A/N: I know, I know, I'm a week late. But I had two giant projects due this week, one a 10-15 pg. short story rewrite for my fiction workshop (300 level for my major, so not a fun passtime sort of workshop) due on Monday and a 10-15 minute oral report to be given in German (my other major, ugh. Why can't I just be sane and rational about my educational goals?) due on Tuesday, so I seriously had no time at all. Luckily, I was saved from missing the one-week-late mark by a fit of insomnia (work in nine hours? Hm…not good).
Mud, consider yourself duly slapped But since schoolwork prevents my updates, I guess I can't say much.
To everyone who reviewed this chapter, I'm glad that you're enjoying the story. It may turn out to be a bit longer than I originally thought, given that this chapter somehow expanded itself beyond my expectations. And to the under-appreciated readers who enjoy the story but don't review (I'd be irritated by it, but then I'd be a complete hypocrite), thanks for your silent patronage!
Oh, and Moni, Harry's nine in this story. I don't intend to let this story span more than a few months, at most, and that's only if I introduce an actual plot.
As always, questions and criticisms welcome.
Oh, and one last thing to make this A/N unbearably long; I did up the rating because of Sirius's dialogue. Please be warned that I do not characterize him in a PG manner. I did try to keep the cussing down to a minimum, but it's still very much there. I do think that Remus will say something about it, but at a less intense and convoluted point in time. Ok. Now read the fic.
Chap. 5
Harry tried to back away from his raging godfather, but he had nowhere to go without getting up from the chair, and he still had a wounded one-and-a-half feet.
Remus stood and turned. "Sirius—"
"Don't you fucking dare to tell me to calm down, Remus." Sirius returned his attention to Harry, his gray eyes burning with a rage the boy had never seen, even in Uncle Vernon. "Is that what they told you? Is that what those fucking cu—"
"There are more important things at the moment."
Harry felt nothing but relief when Sirius's attention focused on Remus instead. The boy looked for a way to escape. His last attempt had been a complete failure. Maybe if he could get up the stairs behind the adults and latch the door closed? And then what? Harry decided that he'd figure that out when he got there and tried to slip, unnoticed, over the arm of the chair, but he couldn't stand. He found himself kneeling on the cold, wood floor, his left foot aching and his right marginally less tender. He looked around frantically for a plan B; nothing came to mind.
"More important things?" Sirius demanded, meanwhile. "What in Fuck's name is—"
Harry paused in his attempts to move somewhere, anywhere, when both adults fell completely silent. He looked up at them from over the arm of the chair. Remus was pointing down at him, while Sirius stared, wide-eyed, as though he'd never seen a nine-year-old boy before.
"Harry—"
Harry pulled back when Sirius started to move around the chair. Sirius stopped, the little color that had gathered in his hollow cheeks draining away.
"Harry?" The name came out as a croaky murmur.
Remus laid a hand on Sirius's shoulder. "Go sit down, Padfoot. I'll—"
Sirius shook his head, then shrugged off the hand. "No. I'll take care of this. He's my godson."
Remus looked uncertain, but then he gave a slight nod. Harry thought it all looked horribly ominous and backed further into the corner. He held a staring contest with Sirius for several long moments, a vast array of emotions Harry couldn't name passing over the older man's face. Then Sirius lowered himself to the floor.
"I wasn't trying to fighten you," Sirius said, his eyes still wide and sad; they reminded him very suddenly of Padfoot's eyes. Didn't Remus just call Sirius Padfoot? But—
"I was angry at your aunt and uncle. I never thought…Lily and James's son." Sirius shook his head. "They lied to you, Harry. They lied to you in the worst way possible. Everything you are, everything your parents were…well, I told you all about them just now. Surely you know magic must be real. You've done accidental magic." He paused, and then his eyes widened even more. "You called yourself a freak last night. Is that what they've told you?" His voice started to rise, but he stopped himself again, pressing a skeletal hand to his face. The fingers on the other hand had curled into a fist, but they relaxed after a moment. Sirius dropped his arm. "Lily and James were the best witch and wizard Hogwarts ever saw. From the looks of it, you'll be following right behind. We'll do something to celebrate properly, as soon as we've got you sorted."
"Witch and wizard?" Harry asked, leaning forward just a little.
