Chapter 20 The Time-Traveling Interloper

Sirius was lamenting his life. He felt hampered by the fact that he was trapped in the body of a child. But strangely he also felt incredibly free. This second chance at childhood was more than enough to make up for all the shitty years in Azkaban. He had been offered a wonderful gift. He refused to squander it on petty jealousies or grudges.

His younger self, however, was not so enlightened. In fact, there was at this moment a torrential hurricane of vitriol spewing into his mind from his unwilling roommate. He couldn't explain everything to 'Siri, his pet name for his annoying younger self, all the reasons that cooperation was more important than rebellion. Siri didn't want to take lessons with Arcturus, he wanted to stay in the castle with HIS friends. Friends, that a '...creepy old person from the future was trying to steal!, and who cares if that creepy person is me. Creepy body stealing me. You are a creepy TIME TRAVELING INTERLOPER and this is MY BODY!' Siri stamped his foot for emphasis! The screaming in his head was bordering on the hysterical. Yet Siri wasn't done.

'I'm not going. You can't make me.' Siri wasn't going to budge.

Sirius hadn't really considered the very real possibility of this happening. He wasn't handling things very well up to this point. Finally, he just surrendered. After all the kid was right. This was his body. 'Fine. But you get to tell grandfather you don't want to have lessons with him. And you get to tell Regulus you don't want to have dinner with him. And then the low blow, 'And then you get to tell grandmother why you just broke Regulus's heart.'

There was absolute silence in his head. Thirty seconds passed. A minute passed. It was a battle of wills.

'Fine. I'll go. If you promise to teach me how to be an animagus.' Siri was letting his inner Slytherin out to play.

'Fine. You can help me transform into our other forms. I'll include you in the process. Satisfied?'

'Hardly. You keep taking over when this is supposed to be my time. You keep dragging me to the library when I want to spend time with my mates. I wanted to talk to Marlene and you growled I was too young to think about girls. Whatever you did with Marlene, that's great, but I'm eleven and don't really think I'm gonna be dragging girls into broom cupboards. Which is an image I really didn't want in my head about someone that I like as a friend. How many girls have you gone into broom cupboards with anyway? It's really gross that you snogged all my classmates. And I really hate it, that you do stuff without asking me. It's driving me round the twist.' Siri's long laundry list of grievances struck a chord and Sirius knew he was right.

He was an interloper. He was asking him to trust but offered him very little in return. Remorse plunged him into a deep pit of self-loathing. Some of which must have bled over to his counterpart. He was usually good at keeping his emotions, memories, and feelings walled off from his younger self, but shame and guilt and pain and so much more, slammed into him and he couldn't help the memory that spilled past his guard.

He was running towards the house. His motorcycle was left forgotten in the yard looking up in horror at the destruction that was the home of his best friend, his brother in all but blood. "James!" He was running, tripping, falling up the stairs. 'MY FAULT! Stumbling through the broken doorway. 'MY FAULT' His eyes falling to a body sprawled on the ground. 'MY FAULT' James sprawled on the ground arms outstretched, "MY FAULT' Eyes vacant and empty of life. 'MY FAULT' Glasses askew. "James!" Falling to his knees. 'MY FAULT' Falling to his knees and hand reaching out touching hair, a shoulder. Tears blurring his vision. 'MY FAULT' James? You can't be dead. Please, James. You gotta be here. For Lily. For Harry. For me. Agony ripping through his heart and then the sound of a baby crying. .. Harry!

Sirius was wrenched from his nightmarish memory due to his younger self's scream of absolute horror.

'That was James!? That was James! He was dead? That was James that was dead!' Sirius could sense the kid was about to have a panic attack. Suddenly Death's warning about possession being bad for the body made more sense. This couldn't be healthy.

He forced Siri to take some calming breaths. Then gently explained what happened on October 31, 1981. Because even though Sirius had initiated a lot of changes, one thing that hadn't changed was the fact that young Siri and James were already as close as brothers.

'Padfoot?' Are you going to stop it? Is that why you are here? To keep that from happening?' Sirius was surprised that he wasn't calling him the interloper or worse. Calling him Padfoot was a giant step forward. He told Siri that it was. It was one of the most important reasons. After a time he spoke again. 'I want to help. Anything you need. I'll do it. I'll do anything if it saves James,' And a few moments later, 'It wasn't your fault, Padfoot.' It was, but it felt good that his younger self didn't think so.

