Loss
By Hpfan
Chapter VI- Confrontation
Harry awoke sweating from his latest dream, in which, he watched as Voldemort tortured the Durlsleys relentlessly. Normally, had he had a dream, he would have read, or wrote to Sirius, but now that he had Sirius right here, he could help feeling nervous about it. Maybe a bit of TV. He didn't bother bringing his bedspread because it was too hot. He made his way down the stairs and put his head on the leather couch. 'I'm going to stick to this thing like glue.' He thought. It was too hot to have a leather couch, but it was so comfortable!
Harry realized that it was four in the morning and that nothing but old sitcoms were on, but he couldn't bring himself to sleep. Then, suddenly he remembered the dreamless sleep potion that he had bought. He took it out of the plastic bag, being careful not to make too much noise.
'Bottoms up.' He though, and drank a fourth of the bottle. A wave of drowsiness overwhelmed him, and he collapsed on the couch.
Harry awoke the next day to Sirius shaking him. "Wha…?" he asked groggily.
"It's twelve o'clock. Do you want lunch?" he asked
"Not if you made it." He said. He might have been groggy, but he wasn't lacking common sense. The next thing he knew he had a pillow in his face. "Watch it!" he muttered loudly.
"I had the mind to just wake you up and wait for you to make it. I won't even eat my own cooking." He said in a serious voice. Harry groped around for his glasses, and suddenly realized that he could see. 'Old habits die hard' he thought. He stood up and stretched. It was too hot to cook.
"Can't we just have pop sickles?" he asked
"I already ate them all." Sirius said nonchalantly.
"You bought two boxes!" he said. "Doesn't this house have an a/c?"
"No, but I can do this." And he waved his wand and said "aestus estus redigo" and suddenly the temperature fell to a bearable level.
"Please tell me that, even though it's been swelteringly hot all throughout this morning, you didn't cast that spell." Harry said in a would-be-calm demeanor.
"I did it yesterday, but it wore off through the night, and I didn't have a chance to recast it." He said evenly.
"Well, what do you want to eat? More importantly, what do we have left in the fridge?" he asked, playfully.
"Anything. As long as it's edible, and there's a lot of it." Sirius laughed at his own joke. He sat down at the table, and picked up the newspaper. Harry didn't say anything to him as he silently made pancakes.
Breakfast was a silent occasion, as both seemed to have nothing to say. After breakfast, Harry went outside to fly his broom. He was lost in thought for a while, and didn't notice it when the two hours of time passed him by. He was thinking about the situation with his dreams, and the fact that he saw Sirius kissing someone in the dark alley, and the death of the Dursley's.
It wasn't until Sirius came outside, and called him down, that Harry looked at his watch and had to double take. He went inside and indifferently paced around, not knowing what to do. He challenged Sirius to a game of wizard chess, but it became less fun when he was trampled to the ground three times in a row. His chessmen where threatening him with treason. The rest of the day was just a boring mix of events, such as watching TV, and playing wizard games, and reading. Despite the boredom encountered, Harry was happy just being lazy and lying around the house, and eating the proper amount of food.
Harry wondered if this was the normal behavior for kids his age. Just roaming around their house like slugs, and practicing quidditch. That's what Ron seemed to do. Harry had loved it at the Weasleys, when he could just wake up at anytime and eat a five course breakfast, but it was even more relaxed at Sirius's, where he didn't have to wake up at 12:00 noon and be embarrassed, but it was expected of you.
Harry went to bed that night, just feeling grateful that he could be treated like a normal kid.
___
Harry snuck out of his room, beads of sweat running down his face from his latest nightmare. It had been one of his worst ones yet. It must have been that it had hit so close to home. It had happened in the graveyard Cedric had died in. Harry had seen the headstones near the cauldron Voldemort was resurrected in, but now, everyone he cared most about was tied up. Sirius, Hermione, Ron, Remus were all there, and Harry was tied to the biggest headstone of all. Voldemort suddenly appeared behind the graves and looked venomously at Harry.
"I hope you know that you will be the killer of all your friends Harry. They're all here because of their association with you." He had said, and with that, he began picking off his friends one at a time. First, he tortured Remus with the Cruciatus curse for a few minutes, before killing him. He killed Hermione by forcing a potion down her throat that made her scream, until the acid-like substance ate its way through her entire body.
Ron looked horror stricken at Hermione, and then gave Harry a sidelong glance, and his face contorted into a look of loathing; first at Voldemort, but then at Harry. He screamed "This is all your fault Harry!" before Voldemort put a curse on him that burned him into ash, slowly and gruesomely.
