Altercations

By Neurotica

Three

Sirius stared at the closed door of his godson's bedroom. The small metal sign reading "Harry's Room" was still in place after nearly ten years, when the boy had first moved into the room. How long Sirius had been standing at the door, he didn't know. Harry'd been told to stay in bed by Dumbledore—he had run some tests and performed some spells to protect Harry from future possession by Voldemort and Harry would be weak for a few days until his body adjusted. Sirius hadn't been in to see Harry since the night before, after his long, strange conversation with Naomi. Of course, Harry had been asleep then, but it was likely he'd be awake now, seeing as how it was nearly lunchtime and all.

Remus had gone in, as had Emmeline, but Sirius kept making excuses that he had things to do. Was he avoiding Harry? He didn't like to phrase it that way, but he was, really. He wasn't sure if he was more afraid to face Harry because of what had happened the evening before or of what he'd seen in Harry's eyes. He had enough faith in Albus Dumbledore that he was sure Voldemort wouldn't be able to possess Harry again, so he wasn't worried about that. He hated himself for even thinking it, but he was afraid to be in the same room with his godson...

"Are you trying to do wandless magic again, Padfoot?" asked Remus from behind him. "Because it's still not working."

"Remus, the next time you make a crack about wandless magic, I'll..."

"You'll what?" Remus asked. Sirius could hear him grinning.

Sirius turned to glare at him. "I'll eat your hidden stash of Honeyduke's chocolate."

Remus raised an eyebrow. "You're not supposed to know about that. Have you been going through my things again? I thought you would've learned your lesson last time..."

"Oh, you mean when I opened your sock drawer and was doused in a layer of itching powder? Moony, you should know by now that it takes more than that to keep me from being nosy..."

"Hmm," Remus said, frowning in thought. A moment later, he nodded decisively. "Next time I'll use the boil powder I bought off Fred and George... It's still experimental they said, but it should do the job nicely."

Sirius raised an eyebrow this time. "You bought something from Fred and George?'

Remus shrugged nonchalantly. "Why not? Who am I to discourage their dreams of arming a generation of miscreants with pranking supplies?"

"And here I thought you'd become a respectable professor..."

"I'm a Marauder first and foremost, my dear Mister Padfoot. Always," Remus said with an incline of his head. "Now, why are you trying to see through Harry's door? Have you forgotten how to open it?"

"Har har," Sirius said dryly. "No... I just... I don't know what to say to him."

"You've never had a problem before."

"He's never been possessed by Voldemort before."

"True," Remus sighed. "Well, would you like me to go in with you?"

Sirius sighed. "No," he said quietly. "I'm just trying to get up the courage to go in there."

Remus nodded in understanding. He took a step closer to Sirius. "This is for your own good. You'll thank me later... Or perhaps not..." Before Sirius could even raise an eyebrow, Remus opened Harry's bedroom door, shoved Sirius through, and closed it firmly behind him. Sirius stumbled, managing to catch his footing before he fell to the floor, and turned to stare in amazement at the door. Remus was a very odd little man sometimes...

"Hey, Sirius," said a voice to his left. Sirius started a bit, having almost forgotten he was in Harry's room. He found his godson at the closet sitting cross-legged on the floor, sorting through a box of his old toys.

"Hey, kid," Sirius said awkwardly, stuffing hands in the pockets of his jeans and shifting a bit uncomfortably. "What're you doing out of bed?"

Harry shrugged. "I was bored, so I thought I'd look through my old stuff."

Sirius looked around nodding. Over the years, Harry's room had undergone some pretty drastic changes. When he'd first come to live at the cottage, the walls had been covered with family photos of the Potters and Quidditch posters. The bookshelves were filled with children's books and little childish knick-knacks and stuffed animals. The desk hadn't held much except some Muggle pencils, crayons, and drawing paper. Now, though, some of the posters had been replaced with voluptuous witches wearing somewhat revealing robes. The bookshelves contained Hogwarts books and comics, both Muggle and wizard. Harry's desk held various quills, inks, photos of his friends, and crumpled letters. Sirius had never really noticed how quickly Harry was growing up, but he suddenly wished his godson was still a helpless six-year-old who didn't care about anything except whether one of his guardians would take him flying that day.

