Chapter 15: Vignettes and Memories
Sirius sat at the Tonks' kitchen table, a tumbler of firewhiskey in his hand. The bottle before him was nearly half gone, though Andromeda was unsure if it had been started today or not as she walked into the room. She silently busies herself with preparing tea, waiting for the forlorn man to respond to her presence, or not. It is not until she sits across from the grim animagus, though, that he registers her presence.
"What happened to him, Andy?" She remained silent, unsure of whom he was speaking, covering for herself with a sip of tea, hoping he would expand on the statement. Like the Gryffindor he was, he obliged her.
"Sure, we all knew Bella craved power, and it drove her crazy even before she left Hogwarts. Narcissa only ever wanted to be the perfect pureblood princess, and she got her wish. You and I were the white sheep of the Black family, ha! Though you hid it until you couldn't any longer and I decided from day one that I would be different." Andromeda knew where he was going with this, now. She had wondered the same thing.
"What happened to Reggie? He went from being the sweetest boy to a death eater?" Sirius slammed back the remainder of his firewhiskey before reaching to pour himself another.
"I don't know, Siri." Andromeda slumped forward, a rare display for her.
"And we don't know what happened to him! Even they didn't know, Bella tortured me for information, thinking I knew where he was, a couple months before that Halloween. He just up and vanished! From both sides of the war! For all we know, he is living it up in Spain, or India, or Fiji!" Sirius was shouting in anger and grief, before he too slumped forward onto the table.
"The goblins know, Siri, and they read his will later. I got a letter and Cissa got everything else. He didn't explain anything, though it was written nearly a year before he went missing." Andromeda said dejectedly, missing her youngest cousin almost as much as Sirius missed his brother. "Maybe he talked to Granduncle Arcturus?" Andromeda offered.
"I'll need to ask him, then. Mum's dead, good riddance, but I haven't been able to get into Grimmauld yet. She added wards to keep those she threw out of the family, out of her house, even if Grandfather never officially disowned us." Sirius attempted to shoot his fresh tumbler, but was stopped by his cousin.
"That's enough for you, I think." Andromeda glared at him, before taking the glass and the bottle.
Harry had ridden the train home for Christmas for the first time ever. It was a strange feeling, to be excited about leaving Hogwarts. He and Dora had stepped off the carriage and onto the platform, only to be subsumed into a strangling hug from Sirius. He had caught both of them, one with each arm, and was squeezing less like he was greeting them after an extended absence and more like he was trying to get the last little bit out of a mangled tube of toothpaste. Andromeda cuffed the back of his head and he released the teens, who both took a comically large breath and left Sirius with a scowl on his face, muttering about being unappreciated. The two cousins started bickering as Ted warmly, and calmly, welcomed his daughter and her boyfriend. Casually shrinking their trunks, he led them over to the floo, a small smile on his face at how close they stayed together when navigating the crowd of students and parents. Dora was just happy to see her parents and uncle again, while Harry was basking in the feeling of family. The Weasleys had gone out of their way to make him feel at home, but even if he was treated as one of their sons, it wasn't the same as knowing he belonged.
Arriving back at the townhouse was a whirlwind of unpacking and decorating for the holiday, Sirius the instigator and financier but Andromeda was just as bad, if only more subtle in her excitement. Harry and Dora shared multiple moments while decorating the tree, whispering and laughing to each other while oblivious of the adults watching with fond amusement. Soon the house was filled with the smell of baking cookies that tempted and tantalized the tastebuds of the occupants with the soft seduction of butter and sugar. The next few days were a snapshot in life that Harry would treasure forever - his first christmas at home. Pranks were pulled, eyes rolled, snogs stolen, cuddles had. Harry grew closer to Andromeda and Ted, and was able to draw stories of his parents out of Sirius, though it wasn't as if he needed to try too hard.
It was with a grumble that he begrudgingly rolled over and out of bed, The pounding on his door having dragged him from his slumber. He glanced at the clock, disgusted at his godfather's willingness to wake the household at six in the morning - sure, Harry normally got up at that time for training or exercise, but it was Christmas. He should be allowed to sleep in - especially after he and Dora had stayed cuddled in the living room, snogging until two am. He was just glad he thought to charm his room locked, Harry knew he would have woken to a wet dog nose in his ear, whuffing at him to wake up if he hadn't.
Harry stumbled into the living room, to find his godfather cheerfully awake, Dora nearly asleep in what had become their loveseat, Ted blinking his eyes periodically and sitting ramrod straight to try and hurry wakefulness, and Andromeda similarly awake to Sirius, but nowhere near as exuberant. He sat next to Dora who immediately slumped into his side and began to doze on his shoulder.
"It's time for presents!" Sirius was seated next to the tree, about to hand packages out. "I'll play Santa!" And with that, he conjured himself a white, flowing beard that would rival the headmaster's.
Harry cheered as the Hufflepuff captain scored against the Ravenclaw keeper. It was the first match after the break, and while he wasn't on the team, he certainly still enjoyed watching. The whipping wind of players passing slightly too closely to the stands, the crack of a beater's bat against the bludgers, the roar of the crowds and muffled, shouted orders from captain to team members, It was a frenzy and the energy was infectious. Dora wasn't immune either, standing and cheering, shouting, booing as the game required with full conviction. Harry found perverse pleasure in spotting the snitch twice before the Ravenclaw seeker finally snatched it away from the Badgers. He felt his girlfriend shiver in the cold as the game wound down and the teams congratulated each other as her arms burrowed into his cloak.
