Harry Potter and The Fate We Make
Chapter 5: School's End, School's Beginning
A/N: Disclaimer's in the first chapter. This chapter's gonna jump time just a bit early on.
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The rest of the day passed quietly enough, though Harry was more than slightly disturbed by the grins on the twins' faces. He wondered, again, if introducing the Marauders and the Twins was the best idea he'd ever had. But then again, the look on Voldemort's face when he got pranked ought to be worth it. Or Malfoy, for that matter. Just the thought made him snicker, and he was quite sure Dobby would be more than willing to help slip something to the elder Malfoy in repayment for his treatment at the man's hands.
He didn't eat much supper, in anticipation of having to deal with a very large, very dead snake. Not to mention Snape. Snape, on the other hand, looked entirely normal, though Harry wasn't really surprised. He was pretty sure the school in its entirety (Slytherins included) would pass out in shock if Snape ever did something as radical as smile of his own free will, or act anything other than the grumpy git he was.
Dinner done, Harry hurried to Myrtle's bathroom. She, thankfully, seemed to be absent, or at least content to sulk in silence in a toilet. Snape arrived a few moments later, a crate about three feet on a side bobbing in his wake and a large leather package in his hands. For a miracle, the sneer was, while not absent, somewhat reduced.
"I hope that crate's shrunk, Professor." Harry said.
That got the sneer back to its customary levels, though Snape forebore to actually say anything ... probably thought it would be a waste of air. Harry turned to the sinks and hissed at them, then glanced over at Snape as the sink moved aside.
From the sudden blanking of his expression, Harry guessed that Dumbledore hadn't told Snape much, if anything, about this particular adventure. This ... had potential to be fun. Harry glanced at the tunnel as a thought occurred to him. Surely Salazar Slytherin would have thought it well beneath his dignity to slide down a pipe? Stairs! He hissed, and gave a pleased grin when the pipe twisted and changed, producing a spiral staircase rather like the one that led to the headmaster's office. He really should have thought of that the first time around, but things had been more than a bit crazy. And besides, it had been fun pushing that git Lockhart into the pipe.
They made their way down in silence, the crate following like an obedient puppy. Soon enough they were at the bottom, and Harry led the way towards the Chamber proper, until they got to the cave-in. Sadly, the rock had covered most of the sloughed-off skin, leaving only a few fragments visible.
"This is where Lockhart tried to Obliviate us. Thankfully, the idiot had grabbed Ron's wand, and it backfired."
Snape didn't comment, just dug his wand out of wherever it was hiding and flicked it at the mess, creating a rough but serviceable arch with the rubble. Once the way was cleared, they continued, and then the door to the Chamber was in front of them. Harry twisted to get a good look at Snape.
For once, the man seemed to be startled into an expression other than his usual grumpy sneer. He'd stopped just inside the Chamber, eyes glued to the basilisk's head. Most of the rest of it was hidden, either behind statues or behind the bulk of the head and the first bit of neck, but the head was, really, impressive enough without having to see the rest. Snape's eyes had gone wide, and when he glanced at Harry, Harry fancied he saw something that might be kin to respect in the man's eyes for the first time. But then again, this was Snape, and he probably was imagining it.
Once he took his attention off Snape, Harry had to suppress a shiver. Everything was exactly as it had been when he and Ginny had left. The rubble from the basilisk's blind thrashings, the tooth. Even the amount of blood was the same, which Harry found strange. Considering the thing'd had a sword shoved through its brain, you'd think it would have continued to leak blood for quite some time, but there was no evidence of that.
Snape seemed to have recovered, and was now circling the basilisk's head, assessing it.
"There must be some sort of preservation spell on this Chamber, for the carcass to be so unchanged." He growled. "So much the better. I had ... underestimated ... the size of the creature. It will take a great deal of time to render it."
That made Harry smirk, as he was fairly sure Snape had thought the basilisk was only a few feet in length, because after all, Harry was an incompetent idiot, right? He left Snape to his rendering, and began to explore a bit, poking his nose in corners and hissing 'open'. Sadly, there did not seem to be anything else in the Chamber, just the statues and the snake.