Sirius looked at the three, knowing what was to come. Harry flinched; expecting backlash from Sirius about how the entire incident had been his fault, but Sirius just gave him a blank stare. It was disturbingly solemn, and Harry couldn't help but feel like it was the worst of them all. Voldemort didn't even bother taking off Sirius's torturous curse, he simply let him suffer and scream and yell, until his simply couldn't take the pain any longer and died.
Harry had woken up sweating, and with tears running down his face, hopping he hadn't screamed out loud. The dream had been all too much, and Harry, in spite of how childish it seemed, had to get out of bed to check to see if Sirius was alright.
He snuck up to Sirius's door, and slowly inched the door open, recoiling as a loud creek echoed through the hall. Harry stuck his head in the door and saw a figure on the bed that was Sirius's. He wanted to draw his wand and just check to see if he was okay, but the door squeaked again, and Harry heard Sirius's hoarse voice say, "Harry?"
"I'm sorry if I woke you up. I- I just wanted- I'll just go." Harry said, and he turned to leave.
"Harry. Come in."
Harry moved to the bed, feeling self-conscious, as Sirius sat up in bed and lit a candle that sent a dim, eerie light cascaded over the room. Sirius made an action directing him to sit down. Harry crawled on the top of the bed and sat down in the middle of the queen-sized four-poster with his knees to his chest. He felt vulnerable sitting there.
"Did you have another dream?" he asked in a soothing voice. Harry merely nodded. "Will you tell me?"
Harry took a deep breath, knowing it would be no help to keep all of his dreams and fears bottled up. He looked into Sirius's eyes and felt like an open book. It was clear to him now that these dreams weren't just going to fade away. Without any more hesitation, in fear he would lose his nerve, he told Sirius a very watered-down version of the dream.
When he mentioned the forms of torture that Voldemort had used in his dream, his voice felt very constricted. It was difficult to describe in words how painful it had been hearing everyone screaming for all they were worth like that.
By the time Harry was finished, he was shaking with suppressed emotion. He was aware that Goosebumps were all over his body. Sirius sat up and Harry unconsciously moved closer to his godfather.
"Harry, I don't know what to tell you about these dreams. They say that dreams are suppose to be your self-conscious way of telling yourself something is wrong. I mean, the obvious explanation is that you feel guilty, but maybe it something deeper then that. Maybe what you need to do to get rid of these dreams is to do the harder thing. It's easy enough for you to apologize, but, well, you have to search with yourself to find what it is you're trying to tell yourself."
Harry cogitated that for a while. Maybe the reason for the dreams wasn't that he was feeling guilty, but what else could it be?
"I- I don't know what else it could be, Sirius. Guilt is the only thing I can think of. I mean, what else is there?"
Sirius shook his head, at a loss. "I think only you can figure that out. You know yourself better then I do.
Harry buried his head in his knees, frustrated and tired. Harry did feel better now that he had gotten the dream off his chest. He knew what he was looking for now; the advice made him feel like there was something he could do, and that made him feel less helpless.
Sirius put a hand on his shoulder. Harry's eyes were burning with lethargy, but he was afraid to fall asleep. He was drawn between losing sleep, and dealing with his nightmares, but one thing he knew, the longer that he sat there, the longer he was keeping Sirius awake. He lugged himself off the bed, almost dead on his feet.
"Harry, come here." Sirius called. Harry turned, his fatigue flushed face looked at Sirius's. Sirius looked at him sadly, like he wished that he could have done more for him. He gave him a warm hug. "You can get through this Harry. Dreams can't get to you unless you let them. You just worry about the one's where your scar hurts you." And he scooted over in bed, making room for Harry to get in.
Harry complied, tiredly, and fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.
___
Harry didn't awake the next day until the smell of smoke hit his nose. He was either having a really peculiar dream, or the house was on fire. He jumped out of bed, and to his astonishment, found he was in Sirius's room. The dream and the rest of the event last night flooded his brain. Finally, he rushed out the door and hurried down the stairs toward the source of the smoke: unsurprisingly, the kitchen.
He drew his wand out of the sweatpants he had worn to bed last night. "Sirius?" he called toward the smokescreen that blocked the kitchen from view. He received no response. Alarmed, he muttered an extinguishing charm. The smoke took two minutes to clear out of the room. When he finally entered the room, he saw Sirius lying unconscious on the floor. Harry tried not to panic, but hardly succeeded.
He rushed to his side immediately, and checked to make sure Sirius was breathing. He was, though shallowly. Harry had to use 'Enervate' three times before getting a response. By the time Sirius woke up, Harry was almost hyperventilating.
