A Sirius Situation
Chapter 6, formerly Chapter 5: In the Dark
Author: Jelsemium
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, JK Rowling does
Dumbledore was certain that Ollivander would not betray Sirius's secret. Sirius agreed with Dumbledore, citing the fact that the Ollivander family had never been known to cater to either the Ministry or to Dark Wizards. Harry, remembering that Ollivander had once described Voldemort's deeds as 'great', did not feel reassured. His worries tended to ruin his appetite and invade his dreams.
A loud crash jolted Harry out of a particularly nasty nightmare involving being chased through endless corridors and Sirius jumping through a heavily curtained window to his doom. A combination of startled muscles and involuntary magic sent him tumbling from his bed. Leo, the Abyssinian cat, landed on top of the large, black Grim as the monstrous canine bolted from underneath to deal with the intruder.
The result was a lot more crashing and banging with snarls, caterwauling, flashing hexes and several choice words thrown in for bad measure.
"Oops," a female voice said, sotto voce. "Sorry. Hope I didn't wake you…" The witch stopped in mid-sentence. Harry couldn't blame her; it was a rather silly thing to say, under the circumstances. "Erm… I hope I didn't wake you from a particularly good dream, that is," the witch moved forward. "I mean, I'm sorry..." There was another crash when the speaker bumped into a table that was laden with textbooks and study guides. "Oh, bother," she said. "Lumos."
Leo the cat and Padfoot the Grim blinked up at the sudden light.
The lit wand revealed a young woman, with dark hair, fair skin and a heart shaped face. Her dark eyes darted between Leo and Padfoot. Then she looked around the otherwise empty room. "Erm, I thought Harry Potter was in here?" she said with a nervous smile.
Padfoot let out a growl that rattled the potion bottles.
The woman backed up a pace and brought her wand to a defensive position.
Harry concentrated and changed back into his human form before he realized that he shouldn't be showing this trick off to strangers. Padfoot let out another growl, but Harry could see that the dog was looking at him out of the corner of his eye.
"Erm, hi," Harry said to the young woman.
When the woman regained control of her sagging jaw, she swallowed a few times. "Erm, oh, wotcher, Harry! Here, let me help you up," she said in a rather shaky voice. She held out her hand to Harry.
A roaring, salivating Padfoot was between the two humans before Harry could respond.
The woman leaped back with a shriek, tripped on something that went clattering away, and sat down with a thud. There was another clatter and the woman snapped out a few obscenities. One of the printable words she uttered was "wand." Since the light had bounced away from the woman, Harry deduced that she'd dropped her wand when she had fallen the second time.
This was not a healthy situation for the witch. In the dim light, Harry could see that Padfoot was furious. His muscles flexed and his fur bristled, making the bear sized canine seem large enough to swallow both intruder and Harry. The way the dog's pale eyes blazed convinced Harry that Padfoot was sincerely planning on wolfing down both of them. Padfoot stalked toward the female, showing off his oversized mouth with the nightmarishly oversized teeth.
"Oh, for Heaven's sake!" Madame Pomfrey huffed. "Snuffles, that will be enough of that!" The matron hurried in, followed by the Headmaster. "Miss Tonks, I warned you not to wake Mr. Potter!"
"I didn't mean to!" Miss Tonks said in a plaintive voice that just missed being an annoying wail.
"There, there, Tonks," Dumbledore said. "Accidents can happen to the best of us. Isn't that right, Snuffles? Miss Tonks is an Auror, she's here to protect Mr. Potter," Dumbledore said gently.
Harry couldn't make out Dumbledore's face, but the Headmaster's voice held a note of amusement.
Madam Pomfrey began lighting candles with a few waves of her wand and some muttered words. Her voice held a few textbooks worth of annoyance.
The Grim stopped growling and its tongue lolled out, leading Harry to believe that not all of Pomfrey's mutterings dealt with lighting the ward.
"I'm sorry," Miss Tonks said meekly. She studied Snuffles out of the corner of her eye.
As Madam Pomfrey was lighting the candles and Padfoot was no longer acting like he wanted to devour everyone in sight, Harry could relax and study the intruder more carefully. Her dark hair turned out to be a vivid shade of purple, now that the lights were on. She was around five feet, four inches; with a slender build that made Harry think of a ballerina or an acrobat.
Harry guessed that the witch was in her twenties. There was just something about the witch's unnatural hair color and silver nose ring that indicated to him that she hadn't been out of Hogwarts for very long. Harry also decided that she was probably a Muggle-born because he'd never expected to see a witch wear leather pants and a glittery t-shirt before.
He started to push himself upright when Pomfrey interjected, "Don't move, Potter." To reinforce her order, she muttered: "Petrificus Spinus" and Harry's neck and back froze up. He sighed as Pomfrey set him floating in mid-air while she remade the bed.
"You relax, young man," Pomfrey ordered waspishly.
Harry wondered how he was supposed to relax when his spine had been turned into an iron bar. He looked over at Madam Pomfrey to protest, but the expression on her face and Padfoot's body language made him hold his tongue.
He was in Sirius trouble here.
