This chapter has a MAJOR plot scene between Sirius and Harry and I have to say I was always in love with the father son role they had. Sirius is by far one of my favorite characters.
Briar POV
"BRIAR!" I turn my head to the source of the noise and am suddenly taking a step back to keep myself standing upright when a body crashes into me. I laugh and squeeze back before pulling back to see Ginny's smiling face.
"Hey Gin! How are you doing?" Her face falls a little bit, but I see her try to keep a brave face on.
"I'm doing alright. Dad is doing much better thankfully." My response is interrupted by Harry walking over to us. I give her a silent look indicating we'll talk about it later in private before smiling at Harry and giving him a hug.
"Hey, Harry. So I heard you were a hero once again?" I say before stepping out of the hug to smirk at him. He blushes and I give him a wide smile.
"I don't have control over it like you do with your visions. I'm just lucky I was asleep when I had the vision so I could help Mr. Weasley," he says scratching the base of his neck nervously.
"Harry, you saved Mr. Weasley. It doesn't matter how or why so stop acting like you're defending yourself and say thank you for the compliment." I roll my eyes when he scowls at me. I turn to Ginny to direct my question.
"Are all guys this stubborn when it comes to taking a compliment? It's like pulling teeth." Ginny shrugs and we all make our way to the long table that Ron, Hermione, Fred, and George are standing at.
"Ron, it's nice to see you when you're not letting Hermione beat you in sparring," I say with a roll of my eyes.
"Oh, shove it, Griffin," he says moodily before glancing at Hermione. I see her stifling a laugh behind her hand and I go over to give her a hug.
"It's good to see you, Mione," I say before staying between her and Fred. He shoves me slightly in the side and I giggle and shove him back causing him to stare at me with mock hurt. I noticed Harry isn't in the room anymore, but I focus my attention on watching the Santa toy Fred and George created for the shop fly around until Molly comes in with Arthur in a wheelchair with a paper crown one his head a few moments later.
"Here we go! Daddy's back," Molly says laughing gleefully while we all clap. Taking a seat, Molly starts to hand out presents to everyone and I look at her in shock when she hands me one too.
"Molly, you didn't…" She waves me off.
"Nonsense. Any friend of Ginny's is a friend of mine, especially you. You saved my daughter's life in second year," she says causing me to look at Ginny in shock before returning my gaze back to Molly. "Yes, she told me and I'm excited to finally meet you. You are always welcomed here, darling. You are family now." My eyes water a little at the thought of them being nice enough to give me a Christmas present, let alone let me into their family. I stand quickly and wrap Molly into a bone crushing hug. She hugs back and I feel at home to have a motherly presence in my life again. Narcissa is a great woman, but I know she isn't a mother who utilizes muggle inventions like Molly and my mother did. The knowledge Molly is so similar to my mother makes our connection different.
"Thank you," I whisper and pull back from the hug to see her staring at me with a prideful smile on her face before turning back to be next to Arthur. Everyone opens their various clothing items she made and I open my package to find a nice, warm sweater in a burgundy red much like the Gryffindor red. I gasp and thank Molly and Arthur profusely.
"Better not let Malfoy see you wear that. He might get jealous and think you like us Gryffindors better," Ginny teases. I laugh and stick my tongue out at her childishly. It feels so nice to be able to be a child and not have to worry about training, Voldemort, and my upcoming confrontation with him will be.
"Wait, you and Malfoy?!" Ron exclaimed in shock. I let out a huff and gave Ginny a look that looked as equally annoyed as my face must have looked.
"Oh, Harry! Harry, there you are!" Molly grabbed his present and ran over to him in excitement. I see him smile and give Molly a hug. "Happy Christmas. Happy to have you with us." She walks back over to the front of the table and grabs her glass as we all raise our glasses in a toast to Harry for saving Mr. Weasley. I smirk at him when he meets my eye, but I notice he looks uncomfortable. After toasting, he turns and looks at the man who stands in the doorway with a haunted glint in his eye. Dinner goes by rather fast and soon Harry, Hermione, Ron, and I are making our way downstairs while Hermione berates Ron on why he doesn't want to wear his present.
"I can't understand why you don't want to wear it, Ronald."
"Because I look a bloody idiot, that's why!" I chuckle and nudge Harry, but see he's looking over the railing at something in another room. I follow him into the room before we're both startled by an elderly elf who looks to have seen many events both good and bad. He seemed wise, but his eyes held an unspeakable coldness to them.
"Harry Potter, The Boy who stopped the Dark Lord. Friend of mudbloods and blood traitors alike. If my poor Mistress was…"
"KREACHER! That's enough of your bile. Away with ya!" The man that was standing in the doorway before comes down the stairs to dismiss the misguided elf.
"Of course, Master. Kreacher lives to serve the noble family of Black." He mumbles and I find myself rather fascinated with the coldness I can feel coming from the small elf towards his Master when I reach out to access the emotions in his mind.
"Sorry about that. He never was very pleasant even when I was a boy. Well, not to me anyway."
"You grew up here?" Harry asks.
"This is my parent's house. I offered it to Dumbledore as headquarters for The Order. About the only useful thing I've been able to do. This is the Black family tree," he says steering the conversation away from his short comings. "My deranged cousin. I hated them rotten. My parents with their pureblood mania. My mother did that after I ran away. Charming woman. I was sixteen." He looks sad as if reliving the memories and I reach my mind out to lightly caress his as well to see if I can read his emotions undetected.
Sorrow. Anger. Guilt? I let my mind come back to me as I can feel his consciousness start to feel my presence. Snape and I had been working on being undetected so I can read people without their knowledge. Being able to reach his mind for those moments was a huge milestone as it was the first time I wasn't detected right away.
