Disclaimer: Still not mine. JKR's.

ooOOoo

Chapter 40: The Knack of Being Alone

Padfoot slid under the lowest rail and approached Simon, who put his head up and pricked his ears. Luna, too, looked up as Simon's attention shifted off grass. Her mouth was moving, although it was impossible from the distance of the Infirmary window for Harry or Draco to tell what she was saying. Padfoot's tail waved as he looked up at Luna, and he touched noses briefly with Simon, who snorted at the indignity, his chin jerking back towards his chest. Luna seemed to laugh. Padfoot's tail wagged a little harder, and the dog strolled off along the fenceline. Luna put her head down again and, as far as Harry could tell, went back to sleep. Simon's head lowered and he rested one back foot on the point of the hoof. He, too, looked to be asleep.

"What are they doing out there?" Draco said.

Harry wasn't sure if Draco meant Luna and the two animals, then he saw three boys creeping around the side of the hill. They were in sight of Simon, but the horse merely twitched an ear at them to show he knew they were there and, although he wasn't too happy at their odd behaviour, wasn't so put out by it that he cared to properly wake up. Draco had his hands cupped around his eyes to help him see better as he leaned close to the glass. "Hey… aren't they the ones who dumped me in Simon's pen?"

Harry squinted. "Um – two are. The Ravenclaw and the Hufflepuff. The other one is… Who is he?"

"Fifth year Slytherin. One of Pansy's supporters," Draco said darkly. "Come on."

"Too late..." said Harry, as Simon leaped sideways and Luna slid off his back.

They heard the loud bang after the few moments it took for the sound to travel to the window. By that time Simon had pranced to a halt and seemed to have remembered Luna had been on his back. The horse swung around and trotted back to Luna. Luna was lying on the ground and not moving.

Then Harry could hear faint barking – Padfoot had a good, loud bark, so the bang must have been very loud indeed. It was amazing Simon hadn't gone through the fence. The dog was hurtling down towards the three students with its long teeth bared ferociously.

"Accio Firebolt," said Harry, echoed by Draco's "Accio Nimbus."

Harry's broom arrived first, flying through the window Harry opened just in time. A few small glints of glass were stuck in the bristles. The broom must have crashed through the dormitory window.

"Damn," Draco said. "Mine's locked in the dungeons."

"Get on," Harry said, and Draco climbed behind him.

They shot out the window just as Madam Pomfrey opened the door and shouted "What do you –?"

They were halfway down the tower when Draco said: "Er… can your broomstick carry two?"

"I don't know," Harry said through gritted teeth, trying futilely to get the broom to fly higher. "I always thought they could, but I never tried. Think light thoughts."

"The Dark Lord is a bad person, the Dark Lord is a bad person…"

"That wasn't what I meant." While they weren't losing altitude quite so rapidly, they were still travelling very fast and the ground was bumpy. If they hit it they would be in trouble.

"On the contrary, now is the perfect time for levity."

They reached Squirrel Hill by crashing into it just down from the fence. Padfoot could be heard barking loudly now. There were angry shouts from the students who were weighing up the consequences of hexing Professor Lupin's dog against being bitten (the main thrust of the argument being that an immediate bite from an enraged dog was better than a future bite from an enraged werewolf), and a whinny of relief from Simon when he saw Harry and Draco. Harry rolled onto his feet, checked his Firebolt was intact, fished a cursing Draco out of the bracken, and pulled out his wand just in time to counter the first hex thrown by the Ravenclaw.

"I was hoping for happier circumstances to get some vengeance done," Draco said between jinxes. "This will have to do."

It was over quickly. The other three students were respectively stunned, frozen and flopping on the ground like a paralytic fish in seconds. Harry hadn't realised his spellcasting had got so good. What was disturbing was how ready Draco was to cast some of the nastier spells: the Ravenclaw had been frozen rigid as a plank by a spell Harry had learned to counter in DADA – but not a spell he'd learned to cast. Probably best if he didn't know where Draco had learned rigor vitalis. The Slytherin student had been hit with multiple spells, one of the set a spray of spells which were quite vindictive from what Harry knew about them, and he now lay twitching in the patch of heather he'd tried to use as shelter.

