Harry Potter and the New Start: In the Arms of Safety

Hello everyone. Thank you so much to all of the reviewers for the last chapter. This is it, guys, this chapter, the next, and then the final chapter. Three! Can you believe it?

This takes place the morning after the last chapter.

-------------------------------Emeralds' Palace

"Sirius!"

The childlike scream tore at Sirius's heart as he ran back into his godson's room. How many more times through the night would Harry wake up screaming? Since he'd put his little godson to bed six hours earlier, he'd woken up almost every hour. It was morning now, but the boy had gotten little to no peaceful sleep.

Sirius had only left for a moment, only to change his clothes into something else. As he pulled open the door to Harry's room, he was clad solely in a pair of well-loved jeans. Of course, this was normal attire.

When would things return to normal?

Harry sat up in bed, tears streaming from his terrified emerald eyes. "Sirius!" he cried again, holding his arms out to be held.

Obliging his godson instantly, Sirius pulled Harry to him the moment he was sitting on the bed. "Shh, baby, it's all right. We're home now. No one will hurt you here." He whispered, calming Harry as he'd done every time before.

How valid or truthful his last statement was to Harry, he wasn't sure.

There was no way that Peter, if he was still alive, could harm Harry or himself. He wouldn't know where to find them anymore - the memory charm had taken care of that.

They had been foolish to repeat the name of their home out loud outside of its confines. It was a mistake that he would never make again.

He also wouldn't take Harry from the safety of their home again anytime soon. But before he did, he would make damn sure that they were clear on never mentioning the worlds "Emeralds' Palace" in the world again.

Sirius kept rocking Harry back and forth, knowing that the little boy would calm and fall asleep again. It had been their pattern all night long.

Harry sniffed against Sirius's chest, crying still. Instead of falling asleep, however, the little boy looked up with sad eyes. Sirius wanted more than anything to go back in time and change things so his godson wouldn't have had to go through all that. It broke his heart to see Harry like this. "Go back to bed, Emeralds, I'll be here when you wake up." He promised, berating himself for leaving at all in the first place.

"I don't want to." Harry returned, shocking Sirius. He hadn't said anything since they'd returned, with the exception of Sirius's name. Though he was happy that Harry was talking again, it still hurt that the first thing that he said was essentially that his nightmares had gotten so bad that he no longer wanted to sleep.

Sighing, Sirius shifted them so he was lying on the pillows and Harry was laying on him. "I know you're scared, Harry, but you can't stop sleeping. I know you're tired." He said gently.

"No." Harry firmly repeated, burrowing his face in Sirius's neck. Whether he was denying sleep or being tired, or just the whole thing in general, Sirius wasn't sure.

Heart breaking all the more, Sirius pulled Harry's head from its hiding place, "Look at me, Harry." He said, gently commanding. If he'd used any harsher a tone, he wouldn't have been sure that Harry could have handled it. "We're safe." He said simply. "That's all there is to it, no one will hurt you again."

Harry didn't say anything at all for a moment. He just looked at Sirius, his green eyes searching Sirius's blue ones. He seemed to be looking for any lies or deceit in his godfather's eyes, as though Sirius wouldn't tell him the truth of this.

After a moment, though, he seemed to find nothing that didn't support his claims to safety. Harry dropped his head down, "He'll come back." Harry whispered with the voice of a lost little boy.

"No, he won't." Sirius countered, "He…he's dead, Harry."

Sirius wasn't sure how Harry would deal with that statement. Though the deaths of his parents were a shadow in their lives, and the reason they were together locked away from the world, it wasn't something that Harry had dealt with at all in his life.

It was still the surreal concept that didn't quite make sense to him, just as it was for all small children.

Staying quiet a moment, Sirius let Harry process the information. Or rather, the confirmation of what Harry already knew to be a possibility. After a second, Harry responded, doubt clouding his voice. "How do you know?"

"He was knocked out, Harry, and the fire was going strong by then." Sirius gently explained. He wasn't going to draw out the image of Peter being burned to death for the little boy, but if Harry asked, he'd be more specific.

Thankfully, he didn't. "How do you know?" he asked again. "You didn't see…he might still be…" he rushed on, getting upset. He looked as though the tears would overcome him again, but Sirius quickly pulled the little boy back down to him.

