Loss
By Hpfan
Chapter V-PDA's and a TV
Harry had sleep until noon the next day. He woke up to the sun shining heavily through the window behind Harry. One of the best features of the room was that the window stretching above Harry's bed was huge and the ledge could seat two people if they wanted to sit there. The bed was set up so that the light didn't shine in Harry's eyes in the early morning.
Harry felt slightly refreshed, but mostly lazy. It wasn't really one of those days where you wanted to jump out of bed and run laps, but then, he wouldn't have to. Now that the house was pretty much set up, Harry was free to roam the place in his pajamas and jag around all day long- but he had worked so hard all summer and he was finally starting to outgrow his scrawny, adolescent exterior, and was shedding them for a new, slightly developed, robust appearance.
Harry slid off the bed, grumpily got in the shower and put on some clothes, briefly glancing at his scars. When he got downstairs he noticed that Sirius wasn't up, and cooked himself a brunch. He couldn't think of anything to do, so he went for a walk outside. He was slightly eager to explore some of the surrounding woods in the vicinity.
Harry left a note for Sirius, telling him he would be outside, and left for the woods.
Harry wandered around for half-an-hour. He saw quite a few animals from magical textbooks. He saw a small stream and followed it. It seemed to widen into a brook, or small river. Finally, when the current of the river seemed fast enough for white water rafting, he found a larger waterfall.
The drop seemed around fifty feet, and if he fell from the cliff, the impact would probably kill him, if the heart attack didn't first. Next to the river was a high, flat rock, that was three-fourths his height. He climbed up and let the water sting his face, fogging up his glasses with the mist.
Harry sat there, in the small clearing for fifteen minutes. It felt good to lie there without threat of Voldemort, or bad dreams. Finally, he realized that Sirius must be up and was probably wondering about him, and it would most likely take more time to get back to the house then it did to get out here.
He was correct in his assumptions, and it took him forty-five minutes to return. When he got back, he was sweaty, and his shoes where muddy. He spread out of the couch in his socks (He had been trained too well to get the couch dirty) and lay there for a few minutes. Suddenly he heard footsteps on the stairs, and saw Sirius, clad in muggle jeans and a tee shirt, plod down the stairs, lazily. He saw Harry lying idly on the couch and leaned against the back of it.
"I see that while I've been sleeping, you've been out running around, getting sweaty and smelly." Sirius said in a tranquil voice.
"Ha!" Harry laughed, "If you think this is sticky, you should have seen what I looked like after working out in the garden all day."
"Well, it looks like it paid off, cause your getting built. James was real scrawny up until he was in sixth-year, but then he got built and every girl and her cousin wanted him. He already had your mother by then, so he wasn't in any position to see half the female population at school. Now me- I was always built, so I was seeing girls every night."
"All the guys looked up to me, cause I could get any girl I wanted, but it was your father that was lucky, cause he just had the one girl that he knew would be 'the one'. I would probably never have found the right girl. I guess it was better that way. No hearts to break when I went to Azkaban."
Harry looked at him with sorrow, but then he turned his head sharply. "Did you just say that you thought I was scrawny?" he said in a teasingly mad voice. Sirius's eyes danced with mirth.
"If you picked up that little hint, you'll probably catch on to the fact that I said you're built." He said. "But now, well, I'm sure you can imagine how much physical activity there is in a jail cell." He said. Harry suddenly had the mental image of Sirius dressed in workout gear, and pretending to fight to the theme of 'Rocky' in a dark jail cell. Just the illusion made him laugh out loud.
Sirius gave him a silly grin. He went and sat in the armchair, and Harry sat in the one next to him. He turned on the massage function that the leather chair came built in with. "You know, Sirius, you should get a television. It's pretty boring around here." He said.
"Yeah, your right. There aren't enough fun things to do around here. Maybe when we go out to get your school supplies we'll pick one up." He said.
"When are we going to Diagon Alley, anyway?" he asked.
"Uh, today if you want to." He replied. Harry shrugged. After four years, Diagon Alley had lost most of its amazing appeal. He had changed a lot since first year. He had lost his wide-eyed innocence after experiencing so many deaths, and he was really starting to grow up and realize the threat imposed by the world around him. Plus, his frame of mind had kind of altered. It might have just been puberty, but Harry was looking at things a lot differently.