"If you are quite done wasting time." Snape snapped. "You will assist me."
Harry grimaced, then shrugged and headed over.
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The weekend, and the last week of school that followed, were surprisingly quiet. Harry spent his evenings in the Chamber, helping Snape render the basilisk. With just the two of them, it was going to take a very long time to harvest everything that was useable, but the fact that the Chamber seemed to be frozen in time meant they had the time they needed.
Eventually, it was the last day. Harry felt more than a little odd, packing his things but knowing he'd not be going on the train. Still, the fact that he'd not have to so much as glimpse the Durselys was more than compensation for missing the ride. Especially since Harry sincerely wanted to keep the Marauders as far away from the Dursleys as was humanly and magically possible. He did NOT want to know what the two of them would do if they ever found out the full extent of how the Dursleys had treated him.
Harry waited on the front steps, trunk and Hedwig's cage at his feet. She was, as Ron had predicted, currently not 'speaking' to him, giving him irate looks and snapping her beak at him. She'd have to deal.
And then Remus walked into sight, coming from the direction of the Whomping Willow, a very familiar black dog trotting alongside. Harry had to grin. Padfoot looked much better than he had third year. His coat was clean and at least somewhat groomed, and he looked like he'd filled out somewhat.
That was all the time he had to observe, though, as Padfoot took off at a dead run and pounced on him, sprawling him backwards and slobbering all over his face. Harry laughed as he tried to fend him off.
"Padfoot! That's gross! Gerroff!"
It took a few moments to wrestle Padfoot into submission, but Harry eventually succeeded, then gave Remus, who was standing nearby, grinning widely and chuckling, a jaundiced glare.
"Oh, you're a big help." Harry mock-groused.
"Ready to go?" Remus asked, ignoring the comment.
"Definitely."
Remus Leviosa'd Harry's trunk, while Harry grabbed Hedwig's cage. They walked towards the Willow, and Remus forced the tree to freeze long enough for them to scramble into the tunnel.
"Man, this brings back memories!" Harry said, getting an amused chuckle from Remus and a woof from Padfoot.
Once in the Shack, Sirius transformed. Harry was ... quite pleasantly surprised. Sirius looked loads better. His hair was clean and had been cut, though it was still a bit past his shoulders. He'd got some color, and had lost the gaunt, skeletal look, though it looked like he could still stand to gain a stone. And better yet, his eyes seemed to have lost some of the haunted, slightly mad look.
"It's so good to see you again, Harry!" Sirius said, pulling him into a hug. Even his voice had improved, having lost the harsh, rasping edge it'd had this time last year. Harry returned the hug, and they pulled apart.
"Now." Sirius said. "We'll be apparating to an alley near the house. I'll have to transform back to Padfoot once we're there, but once we're in the house we'll be fine. Albus put it under Fidelius, and he's the Secret Keeper."
That said, Sirius pulled Harry close, and ... and Harry was subjected to the worst method of wizarding travel yet. And he'd though portkeys were bad? He felt turned inside out and upside down when they got where they were going, and had to cling to Sirius to keep his feet under him as nausea threatened. Once he'd got his breath and managed to loose his deathgrip on Sirius' arm, Sirius transformed to Padfoot, and they walked out of the alley onto a street, and down it for a ways before they stopped. Remus held out a scrap of paper. "Read this and memorize it, then I'll destroy it."
The Order of the Phoenix's Headquarters is at 12 Grimmauld Place
Harry read it and memorized it, and when he looked up, he did a doubletake. Because there was a building there that hadn't been a few moments ago ... a building whose outside was dingy and dirty and in dire need of repair.
Sirius must have seen something in Harry's expression, because he grimaced. "It's not much, I know, but it's home for now."
They walked in, and Harry stopped in his tracks. The place was a wreck! It was clear that some attempt at cleaning had been made, since the entry hall was relatively free of dirt, dust, and grime, but the rooms he could see into from here looked like they hadn't been cleaned since the dawn of time.
"Oh my. I see why you were hoping Dobby and Winky would help. Why hasn't the existing house-elf ... ?"
