got the chance to know them. Then he found out that his godfather was innocent of any crimes and yet he couldn't live with him because Sirius had to hide from the Ministry. It was only a few months ago that they had gotten really close and here he was watching the only man he ever loved like a parent die. Not to mention Cedric Diggory. He knew all if it was his fault. If he had let Lupin and Sirius kill Pettigrew then Sirius would be free and Cedric would still be alive.
Sirius coughed himself awake again, wrenching Harry from his private thoughts, and Harry knew this was it. He still couldn't fight back the tears even though he didn't want the last thing his godfather ever saw to be him crying, he just couldn't help himself. As sorry as Harry was feeling for himself, he knew Sirius had had an even worse life.
Sirius was sent to Azkaban for killing his best friend, which of course he didn't even do. As if knowing that Voldemort had killed his best friend and his wife wasn't a horrible enough fate, he had to live with knowing everyone he had ever cared for thought that he had done it. He spent twelve years suffering one of the worst possible fates for doing nothing except trying to protect Harry's parents. Harry couldn't say if his tears were for himself or for Sirius.
He heard a ruffle of feathers that he heard a few times before. He saw Dumbledore's phoenix take flight and figured Fawkes was coming over to comfort him. Harry was mildly surprised when Fawkes passed Harry and landed on Sirius. He liked Fawkes as much as any of his friends but there was a time and place for everything and this wasn't the time for a pet to visit his godfather. The last thing a dying man needed was to have a bird perched upon his chest; Harry tried to shoo him away. It actually took Sirius pushing Harry away to make Harry finally leave the phoenix alone.
Harry wondered briefly why Sirius wanted to spend his last few minutes with Fawkes instead of with him but when he realized that the bird was crying pearly tears he finally understood; and he felt incredible stupid. He watched on in silence as Fawkes finished healing his godfather. Eventually the phoenix flew away and Harry waited for Sirius to speak.
"What were you trying to do? Kill me? If you don't like spending so much time with me perhaps you could --- oh I don't know --- tell me instead of TRYING TO KILL ME!" Harry was just staring opened mouth at Sirius until his godfather started laughing and hugged him tightly.
Harry was so happy and so grateful. Harry turned to face the phoenix. "Thanks Fawkes. I'm sorry for getting in your way; by now I should know better."
Harry turned back to face the once dying wizard. She just looked at him for a few seconds and smiled before speaking. "Sirius, what happened?"
"Harry can we talk about something else? At least for a little while, please? I know you have a lot of questions, and to be fair I owe you some answers but have a heart. It's been a long day and I'd rather not relive it quite yet."
Harry understood his feelings only too well. "Alright, but don't think for even one second that I'm going to forget because I'm not. You are eventually going to tell me. But I'll drop it for a little while."
"Good, now we can talk about other things? For example, we can discuss how touched I was that you were crying for your dear old godfather. It was sweet. Did your girlfriend teach you how to do that?" Sirius was sporting a big grin.
"Shut up! I wasn't crying. I had something in my eye." The two continued along this line of conversation until it deteriorated into something even more childish.
When the four deeply depressed group of: Dumbledore, Lupin, Hermione and Ron entered Dumbledore's office they thought they were prepared for anything. They were going to be strong for Harry's sake but they couldn't have been expecting to see what they were seeing. Harry and Sirius were on the floor --- wrestling.
Half of the people in the room were smiling broadly while the other half had their mouths hanging wide open. Everyone just kept looking at everyone else. Sirius was the first to speak.
"Ron, Hermione, how good of you to come. What brings you here?"
"Well," Ron began "we were in the neighborhood when Professor Dumbledore told us that you were dying --- so we thought we'd drop by."
Hermione wasn't taking this nearly as well as Ron. "Well I don't think this is funny at all. I don't know what's going on here but I don't like it one bit. We've got a lot of homework to do and I stopped studying just to come up here so you all could have a good laugh. Well I'm not amused and I'm leaving."
