Chapter 15: Serious help for Sirius

For disclaimer and author notes please see chapter 1.

1986-03-09 23:30 UTC, 12, Grimmauld Place

"Kreacher, do you have some time?"

"Yes Master Harry, what can Kreacher do for you?"

"Well, you know that young Harry will be here tomorrow morning, sometime before lunch, right? I want you to prepare his room as soon as Sirius leaves to go pick up Harry. Put these clothes in his room; they are his size but they also have some re-sizing charms."

"Yes master Harry; I will do that, no problem". His language is changing pretty fast!, thought Harry.

"He will also need these potions. Penny made them for him, when I told her exactly what kind of nutrition (i.e., none!) he had had till now. She's ready to dote on him even if she has never met him - they've decided they will visit just after lunch, introduce themselves, and help Sirius put this place under the Fidelius".

"I will do that master Harry."

"And finally, when he comes here he will probably be starving; I don't think his aunt would have given him breakfast. Here is a list of his favourite foods, as near as I can remember at that age, and here is a list of food he does not like."

"Oh that is wonderful Master Harry; Kreacher will use these lists starting from breakfast tomorrow."

"OK thank you Kreacher; see you tomorrow. You won't be able to see me, but I will be here, invisibly, to make sure he is fine and to try and interpret his thoughts. At present, any time he has tried to spend with others he has been shunned, so he has become very private, silent, and untrusting. You will need to pull him out of that, and I will help you. And we can both help Sirius too. And don't forget you have to teach him about the magical world also, as we discussed a few days ago".

"Yes master Harry."

1986-03-10 09:30 UTC, Heathrow airport, Terminal 1, Executive Lounge

Sirius waited in the airport for the family of four to arrive. When he spotted them, he was initially appalled at how Harry looked. He wanted to cancel the whole deal and have Dursley arrested instead.

But at the same time, he knew he had much, much, bigger fish to fry. So he contented himself with taking Dursley aside.

Before he could speak, Vernon started. "Lord Black, thank you again for this opportunity. You are rumoured to have invested heavily in the US operation, and I will not let you or Grunnings down", Vernon said in a disgustingly obsequious manner.

"I do not care about Grunnings", said Sirius. "What I invested is less than a tenth of a percent of my fortune". He paused for Vernon to process that and acquire a puzzled look on his face.

"My interest in this is solely to get my godson back". That got Vernon's attention. He may be slow in many things, but taking the last few sentences and coming up with "the freak has a filthy rich godfather!" was but a few milliseconds for him. But he did not know what to say, so he just gaped.

"Let me give you a serious warning, Dursley", said Sirius in a low, threatening, voice. "Do not, ever, come back to the UK. Do not let Petunia come back, nor your fat brat. If I ever see or hear that you are back, I will take revenge on your treatment of my godson. With interest. I dare say you will not survive the experience, nor would your wife and son. I am the head of one of the darkest, cruelest, pureblood families in the wizarding world, and I am itching to mete out suitable punishment".

He took Harry by the hand, told him he was no longer going to live with the Dursleys but with him, and left the Dursleys in the airport. There wasn't a single goodbye from any of the three to Harry, nor the other way around.

Harry, for his part, didn't seem to react at all. Sirius was not an expert in child psychology, but if you grew up with someone from the age of 2 to 5, and then were taken away from them by a stranger, you'd be expected to make some noise about it. Harry was eerily, scarily, silent.

1986-03-10 09:40 UTC, 12, Grimmauld Place

Kreacher opened the door on Sirius's knock. "Master Sirius, Master Harry, welcome home!"

This shook Sirius, but it shook Hobby even more. He had followed them, invisibly of course, and was watching Harry closely, trying to think how he would have reacted to this at that age, as the best way of predicting how things would go.

But Kreacher's words really shocked him. It seems that treating him right made an even bigger difference than anyone - even he (or Hermione, bless her hat-knitting-heart) - could have imagined.

Harry was scared stiff, but worse, he was scared of showing he was scared, leave alone saying anything. Life had not been very good, and he had no idea what to expect from these strange people who had taken him from the Dursleys, especially if they found him unsuitable in some way.

"Come on, Harry, let's get something to eat first", said Sirius. "Krea-"

"Kreacher has breakfast ready for master Harry, master Sirius", said Kreacher.

"Harry, would you like to go eat something? I'm sure you're hungry."

Harry just nodded. He had not said one single word yet. So they went to the kitchen and sat down at the table.

Kreacher first took out a potion vial, and said "Master Harry must take this before breakfast, and these two after breakfast", putting two more vials on a side table.