A conversation he had earlier with Arcturus returned to him. They were working on his metamorph abilities, while under stress. "The easiest thing to change is yourself." He had said. But suddenly that simple statement took on epic proportions. He remembered what Death had said to him,

"You will not be allowed to change certain events. Things that are fated to happen."

The contract said he wasn't allowed to change certain events, it didn't say a thing about changing people. And suddenly he understood what he needed to do. His scrutiny turned to his younger self. Of course! How could he have been so blind? He even instinctively knew it, but it wasn't till this minute that he realized it. He was here not to change the wizarding world, although that would be a nice side effect, he was here to change Sirius Orion Black. He was here to change himself. And though he would abide by the agreement that he couldn't change Destiny or Fate, that didn't mean that Siri was bound to that contract. It didn't mean that Remus, or James or Lily, or Regulus or even bloody Voldemort was bound to the contract that he had signed. It all came down to one thing. Did he trust himself? And if he did, how much?

Siri however had a hard time when he saw James in the common room getting ready to go to the great hall for dinner while he was about to go to Black Manor. "James!" He barrelled into his friend and hugged him for a long time.

James looked surprised and then worried. "Siri? You okay mate."

Sirius nodded and then stepped away carefully giving his friend a vexed look. "I had the worse nightmare. You died. Can you just promise me something?" Siri asked and he looked deadly serious.

"Anything," James said still looking very concerned.

"I want you to give me an unbreakable vow that you won't die before you turn 120 years old," Sirius said very seriously.

James's brows rose into his messy bangs. "Really? You can do that?" Looking excited and ready to take the vow then and there. "How about 500? I mean how old is Dumbledore? I want to be older than him when I die." James was ecstatic that they might have just stumbled onto the secret to immortality. "What if we vow NEVER to die!"

Sirius shrugged, "I don't know but it's worth a try don't you think?"

They might have tried to do it if Remus and Severushadn't stopped them. Or at least James might have, cause the Time Traveling Interloper would have interceded. "Vows aren't to be taken lightly. And no one can promise to live forever."

Both James and Sirius looked like they wanted to try anyway, when Severus added, "It simply wouldn't work. You would immediately die because it is a promise you can not possibly keep."

As both James and Siri knew that Severus and Remus were geniuses who would know the truth… Sirius started to change the conditions of the vow to something like never open the door to strangers. Or never live in Godrics Hollow, but was reminded by Padfoot that it would do more harm than good and he'd have to lie to his friend, so he dropped the subject but kept looking at James with barely concealed sadness or horror. Seeing again his friend's older body sprawled on the floor.

Do you want me to take that memory from you? The older wizard asked

No!

That evening Sirius cut the dinner short and immediately began a difficult conversation with his grandfather.

He had deliberately kept his own counsel about the future. Or as much of it as he could. Arcturus knew enough he thought to get by on, and at the moment Sirius had no reason to reveal more. He was here tonight as young Sirius's advocate. He had asked Sirius if it was okay if he had a private conversation with Arcturus but it would be for just a short while. Siri didn't like it much, but he was cooperative.

"Before I ran away, how often did you talk to me? Just you and me?" Sirius asked the Black patriarch.

Arcturus unsure where this was going moved to sit behind his desk, perhaps as protection from his sometimes volatile grandson. His temper was at least as towering as his own. He brought himself back to the question Sirius asked, trying to divine its purpose. His Slytherin instincts were screaming that he was walking into a trap.

Defensively he shook his head, "I don't know. A handful maybe?"

"Two times," Sirius said. Once, you invited me to a broom racing contest, and once when you invited me into this very office and told me I was to be your heir. Course I had no idea what that really meant at the time. Somehow I got it into my head that you were planning on dying soon and just wanted me to know that my whole crazy family would be my responsibility soon.

"You are practically a stranger to me." He continued. Since coming back in time I have spent more time with you than in my entire first life put together. In fact, the third and last time we communicated face to face was during next year's summer vacation. I think you said, "I heard you sorted into Gryffindor. You couldn't have picked a better way to disappoint your family."

Sirius was watching his grandfather as he talked and could tell that he believed him and had the grace to look ashamed of himself. "I have long since let that hurt go. I was a spoiled, loud, obnoxious brat." He grinned, "Course James always said it was your loss, not mine." The marauder in him grinned, "But the joke really was on both of us. Your loss and mine." Sirius shrugged, "Maybe you saw me as insignificant, but to me at this age? I saw you as a god among men." He sighs, "I was terrified of you. Regulus was too." He frowned, "You died when I was in Azkaban. And I can't change that. I found out a few years after the fact and I don't remember if I even felt bad." Sirius shook his head, "As I said, we were complete strangers. If you were to die now I'd grieve. Things have changed between us." He paused to let his grandfather respond.

