OF WOLF AND MAN (PG-13) BY IAMSHADOW - Chapter Ten: Smoke and Mirrors
Title: Of Wolf and Man - Chapter Ten: Smoke and Mirrors
Chapter: 10/?
Author: iamshadow
Ship: Remus/Sirius
Word Count This Chapter: 2,562
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: WIP. Minor drug use. Angst. Smart alec mirrors.
Summary: Remus' lessons with Harry continue.
A/N: A little bit of crack, followed by canon/plot.
This chapter contains dialogue and situations originally created by and belonging by copyright to JK Rowling. Some lines of dialogue are taken and used verbatim from Chapter Twelve (The Patronus) of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (p. 266-269 of the Bloomsbury adult cover pbk edition). However, the arrangement and descriptive passages surrounding any copyrighted dialogue, and any additional dialogue not contained in JK Rowling's work, is my own.
This is a Work in Progress. Please don't let the fact that it's incomplete put you off.
Chapter List HERE
The day started like many others. I hadn’t slept well, and I was inclined to be irritable when this was the case. The mirror’s snide remarks were also something I could have done without, but a man had to shave. A man with my unique metabolism had to shave a bit more regularly than most; twice a day at certain times of the month.
That morning, my poor sleep was evident. My eyes were pouchy and hooded, my colour pale and my expression grumpy. My hair, though limp, thin and greying at the best of times, was doing its best impression of a bird’s nest.
“You look like shit,” was the mirror’s blunt assessment. I ignored it.
The mirror hadn’t yet forgiven me for not being my predecessor. Gilderoy had apparently spent a great deal of time in front of it, primping and preening, playing with his hair and various changes of couture. A scruffy, down-at-the-heels, facially disfigured werewolf who only looked in the mirror out of bare necessity was a bit of a let down after all that attention. I even covered the mirror to bathe; something I assumed last year’s DADA teacher had not done.
At better moments, on better mornings, I used an old fashioned straight razor with a Stay-Sharp charmed blade. This was not one of those mornings. I pulled out my Shave-Eze Safety Razor with a sigh, ignoring the audible snigger from the wall. My stubble would be evident by noon, but I didn’t trust the steadiness of my hands yet.
I dragged a wet comb through my messy hair, trying to slick it into some semblance of neatness.
“Don’t even know why you bother,” came the lazy, smug drawl. It was like sharing my daily toilet with Severus.
I debated for a long moment testing whether breaking a mirror really did cause seven years bad luck, before deciding eventually I shouldn’t risk it. After all, Magical Theorists had proven Murphy’s Law centuries ago. Taunting the Fates in such a blatant way would be just asking for trouble.
When spitting out my toothpaste a few minutes later provoked a titter and the remark, “So attractive,” I decided to go into the market for a new mirror. There had to be somewhere in Hogsmeade that sold them.
“Oh, yes, indeed,” Filius said cheerfully, while buttering a crumpet. “You want Rowle and Toke’s. It’s just off the Main Street. They’re mainly a tobacconist, of course, but they do stock a range of shaving and toilet supplies. They sharpen razors too, should you ever need it.”
I sipped absently at my tea and thanked him warmly. My appetite was poor, but I nibbled the corner of a slice of toast disinterestedly, hoping that would be enough to fool Poppy if she glanced down the table. I doubted it. She was as sharp as Dumbledore, in her own way. My mediocre attempt to make myself look refreshed might fool some, but it wouldn’t stand up under her clinical scrutiny.
I didn’t have a morning class so I strolled to Hogsmeade. Though there was a clear, blue sky, the weather was bitingly cold and the wind was bitter. Even wrapped up tightly in my warmest robes and cloak, with a minor Heating Charm cast on the wool, I was frozen by the time I reached the village.