The black dog was still barking. He backed towards the paddock as Harry and Draco approached. It was the first time Harry had seen him up close in days: Padfoot had lost weight and looked shabbier since Harry and Sirius had talked in Lupin's office. Maybe the food shortage was affecting the dog, too, although someone had mentioned that Padfoot had taken to patrolling the edges of the barrier at all hours. Harry and Draco followed him through the fence and ran over to where Luna was still lying. She was very pale and her eyes were shut.

Simon, who was still standing over her although he'd shifted about during the duel, bobbed his head and whinnied unhappily as Harry and Draco approached. The dog hung back, correctly interpreting the flattened ears when Simon looked at him. The dog was tolerated only when Luna allowed it, it would seem.

"Go and get Lupin… and Madam Pomfrey," Harry said to Padfoot. It was stupid that he and Draco hadn't thought to tell her before leaping out the window.

The dog sped away towards the castle.

"Smart dog," Draco remarked. "Ick." He squirmed, trying to reach down the back of the neck of his robes to pull out some bracken. "Damned stuff." He peered at the now distant dog. "He seems to know exactly where to go."

"Don't say anything you don't want Lupin to know around him," Harry advised as he dropped to his knees. Luna's eyelashes were fluttering. "Luna? Can you hear me?"

Luna frowned, then opened her eyes. She shut them again as if the light of the sunset was too strong. "Is that Simon?" she asked.

"Yes," Harry said.

"Oh, bugger," she sighed, squinting up at the horse. "Poseidon. Poseidon, you stubborn horse."

Simon lowered his head and touched his nose to her hand briefly before lifting his head again to make sure there was nothing dangerous on the way. His ears flickered as he saw something Harry, crouching over Luna, couldn't.

Luna sighed, "Poseidon…" and closed her eyes again.

Draco and Harry looked at each other. Had Luna finally taken that last step into insanity?

"Luna?"

She cried out when Harry touched her shoulder. If Draco hadn't been quick to grab Simon's headcollar, Harry would have been hurting, too.

"I'll just back him off a bit," Draco said, pushing Simon a few steps away from Luna. The horse objected, tossing its head up and down and trying to shove Draco aside, but Draco adjusted too quickly and never stayed off balance. Simon settled a few steps back, ears flicking nervously and tail a-swish, occasionally bobbing his head up and down and whickering unhappily to Luna, who was telling Harry,

"Don't touch me. Okay? I think I broke something…"

"Right," said Harry, who had come out in a cold sweat when Luna screamed. He was pretty sure he'd felt something move that oughtn't when he touched her shoulder.

There was a bark from down the hill. Draco craned his neck to see over the crest.

"That was fast. Lupin and Pomfrey are coming now."

"She must have seen us from the window. It's okay, Luna… Madam Pomfrey is nearly here."

"Don't let her touch me."

"I won't. I'll… made sure she knows your shoulder is broken. She'll immobilise it before she takes you anywhere."

"Ah… Harry…"

"I'm here." And although his shoulders ached from trying to somehow magically take over Luna's pain, there was nowhere else Harry wanted to be.

"Don't leave."

"I won't."

"It's…" Luna frowned, puzzled. "I lost the knack."

Or your mind, Harry thought unhappily, wishing Pomfrey would hurry. "Of what?"

"Of being alone."

"Oh. You don't need to keep that."

Luna closed her eyes again. "It's best that I do."

Harry looked up at Draco for help. Draco was standing with one arm wrapped around Simon's nose: he might have been comforting the horse, but it seemed more like he was the one taking comfort. He shrugged as he made brief eye contact with Harry before looking away again, but the faint crease in his brow suggested he was just as concerned as Harry. "They're coming."

Harry nodded.