"Where did you go?" Harry's voice broke me out of my thoughts.
"Your Dad's. I was always welcomed at the Potter's. I see him so much in you, Harry. You are so very much alike."
"I'm not so sure," Harry says quietly. He fills Sirius in on the dream and reveals what he told me about the dream about how he felt when he discovered Arthur. He had started to feel guilty about feeling the anger and a connection with the snake in his dream. We had discussed it the day after when he asked me to stay after one of the training sessions. Sirius stays silent trying to process what Harry said so I go up to the man staring at his family on the wall in silence and stick my hand out to shake his hand.
"Hello. My name is Briar Griffin and you are…?" He looks at me skeptically before shaking my hand with a tight grip before releasing just as quickly.
"Sirius Black. Harry's godfather." I look at him with wide eyes and piece together that this was the man Harry has told me about.
"You're Sirius? Harry has told me so much about you! He looks up to you like a father really," I say before Harry lets out an annoyed whine of my name. Sirius lets out a chuckle before visibly losing the wariness he had about me.
"That would be me," he says chuckling. He looks to Harry and asks "Is this your girlfriend?" I look at Harry and silently watch him blush and start to stutter out a denial.
"NO! I mean, I would be lucky to have…" I look at him with a raise of my eyebrow and he switches what he was going to say. "She's with Malfoy!" I roll my eyes and start to explain to Sirius what Harry was too flustered to say.
"No, Sirius. I'm not Harry's girlfriend. I'm actually with Draco Malfoy, but it was supposed to be a secret," I hiss at Harry. Turning back to Sirius, I finish my thoughts. "Although, the entire Weasley family now knows because Ginny told them so I guess we've been outed already. I'll have to break it to him later when I return to the manor."
"You're staying with Malfoy?" Harry says in disbelief. I give him a look that makes him look down with a pout. I hear Sirius chuckling behind me, but I turn and give him a glare.
"What's funny about that? Draco is a perfectly fine wizard," I say defensively. Sirius raises his eyebrow at me.
"You do know he is destined to be a Death Eater if his father has anything to say about it, right?" I scoff and sneer back my response in a tone that would make Salazar Slytherin jealous.
"Not if I have anything to say about it. Lucius doesn't scare me," I say defiantly. I can feel Sirius's emotion of admiration from edging into his mind in my state of anger. One thing I haven't mastered is controlling my mind invading when I let my emotions get the best of me. Sirius looks to Harry and gives him a smirk.
"I like her. It's too bad Malfoy got her first." Looking at me he continues his speech. "I admire your fire. I want both of you to listen to me very carefully, especially you after that dream, Harry." He turns to Harry and speaks directly to him. "You're not a bad person. You're a very good person that bad things have happened to. You understand?"
Harry nods his head and I see how Sirius is placing his hands on Harry's shoulders in a fatherly way. It reminds me of when my father would tell me my mistakes didn't define me, but rather what I did next. I look on at the interaction with envious eyes, but feel happy I had as much time with my father as I did. Harry didn't have that opportunity. I see Sirius turn so he can look between the both of us.
"Besides, the world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters. We've all got light and dark inside of us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That's who we really are." Sirius looks at me and I can sense he means that last portion to be directed at me about Draco. I let that sink and realize I don't know how much pull Lucius has on him.
"Harry, time to go." Hermione pops her head into the room causing Harry to nod at her. "Goodbye, Briar. It was lovely to see you. I'll see you in Potions?" I smile and nod my head at her gaining a smile from her as well.
"When all of this is over, we'll be a proper family. You'll see." I turn and see Sirius and Harry hugging. Harry waves at me and I wave back before going to walk closer to Sirius.
"You don't know me so it's alright to be wary of me, but I have no ulterior motives with Harry other than being here to help him." Sirius looks at me with a nod and smirks a little. Looking at me, he nods his head knowingly.
"You're the one Dumbledore told the Order of, right? The girl with rare magic and enough fire to keep Harry on track with defeating the Dark Lord. I can see why he likes you so much. Although, does he know of your involvement with Malfoy?"
"Yes, he does. He's not the only one and apparently, that number is destined to get bigger," I say in an exasperated tone. "I don't think Draco puts his best foot forward from all of the reactions I've gotten from others when they found out about us. Hell, Ginny didn't speak to me for a week before she heard me out. Harry, forget it. He almost fought Draco when he saw the two of us together. I think the only person who reacted without a negative reaction was Hermione. She said she always had a suspicion he had to please his father." Sirius looks at me with sympathy and places his hands on my shoulders. I can feel the empathy flowing from him as he looks into my soul.
"I understand wanting to please family, but you need to be prepared that there may be a day where he has to choose them in order to survive." I nod my head as I've thought of that already.
"I know," I say sadly. "I've thought of that and if that's what he needs to do then I will respect that. We both know this won't be easy with a war coming and I know how important family is no matter how rough things get with the members of that family. If I had the chance to do something to save my parents, I would've done anything. If I have to let him go, I will no matter how much it hurts me." He nods his head and gives me a hug in understanding. I take a deep breath and pull away from the hug. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a manor to get back to so he doesn't think I'm not coming back," I say teasingly. Sirius lets out a chuckle and watches me walk to the entrance of the room.
"Briar," Sirius says making me hum in question and turn my head to look at him. "Don't lose that light in you because you have so much of it. That light will keep propelling you forward with your mission." I look at him in appreciation and nod my head in agreement before exiting the room. Leaving the room, I realize my mission might be coming to a head sooner than I thought it would.
Time to speak with Snape.
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