In Every Darkness

Chapter Six: Explanations

11.7.1996(Afternoon)

Harry was sitting in the Great Hall, eating dinner with Ron and Hermione and talking happily. Looking up at the Staff Table, he saw Remus Lupin, Albus Dumbledore and McGonagall engaged in conversation.

Snape seemed to have disappeared, but, as this was a dream, Harry didn't think anything of it. "Come on Harry," Ron said suddenly, "let's go practice Quidditch!"

Hermione snapped. "Guys it's dark out."

"No worries, we can light the pitch," Ron responded, as he and Harry walked out of the Hall. The Slytherin Table was completely absent, but again, it was a dream, these things happen.

Ron had a Firebolt in his hand, almost an exact replica of Harry's. "Race you!" Ron offered.

Harry grinned his acceptance and they both mounted their brooms and raced for the Quidditch Pitch.

Suddenly everything seemed to shake and go dark. When Harry could see again, he was in the middle of the Forbidden Forest and a giant black dog was standing panting by his side.

"S-Sirius?" Harry asked nervously.

"Hey kid!" With a pop, Sirius was there, hugging Harry tightly round the shoulders. "How are you? Nice outfit, by the way!"

Harry looked down and saw that he was still wearing the clothes that Tonks had forced him into this morning.

"You think so?" he asked his godfather, curiously. He hadn't particularly liked them himself, but maybe that was because he wasn't used to wearing clothes that weren't Dudley's cast-offs.

"Sure! Let me guess, Tonks took you shopping?"

Harry nodded, surprised. Knowledge that this was a dream entered his mind now, and he could remember being awake.

"Why haven't you come before?" Harry asked his godfather suddenly, his eyes narrowing slightly. "I slept to talk to you, and you didn't come!"

Sirius looked a little embarrassed. "Come on kid, we'll walk, and I'll finish explaining things that I never got a chance to last time," he said, and they set off through the Forbidden Forest.

"So?" Harry prompted his godfather when the man didn't speak.

"You know that I said that I dwell in the Realms of the Dead now, right?" Sirius asked him.

"Yeah," Harry replied, cautious.

"Well, time there is not time here. For me, it's been only a few hours since you were woken last, but for you, it's obviously been a bit longer than that," Sirius said.

Harry nodded.

"I had no way of knowing when you would be back – I can only find you sometimes, and it's not always possible to look for you at the same time that you are asleep. Knowing that time passes differently, I looked for you fairly often, but I didn't look at the same time you were here."
"Where is here?" Harry asked.

"The Realm of Dreams," Sirius answered. "Most people come here in their sleep and in their dreams only they are here. They might see other people, but those other people are not actually real, only the dreamer is.

"I, however, am an exception. Like I told you last time, I am alive, but I'm in the Realms of the Dead, so I am not … I can enter any person's dream that I wish to, if I can find them."

"How many other people's dreams have you been to?" Harry asked.

"Only yours so far. I haven't been able to find Remus or any of the others at the right time," Sirius replied with a sigh.

"Oh," Harry said, bowing his head slightly. "I might wake up soon. I'm in the car coming home from London."

"Right. Well, let's have some fun then!" Sirius said. "Until you wake up, at least."

"How?" Harry asked.

"Here, your will, or mine, rules. This place exists solely to please those who are in it, so we can do whatever we want, whether it is possible or not!" Here, Sirius turned upside down, walking as if on the sky.

Harry laughed in delight and thought for a moment. Suddenly he had joined Sirius.

Laughing, Sirius returned to the form of a dog, and Harry, with a second's thought, took the form of a stag. The dog looked at him in surprise.

"Is this what dad's form looked like?" Harry asked, his voice coming from the stag's mouth, even though this should be impossible.

"Yeah," Sirius said. "Come on, let's run!"

The pair of them took off, racing over the Hogwarts grounds by the light of the full moon. From nowhere, a werewolf appeared, running with them, lifting its head to howl at the full moon, and Sirius also lifted his head and bayed.

But all too soon Harry was jolted into wakefulness as the Dursley's car came to a screeching halt as the lights changed read.

Harry started awake – unlike the last time, he was simply asleep one moment, playing with Sirius, and awake the next. The dream world did not shake and disappear slowly as it had the last time, it was simply gone.