"Hermione, please," Dumbleore started "I can assure you that this is not a joke. Now Sirius and Harry, I think it's time that you both share with us exactly what happened when Remus and I left you two alone." Sirius and Harry looked at each other to see who would speak first.
"Well you see Harry was crying --- "
"I was not! That's not what happened at all. What really happened was that the pain was too much for Sirius and he started crying you see --- "
"I did not!" Before Dumbledore could stop them, the two of them were pretending to go at each other again and were back on the floor wrestling. He was as relieved as anyone but he wanted to hear the rest of the story, even though he was sure he knew it already.
"AHEM! I must beg one of you to please continue so Hermione can return to her studying." Sirius finally told them the rest. "And that's what happened," Sirius concluded his tale. "I owe my life to your phoenix."
All that Lupin could say was "Remarkable." Dumbledore sent Ron and Hermione back to their common room. Sirius thanked them for their concern before they left. Hermione still looked a little miffed like she thought it might all be one big joke. Ron just winked at Sirius as he walked out.
Dumbledore was the first to speak after the young pair left. "Well, shall we continue with Harry's lessons? We were going to work all night anyway, this is an even better exercise than the one we thought up." Lupin and Sirius looked at each other. Harry was waiting for one of them to oppose the headmaster but when they didn't he decided to speak up.
"Lessons, really? Am I the only one who's tired now? It's almost two in the morning. I've transformed twice already and then I spent the next several hours watching my godfather nearly die. I could do with a bit of a lie down." Harry couldn't believe that he was the one suggesting they call it a night
Dumbledore merely smiled and waited. It was Lupin who spoke next. "Harry, we need to see if you can maintain your sphinx form while you're really tired. We were going to try to create something artificial but this is too perfect an opportunity to pass up."
Harry thought that there was more to it than what they were telling him but what choice did he have? "Ok, are we staying here or are we going back to the quidditch pitch?"
Remus looked over to Dumbledore to defer the answer to him. "It's up to you Harry," the headmaster answered.
"Well then we'll go back to the quidditch pitch. I was just starting to have a little fun when Sirius decided to almost die." And with that, the pack of them went down to the quidditch pitch. Harry noticed that it still had the charms on it from earlier. Well to be fair he noticed it still had the cloudiness charm, he only guessed it still had the other one too. What he didn't notice was the rat watching the four of them make their way across the school grounds.
When they got inside the area, Lupin conjured up the mirror walls again. He also gave Harry the same rules as last time and then told him to start transforming.
Harry actually found it easy to clear his mind since he was so tired. As a matter of fact now that the excitement of Sirius being all right again had worn off, Harry was having trouble staying awake. The only thing keeping him from nodding off was the thought of seeing his mom's face again.
It only took Harry about forty minutes to transform this time. Sirius was still shocked at seeing Lily's face on the lion's body --- he hadn't had the extra chance to get used to it like Lupin had. Sirius just had to hear the voice again. "Harry, how do you feel?"
Harry couldn't speak. Uh oh! He felt way too tired to try to think up any rhymes. He instinctively looked over to Dumbledore. The headmaster only shook his head and said, "I'm sorry Harry, but you must learn how to communicate with us, even when you're this tired. That's part of the point of this late night exercise. If you can talk to us now than you should be able to talk to us anytime."
He was so tired though that he forgot he actual question posed to him. He turned back to Sirius trying to will him to repeat the question. Sirius seemed to catch on. He asked, "Harry, how do you feel?"
Harry nodded his understanding and forced himself to try to think. \\ I'm fine; be my valentine.// No that would definitely not work. Let's see --- \\ I'm a little tired, get me a pillow.// No that was just plain stupid. He had to concentrate if he ever wanted to get past this and on to something fun. He needed to keep it very simple. He looked around for any ideas --- oh no ---
"I know that rat; it's a good thing I'm part cat."
A/N: I've been reading a lot lately about the mythical sphinx. There are not too many details out there so I guess I get to make up stuff.
A/N: Kathleen was very close. I was on the verge of making Harry turn into a house elf.
