Chapter 18: A Day With Sirius

Thanks for all the reviews.

It was brought to my attention that the Great Hall was only used for Study Hall in the movies. Well, for the sake of this fic, it is Study Hall. I need a place for the houses to mingle.

I have posted a few one-shots to practice my dictation and editing. Go check them out and give me some feedback, if you like. Please and thank you.

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A few days after getting the news about Sirius, Harry got the news that Buckbeak had gotten a stay of execution. It was great news for him because now he had one less thing to worry about. He ran down to Hagrid's house to let him know.

It was cold out and snow covered the ground, so they made sure to bundle up. It was just him and Ron at this time. Everybody else was at home for the break. Well, Amy was around, as was Susan, but they were busy. Ron wasn't overly excited about going down to Hagrid's, but he did want to get out of the common room for a while, so that was OK. He was being particularly nice this time around because there was nobody else to play chess with except Harry. So, he wasn't being as rude as he usually was.

"Hey, Hagrid. I just got the news that Buckbeak's going to be set free," Harry said as Hagrid answered the door and let them into his small but very warm hut. He came inside and sat down on the overly large couch and put his hands towards the roaring fire.

Ron did the same thing, taking his scarf off and putting it on his lap.

"Did ya now? Well, that's good ta know. I'm really glad you and yer friends got ta help Bucky," The giant man said as he got the kettle out of the fire. He placed it on the table to let it cool just a bit as he got some cups down from the side of the wall. He put those on the table and went about getting some tea from one of the shelves over by the kitchen area.

"Well, we really wanted to help you too. Are you going to be able to keep your job?" Harry asked. He had been pretty worried about that and was upset if the man would lose his job over something that Draco Malfoy had done.

"Oh, don't you worry about me none. Ol' Hagrid knows how to handle himself. Dumbledore, great man Dumbledore, he'll make sure that I keep me job," Hagrid said as he went about making the tea.

"Are you sure, Hagrid? Because we could put in a good word for you," Ron said, putting his two knuts worth in. He sat back on the couch, being nice and warm from the fire.

"Uh, don't you worry none. I've got it taken care of," The gentle giant said, waving off their concern.

"OK. Do you need anything else from us?" Harry asked as he took the cup of tea from Hagrid's hand as the much larger man passed it over. One of Hagrid's teacups fit in both of his hands, even the smaller ones.

"Nah. Let's just have some tea and talk about better things," Hagrid said as he poured them some tea and gave them some rock cakes. And with that the group just sat there and had a pleasant conversation the rest of the day.

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It was still Yule break, and Harry went down to Millie's house to meet with Sirius. He had been both looking forward to and dreading this conversation. On one hand, this man was his godfather, and he was always looking for somebody who was part of the family. It had been something he'd been dreaming about since he was a little kid. On the other hand, this man might try and take him away from Millie, who is also now part of his family. She was like an older sister to him. Sure, he had had a crush on her for a minute, but now all he could think about was that she was family.

They were settled in the living room of Millie's flat. It was a comfy room that had modern furniture that was squash and bulky. It was all fluff and pillows. Like Millie was trying to keep it all girly on purpose. Harry never figured her for the type, but here he was sitting on a puff ottoman. And it was surreal. Sirius was sequestered into the only recliner in the room. He needed the support more than Harry did. The entire room was done in shades of pink and white, with hints of grey, but not overwhelmingly so.

"Are you staying here with Millie?" Harry asked with a narrow-eyed glare. He wasn't sure how he felt about some man staying in the house with his big sister. Sure, she could take care of herself, but still.

"She's letting me stay in your room for now," Sirius said, grinning at him like a loon. He didn't care what was going on, he was just ecstatic that he was now in the same room with his godson. It had been this moment that kept him going all these years.

"I'm not sure how I feel about that," Harry answered, folding his arms, and making his glare even harder. He wanted to make sure that Sirius understood that Harry was very protective of Millie.

"Well, I really don't have any place else to go," Sirius said, looking confused as to why the boy was so upset. It wasn't like the girl was in his age range anyway. "I think it's right nice of her to let me crash at her place. But let's not talk about that right now. Let's talk about us. Millie tells me that she has a Power of Attorney over you right now. But I was wondering if you wanted to come live with me."

There was a quality about his voice that made it seem as though Harry was just going to bend over and say yes right away. It was an aristocratic quality of somebody who was used to getting their way just by saying a few words. Harry wasn't sure how he felt about that. It wasn't quite stuck up, but it was there.

"I don't even know you. I know Millie," Harry said, looking at him with a tilt of his head and puzzlement in his eyes, "and she saved me from the Dursleys. I think I'd rather live with her. Well, I have to go back to the Dursleys for at least a little while every summer. According to Dumbledore, there's some kind of wards up that have to be fed," he explained, even though that puzzlement never left his face.

