CHAPTER 6 – Sirius Disapparates
Hours later, Sirius
woke up. Sheeba were already out of bed, completely dressed, smiling at him.
The conjured landscape showed the sun rising behind the sea.
"Good morning,
sleepy-head," she said, "It's almost time for you to Disapparate."
Sirius twinkled many
times, so then his eyes got used to clarity. "What time is it?"
"Half past six."
"I just need to
Disapparate at eight," said Sirius and buried his face on the pillow.
"Hey, stop being
lazy!" Sheeba laughed as she tugged him out of the bed, and then, they started
a little 'war', in which Sirius tried to keep his body on the bed and Sheeba
tried to raise it up. As Sirius was much stronger, he knocked her down on the
bed between laughter.
"Seriously, Sheeba,
why are you taking me off bed do early?"
"I'd like to show you
some things."
"So show me!"
"Accio!" Sheeba
pointed her wand at two photo albums that were on her beside, and they flied to
her hands. She opened one of them and Sirius looked at it, finding something
odd, "These pictures have some problem! Everybody's motionless on them!"
"Sirius, these are
Muggle pictures. My friends at the time I worked for Muggle Police."
"They really look like
Muggles…"
"But they are brave
Muggles, most of them are really nice."
"Okay, praise to
Muggle people by Sheeba Amapoulos. Why are you showing me these… pictures?"
"Sirius, you're going
to walk around Muggles all the time in the following days, I wanted you to know
some things so then you wouldn't do many blunders."
"Hey! I don't do blunders,
okay? I know quite enough about Muggle, I'm not a moron."
"Well," Sheeba
started, ignoring Sirius's indignation, "I want you to look at this, it's a
fire weapon, a pistol. From its barrel, bullets come out…"
"Sheeba, I know what a
pistol is. Did you forget that I ran away and hide myself among them for some
time?"
"But you're still
wanted by the Ministry, and I don't want you to run risks. Do you know what it
is?"
"Of course I know!
It's a remote controller! It's used to operate machines from a distance away,"
he looked triumphant.
"Nope. It's a cell
phone." Sirius looked annoyed, his eyes kept looking for familiar things in the
picture.
"I know what this is!
It's a coffee-machine!"
"Wrong again; it's a
machine that triturates paper… and this is what I need to show you," she said
and pointed at the sprinklers on the ceiling.
"I've seen some of
those in Muggle buildings. They are located on the ceiling, aren't they? Are
they useful for what?"
"They're sprinklers.
It's a Muggle system to fight fire. When a room is set on fire, the sprinklers
automatically start to spout water."
"What a complicated
thing!"
"I'm telling you this
because yesterday I saw that you'd need to know everything about sprinklers and
fire weapons, but I can't tell you why."
"Anything else?"
"Yes. Don't let Remus
enter in a place whose door is green."
"Why?"
"If he enters there,
he won't be out alive."
"What about me?"
"You can enter there.
There isn't anything in that room that can do you any harm."
"And is there anything
else you need to show me?"
"Well, Sirius… I need
to tell you something… I wouldn't be honest if I hid those things from you."
"Don't tell me that
while I was at Azkaban you had another man…"
"It isn't this! It's
something else that I'm sure you'll despise, but I ask you at least to
understand it," Sheeba opened the second album, in which there was magical
pictures. She stopped in a page in which there were four pictures: ion one of
which, Sirius was next to her, grinning, but once in a while, he frowned and
disappeared, and reappeared in the next picture, where he punched somebody
else, and retook his position next to Sheeba in the first picture.
In the picture that
Sirius had "visited", between Sheeba and Dumbledore there was a wrinkled,
wounded and black-eyes Severus Snape.
Sirius became angry,
"What the hell is HE doing there?"
"That's what I'm
asking you to understand. I and Severus have become friends."
"Severus?
Sheeba, are you MAD? Calling him by his first name? Did you know he tried to
give me to the Dementors? Do you have the faintest idea of how much I and Snape
HATE each other? DO YOU?"