Rowle and Toke’s was warm to the point of stuffiness and filled with a fug of aromas. Its shelves and cabinets were crammed with a whole spectrum of smoking equipment; from tiny pipes the size of my index finger to hookahs two feet tall standing in a neat row along the wall. Canisters rather like large tea caddies filled the shelves from floor to ceiling in orderly rows behind the sales counter, all carefully labelled as to the blend or leaf inside. I wandered back to a far corner and began perusing their shaving supplies.
The sales clerk was jovial and laid back and after I took a few moments to unravel and identify the myriad scents in the air I understood why. A smile tickled my lips and I had a sudden flashback to a rather interesting night in the Shrieking Shack (not a full moon) when Sirius shared his stash with the rest of us for the first time.
Of course, it hadn’t affected me much, but I got a nice buzz for a few minutes and then was able to watch soberly as my closest and dearest friends behaved in a very silly manner. Everyone giggled a lot. Sirius and James engaged in a very juvenile insult sparring match, which descended into a wrestling match, which evolved into a clumsy groping session. (Both were very embarrassed at the latter and denied it vehemently the next morning.) Peter progressed from giggling to fidgeting constantly, jumping at small noises and flinching whenever anyone looked in his direction. I sat back, warring between wishing I’d brought a camera and wondering why watching James and Sirius pawing each other was arousing me.
Finally, Sirius had announced that he could have eaten a whole dragon (if he could be bothered to catch one) and proposed a visit to the kitchens. There was a lot of shushing and still more giggling under James’s Cloak on the way back to the dormitory. Only by sheer luck had we avoided capture.
Though Peter admitted frankly that he hadn’t liked it and James and Sirius were clearly mortified by their behaviour, smoking together was something we did on and off throughout our school years. Even Lily joined us once or twice, after she started dating James and had loosened up a bit. It was the seventies and it was something fairly normal for the times. In fact it was probably worse for Muggles; wizard culture didn’t have any problem with casual cannabis smoking. Muggles seemed to go a bit mad with it for a while because of their laws.
By comparison to a lot of other kids our age, what we got up to was very tame. For me, it was more of a social thing, as I didn’t get high like the others did, which was probably just as well given how they seemed to drift through classes the day after.
We all stopped once we left school and joined the Order (reflexes and senses needed to be sharp when fighting Death Eaters) and I never took it up again. There was no point; there was no one to be social with. No James, declaiming poetry theatrically and mangling it appallingly. No Peter, starting comically at shadows. No slightly blurry Sirius, fumbling to unbutton my shirt…
“That one,” I said, pointing to a medium-sized mirror with a plain wooden frame that could be hung on a wall or stood independently on a little bracket.
“Excellent!” exclaimed the salesman.
I exited Rowle and Toke’s, slightly fragrant, with my parcel. The wind hit me with icy knives the moment I stepped outside. I shivered and drew my cloak tighter, before setting off with a confident step to the Three Broomsticks.
A warm tankard of Butterbeer later and I was feeling much more like myself and less like a werewolf flavoured ice lolly. The Broomsticks was quiet, as it was the middle of the day and not an excursion weekend for the students, but there were a decent number of other shoppers huddled inside, defrosting in front of the roaring fire with various beverages. I would have liked to have lingered, but I had to be getting back for my afternoon classes.
“Another, Remus?” Rosmerta asked, when she saw my empty glass.
“No, thankyou,” A sudden thought occurred to me. “Would I be able to buy a couple of bottles though? Take-aways?”
Rosmerta frowned a little and gestured with her dishcloth to the room in general. “Company not to your liking?”
“Oh, no, no, nothing like that,” I said, giving her a quick, reassuring smile. “I have to teach in an hour. The Butterbeer’s for…a student I’m…mentoring. He hasn’t been able to come to Hogsmeade this year, and I’m afraid he’s feeling a bit left out.”
Rosmerta snorted a little. “A troublemaker, is he? Kept back at the school when the others come here?”
“You could say trouble finds him.”