Out of nowhere, Harry began to laugh, jolting Sirius from his thoughts. The wizard looked over to him, wondering what had amused him so. "What've you got there?" Sirius asked, going to sit beside Harry. The teenager was laughing too hard to get a word out of his mouth, so he held out a toy that had obviously been tampered with by magic.

It was a Mister Potato Head, but its features had been arranged to resemble a certain Hogwarts Potions Master. Sirius barked out a laugh, remembering the day he'd turned the toy into Snape—the same day Harry'd come to live with him and Remus. "Do you remember what you asked me when you first met him, Harry?" Sirius asked trying to catch his breath.

Still sniggering hard, Harry nodded. "Oh yeah... I asked if he was Mister Potato Head. I don't think he ever forgave me for that."

Sirius rolled his eyes. "He hasn't forgiven you for being your father's son, Harry. I highly doubt he'll forgive you for calling him Mister Potato Head, even if you were only five..."

Harry shrugged and sat the Snape-Potato-Head aside, continuing through the box. "Did you guys charm this box or something? It doesn't seem to have a bottom to it."

Sirius nodded. "Remus' idea. He figured this way you could keep it in here and add more to it as you got older."

"He's smart, that one," Harry muttered, pulling out toy cars and a Muggle action figure. His head shot up quickly as a flying toy flew from the box. The two wizards turned and watched the Hungarian Horntail fly around the room, breathing charmed fire that was cool to the touch, and roar quietly. "Wicked..." Harry grinned. That dragon had been one of his favorite playthings when he was small.

Sirius turned back to the box and frowned, finding something that shouldn't have been in there. "How'd you get a hold of this?" he asked, taking the black leather-bound book from the box.

"What is it?" Harry asked, looking over Sirius' shoulder as he opened the book.

"My old photo album. This is the one I kept all the pictures I had from Hogwarts, and just after. Julia put it together for me a few months before she died," Sirius replied quietly. Harry scooted closer to his godfather and they flipped through the pages together. He smiled occasionally when they found a picture of Lily and James together. One of the photos had been taken probably back in third or fourth year in the Gryffindor common room. Lily's face was redder than her hair as she shouted at James, who was visibly petrified of the young witch. If Sirius remembered correctly, he'd taken this photo just after James had somehow managed to charm all of her schoolbooks to recite cheesy love poems.

"Your dad was pretty hopeless back then," Sirius muttered affectionately. "Remus always tried to tell him not to be so forward with Lily—she didn't exactly like him then, but of course, he never listened, and this was the usual result."

Harry shook his head and chuckled. He was well aware of how his father and godfather had been perceived by his mother when they were in school. "What made her change her mind about him? I don't think you and Remus ever told me."

"Well," Sirius said, trying to remember exactly what happened. "Just after your grandparents were killed, you dad sort of had emotional shut down. He didn't talk, didn't eat... hell, I don't even think he slept much. School started, and as you know, he got Head Boy, though he really didn't care. Remus had to pin the badge to his robes and take him to the Prefects' carriage on the train for the first meeting of the term. From what Remus said when they got back, James didn't even reply to Evans'—Lily's, I mean—insults. Apparently she thought he'd stolen the badge from Moony... Anyway, he was like that for the first few months of the term. His grades started slipping, and I think Dumbledore even considered sending him to St. Mungo's to be evaluated.

"But just before Christmas, we had a Hogsmeade weekend. I didn't go because Peter and I were serving detention for Slughorn, and Remus was with Naomi. When we left the dorm, James was staring at the ceiling. When we all got back after dinner, he was gone. Well, we were going mental trying to find him—he wasn't anywhere on the map, see, and Remus hadn't seen him in Hogsmeade. Of course, he'd probably been too wrapped up in Naomi to notice anything...