The big black dog slipped under the fence ahead of Lupin and Pomfrey, who were both puffing. Lupin looked particularly bad, as if he'd been recovering from an illness. Harry had lost track of when the next full moon was due, but he thought it was at least a week away. Maybe one of the classes had gone wrong and he'd been on the way to the Infirmary when Pomfrey and Padfoot found him. He absolutely did not want to consider the possibility Lupin had been the sick person in the next room and thus might have overheard a certain sensitive conversation between Harry and Draco…

Pomfrey and Remus took the more civilised method of coming through the gate. Lupin stayed back, especially after Simon gave Padfoot his patent-pending evil eye. While the horse didn't display any overt nastiness towards Lupin, Harry decided it was best if the horse wasn't provoked. It had taken against the werewolf just before Harry's trip into the past – he wasn't sure how strongly Simon carried a grudge and now wasn't the time to carry out an experiment to find out.

"She's broken her shoulder," he said, standing up as Madam Pomfrey hurried over with her bag hovering along behind her. "Don't touch her, please… she wanted me to make sure you wouldn't."

Madam Pomfrey knelt down next to Luna, uncaring of the dirt staining her white apron. "Hmm. Luna? Miss Lovegood, can you hear me?"

"Don't touch me, please."

"It's all right, dear, I won't. Can you talk to me, please?"

Luna could, although she kept answering some of Pomfrey's questions wrongly. Sometimes she thought it was the morning. Then she was sure it was the afternoon. She was surprised to see Simon. "Why is he with Malfoy?" she asked Harry, then answered her own question, "Well, I guess it makes more sense that way."

Which made no sense at all.

Pomfrey diagnosed concussion (which even Harry had worked out) and put Luna under a sedative spell as well as dripping a few drops of a pain-killing potion into her mouth. Then she conjured up a stretcher and took Luna back to the castle, her bag floating along behind her. Remus conjured extra stretchers for the three students who had been hexed by Harry and Draco and took them away without asking any questions, and Padfoot licked his nose uneasily and followed after Harry glared at him.

As he put Simon's rug on, Harry was glad Lupin hadn't spoken… and that Padfoot was gone. Up close the dog looked even tattier than he had from a distance, and Harry didn't think it right that he should feel guilty.

"Did that dog growl at you, too?" Draco asked.

"Sort of." Draco didn't know about Sirius. Or maybe he did. "Ever met someone called Peter Pettigrew?"

Draco frowned at the apparent veer in the conversation. "Er, the ratty little chap with the silver hand?"

"Yeah."

"The one who resurrected the Dark Lord, then."

"Yeah."

"He was supposed to have been murdered by Black."

"Yeah."

"I guess it means that Black didn't sell your parents out. Pettigrew did."

"Yeah."

"Oh. I'd wondered about that. So Black is innocent."

"Yeah."

"Of that, anyway."

"Y- What do you mean?"

Draco shrugged. "I heard a few things about what he was like at school. Mother said that he and Bella were quite similar."

"Hm." Harry frowned, his hand resting for a moment on the crest of Simon's neck. "I hadn't actually seen it until you mentioned it, but you're right." Disturbingly so. Why had his father been best friends with a psychopath who'd send someone to be killed by a werewolf who just happened to be another friend?

"So is there a point to this?"

"Um. Maybe."

"Is Black really your godfather?"

"Yeah."

"Oh, we're back to slurred monosyllabic responses, are we?"

"Yeah. Uh, that was a joke," Harry added as Draco's face clouded over with irritation. "Yes. He's my godfather. And he didn't betray my parents. Pettigrew did. But I met him back in time and he was awful. Even worse than my father."

"So…. Are you in contact with him in this time?"

"Sort of."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

Harry shrugged.

"It's hard when the people you admire or love turn out to be monsters."

Harry didn't know what to say to that. It was too close to the bone. He turned his attention to Simon and mentally crossed his fingers that Draco wouldn't say anything else that sliced so deeply. Draco didn't, but he didn't say anything at all, seemingly as wrapped up in his own thoughts as Harry was. Before the silence could become any more uncomfortable, the cover was in place and he unbuckled Simon's headcollar. It was getting dark, evening insects were emerging and kept settling on his cloak, and dinner was probably already on the table. Giving Simon a last pat on the rump, he followed Draco who was already out the gate, thankfully having not pressed the topic of Sirius Black, which Harry was already regretting having brought up.