Rosmerta laughed aloud and looked at me knowingly. “Ah, you would saddle yourself with a delinquent. It takes one to know one, after all.”
I opened my mouth to protest my innocence, but she had set the bottles on the bar and was wagging a finger at me with a twinkle in her eye. “Those bottles of Firewhiskey didn’t just Apparate out of my cellar all those years ago. And your friend James tipped me enough for a case of the stuff, the following school weekend. Felt guilty, did he?”
I grinned mischievously as I handed over the coins. “Keep the change.”
***
The case slammed shut again, and Harry’s feeble Patronus winked out.
“You’re expecting too much of yourself,” I said. Harry’s lip curled and he looked for a moment as though he might growl, as Sirius sometimes had done when frustrated and angry.
If I had to describe Harry to anyone, the first word out of my mouth would be intense. He had a stubborn, pig-headed determination, but at the same time was insecure and had very high - too high - expectations of himself. He took every perceived failure to heart and was becoming more and more discouraged with every lesson. When the self-loathing kicked in, his focus and control would become sketchy and the Charm less effective, which made him angry. It was a perpetual cycle.
“For a thirteen-year-old wizard, even an indistinct Patronus is a huge achievement.” I was being honest. Harry’s expression suggested that he thought I was being a bit patronising. “You aren’t passing out any more, are you?” I ventured, trying to draw his attention back to the progress that had been made.
Harry’s voice was hollow. “I thought a Patronus would - charge the Dementors down or something. Make them disappear -”
“The true Patronus does do that,” I agreed. Harry was obviously still wallowing. “But you’ve achieved a great deal in a very short space of time. If the Dementors put in an appearance at your next Quidditch match, you will be able to keep them at bay long enough to get back to the ground.”
Harry looked unconvinced and miserable. “You said it’s harder if there are loads of them.”
I resisted a sudden urge to shake him. It wasn’t his fault he felt so deeply. I should have anticipated it really; he came from passionate stock.
James adored Lily (and Harry, when he was born), his friends and Quidditch, in roughly that order of dedication, depending on whether the World Cup was on the WWN. Lily was possessed of a fierce intellect, a strong will and a determination to do the right thing. She was also as formidable as a lioness defending her cubs when it came to protecting those she loved.
Both were breath-takingly beautiful in their passion. So was Harry, but his was a heartbreaking thing to see; a soul-destroying sort of fire that licked at the child in him, turning the last vestiges of innocence to bitter ash.
I turned a bright smile on him. “I have complete confidence in you. Here - you’ve earned a drink. Something from the Three Broomsticks, you won’t have tried it before-”
“Butterbeer! Yeah, I like that stuff!” There was a pause, and then Harry’s face fell comically into guilty shock. I didn’t say anything, just looked at him pointedly. He squirmed. “Oh - Ron and Hermione brought me back some from Hogsmeade.”
He was a rotten liar. I wondered idly whatever had happened to James’s old Cloak. I’d always assumed that it’d been destroyed when the house was. Now I wasn’t so sure.
“I see. Well - let’s drink to a Gryffindor victory against Ravenclaw! Not that I’m supposed to take sides, as a teacher…”
My change of subject seemed to relax him a little, as did my accidental outburst of Gryffindor pride. There were a few quiet, companionable moments, where we sipped our bottles and said nothing.
“What’s under a Dementor’s hood?” Harry asked at last.
“Hmmm … well.” I knew my answer, that no one knew, would be unsatisfying to the insatiable curiosity of a teenager. “The only people who really know are in no position to tell us. You see, the Dementor only lowers its hood to use its last and worst weapon.”
“What’s that?”
“They call it the Dementor’s Kiss. It’s what the Dementors do to those they wish to destroy utterly.” My tone was as matter-of-fact as I could make it. “I suppose there must be some kind of mouth under there, because they clamp their jaws upon the mouth of victim and - and suck out his soul.” I could feel a tremble in my hands and hated myself for it. Harry was too busy gagging on his Butterbeer to notice.
