Through Another's Eyes
By Neurotica
Seven
In the hours following the return of Sirius Black and Piper Potter, dozens of questions remained unanswered. Sirius continued to insist he'd had nothing to do with Piper's disappearance, that he didn't know how he'd gotten into that Muggle apartment building. Piper couldn't tell them who had taken her from her bed; between her being terrified at the situation and the use of masks by her abductors, there hadn't been much she could tell her parents. The majority of the Order had returned to their own homes, assuring the Potters that they would be available as needed. Dumbledore returned to the school around dawn, allowing Harry to remain home for a few hours; Caleb would be informed about the attack shortly and sent home as well.
As the sun rose, James and Lily had taken Piper to bed, and remained with her. Remus headed off to the kitchen to start breakfast for himself, Sirius, Harry, and Caleb. Just as he set the bacon to fry, Harry wandered in, pulled himself on the counter beside Remus, and stared at his feet.
"What's wrong?" Remus asked quietly.
Harry looked at him, torn. "What about my vision?" he asked in a whisper.
Remus focused on the frying bacon as he tried to decide how to answer. It hadn't been lost on him that the vision he'd had concerning Sirius hadn't seemed accurate to what had actually happened to Sirius. The vision had suggested Sirius had been killed by Voldemort's wand; as far as James and Remus had been able to tell, there hadn't been anybody else in the building. He glanced at Harry out of the corners of his eye, seeing the boy with a rather desperate look in his eyes, and wishing he had a better answer for him. "I don't know, Harry," he said quietly. Harry's shoulders sagged. "It could be anything from a false vision planted by Voldemort to lure you out of the school to..."
"Something that happened in the other world," Harry said dully.
Remus nodded at him. "And considering what you told me yesterday, that you've experienced other visions of the other world, I have to lean towards the latter."
Harry's head fell backwards, resting against the cabinet above him, his eyes closed tightly. "And there's nothing we can do about it, is there? If Voldemort really got hold of the Sirius in my world, he's dead."
So accustomed to always having an answer to placate people, particularly the Potter children, Remus felt helpless. It was quite obvious this Harry had as much affection for his godfather as this world's Harry, the one they'd lost, did for his godfather. And they were very different people, these two Sirius Blacks. One had been imprisoned in Azkaban for twelve years, cut off from everything and everyone he ever loved, nearly completely destroyed by dementors. The other Sirius had never spent more than a few hours in Azkaban Prison, was successful and happy, and had had his friends at his side every time tragedy struck to pull him out of any potential depression.
Even though Harry had started to fit in with the universe he'd been thrown into, even though there were times when the people who knew what had happened started to forget that he hadn't been there all along, it was clear to Remus Harry hadn't forgotten. His mind still thought about the people he'd left behind, worried for them, and refused to assimilate himself fully with their world; he still felt he belonged elsewhere.
"I wish there was something I could say that would make you feel better, Harry," Remus said quietly. "But unfortunately we still don't understand what happened to you or if it's even possible to make contact with your world."
Harry nodded pensively as Sirius entered the room. Remus looked between the two of them for a moment before Harry swallowed heavily, hopped off the counter, and announced he wanted a nap before returning to Hogwarts.
"What's up with him?" Sirius asked, leaning against the counter beside Remus.
Remus sighed. "He's way too young to have this much on his mind," he said, shaking his head.
Sirius nodded, glancing up at the ceiling. "And James?" he asked hesitantly. "Was there something more than paternal panic motivating his actions back there?"
"I think that was a lot of it," Remus told him. "But between the note we received and Harry's vision, the evidence did suggest you may have had something to do with..." He trailed off with a glance at Sirius' face; it wasn't too early in the day for his friend to take a leaf from Mad-Eye Moody's book and turn him into something small and furry, and bounce him around the room. Remus sighed. "You really don't remember anything that happened last night?"
"I really don't remember anything that happened last night," Sirius said dryly. "If I had, I'd have told you."
"You know how James is, how he's been since what happened on the platform. He's not going to accept that as a suitable excuse, Padfoot." Sirius growled a little under his breath in frustration. "Come on, think..."
