Thanks for the reviews! I always enjoy reading them!
The first set of outtakes, these are about Sirius' life as a dog, they're just a few, short, random scenes that were important to the development of the fic, but since everything was from Harry's point of view I couldn't include them...without taking away some of the mystery
Sirius Outtakes
"Now," Harry said, patting Wolfsbane on the head, "be a good boy and stay here."
Wolfsbane whined, and followed Harry to the door, making a grand show of being sad at being left. Harry pointed at the dog and repeated, "Stay! Stay!"
Wolfsbane sat down and whined, tail wagging slowly.
"Good boy," Harry told him, "I'll be back soon."
Harry closed the door behind him, and Wolfsbane trotted back over to his bed and lay down on top of the coverlet, ears twitching with every noise heard from the staircase and common room.
Shortly after a hush fell upon the Gryffindor tower, and Wolfsbane slipped from Harry's bed over to the dormitory door. Nudging the door open with his nose, the dog peeked out into the stairwell.
Upon seeing it empty, Wolfsbane slowly made his way up to the dormitory he'd spotted Fred and George disappearing into the night before.
The door opened, with a bit of nudging and finagling, and the dog slipped inside. Wolfsbane sniffed around, nose low to the floor, tracking and located the trunks belong to Fred and George. Sitting down before the trunk, Wolfsbane disappeared with a pop and sitting in his place was a scruffy, poorly groomed man in grey robes, Sirius Black.
Sirius opened up the trunk and began cautiously looking through it, growling in frustration when he couldn't find what he wanted. Then he turned to the other twin's trunk and began looking through it as well.
Still unable to locate whatever it was he was looking for, he turned his search to the boys' bedding, and then their beside tables.
"Where is it?" Sirius asked, voice rough, and he tapped his foot in frustration, the floorboard below him shifted with a creak and the man grinned. With a soft pop, he was Wolfsbane again, and he began sniffing all around the room, until he found it.
There was a floorboard with a slight groove on one side and it positively reeked of Fred and George Weasley.
The man reappeared and gently removed the floorboard from it's place.
Inside was the map.
Sirius smiled in triumph and replaced the board, before returning to his dog form once more, gently taking the map into his mouth and carrying it back down to the 3rd year boys' dormitory.
Once inside, the man reappeared and locked the door.
He glanced around the room appraisingly, his eyes stopping on Ron's crazed rat.
"I rather like you being in that cage," Sirius said conversationally, "it's the slightest hint of what I've been going through these last 12 years, Peter."
He waved the map and said, "Look what I've found, hard to believe it's been here all this time, and helping two great kids like Ted and Morge. We thought for sure Flitch had destroyed it, remember?"
Sirius sat next to the cage in quiet contemplation before he rubbed his scraggly beard and murmured, "Don't suppose any of these lads shave, though," He shot the rat a pointed look, "I suppose any sort of blade will do…"
The rat began gnawing desperately at the metal wires of the cage.
"Hey," the man scolded, poking the rat's head, until it fell backwards, "stop that and pull yourself together man, you'll give yourself a heart attack! I don't want you dying unless I kill you myself."
The rat cowered at the bottom of the cage, chest heaving heavily.
"Hey, now, Peter," Sirius said soothingly, "could be worse…I've been debating letting the girl's cat play with you."
If possible the prone rat's chest began heaving faster.
"I'm trying to think," the man said, pulling at his beard once more, "How old I was when I began to save…15? 16? I'll just go on up to the 7th year dorms, they're sure to have razors."
Sirius tucked the map under Harry's pillow and then returned to dog form disappearing upstairs once more. He returned several minutes later with a cheap, disposable muggle razor.
The man returned with a pop, and sat down next to the rat's cage.
"There was a kid," he told the rat, "who had a razor like mine…you remember, more of a trussed-up, dull knife than something one should use on their face and neck…I'd considered taking that, figured it would be…dead useful, but I figured this," he waved the cheap, plastic razor, "would be less likely to be missed."
The man pushed himself to his feet and said, "Now, I'm off for a shave."
He returned some time later: hair wet and pulled back with a bit of cloth, face clean shaven, the robe was damp as well.
"I feel a bit more human," the man confided in the rat, "though I suppose you haven't been anything close to human since before you let that thing burn its brand into your skin. Did you enjoy being part of his proud herd of cattle?"
