Chapter 25 What Makes a Home
Sirius woke up early with a sense that something was wrong. He listened in the darkness and thought he heard the squeak of a floorboard. Quietly he reached for his wand and clambered from his bed.
He found the source of the wrongness in the form of Harry Potter. He was sitting at the kitchen table, and he had his head cradled in his arms. Sirius frowned and approached the boy. "Harry? You okay pup?"
Harry startled and his head whipped up in readiness. From his red and bloodshot eyes, Sirius knew that Harry had been crying. Concerned, he moved to put his hand on the boy's shoulder and brushed his hair back, checking his temperature.
"I'm fine Sirius. Just… I don't want to go to Hogwarts." He admitted in a rush. He turned his gaze away almost as if ashamed of the admission.
"Why not Harry?" Sirius asked even as he went to prepare some hot cocoa and toast. He kept his tone light and conversational. Sirius knew that a lot of families struggled with the boarding school aspect of Hogwarts. He had been relieved to finally be away from his family. But he remembered how Lily had cried on the train. He remembered how a lot of first years had broken down in bouts of homesickness. Even James.
"I… I don't want to leave you or Remus. Why can't I stay here with you? I… You can teach me. Remus can. Even the Marauders can." Harry looked up at his guardian with tears in his green eyes and Sirius melted.
"If you don't want to go, Harry, you don't have to." Sirius smiled at the shocked expression on Harry's face. He knew that Harry had been prepared for an argument and didn't know how to respond in the moment.
"Really? I don't have to go?" Sirius shook his head.
"Nope." He placed the cocoa in front of Harry. "But I would like to discuss it. Your reasons and your fears before you choose to go or not."
Harry nodded and placed his fingers around the warm cup as Sirius sat across from him sliding over a plate of buttered toast and a jar of strawberry jam. Harry took a nibble of toast as he considered Sirius's request.
"I wanted to go to Hogwarts. I still do." He admitted. "But… I never had a real family before. For the first time, I have everything I ever wanted. And now I have to leave." The tears threatened to fall again and Harry studied his godfather's face, expecting to see disappointment, but instead saw understanding.
"Hmm. Quite the dilemma." Sirius agreed. "I know that I don't want you to go to Hogwarts either. And the reason is entirely the same. I want to get to know my wonderful godson and spend as much time as possible with him. I want to see him daily and ensure he is safe and well-fed." Sirius reached over and ruffled the messy-haired boy's black unruly mop.
"So… I don't go?" Harry asked.
"I don't know Harry. Do you?" Sirius just watched as Harry considered his options.
"What about Neville?" Harry asked. He suddenly felt horrible about abandoning his friend to Hogwarts without him.
"What about him? This isn't about Neville. It isn't about Remus or me. This is about what you want." Sirius assured the boy. Harry stared hard into the chocolate drink and sighed.
"But I don't know what to do. Can't you decide for me?" Harry asked with a bit of a whine.
Sirius shook his head. "Not about this Harry. This has to be your choice."
Nearly five minutes passed while both ate toast and drank cocoa. Sirius was about to break the silence with a question when Harry finally said, "I'll go. But If I don't want to stay, can I come home?" Then blinked. This was his home. The only place he had ever felt this. Like he belonged here.
Sirius nodded. "Yes, Harry. Whatever you want."
Harry nodded and smiled, and together the two finished their hot cocoa. Shortly after, Harry returned to his bed and almost immediately slumber found him.
Sirius on the other hand sat at the table with a goofy smile on his face and took out the letter Professor McGonagall had sent him. Finally, he went to Remus's cluttered desk, found some parchment and a quill, and wrote his reply. Hedwig was asleep on her perch and Sirius stroked her to wake her. She glanced over at him, "Hey girl. Can you take a letter to Hogwarts for me?"
Hedwig had taken a strong liking for Sirius and gently nuzzled his chin while he attached his reply to his old head of house. He watched the snowy owl take flight and turned around to see Remus standing in the shadows of the doorway.
"James would be proud of you," Remus said. "You could have convinced him not to go."
Sirius shook his head, "No, I couldn't do that to Harry. He deserves to have a choice."
Remus smiled at him and nodded. "Well, I'm proud of you too."
Sirius chuckled. "Exceeds Expectations. High praise indeed from you Moony."
Remus watched his friend and shook his head. "I was looking forward to spending time with you, Padfoot. I can't believe you are abandoning me so soon." Remus looked a bit down and Sirius smiled at his remaining friend. "I'll get canned the first week and be back here before you know it, Moony."
Remus laughed, "I give you til the Halloween feast. Not going to tell Harry?"
"What kind of marauder would I be if I gave away such a huge secret?" Sirius grinned.
"What would you have done if Harry had decided not to go?" Remus queried.
"I would have politely declined the position of course." The dog animagus smiled at Remus. "So what will you occupy yourself with while we are gone?"
Remus shrugged. "No idea. I'm currently at odds with employment opportunities."
Sirius regarded him, "Then perhaps you can do me a huge favor?" He grimaced because he knew Remus was going to hate him for it. "But can you straighten out Grimmauld Place for me? I haven't been back there but now that dear old mother has croaked, I need to get my house in order. God knows what has been breeding there. Also, I need someone to catalog the library and the artifacts there."
