Disclaimer: All the usual's. I don't own HP or anyone else. I just like to play with them.
*Sneaks in, leaves the chapter, and sneaks away to hide*
Chapter 93
"Harry!"
Harry tripped over his own feet, which made him slam into one of the suits of armor in the hall. 'Bloody Hell,' he thought as he picked himself up. He looked up to see Hermione and Ron snickering at him and Susan rushing forward.
"Oh, Harry. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you."
Harry sighed. This was all Sirius' fault. Lupins' too for that matter. "You didn't startle me. Just my own clumsiness. What did you need?"
"I was wondering if I could talk to you for a second."
"Sure." He then turned to his two still snickering best friends. "Go on. I'll be there in a minute."
"Why are you avoiding me?" she blurted out once Ron and Hermione were out of ear shot.
Harry stiffened. He was seriously going to have to learn how to be subtle about things it seems. "I'm not. I've just been busy studying. Now that I'm caught up, I don't want to fall behind again, especially since this is our O.W.L. year."
"So I've not done anything wrong?"
Harry smiled. "No. Not a thing."
"Alright. I just wanted to make sure you weren't mad at me for something."
"I'm not mad at you at all, Susan."
"Susan! There you are. We're going to be late for Potions."
"I'm coming. See you later, Harry."
"Bye." Harry watched her walk away and groaned. Yes. This was all Sirius' fault, and he would get him back for it.
Harry fidgeted in the room, waiting on the rest of his classmates to leave. Once they were gone, he approached Remus. "Professor Lupin, do you have a minute?"
"Certainly Harry. What is it?"
"Have you talked to Sirius since Sunday?"
"No. Why?"
"I've tried calling him on the mirror a couple of times and he's not answered me."
To Harry's surprise, Remus flushed. "Sirius ... has a lady friend he's been seeing for about a month now."
Harry's eyes bugged out. "Why hasn't he said anything?"
"Because he wanted to make sure she was someone who was going to stick around for a while."
Harry frowned. "Did he think I would get upset?"
"I think it was the fact that you and he were still getting used to the family thing. He didn't want to upset that."
Harry chuckled. "And here I thought that you two were ... uh ... together and you just didn't want to tell me."
Remus choked. "While it's not uncommon in our world, or the muggle world for that matter, I assure you that Sirius and I are just friends."
Harry's cheeks turned red. "I uh ... better go to lunch."
Remus laughed. "If you've not heard from him by Friday, let me know and I'll hunt him down for you."
Harry nodded.
Thursday morning found Severus in the Headmaster's office.
"Have you given that letter to Black yet?"
"No. I can't seem to locate him. Remus told me that he has begun seeing a woman, but I can't locate her either."
Severus rubbed his temples. "Please tell me that Black has not ran off and gotten married without telling Harry?"
At that, Albus laughed. "Has Sirius ever seemed to be the marrying type to you?"
"Good point. Where is he then? Just off sowing his wild oats while he can? To make up for lost time spent in Azkaban?"
"I have no idea. If he's not heard from by tomorrow evening, Remus and I are going to go look for him."
Severus nodded.
Around 2am on Friday morning, two different people had similar reactions.
Harry sat straight up in bed. He looked around the room but didn't see anything that would have caused him to wake up. His occlumency shields were up so it wasn't Voldemort. He frowned. He felt like something was missing. It was an odd feeling.
Confused, he laid back down to try to figure it out, not going back to sleep at all that night.
In the Headmaster's quarters, Albus sat straight up in bed the same time that Harry had.
"No!" he exclaimed. He quickly got dressed and headed for the floo network.
"Harry, what's wrong?" asked Hermione on their way to breakfast.
"I don't know," he said. "I feel odd."
"Odd ... like you need to go see Madam Pomphrey? Or odd like you need to go see the Headmaster?"
"Neither. Just odd."
As the owls flew in for morning mail call, Harry eyed the staff table. Dumbledore wasn't present.
A strange owl then landed in front of him with a package tied to its' leg. He frowned because he didn't recognize it.
However, the note vaguely reminded Harry of Sirius' handwriting.
'I thought you might like to have this.'
Harry smiled slightly. Maybe Sirius had sent him something from this mini-vacation he went on. However when he opened the box, he sucked in a breath of horror and jumped away from the table and screamed.
"NO!"
He then took off racing out of the Great Hall.
Ron opened the package that had closed when Harry had jumped up from the table and turned visibly green from its contents. "Neville. Take this to McGonagall. Don't open it." He then took off after Harry. Hermione followed Ron, confused. She hadn't seen what was in the box.