A/N: Yea for the weekend. Candelot, I didn't e-mail you since I've stuck to my schedule of at least one a day.
A/N: Tell me your thoughts --- share with me.
A/N: Acacia, he did turn into an animal. After the ancient Egyptians, every other culture has adopted the Greek version of the sphinx which has the head of a woman, that's what Harry has going on. He's a sphinx with the head of his mother; I think it's legit.
CH20 Sickly Sirius
"Where is he?"
"Come on Harry, Remus. I'll fill you in while we walk. He's in my office now. I'm afraid he's very hurt. Some Death Eaters caught us listening in at one of their meetings. We didn't think they would recognize Sirius in his animagus form since he doesn't really have any distinguishing marks but apparently Pettigrew told all of the Death Eaters that Sirius was a black dog. And it seems that all the Death Eaters have been attacking every single black dog that's crossed their path."
Harry found himself getting angry with the headmaster again. They were Death Eaters. These people tortured muggles for fun. How could he be surprised that they would attack every black dog they saw? He was also wondering why Sirius wasn't in the hospital wing if it was so serious. Of course he knew that Sirius' identity had to remain a secret but how important was it to keep a secret if that secret killed the person it was about? He was getting madder and madder until they finally reached Dumbledore's office.
"Hey, I know you," Sirius said while trying to feign a laugh. He looked awful. He was lying on the couch obviously trying to put up a front for Harry's sake but it wasn't working. He was badly bruised and since he was coughing up blood, Harry guessed that he had severe internal injuries. Harry was just standing at the doorway gawking at the probably fatal wounds his godfather had.
Lupin went past Harry and knelt down beside his friend. "Padfoot, don't worry --- you look worse than this when you get up in the mornings." His friend forced a smile. "Padfoot, what can we do to help?"
Dumbledore interjected, "it's best if he doesn't talk but tries to rest instead. I've already given him something for the pain and he needs to try to sleep. I wanted him to see both of you so he would rest a little easier."
"Dumbledore, just give him some sleeping potion if he needs to sleep."
"I can't Remus. He's had a lot of potions already today and I don't want to give him any more. Too many potions weaken each other and we need to give the healing potions a chance to serve their purpose."
"How was the rest of your day Harry?" Sirius asked weakly.
Harry was still standing at the doorway. Lupin turned around to face Harry. "Tell your godfather what you did this afternoon while he was busy getting himself beaten up." Harry walked over to Sirius and told him all about his session at the quidditch pitch with Lupin. Harry quit talking when he realized Sirius had passed out.
Dumbledore knew it would be pointless to try to get Remus or Harry to rest. Although he was worried about everyone in this room (all for different reasons) he couldn't stop thinking about the pressures on Harry. He didn't know how things would turn out with Sirius but even if he fully recovered, he knew this would take a toll on Harry. The young wizard had been through so much already and Dumbledore knew how much was still yet to come.
After a couple of hours Sirius awoke but only for a minute. He asked for some water and then passed out again before even finishing it. Dumbledore conjured up some sandwiches but no one ate. Some time later, in the middle of the night, Sirius began coughing up blood again. He didn't look good. Dumbledore finally told them he didn't think Sirius would make it through the night.
The headmaster caught Lupin's eye. Lupin nodded and slowly followed the headmaster out of the office. He put his hand on his friend's shoulder on the way out. "What is it Dumbledore?"
"He's not going to last the hour. I think we should let Harry spend some time in there alone. Besides I think we need to let Ron and Hermione know what's going on too. They played just as large a part in Sirius' freedom as anyone and they deserve to see Sirius before he leaves us. Besides, it'll be better for Harry if he doesn't have to be the one to tell them. Let's go tell them." Remus didn't want to leave Sirius but he knew the headmaster was right, as usual. Ron and Hermione deserved to know and he sure didn't want Harry to have to go through any more than he already had.