While Remus finished preparing breakfast and called Caleb in to eat, he periodically glanced at Sirius, finding his friend's brow deeply furrowed in thought as he fought to recall what had happened to him the night before. Anything from a memory charm, to a Confundus charm, to the Imperius Curse could have been responsible for his memory loss, and none of them would be a good enough reason for James not to accuse Sirius of kidnap.
James Potter's temper had always been a force to be reckoned with. It had gotten shorter after leaving Hogwarts as the war grew steadily worse, more explosive after Peter had been Kissed, and much less predictable over the last few weeks, since the attack on Platform 9 ¾. James was fiercely protective of his friends and family, and refused to tolerate anybody taking advantage of them or hurting them in any way. The thought that James' best friend since age eleven could have possibly had something to do with his daughter's kidnapping wouldn't change James' reaction to the situation. Though he'd made a good show of forgiving Sirius for allowing himself to be stunned by Lucius Malfoy aboard the Hogwarts Express on 1 September, Remus knew James hadn't quite forgiven Sirius completely, just as he was still very slightly angry with Remus for holding back the information that Harry had been victim of some strange portal from a parallel universe.
After breakfast, which Lily had caught the very tail end of as she'd come to get a drink, Caleb and Harry had to return to the castle. Both boys hugged their mother and promised to owl later in the week, while she promised to tell James bye for them. All three adults noticed Harry had been quite subdued as he left, but Remus didn't think there was much they could do for him at the moment, at least not until he was able to have a word with Dumbledore. With a weak smile to the wizards, Lily retreated back up the stairs to Piper's bedroom, leaving Sirius and Remus alone again.
They sat together at the table, Remus staring at Sirius, Sirius staring at the table broodingly. "Let me ask you this, Moony," Sirius said in a low, determined voice. "Even if I had taken Piper—which I didn't!—why her? Wouldn't Harry be the better target?"
"Probably," Remus agreed. "But Piper was the only one of James' children not under the very strict protection of Albus Dumbledore and the rest of Hogwarts castle. Once Lily, James, and I were occupied with a Death Eater invasion, Piper was without her parents' protection and the chance was too good to pass up."
"They knew James would go after her," Sirius continued slowly.
"And perhaps they captured you in order to ambush me and James."
The two friends stared at one another. "They were using me to kill you and James," Sirius eventually said heavily. "Me and Piper."
"Yeah," Remus said quietly. He decided not to mention how close James had been to killing Sirius. Glancing at the clock, Remus cursed. "I need to get to Hogsmeade. You going into work today?"
Sirius nodded. "If James isn't, I need to; don't want to call too much attention to this, do we?"
"Come by the shop when you get off; we'll have a drink together, maybe get a chance to relax a bit."
Sirius snorted. "You're on," he told him. "And maybe one of these days we'll realize relaxing is just our way of asking for trouble."
Harry was having a bad day. While he was beyond relieved that both Sirius and Piper had been found safe and unharmed, he couldn't avoid the thought that while all was well in this world, or at least as well as it ever was, in another world, things were getting worse. Remus had done his best to seem concerned when Harry had posed his concerns about the godfather in his old world having been captured, questioned, and possibly killed, but Harry could just tell for all his sympathy, the welfare of people in alternate universes weren't high up on his list of worries at the moment. Harry didn't blame him for that, not one bit; there was enough to worry about in this universe without adding things none of them could help.
Currently, Harry couldn't help but feel as though if he'd been in his own world Sirius would still be safe wherever he'd been hiding—he vaguely wondered if he was still lying low with Lupin, as Dumbledore had asked him to do at the end of the last school term—or at least if he had been captured, Harry could have saved him.
Don't be an idiot, said a small voice in the back of his head. Harry very nearly stopped dead in his tracks in the middle of the corridor at the familiarity of the voice. Nothing you could have done would have prevented this...
And you know this how...? Harry thought back a bit cautiously.