"Just after dark, Peter checked the map again, and we found him down by the lake... with Lily. By now, she'd heard what happened to his parents, and was laying off on the insults, since he hadn't done anything to provoke her. Nevertheless, we thought it would be a good idea to go get him before something happened. But when we finally got our cloaks and got to the lake, we realized there'd been no reason to worry... They were kissing. Well, being the three stupid teenage boys we were, we made a big fuss about it and they broke apart. That was the first smile I'd seen on James' face in months and Lily was smiling too. I never really found out what happened, but Julia said she and Lily had found James sitting under a tree outside the Shrieking Shack, and Lily stopped to talk to him—Julia left to pick up a few things from Gladrags. That was it. Whatever they talked about obviously convinced your mum that James wasn't as bad as she'd thought, and a week later, they were official."

Harry smiled. "What do you think they talked about?"

Sirius smiled back. No matter how much he learned about his parents, Harry was always eager to hear more, and Sirius was more than willing to supply the information. "I honestly have no idea. James would never tell us; all he ever said was that he and Lily found mutual ground, whatever that means."

Harry nodded thoughtfully and reached for the photo album in Sirius' lap. He looked through the photos, stopping on one of Remus and Naomi just after they'd become engaged, about a year after Hogwarts. Both were glowing in happiness as Naomi showed off the small diamond ring to the camera, and Remus stood behind her, his arms tight around her waist, trying to get her to turn for a kiss.

"He really loved her, didn't he?" Harry asked, watching the picture with an expressionless face.

"With everything he had," Sirius confirmed softly. "He'd wanted to propose to her right after graduation, when you dad proposed to your mum, but her parents had wanted them to wait a year. They were afraid Remus and Naomi were rushing into something too fast."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "They started dating in sixth year, didn't they?" Sirius nodded. "Well, that's, what, a year and a half, two years? My parents got engaged after six months."

Sirius laughed. "Yeah, it makes no sense, I know, but people were making rash decisions all over the place—the war, you know. Mr. and Mrs. Watts tried to convince James to hold off too, but since they weren't his parents, they couldn't stop him."

"They were his godparents, though, right? So didn't they get custody of him when my grandparents died?"

"No," Sirius said, shaking his head. "James had just turned seventeen when his parents were killed, so he was free to live on his own—he stayed with me until the summer after seventh year, when he and Lily moved to Godric's Hollow together."

Harry nodded in understanding.

"But back to Remus and Naomi..." Sirius said, leaning back on his hands. "They waited a year, until Remus couldn't take it anymore, and they got engaged. I've never seen Remus as happy as he was after he proposed to her... The way he looks at Emmeline is pretty damn close, but it's not quite the same. I can only imagine what he went through when she left him..."

"Yeah, why did she do that?" Harry asked, anger beginning to edge into his voice. "From what I've heard, she hated the dark side, and all of a sudden she decides to join them. It makes no sense."

"Nothing made sense back then, Harry," Sirius said. "The entire world was in constant chaos; nobody knew what was going on. She's told Remus why she joined the Death Eaters, but he's never told me. I assume it something to do with her cousins and Wormtail, though."

"Her cousins?"

"The Lestrange brothers," Sirius said. "Rodolphus and Rabastan. Rodolphus married my cousin, Bellatrix..."

"So that would make you and Naomi cousins by marriage?"

"Technically, yes," Sirius said. "I don't consider us related, because I don't consider Bellatrix a part of my family. The only one I'll claim as family is Andromeda. But I disowned Bella and Narcissa years ago, when I was your age. Naomi never considered Rodolphus and Rabastan her cousins, either. That side of her family was pretty much unspoken of—her parents followed the Potters to our side, while their families were left with mine, supporting Voldemort."

