Standing Beside the Fallen

Chapter 5 - Breaking the Ice

Three days had past since the confrontation between Sirius and Professor Snape and ever since, Sirius had not been in a very good mood. Of course, there was the fake cheerful mood that he used around Harry to try and keep his spirits up, but Harry could see through the mask and knew that the man was very angry. He guessed that it was fueled by Professor Lupin, who he had heard from Tonks, had told Sirius off for attacking him. Since then, they had been glaring at each other, and when they were in the room with each other, it was usually tense enough to drive them into silence and it had only caused Harry to become very uncomfortable.

Tonks, after noticing how uncomfortable Harry really was, had secretly pulled Sirius and Professor Lupin aside and told them off for letting their problems show in front of Harry and told them they weren't aloud to sit with him until they made up. After that, things between the two had gone back to normal, though Sirius still seemed to be a little sour, but definitely in better spirits.

Harry had been restricted to bed rest for three days straight, and it was easy to see how restless he was becoming. Sitting in a bed all day and having nothing to do only brought back bad memories of being at the Dursleys, and he couldn't go to sleep without risking having a violent nightmare, so usually he ended up reading a lot or talking with someone in the house over frivolous things from Quidditch to the people on the chocolate frog cards. Even though he spent a lot of time resting, hardly any of it was spent actually sleeping. He went to bed late and woke up very early, and got little sleep each night. The dark circles under his eyes that had started to disappear were back with full force.

His nightmares hadn't been loud enough to wake anybody in the house as of yet, but it seemed they all knew he was having some bad nights. One night he woke up and saw Sirius in his dog form at the foot of the bed. He had immediately transformed when he saw Harry in distress and it had taken him a half hour to calm the boy down. After that, Sirius had been trying to scrounge up a dreamless sleep potion, but it was yet to happen.

But now, it was early morning and Harry woke up from the usual light sleep after a nightmare he had usually had. He looked around and saw that Sirius was gone, probably downstairs to make breakfast, since he could smell it from downstairs. He sat up and stretched the sleep from his body and gave a small smile in relief when he realized it was the end of his bed restriction. As of today he could get up and about, as long as he promised to take it easy. He got up from the bed and headed over to his trunk where he rummaged through and grabbed a sweatshirt and a pair of Dudley's old jeans and headed into the bathroom for a quick shower.

Afterwards, he headed into the kitchen and saw everybody already sitting down. They looked up when he entered and Harry smiled shyly and sat down beside Sirius at the table who gave him a brief one armed hug. Sirius noticed that Harry had tensed and nearly winced at the action, but didn't say anything against it.

"Good morning, kiddo." He said. "How are you feeling? Tired? Winded? Do you want to go lay down?"

Harry looked at him oddly.

"Sirius, we've talked about this." Tonks said sternly over her coffee. "He's fine, he just walked down two flights of stairs. Now, either you lay off him or we'll lock you up in a room with Kreacher."

Sirius immediately shutup after that.

Harry sat quietly, trying to keep the smirk off his face from what Tonks had just done to Sirius, but was failing miserably. So to cover it up, he took a long sip from his orange juice and only looked up when he saw an owl fly in through the window. It was small and easily fit through the small crack opening, and it zoomed so fast inside it ended up hitting the wall and falling to the floor.

"What the hell is that?" Tonks asked who had taken out her wand.

"That's Pig," Harry said smiling as he got up and headed over to the owl that recovered and was now flying around Harry's head.

"It's Ron's owl," Sirius clarified as Harry had been receiving some odd looks from the people at the table. "He just has a weird name."

"Why?" Kingsley asked.

Harry dove out his arm and caught the bird in his palm with a fast reflex and quickly untied the letter before letting the bird go. "Ginny actually named him Pigwidgeon but Ron wanted to name him something else but he wouldn't respond to anything. So instead, he shortened it to Pig to make it sound better."

"It doesn't," Tonks muttered to Sirius who snorted into his tea.