The voice seemed to sigh and whatever reply it gave was drowned out by a high-pitched squeal somewhere behind him. Muttering words under his breath that could have caused his mother to use a soap charm on his mouth, Harry continued walking, picking up his pace as he headed towards the Great Hall.
So not in the mood for this...
Unfortunately, Lavender Brown caught up with him a few corridors away from his destination. "Where were you, Harry?" she asked in a voice that made him wonder if someone had introduced her to several helium balloons. "I've been looking everywhere for you since last night! Seamus said you left the dorm in a hurry!"
Harry muttered something that might have been "I had a headache," but he wasn't entirely sure. "Went to Madam Pomfrey."
Lavender launched into some tirade about how she'd take care of him and that it didn't look like Madam Pomfrey had done anything to help him at all and she'd get some chicken soup from the house-elves and sit with him in the common room all day if that's what he wanted.
Though he'd been trying to find a way to do it since he realized this world's Harry had the most annoying girlfriend ever, he'd been determined to do it nicely so as to not hurt Lavender's feelings. But after last night, having not gotten any sleep at all, not to mention the stress he'd been feeling at the thought that his godfather could be lying hurt or dead somewhere in another universe, Harry found he'd had enough of Lavender Brown.
"Will you just back off?" he yelled at her. Her eyebrows jumped high on her forehead. "Honestly, don't you have anything better to do than following me around all bloody day?"
Her wide eyes filled with tears. "Harry, you're just tired..."
"No, I'm not!" he replied, paying no heed to the crowd of students that were approaching them on their way to breakfast. "You're clingy and annoying and rude. I'm sick of it. Leave me alone."
"A-are you breaking up with me?" Lavender whimpered, her bottom lip trembling.
Harry glared at her. "What do you think?" Without another word he continued on to the Great Hall, ignoring the wailing that was coming from behind him. As he approached the entrance, he sighed a little guiltily, then promptly rolled his eyes as he spotted Caleb standing with Hermione beside a suit of armor. His younger brother's lips were trembling as well, though his condition was caused by suppressed laughter rather than whatever it was Lavender was feeling at the moment.
"About time," Caleb said, snickering and heading towards the Gryffindor table.
"Let me guess, I'm a prat for behaving like I did," he said dully to Hermione.
Hermione raised an eyebrow. "Caleb told me what happened last night," she said, ignoring his statement for the moment. "It's enough to set off anyone's temper..." She suddenly smirked. "But I do agree with Caleb, it is about time."
Harry rolled his eyes but snorted in amusement as Hermione led the way into the Great Hall. He glanced back over his shoulder to find Lavender was still in the middle of the corridor sobbing into Parvati's shoulder while Parvati told Dean and Seamus what Harry had just done. "That's going to bite me in the arse," he muttered under his breath.
"Sorry?" Hermione asked.
"Nothing."
"Well, since you probably won't be welcomed with your usual breakfast crowd, would you like to join us?" Hermione said.
"Erm..." Harry glanced down the Gryffindor table, immediately spotting Caleb sitting with Ron and Ginny Weasley and Neville Longbottom. "Not sure I'll be overly welcome with that lot either."
"Don't worry about them."
Ron glanced up from his breakfast as Harry and Hermione approached; his eyes narrowed. "He bothering you, Hermione?" he asked coolly.
"No, Ron, he isn't," Hermione replied wearily, sitting beside the redheaded boy. Only after she raised an eyebrow did Harry finally take a seat beside his brother. "I invited Harry to have breakfast with us."
"Why?" Ron retorted.
Hermione's reply was a glare. Ron rolled his eyes and went back to his eggs." Caleb was just telling us about your sister," Neville said after a few minutes' silence. "She's all right?"
Harry nodded, getting the impression Neville was the only person sitting with him that his other self had really gotten along with before recently. "Scared, naturally, but she wasn't hurt as far as anyone can tell," he answered, pouring syrup over his pancakes.
Neville nodded, and conversation after that was polite, even if Ron kept shooting suspicious glances between Harry and Hermione between their discussions.
"Think you can help me with some of Transfiguration work?" Caleb asked Harry as they finished their meal. "The button I was supposed to made from a beetle still has antennae..." Caleb frowned a little in thought before shaking himself.