The first drops of rain hit Harry's glasses just before they got to the castle; Harry and Draco ran up the last part of the path.

"It's not nice having people you rely on surprise you like that, is it?" Draco remarked quietly. They'd washed up outside Hagrid's rather than going back to the castle and facing the angry mob Harry was expecting, and right now Harry was appreciative of how Draco was going to walk into the Great Hall with him.

On the other hand, he didn't appreciate Draco turning into Mr Sensitivity. It was just too uncanny. At least he hadn't said it loudly enough for anyone to overhear, although there were only a pair of third years who eyed the older boys doubtfully before they scurried into the Hall.

Maybe Draco had run across the human (or Harry Potter specific) equivalent of The Horse Mutterer.

Harry shook his head. Some things – Draco turning into a psychologist – didn't bear thinking about. A knowledge of psychology could end up putting Draco in charge of the universe.

ooOOoo

Dinner was pretty much as bad as he thought it would be. Everyone carefully turned away from him when he walked in. Almost everyone, that was. Ginny and Neville weren't there. Hermione and Ron, who were there, stood up, ignoring the other Gryffindors, and walked down to meet Harry and Draco.

"I heard about Luna…" Hermione began.

"I haven't seen her since she was brought in," Harry said.

"I saw her going in to the Infirmary." Trudi. Who had approached in her typically quiet Slytherin manner.

"Yes – Madam Pomfrey didn't want her to have any visitors," Ron put in, unexpectedly nodding in a friendly way to Trudi. "So I waited with Trudi until Professor Lupin came out. He said Luna's going to be fine. Broken clavicle and a mild concussion… she'll be in the Infirmary all night, but she's going to be fine. Apparently she kept asking where you'd gone, Harry."

Harry had told her he wouldn't leave. "Would they let me…?" he asked, feeling utterly wretched.

Ron shook his head sympathetically.

"I asked," Trudi said. "But Professor Lupin said Luna had to rest. No visitors."

"Sorry," Ron said.

Harry shook his head. "Thanks. I'm just glad she's all right. Do you know what happened to the other three Draco and I fought?"

Ron glanced uneasily towards the head table, where McGonagall was watching this little meeting. "Er…"

"I don't suppose anyone wants our side of the story?" Harry sighed.

"Professor Lupin is talking to them," Hermione said.

Draco shrugged. "Harry was the only Gryff involved and he was against them, so I guess we'll be let off."

Hermione looked affronted by the insinuation, but was cut off by Harry, who had had something bugging him on the walk back to the castle. "Where was Lupin going after class? He wasn't looking too well in class. I know he stayed to talk to Neville…"

"I wanted to talk to him, too. But he had to go up to the hospital wing… I walked up with him. What's wrong, Harry?"

Harry had his eyes shut, thinking that there was never a wall around when you needed one to bang your head on. "Nothing. I'm fine. What's Lupin's problem?"

"Er… It's the new Wolfsbane potion," Hermione said. "I don't think the balance is right. Now that Professor Snape is gone…"

"The ironies just keep piling up, don't they?" Draco said mildly. "Who's making the Wolfsbane?"

"I don't know. I think Professor Sprout might be helping Professor Lupin. But it's a difficult potion to brew."

"Can Sprout brew?" Harry asked.

Hermione shrugged.

"She can do some of the basic potions," Trudi said. "She wasn't too bad when she took my Potions class."

"Wolfsbane isn't basic," Harry said. Unnecessarily.

ooOOoo

They ate dinner at the end of the Gryffindor table. No-one dared object to the two Slytherins sitting there. Not after Seamus frowned meaningfully at Harry, Draco and Trudi… and the milk jug exploded.

Harry didn't even mean to do it. He'd just felt the magic build up behind his eyes and… and the milk jug had exploded.

Maybe he could talk to McGo- No. Flitwick, he decided, seeing the grim line of McGonagall's mouth as she surveyed Seamus and Parvati dripping with milk and the shards of pottery littering the Gryffindor table. This was twice today he'd managed to do wandless magic.