Sirius coughed for a good minute and a half, before coming to his senses. "Are-are you okay, Sirius?" he asked in a voice that reminded him of a scared two-year-old.
"Uh, I- I don't know. Harry? What's going on?" he asked in a bewildered voice.
"You must have tried to cook something, because the kitchen was filled with smoke, and when I extinguished it, I found you unconscious on the floor. God, I- I thought you were- were dead or something, Sirius!"
"I- I'm fine. Just, remind me if I ever try to cook again of the consequences…" he shuddered.
"I think that we should put a repelling charm on you to keep you away from the hardware." He said, more to himself, but Sirius caught it, and swatted at his head.
"So, will you make breakfast with the remaining pots and pans that I haven't ruined?" he asked with a note of pleading in his voice. Harry sighed, but his stomach ruined the moment by grumbling, sending them both into fits of laughter.
Harry set down the meal, just as a tiny owl landed in the middle of it. Sirius cursed as specks of chipped beef flew into his face. Harry grabbed him before he had a chance to fly around the room for fifteen minutes.
The letter Pig carried was short, but to the point.
Dear Harry,
Hermione and I, after two days of pleading and begging, finally persuaded Mum to let us stay over at your place. It will only be for a couple days, but at least it's something. Ask Sirius if we can and reply by return owl we'll come tomorrow at 3:00 if we are allowed to.
Ron
"Sirius. Ron wrote to tell me that his parents agreed to let Ron and Hermione come over for a few days. Can they?" he asked with a note of pleading. Sirius looked up from stuffing his face in his breakfast.
"He's sure that his parents are okay with it? Because, I know that I would be a little apprehensive had I been told that you were going to stay with someone who was convicted of murder."? He said.
"Ron said in the note that he convinced them. I guess he told them the story behind it." Harry said, still with the glint in his eyes that five-year-olds use to get expensive birthday presents.
"Owl him back and tell him it's fine. By the way: we still haven't named our house. What do you suggest?"
Harry wanted to hug him, but thought it unwise. "It's your house. What were you thinking?" he asked.
"The reason I asked you was because I would probably name it something disturbingly freaky. You choose." Harry was beginning to get frustrated. So he gave the first thing that popped in his head.
"How about…the Snidget Shack?" he asked. Sirius looked pensive.
"That sounds good. I'll go fire that to the MOMAA." Said Sirius getting up.
"You'll go what to the what?" Harry asked with a raise eyebrow.
"Firing is a form of communication. Remember the day my head popped in the fireplace of your common room? That's called firing. And the MOMAA stands for Ministry Of Magic's Address Association." Sirius explained.
"Oh." Said Harry, feeling slightly naïve. "So, I'll owl Ron back, and tell him to flu to the house using the 'The Snidget Shack.'"
The day passed agonizingly slow, as it always did when you were anticipating the arrival of guests. Harry was also feeling uneasy about his nightmares. What was he going to do about them? Worse, what if had one while Ron and Hermione were here?
Soon, dinner was over, and it was all Harry could do to stall himself from going to bed. At 9:30, Sirius was getting really antsy. Finally, at 10:00, Sirius demanded he go to bed. Harry stalled as much as he could in the shower, but after a half hour, Sirius was pounding on the door.
When he got out of the shower, Sirius was waiting for him outside the bathroom with his arms crossed. "You realize that stalling will get you nowhere." Sirius said. Harry looked at everything except his face.
"I'm just not tired." Said Harry in a small voice, still not looking him in the eye. Sirius just raised his eyebrows and gave him a patronizing stare. "Fine, fine, I'm going.
"And don't bother trying to read in bed, because I charmed your lights to go out as soon as you get into bed."
Harry looked at him, first frustrated, then annoyed, then pleading. "Come on Sirius. I- I really hate this. These nightmares are really getting to me, and frankly, well, I- I'm…" Harry cut himself off, knowing it would do no good.
"Look Har, I really hate the fact that your having nightmares. If letting you stay up all night could somehow help you, I would let you, but it won't, and you need face them. I would let you take the potion, but you can't take that every night, and I would assume that you would probably rather take it while Ron and Hermione are here then tonight. Just remember what we talked about." He said, before turning toward his room.
Harry turned on the light in his room. There was no use trying to avoid it. Might as well get it over with. He changed into nightwear and got into bed.
___
Harry was in a house he could only assume was his parents old house. It had a warm atmosphere that seemed to invite him farther into the house. 'But that makes no sense. This is suppose to be a nightmare isn't it?' Harry sighed, just trying to get this over with. What would it be tonight: A replay of his parent's death; Cedric's death, the Dursley's death; maybe a combination of the three?