Remus sighed and nodded, "I guess that sounds like a task I can perform."
Sirius clapped Remus on the shoulder. "You're gonna drool over the library." Then scowled but called out, "Kreacher!"
'POP!'
An ancient, heavily wrinkled, filthy house-elf apparated in Remus's kitchen causing Remus to yelp and then turn his glare onto Sirius. "A little warning mutt."
The elf grumbled something about being called to nasty blood traitors and filthy half-bloods houses. Sirius silenced him with a clipped order. He introduced the elf to Remus and ordered Kreacher to help Remus clean Grimmauld Place completely before Christmas and to do it to bring honor back to the Ancient and Noble House of Black.
"As master wills it." Kreacher sneered and with a last baleful look at Remus he quickly *popped* away again.
"You might have to go to Rent-an-Elf and get some extra help. I don't know how bad it is." Sirius admitted. "Kreacher is old and rebellious. He's been alone too long."
"Well, I've always had a knack with dark creatures. So I'm sure I can get the elf back up on his feet." Remus assured his friend.
Sirius grinned, "Excellent. I'll have to add you to the wards before we leave. Black wards are vile." Sirius studied his friend worriedly. "We will have to find all the mirrors. We need to be able to communicate."
Moony grinned at his friend, "Good thing I have mine. James's mirror was probably left at Godric's Hollow and Wormtail's was destroyed."
Sirius nodded, "I have mine. The ministry had it. They returned it and my wand." He sighed, "I didn't want to go to Godric's Hollow but the place belongs to me now so it shouldn't be a problem getting access. They left everything untouched there as some kind of monument." The dog animagus shuddered. "I hate them all."
"I hate them more," Remus muttered.
The next day Sirius, Remus, and Harry stood in front of Number 12 Grimmauld Place, a spooky-looking house that screamed of neglect and darkness. Harry wasn't sure what to think about Sirius's childhood home, but he had a difficult time imagining Sirius growing up there. He might not have believed it either, but Sirius showed them his childhood bedroom and Harry had blushed at the muggle posters of bikini-clad women on the walls.
Sirius gave them a quick tour of the cobweb-shrouded and dusty home. He had been introduced to the Black family house-elf, who was quite mental. They hadn't stayed very long, but Harry had a better idea why everyone thought Sirius was guilty of killing Pettigrew and the muggles after having seen where he grew up. The family Sirius came from seemed like a bunch of crazy people. Sirius called them psychopaths.
Kreacher had called him a bunch of strange names like blood traitor. The argument between the elf and Sirius that occurred after that still rang in his ears and Sirius told the elf that if he didn't stop acting so deranged he would give him clothes, which made Harry a little mad at Sirius.
Hadn't everyone agreed that Harry deserved a better wardrobe than what the Dursleys had provided? Harry felt sorry for the old elf and vowed he would try and make friends with him over Christmas break.
Kreacher had panicked and popped away when Harry said that Kreachur looked like he really could use new clothes, and insisted that if Sirius didn't stop acting so mean to the elf he would buy the poor thing a whole wardrobe. Which caused both Sirius and Remus to laugh loudly.
They had startled Walburga in the hallway and when she started screaming, hurling the most vile names at Sirius, Harry had snapped.
"Why are you so mean?" He had shouted. "Sirius is the best! Sure he could treat Kreacher better, but he's going to make me his son for real, and there's nothing you can say to stop it." Harry had inadvertently set the curtains on either side of the painting on fire with a bout of accidental magic.
Sirius had not lifted a wand to stop the fire but had just watched gleefully and then sighed tragically as the fire refused to touch Walburga's portrait but did manage to scorch the wall and Walburga Black had screamed like she had been set on fire. Which had given Harry a panic attack.
"How come you can't get her off the wall?" Harry asked, coughing hard as the smoke was rather thick in the hall. Remus had doused the fire with an argument spell and Harry was having a hard time not being amused by the chaos.
"Permanent sticking charm." He muttered, staring at his mother's portrait in exasperation. Remus found a sheet and they draped it over the canvas and the silence that fell upon them was bliss. Except for the occasional cries of the house elf about his poor mistress, the house was finally quiet.
"I'd knock down the whole wall if it was my house," Harry muttered, shaking his head. He had NOT liked the Black matriarch. She was, in his opinion, worse than Petunia. Petunia was at least sane!
"What did you say?" Remus asked, staring at the boy.
"I'd knock down the wall?" Harry repeated, a bit mystified.
Remus blinked and knocked on the wall that the portrait was affixed to. Sirius watched with a cocked brow. "Moony?"
"We could take out the wall Sirius." Remus grinned at the gobsmacked expressions on Sirius and Harry's faces.
Within minutes the two marauders had cut out the wall around the large portrait, leaving a door-sized hole that looked into a dusty second-floor sitting room. A wailing Kreacher was instructed to take the caterwauling Walburga to the attic and Remus said he'd fix the hole before Christmas.
"Well, shall we away to Godric's Hollow?" Remus asked wryly once they were sure Remus had control of Grimmauld's wards.
Sirius and Harry looked at each other and both of them nodded solemnly. "Ready Moony," Sirius said.