Harry shook his head as he ripped open the letter. With what had been happening over the last few days, Harry had thought long and hard about whether he should inform Ron and Hermione about what his uncle did to him, since they would eventually find out sooner or later, with his not going back there and all. But in the end, after a few minutes of deliberation and hours trying to convince himself, he decided not to tell them, at least for now. He was already trying to get used to Sirius knowing, but he didn't even want to bear his friends reactions.

Unfolding the letter, he recognized Ron's scrawled writing on the parchment and read.

Dear Harry,

As we've been saying for the past two months, we're not really allowed to say much in this letter, and I'm sorry if we sound short sighted but you should know by now why this is so. As for when exactly we can see you, I really don't know. I've been asking mum every day, and she always says that she doesn't know and has to ask Professor Dumbledore exactly. At first, we were supposed to come and see you in two weeks, but then Professor Dumbledore came and said that the time was extended due to circumstances, which he wouldn't mention. So I dunno how long it's going to be before we see you. Hopefully it will be at least a week before Hogwarts, I'm dying here with only Hermione to hang with. After she hit me over the head, she told me to say hello to you.

Anyways, things are as normal as they can be around here. Fred and George have taken their apparation test, and unfortunately passed. I say unfortunately because they have been apparating instead of walking wherever they go. And I mean from their room to the kitchen, living room to the loo, and even the kitchen table to the sink. It's bloody annoying. Anyways, Mum has said we're all going to go to Diagon Alley on August 15th. If we're not seeing you before then, is there any chance we can meet up? Hermione and I would love to see you.

See you soon mate (hopefully)

Ron (and Hermione)

Harry sighed and folded up the letter and put it into his pocket before mutely turning back to his food. He did not notice that the entire table was watching him.

"What's the matter?" Sirius asked. Harry looked up and quickly blushed when he realized he was being watched.

He shook his head negatively.

"It's nothing really," Harry said. "Just that Ron asked if I could go to the Diagon Alley with him." He said this nonchalantly, since he knew with all the protection he had been getting over the summer that there was absolutely no chance that anybody was going to led him go. And sure enough, when he glanced up he saw them all giving each other uneasy looks.

"When," Sirius asked slowly.

"The fifteenth of August." He said and turned back to his breakfast.

"Well I don't see why you can't." Sirius said with a shrug. Harry quickly looked up at him, his fork full of egg stopped halfway to his mouth. "As long as Remus, Tonks and Kingsley agree to go with you. I'll speak to Dumbledore about it, you have to get your things anyways -"

"Really?" Harry said excitedly. "You mean I can really go?"

Sirius grinned. "Sure, why not?" He said. "And I'll also ask Dumbledore if I can accompany you as well in dog form. It'll be fun don't you think?"

Harry's grin slowly slipped off his face as the table around them went dead silent. Harry swallowed and said in a nervous voice. "Sirius, are you sure that's safe? I mean you are a wanted criminal and I don't want you getting caught -"

"I won't get caught," Sirius reassured him, seemingly oblivious to Professor Lupin who was shaking his head with his hand on his forehead. "Nobody besides the Order, you, Ron and Hermione know of me being an animagus."

"That's not entirely true Sirius and you know it," Professor Lupin cut in. "Peter knows of your being an animagus and will most likely have told Voldemort as well, and therefore his followers will be on the lookout for you. If they find you, they will have no hesitation in trying to make out who you really are in the public."

"Remus your being no fun," Sirius said, who was not smiling anymore but looking increasingly disgruntled. "I mean the chances of my being caught are hardly anything and I've been cooped up in this house so long I've barely seen sunlight in a month. I mean I can't be kept here forever, what do you expect me to do stay in here for the rest of my life and follow orders of doing nothing but cleaning and cooking like a regular house maid?"

At the end of his sentence, his voice started to rise and he stood. Harry winced, ducking his head and tensing himself. Professor Lupin seemed to notice his action and stood as well, glaring at Sirius angrily.