In the distance he heard two people talking in hushed voices. He seemed to drift closer to the voices; if not by choice then by force. Harry could only make out small snippets of the conversation. "Do you…Peter was …secret keeper…"
"I don't…he wouldn't…Dark Lord…" said another voice, more feminine then the last. This was definitely a replay of his parent's death. Maybe with a twist at the end.
The ambiance in the house seemed to drop at least ten degree's and the talking suddenly came to a standstill, leaving behind a creepy deafening silence. 'Here we go.' Thought Harry.
A dry chuckling seemed to be coming from the outside of the house. It escalated to booming, mirthless cackling. The door burst off its hinges with green wind. Harry didn't think twice about who it was: Voldemort. What met his eyes was probably the scariest thing he could have imagined; worse then a thousand Voldemorts. Starring back as him was his worst nightmare: himself.
It went over just like the voices that he had heard a thousand times, with one little exception.
"Lily, It's him! Run. I'll hold him off. " He saw his father run down the staircase toward him. He saw himself face his father, His counterpart looking up at his father smirking a sneer then resembled Draco's, Snape's, and Voldemort's. His matching part didn't even hesitate. Harry could sense no uncertainty in any of his actions.
"Avada Kedavra." He heard his voice bellow. It scared him to hear the words come out of his mouth. His father's body dropped to the floor with a sickening thump. Harry would have given anything to have been in control of his legs right then. He was forced up the stairs like a solider, after the mysterious duplicate of himself. His mother was huddled in her bedroom, and Harry watched in misery as his double muttered the final words that sealed his mothers fate.
Suddenly, the clone disappeared from the room, and two ghostly images of his parents appeared infront of him. "You killed us Harry. Don't even try to deny it. You killed us." His parents looked at him with grim, disgusted facial features. In all the pictures that he saw of them, they had always been kind, generous looking people, but here, they looked oddly reminiscent of Snape. They insulted him and affronted him, and all he could do was ask for forgiveness.
But then, suddenly, Sirius's words flooded his mind. "Maybe what you need to do to get rid of these dreams is to do the harder thing. It's easy enough for you to apologize…" Suddenly it was clear. He wasn't doing himself, or his parent's justice by apologizing, so he might as well…
He looked his parents in the eye. The stared back at him coldly. He mustered up all of the courage he could get. "You're wrong! You-Your not my parents. My parents wouldn't blame me for what happened, and neither would Cedric. And had the Dursley's been informed of the real circumstances, deep down, they wouldn't blame it on me either!" he shouted. His parents stared at him a long time, with blank looks. Suddenly, they smiled.
They smiled! And soon, Cedric appeared there too. He smiled as well. Finally, his father spoke. "We were wondering when you would get it." His mother elbowed him in the ribs.
"It took you long enough!" said Cedric. Harry broke out into a smile. Finally, his Uncle appeared there, looking around like he really didn't want to be there.
"I- I don't blame you boy. It wasn't your fault that that- that thing attacked my family." And with that, his Uncle left, obviously not wanting to be there. Harry really didn't blame him though.
"So will you please believe your own words? It isn't your fault that anything happened to us." Said his mother with a smiling face.
"Bye Harry" they said.
___
"Harry?" said a voice that he recognized as Sirius's. "Harry wake up. You slept through the night." He said.
"I, I did? I slept through the night?" he said in a groggy morning voice.
"Yeah you did. I take it you either didn't have a nightmare, or you didn't wake up from it.
"I did it." Harry said. "I stood up to my nightmares." He had a smile on his face, even with his eyes closed.
"You did? That's great Harry. Now you have to wake up. It's ten o'clock, and we have to get ready for Ron and Hermione to arrive, and we still haven't fixed up the guest rooms." Harry grumpily got out of bed and went to go take a shower. While brushing his teeth, he looked at his arms. They were still scared, but it was less noticeable. It wouldn't be long before they were healed, and he wouldn't have to be apprehensive about anyone noticing that he had cut himself.
He went down to make breakfast, and noticed that Sirius was chewing on some cereal, and joined him. After they finished breakfast, they went up to the two guest rooms that Ron and Hermione would be sleeping in. By 2:00 they were finished, and went down to play a few games of gobstones before Ron and Hermione arrived. Suddenly the fire sprung to life, and glowed green, and Ron Weasley fell out of the fireplace face first.
Luckily, the hearth had cushioning charms placed all over it. Hermione walked out of the grate with dignity, but lost all poise as she tripped Ron and landed on him. Harry helped her up while biting his lip in amusement. Hermione let out a huff of annoyance, but Ron just looked shaken.