Harry sat quietly, waiting for nothing in particular to occur. It was boring, sitting around the house doing nothing, but it was oddly satisfying, knowing he had no responsibilities then to just laze around like he didn't give a damn. He didn't realize it when he dropped off to sleep.
___
The old-fashioned house had a spooky atmosphere. The air was a chilling temperature that seemed to seep through your skin, despite the summer heat. The hallway shades where closed, giving it a semi-darkened state. Harry walked slowly in his socks, taking in the narrow corridor. His scar was burning with small intensity. The room came into view, and his heart lurched as he saw the chair. He instantly knew what was happening.
His cold, cruel voice shot like a whip, while his demeanor hardly paid any mind to his harsh tone. His arm emerged from behind the chair, and it clutched a wand firmly, as if the wielder was itching to cast a spell.
"My death eaters! Come!" Harry assumed that because of the loss of Wormtail, that Voldemort needed to call his head death eaters to him. Slowly, they arrived; clad in black, masked robes. One by one they bowed down and kissed the hem of their masters robes. Then they turned and got into a circle.
"To my disappointment, I found the house that was suppose to be holding Harry Potter full of his muggle relatives, but didn't find him. I killed off his only remaining blood though. Through this action, I have found the solution to the hitch in our plans. We can never get him because his friends always surround him. While at school, Albus Dumbledore ensures his safety. During the summer, the wards around him and his house are impenetrable. He also has protection from his godfather."
"This also got me thinking. How dear are his friends to him? If we eliminate all of those obstacles, then we leave the path clear to a depressed and distraught Potter! Now, his highest protector is Albus Dumbledore. He is also the ticket to the wizard world. So we begin by planning to take Albus Dumbledore. Then Harry Potter, and most importantly, the world, will be ours.
Around the seated figure, death eaters chuckled heavily. Harry felt the urge to leap on one of them, but he knew that his dream image wasn't capable of doing that.
"But I expect that we should set our aims a bit lower for now. You may go for now. Malfoy, you and Avery will need to prepare for a special mission for me. I will inform you of this later." He dismissed them and and Harry waited for the dream to end.
___
Harry slowly rose from the reclining chair. He noticed that Sirius was sleeping heavily on the couch, most likely because of how late he had been up the previous night. His mind shot back to the dream. The death eaters! They had been talking about him. 'Uh, now there after my friends? Why don't I just go hide in a cave and make the world a safer place!'
Harry started to get up, but the creak woke Sirius. His groggy eyelids slowly rose and he turned to Harry with a questioning stare. Harry still clutching his scar stood up and faced the accusing stare. Sirius noticed his hand on his forehead, and his glance turned to a concerned one. "Was it a dream?" he asked.
"Yeah." He replied, rubbing his scar until it turned red. "Voldemort called a Death Eater meeting; still plotting ways to kill me." He replied, almost bored. "He's going after my friends now. Another way my existence is causing trouble for humanity." It must have been the sleep deprivation, because Harry had not meant for those words to come out of his mouth. He realized it was too late, and his cheeks flushed red.
"Harry! You are not causing trouble for humanity. Voldemort is. Just because you're a victim doesn't mean that it's your fault. You can't help it, and your friends and family don't care if they're in danger. Ron's family openly opposes the dark side, and Hermione's muggle born. Both of them are targets, whether they're your friends or not."
Harry gave him a 'what about you?' glance.
"I'm a huge threat to Voldemort, too. He doesn't care if I'm your godfather. He'll come looking for me anyway. And I'll be there to stop him from hurting either of us. Believe it or not, I'm pretty skilled at fighting him off. I am an ex auror. Why else do you think Dumbledore would let you stay with me? I offer some pretty good security." He replied, slightly embarrassed at his own narcissistic statement.
