Sirius's Perspective - Chapter Two
Sirius felt as though the floor had given way beneath him. He had seen Harry months ago, while loping around Privet Drive as a dog, but it had been a quick glance, a desperate attempt to know he was alright. This, finally, was a chance to truly be close to him.
Sirius's eyes relished in him, the almost perfect miniature of his best friend, the grown-up version of the small baby he used to rock to sleep. He was slender and rather shorter than James had been, but his hair stuck up at all the odd angles, just as his father's had, and his eyes, his eyes were a perfect match to wonderful, kind Lily's.
Sirius grinned as he noticed the boy's backwards t-shirt. It had to have been early, he conceded; Remus had caught Pettigrew in the late hours of the night, and Sirius suspected Dumbledore wanted them off to safety before anyone else in the castle awoke and questioned them.
Harry stopped in his tracks, his mouth agape too, though there was no emotion or recognition in Harry's gaze; there was only anger, fear, hatred. Sirius had expected this, had known it would come, yet it killed him to see Lily's eyes directed at him in such a hateful way.
Dumbledore moved so quickly, Sirius barely caught it; with a flick of his wand, the office door had shut and locked.
Harry's head whipped around at the sound of the slamming door. Then he turned back towards them, his wand up, his expression aghast. "What's going on?"
"Harry," Dumbledore said gently, motioning for Sirius to step behind him. Sirius was not often a man to follow authority, especially an authority that had subjected his godson to neglect and cruelty; in that moment, though he would do anything to earn Harry's trust. He moved quickly to where Dumbledore indicated, his eyes never leaving Harry's. "What do you know of Sirius Black?"
"What… what sort of-"
"Tell me what you've been told this year," Dumbledore said urgently.
"He killed twelve muggles and Peter Pettigrew…" Harry paused, as if weighing whether or not he should admit something else. Sirius's heart sank; he knew what was coming even before Harry spoke. "He's the reason my parents are dead. He was their secret keeper," Harry said brazenly.
"And what evidence would you need," Dumbledore continued, walking over to Harry to block his view of Sirius, "to believe a different story? Beyond me giving you my word?"
Harry stared at the headmaster for a long moment. "Are you saying it's not true?"
Sirius felt an awful despair then, just as he had every time the dementors approached his cell. There was no hope in Harry's words, no excitement to hear that he had been told incorrectly. There was only cold, hard dread. He did not want to believe it was true, did not want to believe that everyone had really gotten it wrong. And if he didn't want to believe it now, would they be able to convince him?
"That is what I'm saying," Dumbledore said. He gestured toward an armchair across from Sirius. Harry didn't move a muscle, didn't even look in his direction.
Remus, who had been hidden against the back wall since he had arrived, finally stepped forward.
Sirius braced himself; Remus and him had not yet had a moment to speak. He stared into his old friend's eyes, trying to read the expression there. Would Remus yell at him for being so idiotic? Would he hit him? Sirius deserved it, he hadn't trusted Remus. He had trusted Peter to take the place of secret keeper, which meant Harry wasn't entirely wrong; James and Lily would still be here if it hadn't been for his stupid idea-
Sirius's train of thought was cut off abruptly when Remus pulled him into a tight embrace, clinging to him as if his life depended on it. Sirius clung back with equal force, burying his face into Remus's hair, smelling him - warm vanilla, the same scent from their youth. Tears stung his eyes as he looked back up at Harry.
Harry gaped at them and betrayal filled his gaze. He stepped out of Dumbledore's reach as the man tried to nudge him toward a chair again.
Sirius closed his eyes and clung Remus. If he kept holding on, they would prolong the moment of reckoning. So long as Remus was here, embracing him, they could pretend the last twelve years hadn't happened. In fact, if he closed his eyes tight enough, inhaled deep enough, it was almost as if they were twenty again, reuniting after a high-stakes Order mission. The year wasn't 1993; no, it was still 1980, James and Lily were still alive, Harry was just a little baby-
"Harry," Dumbledore whispered harshly. All at once, Sirius felt the despair in his heart, the ache in his bones, which reminded him he was no longer twenty, he was thirty-two, he was in Dumbledore's office, he was one of the most hated men in Wizarding Britain.