"No, no, baby, don't worry. It doesn't matter. I cast that spell on him. If he lived, then he won't remember us being here or anything." He soothed, hoping Harry would understand that he'd never see Peter Pettigrew again. "It's okay, Harry, shhh, don't cry."

Harry trembled at the thought of Peter finding his way back to them again, and Sirius held him all the tighter. "No one will separate us again." He whispered fiercely. He knew it was a lie, he knew that he couldn't be with Harry his whole life. There were things that Harry had to do in his life that Sirius couldn't hold his hand for.

One thing he could promise, and did promise himself right then, was that he would get his godson as far as he could. And when the battles were over, when the experiences that Sirius couldn't walk him through were done, he would be there. He would be the one to talk to Harry, to help him accept what had happened, to help him heal.

After a few minutes, Harry calmed enough for Sirius to pull him back up to see his face, though Harry resisted, clearly wishing to stay hidden. "Harry, do you understand what I said?" he asked.

The boy didn't respond. Sirius felt his heart constrict again at Harry's silence. Instead of forcing him to talk, which Sirius felt would only make things worse for Harry, he answered his own question. "Peter is dead, Harry. And even if he isn't, and I doubt he survived, his memory was modified with a powerful charm. He won't remember ever seeing us. He doesn't know where we live. He doesn't know what you look like. That's it Harry, he's gone. One way or another, he's gone."

Harry didn't respond, and Sirius wished he would. He wished that Harry would look up smiling and accept that things were all right again. He wished they were all right again.

He knew that wasn't the case though.

Things wouldn't be the same ever again. A piece of Harry's innocence had been stolen, a piece that would never be reclaimed. Harry wouldn't be as carefree as before.

The way he thought of their hiding would change. No longer would it be one big game of hide and seek to him, now it was survival. Harry now knew what would happen if they were found, he knew the risks and how important it was to be careful.

Sirius wished that wouldn't be the case. He wished his godson would always stay just as innocent as he was before Peter had interrupted and smashed their peaceful lives.

But that wish was just as impossible as his hope for time travel.

Harry was growing up, he was finding out that the world wasn't as pretty as their little corner of it. Things outside the barriers of Emeralds' Palace weren't nice or easy. The wizarding world was still fearful of Voldemort, and they were still fearful of Sirius.

There were aspects of human nature that Harry knew nothing of yet. He certainly didn't know of want, for Harry had everything he wanted, a fact that Sirius had made sure of. He didn't know of cruelty or deceitfulness, of using someone for your own person gain, he knew nothing of evil, jealousy, vanity or selfishness.

And not one month ago, he knew nothing of true fear.

Wormtail had changed that. He took a little boy who had nothing more to be afraid of than early bedtimes or pranks and made him afraid to see for the fear of being stolen away from everything he knew. Harry feared other people now. Harry feared the outside world. The one time Sirius had taken him out into it, his perceptions had been challenged and just plain changed.

There was no way that things were returning to the way they had been before. The truth of that hurt Sirius, but not nearly as much as it was hurting Harry.

He knew though, that things wouldn't always be this terrible.

The fear would fade with time, until the kidnapping was just a horrible memory.

The fear of people would give way to intense shyness and reluctance to trust instantly.

The fear of the outside world would soon become apprehension of leaving their safe little home and joining his peers at school.

And bit-by-bit, Harry's innocence would change into something else. Something that would serve him later when it came time for him to fulfill his role in the war.

His little godson would become a brave hero one day, he knew it.

But until that day came, Harry Potter was just a little boy trembling in his godfather's arms. The pain in him would grow less as Harry became stronger. Until that day came, however, he would have his godfather leading him every step of the way.

Sirius hadn't been able to protect him from the horrors of what had happened, but he would be there to help him through the horrors of surviving it, and what that meant. He would be right there to hold him after nightmares, and reassure him when the memories swirled back up.

Holding his godson just a bit tighter as the boy fell back asleep, Sirius wondered if Harry growing up would always be this scary to him.

At least, though, Harry and Sirius had survived this particular tragedy.

I may have gone just a bit too deep into philosophical meaning of growing up, but I suppose it's all right. I hope you enjoyed the chapter!

Two to go, guys.

Please, let me know what you think!

Stars Enchantress