To say Sirius was stunned was an understatement. He looked at the potion, and it appeared to be a digestive potion, and the other two nutrition potions.

"Where did you get these, Kreacher?"

"Mistress Penny gave them and said the boy-who-lived would need them, master Sirius". Which wasn't really an answer, because he wouldn't say who this mysterious Mistress Penny was, except that she and Master Nick would be along in the afternoon.

Naturally, what really bothered Sirius was Kreacher's apparent independence - since when did house-elves invite people to the house, especially people the master did not even know? Not to mention the potions thing!

Kreacher served Harry baked potatoes with cheese, and bacon sandwiches made with brown bread. Harry took one look and his face lit up, then fell immediately. (Hobby, invisible and watching from a corner, knew what was going on - he was sure he would not be allowed to eat it all. In fact, he would be wondering why the plate was in front of him.)

"Harry, do you like baked potatoes and bacon sandwiches?"

Finally, finally, Harry said something. "Yes."

"Well then, dig in. If you want more, just ask Kreacher and he will serve you more."

Harry had an incredulous look on his face, but started to eat. After a while, when he had had his fill, he looked up at Kreacher, and said "thank you, that is my favourite, thank you so much!"

1986-03-10 10:30 UTC, 12, Grimmauld Place

"Master Harry, Kreacher will now show you to your room."

Well, the house was clean of dark artifacts and all the rooms were in good shape, so Sirius had planned on showing Harry a few rooms and telling him to take his pick. He was, therefore, surprised at what Kreacher said - again, since when did house-elves decide these things? - but decided to play along for now. Maybe this Mistress Penny would have some answers.

Kreacher led them to the biggest room on the second floor, directly above Sirius's room in fact. The room was decorated in pale blue, with violet edging at the bottom. It had all the usual stuff of course, like bed, dresser, wardrobe, etc., but most importantly, it had a small bookshelf on one side.

On this bookshelf were two sets of books. One set of books were muggle children's books that Dudley had been gifted, which Harry had been forbidden to touch. Harry could only watch wistfully as Dudley painfully read the cover, then tossed the book aside, never to look at it again, and yet he, Harry, was not allowed to read it.

"These are the books Dudley would not let me read", said Harry in a shocked, awed, whisper.

Kreacher looked at him with a proud expression on his face, then pointed out the other half to him. "Master Harry, you do not know this yet, but magic is real. You are a wizard, and wizard children read these books as they grow up".

Sirius was rapidly coming to the conclusion that, somehow, Kreacher had done more for Harry than Sirius. Seriously, other than foot the bill for sending the Dursleys off to the US, he hadn't done anything else!

But for now, there was a very confused young lad standing there, shocked at the idea of magic. Time to help Harry understand the magical world, and maybe one or two of those books (Penny again?) would help.

1986-03-10 14:00 UTC, 12, Grimmauld Place

Sirius and Harry were in the living room, where Sirius was showing Harry some wizarding toys, explaining magical beasts.

About half-way through an explanation of hippogriffs, the door opened, and Kreacher bowed two visitors in. Then he stood at attention (it seemed) and said "Master Sirius, this is Master Nick and Mistress Penny".

Although they looked kind and friendly, Sirius was not very pleased that Kreacher had brought people right into the house without his permission. He would have to deal with this later, but right now, merely saying "Nick and Penny" didn't cut it. Fortunately, the visitors also seemed to realise this.

"Lord Black, my name is Nicholas Flamel, and this is my wife, Perenelle", said Nick simply.

Sirius fell back onto the chair he had just stood from. He had a lot of mixed emotions - anger and annoyance at Kreacher, awe at meeting the oldest living humans, confusion about why they would visit him (you idiot, it's not you they're here for, it's Harry, a voice said in the back of his mind).

But all these mixed emotions were quickly chased away by a warm and wonderful feeling of happiness. Because the way he fell back was apparently quite comical, and Harry was giggling, almost laughing. Not loudly or anything like that, to be sure, but it still felt good to finally, finally, see him act like a child.

Anyway, after sitting down and having cups of tea served to them by Kreacher, they explained why they were here. Naturally they could not speak of Hobby, but they didn't need to. And while they tried their best not to lie outright, they would not worry too much if a few misdirections were needed. Telling the truth all the time was overrated anyway!

"You are obviously surprised to see us. The short explanation is that we also are not happy with a certain meddling old coot with too many middle names", said Nick.