Harry didn't want to cry in front of Dumbledore and he was grateful to the old wizard for leaving him alone with Sirius. He couldn't hold back his tears any longer. It wasn't fair. First his parents died before Harry ever got the chance to know them. Then he found out that his godfather was innocent of any crimes and yet he couldn't live with him because Sirius had to hide from the Ministry. It was only a few months ago that they had gotten really close and here he was watching the only man he ever loved like a parent die. Not to mention Cedric Diggory. He knew all if it was his fault. If he had let Lupin and Sirius kill Pettigrew then Sirius would be free and Cedric would still be alive.
Sirius coughed himself awake again, wrenching Harry from his private thoughts, and Harry knew this was it. He still couldn't fight back the tears even though he didn't want the last thing his godfather ever saw to be him crying, he just couldn't help himself. As sorry as Harry was feeling for himself, he knew Sirius had had an even worse life.
Sirius was sent to Azkaban for killing his best friend, which of course he didn't even do. As if knowing that Voldemort had killed his best friend and his wife wasn't a horrible enough fate, he had to live with knowing everyone he had ever cared for thought that he had done it. He spent twelve years suffering one of the worst possible fates for doing nothing except trying to protect Harry's parents. Harry couldn't say if his tears were for himself or for Sirius.
He heard a ruffle of feathers that he heard a few times before. He saw Dumbledore's phoenix take flight and figured Fawkes was coming over to comfort him. Harry was mildly surprised when Fawkes passed Harry and landed on Sirius. He liked Fawkes as much as any of his friends but there was a time and place for everything and this wasn't the time for a pet to visit his godfather. The last thing a dying man needed was to have a bird perched upon his chest; Harry tried to shoo him away. It actually took Sirius pushing Harry away to make Harry finally leave the phoenix alone.
Harry wondered briefly why Sirius wanted to spend his last few minutes with Fawkes instead of with him but when he realized that the bird was crying pearly tears he finally understood; and he felt incredible stupid. He watched on in silence as Fawkes finished healing his godfather. Eventually the phoenix flew away and Harry waited for Sirius to speak.
"What were you trying to do? Kill me? If you don't like spending so much time with me perhaps you could --- oh I don't know --- tell me instead of TRYING TO KILL ME!" Harry was just staring opened mouth at Sirius until his godfather started laughing and hugged him tightly.
Harry was so happy and so grateful. Harry turned to face the phoenix. "Thanks Fawkes. I'm sorry for getting in your way; by now I should know better."
Harry turned back to face the once dying wizard. She just looked at him for a few seconds and smiled before speaking. "Sirius, what happened?"
"Harry can we talk about something else? At least for a little while, please? I know you have a lot of questions, and to be fair I owe you some answers but have a heart. It's been a long day and I'd rather not relive it quite yet."
Harry understood his feelings only too well. "Alright, but don't think for even one second that I'm going to forget because I'm not. You are eventually going to tell me. But I'll drop it for a little while."
"Good, now we can talk about other things? For example, we can discuss how touched I was that you were crying for your dear old godfather. It was sweet. Did your girlfriend teach you how to do that?" Sirius was sporting a big grin.
"Shut up! I wasn't crying. I had something in my eye." The two continued along this line of conversation until it deteriorated into something even more childish.
When the four deeply depressed group of: Dumbledore, Lupin, Hermione and Ron entered Dumbledore's office they thought they were prepared for anything. They were going to be strong for Harry's sake but they couldn't have been expecting to see what they were seeing. Harry and Sirius were on the floor --- wrestling.
Half of the people in the room were smiling broadly while the other half had their mouths hanging wide open. Everyone just kept looking at everyone else. Sirius was the first to speak.
"Ron, Hermione, how good of you to come. What brings you here?"
"Well," Ron began "we were in the neighborhood when Professor Dumbledore told us that you were dying --- so we thought we'd drop by."
Hermione wasn't taking this nearly as well as Ron. "Well I don't think this is funny at all. I don't know what's going on here but I don't like it one bit. We've got a lot of homework to do and I stopped studying just to come up here so you all could have a good laugh. Well I'm not amused and I'm leaving."
