In Every Darkness

Chapter Ten: Helping Tatsu

14. 7. 1996(Morning)

"I'm afraid it's really quite messy," Tatsu remarked, pushing the front door open. He was quite right, but the mess was a nice clutter of things that had yet to be put away, not paint-dripped walls or anything like that.

"It's fine! My family is obsessed with neatness … It's scary!" Harry said, feeling able to be frank with this man. "But if you like, I could help you move stuff around," he added, thinking that he'd like to learn more about this stranger.

"Would you?" Tatsu looked quite relieved. "I was kind of scared that I'd have to do it all on my own. I don't like hiring big companies … they are way too impersonal."

"If you want help, I'd be happy to," Harry replied.

"Thank you!" Tatsu turned around, he had two glasses of water, clinking with ice, in his hands. "Here!" he offered his visitor one of the glasses, which Harry accepted gratefully, having basically caught his breath after the jog.

He clinked his glass against that of his host and drank gratefully. "If you're going to be jogging every morning, we could meet up then," Harry offered, after thinking things over for a little while.

"That should work. You can come back and rest for a while, then help me with moving things around. Can you start tomorrow?"

"Yeah, sure!" Harry replied, happy to have something to take up his time.

"Then I'll see you in the morning, jogging," Tatsu smiled, and Harry waved goodbye, smiling back.

The next morning Harry got up early, made a quick, light breakfast and headed outside to watch the sun rise on the corner of Privet Drive.

A few minutes after he'd arrived, he heard soft steps approaching and turned to greet Tatsu.

He did not see whoever it was that was supposed to be guarding him today, but figured that they simply wanted to let him have his privacy and remain invisible.

"You heard me coming," Tatsu sounded surprised.

"You step lighter than most people, but everyone makes some amount of noise," Harry replied. "I learnt how to hear footsteps coming long ago … for reasons I would rather not speak of."

"There's not many an ear that can hear me coming," was the cool reply. "But that is also a tale for another time."

Harry and Tatsu fell in step with one another, jogging easily down the lane. Harry glanced back only once, to see that the Dursleys still hadn't awoken.

Happy that his gossipy aunt wouldn't see him making friends with the new neighbour just yet, Harry did not look back again, concentrating his entire mind on the simple, repetitive movements of jogging.

An hour later they took a back way into Tatsu's house and had a quick, cool glass of water.

"Are you going to be repainting or anything?" Harry asked curiously.

"No, not yet, at least. I'll get settled in, and make sure that I have everything where I want it before I start painting or anything. Make sure that everything fits the décor."

Harry smiled. "So, where do we start?" He asked.

Tatsu smiled back and began giving Harry directions.

Harry dragged himself back to Number Four in the early afternoon, wondering why he had ever offered to help Tatsu. He felt half-dead from weariness. Moving things around was difficult.

They'd gotten the entrance hall fairly close to 'perfect' this morning, and the next day would be moving on to the kitchen and dining room. Harry was amazed at the difficulty of getting things in just the right position.

The Dursleys, when Harry walked into the kitchen for lunch, were discussing Tatsu, though not by name.

"We should probably invite him over for dinner sometime," Aunt Petunia said, obviously already thinking of things she could make and what the family would wear on such an occasion. "Welcome him to the neighbourhood."

"That would be a good idea. He might be interested in some drills," Uncle Vernon said, belching heartily.

Harry did not tell them that he'd met the new man, knowing that his aunt would keep him there for hours asking questions about everything.

Taking his lunch, Harry headed upstairs. The Order would probably send word today. It had been three days since the last time.

Harry grinned to himself, realising that he'd been home for just over a week now. Maybe things would get better now. He hoped so. It was amazing what had happened in the last week.

When he entered the room, Fawkes was waiting for him next to a letter lying on Harry's desk.

Harry walked over, murmured a greeting to the phoenix, and picked up the letter.

Dear Harry,

I am sorry that I must be brief, but as I warned you last time, little can be trusted to a letter.

I apologise for having to keep you in the dark, and am afraid that it will most likely continue for most of the summer. Nothing may be trusted to a letter, and I cannot trust that no one would overhear if one of your guards were to tell you things.

They must remain outside whenever possible and watch for anyone coming towards you. They are not guarding the inside of your house, nor were they supposed to be body-guards.

As you have shown a love of privacy that is completely understandable, your guards will remain at the house at most times, and if you are going anywhere, it would be advisable that you tell them, and they will talk to me and the Order, who will then decide on someone to accompany you, if it is believed that you need it.

I hope that you are going well,

Albus Dumbledore.

Still no word from Ron and Hermione, Harry thought bitterly, this time not doing as Sirius had instructed and aiming his anger at Voldemort.

He wanted to be angry with his friends. It seemed that they'd forgotten him in their important work with the Order. Yeah, right. Listening at key-holes. Really important!

Harry sighed and picked up his quill, knowing that Fawkes would want to take a response to Dumbledore.

Dear Professor Dumbledore,

I wish that you'd taken this into account before – it's been annoying being followed all the time. I doubt that you are telling me everything, and probably a lot of what you aren't telling me is important.

I hate being left in the dark, I'll tell you that now. When I meet up with you, I want a full explanation.

Was the woman that was here yesterday someone from the Order? I didn't recognise her.

I'm fine – I would have thought that obvious. I don't really understand why I have to contact the Order every third day. My guards should be able to tell you anything important that happens.

I'm sure you have reasons for this as well. I would love to hear them sometime.

Harry Potter.

"Here, Fawkes," Harry said, handing the letter to the phoenix. Fawkes trilled a few notes of song in parting, and then disappeared in a burst of flame.

Harry sighed softly, wondering what he was going to do until the next morning.

