Chapter 104:
"Sirius!" Harry was out of his feet in a shot, rushing across the hall, not caring who saw him, or about the whispers that darted across the halls in tones of confusion and fear.
His Godfather hugged him tightly, and for a moment Harry savoured it, before pulling back.
"You're free? You're really free? What happened? What's going to happen to Wormtail? Are the ministry-"
"Harry," Sirius laughed, squeezing his shoulders, eyes crinkled with warmth. "Give me time to answer, kiddo. Yes, I'm free. The Ministry had no valid evidence to put me back in Azkaban with, and no trial either. It's a right mess. The rat will receive a Dementor's Kiss first thing in the morning."
Something flickered in the older man's eye at that, a pained mixture of hatred and…sympathy?
They'd been friends once.
No matter what had happened. They had been friends once, and that hurt.
Harry could relate so well to that.
He held on a little tighter, not knowing how else to show support.
"He's Sirius Black!" a Hufflepuff boy whimpered. "Why are you talking to him?"
And they began the long explanation.
Voldemort paced up and down the room, agitatedly, Nagini curled up in the corner and watching his movements curiously.
"You are troubled," she hissed. He glanced at her. "Is it because they are…happy?"
"If they are happy, then why would I forget it?" he returned, coolly, jaw clenched. "It makes no sense, as it would imply that I became as I am to keep Potter and those memories alive…and thus, this…lapse in memory would be redundant."
"You believe the greasy-haired one is lying?" she questioned, uncoiling, fangs bared. He was silent for a moment.
"He must be… or something goes wrong. Trouble in Paradise…which could alternatively cause me to become as I am just to spite Potter. He doesn't seem all too fond of what he becomes, after all, so the only reason he would become me is pertaining to Potter being as he is…but why can't I remember it? This is supposedly my past and creation, my history. I should know it."
He spoke softly, not raising his voice, but his words were lined by razor-sharp edges of ice and steel.
"How could I forget?"
His Horcrux watched him without response, slits of eyes a golden mirror of his own hate-filled scarlet.
"Why would I forget if I was…happy?"
He needed to find someone to torture.
Sirius, about to leave (because apparently there was a hell of a lot to do as a newly free man that couldn't wait), came to a stop before Tom, looking uncomfortable.
"I…I believe I owe you a debt for my freedom," he said, voice neutral, far too neutral for his happy-go lucky Godfather.
Harry froze, and felt Tom's eyes slide to him for a moment, before back to Sirius.
"No," the Slytherin Heir replied. "Your debts are settled."
"You saved my life," Sirius said, swallowing. "Twice."
"And both times I consider those debts to me to be settled. Take it up with your Godson if you feel the wish to pay him back for the concessions he made on your behalf."
Sirius' head snapped around.
"Concessions?" he questioned tightly. Harry silently cursed the young Dark Lord.
"…he didn't tell you about that?" Tom questioned, with a tone of innocence and mild disinterest. "My bad, awkward conversations I guess…sorry sweetheart."
Yeah, Harry was sure he was sorry and disinterested.
Tom didn't slip up - that had been a jab because Tom was still pissed off with him for attempting to steal the Horcrux, however sweetly wrapped it was. They both knew it.
He clenched his jaw, but remained impassive, knowing Tom was watching hungrily for his reaction and move.
"What was the concession?" Sirius demanded.
Harry resisted the urge to widen his eyes guiltily, keeping his face schooled with ease.
"It's nothi-" he began, only to cut short his arm burned.
He heard a hiss and didn't have to look down to know the snake had come alive on his bare arm. Sirius went completely still, staring at it, almost unseeingly, grabbing the offending appendage.
"That's…what have you done?" Sirius near hissed, shaking him.
Harry took a step back, hiding any alarm.
"Sirius-"
"-Is this what I think it is?" the older man continued furiously.
"A tattoo? I know you're technically supposed to be eighteen but-"
"Harry!" Sirius snapped, just as the snake flared at his omission.
Right. Tom's birthday present.
He shrugged, helplessly, in response. Sirius' grip tightened for a moment.
"Why?" his Godfather asked, his voice croaky, his eyes shooting Tom a dark look that the other simply raised an eyebrow back, even as the snake melded back to those crescent moon 'nail marks' that had come so familiar an adornment to his skin.
Harry's skin tingled, and he resisted the urge to glance at the one who had created them.
"Why what?" he returned, dully.
"Why would you do something like this-it's not-"
"I'm not going to let the only family I have die," Harry said quietly, guessing the question, meeting Sirius' gaze with iron eyes. "Not when there was even a possibility I could save you."
Sirius looked as if he were about to cry. His new found freedom was probably overwhelming.
"It's not your job to save me, kiddo," he replied, voice almost a whisper, cracked.
Harry's brow furrowed, and he withdrew slightly.
"Of course it is, if I had the resources to save you…are you saying I'd rather not have done it?" A deep hurt pulsated somewhere in his chest. Sirius' hands cupped his face, holding his gaze like he had the first time they met.
Tom shifted.
"I'd rather you didn't pay the price for it," Sirius replied, with a hint of something in his tone, a desperation, a conviction, but Harry didn't understand what why driving.
"I don't understand," he said, annoyed with himself. "The price is nothing. It's not a big deal."