“What - they kill -?” Harry was agog, his eyes large in his face.
I toyed with the neck of the bottle in my hands. My voice was still level. “Oh, no. Much worse than that. You can exist without your soul, you know, as long as your brain and heart are still working. But you’ll have no sense of self any more, no memory, no … anything. You’ll just - exist. As an empty shell. And your soul is gone forever … lost.”
I took a grim mouthful, before continuing. “It’s the fate that awaits Sirius Black. It was in the Daily Prophet this morning. The Ministry have given the Dementors permission to perform it if they find him.”
“He deserves it.”
The venom in Harry’s reply startled me, despite knowing his history. Harry hadn’t asked about my friendship with his father or Sirius since our first Patronus lesson. Perhaps my overreaction to Sirius’s name had frightened him a little. The tone of our friendship (if it could be called a friendship) remained cordial, although we seemed to be building a wall rather than breaking them down.
Whatever the reason, he hadn’t asked, and I hadn’t volunteered anything. I had chosen the cautious and less painful route and said nothing. Even my Hogwarts memories of James and Lily, though largely pleasant, might be received badly if offered at the wrong time or in the wrong way. I didn’t want to push things on him he wasn’t ready to hear.
But this, this was different.
I deliberately kept as much emotion from my reply as I could. I was prepared this time. After all, I had raised the subject of Sirius in the first place. “You think so? Do you really think anyone deserves that?”
“Yes.” Harry’s reply was firm and unhesitating. “For … for some things …”
For James and Lily…
Harry’s mouth was set in a hard line, his eyes distant. I didn’t trouble him for any more answers and I couldn’t blame him for his sentiments. Perhaps his clear, unadulterated view of the matter was the sensible one. Ironically, his black-and-white view of a complex situation was more like his godfather’s mindset than he would ever know. Sirius was ever a victim of his own polarised attitude to things.
Harry finished his Butterbeer and left me to my thoughts.
<- 9. The Seductiveness of Echoes )O( 11. Could You Believe Your Eyes? ->
Chapter: 10/?
Author: iamshadow
Ship: Remus/Sirius
Word Count This Chapter: 2,562
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: WIP. Minor drug use. Angst. Smart alec mirrors.
Summary: Remus' lessons with Harry continue.
A/N: A little bit of crack, followed by canon/plot.
This chapter contains dialogue and situations originally created by and belonging by copyright to JK Rowling. Some lines of dialogue are taken and used verbatim from Chapter Twelve (The Patronus) of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (p. 266-269 of the Bloomsbury adult cover pbk edition). However, the arrangement and descriptive passages surrounding any copyrighted dialogue, and any additional dialogue not contained in JK Rowling's work, is my own.
This is a Work in Progress. Please don't let the fact that it's incomplete put you off.
Chapter List HERE
The day started like many others. I hadn’t slept well, and I was inclined to be irritable when this was the case. The mirror’s snide remarks were also something I could have done without, but a man had to shave. A man with my unique metabolism had to shave a bit more regularly than most; twice a day at certain times of the month.
That morning, my poor sleep was evident. My eyes were pouchy and hooded, my colour pale and my expression grumpy. My hair, though limp, thin and greying at the best of times, was doing its best impression of a bird’s nest.
“You look like shit,” was the mirror’s blunt assessment. I ignored it.
The mirror hadn’t yet forgiven me for not being my predecessor. Gilderoy had apparently spent a great deal of time in front of it, primping and preening, playing with his hair and various changes of couture. A scruffy, down-at-the-heels, facially disfigured werewolf who only looked in the mirror out of bare necessity was a bit of a let down after all that attention. I even covered the mirror to bathe; something I assumed last year’s DADA teacher had not done.
At better moments, on better mornings, I used an old fashioned straight razor with a Stay-Sharp charmed blade. This was not one of those mornings. I pulled out my Shave-Eze Safety Razor with a sigh, ignoring the audible snigger from the wall. My stubble would be evident by noon, but I didn’t trust the steadiness of my hands yet.
