Apologies for the abrupt halt this story came to. Hopefully things will be continuing more smoothly from now on.
-
Harry ran as fast as he could, desperate to out race his thoughts. His destination didn't matter as long as it was not here. Blind instinct drove him away from brightly lit Kings Cross and deeper into the shadowed suburban streets. Dodging the odd passer-by, he kept on running until the sharp stab of a stitch doubled him up. Clutching his side, he landed heavily on his right knee.
He yelped at the pain and his leg twisted, sending him crashing to the pavement. Curling into a ball, holding onto his knee and ribs, he lay there and gasped for breath. Gradually he recovered enough to push himself into a sitting position. He hung his head, blinking to clear his watery eyes.
A strangely delicate tapping made him look up. A huge, black dog, his claws clicking on the concrete, emerged from the half-light. Noticing he had Harry's attention, the dog stopped and whined softly. Harry smiled as he recognised the clear grey eyes of his, oh god, no, Sirius wasn't his godfather anymore.
Harry buried his face in his knees and tried not to cry.
Snuffles was whimpering now. Harry turned into the wall he was resting against. He just wanted to be left alone in his misery.
A cold wet nose pressed against his cheek and a sloppy tongue lapped across his ear.
Harry shoved at the huge dog.
"Leave me alone." He turned away and felt the hair on the back of his neck prickle at the static charge as Sirius transformed.
"Go away. I'm not your godson any more."
"Oh," said Sirius in a funny sounding voice. Harry squinted up through his lashes to see if Sirius looked angry. He didn't. Sirius' face was blank and he was sitting sort of huddled in on himself like a dog that had been kicked.
"I'm sorry," said Sirius, "I guess you don't want me around any longer."
"Don't you mean, you don't want me around any longer. You don't have to pretend. I'm a big boy, I understand," Harry snarled. He wasn't in the mood for playing polite games where everyone acted as if things were fine even though they weren't.
"Well that's more than I do," said Sirius. "Why don't you explain it to me?"
Harry gave an incensed little growl. "I am not your precious Harry Potter. I am not the Boy-Who-Lived. I'm not the son of James and Lily Potter. I don't look like my father, I don't have my mum's eyes. And I'm not your godson. So you don't have to pretend you care about me."
"Harry…"
"Nope, that's not my name."
Sirius's hands circled through the air, grabbing for words. Harry sneered because he couldn't start crying until his once godfather finally left him alone.
"Pup," said Sirius finally.
Harry gave him points for sounding honestly distressed but it wasn't enough.
"I am not your pup."
Sirius shook his head. "You are you know, whether you like it or not. My growling, spitting pup, hackles raised against the world."
"I am nothing like James Potter," challenged Harry.
"Well true," said Sirius with a smile, "But then that's always been the case."
"What!"
"It's why everyone makes such a fuss about you looking like Prongs, because they'd have to be as blind as Snape to think you act like him."
"Oh." Harry wasn't sure what to make of that.
"Sorry."
"What about flying? Everyone says my fath- I mean James Potter was a brilliant Quidditch player."
"Yes he was," said Lupin. Harry looked up to see his former Professor walking up to stand behind Sirius. "But you don't fly like him Harry, you never have. To be honest, you fly like Sirius."
"Really," said Harry doubtfully.
"Yes. James, you see, flew so he could play Quidditch. You and Sirius, Harry, play Quidditch so you can fly."
"What's the difference?"
"If Quidditch didn't exist, James would have played muggle football or cricket but for Sirius it's the flying he enjoys. Which is why he enchanted that ruddy motorcycle and had an absolute ball zooming around on Buckbeak."
Harry grinned as he remembered the thrill of hurtling through the air on Buckbeak's back. Sirius grinned back. Lupin clutched at his face with his hands.
"Dear Lord, why did I ever point that out to the two of you."
"Whatchya worrying 'bout Moony? You don't think I'd be as irresponsible as to help the Pup here enchant his own motorbike, do you?"
"That uplifting speech would have been so much more reassuring, Padfoot, if I hadn't just seen you wink at Harry."
"Moi? You're eyes are playing tricks on you. You didn't see anybody winking, did you kiddo?"
"No, no, not at all." Harry tried to keep a straight face as he shook his head violently.
"Sweet Merlin, but I've never seen such unbelievably pathetic attempts at pulling an innocent face."
Sirius cracked up and Harry couldn't help giggling a little. The affectionate teasing encouraged him to risk asking the question that he didn't really want answered. He took a deep breath, mentally crossed his fingers, and said,
"So, I mean, don't you love Ron now that he's your godson and Harry Potter?"
"Well…"
"See," snarled Harry, feeling irrationally betrayed.
"Listen to me Pup. You asked the question, you should at least hear my answer."
"Fine." He folded his arms and glared sulkily at Sirius.
"Fine. First things first, we've always liked Ron. You do too remember, he's your best friend after all."
"So?"
"So, we still like Ron. And yes, it's nice he's our godson, and if he needed us of course we'd help, but he's got two parents. And his mother definitely disapproves of us, well me."
"You do yourself too much credit Padfoot, Molly disapproves of both of us, separately and together. You're just the one who had the most direct claim on Harry."
"Whatever. The fact is Ron doesn't need us the way Harry did. And I know now you're not Harry anymore you don't need us either. You've got a mother and a father, I understand. I can see that you don't need a broken down godfather."
Harry blinked and blurted. "Wait a moment you think I don't want you."
"Of course. Isn't that what we're arguing about?"
"No, I thought, I thought you wouldn't want me now you know I'm not your best friend's son."