Severus was currently beside himself with worry because Harry had just taken off at a full tilt run from the Great Hall.
The morning had started off routine enough. The first sign of a trouble, at least in his mind, was when the Headmaster was not at breakfast and Minerva had no idea where he was. As he placed some eggs on his plate, he saw his son enter the Great Hall with Granger and Weasley.
The second sign of trouble was when he realized how pale the boy was, as if there was something wrong. Harry had potions that afternoon, he was sure he could manufacture a reason for him to stay after to class to see if he was well.
Mail came in at the same time he took a drink of his coffee - which he almost spit back out the second he saw the Dark Lord's owl fly in with the other ones. He watched with narrowed eyes as it circled over head with its package. He then stiffened when it dropped its' parcel in front of Harry and flew back out of the owl holes.
'Cover be damned,' he thought as he went to stand up. He could not let Harry open anything sent by the Dark Lord. However, before he could even stand, his son had already opened the box. He saw the absolute horror on his face. Even from where Severus sat, he could see whatever shred of innocence the boy had always managed to maintain leave through his eyes.
His hand automatically flew up to the order pendant that was invisible around his neck and called for Albus.
He watched as Harry fled the Great Hall. He turned to tell Lupin to follow him, but there was no need. The wolf was already out of his seat and circling the table.
Severus watched with impassive eyes as Longbottom brought the box to McGonagall. He looked over her shoulder and felt the life drain out of him.
Inside, lying in a pool of dried blood - with eyes wide open, was the decapitated head of Sirius Black.
Harry apparated to the front step's of Grimmauld Place and rushed in.
"Sirius!"
"Sirius!"
"Sirius!"
When Harry reached Sirius' bedroom and saw that it was empty, he felt something inside of him snap. He fell against the wall and slid down to the floor.
And for the first time in as long as he could remember, Harry cried.
"We can't find him professor," said Ron as he rushed up to McGonagall.
McGonagall sighed. All of her location spells had fizzled out as well. She had been hoping his friends would have known where he went. "I know it's hard, especially since you looked in the box Weasley, but I need you, Ms. Granger, and Mr. Longbottom to go on to class."
"But professor," protested all of the students.
"It's my final word. I need to let the Headmaster know. I'm sure he will know where Potter is."
After much more protesting, they all headed toward their first class but by that time, everyone knew what had been in that box and was talking about it.
Severus watched from the shadows as Granger, Longbottom, and Weasley argued about wanting to continue the search. The boy must have left the grounds and apparated somewhere. He frowned. For some reason, he couldn't think of anywhere the boy might have gone - but he should know.
After the trio of students headed toward their first class, he unmelded himself from the shadows and headed down to his own class. He would have liked nothing more than to join the search, but knew that he was needed here. He just prayed that Albus and Lupin would be able to find Harry and offer some measure of comfort to the boy because he could not do so himself.
"Harry?"
"Sirius?" Harry's head snapped up.
"No." The Headmaster came around the corner. "I'm so sorry."
"It's true then?"
The Headmaster conjured a handkerchief and handed it over to Harry. "It is."
"This morning, around two, I woke up suddenly and I've felt off all morning. I think that's when he did it. When he ki ... killed Sirius." Harry wiped his eyes.
"I also felt it Harry. Where I was the secret keeper for the house, I felt the ward break. I came here and searched as well but didn't find him. I was out trying to locate his trail when I received word of what happened this morning at breakfast. I am so sorry, my boy."
Harry forcefully stopped his tears. "Did I allow this to happen?"
"No. This is not your fault. It's Voldemort's fault."
"Could I have prevented this if I didn't know occlumency?"
Albus pulled Harry up to sit next to him on the bed. "No Harry. You want to keep your shields up. Do not think like that. Sirius wouldn't have wanted you too."
"Where was Snape during this? Why didn't he know about this? Or did he? I know he and Sirius hated each other! Why didn't he stop this?"
A/N: There will be NO maiming, killing, torturing, or abusing the author! Put down your pitch forks!
Ok ... so I procrastinated posting this chapter because I knew that people were going to want to murder me. I'm sorry about Sirius, but I had planned all along, even when I first made my original outline for the stories premises, that Sirius was going to have to die.
The next chapter is fairly long. It's probably going to be a week and a half before I post it. I'm still editing it. It will explain though why Snape couldn't remember the address of Grimmauld Place. And if I keep it in the current chapter and don't move it ahead, Harry punches Snape at one point too! *grins*