"With everything you guys know about her, why's Naomi in the Order? What makes you think she's really on our side?"

Sirius sighed. "It's definitely a risk, having her spy for us, but Dumbledore knows what he's doing, and he'd never let anyone into the Order unless he was one hundred percent sure of their loyalties. He trusts Snape even though most of us hate him, so why would Naomi be any different? Besides, Naomi knows that if she double-crosses us, she's going to have a very pissed off werewolf after her." He grinned. "And to tell you the truth, I don't think she has any intentions of betraying us."

"Yeah, but how do you know?" Harry asked, turning slightly to face Sirius better. "What has she done to convince you guys she's on our side? How do you know she's not just trying to get on your good side to get more information out of you?"

"I've known Naomi for many years, Harry, and I can tell, just like Remus can, when she's putting us on—she never was good at pranking us at school, even though she tried many times. Granted, we didn't know what was going on when she was being contacted by Death Eaters, but we also hadn't realized what Peter was up to, so you can't really blame us there..." He sighed. "Naomi told us a lot about the Death Eater movements and Voldemort since she's come back to the Order. Don't tell Remus, but she and I have had a few late-night conversations at Headquarters, and she doesn't seem like she's hiding anything from us."

"Okay," Harry said, dropping the question for the moment. "Here's a question: If Wormtail hadn't been given the Dementor's Kiss, and he came back to the Order begging for forgiveness, would you forgive him like you forgave Naomi?"

Sirius averted his eyes from Harry's. The boy had to come up with the hard ones, didn't he? Well, it wasn't really that hard; in fact, he'd thought about it many times. "No," he said finally. "Though Naomi betrayed us and withheld information that could've kept your parents alive, she didn't do what Peter did. He had your parents' lives in his hands, and he willingly gave them over to Voldemort without a second thought. In my opinion, Peter Pettigrew is as much a murderer as Voldemort. As far as I know, Naomi didn't know what Peter was going to do. She didn't know we'd switched Secret-Keepers until she figured it out, after the fact. I think, and I could be very wrong, Naomi would've tried to save Lily and James had she'd known ahead of time. Or at the very least, she would have told someone. Your parents were two of Naomi's best friends, and she was just as devastated as the rest of us when they were killed..." Harry still didn't seem convinced. "Look, she's nowhere near being invited to Sunday dinner, but I do believe her, and I trust her."

"Did she know what Voldemort was going to do to me yesterday?" Harry asked quietly, picking at his carpet.

Sirius gulped a little. He'd almost forgotten about what happened yesterday. This wasn't the conversation he'd wanted to have with Harry just yet, but he knew it would have to happen sooner or later—he'd just hoped it would've happened later. "No, I don't think she did. Like the rest of us, she probably thought it was a possibility, but I honestly don't think she knew when it was going to happen. She wouldn't let something like that happen, especially not to you. If there was something to do to stop it, Harry... I know it wasn't you in there last night. I know you'd never do anything like that to us...."

Harry snapped his eyes up from the carpet, his eyes full of remorse. "I wouldn't..." he said hoarsely. "I'd never do that, Sirius. I didn't even know anything was wrong. There were parts of my days that were blacked out, but I didn't think anything of it..."

"It's okay…" Sirius said, pulling Harry into a one-armed hug. "It's over now, and we're all okay. We'll take extra steps to make sure it doesn't happen again."

Harry leaned his head against Sirius' shoulder and wrapped an arm around his godfather's waist, wanting to be five again, so he could justify crawling into Sirius' lap and crying. Neither of them spoke for long moments; they just sat there, the photo album lay forgotten on the floor.

Remus stood in front of the kitchen window with a fresh cup of coffee in one hand, the other in his pocket. Emmeline had gone into work. Remus would be doing his work from the cottage so he could keep an eye on Harry—just in case. He didn't think anything would happen that would require him to stun Harry again, but he was ready to do so if needed. He kept thinking of the utterly helpless look he'd seen on Sirius' face when he and Emmeline had returned home the day before. Sirius had never believed anything of this magnitude could happen to Harry, and therefore, he'd been in complete shock. Not to mention there was no way for Sirius to protect himself, even if he had realized what was going on before it was too late.