"Of course I want you. I've always wanted you. I mean, first I had to protect you because you were Prongs' son and I let him down so badly. But you were my godson from the moment I saw you creeping out of Privet Drive dragging all your belongings behind you. And then when I saw you flying." Sirius shook his head. "I just knew I had to get you a new broomstick."
Harry nodded, because nothing could compare to the gift of flight. Sirius cautiously crept a little closer and held out one hand. Harry accepted the hand and was pulled into a hug.
Lupin coughed from somewhere behind them.
"Be that as it may, Harry does, in fact, have parents. And his mother is undoubtedly worried about him, so we need to head back."
Harry's face fell. He didn't want to see Mrs Weasley, or Ron, or any of the Weasleys, but he wasn't sure why. After all this was what he had seen in the Mirror of Erised: a large, loving family. Finding out he was truly part of such a family should be a dream come true. So why did he want to stay out in the dark with Sirius and Remus? Why did the idea of confronting Mrs Weasley make his stomach curdle?
Sirius started to say something but Lupin shushed him.
"Come on Padfoot, get up."
"But-"
"But nothing. All else aside, we can hardly set up camp on a residential street."
"Don't see why not," said Sirius sullenly.
"Come on Paddy," Lupin coaxed, "We have to go back sometime, it might as well be now. And do you honestly want Dumbledore making our decisions for us?"
That galvanised Sirius. "I should think not. I don't think very much of his care of our Harry."
"Really? Don't you like the Weasleys?" said Harry, just stopping himself saying 'either'. He didn't want to admit to his sudden distaste for the Weasleys until he'd worked out why he had this strange aversion to them.
Sirius looked at him oddly. "What have the Weasleys got to do with anything? I'm talking about the almighty headmaster abandoning you to the Dursleys. There is no excuse for it. The blood wards business is clearly nonsense, not that I ever thought very much of his reasoning to begin with." He stood up and brushed off his jeans. "You are quite right as usual Moony. Who knows what he'd do to our Harry if we aren't there to stop him."
"Sirius," Lupin wrung his hands, "You have to remember Harry isn't ou-…. Oh what's the use."
"Moony?"
"It doesn't matter Sirius. It's too late any way."
"If you say so. Are you coming Harry?"
Harry stared at the hand that was being held out to him.
"Harry? Pup? You in there?"
"Am I really your Harry? You weren't talking about Ron?"
"Of course not. Much as I hate to admit it Dumbledore, undoubtedly for his own reasons, looked out for Harry Potter quite well. What I will not stand for is his sacrificing our Harry to achieve his ends. Not again. So don't you worry about anything, Harry, Moony and I will sort things out. We're quite a negotiating team you know, if Moony can't win them over with reason, I just thump 'em 'til they see sense."
Harry gaped at the man who never reacted the way he expected him to.
If Harry told Uncle Vernon that he wasn't related to him (and that was a cheering thought, he wasn't Uncle Vernon's nephew anymore), he knew he'd have less than five minutes to leave Privet Drive before Vernon booted him and all his freakishness from the house.
He'd always known the Wizarding World loved the Boy Who Lived and not Harry. As soon as they realised Ron was Harry Potter, all that overwhelming hero worship would deluge his best friend. Harry felt slight guilty at finding that a cheerful thought but reminded himself Ron actually wanted the adulation.
Sirius, however, seemed to love him even more after finding out he wasn't Harry Potter. Nothing the man did made any sense. Maybe he was as mad as everyone said for not getting rid of Harry while he had the chance.
"Come on Harry," urged Sirius, "Look on the bright side, no more Dursleys. Though just say the word and Moony and I will go and explain the error of their ways to them, at length and in great detail."
"Sirius," scolded Lupin.
"No more Wizarding groupies. Though I reckon it's a shame they'll stop throwing themselves at you before you could take proper advantage of their offers."
"Sirius!"
"Yes Moony?" Sirius blinked innocently up at Lupin. Lupin made an abortive move towards him and then flashed a quick glance at Harry. Harry thought they would have kissed if Lupin hadn't remembered his presence. He couldn't have that.
"Hey it's all right, don't mind me." He grinned up at Sirius and Sirius smirked back.
"That's my godson. A man after my own heart." Reaching up he tugged Lupin down into a kiss. Harry smiled to see it and fiddled with his shoe laces to give them some privacy. They reminded him of Uncle Hugh and Uncle Jack and he liked the feeling.
"Come on," said Sirius, holding his hand out to Harry, "We should get going."
"Do we have to?" Harry whined.
"Yep. And hey, I just thought, if you're not Harry Potter, we're no longer bound by our promise to Lily not to teach you how to be an Animagus until you're seventeen."
Harry's head shot up, "Really?"
"Really truly. Come on, we can get you started on the exercises straight away."
Harry jumped to his feet and grabbed hold of Sirius' hand.
"Is it true that you have no control over the animal you become?"
"Pretty much. In our experience anyway. Moony's really the one you need to talk to though. After we showed him what we'd done, the worrywart started an intensive study of Animagi to make sure we weren't going to run into problems later on."
"And a good thing I did too. Honestly Harry, I think they ignored anything that mentioned side effects."
"If we'd read everything about the side effects we'd never have done anything."
"There's a reason for that Sirius."
"Pah."
"But if Professor Lupin's read all about the side effects," said Harry, "I don't need to bother about that. I mean it's not like you guys had any problems."
Lupin coughed and spluttered. Sirius whacked him on the back, rather hard from what Harry could tell. He ignored them too excited about the idea of Animagus transformation.
"So that means I can get started straight away. What's the first exercise Sirius? How long did it take you? With you helping me, I bet I can manage it faster."
"Oh god," said Lupin, "Another one."
"Aww, you already knew that Moony."