Despite this, Harry was in a surprisingly good mood for the last five minutes of the trip to Privet Drive. As the car pulled up in front of the house, Remus Lupin stepped out of the shadows, startling Uncle Vernon.

"Tonks told me you'd been shopping," Remus told Harry, smiling gently. "I thought I'd help you get all your stuff up to your room."

He was looking, by the Dursley's standards, presentable, which would have probably gotten him into their good books, apart from the fact that he was obviously a wizard.

"Thanks, Remus," Harry responded, getting out of the car. Remus took a step back to look at him. "Tonks said you'd gotten some new clothes. You look good in them," he offered.

Harry bowed his head in thanks for the compliment, and showed Remus all of this stuff, most of which was in the boot.

Remus, after checking to make sure that no one was watching him, shrunk most of it again and gave it to Harry to shove into one of the many pockets in the pants.

A few things they took out and carried up, including the many bags full of clothes. Harry showed Remus upstairs and into his room.

"You really need some more space in the closet," Remus remarked, peering into the limited storage space, and then whipped out his wand to remedy the situation with a few spells.

"The closet will get bigger inside to allow for whatever clothes you have in it at the time," the older man explained, helping Harry unpack all of the clothes.

Once this was finished, Remus offered to take Harry out for dinner that night. "I wanted to talk to you, and it might be best if it wasn't here," the man explained.

Harry froze for a moment. Remus wanted to talk to him about Sirius. For a moment he considered refusing – until he realised that this was for Remus's benefit more than his. Remus had been Sirius's friend, and he'd been feeling as down as Harry over the death. Harry now knew that Sirius could still talk to him, so the fact that he'd died was not as horrible as it had been.

"Ok," he said, leaving the rest of his stuff on the ground.

"Nice watch, by the way," Remus added.

Harry frowned down at the chunky wrist-watch that Tonks had insisted on. "I suppose so," he replied doubtfully.

"Tonks knows her fashion, Harry. You can trust her not to do anything that would make you look stupid," Remus said with a laugh. "Actually, that's just the sort of clothes that your father and Sirius used to love wearing."

This immediately made Harry feel more confident in his new clothes. The night was warm, so Harry didn't bother taking any of his jackets with him, and walked out of his room with Remus.

"I'm eating out with Remus," Harry called to the Dursley's.

"That's alright Harry," Petunia's voice was sickening sweet. "Don't come back too late!"

"Disgusting," Harry muttered under his breath, and Remus laughed.

Harry looked up at him. "Wolf hearing," the other man explained. Harry ducked his head, afraid he'd upset the man by reminding him of this.

Remus just rested a hand gently on Harry's shoulder. "It's alright Harry. I'm used to everything reminding me of my condition now," he offered to the boy. "I don't really care any more, except when it's meant to be an insult."

Harry nodded.

"Now, why don't you show me to a good place to eat. I've never really been in Little Whinging before," Remus said.

Harry's stomach rumbled, reminding him that it had been some time since the snack at McDonalds.

Soon he and Remus were eating at a fairly nice restaurant, talking about fairly innocent things, neither of them wishing to bring up the subject they both knew was going to be discussed. At least not over dinner.

Remus insisted on paying when they finished eating, and then they both walked out of the restaurant and headed for the park to walk and talk.

"How are you coping?" Remus asked Harry after a long time of silence.

"I don't know, Remus. I really don't know," Harry replied with a heavy sigh. "Sometimes good, sometimes I just want to lie down and die so that I can be with him …"

Remus just nodded in complete understanding. "You seemed pretty happy today though?" the silent question in his voice allowed Harry to see how much Sirius's death had hurt his werewolf friend.

"Remus, he's not dead," he said suddenly.

"What do you mean? He fell through the veil, there's no return from there," Remus said. "You don't need to try and make me feel better about this – just about everyone from the Order has already tried."

"Remus! He meant as much to me as he did to you. I'm telling you he isn't dead. But I never said anything about being able to bring him back here again," Harry replied.

"What do you mean?" Suddenly Remus had turned to Harry, his eyes feverish as he searched Harry's for answers.

"Remus, I've talked to him since he fell through the Veil. He said that he was in the Realms of the Dead, but because he hadn't actually died, he wasn't there completely.

"He isn't dead, but he isn't alive either. He's come to talk to me in dreams."