I dragged a wet comb through my messy hair, trying to slick it into some semblance of neatness.
“Don’t even know why you bother,” came the lazy, smug drawl. It was like sharing my daily toilet with Severus.
I debated for a long moment testing whether breaking a mirror really did cause seven years bad luck, before deciding eventually I shouldn’t risk it. After all, Magical Theorists had proven Murphy’s Law centuries ago. Taunting the Fates in such a blatant way would be just asking for trouble.
When spitting out my toothpaste a few minutes later provoked a titter and the remark, “So attractive,” I decided to go into the market for a new mirror. There had to be somewhere in Hogsmeade that sold them.
“Oh, yes, indeed,” Filius said cheerfully, while buttering a crumpet. “You want Rowle and Toke’s. It’s just off the Main Street. They’re mainly a tobacconist, of course, but they do stock a range of shaving and toilet supplies. They sharpen razors too, should you ever need it.”
I sipped absently at my tea and thanked him warmly. My appetite was poor, but I nibbled the corner of a slice of toast disinterestedly, hoping that would be enough to fool Poppy if she glanced down the table. I doubted it. She was as sharp as Dumbledore, in her own way. My mediocre attempt to make myself look refreshed might fool some, but it wouldn’t stand up under her clinical scrutiny.
I didn’t have a morning class so I strolled to Hogsmeade. Though there was a clear, blue sky, the weather was bitingly cold and the wind was bitter. Even wrapped up tightly in my warmest robes and cloak, with a minor Heating Charm cast on the wool, I was frozen by the time I reached the village.
Rowle and Toke’s was warm to the point of stuffiness and filled with a fug of aromas. Its shelves and cabinets were crammed with a whole spectrum of smoking equipment; from tiny pipes the size of my index finger to hookahs two feet tall standing in a neat row along the wall. Canisters rather like large tea caddies filled the shelves from floor to ceiling in orderly rows behind the sales counter, all carefully labelled as to the blend or leaf inside. I wandered back to a far corner and began perusing their shaving supplies.
The sales clerk was jovial and laid back and after I took a few moments to unravel and identify the myriad scents in the air I understood why. A smile tickled my lips and I had a sudden flashback to a rather interesting night in the Shrieking Shack (not a full moon) when Sirius shared his stash with the rest of us for the first time.
Of course, it hadn’t affected me much, but I got a nice buzz for a few minutes and then was able to watch soberly as my closest and dearest friends behaved in a very silly manner. Everyone giggled a lot. Sirius and James engaged in a very juvenile insult sparring match, which descended into a wrestling match, which evolved into a clumsy groping session. (Both were very embarrassed at the latter and denied it vehemently the next morning.) Peter progressed from giggling to fidgeting constantly, jumping at small noises and flinching whenever anyone looked in his direction. I sat back, warring between wishing I’d brought a camera and wondering why watching James and Sirius pawing each other was arousing me.
Finally, Sirius had announced that he could have eaten a whole dragon (if he could be bothered to catch one) and proposed a visit to the kitchens. There was a lot of shushing and still more giggling under James’s Cloak on the way back to the dormitory. Only by sheer luck had we avoided capture.
Though Peter admitted frankly that he hadn’t liked it and James and Sirius were clearly mortified by their behaviour, smoking together was something we did on and off throughout our school years. Even Lily joined us once or twice, after she started dating James and had loosened up a bit. It was the seventies and it was something fairly normal for the times. In fact it was probably worse for Muggles; wizard culture didn’t have any problem with casual cannabis smoking. Muggles seemed to go a bit mad with it for a while because of their laws.
By comparison to a lot of other kids our age, what we got up to was very tame. For me, it was more of a social thing, as I didn’t get high like the others did, which was probably just as well given how they seemed to drift through classes the day after.