"I thought you were supposed to be the genius?" Harry teased, grinning at the younger boy. "What makes you think I can do something you can't?"
"Genius or not, I'm overlooking something, and if McGonagall figures out I haven't learned the spell, I'll be in detention for the next month," Caleb said dryly. "Please?"
Chuckling, Harry nodded. He'd wanted to take his broomstick out to the Quidditch pitch, to see if he couldn't clear his head a bit, but, he reasoned, he could do the same helping Caleb. "Sure. Meet you in the common room?"
Beaming, Caleb finished off his pumpkin juice and left the Great Hall with Ginny. Harry looked around the table, rather startled to find Hermione and Neville had moved down the table a bit to work on some assignment or another, leaving him and Ron essentially alone. Harry tried to smile at Ron, but Ron's glare only deepened.
"What're you playing at?" Ron asked in a loud whisper, glancing over to see whether Hermione was fully occupied.
Harry's eyebrows rose. "Sorry?"
"Whatever it is you're planning, you can forget it now," Ron replied. "Haven't you done enough to Hermione?"
"I'm not planning anything," Harry said slowly.
"Really?" Ron said disbelievingly. "So it's all just coincidence that when we left before summer hols, she could barely stand the sight of you, and now she's inviting you to eat with us?"
Harry shrugged, starting to feel defensive. "Her aunt brought her to my birthday party and we talked, and I apologized to her," he said. "She accepted."
Ron's eyes narrowed, but couldn't seem to come up with anything more to say to Harry at the moment. He shook his head, stood up, and walked out of the Great Hall without a word Hermione or Neville, both of whom immediately found Harry. "What'd you say to him?" Neville demanded.
"Nothing!" Harry said honestly.
"He doesn't trust Harry, Neville," Hermione said, again, wearily. "He thinks Harry's only being nice to us as part of some prank."
"Is he?" Neville asked frankly, looking over at Harry.
Harry rolled his eyes. "No, he's not," he answered dully. "I should go help Caleb..."
As he left the Great Hall, he could hear Hermione chastising Neville for being rude to Harry. He knew Neville hadn't meant anything by his question, that he was merely covering his bases and protecting his friends, but it was getting difficult to be friendly with people that he'd once known and gotten on with very well, when they now looked at him suspiciously and automatically assumed he had some sort of ulterior motive when he was being nice to them.
He stopped in his tracks briefly, uncertain if that made any sense even to his own mind.
You'll get through to them, said the faint voice at the back of his mind. You got through to Dad, didn't you? If you ask me, that was your biggest hurdle. The others will come along; just be patient.
Yeah, Harry thought back ruefully, not my best trick.
The voice snickered.
Sirius entered the Three Broomsticks just after six o'clock and looked around the full pub for Remus. The bookshop didn't normally close till eight, but considering the state of things with the Potters, Remus had amended the hours of operation in order to make himself more available should his friends need him. For his own part, Sirius hadn't gotten much work done during the day himself. Kingsley, Tonks, and Alice kept shooting him odd glances when they thought he wasn't looking, and when he found them gathered around Kingsley's cubicle, they broke off their conversation very abruptly; Sirius had the suspicion he had been the topic of discussion.
Luckily for all of them, there hadn't been any pressing matters to attend to that day—Sirius was unsure if he could focus enough to succeed in a duel should it come to that. He was tired, not to mention confused; he'd spent most of his free time trying to recall what had happened between the time he'd left the Ministry and when Remus and James had found him in that building. Regardless of his efforts to convince Remus that there had been no way he would have ever kidnapped Piper, in his own mind, he was having a more difficult time than ever refuting it. There was an entire block of time and memory that seemed to have been wiped completely from his memory...
His brow furrowed suddenly at the thought, something niggling at the back of his mind, but the more he tried to pull it forward, the further back it moved. Cursing under his breath, Sirius shook his head, finally spotting his friend at the back of the room sitting at a corner table, watching him with his own furrowed brow. Sirius sent him a forced grin, gesturing at the bar in question; Remus shook his head and held up a full glass of what looked like firewhiskey, even at this distance. His own drink in hand, Sirius weaved through the crowd of people towards Remus, sitting across from the werewolf with a grateful sigh.