Remus sniffed loudly, then slowly let go. He looked into Sirius's eyes for one long moment, his gaze filled with regret, sorrow, apology, and, Sirius dared believe, hope.
"Harry," Dumbledore said again, louder, as the boy side-stepped him. "I will explain everything. No harm will come to you in my office. I have Sirius's recovered wand on my desk and will only return it to him upon your consent. He has agreed to this."
Harry's eyes were focused on Remus's hand, which was still desperately grasping Sirius's arm. After a moment of silence, he tore his gaze away from them and looked up at Dumbledore. Then, miraculously, he kneeled in the chair. Sirius noticed his hard grip on the arms of the chair; he was prepared for action, should it come to that.
"You might wish to sit down fully, Harry. I have some hard news to share." Dumbledore said gently.
Harry stayed where he was, his gaze set on the headmaster. Dumbledore sighed. "Sirius Black was named by your parents to be your godfather."
Harry appeared unphased. "I know," he mumbled. "I overheard Fudge telling Professor McGonagall and Hagrid in the-" he stopped quickly as his cheeks flushed red.
Dumbledore looked amused, despite the tension permeating the room. "You've never set much store by rules, Harry, and had the circumstances been different, I would scold you for it. It's alright, though. Sirius has never intended to harm you."
Harry raised an eyebrow at Dumbledore and opened his mouth to speak, but Dumbledore held up a hand. "Sirius did not kill anyone. He was framed by a man named Peter Pettigrew. I admit, I'm not an expert on the entire story, so I am going to allow Remus to share-"
"He's in with him!" Harry said, betrayal flashing again in his gaze. "Look at them, Professor, how could you-"
"This, Harry, is the first time Remus has seen Sirius in twelve years. He learned the truth this morning, and I cannot fault him for wanting to reunite with one of his oldest friends. He will explain everything, and I beg you to listen closely." Dumbledore's voice invited no argument, but Harry looked murderous as he turned toward Remus.
Sirius took another step back; he couldn't bear the way Harry, James and Lily's boy, was looking at them. In another life, they would have been Padfoot and Moony to him. Sirius would have showered him with gifts and challenged him to quidditch matches. Remus would have read him stories and given him chocolate after dinner. They would have been trusted adults to Harry, people he could come to when he was struggling.
Hot tears pricked Sirius's vision as he looked desperately between Remus and Harry, feeling sick at the hatred directed at them by the kid they both loved. He sat down and put his face in his hands as Remus began.
"The story really starts when we were at Hogwarts. I… Harry, I'm a werewolf."
Sirius felt his stomach drop at the tactic Remus had just used. He looked over at the boy and was surprised to see minimal of a reaction. In fact, instead of disgust, as any other young wizard would surely feel, he merely looked confused.
Harry's lack of disapproval seemed to embolden Remus and he pushed forward with a louder, more certain voice. "I was bitten when I was five and I didn't think I'd get to go to Hogwarts. When I transform, I become a monster with a taste for human flesh. My parents planned to homeschool me, but Dumbledore insisted he would make it work." Remus nodded at Dumbledore, then continued. "Despite this kindness, I figured I would still need to keep to myself. Disappearing once a month would make people talk. It was better, I told myself, to be alone, to focus on my studies and do what I could to keep my secret."
"Well… I met three boys who had no intention of leaving me alone," Remus said with a small smirk, glancing backwards at Sirius. "Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew, and… your father, Harry. We were all in Gryffindor, you see. They… they became my best friends, something I had told myself I wasn't allowed to have. I don't know if I wasn't cautious enough, or if James and Sirius were too astute, because they figured out my secret pretty quickly. But instead of shunning me, as I had known they would, they did something for me that made my transformations not only bearable, but some of the best moments of my life - they became animagi."