We all stopped once we left school and joined the Order (reflexes and senses needed to be sharp when fighting Death Eaters) and I never took it up again. There was no point; there was no one to be social with. No James, declaiming poetry theatrically and mangling it appallingly. No Peter, starting comically at shadows. No slightly blurry Sirius, fumbling to unbutton my shirt…
“That one,” I said, pointing to a medium-sized mirror with a plain wooden frame that could be hung on a wall or stood independently on a little bracket.
“Excellent!” exclaimed the salesman.
I exited Rowle and Toke’s, slightly fragrant, with my parcel. The wind hit me with icy knives the moment I stepped outside. I shivered and drew my cloak tighter, before setting off with a confident step to the Three Broomsticks.
A warm tankard of Butterbeer later and I was feeling much more like myself and less like a werewolf flavoured ice lolly. The Broomsticks was quiet, as it was the middle of the day and not an excursion weekend for the students, but there were a decent number of other shoppers huddled inside, defrosting in front of the roaring fire with various beverages. I would have liked to have lingered, but I had to be getting back for my afternoon classes.
“Another, Remus?” Rosmerta asked, when she saw my empty glass.
“No, thankyou,” A sudden thought occurred to me. “Would I be able to buy a couple of bottles though? Take-aways?”
Rosmerta frowned a little and gestured with her dishcloth to the room in general. “Company not to your liking?”
“Oh, no, no, nothing like that,” I said, giving her a quick, reassuring smile. “I have to teach in an hour. The Butterbeer’s for…a student I’m…mentoring. He hasn’t been able to come to Hogsmeade this year, and I’m afraid he’s feeling a bit left out.”
Rosmerta snorted a little. “A troublemaker, is he? Kept back at the school when the others come here?”
“You could say trouble finds him.”
Rosmerta laughed aloud and looked at me knowingly. “Ah, you would saddle yourself with a delinquent. It takes one to know one, after all.”
I opened my mouth to protest my innocence, but she had set the bottles on the bar and was wagging a finger at me with a twinkle in her eye. “Those bottles of Firewhiskey didn’t just Apparate out of my cellar all those years ago. And your friend James tipped me enough for a case of the stuff, the following school weekend. Felt guilty, did he?”
I grinned mischievously as I handed over the coins. “Keep the change.”
***
The case slammed shut again, and Harry’s feeble Patronus winked out.
“You’re expecting too much of yourself,” I said. Harry’s lip curled and he looked for a moment as though he might growl, as Sirius sometimes had done when frustrated and angry.
If I had to describe Harry to anyone, the first word out of my mouth would be intense. He had a stubborn, pig-headed determination, but at the same time was insecure and had very high - too high - expectations of himself. He took every perceived failure to heart and was becoming more and more discouraged with every lesson. When the self-loathing kicked in, his focus and control would become sketchy and the Charm less effective, which made him angry. It was a perpetual cycle.
“For a thirteen-year-old wizard, even an indistinct Patronus is a huge achievement.” I was being honest. Harry’s expression suggested that he thought I was being a bit patronising. “You aren’t passing out any more, are you?” I ventured, trying to draw his attention back to the progress that had been made.
Harry’s voice was hollow. “I thought a Patronus would - charge the Dementors down or something. Make them disappear -”
“The true Patronus does do that,” I agreed. Harry was obviously still wallowing. “But you’ve achieved a great deal in a very short space of time. If the Dementors put in an appearance at your next Quidditch match, you will be able to keep them at bay long enough to get back to the ground.”
Harry looked unconvinced and miserable. “You said it’s harder if there are loads of them.”
I resisted a sudden urge to shake him. It wasn’t his fault he felt so deeply. I should have anticipated it really; he came from passionate stock.
James adored Lily (and Harry, when he was born), his friends and Quidditch, in roughly that order of dedication, depending on whether the World Cup was on the WWN. Lily was possessed of a fierce intellect, a strong will and a determination to do the right thing. She was also as formidable as a lioness defending her cubs when it came to protecting those she loved.