Maybe Flitwick would tell Harry he was an amazingly powerful wizard who only needed to blink in Voldemort's general direction for the Dark Lord to kick the bucket.

More likely he'd tell Harry he was completely off his rocker, and 'random bursts of magic' was the last box that needed to be ticked off for admittance to St Mungos.

Harry told himself he had enough to worry about. He and Ron had a brief battle with forks over the last lamb chop. Even though he didn't win, it was simple fun and drew him out of his dark mood.

The Slytherin table had the best dessert. They gravitated there afterwards. The Slytherins weren't exactly welcoming of the Gryffindor trio but took their cue from Millicent, who ignored them except for politely asking Ron to pass the jug of cream. Possibly to get it away from Harry – Harry couldn't be bothered telling her he wasn't in the habit of exploding jugs.

Neville and Ginny were in late for dinner. Harry nearly laughed out loud when he saw how their eyes bugged to see him, Hermione and (especially) Ron sitting with the Slytherins. Draco didn't invite them over. He didn't even seem to notice them as he dug a spoon idly into his pudding.

Harry wondered if Draco's silence meant that he was embarrassed by the presence of the Gryffindors, but something about it suggested the blond Slytherin was busy observing his housemates rather than building up resentment.

So Draco was up to something.

Hardly anything new there.

ooOOoo

Harry, Ron and Hermione retired to the library after dinner. It was nice to spend time, just the three of them, the next best thing to a family Harry would probably ever know. Thinking of family, he realised Hermione hadn't once mentioned her parents since… since Christmas, Harry hazarded, which was around the time Voldemort had begun the Blockade. Neither had Ron, now that Harry thought of it. Harry didn't worry about the Dursleys, of course, but he could respect the love in his friends' families. If there was some way he could help them by taking their minds of things, Harry would do so. He hadn't been taking enough care of Ron and Hermione recently – not like they deserved. The last thing he needed now was a rift opening between them because he'd been insensitive to their own problems. As for Draco, the Slytherin had made it plain he didn't care to discuss his family at any great depth, and after dinner claimed to have things to take care of in Slytherin House. To be honest, Harry was pleased to have some time with his best friends. He couldn't relax properly around Malfoy the way he could with Ron and Hermione. And Draco didn't seem to want to talk, anyway. There was nothing unfriendly about it, just Draco not wanting to spend time with Gryffindors.

Moody Slytherins.

Huh. Harry didn't want to spend time with any more moody Slytherins anyway. It wasn't like they were inviting him in to shelter in their dormitory now that his own Housemates had taken against him.

He dreaded the coming curfew. But time couldn't be stopped – how well Harry knew that – and all too soon it was time to retire to the dormitory. He'd talked quietly in the library with Ron and Hermione, just normal, daily stuff, like how Charms class was going, how the three students had frightened Simon and hurt Luna and what McGonagall would do about it, and how it was a nerve the way Sprout had loaded them down with homework for Potions when they had so much else to do… It was good just to talk about things that weren't dangerous or could knock scabs or open old wounds. McGonagall still hadn't called Harry and Draco to account for what had happened earlier, although she had stopped by the Slytherin table after dessert to tell Harry and Draco to come to her office tomorrow morning before breakfast. An odd time, but Harry supposed she wanted Luna to be present and, as Pomfrey had folded her arms and stridently declared she wouldn't allow Luna out of the Infirmary earlier than sunrise tomorrow (which was what Ron reported, who had been there in his role as Prefect and unofficial back-up to McGonagall), before breakfast was the earliest opportunity for her to get things sorted out. Harry felt a bit rotten telling Hermione and Ron about his problems with Luna, but his friends pounced on the story with sympathy and, perversely, delight.

Harry guessed it was nice to be distracted from your problems by how someone else was doing even worse. He just wished it wasn't always him who came up trumps in the 'poor ole me' stakes.

To think he'd started out the evening determined to make good to his friends by being sympathetic to their problems…

Hermione and Ron walked with him into the common room. Harry was glad for the support. He'd had worse times here, times when everyone had hated him and been afraid of him, so shouldn't he have been used to it? For some reason he wasn't. And he'd reached the point where he didn't want to be here for the simple reason that he hated everyone here.