"We are not at liberty to tell you everything we know - much of it is not our secret to share. There are other forces involved whose mission is to make sure that Harry has a happy and healthy childhood, and as normal as possible an adulthood. We are all on your side, or rather, his side, which - I am glad to see in your face - is the same as being on your side", continued Penny.

Nick took up the explanation again. "We are in touch with someone who... well one way to look at it might be that they have a bit of the seer in them and know many things that are in the future. We have been asked not to reveal their identity or presence to you, nor even the reasons why that is so. But this person has nothing but Harry's well-being in mind."

"After all", smirked Penny, "he got Harry's godfather out of prison!"

"The 'Phantom'?", asked Sirius, surprised, but only for a moment. It was obvious, in hindsight.

He looked at Kreacher, and saw that he was smirking too. Clearly he knew all this, so he asked him, "Kreacher, has this person that Mr Flamel speaks of, been here?"

"Yes master Sirius. He brought the potions that Mistress Penny made for Master Harry. He also chose the colours in master Harry's room, brought the books and the toys, and told me what Master Harry's favourite foods are".

"I see. What else am I allowed to know about him?", asked Sirius, with a trace of petulance.

"Lord Black, there's not a lot more to tell, I'm afraid. Also, you must understand that you are the only person who is allowed to know of even his existence, because you are, for now, the only person who truly cares for Harry and loves him. Other than you, only Kreacher and we know about this."

Sirius latched on to the "for now". It was obvious that he loved Harry and it was a happy thought that there would be more love in his life, but he had to ask: "there will be others who care for Harry as much as I do?"

"Yes, at least two more. But one needs to be traced, and the other hasn't met him yet", said Penny with a grin. Then she changed gears. "Please, let us not talk about this right now; there's time enough for that. Our first priority is Dumbledore".

"What of Dumbledore?"

"You only know that he warded 4 Privet Drive against all wizards and witches. What you do not know is that he also put up wards to monitor that place. One ward warned him if Harry was away from the house more than two hours, but has been recently adjusted to 8 hours when he started school a few months ago. In a couple of hours that ward will go off, he will investigate, and eventually make his way here. Are you prepared to handle him?"

By himself, Sirius may have. But he could not afford to risk Harry in any manner. So he said, "not right now. What do you suggest I do?"

"Well, I could do the Fidelius for you; takes only ten minutes, easy to get it done long before 4pm. With you as the secret-keeper this time. No decoys!", grinned Nick.

Sirius made a half-laughing, half-barking, sound in agreement.

Harry heard that sound and became very quiet and thoughtful. When the others noticed, he hesitantly offered an explanation, afraid of what they would say. "Umm, do you... I mean... when I was really small, I think we had a dog..."

Sirius immediately turned into his animagus form. Harry stared, shocked, but he didn't seem to be afraid of this dog that was three times his size. Instead, he said, "pafoo?", and hesitantly approached him, then just gave up and simply jumped on him!

Later, after Harry, tired from the excitement of the day so far, had been put to bed for a late afternoon nap, Sirius sat down with the Flamels to discuss something that was mildly bothering him.

"This 'Phantom' you met, what kind of a person is he? I'll admit he's only killed real bad guys so far, and it never worried me what his agenda was, but now I am wondering. Because, you see, I'd never thought my cousin Cissy was that bad as to deserve a summary execution. Malfoy and Fudge - sure; I'd do it myself if I could get away with it, but Cissy I draw the line at."

"Are you concerned because the Phantom is threatening someone you genuinely consider to be less guilty, or perhaps guilty only by association, or does this stem from the fact that it is your cousin?"

"Bella was my cousin too", said Sirius simply.

"Aah yes of course; I had forgotten. Forgive me. To answer your question, Cissy may not be guilty in action, but she is the brains behind a lot of Malfoy's scheming; without her, Malfoy would be little more than a strutting peacock".

"How do you know this? I have seen no evidence of this", said Sirius. His vague memories of the couple were that it was a typical pureblood marriage - the wife subservient to the husband. It was hard to imagine Cissy giving ideas (or orders, even?) to Lucius.

Nick, for his part, did not really know how to answer that. He could not reveal the Hobby/Dobby connection without risking everything that Hobby wanted to keep secret. He figured a half-truth would suffice.

"I assure you it is true, though I am not at liberty to reveal exactly how we know. Let's just say we have a way to monitor their meal-time conversations and leave it at that". Best to let him think it was a spying device or charm of some kind, he reasoned.

"Sirius, you haven't known us long enough, but I sense that you trust me and Penny, if only because we who have lived six centuries have clearly no axe to grind in all this, and you can also see we are coming to love little Harry".