Both were breath-takingly beautiful in their passion. So was Harry, but his was a heartbreaking thing to see; a soul-destroying sort of fire that licked at the child in him, turning the last vestiges of innocence to bitter ash.
I turned a bright smile on him. “I have complete confidence in you. Here - you’ve earned a drink. Something from the Three Broomsticks, you won’t have tried it before-”
“Butterbeer! Yeah, I like that stuff!” There was a pause, and then Harry’s face fell comically into guilty shock. I didn’t say anything, just looked at him pointedly. He squirmed. “Oh - Ron and Hermione brought me back some from Hogsmeade.”
He was a rotten liar. I wondered idly whatever had happened to James’s old Cloak. I’d always assumed that it’d been destroyed when the house was. Now I wasn’t so sure.
“I see. Well - let’s drink to a Gryffindor victory against Ravenclaw! Not that I’m supposed to take sides, as a teacher…”
My change of subject seemed to relax him a little, as did my accidental outburst of Gryffindor pride. There were a few quiet, companionable moments, where we sipped our bottles and said nothing.
“What’s under a Dementor’s hood?” Harry asked at last.
“Hmmm … well.” I knew my answer, that no one knew, would be unsatisfying to the insatiable curiosity of a teenager. “The only people who really know are in no position to tell us. You see, the Dementor only lowers its hood to use its last and worst weapon.”
“What’s that?”
“They call it the Dementor’s Kiss. It’s what the Dementors do to those they wish to destroy utterly.” My tone was as matter-of-fact as I could make it. “I suppose there must be some kind of mouth under there, because they clamp their jaws upon the mouth of victim and - and suck out his soul.” I could feel a tremble in my hands and hated myself for it. Harry was too busy gagging on his Butterbeer to notice.
“What - they kill -?” Harry was agog, his eyes large in his face.
I toyed with the neck of the bottle in my hands. My voice was still level. “Oh, no. Much worse than that. You can exist without your soul, you know, as long as your brain and heart are still working. But you’ll have no sense of self any more, no memory, no … anything. You’ll just - exist. As an empty shell. And your soul is gone forever … lost.”
I took a grim mouthful, before continuing. “It’s the fate that awaits Sirius Black. It was in the Daily Prophet this morning. The Ministry have given the Dementors permission to perform it if they find him.”
“He deserves it.”
The venom in Harry’s reply startled me, despite knowing his history. Harry hadn’t asked about my friendship with his father or Sirius since our first Patronus lesson. Perhaps my overreaction to Sirius’s name had frightened him a little. The tone of our friendship (if it could be called a friendship) remained cordial, although we seemed to be building a wall rather than breaking them down.
Whatever the reason, he hadn’t asked, and I hadn’t volunteered anything. I had chosen the cautious and less painful route and said nothing. Even my Hogwarts memories of James and Lily, though largely pleasant, might be received badly if offered at the wrong time or in the wrong way. I didn’t want to push things on him he wasn’t ready to hear.
But this, this was different.
I deliberately kept as much emotion from my reply as I could. I was prepared this time. After all, I had raised the subject of Sirius in the first place. “You think so? Do you really think anyone deserves that?”
“Yes.” Harry’s reply was firm and unhesitating. “For … for some things …”
For James and Lily…
Harry’s mouth was set in a hard line, his eyes distant. I didn’t trouble him for any more answers and I couldn’t blame him for his sentiments. Perhaps his clear, unadulterated view of the matter was the sensible one. Ironically, his black-and-white view of a complex situation was more like his godfather’s mindset than he would ever know. Sirius was ever a victim of his own polarised attitude to things.
Harry finished his Butterbeer and left me to my thoughts.
<- 9. The Seductiveness of Echoes )O( 11. Could You Believe Your Eyes? ->