"My dad was an animagus?" Harry said, his voice full of wonder. Sirius glanced at the boy again. His expression was rapt with attention, with interest; perhaps he would come around.
Remus nodded. "He was a stag, Sirius was a dog-"
"The grim!" Harry said suddenly, looking at Sirius with a mixture of fear and surprise. "I thought-"
"He's not a grim," Remus said with a laugh. "He's just a shaggy mutt, if you ask me-"
Sirius laughed, but his good humor vanished quickly with another glimpse at his godson. Harry's expression had turned angry again, and his gaze now bore into Sirius's own.
Remus must have sensed the change, because he stepped between them to continue the tale. "They transformed at the full moon and joined me in the Forbidden Forest." Remus paused and glanced at Dumbledore. "We shouldn't have done it, Albus. It haunts me to think what might have happened-"
Dumbledore held up a dismissive hand. "We will talk of it no more. All is forgiven after tonight's events."
"Well," Remus mumbled uncomfortably. "We graduated from Hogwarts and joined the Order to fight Voldemort. All of us knew there was a spy in the Order, so tension was high. I… I thought it was Sirius, and I suspect he thought it was me."
Sirius stared into the back of Remus's head as he paused, trying to convey the sorrow he felt over this mistake, as if they could communicate telepathically.
"Neither of us suspected Peter… I… Sirius, you might have to help me here."
Sirius cleared his throat and stood, stepping around Remus so Harry and him could look plainly at one another. Harry met his gaze, and the hardness of his eyes glared into him. If Sirius was a younger man, a more cowardly man, the moment would have been intimidating. But if what Dumbledore said was true, if Harry's life could be endangered, he was willing to endure anything to keep him safe.
"Your parents asked me to be the secret keeper. The problem was, my closeness with James and Lily was common knowledge, even among the death eaters. Many of Voldemort's supporters were at school with us and they knew James and I were the best of friends. Voldemort would know it was me. I was not afraid of dying-" Sirius emphasized quickly. "But I wanted to put up a false lead. I knew Voldemort would come after me, knew he wouldn't suspect anyone else. So I convinced James to make Peter the secret keeper. Voldemort would torture me instead, maybe even kill me, and for all he'd know, the secret would die with me. You all would've been safe for the rest of your lives because no matter what he did to me, I wouldn't physically be able to tell him. It was, I thought, the perfect ruse… but it backfired."
"Peter was the spy," Remus said softly, looking sadly at Sirius. Sirius nodded.
"Peter took the information to Voldemort immediately and gave away your location-"
"But you killed Pettigrew! He's dead, all they found was his-"
"His finger," Sirius muttered. "He cut it off then transformed into his animagus form, a rat, after blowing up the street."
"And he's been living, until recently, with the Weasleys," Remus said gently.
Though the name, Weasley, didn't mean all that much to Sirius, he could tell it was significant. Harry jumped from his seat, shock and horror and rage playing across his features. "This is mental! With the Weasleys?"
"It's true, Harry," Dumbledore said firmly. "I believe Ron called him Scabbers?"
Harry stared at Dumbledore in horror, though Sirius could not tell if it was horror at discovering the truth, or horror at discovering his professors were all insane. Either, he conceded, would be a fair reaction to what he had just heard.
"Harry, we're running out of time." Dumbledore said urgently, ignoring the furious look on the boy's face. "Sirius had gone after Peter when he discovered what happened, after I refused to let him take you. He tried to avenge your parents, not commit murder. Peter Pettigrew was the murderer. Now, we've rectified the situation. Pettigrew was discovered late last night by Remus. Remus brought him here, and we called the ministry. Pettigrew testified to the truth and the Minister has assured me that Sirius will be proclaimed innocent. And now," Dumbledore took a steadying breath, clearly preparing to drop a bomb. "I want you to go live with him."