That is enough Sirius." He said warningly. Sirius glared at him before turning and stomping up the stairs, slamming the kitchen door so loud that the wailing of Mrs. Black's portrait went off. Kingsley and Tonks rushed upstairs to silence in and it left Harry and Professor Lupin alone in the kitchen. Harry's head was still ducked, staring down at his breakfast but having no interest in it.

He couldn't help but feel like it was his fault that Sirius was angry. He had brought up the topic in the first place, and it had led Sirius to get angry that he couldn't leave the house. It was the only reason why he was angry with him either. He was even more angry at the fact that when Sirius started to yell, he had felt a little glimmer of fear in the pit of his stomach. This was Sirius, he kept reminding himself, not Uncle Vernon. Why was he scared of Sirius, just because he was angry didn't mean he was going to hit him. Sirius would never do that! But still it had been there.

He felt sorry that Sirius couldn't leave his mothers house, having to know what it was like being locked up. He had been all of his life, whether it was in a small cramped little cupboard or in his dingy bedroom with the boarded up window and locks on the door. He wished that Sirius could come with him to Diagon Alley, to freely walk down the road without being cursed or killed because people thought him to be a murderer. But as much as he felt for Sirius, he knew that the risk was too great. He'd rather have his godfather here than locked up in Azkaban, or worse, sitting with no soul or memories, or even dead. He shivered at the thought.

"Harry?"

Harry quickly looked up and realized that Professor Lupin was watching him. Why was everybody watching him today?

"Oh, Sorry Professor," Harry said quietly. "I was just thinking."

Professor Lupin nodded. "You know Harry that he wasn't angry with you right? Sirius was only angry over the fact that he couldn't leave the house. It had nothing to do with you."

Harry nodded. "I know that." He said, and he really did. His voice just didn't seem to sound convincing enough before Lupin kept staring at him. "I just feel bad for bringing up the subject. I'm sorry, if you don't want me to go to Diagon Alley with the Weasleys than I'll be glad to just stay here with Sirius-"

"No." He said firmly and Harry blinked at him. "Sirius would never want you to miss a trip to Diagon Alley just because he couldn't go. He's just in a bad mood. I'll go talk to him later, and he'll be absolutely fine before lunch. He just needs to brood in his own self pity for a while," He ended this with a light smirk, which Harry tried to return, but it seemed to artificial for either of them to believe.

Harry, after realizing that breakfast was basically finished started to clean the table. The action seemed mechanic and he did it so smoothly and without thinking that when Lupin grabbed his wrist he jumped and nearly dropped the plates he was holding in his hand.

"Put those down, I'll clean up here." He said. "It's a lot easier with magic and I don't want you doing any chores. You're still resting and I think you've done enough to last a lifetime."

"Are you sure?" He asked a little hesitantly, eyeing the mess left on the table. He nodded and Harry sighed. "Thanks, Professor."

There was a moment where Lupin stared at Harry in a slight thought, but before he could even start to feel uncomfortable, Lupin said, "Sit down, Harry."

Harry did so and sat down in a chair and Professor Lupin sat opposite of each other. "We've been living in this house together for almost a week now and plan to spend it until the end of the summer. I think, for us to get to know each other, we should drop the formality and learn to be comfortable with each other. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Harry nodded. "Yes." He said, and then after a few seconds he blinked. "No." He added in an afterthought and Professor Lupin chuckled.

He looked Harry in the eye and stood up. "Call me Remus." He said and started to clear the table with his wand, levitating the dishes to the sink. Harry watched him, blinking rather stupidly. Oh.

After breakfast Harry had gone up to the library to check out the large volume of books that the Black family held. Kingsley had told him that it was wise to only read the books that were on the tables and not the shelves, since those were the only ones scanned for Dark Magic, and didn't hold things inside too gruesome for him to read. He had skimmed through a rather thick and dusty defense book and saw some very ancient and . . . colorful looking spells. They were creative to say the least, but something that Harry thought he would never end up using.