"Sirius, he isn't
actually evil as it may seem for you…"
"No, he isn't evil at
all, he was just one of Voldemort's stupid clowns, he only tried to kiss
Dumbledore for his master, but in the deep bottom, he's all goody-goody, he's
never done anything bad in his whole life…"
"You aren't evil
either and you've already tried to kill him."
"You aren't protecting
this snake, are you?"
"HE SAVED MY LIFE,
SIRIUS!"
"… What?"
"Severus Snape saved
my life. That's what I'm trying to tell you."
"He saved your life
for what? When?"
"Do you remember
Atalanta Myers?"
"The Death Eater?"
"Exactly. Almost all
the Death Eaters had already been arrested or killed by the Aurors. I was
already working for the Muggle Police, in London, when I saw her. I trailed
her. She was living somewhere in Notting Hill, she was disguised as a Muggle. I
sent an owl to Dumbledore asking him to send an Auror to London urgently, I
didn't want to lose her track. He sent Snape, but before he arrived, Myers
drove me into a corner. You know I
can't predict my own future, and I didn't know she was just behind me."
"What happened next?"
"Atalanta cursed me,
using Cruciatus, she had in her hands some robes that belonged to Voldemort,
she wanted to oblige me to touch it and reveal where he was. She wanted to
bring him back to life. At this very moment, Snape showed up. Atalanta didn't
have the faintest idea he had changed his convictions, his side. He distracted
her enough time until Mad-Eye Moody left the shadows, disarmed her and arrested
her. But at this moment, I was nearly dead."
"And how did Snape
save you? Did he give you a potion?"
"No. He gave me the
life kiss."
"WHAT? THAT SLIMY
SNAKE KISSED YOU?"
"WOULD YOU RATHER HAVE
HIM LET ME DIE?"
"No," Sirius said in a
tiny voice and it seemed he came back into reality again for a minute, and
then, he said, looking annoyed and embarrassed, "Wasn't there any other way
out?"
"If there was, do you
think he would give up a whole year of his life for me?"
"I think he would do
anything to kiss you."
"Don't be stupid. It's
easy to say it now having me safe and sound standing just in front of you, but
imagine me nearly dead. Do you think Snape would take advantage of this? If it
wasn't him, I would have died before I could enter at St. Mungo's Hospital. Do
you understand now why we are friends? You can't have your life saved by
someone and despise this person!"
"Do you know how Snape
treats Harry?"
"Did you know he saved
Harry's life?"
"It was his duty,
after all, once James also saved his life."
"Sirius, he promised
me he would stop harassing Harry."
"It seems he isn't the
kind of guy who keeps his promises. Just guess in which subject our godson gets
his worse grades?"
"Okay, all talk to Sever…
to Snape again I think he and Harry will end up getting along with each other.
And so will you two."
"Yeah, sure, when hell
freezes over," Sirius stood up, looking for his clothes, "Where are my Muggle
clothes?"
"In the wardrobe. I
washed them, they were filthy…"
"I'll take a shower.
I'm stinking as a dirty dog and my head needs to be cooler."
Sirius vanished for
some moments, and Sheeba stood seating at her bed, exhausted by the argument
they had just had. She had already seen Sirius taking showers before and
getting out of the shower shaking his whole body as a wet dog, however, this
was the first time she saw Sirius getting into the shower without singing badly
as he usually did. She thought why she came to love a guy who was so
temperamental…
A moment later, he
showed up wrapped by a towel and started dressing his now-cleaned clothes that
still had their punk look. Then, Sheeba lent him her Protective Garment
(identical as Harry's) and Sirius put it on his clothes without saying a single
word. As the tunic touched his body, it disappeared.
"See you later," he
said, still annoyed.
"Won't you kiss me
goodbye?"
"Bye," he said and
Disapparated.
Sheeba stood up
irritably. It would be better if she went to her job, she had many things to do
today.