Arcturus nodded then. "I'm not an easy man to love." The old man admitted. "Blunt, to the point, little patience." He nodded, "I can see how those traits would not endear me to you or Regulus. I took a hands-off approach with you. I trusted Orion to raise you." He sighed, "But I can't imagine that you are telling me all this just to berate me for my piss poor grandparenting skills."

Rather than take offense at the brusqueness Sirius laughed, "Well sure there is a point. I'm surprised you haven't reached it by now oh venerable one." Sirius teased.

Arcturus sighed, "Not quite yet." To be honest he was baffled.

Sirius changed his appearance to his older self. The Sirius he had seen in the Pensieve. The battle-weary wizard before him who had seen too much, lived through more pain than any one man should be forced to live through. "You have two grandsons named Sirius Orion Black at the moment. I am the grandson of the future. I'm the grandson who died in heaven and returned from the dead and now -possesses- your 11-year-old innocent and scared grandson. I'm stealing his childhood. I lived through mine and I'm stealing his too. All in the faintest hope that I can make things better. That I can save the people I love. But that doesn't let you off the hook grandfather. For your present grandson. Who has not been allowed in these meetings. He has not been informed of the future. He didn't know anything except what I told him. I've tried since getting to Hogwarts to let him steer the bus, so to speak. I nudge, I suggest, and if I absolutely must I take over, I do. But I keep a very tight wall between myself and my younger self. Because I don't want to burden him with my pain."

His grandfather nodded, "That makes sense, but I still don't think I understand what you want from me. What are you asking? Riddles are for the young." Arcturus growled.

Sirius stood and began pacing. He wasn't sure what he wanted from Arcturus either but he needed him to understand the underlying point of this. "You told me that the easiest things to change are when you try to change yourself. Remember?" Sirius stopped, placing his hands on the desk and leaning forward, "You were talking about the metamorph magic, but I got a bigger meaning from it. Death told me that there would be things I can't change. That if I tried, I would be jerked forward out of this time and placed in an older vessel, and keep jumping forward until the time of my death when I'm guessing I would merge with whatever version of me exists at that time. I'd like to merge with a better me. A me that isn't broken. A me that is smarter than I was. A me that doesn't make the same mistakes I made the first time around. I'd like to know that the version of me that I eventually spend the rest of my days as, is someone you can be proud of. Someone I can be proud of."

His grandfather was looking thoughtfully at him and nodded for him to continue. He retook his seat and sat back in his chair. "Death tried to warn me. But I didn't really understand until today. I can't change events but I can change people. That was the magical contract that I agreed to. I wouldn't change anything fated to be. Of course I don't know what is fated and what isn't but I won't be able to change some things. No matter how hard -I- try." Sirius let those words marinate for a while. His grandfather was thinking. Best to let him think.

"What were the exact words of the contract?" Arcturus asked, being as this was the first he was hearing about this he seemed to be taking it quite well.

Sirius shook his head, "Maybe I'll share that with you someday. The point is that I agreed to the contract, but your 11-year-old grandson did not. Neither did you, or Regulus, or Remus, or James or Severus. No one but me agreed to the contract and the contract does not forbid me from telling anyone anything. I can't change things, but you can. My younger self can. I can't change events, but I can change people. And the easiest person I can change is myself." He came to his final point and said. "Merlin I could use a drink after all that philosophical banter."

Arcturus was sitting there blinking owlishly. "So what have we decided? I think I'm still confused. Or you talk in circles and take forever to get to the point." Arcturus growled. But if he was being honest with himself he knew where Sirius was going with this. He wanted Arcturus to take more of a personal interest in his godson and help prepare him for the war to come.

Sirius nodded, "I want you to teach Siri everything he is going to need to defeat that son of a bitch. Cause I don't know how long I'll be here, but I know how long you will be."

The Black Patriarch sighed, "Well why didn't you just say so!" He nodded, "So what do you think we should teach the young marauder first?"

Sirius grinned, "Why don't you ask him?" And with that Sirius changed his appearance back to his younger self and threw himself into a deep dark well so that young Sirius could have a private heart to heart with his grandfather without his interference. He had interfered enough for one day.

Authors Note: Hope you like it! Please leave a review. I'd love to hear your thoughts.