"It was all my fault, Madam Pomfrey," Miss Tonks protested.
"I am quite aware of that," Madam Pomfrey said, giving Miss Tonks a stern look.
Miss Tonks looked taken aback, and then she gave Madam Pomfrey an impudent grin that reminded Harry of someone…
"Confess! You missed me, Matron!" Miss Tonks said cheekily.
"I'm afraid she's on to you, Poppy," Dumbledore said in a light tone.
Madam Pomfrey gave him a stern look. Not that it made any impression on the Headmaster.
"I have to admit, it was very quiet here without you being brought in every other day," Madam Pomfrey was trying to retain her gruff attitude with only partial success. "However, Mr. Potter has managed to take up some of the slack, so I haven't been too lonely. The two of you should get along well."
She shot a stern look over Miss Tonks' shoulder. "My patient needs his sleep, Headmaster."
"My apologies, Poppy, we weren't here to wake him up," Dumbledore said wryly. He looked at the scattered bedpans as if wondering how they had managed to introduce themselves to Miss Tonks' feet. "Hello, Harry. How are you feeling? Ready to go home?"
"I am at home, Headmaster," Harry said politely.
Madam Pomfrey's eyebrows went up, and Snuffles gave a small woof.
"I mean, at Hogwarts, not the Hospital Wing," Harry added.
"I see," Dumbledore said. "Do you feel up to returning to Privet Drive?"
"I'd rather go to the Burrow," Harry said.
"I'm afraid that's not possible at this time," Dumbledore said regretfully. "However, you won't be left alone to deal with your relatives. You will need medical attention for a while longer. Your Aunt and Uncle were given the choice of having someone look in on you on a regular basis or taking you to St. Mungo's." He looked over at the matron. "Poppy, I think that you can relax the Brace Charm now."
"What? Oh, of course," Madam Pomfrey sounded a trifle flustered as she waved her wand at Harry and canceled the spell.
"You forced the Dursleys to think? That must have hurt," Harry said dryly.
Snuffles woofed again and Miss Tonks grinned.
Dumbledore's moustache twitched. "Now, Harry," he reproved. "Be respectful of your relatives."
"Yes, Professor," Harry said. A few minutes later, Harry had to ask, "When you asked them to think, did steam come out of their ears?"
"Harry," warned Dumbledore.
"I expect Uncle Vernon just turned that interesting shade of puce that he gets whenever my name gets mentioned," Harry went on.
Dumbledore was having a difficult time maintain a stern façade.
"Aunt Petunia is a little more discreet than my uncle," Harry went on. "Her mouth tightens until the corners are all white, like this." He clenched his mouth shut until his jaw hurt.
Miss Tonks struggled to keep a straight face. Madam Pomfrey rolled her eyes.
"Harry!" barked Dumbledore.
Harry looked up, his face as innocent as a choir boy's, his eyes as wicked as a Marauder's. "Yes, Headmaster?" he said.
"Petunia's mouth is more like…" Dumbledore compressed his lips together until the corners of his mouth turned white.
"Ah, my mistake," Harry said.
"Headmaster, please, this boy needs rest," Madam Pomfrey insisted.
"Ah, yes, sorry, Poppy," Dumbledore said. "Harry, this is Miss Nymphadora Tonks, she'll be one of the nurses looking in on you while you convalesce."
Harry blinked at Miss Tonks. "Pleased to meet you, ah, Miss…?"
"I didn't choose the name," she grumbled at him. "Just call me Tonks."
"Tonks, this is Harry Potter," Dumbledore said.
"I'm pleased to meet you at last, Harry," Tonks said, smiling. "You look just the way I pictured you." Her dark eyes sparkled.
Padfoot let out a tremendous bark, as if trying to get her attention. When she looked at him, he lolled his tongue out in a wolfish grin.
Tonks looked nervously from Padfoot to Harry, and fingered her wand. "Has your dog been fed lately?"
Padfoot made a peculiar grumbling noise in the back of his throat.
"The large, canine guardian is someone you're going to be working with," Dumbledore said before Harry could reply. "Snuffles is very well trained and very reliable."
"Snuffles, is it?" Tonks sniggered.
"Also known as Padfoot," Dumbledore said.
Tonks stiffened. "Padfoot? Wait, that's what we used to call my cousin…"
"Also known as Sirius Black."
Tonks' eyes went wide. "Sirius?"
"Hello, Snidget," Sirius said nervously.
"You… you're…" Tonks eyes began to water. "No one but you has ever called me that, Sirius!"
"Snidget," Sirius couldn't think of anything else to say.
"He's innocent," Harry said fiercely. "He never hurt my parents."
Tonks burst into tears, scaring Harry and Sirius for the second time that night. "I knew you were innocent!" she sobbed. "I knew that you would never hurt the Potters! You… couldn't… Mum was broken hearted… Dad… I mean… the Ministry thought that Mum might have… Oh… my… GOD! What happened to James and Lily? What went wrong? How did you get out of Azkaban?? Where have you BEEN!?"
Then she flung herself into Sirius' arms and sobbed against his shoulder. "You're back! You're back! Mum will be so happy!"