A/N: (Please feel free to skip this.) I'm alive! And I finally managed to upload the next chapter. I didn't mean to go on hiatus, but I reached the end of my pre-written chapters and it took me a lot longer than I thought it would to write this chapter. I'm still not completely happy with it but here you go.
Chapter 16
The news of the 'Golden Couple's' divorce upset quite a lot of people.
The first to know was the Weasley family. Harry and Ginny told them personally at their usual Sunday dinner at the Burrow. The whole family had gathered there with the exception of Teddy and Victoire, who were still on their honeymoon.
After they had all enjoyed Grandma Molly's wonderful cooking and were pleasantly full, Ginny cleared her throat loudly to get her family's attention. "Harry and I have something to tell you."
"Oh, are you going to have another child?" Grandma Molly asked with sparkling eyes and a joyful smile.
"No, nothing this pleasant, I'm afraid, Molly," Harry said with a strained smile and James' Grandma looked disappointed. As if she doesn't have a dozen grandchildren already, Sirius thought amused.
"Harry and I decided to get a divorce. We already signed the papers," Ginny dropped the bomb and immediately shouts and protests erupted around the table. Ginny's brothers glared angrily at Harry and even Hermione seemed upset. Molly and Arthur appeared to be in shock and just shot confused looks at the newly divorced couple. Fleur, Angelina and Audrey were more level-headed and tried to calm their angry husbands. The children just watched the commotion with wide, surprised eyes or tried to comfort the three Potter siblings who were looking highly uncomfortable and a little lost.
Rose had turned to Albus who was sitting next to her, glaring at both his parents. It was obvious he was not happy with the situation. Sirius watched as the bushy haired redhead dragged her green-eyed cousin out of the large kitchen to speak with him in private. In the chair next to Albus' sat Lily, enveloped into a hug by Lucy and Hugo.
"Come on, let's leave the adults to themselves," Sirius whispered to James and pulled him out of the room, collecting Fred, Louis and Roxanne on the way. Lily, Lucy and Hugo followed them silently. They could still hear the loud voices from the kitchen as they gathered on the couches in the living room. Albus and Rose were nowhere in sight so Sirius assumed they were upstairs in one of the many guest bedrooms.
"How long have you known about this?" asked Fred, looking at James and Sirius with hurt in his eyes.
"Four days. They said they didn't want to spoil Teddy's and Victoire's wedding," James snorted and the hurt in Fred's eyes was replaced by compassion. This had surprised James, Albus and Lily as much as everyone else.
"So this is a done deal? There is no way they are going to change their mind?"
"Yes, their decision is definitely final. I think Dad going to Hogwarts to take the position as the DADA teacher was the last straw. Mum said they would have ended up hating each other, if they had stayed together any longer," James admitted grudgingly. He was actually really glad that his parents were still somewhat on speaking terms and didn't completely hate each other. Divorces could get rather nasty from what he had heard. Fortunately, Harry's and Ginny's divorce seemed to have been as amiable as a divorce could possibly be.
"That sucks," Roxanne stated and everyone nodded in agreement.
"I'm surprised they managed to keep this a secret for so long. I had no idea they had relationship problems. Even today they seemed completely normal," Fred remarked.
But Lily shook her head. "They've been avoiding each other for months. Mum didn't even try to get Dad to dance with her at Teddy's and Vicky's wedding. The signs were all there, we just didn't realise it was that serious."
"What's going to happen now? I mean, things are going to change, right?" Roxanne asked.
"Ginny is currently looking for a new place in London, because they agreed on Harry keeping the house," Sirius took over explaining, so James and Lily didn't have to. "Harry already went back to Hogwarts and is going to live there until Ginny moves out. They still share custody though, so Jamie, Al and Lily will probably split their holidays between them."
The shouting in the kitchen slowly subsided and a little later Harry entered the living room alone. "Hey, I'm going back to Hogwarts now," he told them and hugged Lily, James and Sirius goodbye. "Where's Albus?"
"He's probably upstairs with Rose," James answered.
Harry sighed and went upstairs to go looking for Albus, who seemed to take their divorce the hardest. Albus had always been more closed off than his siblings and now he was becoming even more distant. Harry was honestly a little worried about him and not quite sure how to reach out to him.