It was reassuring, but still; he felt like his presence was a nuisance to his friends. Throughout all of his years in Hogwarts, his friends had gotten into trouble or were harmed because they tagged along with him when he tried to do right. He wondered if they ever got sick of it at times. They never complained, but they might have been trying not to hurt his feelings. He felt confused; he felt a headache coming on. If nobody said anything, how would he know? Maybe they had no problem. He just would have to wait and see.
He stretched out on the recliner and lay there thinking about nothing. Just as he was feeling a bit stir-crazy, Sirius noticed how quiet it had gotten and asked, "If you don't have anything better to do, want to go to Diagon Alley? It's not a real thriller, but there doesn't seem to be anything else to do around this place. I think the previous owners must have died of boredom."
Harry smiled and tucked the leg rest back into the chair, and turned off the massage function. He had to be careful, that chair could make the most caffeine-saturated person fall asleep. He got up and went for the fireplace after getting his shoes on, and Sirius said spell on it and caused a fire to sprout from it. He called out 'Diagon Ally' and watched five thousand fireplaces pass him by.
Stepping out of the fireplace in the leaky cauldron, he noticed that the hustle had pretty much calmed down, and the regulars where sitting at the bar getting drunk. When they arrived, everyone in the bar seemed to stop what they were doing to look at Sirius Black and Harry Potter. No one said anything, but you could see the distrustfulness in their eyes.
Harry and Sirius split up and agreed to meet at the ice cream parlor when Sirius had gotten a TV and Harry had gotten all of his school supplies.
It didn't take long to get everything he needed to get. He went to the bookstore, and surprisingly found himself a lot more intrigued in the section on fighting dark arts, and had to look around as if Hermione was lurking in a bookshelf to spy on him when he bought four extra books that weren't on the list of required reading.
He went to the apothecary to refill his potion supplies, and he picked up two bottles of dreamless sleep potion. As he got measured for his robes, he looked down and noticed how shabby his clothes were. He had about two inches of ankle below his trousers and he his shirt was almost revealing his navel, and, needless to say, they were huge. He shrugged it off and paid the lady at the cashier. He barley had enough money to get him through his years at Hogwarts; how was he ever going to afford a new wardrobe?
He began walking off in search of the ice cream shop. He heard a shrill scream and suddenly the world turned red and brown, as something heavy…no, two somethings tangled him in a jumbled heap on the ground.
"Harry! I can't believe we found you! To think, hundreds of people coming here to shop, and a whole month of days to go shopping for school and we actually came on the same day and found each other!" said a voice somewhere on top of him.
"That's great Hermione, but do you mind? Your kind of sitting in my lap, and…" Hermione didn't look abashed as she helped him up and began ranting on about what had happened to her over the summer.
Harry's head was still spinning, but he heard key phrases such as, "and Ron is still upset about me going to Bulgaria with Victor." And "Mum and Dad weren't pleased when they heard about Victor." And "I heard about the Dursleys, and Victor and I just want to say how sorry we are for you…"
But that was where Ron cut her off.
"Why would Harry care if the Dursleys died? They were horrible to him!" But Harry suddenly went pale, and the prickly feeling that he had had on several occasions before returned full blast. Ron must have realized he had said the wrong thing because he instantly changed the subject. "So, where are you staying now? With Sirius?
"Yeah," Harry said swallowing hard. "Sirius has been cool. The first night we stayed with Pro-, Remus, but after we got his house settled out, we moved right in. Maybe Sirius will let me invite you over sometime."
"Well, Hermione is staying over our house now that she got that-, Bulgaria bug thing out of her system. I don't know, where is Sirius?" Ron asked, skillfully avoiding Hermione's death stare.
"Well, he's getting us a TV, and we're suppose to meet at Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor when I'm done shopping. Where are your parents Ron?"
"In the Leaky Cauldron. We'll meet up with Sirius and ask for permission, and then we'll ask my parents." Harry led the way toward the ice cream parlor, noticing the heavy bags in his friend's hands.
When they arrived, they all dropped their bags at a table, and Harry went up to order three sundaes for his friends, when a noise coming from the side of the building caught his attention. In the alley, in-between the ice cream shop and the pharmacy, he saw two people allegedly kissing. At least, that's what it looked like. He couldn't make out their shadowed faces, but he knew that it was a male and a female.
