The One Where the Canon Abuse is Still Abuse

The living room – which was the first one saw when entering by floo – was white and filled with a curious looking set of coloured blob furniture from the sixties.

From the outside (which Harry ran to view) it was a pale pink painted stone cottage, covered in climbing flowers, situated in a private orchard. The orchard was full of long dry grass and strange stone sculptures that looked like angry medieval people suddenly petrified, shrunk and turned to stone. Harry wondered what sort of person would commission such things to be made.

Looking from the garden, the house looked like it could only contain about four rooms maximum; two below and maybe two attic rooms.

From the inside however, it appeared that ever since the cottage had been built people had been adding extensions. The house had a mock tudor wing with latticed windows, an art deco wing with high ceilings and interesting lights, and a sixties second floor where the floo brought guests.

The house was brilliantly upside down. Rather than the private quarters – bedrooms, studies - being the upstairs of the house they were the rooms furthest from the floo. So, the ends of the wings and the downstairs (which was decorated as expected of a tiny pink cottage: wood and cushions). The wings, when one didn't think about them, were accessed from the first floor, but didn't have a ground floor. When thinking about this, and trying to imagine these floating wings, it was remarkably hard to locate the doors to such rooms, so Harry didn't.

Harry's room was in the twenties wing, it was cream coloured with swooping geometric lines of dark oak through the walls, doors and matching furniture. It was ever so slightly like an optical illusion but Harry assumed that living in a paradox of a house one got used to ignoring things the brain didn't compute.

It was going to be brilliant.

Harry ran back to where Sirius and Remus were sitting in the sixties living room. The chimney above the fireplace was one big lava lamp; Harry hadn't noticed that when exiting it.

"I love it!"

Sirius and Remus chuckled. "Marvellous!" and a quieter "So do I," were the responses.

Sirius slapped his knees and rose. "Right, lunch!"

Suddenly Harry remembered the Dursleys lunch that was going off as they spoke. But it was okay, surely it wouldn't be remembered by the time he returned next year? Fred and George obviously had been, but that had been different, right? This was just some food. But it had been Petunia's only order before she left, and she expected it done and it wasn't. And it really could make everything mouldy and they would remember that. And their chair covers were in the washing machine. That looked like a prank, those naked sofas.

"Uh, kiddo?" Sirius was peering into Harry's face. "You alright?"

Harry blinked. "Fine," he replied automatically. There was nothing he could do now, he supposed. Remus and Sirius would never take him back to Privit Drive just to throw away food and dry and replace cushion covers. "Yeah."

"Do you want lunch?"

"Yeah, sounds great." Harry carefully grinned.

"This way," said Remus. He lead the way to the mock tudor wing, to a kitchen with pots and herbs hanging from the low beams, and latticed windows letting in light over the wooden countertops. There was a huge wooden table at the end of the room that looked like it had been taken from a pub for people slightly bigger than the people Harry usually met. There were large wooden chairs surrounding it.

Remus set himself on a countertop out of the way, and Sirius started discovering ingredients. Over the course of making the meal Harry was silent, unable to add anything to the tiny conversations Remus and Sirius started and finished within a minute. Remus' job, though only carried out twice, seemed to be to slap Sirius lightly over the back of the head when he paused, and looked at some ingredient for too long. The second time Remus said quietly "bad dog," and Sirius smiled, though awkwardly.

Sirius served up a frittata. They all sat in the huge chairs: Remus and Sirius comfortably, Harry suddenly dwarfed. The growth spurt, as insufficient as it had been, no longer felt apparent.

Harry's ankles found each other and rubbed together, the bare skin between his two-centimetre-too-short jeans and sockless trainers allowing his uncushioned bones to privately let out some of the tension he was feeling.

"So, Harry, how has your summer been so far?" asked Remus with the style of politeness that only exists after periods of silence.

Harry chewed once more and swallowed quickly, a skill enforced by Petunia and Vernon's joint 'parenting' – Petunia refused to allow him to talk with his mouth full, Vernon refused to let him hesitate. "Fine." Harry gave a single nod, paused a micro second and added "Hot."

"Apparently there's a rumour at the ministry that it's me and my Death Eater ways, during my plan to break Bellatrix out of Azkaban with dark and summery rituals," said Sirius proudly.

"You started that rumour, Sirius," Remus said in a bored tone that didn't quite hide his pleasure at preventing Sirius from showing off. "And only Arthur's really heard it."

Sirius held up a finger and chewed for an elongated period before swallowing dramatically and responding "Not so. Apparently Arthur, as I know he would, asked Kelsie Carder if she had heard such a rumour. And now it's in the Quibbler."

Remus made a slightly impressed face, which he quickly hid by taking a long sip of water.

"Good to know you're spending your forced unemployment usefully," was the calmer response as Remus set his glass down.

Harry rubbed his ankles together.

Sirius smirked over the table at Remus, and expanded his view and grin to take in Harry. He looked back into Remus' eyes and said with genuine pride. "We have a house."

Remus grinned back, his gaze also widening to include Harry.

Harry pressed his ankles together and couldn't help but give a small smile at their obvious joy. They beamed at him.

After a second, Harry glanced down at the tree empty plates. He rose and leant over to pick up the men's plates "I'll –" he started.