He found Albus in Ginny's old bedroom. His eyes were rimmed red and he was hugging Rose who quietly tried to comfort him. Rose glared at him when he entered and he felt bad for interrupting, but Harry did not want to leave without saying goodbye to all of his children. He did not want them to feel like he didn't love them anymore because he wasn't in love with their mother any longer.
"Hey Al, I have to go now. I'll see you at Hogwarts, alright?" Harry told Albus and tried to hug him. But Albus refused and glared at him instead.
"No, I don't want to see you. You should have never come to Hogwarts in the first place. If you hadn't, you and mom would still be together. This is all your fault," Albus spit out angrily.
"You know that's not true," Harry said gently, trying not to show how much Albus's words hurt him. "Your mom and I drifted apart long before I took the position at Hogwarts."
But Albus only shook his head in denial and turned his back on him, refusing any further conversation.
"Alright", Harry sighed, knowing how stubborn his son could be. "You know where to find me, if you change your mind. I love you, Al."
"Bye Rosie, thank you for being there for Al." With those last words Harry left the room and went back downstairs. He quickly hugged James, Lily and Sirius again before he left the Burrow with a heavy heart, not sure if he would ever be welcomed back.
Only a few minutes after Harry had left an exasperated Ginny stormed out of the kitchen and told James, Lily and Sirius that they were going home. She went up to get Abus too but came down with Rose instead. Albus had begged her to allow him to stay with Rose for the rest of the holidays and Ginny had reluctantly agreed under the condition that Hermione and Ron gave their permission. Rose easily convinced her parents to let Albus stay over and so Ginny, James, Lily and Sirius left without Albus.
The next day the news was all over the newspapers and witches' magazines. It sparked a lot of rumours and speculations. Some – like Witch Weekly – accused Ginny of cheating on Harry, while others – including the Daily Prophet – insisted that it was the other way around. Ginny actually received some hateful letters from angry witches as well as proposals from hopeful wizards. She threw all the letters into the fireplace and burned them but they still upset James.
Sirius spent all day trying to distract James and take his mind off of the public's reaction to his parents' divorce. However it only worked for a short while. They rode their brooms for hours, throwing a ball back and forth, but as soon as they touched the ground again, the dark cloud over James' head was back. Nothing Sirius tried could permanently lift his bad mood. In the end he gave up and just listened as his friend ranted about everything that bothered him.
Unfortunately they had to go back to Hogwarts the following day. The Potter siblings got lots of pitying looks as they boarded the train but also some gleeful smirks were sent their way. James hated it and Sirius glared at everyone to mind their own business. The three of them were relieved when they found an empty compartment they could claim for themselves. Fred and Frank joined them a little later, annoyed about how nosy some of their fellow students were. They avoided the topic of the Potter's divorce as much as possible and spent the train ride playing exploding snap, eating sweets and swapping chocolate frog cards. Sirius was still amazed every time he saw Harry on a chocolate frog card. His guardian seemed so normal and down to earth it was easy to forget he had accomplished so much at such a young age.
The trip from the train station in Hogsmeade to Hogwarts was even worse. Whispers and stares followed them everywhere. When they reached the Great Hall, the students' stares alternated between the Potter siblings at their respective house tables and their father at the head table. They kept whispering about the Potters throughout the feast, uncaring that they could hear them. Sirius was very tempted to hex them all.
James sighed in relieve when he finally reached his dorm. No one here would bother him. Fred and Frank were his best friends, Daniel was too tactful to say anything offensive and Jason knew better than to believe everything the Daily Prophet said. So he slowly relaxed as he got ready for bed and even managed to laugh at a joke Fred made to cheer him up.
Sirius was not so lucky. He had been fighting the urge to hex the other students in front of the teachers all evening. When he entered the dorm and heard McLaggen and Towler bad mouthing Harry and Ginny, he snapped. He pulled out his wand and sent a stinging hex at both of them.
"If I hear you talking trash about the Potters again, I'll do worse than that," Sirius threatened with the deadliest glare he could muster. Towler looked suitably cowed but McLaggen couldn't keep his mouth shut.
"It's not trash if it's true," the other boy smirked.
"You wouldn't know the truth if it slapped you in the face," Sirius retorted angrily. "You better learn how to keep your mouth shut or I'll hex you six ways to Sunday. Don't think I won't."
