The Message
Sirius wanted nothing more than to slip in a state of oblivion for the remainder of the games, preferable for the remainder of his entire life.
It didn’t get any easier, seeing Harry on the screens, even if Sirius knew he wasn’t in any immediate danger at the moment.
Harry and Neville had done their due diligence in getting space between themselves and any other tribute. When Sirius pulled up the arena map, it looked like their closest opponent was Hooch’s girl. The girl wasn’t much of a threat, not against Neville.
Sirius didn’t know if Neville had the gumption to kill a tribute - James never did - but if she attacked, Sirius was at least confident that Neville would defend Harry. And since that was all that really mattered, Sirius sank down on a leather footrest to watch the boys settle in for the night.
The mentor room had cleared out some. There were only two avoxes standing by to refill any of the endless foods being offered. Mad-Eye and Pomona left after the deaths of their tributes. Confident that their kids would be alive when they returned, Bellatrix and Barty had left to sleep in the rooms were all assigned.
The other mentors, all eight of them, stayed.
Sirius looked around the room, checking mentors and tributes alike as he did.
Snape was closest to Sirius, standing like a statue to Sirius’s left while he watched his boys load bags with even mixtures of food and weapons. The careers would be hunting soon. Beside Snape stood Kingsley, calmly watching his remaining tribute. Professor laid back in a recliner, the reflective glow of the monitor on his glasses made it impossible to judge if he was awake or not. Karkaroff was definitely asleep, as was his male tribute that Sirius could see on the monitor closest to him.
Remus and Tonks were across the room from Sirius, sharing a loveseat and taking turns watching their tributes. Sirius couldn’t see what their kids were doing, but he could hear low tones of Tonks’s twins discussing something involving the word ‘prank’.
It almost made Sirius smile to hear that word.
Sirius and James spent a great deal of their childhood pulling pranks. Their targets were usually always poor Regulus or Lily. Sirius didn’t feel so badly when those two decided to team up and prank them right back though.
Then it had become a silly, childish, war.
Sirius glued Regulus‘s hand to a bit of pink ribbon, which made Regulus look absolutely hysterical when he waved his hand around to rant. Regulus penned a neat letter to Mrs Potter, claiming that James was not only failing school but was rude and disruptive as well. James took Lily’s family hen hostage, replacing it with a bundle of feathers tied in cord, and claimed that a witch must have decided Lily didn’t deserve fresh eggs unless she let James bring her to his house for dinner with his folks.
Their prank war started when they were about eight and only ended for good when Sirius and James left for the arena.
It had scared Sirius to discover how easy traps for tributes were to pull off when they planned it like they once had their pranks.
If those twins considered themselves pranksters, and they were certainly charismatic and easy going enough to be believed based on their interviews, then Sirius thought one of them had a good shot at winning.
After seeing that Hooch was sitting on a stool with her eyes on her only tribute left, the one closest to Harry’s location, Sirius went back to watching the boys.
They weren’t exactly riveting while they found a corner of the room they were in and leaned on each other for comfort. Or, they weren’t, until Harry started talking.
And then they had the attention of every single mentor in the room and probably most of Panem.
“I miss my tent,” Harry complained.
Sirius grimaced, Neville frowned.
“You have a tent?”
As Sirius had never spent so much time staring at his godson, he felt a hard wave of grief strike him at the deadpan look Harry gave Neville.
How many times did Sirius get that identical look from Lily? Usually accompanied by a ‘duh’ said in a way to let Sirius know she was questioning his intelligence.
“I live in one,” Harry drawled at Neville. “There’s usually about a dozen kids who live in tents in our district. You probably didn’t notice ‘em, we’re sneaky.”
“Sad,” Hooch murmured from where she sat a few feet away on Sirius’s right-hand side. She blinked tired and yellow eyes at the screen with Harry on it.
My fault, Sirius thought shamefully, hating himself more than he previously thought possible.
It was the sobriety, Sirius was certain, that put all his mistakes in a harsh light.
Sirius could have taken Harry and - if nothing else - offered him a room in his house to live in. Harry seemed to have raised himself anyway, Sirius could have made it easier for him.
If Harry won… if Harry managed, against all odds, to make it out the arena… Sirius swore to James that he would never touch morphling again. It was the first time that Sirius made a swear on James’s memory, but he meant every word of it.
Even if Harry started telling a horrific story that made Sirius’s skin to crawl, his stomach to lurch, and his eyes to stream with the desire to be untouchably high.
If Panem had the pleasure of listening or not, Sirius couldn’t be sure. Nobody else was very exciting, but Harry painted such a bleak picture beneath a humored tone that Sirius thought the gamemakers might be interested in televising it. Every mentor in the room, even the ones who had been asleep before then, tuned in to Harry’s story.
It started off innocently enough, sort of. Harry explained how one of the older ‘tent kids’ fashioned a spear from a stick and used it to kill a bunch of rabbits. Hunting was illegal in the districts, as was owning any sort of weapon, but Harry was careful to not say any names.