Harry couldn't help thinking that this public display of affection was somewhat sickening, when a ray of sunshine caught one of the people and he could just make out his godfather's face.
He would have fainted dead right there had Ron not put his hand on his shoulder at that precise moment. He turned around sharply, noticing Ron's surprised look, knowing that he hadn't seen anything. Harry pushed him toward the corner of the building.
"I can't believe it!" He exclaimed in a whisper. He led Ron toward the closest empty table. "Can you imagine?"
"What are you talking about?" Ron asked with a raised eyebrow.
Harry lowered his voice to the point where Ron had to lean in to hear him "Sirius. I just saw him kissing this girl. Or, I assume it was a girl."
"Are you sure it was Sirius?"
"Positive."
"Well…I congratulate him. It's only been less then a week since he was cleared and already he's back in the dating game." Said Ron
At this, Harry merely turned away looking perturbed. "Well, he can do anything he wants to. Hermione's seeing Krum and she's only fourteen."
It was Ron's turn to look away.
"What is up with you? Why can't you just be happy for Hermione? She's found
someone who she likes."
Hmph! She's going out with an 18-year-old guy. She's four years younger then him. He has no right asking her out like that. He doesn't even go to our school. I'm sure he's going to break her heart."
"Like you don't want to be there to pick up the pieces. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out your jealous."
"Ha! That's a laugh. I just don't want to see her get hurt. And what's a rocket scientist?" Ron replied.
Harry couldn't help but laugh, one, at his total ignorance off the muggle world's quirks, and two, his complete self-denial.
"Oh, shut up! Truce? I won't talk about the whole Sirius thing if you don't mention anything to do with, him."
"Whatever." Said Harry.
"Lets just order and get back to Hermione." Said Ron. "I don't know how long Sirius is going to be. I don't know about you, but I'm not saying anything about his PDA." (AN: Okay, it wasn't exactly a PDA, but there aren't enough synonyms for kiss!)
"I'm not saying a word. If he wants to mention it, fine, if not, well, I don't care." He said. Ron looked at him with a raised eyebrow, but didn't say anything.
"I think you're either jealous, or you need to grow up."
"Didn't we agree not to discuss this?" Harry said with an angry look.
They were standing in line by this point. They made their purchases and went back to their table. They skillfully dodged any inquiry of Hermione's and ate their sundaes. Sirius showed up five minutes later, coming from the opposite direction of the alley, floating the TV box in front of him.
"Hey Ron, Hermione. Nice to see you again." He said. "Did you three find each other?" he asked.
"Yeah. I wanted to ask you if they could come over later. Maybe, I don't know, for a few days or something." He asked, trying to give puppy dog eyes, but ended up with more of a pleading look.
"Uh. I don't know. Ron, your parents probably wouldn't be very pleased to know that their son was staying with Sirius Black, ex con." Ron seemed to look sheepish. He apparently didn't think of that.
"Well, can we ask?" he asked, looking hopeful and cynical, which made kind of an odd expression on his face.
"I guess you can ask. I doubt they'll agree, but you can ask."
So they made their way up to the Leaky Cauldron. Once again, when Sirius stepped through the back entrance, everyone seemed to look up, but after a moment, everyone went back to their own business. They quickly found Mr. and Mrs. Weasley sitting at a table.
"Mum, dad." Ron said nervously, "We, er, found Harry in Diagon Ally." They looked up and saw Harry, and with widening eyes they spotted Sirius.
"He- Hello Harry." Said Mr. Weasley. "This is Sirius I presume?"
"Yes Mr. Weasley. He's my guardian now." Harry said awkwardly.
"I wanted to know if we could stay with Harry and Sirius for a few days." Said Ron, with a futile look.
Mr. and Mrs. Weasley looked at each other as if saying 'what do we do?' They obviously were strictly opposed to the idea of leaving their youngest son and their charge in the care of Sirius Black, but they seemed too polite to say anything, knowing that he was innocent.
"Uh, maybe you would feel better if Harry just came to visit Ron and Hermione for a few days." Sirius suggested.
"Well, if Harry wants to come, I have no problem against it. Arthur?" Mrs. Weasley said with that motherly smile she always adopted when around Harry.