"Nice to see you both." He said, trying to be the host. Ron ignored his greeting and walked around the living room with great approval.
"Nice place." Ron said. Hermione rolled her eyes at his behavior, and smiled at him.
"Hello Harry. You defiantly look a lot better now that you're no longer wearing glasses." She said smiling.
"Yeah mate. You look different." Ron said inviting himself to sit on the couch. "Hi Sirius."
Sirius greeted Harry's friends, and Harry showed them to their rooms. Ron stared at the room he was staying in, astonished. "Whoa!" he said, in open-mouthed stun. "How is it that your guest room is bigger then my real room? This house is awesome!" Ron spoke in a flabbergasted whisper.
"Yeah, this place is pretty cool, huh?" Harry asked.
"Hey, guys: don't get unpacked; you'll need to bring your stuff with you tonight. We're going camping." Said a voice from behind them. There reflexes caused them to turn and they saw Sirius's smirking face.
End Chapter VI- Confrontation
As always, thank you for reading, and thank you sooooo much for reviewing!
Endnotes: How was that? Good? Bad? Strange? I've come up with a short poem to describe what it is that I'm going through in the writing department:
I can't get thoughts to run through my head,
It's starting to feel like my brain is dead.
Sometimes it's hard to write a line,
I'll write a whole chapter another time.
But in spite of the status, it's coming slowly but surely,
I hope that when I'm finished it's wasn't done poorly.
So listen carefully when I go,
When it doesn't flow,
It moves really slow.
Yeah, believe it or not, I'm actually a poet; I know that that was probably a really bad example of it, but I am. I've got two up on fictionpress.com, but, well, they aren't the best of my work. Anyway, It's coming; it's kind of oozing slowly out of my head, but somehow I think that once I get Harry to Hogwarts and the plot flowing, I'll get it up faster. You know those magnet things that are suppose to get your blood to flow faster? I've been wrapping them around my head. JK!
Notes to the reviewers: (And there were a lot of them!)
BabeyRachey: Thank you so much! I'm glad you liked it.
SarahPeach: Well someone's a little hard to please! JK! I can't have fluffy every chapter! See, with fluff, I've found that it has to be angsty, or else it sounds gay- no I mean, like, slash-. And if I'm going to have a lot of fluffy angst, then I'm going to need some light stuff. So, that was the balance, now here is some angst, and next chapter, we have some light stuff, and then we have some hardcore angst- along with some semi-fluff. (Hey, you can't just wave a magic wand over it and make it happen! It has to flow, and I'm having a hard enough time making my regular stuff flow!) You are good at fluff, but that was because you know how to make Harry and Sirius instantly love each other within the first two chapters, without making it seem totally screwed up!
I wish I had your talent. As for the whole Sirius/original character thing (He he, original character, it feels weird saying it, but oh you will see, I'm not a hypocrite, in fact, this is my Mary Sue revenge! *gives a bout of evil laughter!* Oh, and suspense is just something that I'm good at! I'm not sadistic; I just like seeing people begging for more! You will find out who she is in good time. Oh, and I'm going to put up a sign that says, 'Bend twists ahead', because you don't even know how much this is going to shock you!
A.Dee: Funny? Yes, funny, I suppose that works. Yup, this will be funny! Next chapter won't be funny though; neither will the next one for that matter. But this chapter was suppose to be funny- tat should be about as funny as it will get though
Angela: Thanks, you know ,I would have a beta reader, but I'm not exactly sure how the whole process works. If you know, that I'll be sure to make you my Beta! Yeah, I know what you mean with the emotions thing. I'm trying! I really am. I think I'm a bit hesitant to make Harry have his heart on his sleeve though. It just doesn't seem canon of him to be like that. I will try to make him more open. I think that this chapter is showing that.
Alpha: I'm sorry, I'm American, and I have no clue what's going on in Britain right now. I think that if I tried to draw my own conclusions I would sound like a tourist. Some of the things we heard about over here you don't even know about. I'm just going to stick with American shows.
Midnight Kat: Thank you for your review. I'm honestly shocked. I thought that I was making Sirius too goofy! You think that I'm making Sirius too serious? (No pun intended) Well, I think that people get the illusion from the book that he is going to be happy-go-lucky, but I saw his description as being more haunted from Azkaban, and I think that he'd be a good father figure.
Blueberrie: I'll look forward to your review. I've wondered where you have been.
Next Chapter: Roughin' it, and confinement. This next chapter will be interesting. There will be a huge twist right in the middle of the chapter, and I know you are all dying to find out- I hope.