Well, almost everyone, he amended, realising Hermione and Ron were with him. And Neville and Ginny (both with some heat in their cheeks) stood up as the trio walked in, glaring at Seamus who abruptly shut his mouth on whatever he'd been saying (and Harry could guess the topic). Oh, and there were a few students over there he didn't hate. And Colin, who was helping his younger brother Dennis with homework… well, the Creevey brothers didn't warrant punishment for anything a little common sense wouldn't cure. But other than that, he didn't want to stay here.

"Oh, look who's back," Parvati said acidly. "Did we have fun, drenching me in milk?"

"You owe me a chess set!" Dean huffed.

"Consider it an exchange for the apology I'm owed," Harry snapped back, stamping up the stairs to his room.

Standing there with his hands on his hips, Harry made a quick decision. He didn't want to stay here tonight. And he wasn't going to. It was just like the time he'd inflated Aunt Marge. With that welcome thrum of adrenaline he got whenever he took control of his life, he grabbed his invisibility cloak just as Ron came in.

"Going for a walk?" Ron asked, folding his arms.

"Yeah."

"I'm a prefect. You're not allowed to go wandering around after curfew."

Harry swung the cloak around his shoulders. "You never saw me."

Ron's gave him an old-fashioned look – or gave an old-fashioned look to where Harry had just been standing. "Hardy-har. Look, I'm going to go and check the corridor to see if anyone is out there and has forgotten their password. And you're not going to go outside the castle. Okay?"

"Okay."

Harry followed at his heels. Ron ignored the comment of "Has our resident Drama Queen calmed down?" although Harry could see his ears turning pink. For some reason it didn't affect Harry – but then Harry was escaping. He smiled a little, though, as he heard Hermione begin her warm-up to a rant he knew was bound to rattle the castle.

There was no stopping Hermione when she was in crusading mode. Gryffindor wouldn't know what hit it.

Ron opened the door a little showily, checking the corridor while standing aside just enough for Harry to slip past. And then Harry was out in the dark corridor and the door was closing behind him and he didn't know which way to go.

He went left.

ooOOoo

He considered the Infirmary – there were plenty of beds in there – but Luna was there and she probably wouldn't be pleased to see him. Pomfrey certainly wouldn't be pleased to see him bothering one of her patients.

There was the Room of Requirements… but too many people knew about it now. And after the DA it was too obvious that Harry would go there. Harry didn't want to be found.

He could always go up to Squirrel Hill and visit Simon, but he'd told Dumbledore he wouldn't leave the castle without supervision at night. And he'd just told Ron he wouldn't, which was more binding. On top of that, if he got caught outside he didn't need Dumbledore asking him questions – that might lead to Harry giving answers he didn't want to give – answers about a certain Golden Sickle now tucked away in the bottom of Harry's trunk.

Besides, it was raining.

He found his feet made the decision for him. Mrs Norris prowling one corridor and Peeves drawing anatomically improbable graffiti in another didn't stop his feet from taking him along one corridor, down some stairs, up some more, and along through an ill-lit part of the castle no-one used any more.

Harry soon found himself standing outside the small wooden door of a storeroom.

There would be blankets in there. There was a book he hadn't finished. He might even be able to remember the spell to play the records. He'd be safe for a while. No-one would find him. He could break the wards on this room – he knew the ones which had been used.

Harry stood there as the night moved past him, dimly aware of the distant hammer of rain.

He could go into the room.

He couldn't work out why he wasn't going into the room. After a bit he snuffled and wiped his nose on the back of his sleeve, which made him laugh for some reason, thinking what Severus would say about people who were incapable of the simple act of using a handkerchief.

Harry sat down with his back against the door and wrapped the cloak around him to keep out the cold draught sliding along the floor. He put his head down on his knees and tried to think about nothing.

The gentle click of claws on the floor was the first hint he wasn't alone. Then there was the gentle shift of air as something changed form.