After a few minutes thinking, he picked up The Hobbit and started reading again, since he was nearly finished anyway.

Two hours later he put down the book, smiling slightly. It had been a good story, and he would start on the Lord of the Rings sometime soon, but now …

Harry smirked. Now it was time to practice some magic.

Taking his wand out of his pocket, Harry stood up and closed his window, pulling a curtain across it. It wouldn't do for anyone to see him, especially since this was a neighbourhood of Muggles.

He waved his wand and muttered a soft word under his breath, charming the window so that no one could see through it even if the curtains moved.

Walking over to the door, Harry locked it with a quick spell that they'd learned in his forth year, and opened his book on Defence Against the Dark Arts.

They'd only learned theory last year, and Harry had decided that it was time to put that theory to practice. Not that he'd listened to much of what Umbridge was telling him, but the book had most of the information there anyway.

Glancing down the list of spells, Harry decided to do a little bit of practice first. He looked at the loose floorboard under his bed, and lay on his stomach to reach it.

With a wrench that hurt his already sore muscles, he pulled it up and set it on the wall with a sticking charm.

Walking to the other side of the room, Harry waved his wand and muttered "stupefy!" under his breath. Immediately a streak of red light flashed from his wand, but grazed the wall to one side of the floorboard, rather than hitting the floorboard itself.

For the rest of that afternoon, Harry focused on aiming spells, knowing that this was a very important thing to be able to do. He could aim right if he took a long time, but in a fight, you needed to be fast.

When he went down for dinner that night he was completely exhausted. Eating was a chore he wished he could do without, but he was also starving.

He finished as quickly as possible, and headed upstairs to his room once more.

He unlocked the door by whispering "Alohomora" quietly. The door swung open at his touch and Harry walked inside and opened the window.

A slightly ruffled Hedwig flew in and hooted at him, reproachful because he'd not left the window open for her and she'd had to wait to get in.

"I'm sorry, girl," Harry told her softly, stroking her feathered head. "I needed the window closed for a minute."

She just hooted again, this time in what Harry was pretty sure was forgiveness.

"Well girl, I'm going to bed now. It's been a very tiring day."

Hedwig just hooted softly and flew into her cage to eat some of the owl treats there.

Harry flopped onto the bed, not able to be bothered to change, and pulled the covers over himself.

Almost immediately he was asleep.

"Harry!" The boy turned from where he had been standing, at the edge of a cliff, looking up into the star-strewn sky.

"Hi Sirius!" he called back.

"Man, I was scared I'd killed you or something! You disappeared so quickly!" Sirius pulled Harry into a hug.

"I just woke up. It hurt though," Harry replied, not at all angry with his godfather. He could never be angry with Sirius now.

"That's a relief to know. I've been searching for you pretty much every second since you left," Sirius told him.

"Want to practise Occlumency again? I've been trying to practice a little bit since I saw you the night before last. You must have missed me, because I did go to sleep."

"That must have been when I was visiting Remus. He said to thank you again for telling him that I was around," Sirius said.

"Ok," Harry nodded his head.

"Well, let's try practicing then. Have you got a mind-shield up?" Harry closed his eyes and concentrated for a moment. Then nodded and looked at Sirius.

"Legilimens," Sirius whispered. Immediately Harry felt Sirius's mind flying towards his, flickering around Harry's shield, and being kept back.

Harry stood, completely still, trying to keep his mind on the shield, but eventually Sirius found a weakness and prodded at it. The shield flickered and died.

Sirius pulled back, not looking through Harry's mind as Snape had done.

"Good work kid!" he told Harry enthusiastically. "Keep practicing with that shield and it won't be long before we can start you on trying to throw me out of your mind completely, before I have a chance to search for a weakness."

Harry smiled, a warm feeling rising in his chest from Sirius's praise.

"So, what's up in your life, kid?" Sirius asked, flopping into a chair that, as usual, simply appeared when it was needed.

Harry copied his godfather and concentrated. A moment later they were sitting before a roaring fire in the Gryffindor Common Room.

"Very good!" Sirius smiled approvingly. "You're learning your way around here as well as I am!"

"A lot of things have been happening," Harry remarked. "But first, you can't tell anyone from the other dreams that you visit what I'm telling you now."

"I promise," Sirius responded, leaning forward, obviously wanting to know what was happening for his godson to be so secretive.

"Well, the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and more specifically the Office for the Restriction of Underaged Wizardry contacted me a few days ago to say that they've decided to let me do magic outside of school," Harry said, grinning at the look of amazement on Sirius's face.

"I don't think they've ever done that before," Sirius whispered, awed. "But why?"
"Remus might have told you that Death Eaters attacked my place," Harry said, and Sirius nodded in confirmation. "Well, the Office seems to think that since I'm one of the most likely targets for a Death Eater attack, I will be needing to use magic at some point over the summer, and that it's a good idea for me to practice so that I'm ready for that to happen. They didn't tell the Minister, and asked me not to tell anyone, not even Dumbledore."

"That's just … Very cool," Sirius said, grinning widely. "That means that I should be teaching you some spells, in case you need them … If you ever need help, just ask me!"

"Thanks Sirius," Harry said with a smile. He felt a strange tugging at his mind. "I think I'm waking up," he said, sighing.

Sirius nodded. "Probably. I'll contact you again sometime soon, I hope," he said, and Harry let himself be pulled away.

He sat up in the semi-darkness that came just before the dawn, feeling refreshed and ready to face the new day, jogging with Tatsu, helping the other man to organise his house, and learning to use spells to the best of his ability.

Sorry this chapter took so long to get out; I've been a bit busy, end of the week type things. Should be back to updating faster again, since it's the weekend! Hope you liked the chapter!

WolfMoon