"Ye- Yes. Of course! We're always happy for Harry to accompany us." He said.
Suddenly, the tables had changed. Harry was drawn between spending time with him friends and spending time with his godfather. On the one hand, he only had a month before he wouldn't see Sirius until Christmas, or maybe even next summer. But his friends would be disappointed if he didn't go, and maybe Sirius wanted him to leave him alone for a few days.
Harry did the only thing he could do. He stalled. "Maybe in a few days." It was more a question then a statement.
"Sure, Harry dear. We'll keep in touch." She said. "Ron, Hermione, we need to find Ginny and the twins, and get back to he house. We'll see you later Harry."
With that, they disappeared into the throng of people who had appeared in the Leaky Cauldron shortly after they came. "I don't know about you, but I'm not ready to go back home yet. If you're done getting school supplies, then lets do some shopping in muggle London. You need some new clothes."
Without waiting for an answer, he shrunk the bag of school supplied and the box the TV was in and led Harry in the direction of the front door. Harry merely shrugged his shoulders and followed Sirius.
For about an hour, Sirius had Harry trying on whatever would fit him, unless of course, it looked dorky, in which case, Sirius threw it in the cart any, explaining how he could just keep it at the back of his closet incase everything else was dirty. He seemed to believe in the 'if it fits, and it has designer labels, it goes in the cart.' Rule. Their last stop was the optometry. Sirius decided Harry needed to get contacts, or at the least, better frames.
It took Harry almost fifteen minutes just to get the contacts in, but he knew it was worth it. He had hated his glasses for years; the way they always seemed to magnify his eyes, and the fat plastic frames that made him look like he was seeing out of two magnifying glasses. Plus they were always a hassle to put back together when Dudley broke them.
Harry bought a prescription of contacts, which he could wear during the day and not have to take out to go to bed. He also got a new pair of prescription glasses, thin, frameless one that looked discreet. When they walked toward the fireplace at twilight, Sirius looked satisfied, and Harry looked immensely ecstatic, though cool about it. When they had walked into the bar, no one even turned a head. 'They don't even recognize me! I hope this lasts.'
When they got home, Harry had to do a double take after looking in the mirror. It was amazing what a new wardrobe and no glasses will do to a person. 'There will be girls all over me!' said a small voice in his head. He shook his head. Puberty was obviously getting to him.
The mirror suddenly shouted, "Oh! If you could just do something with that hair!" Harry laughed, but silently agreed. What was that stuff Hermione used on her hair? Maybe they had a potion for taming VERY unruly hair. He would have to look sometime.
Sirius walked up to him and looked him up and down. "Not bad, my little protégée. Now if we could just get you into pranks, it would be perfect." Harry rolled his eyes skyward.
"Please tell me that you aren't
trying to mold me into some sort of marauder clone thing or something. It seems
like something you would try to do. If you want a protégé, talk to the Weasley
twins. You and the other marauders are like their idol."
"Well. Why don't you go and unpack your stuff. I'll set up the TV."
"Alright. Just a question though; who should I call when you electrocute yourself?" Harry asked with a sarcastic glint in his eye.
"Why do you think I bought it at a wizard store? This thing is charmed to run on magic. It should be pretty easy to assemble." And with that, he dumped the box out onto the floor and about twenty small pieces fell out of the box.
"Famous last words." Said Harry. He felt guilty leaving Sirius there to sort through all of the parts to a TV, but he went up the stairs to his room and put away all of his new clothes. He couldn't get over the fact that his clothes fit him. He came down ten minutes later to find that the TV was still in multiple pieces and that Sirius was trying desperately to fit two pieces together that really didn't want to fit. He saw the directions discarded in a corner and went to read them.
It wasn't what one could consider a pamphlet because it was only one page. The directions contained one sentence. "Use the spell 'construstious' and the pieces will instantly fit together."
"Uh, Sirius." He asked, tapping Sirius on the shoulder.
"Not now. I think I've got these pieces together." He answered, though it was obvious they would sooner bite his nose then fit together.
"But, I know-" he tried again.