"How was your day?" Sirius asked flatly, taking a sip of his drink.
Remus snorted a laugh. "Long," he said tiredly. "Between the school village visit yesterday and everything that happened last night, I feel like the full moon is much closer than it actually is."
Sirius managed a sympathetic groan for his friend as he tried to stifle his own yawns. Small talk commenced, none of it more serious than Quidditch; it was an unspoken rule between the Marauders that down time was just that and no brooding was allowed. Sirius tried to follow the rules, but like every good Marauder, the task seemed a bit beyond him at the moment. The niggling thought at the back of his mind had returned. It felt as though someone was watching him very closely. Surreptitiously, he glanced around the pub carefully, trying to find the source of the feeling. The only likely person was a cloaked, hooded shadow hiding in the corner of the pub. Sirius averted his eyes momentarily and glanced back as casually as he could manage; the shadow had shifted very slightly and Sirius swore he saw a flash of blue eyes as a door beside the shadow opened and closed quickly. In those few seconds, what felt like a wave of air hit Sirius, winding him. His eyes widened and he sucked in a deep breath, and flashes of images passed before his eyes.
When the sensation ended, Sirius was breathing heavily and opened his eyes finding Remus looking at him concernedly. His friend had stood up, moved around the table, and had even withdrawn his wand as he asked Sirius repeatedly if he was okay.
"M'okay," Sirius mumbled, gratefully accepting a glass of water from a waitress. Once he'd managed to convince the few concerned pub workers who'd gathered of this, they finally left him and Remus alone again. Remus was the only person in the pub who wasn't convinced. Sirius took a deep breath, finishing off his water.
"What happened?" Remus asked in a low voice, leaning over the table. "Looked like you hit a brick wall..."
"That's about how it felt," Sirius said, trying to smile wryly. Remus wasn't sharing in his amusement. Taking a deep breath, Sirius leaned forward as well, making certain he and Remus would be the only people who would hear this. "I remembered something. About last night."
Remus' eyes widened. "What?" he asked rather breathlessly.
Frowning in concentration, Sirius tried to make sense of the fractured sounds and images he'd heard and seen a few minutes before. "A letter," he said quietly. "I got a letter before I left the Ministry last night."
"What did it say?"
Shaking his head, Sirius tried to recall the moment, but all he got for his trouble was a sharp pain behind his eyes. "I don't know," he said, feeling frustrated.
"Did it come to your office?" Remus persisted. "Maybe it's still there..."
"No," Sirius said in certainty. "I burned it."
Remus looked dumbfounded. "You burned it?" he repeated. Sirius nodded, averting his eyes from his friend's skeptical ones. "So you remember getting a letter, you remember reading a letter, you remember burning a letter, but you don't remember what the letter said?"
"What the hell do you want me to say, Remus?" Sirius whispered angrily. "I don't remember!"
Sitting back in his chair, Remus shot him an apologetic look and opened his mouth to voice it his apology, but he was cut off as a pearly white lynx appeared on the floor between the two of them. Exchanging a startled look and glancing around the pub to check if anyone else had seen it as well, both wizards bent towards the floor to listen to Kingsley's message.
"Attack in Cornwall. One death," the lynx said in Kinsley's deep voice. "Meet at the outskirts." The lynx seemed to hesitate. "Bring Lupin."
As Kingsley's patronus disappeared, Sirius thought he saw Remus' face pale, but in the next instant, his friend's face was resolute. "Meet you there?" he asked hoarsely.
Sirius nodded and stood, leading the way out of the pub towards the Hogsmeade Disapparition point.
AN: See? It wasn't six months before an update. Are we happy to see the end of Harry/Lavender? Might still be a bit of backlash from that, but nothing to worry about... Oh, and there is a reason for Piper's kidnapping and Sirius' disappearance. Please review.