It wasn't until he was looking through a biography of the last decades Minister's of Magic that he heard the low rumbles of yelling coming from the room across from him. Harry's first instinct was to go and see what was going on, since he had that natural Gryffindor curiosity about him, but then his second thought was that he didn't want anyone to be angry that he was listening. It wasn't until he heard his name in the sea of inaudible yells that his ears perked up and deciding, he slowly crept towards the door. He looked through the keyhole of the library and saw that Sirius and Remus were in Sirius's bedroom at the end of the hall and yelling at each other.

" . . . and now he thinks it's his fault that your pissed off and is downstairs blaming himself for your bad mood!" Remus shouted. "You know not to loose control in front of him Sirius, you should have learnt that the first time with Severus! He was afraid of you when you started yelling! When he hears yelling, it only reminds him of his bastard uncle and he could be driven towards a panic attack!"

"I'm sorry, but all I was trying to do was get my point across -"

"And you did! You have, Sirius several times before and you didn't need to this time! Right now, Harry is emotionally unstable and because of it, he's blaming the worlds problems on himself and that's something we have to change and it's not going to happen if you go around exploding because you feel sorry for yourself. If he keeps going around thinking of himself as a burden and that nobody wants him, he's going to cause irreparable damage to himself. Whenever he starts feeling insecure, you can tell, and he goes around constantly apologizing or starting to clean, which was what he was doing in the kitchen. He falls back into old habits, which cause for triggers of memories. If this keeps going on then the consequences of us not helping could be serious."

"You think I don't know that? You think that I don't want to help him and let him go around thinking I don't care about him or, or that I don't want him? Harry is one of the very limited people in this world that I trust and love and I'll do anything for him which includes letting him know and believe me of that!"

"Than learn to control yourself in front of him or I'll have to separate you from him until you can." He ended and was gone, sweeping down the hall and past the library and towards the stairs. Harry looked back at Sirius and saw that he was looking very frustrated and closed the door with a tight snap.

Harry turned away from the door and slowly headed back to where he had been reading sliding down into his chair. Things just seem to be getting way too complicated for his liking. Not that they weren't before anyways.

He tried to sit down and read some chapters from the book in front of him, but found that his mind was still concentrated on the conversation between Sirius and Remus. Several minutes went by before he sighed and closed the book, placing it neatly back where he found it. He decided to head downstairs and see what Tonks was up to, since she was most likely up to something like she always was.

He walked down the stairs and stopped on the landing when he saw Tonks and Remus coming down the hall, both carrying two large cans of paint and several brushes. Harry looked on curiously.

"We're painting the drawing room!" Tonks said, bouncing with each step. "And we're doing it the muggle way! You get a better job out of it, well at least Remus thinks. So, are you becoming our new recruit or what?"

Harry smiled and shrugged. "Sure why not? He said grinning. "Let me just go change so I don't get paint on my clothes."

"Stop," Tonks said as Harry turned to head back upstairs and he looked around. "Don't bother. I'll just buy you some more clothes later. Merlin knows how I'm not going to let you wander around in those for any longer. My new summer goal is to make you look fashionable and hot and that's what I'm going to do."

Harry blushed but didn't say anything as he followed Tonks into the room. Leave it to her to be his fashion stylist.

They entered the room and Harry looked around, having not been in here yet. He knew that the house had been going under a massive cleaning binge, and from what he had heard, it had been disgusting the first time they had entered the house this summer. But they had made it habitable, and even if you couldn't come in some of the rooms, others were just finished at being worked on, including the drawing room. Tonks had called that room her own little project and had taken to decorating it with bright boughs of furniture and accessories, and from what Harry could tell, she was painting the room a mix of purple and blue. But all of it was covered with sheets for their painting job.

Harry saw a large stained tarp on the floor to cover any paint they might (or will in their case) drip, and over by the wall was an old worn tapestry, and as Remus pointed out, simply could not be removed. Tonks added her bits of not worrying about getting paint on it, considering she was going to cover it up anyways.

Tonks took out a WWN from her supplies and turned it up full blast onto the MMN station, which stood for Muggle Music Network. On it was a familiar list of songs Harry remembered hearing from before Hogwarts when Dudley would blast up his radio just to annoy Harry when he was trying to do his homework. They got down to business and started to paint, Tonks singing along with the music on the radio and doing weird dances while Harry and Remus looked on and laughed. Although the actual painting part wasn't very fun, Tonks seemed to have her own way of making work fun, another reason Harry liked her so much.