Once the boy caught the rabbits, a girl from Harry’s group took the rabbits to the butcher. Harry hesitated then, indecision in his eyes, before he shrugged and said the girl must have screwed the butcher to have their rabbits checked for toxins and cooked.
“That’s horrible.”
Sirius looked over his shoulder and saw that Tonks and Remus had crossed the room to stand behind Sirius, gaining front row seats to Harry’s horrible story. Tonks was deathly pale and clutching Remus’s shirt in a way that was distinctly childlike.
The look on her face reminded Sirius that Tonks won the games at fifteen… she was only eighteen, still a child in many ways.
It was horrible how Sirius wondered how easily Tonks saw herself in that girl’s shoes.
Or Harry’s, as it turned out.
Because Harry then explained how he was in charge of finding ‘side dishes’ for the feast they planned of rabbits.
“There weren’t a lot of places where I could nick much food, so I had a great idea… the barracks.”
Harry explained to Neville - who looked as sick as Sirius felt - about how the peacekeepers liked to drink and gamble in Knockturn Alley. Harry said it wasn’t hard to find one who wanted to spend his money on someone to do for the night, rather than something.
“Disturbing,” Snape murmured, just as drawn in by the story as the rest of them.
For Sirius, that story was more effective than any whip in the world could have been.
It wasn’t even difficult to picture, Sirius had seen it before…
Sirius was another District 12 kid destined for the mines. It didn’t bother him, much, even if the mines were where his father had died and left him the man of the house with a toddler brother and a mother turned mean with grief.
Sirius had picked up odd jobs in the meantime where he could, especially with the Potters.
The Potters ran the bakery in town and even when they couldn’t pay Sirius in money, they always fed him. James claimed that it wasn’t their friendship that made his parents so generous, but Sirius’s firm work ethic.
And Sirius was a hard worker, that was true.
On the tenth day of every month, Sirius would be at the train station before even the sun rose in order to carry in all the ingredients that were delivered off the train. All day long, Sirius would tote bags of flour, sugar, and other things from the train station to the bakery.
James always tried to help and Sirius rarely let him. It was one of few steady jobs that Sirius could do while still a child and feel good about it. If James helped then it wasn’t really Sirius earning for his family, was it?
Reggie helped when he got big enough to do so. But Reggie was a sickly child and too much exercise had him hacking until he was dizzy. The best job for him was to wait with the supplies at the train station, guard them with the barbed wire covered stick Sirius made, so that nobody messed with kind old Mr Potter’s supplies.
They made a good team for a while.
Sirius would lug supplies across town, Reggie would guard what Sirius didn’t get yet. On Sirius‘s last trip, Reggie would skip to the bakery with Sirius, eagerly debating the likelihood of Mrs Potter giving him a piece of unfrosted cake.
Sirius would pretend to gag and swoon at the idea of eating cake without icing and Reggie would get his wish every time.
One winter - Sirius had been sixteen, Regulus almost fifteen - Sirius had been real ill. Sirius had been shaking with chills, sweating from a fever, and certain that he was going to die. He tried to insist on doing his job anyway, but James wouldn’t hear a word of it.
“I’ll move stuff tomorrow,” James said in the bossy tone he got sometimes. “If you even dare get out of bed, I’ll tell Mom and she’ll tan your sick hide, Sirius Black.”
Sirius had been too stressed to smile, too sick to laugh.
“I’ve gotta,” he whined pathetically at James. “The goat man doesn’t need me until spring and I’ve got nothing to trade for coal.”
Walburga had been the one to provide coal for their one room shack before then, but she had died just that fall. Sirius didn’t report her death and he didn’t mourn her after burying her in a shallow grave beside his father with only Regulus and James as witnesses. The house was still technically hers, Sirius could report her death and claim both his brother and the shack once he was of age.
Until then, it was on Sirius to get the coal to heat the house, food for Regulus to eat, and make trades when they needed anything else.
“You’re such an idiot,” James told Sirius, rolling his eyes and pushing Sirius down when Sirius tried to get out of bed. “I mean it, Sirius, don’t you dare show up or Mom won’t pay you and you’ll kill yourself for no reason. I’ll be back after and I’ll bring soup, okay?”
Sirius did stay in bed, if only because he was physically too weak to get out of it. It killed him to think of Regulus, soft-spoken, sweet, often annoying, little Regulus being cold because Sirius was too weak to get them coal.
Regulus had done it himself, though Sirius would forever wish he hadn’t.
“Siri?”
Sirius had been dragged from a sweaty and fevery sleep to find his little brother standing beside the only bed in their house. It was dark, Sirius couldn’t see him well, but Sirius heard the pain in his voice and the sniffles that betrayed his tears.
“C’mere,” Sirius murmured, holding open the blanket so Reggie could climb in.
It took nothing at all for Regulus to get in bed, curl up against Sirius’s chest, and start bawling.