"Because he's insane." Sirius supplied. "KREACHER!" He bellowed, and a few moments later, the house-elf's answer to Snape appeared. Dirtier than Winky had been in the wake of losing her Master, and muttering what had to be insults if the tone was anything to go by.
"The blood traitor master called Kreacher?" It snarled. That was, though, as far as it got, because Sirius' yell started something else yelling. Sirius cursed, and, before the painting could get out more than something about blood traitors and half-bloods, wrestled some curtains into place over the painting.
"What the ..." Harry asked.
Sirius grimaced. "My darling mother. We can't get the picture down, either. We've tried."
Harry winced. "Right. Dobby! Winky!"
Moments later, the two appeared. They took one look around and their eyes went wide in utter horror. Then, as one, and before anyone realized what they were about to do, they launched themselves at Kreacher, hurling imprecations and insults at him at high volume and high speed as the pair of them proceeded to thrash Kreacher. It took Harry a few moments to get over the surprise.
"Dobby, Winky! Stop!"
Instantly the pair obeyed. Sirius looked like he was trying very hard not to fall over laughing. Kreacher just looked seriously angry.
"Right, you two ... leave Kreacher be, ok? Do you two think you can help get this place to rights?"
"Of course wes can, Harry Potter sir!" Dobby said, nodding emphatically.
"That's great. Oh, and, if you two can figure out how to get that." Harry pointed at the painting. "Down, you'll get a special treat of your choice."
This made Kreacher wail in horror, and Dobby and Winky both got scheming looks on their faces as they considered the portrait. Harry had a feeling its days were numbered, even if the pair of them had to vanish and rebuild the wall to get rid of it. Sirius and Remus got identical hell-raising grins on their faces.
Over the next hour, Harry got a rather up-close look at what a house-elf was capable of. A few snaps and pops, and who-knows-how-many-years worth of loose dust and grime vanished as if it had never been all through the first floor, yet Dobby and Winky hadn't moved from the front hall. There was still a lot of ground-in dirt, things were still dingy thanks to lack of care, and there were still doxies in the curtains, and if the banging was any indication, a boggart hidden somewhere. But there was a visible improvement after a grand total of five seconds of effort on the elves' parts.
Once that bit had been done, Dobby and Winky split up, heading into seperate rooms. Harry followed Dobby, just to see what was up, and watched as Dobby glared at a particular piece of furniture for a moment before snapping his fingers. Between one blink and the next, the piece went from dull and dingy to looking like it was brand new. Dobby repeated the process on every individual piece of furniture, then tackled the walls, floor, ceiling and windows. The only thing, it appeared, that he couldn't handle, were the doxies. Since Harry had no idea how to deal with them, he called for Remus ... and got an impromptu lesson as Remus dealt with the things.
By the time the room was spotless and completely rejuvenated, Dobby looked like he'd run a marathon. When the little elf moved as if to head for the next room, Harry stopped him.
"Take a break, Dobby. You look worn out. Go find Winky and tell her the same thing, ok?"
Dobby nodded and popped out of sight without a word, which was all the evidence Harry needed that Dobby was more tired than he'd let on.
It wasn't until then that Harry investigated where Sirius had got to, and found him on the second floor. He had, evidently, been setting up Harry's room (the bedroom must have been cleaned before Harry arrived, as the elves hadn't dealt with the second floor at all, but the room was clean). Harry caught him standing in the middle of the room, holding one of Harry's hand-me-down shirts with a confounded look on his face.
"Harry ... what on earth is this?" Sirius asked. "Herbology smock, so you don't get your uniform filthy?"
Well, that wasn't such a bad idea, but it wasn't what it was, and Harry cringed internally. This was NOT going to go over well. "It's one of my shirts."
Sirius gave him an odd look, then looked at the ragged, dingy shirt (which was about ten sizes too big for Harry), then back at Harry. "Sleep shirt?" With a bit of a glitter that said 'it better be' in his eyes.
Uh oh. "Ummm ... " Harry tried valiantly to think of a way to break this to Sirius that wouldn't result in Sirius ending up in Azkaban again ... this time because he WAS guilty of killing someone. Unfortunately, nothing came to mind.