Chuckling, Harry cast a warming charm on her - but not so warm she wouldn't want to keep cuddling in close as they waited for their turn to head down the stairs. She was chatting away to her friends, Harry mostly ignoring the conversation. As nice as the girls were, he wasn't close with them. He found it difficult to be friends with anyone, really, that he couldn't tell his whole story to. He found himself closer to Flitwick and Dumbledore than any student beyond Nym. He hadn't even been able to tell the charms professor anything, though he figured maybe he ought to do so - the diminutive man was beginning to question Harry's preference for more lethal spells. There was little use for a dark, fire-based cutting curse from mesopotamia that cauterized the wound magically to prevent healing or reattachment of a lost limb, while still allowing the stump to bleed freely. Harry had gotten quite the side-eye after he had used that on a practice dummy, but he knew that when it came time to actually fight death eaters he would need to put them down and out of the war - not just the fight - quickly.
Getting closer to Dumbledore wasn't something he would have expected to happen had he been asked that summer, but the man wasn't bad, really. All the interesting times Harry had suffered through at Hogwarts were events Harry had condemned himself to when he had come back. It was a cycle of chicken and egg, impossible to tell or even theorize what triggered them, as Harry has always been in the past, there was never a "beginning" to the loop where he hadn't been. It gave him a headache just thinking about it, but given Dumbledore's wide eyes and shocked expressions when he had finally gone through Harry's memories, he had to assume the headmaster wouldn't have let such things happen without his hand being forced by a temporal paradox.
Even being left at the Dursleys was explainable - somewhat. Albus was left with a collection of terrible choices after his parents had been killed. Dumbledore was not the secret-keeper for the Longbottoms, and when they did come out from under the fidelius, were immediately attacked. Sirius was immediately suspected because everyone thought he was the secret-keeper for the Potters, Lupin simply wasn't an option due to being a werewolf, the dark factions would use that as perfect justification for taking Harry away and fostering him amongst themselves. Under the letter of the law, Harry should go to Petunia, being the closest blood relative. Dumbledore was able to tie the blood protection into wards there, too. At the time, the decision was made purely for Harry's safety. And they had been crucial too, they had stopped two attempts on his life in the first year.
Harry had made his peace with it. Dumbledore wasn't treating him like a child, this time around, talking with him about future strategy and legitimately taking his opinions into account. Maybe it was the foreknowledge and not his worth as a strategist, but Harry would take it regardless. He was finally being trained, and to a degree he could have only dreamt of before coming back. With plenty of motivation to learn, Harry had begun improving at a prodigious rate, his voracious appetite for new and exotic spells only matched by Ron's appetite. The comparison made him crack a smile and stifle a laugh as the pair walked back to the castle from the pitch.
"What's so funny?" Dora asked, squinting up at him.
"Oh nothing." Harry's smile turned bittersweet as he remembered he may well never be friends with them again. At the least, it wouldn't be the same.
Spectre slowly walked through the halls of the department of mysteries, trying to follow a trail of the time magic they had detected. Their wand was out in front of them, the lack of light on the tip an indication that there wasn't anything here. A modulated sigh made its way out of the hood's opening as the unspeakable backtracked to the veil room and started over again on the last hallway. It was unlikely they would find anything, the burst of magic associated with the presumed arrival of two travelers was fading rather quickly, and traces were harder to pickup underneath the death magic radiating out of the veil. They had hoped that it would be easier to pick up again outside of the room, but it was proving to be particularly difficult. They had found a small hint in Inkwell's office, but they were known to work on time research, and so Spectre had dismissed it. They would need to scour areas outside the department of mysteries soon - first the rest of the ministry, and then probably Diagon Alley, Knockturn, and Hogwarts. Gringotts would be quite insulted if they went poking about there, which was a shame.
This was a problem, though. The last traveler that had arrived without a time-turner had been the worst dark lord Britain had seen in three centuries, before Voldemort showed up. There was no guarantee that someone from the future was benevolent, after all. This wasn't some fictitious story. That dark lord is what prompted the policy to ice all travelers until their time came back around - after interrogating them, of course. It had been a bit over a century since the last one, and they had caught them within a few weeks due to their perfect string of gambling.
Or, truthfully, the goblins had caught them, though they didn't know how the traveler had been cheating their bookies.
It had been nearly nine months, though, and there were two this time. The only reason the whole department wasn't dedicated to the manhunt was because so far there hadn't been any bodies turning up. They had been monitoring the economy, and beyond Arcturus Black finally getting over his dead wife, not much had shifted there either.
Spectre sighed again, before putting their wand away and returning to their office. They weren't going to find anything here, it seemed.
A/N:
This is my first story on FFN! I have some more works on AO3, if you're interested. I'll post a chapter a day here on FFN until I am caught up with AO3, at which time I'll be posting weekly!
Please comment with any questions, constructive criticisms, or recommendations! If you want early access or to chime in on oneshot polls, please see my linktree: /anarettekors