This was something that Dumbledore had explained to Millie when she went up to show him the Power of Attorney. It was something about Blood Wards that Harry had to feed about two weeks out of the year. They didn't understand it, but they came to some sort of agreement, and as long as the Dursleys behaved themselves, he was fine with it. According to Dumbledore it helped the protection from his mother that was attached to him.

"I've never heard of wards like that. I'm gonna have to speak to Dumbledore. Are you sure you don't wanna come live with me?" the dogman asked. He wasn't sure he liked being told no. It's not something that happens to him very often. Only his mother denied him on the regular. It was a new experience.

"Don't you have to recover or something? You've been in Azkaban for over twelve years. That has got to be murder on the mind. Let alone the body," the teenager pointed out, still looking at him queerly.

He didn't know much about Azkaban, but he knew about regular prisons, and he had heard that the dementors were at Azkaban and therefore had to be at least a hundred times worse than a regular prison. He had only been around the dementors once, and he knew that it was a hundred times worse than anything he had ever felt. To be around that for twelve years, well…

"You're right about that. I really should get some healing done, both mind and body, but I was just wondering if you wanted to come live with me after I'm better," Sirius said, nodding his head in agreement. "The entire time I was in Azkaban, the only thing that kept me sane was knowing that you were out here waiting for me. That sounded kind of corny. I meant that you were out here healthy and waiting for me to come and rescue you. No, that didn't sound right either. What I meant was…"

You're just making it worse. I understand what you meant. But…" Harry said, trying to voice his opinion without making it worse on his side too. He didn't want to alienate the man. He just didn't want to live with him.

"I think what you're both trying to say is you don't know one another. But you mean a lot to each other, yeah. But right now, everything is up in the air. How about we do this," Millie said, coming into the room with the tea service. She hadn't been eavesdropping, per se, but she did hear the last two comments and now she wanted to help solve the situation. "How about we have joint custody after Mr. Black gets healthy?" she offered.

She had no problem sharing custody with Sirius, she was only seventeen years old, and he might be useful later down the road. He was pureblood and would be listened to far more than she was. That and he could grease palms, so to speak.

"Now, that's a right sound thought," Sirius said, liking that idea immensely. He had the money and the age, but he didn't have the mental stability. She was mentally capable, but she was young and just starting out. So, it worked out well for both of them. That and Harry seemed to like her and defer to her. So, she got to take care of his growing up and he got to spoil his godson.

"How would we do that?" Harry asked, looking back and forth between the two adults. "I still have to go back to the Dursleys for a couple of weeks. That would be splitting my time three ways." It wasn't that he didn't want to spend time with the two of them, but he just didn't see him bouncing between three houses during the summer. That would get tedious very fast.

"Well, for right now, Sirius is staying here, so it's still only splitting your time twice," Millie said as she started playing mother.

"And when he gets his own place?" he teenage boy asked as he took the cup, she handed to him.

"Well, he can get a place here in Hogsmeade, yeah," she said as she poured a cup for Sirius. "That way you can still only be splitting it twice, and he and I can have joint custody while you stay here in my shop."

"That sounds like a lovely idea," said Sirius, taking the cup and taking a fortifying sip out of it. This discussion had not gone the way he thought it was going to go. He thought Harry would be happy to jump in and live with him. Still, it wasn't the worst that could happen either. Harry hadn't booted him out of his life, so there was that.

"You want to stay here in Hogsmeade?" Harry asked, not quite completely floored by the idea but baffled by it. "Doesn't it seem like an awfully quiet town for you to be in? I would think you wanna go into the city or something." Sirius seemed like a city boy.

"You really don't know much about me, do you, Harry?" Sirius asked, knowing the answer. "I just spent the last twelve years in hell, with a lot of screaming and moaning. I think I'd like someplace quiet for a while." As he spoke he looked around Millie's quiet flat.

It was very peaceful and homey, except for on the days that the children were there from Hogwarts. And even then, it wasn't nearly as bad as it was in Azkaban when the dementors were about. He didn't think there would be a day go by when he didn't hear the screams of his cousin Bellatrix. She was the worst, mostly because she would cry and cry for Voldemort to come and save her.

"I would have thought prison would have been really quiet and you would have wanted noise around. Sorry, I shouldn't have presumed," Harry said. He kept forgetting that demons were in that prison and how they would make the prisoners react.

Millie reached over and grabbed his hand and gave him a comfortable squeeze.

"It's all right. This is a right nice place. I think I'll like it here. But I need to go to St. Mungo's and let them help me for a while," Sirius said, giving him a shaky smile. It was not a place he wanted to go. It was going to be very quiet there, yes, but it was also going to be very sanitary and strict. The complete opposite of Azkaban.