Not that it'd have helped, because Sirius was getting the picture all on his own, and his expression became thunderous. "You mean to tell me ... " He started, voice a nasty snarl.
"Sirius, it's over, ok? And I'm never going back. There's no point in getting fussed. I fully intend to forget they ever existed as soon as possible." Harry said, half afraid he'd go tearing off.
Sirius seemed to think this over, almost visibly deciding to shelve the issue for later. "Right. You, Remus, and a shopping trip, I think. And if you can get him to buy things for himself, so much the better."
That made Harry grinned in relief. "I'll try." He wasn't dumb enough to think this was actually over, but at least Sirius wasn't charging out the door with murder on his mind. It'd be that much worse for the Dursleys later, when Sirius finally got around to dealing with them (Harry had no illusions whatever of what Sirius, Remus, and the twins were capable of, nor did he think that Sirius would NOT bring them in on the revenge sooner or later), but Harry really couldn't care about that right now.
He peered around the room, grinning a bit. There were Gryffindor banners all over the walls, the drapes, bed curtains and duvet were all Gryffindor red and gold. There were a lot of pictures on the walls ... and some odd gaps where some pictures had been. Harry wandered over to the pictures and inhaled sharply when he recognized a teenaged Sirius waving at him from one of them, arms slung over the necks of two boys, one of whom looked like a clone of Harry, the other a nigh-unrecognizable younger Remus, looking far less scarred and far younger and more happy and carefree than the man Harry knew. All three were mugging for the camera like crazy.
"This used to be my room as a kid. I figured you'd be a bit more comfortable in here than in most of the other rooms. They're more dungeons than rooms, really. Slytherin colors everywhere." He wrinkled his nose in distaste. "I took down all the pictures with him in them." No need to clarify what him Sirius meant. "And a few things your young eyes weren't meant to see, but left the rest. I knew you'd enjoy them."
"This is brilliant, Sirius. You're sure you won't mind?" Harry's voice was suspiciously rough.
Sirius scoffed. "I don't mind a bit. I took the room next door, and Remus grabbed the one on the other side of you."
This pleased Harry inordinately. Having them so close, and wanting to be that close ... ! After a lifetime of the Dursleys, it'd take him a while to get used to it, but he liked it. He liked it a lot.
It didn't take long to unpack his trunk, and once it was done, there was hardly a sign someone lived here now, except for the owl perch and the photo album on the bedside table, but then, Harry hadn't exactly had the opportunity ... or desire ... to get a lot of belongings. Though he supposed he had that option now.
They spent the rest of the day either getting settled, exploring (on Harry's part), or helping Dobby and Winky deal with infestations of various critters as the elves continued their cleaning efforts (with breaks enforced by Harry). By the time the three wizards headed for bed, the first floor was nigh-unrecognizable from the filthy wreck it had been when Harry arrived. Sadly, the portrait remained, for now. Dobby and Winky were far too busy trying to conquer the dirt and muck to worry about renovations. For now. Harry had found the shell of what had once been a potions lab (now empty of everything save a few rather sad looking cauldrons), the library (Just being near some of the books gave him the willies), the kitchen, what looked like a dueling chamber (the walls, ceiling and floor were made of an odd, matte-gray material that seemed to absorb light and sound), and a room whose purpose Harry couldn't guess, but whose walls were covered in the Black family tree. There were also a great many bedrooms and rooms to gather together in, with couches and chairs scattered around, and a dining room for when there were more people than the kitchen could manage (or for formal occasions, Harry supposed). By far the most disturbing find, back in a far corner of the basement, was the cells. Harry had shuddered in horror when he'd found them, even if they would now serve a kinder purpose (It was clear one had been renovated for Remus' use during the full moon). The Blacks, Harry reflected, had been a rather disturbing bunch. It made him wonder how Sirius had happened. Harry had not, he realized, seen Kreacher all day since he got beat up by Dobby and Winky, and wondered what the sullen, ill-tempered elf was up to. It had all, Harry reflected as he crawled into his new bed, added up to a long, interesting day. And they had a gameplan to put together tomorrow, and shopping, and ... well, it didn't look like life was going to be dull for quite some time.