Chapter 58
Summer no mattered how much of a learning curve it had been, was over far too soon. Not only for the new father but for all of the children who were going to be heading back to Hogwarts. Yet the wrench was of course greatest for Harry who knew his time with Ariana was going to be cut back to the least it had ever been. At least he had the great comfort Alice was going with him. All his free time had to be devoted to her from then on.
As he got out of the shower (having got up early enough to do so) he could hear that she was crying. His daughter he had found out was not a baby who cried a lot – only when she needed something.
"Ok baby, daddy's coming," he called to her. It was rare that she got left by herself. He had thought the others were in there rooms and were going to be keeping an ear out for her. As he struggled to get his towel on though, she did stop crying. Someone had got to her before him.
Drying off, he got his T shirt and jeans on that he was going to be going to Kings Cross Station in and walked back to his room to find that it was Ginny who had gone to his child's aid. She had her in her arms and Alice, now a whole six weeks old was gurgling happily. Apparently, all she had wanted was a bit of attention.
"Oh Harry –" said Ginny as she saw him, his hair still slightly wet. She hadn't meant to intrude on his privacy. "Sorry it's just she was crying –"
"It's ok, in fact thank you. I hate it when she cries." He said to her. She had done the right thing when she had done to her. Alice had never been left to cry.
Harry walked over to the bed to put the rest of his books in his trunk now that he could see the little one was content. Ginny took the hint and sat on the bed. Continuing to cradle the baby she placed a kiss on her forehead as the childs father did the last of his packing.
"I can't believe we have to go back so soon!" she said to him. It seemed he was not the only one who was dreading go back to school.
"You must be looking forward to seeing Dean again though," he offered. They had been dating most of the summer from what he had heard.
Ginny merely shrugged. She felt her heart race just that little bit faster. She had never really given up hope...not even now he was a dad. He thought she liked someone else. It was probably for the best... he was definitely not on the market.
"Yes – I suppose it is going to be good to see him. You must be relieved to be taking her with you," she said referencing the girl in her arms. She wanted the subject changed none the less.
"Yeah I am. I mean it is not going to be easy to hear Sirius call her his daughter, but it is the way that we have to play the game if she is going to go to Hogwarts." He shrugged. If she had not been going back with him though, he seriously doubted that he would get on the train. They came as a pair now.
"We all know the truth though don't we? She's all you Harry – anyone can see it." She offered comfortingly.
"Yeah I suppose she is – though there is a lot of you mummy in your too isn't there?" he said as she gurgled. "Right you, come here – thanks Ginny," he said as he took her back in to his arms. "We had better get you dressed hadn't we if you are going to be spending the day with your uncle Aberforth before you come to school!" He said.
The plan had been set out that she would, of course, remain at Grimmauld Place while the others went to get the train, and then much later after the first years had been sorted Sirius would return to pick her up from her uncle, who would in turn divide his time that day between his sister and his niece.
Picking a yellow baby grow out of her draw in his room, he dressed her quickly (he was getting good at the whole parent thing) lifted her up in his arms and headed down to breakfast. Sirius has eaten already and so insisted that his grandchild be passed over to him, so Harry could at least have five minutes to himself before he headed back off to school. Sirius had dropped the majority of his things back to his apartment the day before when he had also baby proofed his apartment. At the end of his bed, there was now a crib, and plenty of stuffed toys now shared the rooms he would be occupying with Alice.
Time went that morning for Harry far too quickly. He knew that he was going to be seeing his daughter in just a few hours but it wasn't going to make it any easier. It felt like goodbye which it was – to summer.
Of course, there was someone he was leaving he was not going to see for weeks. As Aberforth was down with the others at breakfast, as soon as he was done eating, he saw the window of opportunity and headed back up the stairs. Creeping into Ariana's room and walking over to the window, where he pulled back the curtains to throw light on the room. He did all this very quietly and then felt foolish. It was not as if he was going to wake her, was it?
"Morning love," he said as he took up the arm chair and held her hand. "You're a bit cold today aren't you?" he questioned. Rubbing her hand between his, he sighed. He wasn't going to get a response. "We're going back to school today, you know? Me, Ron, Hermione and Ginny so you mustn't worry if I am not here. It's just what with between my studies and looking after our daughter, time is going to be pretty lacking for trips home." He explained. "God, I am going to miss you. I am going to miss you so much." Repeating it only made the ache he had for her worse. "Even though you're not really here, it has been such a long time since I have not seen you at least once a day." He sighed. "You have to get about to waking up one of these days honey. I need you back now, more than ever. She's growing so fast – there is so much you need to know about her, about us. And then – I want to talk to you like I used to. There is stuff going on. Bad stuff, with Voldemort – the Death Eaters. Ron and Hermione are being helpful, and your brother's and Sirius are there for me whenever I need them. But they just aren't you and they don't see things in the same way.