"When do you think you'll be better?" asked Millie, taking a sip of her own tea. She wanted to make sure that she had Harry's room ready for him to stay in and to look over the cottages and flats in the village so that they could find one for him to live in. She might do that while he was staying at St. Mungo's. That way she had things for him to look over when he got back.

"They said it'll take about a month, month and a half," the dogman stated, closing his eyes at the thought of having to stay in the hospital for over a month. He had just got his freedom and now he was going to have to be locked away again, even though it was to get better. It was nerve-wracking.

"That soon huh? It would take years and years in the non-magical world, yeah," Millie said, surprised that it was actually not going to take that long. She would have figured after twelve years it would take much longer for them to take care of all of his issues. But then again, they cured the common cold in less than five seconds.

"Well, that's one thing we have a foot up on in the magical world. We're lot better at medicine," Sirius said, smiling a proud smile. He and Lily had had many debates on stuff like that right before they went into hiding.

"What about mind healing, yeah?" Millie asked. She knew they didn't have anything like psychiatrists or counselors. They had something called a mind healer, but she didn't know what they did.

"We have better band aids. According to what Lily used to tell me, we have better mind-altering medications, but we can't cure the disease," Sirius explained, trying to rack his brain for what his friend told him about what the difference between the two worlds were when it came to psychological problems. According to her, they had mind doctors and stuff, but according to him, they had better drugs, or potions as the case may be.

That's what the mind healers did, they prescribed those potions. They also diagnosed the disease. They did not, however, offer counseling.

"Well, they can't cure mental health disease in a non-magical world either, so don't feel bad, yeah," Millie said, reaching over and grabbing his hand and giving it a gentle squeeze. She wanted him to feel right at home in her house. If she was going to share custody with Harry, she wanted to make sure that she was friendly with him. But she wasn't going to let him spoil Harry, as it seemed that's what he wanted to do. They were going to have to sit down and set some ground rules.

"Why do you keep calling it the non-magical world, not the muggle world?" Sirius wanted to know. Not even Lily called it the non-magical world. She called it the muggle world like everybody else. Was this woman trying to change thousands of years of tradition? Then again, he didn't know that they used the word muggle a thousand years ago. That could be a new thing.

"Because muggle is demeaning. It means simple-minded, yeah," Millie said. Then she picked up one of the cakes off of the tray and took a bite out of it, probably a bit harder than she normally would have.

"Oh, I didn't know that. I guess I can see where you'd get upset about that," Sirius said, he was going to have to look up that word. Because as far as he knew it only meant non-magical. Then again, how hard would it be to change muggle to non-magical?

"Since I have the both of you here, there is something I wanted to talk to you about," Harry said, fiddling with his cup because it wasn't something he really wanted to talk about, but he really needed some help because it was keeping him up at nights, literally.

"Oh, what's that?" asked Millie, instantly growing concerned. Harry looked wary and that never boded well. Now that she looked closely at him, he looked a bit tired too. She had brushed it off earlier as nerves from him wanting to meet Sirius.

"It's about what I hear when the dementors are around," Harry said quietly, playing with his cup in his hands. He could hear them now as he was speaking about it, and it was not a pleasant thing. It was as if they were just repeating in his brain over and over again and he really didn't want to hear that. And he didn't know what to do about it, either.

"Oh, Merlin, that must be terrible," said Sirius, putting his face in his hands as if by covering his face he didn't have to hear what he thought he was hearing.

"I hear the last moments of my parents' life, so yes, it is terrible," Harry said, a grim look on his face.

"Oh my god," said Millie, setting her cup on the table and rushing to Harry's side and drawing him in her arms like she would never let him go.

"I hear my dad tell my mum to take me and run, and then I hear my mum beg for my life. And then I hear a man laughing and then nothing," Harry recited in a dull voice. He was simplifying it greatly because he didn't want to go into great detail in case it flashed up in his brain even more.

"I can't believe you remember that night. That has got to be the worst thing imaginable," Sirius said. He knew what it was like to have the memories repeated, over and over in your head. And he didn't want his godson to go through that. And to hear the last moments of your parents' life had to be a very traumatic thing.

"It is, and I don't know what to do about it. I mean, I'm glad the dementors are gone, but what if they return? What if I get around them again? That's a crippling memory. I'm learning the Patronus Charm, but it's harder to learn without a dementor around," Harry said, desperation lacing his tone.

He really hoped the two adults in front of him had some way of helping him get some sleep. He didn't know Sirius that well, but he did know Millie and she had been the one who had helped him through everything. If it wasn't for her, well, his life would be hell, he was sure of it.

"It's actually not that hard without a dementor around. People do it all the time. I'm learning it, and I'm not scared of dementors, yeah," Millie said to Harry, giving him a big smile and trying to be encouraging. She retook her seat but kept his hand in hers.