"I almost got it!" his voice was strained as he tried to force them together, glaring angrily at the TV pieces, as if he could telepathically make the pieces fit.
"But-"
"Fine! You put it together." He said agitatedly. He stood up and folded his arm, looking impatiently at him, waiting.
Harry shrugged and drew his wand, hoping he wouldn't get in trouble with the ministry. "Construstious" he muttered. Instantly the pieces fit together and he put the TV on it's stand and turned it on.
Sirius stared. First dumbfounded, then sheepish. "So, uh, what's on?"
End chapter V- PDA's and a TV
As always, thank you for reading, and thank you sooooo much for reviewing!
Notes to the readers: I'm sorry it was up so late. My mom, a cruel, cruel woman grounded me from the Internet! DAMN THOSE AOL PARENTAL CONTROLS/ TIME LIMITATIONS! They frustrate me soooooo… Anyway, I got a lot done in-between the span of conniptions and withdrawal induced nervous breakdowns. I got a lot of chapters completed. I was having a huge writers block on chapter 7, but the time away from the internet was just what I needed. All I can say is, well, uh… wait and see. The next few chapters should be quite interesting.
Did that chapter seem too… fluffy? Stupid? Corny? Goofy? To quote the great author, Neutral, 'Ack!'. All rights are reserved- I think. Should I put up a disclaimer to the word Ack? Oh yeah, that reminds me; I haven't done a disclaimer. Should I start posting one, or should I just put one at the beginning of the story?
I know what you're thinking. Harry's acting weirdly. He's getting all antsy cause Sirius was kissing someone. No, it wasn't so much the jealous, 'I don't want to share my single parent with anyone' syndrome (Does that have a name?). It was more, er, intuition. You'll understand later.
Notes to the reviewer: (Can I just say how much I love you all?)
A.Dee: *Wipes away sweat drop* you left me hanging there with that first review. I was like, good…bad…nothing? I'm glad that I made that apparent. I though that you meant that was portraying Harry badly. Amazing? I wouldn't go that far… *Smiles nervously, and points to nose* Now, do you really think that I would tell you that? Considering the chapters content, I'll just let your imagination run wild! But anyway, thank you for your review. Can't wait until you update one of your stories. I do miss them.
Mnm: Uh, considering that this is my first semi-insult (I'm not going as far as a flame, it more, critical constructive criticism), I hope I respond to it the right way. I guess it was kind of tacked on. I didn't really know how to go about it. Plus, there are a lot of cutters out there who don't seem like they would be the type to do it. I did do my homework before righting about cutting- not just jotting down any old thing. Anyway, thanks for the criticism; you've made me rethink how I'm going to go about it in the future.
Kim: Thank you for your praise, and for the TV suggestions. I think I'm just going to wing it. I don't suppose you have the same movies over there as we do? (I'm making an assumption that you're British, or you live there) I don't think I could survive without at least five million shows; do most people have cable?
Aeryn Alexander: Yeah, I can understand your reluctance to a cutting fic. I don't really thrive on them (I'm not sadistic, really, I'm not!); I just thought that it would suit the situation. Thanks for the list of shows. I'm going to stick with the ones I know. I was trying to make a statement by going against the over-used colors that everyone does. Really, the green and red things are getting on my nerves. (Though green is my favorite color)
Alpha: Thank you, I'm getting mixed responses on the amount of American shows there are in England. Maybe the cable is different in different parts of England?
Daniz: Does Sirius seem like an unrealistically good parent? I was kind of trying to go for that, but I hope I'm not overdoing it. And aren't all teens depressed? Stupid hormones! *Spits on simulated hormones*. And, as I told A. Dee, I'm not going to tell you where Sirius is going, you will probably find out, or guess.
Hope you liked that chapter. I'll be updating soon, if my mom doesn't catch me on the computer. Let me just tell you, never do drugs! Being away from fanfiction.net has caused me horrible withdrawal! I can only guess what doing drugs would feel like!
Next Chapter- Confrontation. Harry deals with his dreams. Meet my simulated dog who has no name. He is furry and fluffy, but not as much so as part of the next chapter. (Well, maybe I'm exaggerating). Hope you like.