"Of course a witch and a wizard. Here, Remus, your wand."
"Sirius—"
"C'mon." Sirius held out his hand.
Remus hesitated another moment before handing over the stick he'd waved at Harry's foot.
Sirius took the stick and a piece of kindling from the hearth. With a couple of strange words and a sharp gesture with the wand, the kinding piece shrank and turned gold-ish, then sprouted thin wings of a glittery wood that fluttered madly in midair. The goldish thing wobbled through the living room for several moments before dropping to the floor, where it twitched like a dying moth.
Harry stared open-mouthed, but Sirius frowned at it.
"It was supposed to turn into a Snitch." Sirius glared at the wand. "Bloody useless, this is." He handed it back to Remus.
"What's a Snitch?" Harry asked promptly, warming up to this subject and his godfather.
Sirius looked incredulous again. "How the sodding hell do the Hogwarts professors explain the wizarding world to Muggles?"
Harry closed his mouth, not quite knowing why he felt very foolish, and yet feeling that he should.
"You'll have to excuse Sirius," Remus said, sitting on the arm of the wingback chair. "He's never lived outside of the wizarding world. I don't think he can imagine not knowing about wizarding Britain's favorite sport."
"Thw wizarding world?" Harry asked.
"That's right," Sirius said. "The world away from the Muggles."
Remus smiled, answering Harry's questions before the boy could ask them. "Muggles are people who can't do magic. Wizards decided to hide their magic from Muggles a few centuries ago for a number of reasons. With the rise of Christianity, wizards were persecuted and killed. That is, since magic is 'pagan' and against the Christian God, it had to be eradicated. Never mind that many wizards converted along with the rest of the population. That was part of it. The official reason is that every Muggle would want magical solutions to their problems if they knew about the wizarding world, and there simply aren't enough of us to meet the demand. Some of it also has to do with a feeling among the purebloods and some halfbloods that wizards are inherently better than Muggles, since wizards have powers that Muggles don't. So we keep ourselves hidden, even though many of us live right alongside Muggles, which is why you've never seen any magic except your own before."
Harry nodded slowly.
"You come from a long line of wizards," Sirius said. "Well, your mum was Muggleborn—er, a witch or wizard who comes from a Muggle family," he explained, getting the idea of how to explain things to someone raised without magic. "But the Potters are old magic, back as far as you can go, and powerful, too. Of course, Lily was the top of our year. Couldn't beat her Charms work, or her potions."
"So…am I going to this Hoggarts place, too?"
"Hogwarts, and you bet you are."
"And…the abnormal things I do?"
"There's nothing abnormal about you, Harry," Sirius answered. "It's just accidental magic. All children do it. I mean, all wizard children do. When you go to Hogwarts, you'll get your wand and learn to focus your magic and control it so those things will stop happening. But we should be celebrating your first signs of magic. We need to do the thing properly. Cake and ice cream, at the least. And a trip to Diagon Alley, surely. Get you a broom, maybe an owl. Though, you should have all that already. I'll see that you do, you know. Right as soon as you've got your feet again."
Harry didn't quite know what Sirius was talking about, but cake and ice cream and a trip someplace that was probably in the wizarding world sounded like more than he knew how to hope for. He found himself grinning.
Sirius grinned back, and the haunted look in his eyes fading away, as though a younger man suddenly stared out.
"So do you forgive me for giving you a scare, mate?" Sirius asked.
Harry considered, but nodded.
Sirius's grin widened, and he swelled with an almost childish joy. "Brilliant. Now, let's let Moony get you put back together, yeah?"
Harry nodded and didn't pull back much when Sirius came close and picked him up to put him back in the chair. He couldn't remember being given such tender care, and he forgot all about the hard wad of cash still held in one hand.
After his feet had been healed, he got carried to the bathroom, too, because the new skin on his soles was pink and tender. Sirius ran him a bath, and Remus took away the mud-soaked, torn pajamas, while Harry washed dirt and twigs out of his hair.
Sirius was just showing him how to put on a set of old robes Remus had shrunk down to be something close to Harry's size (closer than Dudley's old clothes, at any rate), when someone knocked on the door.
The two men looked at each other.
"That'll be Dumbledore," Remus said.
"Fuck," Sirius answered, sounding more tired than angry.