"When you were first ill I could still hear your voice in my head telling me what to do, but it is getting weaker Ariana. That scares me more than anything else." He admitted to her. "I am not and I never am going to be willing to lose you. So you just come back to me one day – I am still waiting." He promised her.
Picking up her cold hand, he lifted it to his lips and blow warmth into it before letting go. It was so hard to leave her at times as he knew it would be so easy for him to lay down by her and just not get up for days at a time. All he wanted to do was hold her.
"It wasn't your fault – you must forgive yourself."
He had been about to sit back down and launch into another speech when he heard his daughter babbling downstairs. He had to spend a bit of time with her too. It was as if she was calling him, reminding him he had to go on. So, forcing his way out of the emotional binds that drew him to the bed and made him want to stay there forever, he took one last glance at her as he left the room.
He didn't know when they were going to be back together.
As he went downstairs he could hear Molly Weasley fussing over them all as usual, it was nearly quarter past ten. They had to leave soon. Going over to Sirius, he took Alice and kissed her gently.
"Right, you be good for your uncle young lady, and daddy is going to see you when we get to Hogwarts tonight, ok? I bet you are probably going to see your uncle Albus too." He still hated calling him by his first name, which the head of the Dumbledore family had begun to insist he did. As he pointed out on many an occasion, the two of them were family now.
Kissing her head he felt the desire to cling to her and never let her go. She was a piece of her mother that was not shut off to him and that was not going to be shut off to him. Her baby fluff hair tickled his cheek as he held her.
"Harry, time to go." Sirius told him. Harry had never felt such an annoyance at his godfather. All he had wanted was five more minutes.
Aberforth was there though looking at them, ready to take over with Alice for the day. Placing another hurried kiss on her forehead he headed for the door with just a swift nod as a goodbye for Aberforth. He was not going to get upset in front of them.
No one spook to him when they were in the car which he was grateful for – had he spoken he would have expressed a desire to run back into the house and never leave his family. But he had too. A hand reached out for his and not caring or looking to see who it belonged to he took it and held it, grateful that there was still some comfort in the world to be had.
-
Aberforth, Ariana, Alice and Mrs. Weasley were the only ones left at Grimmauld Place by one o'clock that day. Molly, having returned from dropping off the children at the train station, had decided to stay behind to help clear up the mess the kids had made over summer (as most of them had been hers), before she made the mice with her husband back to The Burrow that evening.
She had to say it had been a strange summer indeed and had pulled out many emotions in many people - including herself.
Part of her, despite knowing how close he was to his godfather; saw Harry as one of her own, just as she did with Hermione. So to see him with a child so young she had to say had disturbed her. He had done an admirable job and she was proud of how he had dealt with it – but all the same, he was never going to just be a boy again now, was he? He had someone who was going to be relying on him day in and day out for the next twenty years.
Going down into the kitchen she saw Aberforth eating a sandwich, the baby dozing contently in his arms.
"How is she?" she asked him.
"Happy enough I think." He said to her.
It was odd to have her to himself. He knew he had her till gone eight that evening, which was the longest he had ever spent with her – so to do so alone was a rather daunting, but at the same time he felt more relaxed around her when the others were not watching them the whole time.
In order to avoid the small talk he was in no mind to make with Molly, he soon climbed the stairs again, and went back into the room he spent most of his days in.
"Here she is Alice, here's your mamma." He told her.
Alice had spent quite a bit of time in the room where her mother slept as well. While Harry did come alone to his sister in the summer, he also knew that he had spent quite a bit of time in the room with mother and child both present.
If they continued this practise, it was Aberforth's fervent hope that when she did come about Alice would feel the bond that was so right and natural between them. That Alice would know her mother, even if her mother did not know her.
Settling back into his chair for the afternoon, he kissed the baby's brow. He had completely come about to her now to his own great surprise. When his sister had been pregnant to begin with the child, who he now loved so much, she had been merely Harry Potter's brat to him. But Alice was his sister's child for sure, to have got him round her little finger so fast. It was funny how things changed so quickly.
-
As far as first of Septembers went for him, Harry had to admit this one had been pretty crummy. While it was not as bad as the one when he travelled up to school by train for his third year (he had had his first encounter with a Dementor), neither was it as good as the ones when he had spent his days leisurely on the Hogwarts lawns with Sirius.
Having his nose broken by Draco Malfoy had never been high on his 'to do list'. And then he had seen Tonks, which wasn't so bad. However, she had looked awful. Then there was the Slug Club that he did not know how to perceive yet. He felt indifferent towards Slughorn who seemed to see people as trophy's rather than what they truly were. And while he was sure that she would not exactly dislike him, Slughorn to him seemed like the kind of person who Ariana would feel uncomfortable around.