Remus took out his wand, spelled the plates clean and flicked his wand, sending them back to the cabinets, which opened to accept them and closed softly behind them. He smiled in an odd mixture of smugness and kindness at Harry's slightly stunned expression.

"Magic," he said, in a tone of mock-mystery and wonder.

Harry let out a breath of laughter.

There was a silent second where Harry was standing at the head of the table, Remus and Sirius both looking up at him from their seats.

Remus gave Sirius the tiniest of looks – a look which once upon a time had been far more obvious and had been accompanied with a kick – and Sirius suggested Harry go unpack.

Harry, grateful for having a reason to be standing, darted out of the kitchen.

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There was silence in the Grotto's kitchen as Harry's presence faded with his footsteps, and Remus felt comfortable starting a private conversation.

"Can I see the . . . paper" – Remus wasn't willing to call it a photograph – "Harry gave you?"

Sirius pulled out the unbattered paper from a pocket that should have been too small, and passed it across the table. He was willing to wait for Remus' explanation, as it clearly wasn't the same thing as the photo the muggles had had of their own son, but apparently being a grown up meant reserving one's judgement.

Remus unfolded the page that Sirius hadn't looked all the way through, scanning the content.

Dear Parent/Guardian . . . pictures recently taken . . . attached sample . . . A6 £10, A5 £14, set of both £20 . . . paid by May 16th . . . Mr Fairwood, Headmaster

Nothing he hadn't expected.

He glanced back up to the sample photo stapled to the letter of the wide-eyed but smiling boy staring out behind the watermark. His uniform was a white shirt with a red tie. Kiddie Harry could at least be shown off as Gryffindor, though from the size of him and the state of his childhood home Remus had seen so far he doubted Harry could have been called either happy or healthy. At least Remus and Sirius had had one each at that age.

Remus passed the paper back over the table silently, and Sirius read through every word.

Finishing the letter, Sirius looked at Remus for an explanation. Not receiving one within a short enough space of time he began, "they . . . never bought the photo?"

"I don't think Harry gave them the chance but – " Remus shrugged "They had to have known there was one to buy. They had their kid's."

"That's . . . really weird." Sirius carded fingers through his hair. "I don't even . . . can you explain them?"

Remus stroked the edge of the letter Sirius had put down on the table, mildly surprised things like letters from teachers could last over five years. To him they had always been one of the more transient parts of childhood, like drawings on the wall that got spelled clean and Christmas cards that got thrown away. He thought about how convinced a child – who from Remus' experience were willing to hope even at a million to one chance – would have to be that they were not loved to not give such a letter to their family.

But he wasn't sure he could come close to understanding the people who made a child feel that way. Definitely not enough to attempt to explain to Sirius, who knew adults could abuse children, but only in a way that was because they, in the most twisted and base way, valued the child.

A flare of hope rose in the back of Remus' mind that Harry had been mistaken, that he – like so many other happy children who one day decide to run away from home, then walk half way down the street and return – had had a momentary lapse in his belief in his guardian's love, and had never rectified it in a way that would get him a picture on the wall.

Which wouldn't explain the fact that Sirius had evidently found no other pictures of Harry beside those of his cousin, or the fact that Harry was home alone and didn't see the need to leave any message for his relatives, or his evident neediness he and Sirius had both noticed when Harry was thirteen or the fact that his magic stuff was locked under the stairs and also where were Harry's other clothes? - and so many flags were popping up in Remus' head he felt overwhelmed.

Could there be any chance of an innocent explanation of all that? asked the flame of hope beguilingly.

Remus ignored the question. Instead he shook his head in response to Sirius' question and said "poor Harry" quietly.

Sirius pursed his lips, then started chewing on them angrily.

"I blame Dumbledore. What do I blame him for though? That they wouldn't give him a picture?" Sirius paused. "Oh, Merlin, I blame me." He carded his hands through his hair roughly, scraping his nails against his scalp.

Remus stayed quiet for a moment. "I'd also blame Dumbledore."

Sirius wondered whether the also meant Remus blamed both Dumbledore and Sirius, or agreed with Sirius that Dumbledore should be blamed. He didn't ask. Remus had previously told him that going after Peter had been 'the stupidest thing you've ever done', and, given Sirius' brilliant list of stupid things done in his lifetime, that was quite a statement. It was entirely possible that this was one of the ramifications that Sirius deserved the blame for.

Still, Sirius couldn't quite face Remus telling him outright this was his fault. Because he knew Remus would tell him if that's what he thought. Remus wasn't too much of coward to refuse to say what he was thinking.

"I – " Sirius started and stopped again. "I was going to say how couldn't anyone have noticed this, but I don't even know what 'this' is."

"Someone should have noticed." Remus was certain on this. He'd only seen abuse twice: Sirius, who's parents used spells and vile words and an entire legacy of hatred, and a muggleborn girl in Remus' first term as a teacher, who had arrived quiet and skittish and, as it turned out, covered in bruises. Admittedly this was different. But, nonetheless, "he showed signs of . . . something. Needing something. Some kind of help. Someone should have noticed."

It shouldn't have needed noticing, thought Sirius, his fingers still tangled in his hair.

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A/N: Thank you to those of you who reviewed/put this in your alerts/favourites! I really appreciated it and your support definitely help me finally get this chapter complete!

Any future reviews will be cherished likewise. :)