A hand rested on his shoulder – clumsily at first, as it wasn't sure where the actual shoulder was, then more surely. It squeezed gently.

"Harry."

Harry pressed his face against his knees and for a moment pretended he wasn't there. But he had to admit that was childish – wishes like those certainly didn't work in the real world. Or, if they did, it wasn't by using a form of magic he'd managed to master. It was easier to make chess sets and jugs explode. "Go away."

There was a sigh. And the hand fell away as someone slid down to door to sit next to him shoulder-to-shoulder. Harry could feel the warmth of the person through the cloak.

"Are you deaf?"

"No, just stubborn."

"How'd you find me?"

"Dogs have good noses."

Harry pushed back the hood – glares weren't effective unless they could be seen – and lifted his head. "Are you going to tell me I shouldn't be wandering around the castle at this time of night?"

"No," Sirius replied mildly. "Remus might. But giving good advice isn't really my department."

"No. Treating people like they only exist for your personal entertainment is."

Sirius stared into the darkness. "So I've been told," he said evenly. "I'm sorry for how I treated you. I was out of line."

"You're only sorry because I turned out to be James' son."

"That's part of it," Sirius said with disarming honesty.

Harry rallied in an effort to make Sirius go away. "Someone said you're a lot like your cousin Bella."

Sirius' jaw tightened, but his voice remained unnaturally level. It was as if he'd had Remus' temper magically grafted onto him. "Really? Who said that?"

"Narcissa."

"Ah. You're on first-name terms with Mrs Malfoy, I see."

"No. Just her son."

"He was talking about me?" Sirius' eyes sharpened. "Why?"

"Relax. He doesn't know you're here if that's what you're worried about. I told him about what happened when I went back in time."

"About how I hexed you."

"About how you tried to kill Snape. And me and Remus by association."

Sirius flinched, which gave Harry a little satisfaction, but not as much as he'd hoped for. "Really? And what did my young cousin say to that?"

Feeling vicious, Harry didn't hesitate. "Draco said it's hard when the people you love turn out to be monsters."

Sirius' face froze. There was a long pause when he didn't even breathe. The shoulder next to Harry was rigid as Sirius contained himself. Harry felt himself tense, too, and couldn't understand why the words had cut him along with Sirius. "Well. I suppose he would know," Sirius said finally, his voice faint but carefully level. But he didn't leave. Harry was beginning to wonder what it would take. Would he have to hex Sirius?

"Take your friend Severus, for example," Sirius said, his voice almost not giving away his distaste as he uttered the name. "I suppose you know all about what he got up to as a Death Eater?"

"No. But Draco hinted it wasn't knitting socks for orphaned children in Mongolia."

"No. Although he may have contributed to the creation of a few orphans."

"Do you know this as a fact?"

Sirius looked down. "No. I don't. How would you feel about him being a creator of orphans?"

"Not very good. How would you feel about being the creator of Death Eaters?" Harry growled.

Sirius leaned his head back against the door and closed his eyes. His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed. "We all make our own decisions in life."

"Meaning that it's purely because of how evil he was that Severus took the Dark Mark?"

Sirius remained silent.

"You've had your memory wiped," Harry told him. "But I haven't. And I remember sitting in a room with an Invisibility Cloak on – this one, in fact – watching Lucius Malfoy invite Severus over to Malfoy Manor for the duration of his suspension… remember how he was sent home after you sent him to the Shrieking Shack? No? A poor memory makes for a restful night's sleep, I've heard… Well, he never made it home. Malfoy took him to meet Voldemort, who, no doubt, told him how valuable he'd be in making the sort of world order where people like you weren't allowed to kill people like him. Kind of ironic, knowing Voldemort as I do, but then Severus didn't know anything about Voldemort except that people like Dumbledore – who'd just effectively sent him off with the impression that it was okay to kill people if they weren't Gryffindors – people like Dumbledore said that Voldemort was bad. Voldemort's many things, but he's not completely thick. He would have known exactly how to play Severus."

"For a sucker."

"Yes." Harry sighed. "And then Severus worked out that maybe things weren't quite as simple as he'd thought: Voldemort was just Sirius Black with a better sales pitch. And he made a decision."