Sirius was silent for a moment, before smiling.
"Do you mind if I talk to Tom for a moment?"
Tom leaned against the door of the nearby classroom, eyeing the now free man before him with only the vaguest of interests.
"Why did you give him the rat?" the Black lord demanded, rather aggressively if he said so himself. His lips curled slightly.
Bless.
He actually thought he was intimidating, a threat…a player. He was nothing more than a pawn, only significant on Tom's board due to his influence over and relationship with Harry.
"Christmas Present," he said, mildly, noting the man was almost immediately worked up and frustrated at the nonchalant response.
"You're a Slytherin, you don't do something if you don't gain from it!" the man spat, with a note of accusation in his tone that was simply absurd.
"Everything everyone does is for the purpose of gaining something," he replied calmly. "I dare say it's not merely a Slytherin trait."
"You bastard-!"
"-Actually, my parents were married…it was quite the scandal."
His eyes gleamed as he interrupted casually, watching a red flush sneak on Black's face.
Harry wouldn't have got worked up so quickly. He would have played back. Given a witty retort. Harry was challenging.
Black stared at him, eyes keen with an analysis that almost made him laugh if he were not more capable of controlling his reactions.
Did this ex Convict and Gryffindor, whatever his lineage, truly think that he was any match for him?
How…pathetically quaint.
"Nonetheless," he continued, smoothly, just as the other was about to speak. "I daresay you requested this little chat for reason? I'm a busy man - I suggest you find that reason, and quickly," he instructed.
The man's pupils widened slightly, and he knew instantly what was causing the surprise and disconcertion so easily readable behind the man's efforts of masquerade.
Before, Black had only ever seen him largely around Harry; he had been with Harry in his time at Grimmauld, and playing games just as Harry has deducted the whole time.
He was completely unpredictable to Black, and that terrified the other man because it meant there were thus no predictable courses of action that he would take with Harry.
He, who spent more time around the man's Godson than the man himself he did...
Black's chin jutted out, eyes flashing wildly.
"Why did you allow me to be free? What's the catch?"
But he was not completely thick.
Tom allowed a dangerous smirk to grace his lips as he moved from the door, prowling around the man, watching as he fought between acting unconcerned and spinning to keep an eye on him.
His expression grew more serious, amusement vanished.
"Don't interfere with my dealings with Harry," he said, softly, warningly.
Sirius blinked, practically bristling like the dog he was.
"If you hurt him-"
"You will do nothing," he finished, flatly. "And you won't tell him of this conversation and turn him against me, either."
"What makes you so sure? You can't kill me right now, Harry would know and never forgive you!"
"Because you'd never hurt him," he said, feeling a sense of satisfaction as the man paled.
"What?"
"Honestly, I'm sure I'm not talking so quietly…" he mocked. "You won't tell him because you won't hurt him," he repeated, patronisingly clear and slow.
"I heard what you-" Black began, practically growling.
"And do you know why that means you will never speak of this conversation?" he asked, sweetly. Black stared at him, not responding. "Because, as I'm sure you've noticed, I'm the one keeping him together."
He paused to let the blow sink in, the pain was visible on the other's face, in his flinch.
He looked after Harry, not Black…and didn't that just torture the man inside? It was beautiful.
"Perhaps you'd like to fix him next time he's about to shatter?…oh…wait…" he pulled a thoughtful face, cruel pleasures spinning intoxicatingly in his blood stream. "...You're not around. I am."
His gaze hooded.
"Just because he's your Godson, doesn't make him yours. Get in my way and I will personally ensure some tragic fate befalls you."
Menace over, he smiled, disarmingly at the man.
"I was thinking about it, and this really is the best for everyone around," he said, cheerfully. "You're a free man and get to have Harry in your life. Harry never has to go back to those disgusting muggles and gets to have a family. I get to carry on as I am without some little blockhead aiming to inconvenience my goals. Perfect, isn't it? I thought so. There's a good man…was there anything else you wanted to discuss?"
He was pleasantly surprised when, though slumping with defeat, the man still glared back defiantly.
"I won't stand by and watch you hurt him."
"I don't wish to hurt him," he admitted, coolly. "Well…I lie, I have no objection to watching him in pain, it's rather fascinating...but I have no intentions of breaking or killing him."
The man did need some reassurance after all...
He turned to leave, to hear the man practically snarl with his incessant mouth that did NOT stop talking.
"My Godson seems to be of the misconception you are a friend to him, and that you care about him, I don't care if you have the Dementor's kiss me, if you-" the man began his threats, dangerously, sounding every inch like he could commit the murders he was imprisoned for...but Tom would kill far more than thirteen in his life.
He stopped, turning around, his own eyes flashing at the loathing and revulsion in Black's voice, the disbelief, the question.
There was absolutely no question to be asked.
"-It's not his misconception, its yours in over-simplifying and cramming your neat little labels on us. I am his friend, if you want to use that term…but that doesn't mean we're on the same side."
This time, he didn't look back.
A/N: So, it's been a while. I have been absorbed in school and the enthralling world of Death Note 3 My latest discovery and newest obsession. I love it! And am completely hooked and will be hooked until I have explored that world to my heart's content…but I figured that you're awesome reviews did deserve an update. So here you go. I hope you enjoyed it.