Answers

Harry woke up early the next morning as usual. He headed down the hall to the bathroom for his shower, and then returned to his room. Harry sat down at his desk. What could he write to Sirius about today?

Harry wrote the letter quickly. He was in a better mood today, ready to laugh at the world. The letter reflected his mood; he had shared something funny Dudley had done the other day with Sirius.

On a sudden impulse, Harry decided to read his other letters again. He reached under the floorboard and pulled them out – all eight of them. He had only glanced at the first one when something caught his eye. There was something written on the parchment.

Something he hadn't written.

"Dear Sirius,

"I'm fine. The Dursleys are staying away from me, because Moody said the Order'd come after them if they touched me. My aunt's getting all weird, though. You know, sentimental? I guess the thought of Voldemort returning hit her pretty hard. She was the only one who ever met my mum, I think.

"My summer's been pretty boring, stuck in the house all day. I don't mind. I'd rather face Voldemort later, after I've had a chance to learn how to defend myself against him. Because I want to live. I haven't really kissed anyone yet, except Cho, and she didn't count because ... I dunno, she was practice or something. She doesn't matter to me. And I've never even done it. I definitely don't want to die without having done it. What would Ron think?

"I want to know everything that's been going on. I heard some things on the Muggle radio the other day ... three kids kidnapped out of a London flat and things like that. Is Voldemort behind any of it?

"Let me know what's happening and when I can get out of here.
Harry"

And underneath that was written:

"Dear Harry,

"Yeah, women tend to get sentimental on you, don't they? That Cho girl was probably sentimental too, right? Wouldn't hurt to listen to what she has to say, would it?

"Actually, now that I think about it, I remember James complaining about having to go to a dinner party with Lily's sister. I think the whole family went, when you were five or six months old.

"Hey, if you want to fool around, don't let me stop you! I did plenty of that in my school days. Just be careful and don't get anyone pregnant, not unless you're truly willing to take the responsibility of a baby.

"I miss you, Harry, and I wish more than anything I could be with you, but it's just not like that. This is the way things were supposed to be. Hey, if I'm not down about it, why should you be?

"I'll be in touch.
Sirius"

Harry leaned back against his bed, breathing hard. He wasn't sure what to do. He wanted to believe more than anything that this reply was genuine, but he knew it wasn't. It was written in pen.

One of the Dursleys must have found the letter and had decided to play a joke on him and pretend it was Sirius writing back. Harry flung the parchment across the room as hard as he could. Stupid, rotten Dursleys. Evil. Foul. Loathsome. Disgusting. Gross. Abominable. There weren't enough adjectives in the dictionary to describe his hatred.

But then another voice popped up in his mind. For a moment there, you thought Sirius had written to you. You liked it. You wanted him to answer you, and he did, in a way.

Harry picked up the parchment and took a second look. Whichever one had done it, it looked as if they had done their research well. It would have been a perfect imitation of Sirius's way of writing, if it weren't for the fact that he was ... dead.

It was the first time he'd said that to himself. Sirius was dead. The words took hold of his mind, chanting, "Sirius is dead, Sirius is dead, Sirius is dead," over and over until Harry didn't think he could stand it and he fell face down onto the carpet and cried.

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When his sobs subsided half an hour later, Harry picked up the parchment again curiously. It wasn't so bad. If he really wanted to, he could pretend that Sirius's answers were real ...

Harry read through all his letters again and read "Sirius's" responses. Some of them made him laugh, like Sirius giving him tips on kissing and how to get Lanie Peters to notice him. Most of them made him laugh; Sirius didn't seem to want to write about the hard stuff.

When he finished reading through all the letters, Harry set out to write his own reply.

"Dear Sirius,

"Thanks for yours advice on Lanie. She and her friends are in their room right now. I can hear them, giggling away about something. There's a Muggle saying – you can't live with them, you can't live without them. Stupid, sentimental, beautiful girls.

"You think Ron and Hermione will ever get together? I dunno, Ron seems jealous and protective of her sometimes. She doesn't regard him too highly though. They're always fighting; it can be a pain.

"Well, that's the story of my life right now, if you can't tell me what's going on with Voldemort. Lying here, day after day after day after day, thinking about you and Lanie Peters. Sigh ...

"Write me back soon.
Harry"

He signed his named with a small, sad smile and turned to face his ever- growing pile of letters from Ron, Hermione, Lupin, Hagrid, and practically everyone else in the Order. Pulling out another piece of parchment, he wrote:

"Dear Everyone,

"Don't worry about me. I'm fine, and I'm talking to someone about Sirius.
Harry"

It was the most he'd written all summer.

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AN: How was that? Okay, people, please review this and in your reviews tell me if I should write another chapter to finish it off. I thought maybe one more letter, talking about the hard stuff. Whatever your opinions, please give them and please review! Thanks to everyone who's reviewed so far!

Disclaimer: Everything in this story belongs to JK Rowling except the plot and Lanie Peters. I was just playing around with her creations!

Another AN: The line "Lying here, day after day ..." is taken from the Sorcerer's Stone movie and belongs I guess to Steven Kloves.

One more AN: My ten-year-old brother and his friends like to sing the chant "Sirius is dead, Sirius is dead," whenever they see me (sometimes in public!) because I cried while reading the part where Sirius dies in OotP. So when you read the chant, imagine five or six ten-year-old boys dancing around you and singing it, because that's what was going through my head when I wrote it.