"You bloody well should be," Sirius said, probably a bit harsher than he should have. But he had been around these things for twelve years and he knew they were something that you should be scared of.

"No, that's not what I meant. I meant I don't need a dementor, to use the Patronus Charm," she reiterated, trying to calm the man down. She knew he wasn't quite right in the head, and she didn't need him angry in the middle of her living room.

"I know, I know that's what you meant. I'm sorry. I'm still a bit addled in the brain," Sirius said, Once more putting his face in his hands and rubbing his temples at the same time. He really needed to get control of his emotions before he snapped at the wrong person and did irreparable damage.

The last people he wanted angry at him were Millie and Harry. They had taken him in when he was in his dog form and got him back to some form of health and that was not what most people would have done. These were good people, and they were family, in his eyes anyway.

"But what should I do about this nightmare? It's been plaguing my mind ever since that game. I can't sleep at night," Harry asked, his brain going a hundred miles an hour. He really wanted to get some sleep. He was keeping the kids in the dorm up, even though it was just Ron right now. He feared what was going to happen when the other kids came back from Yule break.

"Have you gone to Madam Pomfrey for dreamless sleep?" Sirius asked, knowing that she would be the first person he would have gone to.

"I did, but she said they're addicting, and I can only have one a week," Harry said, he had been hoping for a better answer than that. Getting one night's sleep a week was not really conducive to good homework.

"Have you tried Occlumency?" Sirius asked, really getting into this helping his godson thing. He was full of useful advice right now. Then again, he was pureblood, and Millie was muggleborn. She probably didn't know these things. See, he was going to be helpful after all.

"No, I haven't tried that yet. I don't even know what it is," Harry said, looking at his godfather with curious eyes.

"It's the art of clearing your mind and blocking it from people who can read it, yeah," Millie said, adding her two knuts worth in. She had looked it up ages ago because she didn't want Dumbledore getting into her brain. That and she had a sneaky suspicion that Snape knew Legilimency too. She was glad Sirius suggested it because she was pretty sure it would help Harry with his nightmares.

"There are people who can read your mind?" Harry asked, completely gobsmacked. Not that he had any secrets, but it was a violation of his privacy, and he didn't want anybody in his brain without his permission.

"Yes, but it's very rare. It's called Legilimency," Sirius explained getting really excited about being able to train his godson in something so intimate. Occlumency required a lot of trust.

"And there's a way to block this?" Harry asked, ready, willing, and able to get started to prevent anybody from getting into his brain.

"Yes, and I can teach you the basics of it before I go to St. Mungo's," his godfather said, he too was willing to get started. It would get his mind off of all of his worries. He was due to go to St. Mungo's in three days. It had been arranged for him to go then. They had wanted him to go right away, but he 'convinced' the authorities that he needed time with his godson.

"And you'll be able to teach me this before the end of the Yule break?" Harry asked, looking at the older man as if he had been given him some peace of mind.

"Yes, like I said, I can teach you some of the basics right now," Sirius said, getting up and heading towards a work room. "It's simple meditation and clearing your mind. However, you'll need to get a book to help you with the rest. Or ask someone who knows Occlumency, like Millie. I have to go to the hospital in three days," he reminded the teen.

"Well, let's get started," Harry said, putting down his cup and following the older man. He'd let Sirius start the process and finish it off with Millie. That way he could learn more about the man.

So they sat in one of Millie's empty work rooms and went through the steps of basic meditation. It was rather easy to do since Harry had been practicing some form of meditation for his self-defense moves.

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That night, after doing a simple meditation that Sirius had taught him, Harry laid in bed, and he had done something he hadn't done in a while. He looked to the sky and said,

"Hey, Mum. Hey, Dad.

"I finally got to hear your voices, and I've got to say it was not pleasant, as I thought it would be, but at least I got to know which voice to put to which picture. I'm really sorry that you had to go through what you went through right before you died. That must have been very scary for you. I know it was scary for me to hear.

"I really hope that you like Millie. I don't think she's taking your place, but I know that she's helped me a lot and I hope that you like her too.

"I got to meet Sirius, and boy is he interesting. I wonder if he's the same as he was when you lot went to school. I don't think so because I think the dementors did something to his brain. Was he that bad when you were in school, Dad? Or was he a lot better than that?

"I guess you'll never be able to answer those questions for me, huh?

"Maybe you can look out for me when I'm sleeping and keep these bad dreams at bay. That would be nice. I just wanted to let you know that I miss you and I love you and nobody can take your place.

"Goodnight, Mum, Dad."

He went to bed and tried to dream of the rematch of the Hufflepuff game, or the upcoming Slytherin game. Either one was better than his now normal nightmares.