"Hermione, please," Dumbleore started "I can assure you that this is not a joke. Now Sirius and Harry, I think it's time that you both share with us exactly what happened when Remus and I left you two alone." Sirius and Harry looked at each other to see who would speak first.
"Well you see Harry was crying --- "
"I was not! That's not what happened at all. What really happened was that the pain was too much for Sirius and he started crying you see --- "
"I did not!" Before Dumbledore could stop them, the two of them were pretending to go at each other again and were back on the floor wrestling. He was as relieved as anyone but he wanted to hear the rest of the story, even though he was sure he knew it already.
"AHEM! I must beg one of you to please continue so Hermione can return to her studying." Sirius finally told them the rest. "And that's what happened," Sirius concluded his tale. "I owe my life to your phoenix."
All that Lupin could say was "Remarkable." Dumbledore sent Ron and Hermione back to their common room. Sirius thanked them for their concern before they left. Hermione still looked a little miffed like she thought it might all be one big joke. Ron just winked at Sirius as he walked out.
Dumbledore was the first to speak after the young pair left. "Well, shall we continue with Harry's lessons? We were going to work all night anyway, this is an even better exercise than the one we thought up." Lupin and Sirius looked at each other. Harry was waiting for one of them to oppose the headmaster but when they didn't he decided to speak up.
"Lessons, really? Am I the only one who's tired now? It's almost two in the morning. I've transformed twice already and then I spent the next several hours watching my godfather nearly die. I could do with a bit of a lie down." Harry couldn't believe that he was the one suggesting they call it a night
Dumbledore merely smiled and waited. It was Lupin who spoke next. "Harry, we need to see if you can maintain your sphinx form while you're really tired. We were going to try to create something artificial but this is too perfect an opportunity to pass up."
Harry thought that there was more to it than what they were telling him but what choice did he have? "Ok, are we staying here or are we going back to the quidditch pitch?"
Remus looked over to Dumbledore to defer the answer to him. "It's up to you Harry," the headmaster answered.
"Well then we'll go back to the quidditch pitch. I was just starting to have a little fun when Sirius decided to almost die." And with that, the pack of them went down to the quidditch pitch. Harry noticed that it still had the charms on it from earlier. Well to be fair he noticed it still had the cloudiness charm, he only guessed it still had the other one too. What he didn't notice was the rat watching the four of them make their way across the school grounds.
When they got inside the area, Lupin conjured up the mirror walls again. He also gave Harry the same rules as last time and then told him to start transforming.
Harry actually found it easy to clear his mind since he was so tired. As a matter of fact now that the excitement of Sirius being all right again had worn off, Harry was having trouble staying awake. The only thing keeping him from nodding off was the thought of seeing his mom's face again.
It only took Harry about forty minutes to transform this time. Sirius was still shocked at seeing Lily's face on the lion's body --- he hadn't had the extra chance to get used to it like Lupin had. Sirius just had to hear the voice again. "Harry, how do you feel?"
Harry couldn't speak. Uh oh! He felt way too tired to try to think up any rhymes. He instinctively looked over to Dumbledore. The headmaster only shook his head and said, "I'm sorry Harry, but you must learn how to communicate with us, even when you're this tired. That's part of the point of this late night exercise. If you can talk to us now than you should be able to talk to us anytime."
He was so tired though that he forgot he actual question posed to him. He turned back to Sirius trying to will him to repeat the question. Sirius seemed to catch on. He asked, "Harry, how do you feel?"
Harry nodded his understanding and forced himself to try to think. \\ I'm fine; be my valentine.// No that would definitely not work. Let's see --- \\ I'm a little tired, get me a pillow.// No that was just plain stupid. He had to concentrate if he ever wanted to get past this and on to something fun. He needed to keep it very simple. He looked around for any ideas --- oh no ---
"I know that rat; it's a good thing I'm part cat."
A/N: I've been reading a lot lately about the mythical sphinx. There are not too many details out there so I guess I get to make up stuff.
A/N: Kathleen was very close. I was on the verge of making Harry turn into a house elf.