Sirius nodded.

"Well, take it from us. The 'Phantom' won't do anything totally unjust. To be honest, I think the only ones he was absolutely going to go after, in an unfair, one-sided, manner if needed, were Bella, and one other. The rest... well the rest happened only after they did something."

Penny continued the narration. "We think he's always been in two minds about this. He started out with a vague plan to kill them all, because of what the seer had said they would do later - and it must have been truly horrific for him to think that way, because behind all this he is a very gentle soul. But I don't think he will kill more than a couple of them in cold blood, for two reasons".

He took a breath. "FIrst, I doubt he has the stomach to do that. And second, he does not want to draw too much attention to himself. If really, really investigated, with the full might of the wizarding world's best, he would end up implicating someone who is truly innocent and has no clue about all this. He does not want to risk that - the wizarding world being the crazy place it is, that innocent would suffer the consequences of his actions".

"Why would an innocent suffer? And who is this innocent person?"

"Your naivete is quite misplaced Sirius, especially after what happened to you. Get off your high horse and smell the coffee". Nick was mixing metaphors, which meant he was slightly agitated. He had also side-stepped the question of just who that innocent was.

"Anyway", he continued. "He will not do anything to most of them as long as they stay clean".

"Which, unfortunately, many of them don't know how to. Hence the very public threats. If he were here, I'd wager he'd say that he'd sooner lose the faith of Sirius Black than see one more muggleborn raped and tortured. Did you know that until he threatened to kill their families, several of these so-called upstanding citizens had a stream of muggle girls in their dungeons? Girls whose only escape from there was insanity, then death?"

"And frankly, I suspect your respect means less to him than the fact that everyone who would have been a risk to the Longbottoms are now gone", said Penny. "Please do not doubt him. He will still help you in everything related to Harry, but any chance you ever had of knowing him as an individual would be truly gone if you appear to be against him. Trust me, we know him, and he is a wonderful being, and he is really trying to help."

Sirius just sat there numbly. This couldn't all be because of a seer's visions; they weren't supposed to be that specific. Something else was going on here, but damned if he knew what that was.

1986-03-10 18:00 UTC, 4, Privet Drive

Dumbledore apparated into the front yard of 4 Privet Drive. The ward warning him of Harry being away for more than 8 hours had been going for some time, but he had ignored it. He knew that sometimes schools had special events that may take a bit longer to finish, and it had happened a couple of times that the boy came back home around 5pm.

By 6pm, however, he could no longer ignore it. He first went to the school, just to make sure, and found no sign of the boy; in fact no sign of anyone. Clearly an ordinary day, and everyone had left long ago.

Then he went to the house.

The house was empty. Not just empty of people, it was empty of everything that was not part of the building itself. Even the electricity, it seemed, had been turned off.

He hurriedly transformed his clothes into something more palatable to muggles, and knocked on the neighbours' door.

"Good evening. I wanted to visit an old friend of mine, Vernon Dursley, who used to live here the last time we met. But he and his family seem to have left; would you know by any chance where they went?"

"I'm sorry, I don't. It appeared to be on the cards for a few days but they did not discuss details. Perhaps the real estate agent" - here he pointed to a small sign out in front - "could tell you more?"

Dumbledore tried to read the facts from the man's mind, but he got essentially the same thing. The sign for the agent indicated an office a couple of streets away, in fact pretty close to where Mrs Figg lived, so Dumbledore walked in that direction until he was out of sight of the neighbour. Then, having looked around to make sure no one else was watching, he apparated to Mrs Figg's (completely unmindful, or uncaring, of invading her personal space without so much as an apology!), and from there he walked to the real estate office.

"Hello, I am looking for the forwarding address of a friend of mine, whom I had lost contact with some months ago, Vernon Dursley, who used to live at #4, Privet Drive. Since you are taking care of selling the house, I thought you might have a forwarding address for him."

"We do not; we were contacted through his lawyers."

"Could you tell me who those lawyers are?"

"We were told not to, unless it was a law-enforcement matter. Sorry!"

Dumbledore merely stared at him, looking cleanly into his eyes. Then he fell backward, knocking his head hard on the ground. A few minutes later, he was woken up by a bucket of water being poured on him, and the apparently very concerned agent was asking if he was OK.

Dumbledore made some appropriate noises and left. He had no idea what had happened to lay him low like that. Of course, he had never tried to read a goblin's mind (even one disguised as a human), so it was a fair bet that he would not have recognised the symptoms!