No, all in all, by the time he got to the feast all he wanted to do was retreat to the relative safety of Sirius rooms (who looked at him puzzled when he got to the feast late). No doubt he would have to give him a blow by blow of events before he got to bed that night. The one pleasant thought he had in his head by the time that he sat down to eat with Hermione, Ron, Dean, Ginny and Neville was that it was not going to be so long until he was back in his godfathers rooms with his little girl back in his arms.
It was during the feast that Hermione informed him that when Albus had been making his welcome back speech, he had congratulated Sirius on the birth of his first child –Alice – thus the first stage of there plan to give her a disguise had been put into practice.
--
Sirius was eager to get back to the school and to talk to Harry. Returning to Grimmauld Place was never on the top of his to do list but at least it was literally just for five minutes that time. Then he and 'his daughter' were going back to the safest castle in Europe.
Having no doubt what so ever about where they were going to be, he bounded up the stairs taking two at a time, to Ariana's room.
Creeping in he found Aberforth playing with his niece and in a moment of amusement just stopped, sure not to be seen by the aging uncle.
"Where am I?" he asked the baby as he covered his face with his hands only to pulled them back to announce to his niece a moment later – "Here I am."
After a while, (and four peek-a-boos later), Sirius let Aberforth ask the question one more time, deciding this was definitely the best trip home he had had in a while.
"Where am I?"
"Grimmauld Place –Aberforth, I did not think you were so old yet that you were losing track of where you were." Teased Sirius.
Sometime over the summer, the easy familiarity between the two had returned. There common experience of being thrown into parenthood at the deep end had helped the two bond – a bond that Sirius supposed they both now shared with Harry, who had been thrown into a deeper pool than either of them had – as they were fully grown men, whereas he had been a mere boy. Not that he saw his godson like that now of course.
The old man spun around though not so quickly that he might startle the babe in his arms.
"How long have you been there Sirius?"
"Long enough Uncle Aberforth." He said with a smirked.
Picking up the last of the babies things in the final bag that had been packed for her (how could someone so small need so much stuff?), he smiled at him.
"Right then little lass, you be good." Aberforth told his niece before he handed her over to her granddad.
"We'll see you both soon," said Sirius as he headed to the door with the baby now in his arms, who was gurgling up at him. He had expected her to be asleep by now but he supposed Harry would want a bit of time with her awake before he headed back to the Gryffindor Tower. Casting a mournful glance to the frozen body on the bed, he passed Tusker who was going into change Ariana's drips as he left the room.
If only he could wake her up with a wave of a 'magic wand' (as the muggles said) and make it better, he would. But then if the solution to the problem was that easy then she would have been woken months ago.
Within five minutes he had apparated back into the nearest place you could to the school and was walking up the lawns, across the castle to his apartments.
When he got there he found that Harry had not come alone, not that he had really expected him too. Hermione and Ron were just as loyal, if not more loyal than he had been to the Marauders in their heyday.
"Here she is," said Sirius as he passed the baby to her grateful dad. For a moment he considered telling the trio what he had seen when he walked into Ariana's room, but decided that was not a prank, but rather cruel to do so. Aberforth had been having fun, and it wasn't as if they hadn't played peek-a-boo with her enough. It was just odd to see the headmasters grumpy younger brother doing so.
No, he was much more concerned as to why his godson had been late to the feast and what had happened when they were on the train. He paused to think once the young man had told his tale. He had begun to get accustom to the fact that Harry could not go a day without getting into some sort of trouble or another.
"Well all I can say to that is trust Cissa to produce such a nasty little brat. At least with Lucius in Azkaban he is not going to be tutor by daddy anymore."
"But Malfoy, a death eater?" asked Hermione. Over the years they had suspected him of being a lot of things, such as the heir of Slytherin, but did Draco really have what it took to be a death eater?
She wasn't convinced.
"We shall have to find out during the term," offered Sirius, knowing perhaps that there and then was not going to be the best place to debate it. Even if Harry had seen him in Knockturn Alley over the summer, they still didn't have enough evidence. Draco was going to be one for them all to watch throughout the year. However, he could not help but draw parallels between his cousins son and his brother. There could not be a great age gap between the Malfoy heir now and Regulus when he had got involved in the Dark Arts.
"As for Slughorn, it is best to indulge him. Harry, you know better than any one that he was brought back here for a reason. Until we learn what that reason is, I think it best to treat him with respect. He is a bad fellow." Sirius mused over his old potions tutor.
That night a rain storm cast itself down on Hogwarts Castle. Another school term had indeed begun.
Please review!
PS – I love soft old Aberforth. That scene with him playing peek-a-boo with Alice was completely unplanned until I was writing the chapter and I just thought of it. Hoped you enjoyed it!