Sirius was always right about the worst things—in this case, his being an easier target for Voldemort and the Death Eaters. Of course, Voldemort knew how close Sirius and Harry were, and that Sirius would never do anything to intentionally hurt Harry. Remus was willing to bet that even if Sirius had been able, he never would have stunned Harry, no matter the circumstances. He would have allowed himself to be killed by his godson's wand because he was too afraid to hurt the boy. Remus didn't even want to think of what would have happened if Harry—or rather, Voldemort acting through Harry—would have succeeded the evening before and murdered Sirius. The boy would have been more than devastated; he would have been destroyed. It was bad enough he was worried his godfather would be murdered every time the Auror left the cottage, but if Harry'd been the one to do it...

Remus shook his head hard, trying to get away from those thoughts. With any luck, they would discover the curse on Sirius in short time, and they could get Sirius his magic back. Without him, Remus didn't see the Order succeeding in the war against Voldemort. Being without Sirius Black would be like being without Harry Potter—they'd be doomed.

A pair of arms wrapped tightly around Remus' middle, startling him a little. He heard Emmeline giggle quietly as she laid her head against his back. "What're you doing back? I didn't expect you until dinner at the earliest," Remus said, setting his coffee on the countertop beside him and turning to face his girlfriend. She moved her arms from his waist to around his neck and leaned up for a kiss. They broke apart a minute later, smiling, and rested their foreheads together.

"I can go back to the Ministry, if you prefer," Emmeline whispered, rubbing the back of his neck softly.

Remus shook his head slightly. "No, it's quite all right. I'd rather you be here."

"Good answer." She grinned. "So how're things around here? Any different?"

"Well," Remus sighed, "Sirius is in there talking to Harry, if that's what you're wondering about, but other than that, nothing."

"He finally went in there?"

"Yep, even though it took me shoving him through the door to do so," Remus said. "I've never seen Sirius this shaken up about anything before."

Emmeline frowned slightly. "Well, your godson being possessed by the most evil dark wizard in history and nearly murdering you in your home would have anybody shaken up, Remus," she said. Remus laughed a little, regardless of the circumstances. "Harry's one of those things Sirius considers safe, and now that that's been compromised, I wouldn't be surprised if Sirius doesn't want to be home alone with Harry for a long while..."

Remus sighed and closed his eyes. "It feels like everything's falling apart, Emmeline. Everything's so confusing nowadays, and I don't know how to make it better. I'm always the one to take care of Sirius and Harry, even though I let Sirius think he's the one doing the protecting. I can protect them from Voldemort and Death Eaters, and I can even try and protect them from their dreams, but how am I supposed to keep them safe from something like this? This is no different than Voldemort coming in here and trying to do us in."

"It is different because Voldemort wouldn't have been so easy to stun," Emmeline said with a straight face, trying to make Remus laugh. His lips twitched a bit. "Look, you're not going to be able to protect them from everything the world throws at them. Especially Harry... he's got a lot more responsibility than any of us would ever want to deal with, and he seems to be handling it okay for the most part. Now Sirius... Him I could understand needing protection—he's practically a Squib, and until we find this mysterious counter-curse—if it exists—yeah, he's going to need help. I've told you before that you need to look out for yourself as well as everyone you care about. I mean that, Remus. If something happens to you..." she trailed off, shaking her head. "Well, that would be a lot worse for Sirius and Harry, wouldn't it?"

Remus nodded slightly. "And what about for you?" he asked quietly.

She sighed. "I've only had you for seven months, and I'm not ready to lose you just yet. So do us all a favor, Remus Lupin, and keep yourself safe. Okay?"

Remus smiled and kissed her lips. "I'll do my best."