Sirius didn't say anything to that. But he didn't leave, either. "This room smells like it's been shut up for ages. Are you going to go in, or does this doorway hold some sort of significance?"

Harry leaned his chin on his knees and scowled along the corridor. "It's none of your damn business."

"I could open the door…"

"Don't touch the wards," Harry growled.

Too late. Sirius already had his wand out and was tapping at the invisible strands of magic with a slight frown. "Feels familiar. But old… Snape set these spells. Huh. I can break these like dry twigs…" He lifted his wand.

"Damn it, Sirius, can't you leave anything alone?" Harry hissed. "Everything's a bloody joke to you. Even when someone's dead you can't leave them in peace!"

Sirius lowered his wand, frowning. "What did you two get up to in here…?" His voice was low, dangerous.

Harry gaped at him for a moment before he realised what Sirius was implying. "You… God, I can't believe the nerve you've got! We ate meals in here. Severus let me stay here when I was ill after the time travel spell. We talked about magic and… and all sorts of stuff. We slept in here and he kept me safe in here from sadistic Gryffindors and psychotic Slytherins while I spun a pack of lies about how I was from another dimension… And you, you think it was about sex or something… God, Sirius, can't you get your mind out of the gutter for half a minute? Or at the very least consider the remote possibility that you didn't know anything about Snape, and that he was in fact someone interesting and loyal and brave and a good friend to someone who didn't deserve it and ended up betraying him as badly as you or my f-… my f-… or James or Dumbledore or Lucius…" Harry gulped for breath. The door at his back stood like a silent accusation of how he'd failed. He wrapped his arms around himself. He wouldn't cry in front of Sirius. He'd said too much already.

He was barely aware when an arm reached around his shoulders and Sirius pulled him close.

"I understand about betraying your friends, Harry," Sirius said hoarsely.

He held Harry for a long time, rocking him gently. Then he handed Harry a handkerchief.

"What?" he asked, when Harry managed a croaky laugh.

"Why does everyone manage to have a handkerchief except for me?"

ooOOoo

In the darkness Sirius was less afraid of being discovered. He and Harry walked the corridors of Hogwarts well into the early hours of the morning, not saying anything, just walking. It was safest not to talk. They stood for a while at one of the windows halfway up Astronomy Tower doing nothing but listen to the rain hiss outside. At last Harry was swaying on his feet with tiredness and they were dangerously close to being caught by Filch due to their own inability to spot the dangers before the dangers spotted them. He didn't resist when Sirius led him to Remus' quarters and took him inside. He tucked Harry into a bed in the spare bedroom. The bed smelled of dog. Harry blinked sleepily as he remembered to take his glasses off, and saw Padfoot turning around on the mat by the bed, just like a normal dog getting ready to lie down for sleep. Harry was still angry, he knew that at an intellectual level, but it was an anger he would deal with later. When he was feeling less tired and more inclined to rational thought.

It was all Draco's fault, Harry determined grumpily with a yawn – all his talk about forgiveness. Harry wondered if the Slytherin believed half of what he'd said.

He doubted it. It just didn't seem like Draco.

Still, Draco had surprised him on several occasions.

ooOOoo

He was having a nightmare about lying on a couch while Draco Malfoy, complete with beard, glasses and Austrian accent, asked him about his mother. One of Ron's spiders was tap-dancing out in the hall, but Doctor Malfoy dismissed it as Jungian clap-trap, and refused to see this as anywhere near as important as Harry's dreams.

Harry was just trying to convince Herr Doktor that his strange dreams about people trying to kill him were real and weren't just symbolic of his maturing sexuality and he really did like girls no matter what his godfather had been saying, when he woke up.

It didn't help that he woke up in a strange bed, and he couldn't remember why it was wrong to be glad that it was Sirius who'd woken him from the nightmare.

"What's real, Harry?" a rumpled and groggy-eyed Sirius was asking.

"Draco is turning into Freud," Harry said, and promptly fell asleep again as Sirius snorted.

ooOOoo