About a half hour after they started painting, Tonks tapped Harry on the shoulder and he looked around to see her grinning impishly, her finger held over her lips. She glanced back at Remus and made a gesture that made Harry have trouble holding back his laughter. She crept silently up behind Remus and held up her brush.

"Hey Remus," She yelled over the music.

SMACK

Remus had turned his head in the exact wrong way and direction as when he did, Tonks's sopping purple paintbrush smacked him straight in the cheek. Harry and Tonks doubled over with laughter at seeing the disgusted expression on his face as he futilely tried to wipe the pain off and only managed to smear it on his face more. Tonks held up the other brush and slapped his other cheek with the blue paint.

"You should see your face!" Tonks roared with laughter. "You look like a pissed off smurf!"

This only caused Harry and Tonks to laugh even more and Tonks fell over, unable to keep herself standing any longer. Remus glared at her and picked up a roller, dipped it in the blue paint and unceremoniously rolled it onto her howling face. She screamed and jumped up, sputtering paint from her face. "Who's a smurf now?" He said innocently.

"Oh your dead wolf!" Tonks said. She stopped and looked around at Harry before turning back to Remus. "You know, he looks a little too clean for me, don't you?"

Harry immediately stopped laughing and his eyes going wide. He turned and made to run from the room but found Tonks had grabbed a purple roller and clamped it onto his head and rolled it through his hair. He could feel the beads of the cold paint flowing down his scalp as he yelped and looked back at them.

He grabbed up a brush and all hell broke loose. Soon, purple and blue paint was flying everywhere, and Harry could not longer see since it was smeared on his glasses, but it did not disable him enough to stop him. He attacked, dumping his hands, brushes, rollers, sponges and anything he could find into the paint buckets and attacking. It wasn't three minutes later that the three were covered from head to foot in paint and were collapsed on the ground laughing.

"What's going on," Said a voice at the door.

The three looked over and saw Sirius entering the room, clearly trying to stifle his laughter from the sight of the three. In unison, each stood up and grabbed a bucket of paint and splashed it at the man, covering him in the array of color they themselves bore.

"Nice." Sirius said with a fake scowl. "What do you all have to say for yourselves with this bought of immaturity?"

Of course, everyone knew he was joking, even Harry. So he had no hesitation in grinning and saying, "I'm first in the shower," before getting up and racing Tonks out of the room.

Even though it had left a huge mess, left them all dirty and wet, and would eventually have to be cleaned up and repainted neatly, nobody regretted their paint fight, especially Harry. It had been exactly what he had needed to forget everything that had happened for the past summer and more, and just enjoy himself being a kid and having fun. He couldn't remember the last time he had felt so free and careless. It was a feeling he hated see go as the reality of the world came back to him. As he stepped into the shower and closed his eyes, he smiled at the memory. Why couldn't life always be like this?

Authors Note: A thousand apologies for the delay, just remember killing the author for lateness is not going to make me update faster. Anyways, I also apologize for this chapter, I hate it dearly but I wanted some happy scenes in there before I start to torment Harry again (grins). My play went wonderful, thanks for everyone who wished me luck, and my mid-years started today (Just to let you know – My outline in the back of my math notebooks, yeah, wish it were notes instead –oops), and I'm procrastinating right now so, yay for procrastination!

My next update will be this weekend, I promise and it is also when I'll be posting a new story! So remember to go and check that out after you read next weeks chapter.

Oh, and I also seem to be forgetting to reply to people's questions in reviews so I'm posting some frequently asked ones in my profile (be up tomorrow), and if you have one I didn't answer, post it in a review and I will next week. Thanks again to you all, and keep reviewing. There was a huge decline last week and it didn't help to my massive writer's block I was having! I need inspiration to keep going or else I'll end up being late more and more! So please Review!