Then Sirius glanced at the clock in the room and took a breath to calm down. He took hold of the razor and stashed it in a dark corner under one of the beside tables where the boys would never notice it. Then he took the map from it's place under Harry's pillow…he'd need to find a good place to hide this, or else he'd surely be caught. Those boys would turn him in as soon as they figured out that he was hiding in plain sight, and he just couldn't have that.
He looked appraisingly around the room before his eyes halted on the crumpled, dirty robes that Harry had worn yesterday and discarded on the floor.
The man lifted the robes and turned out one of the trick pockets before placing the map on it and then turning it back in. He quickly folded the robe and placed it in the bottom of Harry's trunk next to what looked like a photo album…hopefully, Harry wouldn't check the pockets anytime soon.
It was much easier to get a little privacy when living with five kids than you'd think…they were gone most of the day with meals and classes, and they all slept as much as humanly possible every night. They were too young to need or want to pull all-nighters.
This gave him more alone time than the average adult had, and probably a hundred times more alone time than he'd had in the last 12 years.
But whenever that alone time wasn't enough, there was a very simple way to appropriate more…
It had really started as a way to avoid waking poor, exhausted Harry up to take him out in the middle of the night, but then once he'd decided to do his best to keep Harry in his life in the future it became more a matter of preventing future embarrassment for the poor kid.
Fortunately, Harry had thought nothing of it, besides being impressed, and he passed that same attitude onto his schoolmates…so now, whenever Sirius needed a moment alone to be a human again all he had to do was go into the bathroom, close the door, transform, and then as quietly as possible lock it so no one would catch him.
Of course, he did actually use the bathroom as well, twelve years in prison made him thankful for toilets, especially ones with toilet seats.
It was almost comical watching the kids line up like they were soldiers going to war. Surely, they didn't think it would be this difficult to bathe him. He hadn't given Harry any trouble at all the last time he'd needed a bath...of course, Harry had been all alone, and he was such a little wisp of a thing so he couldn't handle a dog this size acting up all on his own.
But six kids probably could.
Sirius felt his mouth drop open into a dog-grin as he sized up the motley crew before him. If they wanted a challenge, Sirius would be most pleased to oblige...he could surely give them the full experience.
Sirius waited until they'd gotten him wet before putting his plan into motion, that way he could make a bigger mess. He shook as much water off of him as he possibly could and began running around the bathroom, with the whole army of kids following behind him.
They were a persistent lot, and it made evading capture all the more fun, and since there were so many of them Sirius trailed water all over the bathroom and all the kids ended up slipping and sliding around. Sirius drove between their legs, shook water all over them, and generally tried his best to be as difficult as possible.
Sirius grew a bit concerned that he'd gone too far when little Hermione twisted her ankle, but she took it like a champ and hopped up on the counter to bark off commands like a drill sergeant...the effect was ruined by her constant giggling.
Finally, Sirius, being the old dog he was grew tired and the kids were able to wrestle him under control, each of them looking as proud as James had when he'd been the first of the group to transform into an animal.
Sirius realized that this was probably the best he'd felt...since...Harry had been born. It was crazy to believe that he could ever feel this happy after twelve years in Azkaban. Being with these kids, especially little Harry, had changed his perception...driven away a bit of the constant darkness he'd felt since being imprisoned. Something that would have been impossible to imagine even just a month ago when his thoughts had been consumed with revenge and murder.
Sirius' mind drifted to Peter, trapped in a cage, while Sirius tried to figure out how to kill him without getting caught before he could finish the job...or without leaving his body in the school where it would cause a panic.
...Revenge wasn't enough anymore, Sirius realized.
He trotted over to where Ron and Harry were helping Hermione down from the counter so she wouldn't jostle her ankle anymore than she already had. They were all flushed red from laughter. Harry, especially, benefited from the laughter, he looked happier than he had since Sirius had found him over the summer.
Sirius had seen the kid cry more than he'd seen the kid laugh, it felt like. Harry needed someone to look out for him, someone to make him happy...and that would make Sirius happier than anything else in the world.
Harry couldn't be left alone again. Sirius knew that he had to change his plans now, he had to keep Peter alive and prove his innocence so that he could keep Harry this happy. He could give Harry a proper home, a proper family, and properly help the kid with his schoolwork...
Now all Sirius had to do was figure out how to turn himself and Peter in without immediately getting thrown into Azkaban without a trial...again.
With all of his plans thrown out the window, Sirius was back at square one.
But at least he wasn't in prison this time.