Still fuming, Sirius grabbed his pyjamas and stomped to the bathroom, the door slamming shut behind him. He tried to calm down as he got ready for bed, but was mostly unsuccessful. When he returned to the dorm, it was dark and everyone else was asleep in their beds. He also went to bed but had a hard time falling asleep.
The next morning Sirius woke up grumpy due to his lack of sleep the night before. The continuous gossip of the students around him about the Potters did nothing to improve his mood. Most of the younger students gave him a wide berth, because of the deep scowl on his face as he went to his first class of the day.
He finally snapped after Charms when he overheard an older Slytherin student call Ginny a slut to Lily's face in the middle of the busy corridor. He didn't even hesitate as he used the bat-boogie-hex on the Slytherin. Unfortunately Professor Flitwick saw him and was forced to give him detention, but conveniently forgot to deduct house points from Gryffindor. He did however deduct twenty points from Slytherin for the other student's foul language. Sirius didn't care about getting detention. It was definitely worth hexing the Slytherin.
When he arrived at the charms classroom for detention that evening, Professor Flitwick just had him sort through the feathers, cushions and other miscellaneous objects he used for his lessons to see if there were any that were damaged and needed replacing. Sirius was done with his task in less than an hour.
"Don't let me catch you next time", Professor Flitwick told him as he ushered him out of the room. "Oh, and ten points to Gryffindor for a perfectly executed bat-boogie-hex. I remember Miss Weasley being partial to this particular hex as well."
Sirius still hexed the students who were particularly nasty about the Potters' divorce but was more careful, so he didn't get caught again. It calmed down after a couple of weeks as other news dominated the papers and the students got caught up in their own little dramas and started stressing about the end of the year exams.
However the peace didn't last long. When Sirius entered the Great Hall the Monday after the last Hogsmeade weekend of the school year, everyone stared at him with a mixture of awe, fear and suspicion. Even his friends Alex and Liam looked at him as if they had never seen him before.
Sirius warily made his way over to the Gryffindor table where James, Fred and Frank were already sitting. They immediately jumped up and intercepted him before he could reach the table. James wordlessly grabbed his arm and dragged him out of the hall into a deserted classroom.
"What's going on? Why is everyone looking at me as if I was a dragon about to spit fire?"
James winced. "Someone stole your journal and sold it to the Daily Prophet. It's all over the newspaper. Now everyone knows who you are, who you were."
Sirius paled. The journal only contained his memories up to his third year of Hogwarts. That was all he could remember so far. There was nothing really incriminating in there, except for his bullying of Severus Snape. Yet, it contained private thoughts and memories he did not want to share with the general public.
"It's not that bad," Frank tried to cheer him up. "Harry cleared your name right after the war. Everyone knows you didn't actually kill all those muggles or Peter Pettigrew, even though he deserved it."
Sirius took a deep breath and nodded. It still seemed unreal that at one point in his life he was known and feared as a dangerous mass murderer. He had managed to escape from Azkaban and now he somehow cheated death. It was only natural that people would be curious and a little wary. He did not blame them but he was extremely angry at whoever had stolen his journal and sold it to the Daily Prophet. He was also angry at the Daily Prophet for publishing it. He now understood why Harry hated the newspaper so much.
Sirius was unable to concentrate on his lessons for the rest of the day. Most of the teachers treated him like they always did because they either already knew (Harry, Teddy and Neville) or had had their own suspicions (Professor Flitwick). But his classmates kept staring at him with this weird mixture of fear and fascination, although no one dared to speak to him. He barely noticed it though as his thoughts kept circling around the question who could have stolen his journal and why he hadn't noticed it.
In the end Sirius decided there was only one real suspect: Devlin McLaggen. His suspicion was practically confirmed when the boy grinned smugly at him at dinner. But what really put the nail in McLaggen's coffin was when Sirius found a copy of his journal entries in the other boy's bedside table. Sirius decided that this meant war and proceeded to booby trap McLaggen's bed and all his possessions. He would make this boy's life hell and he would enjoy every second of it.
A/N: Please tell me what you think and where you would like this story to go. I have a rough idea where I want to go with this but I'm still a little hazy on the details. Thank you for reading!