Harry hoped that his old Professor wouldn't think him crazy.

"Of course!" Remus breathed.

"You know about this? That it's possible?" Harry asked.

"I remember a scrap of a page from a book that Sirius found in his house once, when we were younger, before he left his family. It said something to that effect… I can't remember exactly what it was now," Remus explained.

"He said that he hasn't talked to you yet because he hasn't been able to find you," Harry offered Remus before the man could ask him.

"Of course. The time difference," Remus nodded.

Suddenly, he hugged Harry tightly. "Thank you for telling me this Harry," he said, and Harry could tell from the tone of his voice that he'd just saved Remus, as surely as if the man was drowning and he'd thrown him a life-line.

"Please don't tell any one else from the Order?" Harry begged as they turned for home. "I don't want them to know…"

"I know Harry. I promise, I won't tell them until you do," Remus said. "Ah, there's Privet Drive. I'll talk to you again soon, I hope."

Harry nodded and jogged up the drive way to return to his room. He lay back on his bed and opened The Hobbit again. It was as good as he'd heard, and he was quite happy to read until he fell asleep.

It was in the early hours of the morning that Harry did fall asleep, having been rested from his nap in the car.

Immediately he heard a familiar voice yell out to him. "Harry! Over here!" There was Sirius, grinning at him.

"I didn't think you'd be here," Harry admitted.

"Here not much time has passed at all. Only a few minutes, actually," Sirius said with a shrug. "I suppose you're home now?"

"Yeah, and I've had dinner with Remus and read some of a book," Harry replied, joining his godfather as they walked together in what now appeared to be under the sea.

"Cool," Sirius grinned. "What book?"

"It's called The Hobbit," Harry replied.

"Your mother loved that book," Sirius recalled, almost absently.

"She did?"

"Yeah. She read it at least once a year. James and I were always teasing her about it."

Harry laughed. It felt so good to be talking to his godfather again. "What do you do all day, Sirius?" he asked after a few minutes of silence.

"I dunno," Sirius shrugged. "This and that. It's different here … So different."

"In what way?" Harry asked.

"Every way," Sirius sighed. "It takes a lot of getting used to."

"Oh."

"Harry, you're still blaming yourself for my death, aren't you?" Sirius asked suddenly.

"Yeah," Harry said, shocked that his godfather would see it so clearly.

"And you're still angry, too. Angry at everything, am I right?"

"Yes," Harry whispered, bowing his head.

"Anger is nothing to be ashamed of, kid. In fact, it's a good thing-"

"No it isn't!" Harry burst out. "I hate it! I can't do anything without getting angry about something or other."

"Let me finish," Sirius told him, smiling but stern. "Anger is a good thing when it's handled properly. If you just let it spout out all the time, it will consume you, and you'll become a second Voldemort. You'll lose the one thing that you have which he doesn't."

Harry looked questioningly at his godfather. Sirius rested a hand over Harry's chest. "Your heart, kid."

"Oh. But… How can I stop being angry? I don't understand, Sirius!"

"Relax and listen to me!" Sirius grinned. "Now, answer me this: Who is the person that you hate most?"

"Voldemort," Harry answered without a pause.

"Very good answer! Now, the way to deal with being angry is, every time you start getting angry at something, or blaming yourself for something, you … wassaword? Meditate! That's it! You meditate, and aim all of your anger, or blame the occurrence on Voldemort. It's all his fault – anything bad that happens can somehow be traced back to Voldemort. So aim your anger at him, make it a weapon that you have to master," Sirius told Harry.

"Oh," Harry said thoughtfully. "I suppose that might help."
"Might help? Might help? It will help. You gotta be positive, kid." Sirius addressed his godson sternly. "Come on, let's swim!" Immediately Sirius took the form of a contented looking catfish. Not bothering to wonder if they could even survive in salt water, Harry grinned evilly at his godfather and suddenly became a huge white shark.

The catfish lost its contented look as a spirited game of chase began.

Harry woke with a start just after the sun rose. What was that sound? His ears strained, and he thought he heard the sounds of a battle of some sort going on outside.

He was up from the bed in a second, his hand going to his wand – in a pocket in his pants, which he had slept in. He raced to the window and looked down.

-Yawns- I think I'll leave it there! -grins evilly- at readers Review and I'll update faster!!

WolfMoon