Sirius had been about as concerned as possible and he rubbed Reggie’s back and tried to find out what happened.
Nightmare? No.
Was he sick? No.
You don’t miss Walburga, do you? No.
“I - I was trying to help,” Regulus said in a tinny voice once his initial shaking sobs quieted. Sirius didn’t like how Regulus sounded then, as if he wasn’t fully in the room with Sirius.
“Reg, what happened?” Sirius asked gently, coaxing his baby brother while he used his fingers to comb the unusual tangles from Reggie’s hair.
“I went - I went to the mayor’s house…”
Sirius went immediately still as the horror in that one simple statement filled him. Mayor Greyback was a monster, a true monster.
James’s mom called him a predator, his dad would mash his lips a flat line when he would enter the bakery. Sirius didn’t understand until he got older what kind of monster the man was, but he was one of the worst ones.
Mayor Greyback preyed on young kids, starving and desperate small bodies, and would use them for his own pleasure. There used to be a girl in Sirius and James’s class that had actually died in the mayor’s house.
Rumor had it, he used her until she died and even that didn’t stop the sicko.
Reggie told Sirius the story in the new disconnected voice he had. Reggie went to try and earn some coal since Sirius was so sick and Reggie just knew a warm house would make him better. Greyback saw his chance when sweet, innocent, little Reggie had shyly offered to trade his mouth for just a few pieces of coal.
Greyback instead used him in ways that made Sirius vomit up the bile that pooled in his stomach.
Reggie pressed three gold coins in Sirius’s hands after he be told him the things done to him and Sirius cried. Hard.
And once Reggie was asleep, Sirius went to find Lily.
Sick or not, nobodyhurt little Regulus Black without the most extreme payback that Sirius could pull off.
Murdering the mayor himself was only off limits because Sirius would be immediately killed for it and Regulus needed him.
But when Lily was with Regulus, checking over the injuries he was sure to have, and Sirius had his barbed-wire covered branch, there wasn’t much else that was off limits to him.
When Mayor Greyback woke up a few hours later, his two prized pittbulls were dead on his doorstep and Sirius was arrested before he made it back home.
Sirius was the first public whipping in their district in twenty years, something Mrs Potter assured him was not a thing to be proud of.
“You’ll be reaped in the fall,” Lily fretted quietly while she cleaned the wounds on Sirius’s back with medicine from her mother.
Sirius probably would be reaped in the fall, he accepted it before he killed the beasts of the beast. While drawings were meant to be random, more often than not children of citizens who irritated anyone high in their district were chosen.
It didn’t matter. If Sirius was destined for the arena, he at least had nine months to train.
“Will you volunteer for me, Evans?” Sirius slurred, out of his mind with pain and concern when he could see his brother just sitting in a chair, staring at nothing with horrible and haunted eyes.
“No, I will not,” Lily sniffed haughtily. “You knew there were cameras. You wanted to be caught.”
No, what Sirius wanted was for Greyback to know that Regulus Black was not another child on his own that could be used and abused. Regulus was Sirius’s brother and if Greyback ever so much as looked at him again, it would be him with the bashed in skull.
Regulus would be alone if Sirius was reaped though and that scared Sirius enough into grabbing Lily’s tiny wrist and squeezing it tightly while he stared in her green eyes hard.
“If I go, you’ll take care of him?” Sirius whispered harshly, refusing to release her or even blink until she agreed.
Lily Evans was annoying, but she was a good person with a kind heart. She adored Regulus and often shared her books with him, both of them reading and giggling while Sirius and James goofed around.
Lily’s eyes softened and she bent down to press a kiss to Sirius’s forehead.
“Always,” she swore.
Sirius was reaped that fall and after preparing himself for it, he wasn’t scared. Sirius was strong, clever. Sirius could win and then give Reggie, who was never quite sane again after that horrible night, a quiet and comfortable life in Victor’s Village.
Sirius even smirked at Mayor Greyback when he stepped on the stage with his chin high, shoulders squared, and looking every bit a champion.
The cold smile of Greyback had chilled Sirius when the next name drawn had been Regulus Black.
James took one look at Regulus, who stood in a daze, rarely knowing where he was, and kissed Lily fiercely with a hand on her stomach before he stepped forward.
Their eyes met across the square and Sirius didn’t know what to say.
James didn’t have the same tongue-tied issue.
“I volunteer.”
Listening to Harry talk about prostituting himself for some canned goods made Sirius wish that he could go back in time… actually protect Harry as he didn’t Regulus.
Sirius just let people down over and over and over.
When Sirius bent over at the waist and threw up on the floor, he wished there was blood mixed with the bile. There should be an internal injury so bad that Sirius would feel nothing but constant and endless pain.
“Why would you live like that?” Neville asked Harry.
Because of Sirius —
Sirius and his regrets.
Sirius and his addiction.
Sirius and the ghosts he never wanted to get rid of.
Sirius and the cemetery where Regulus, James, and Lily were buried.
“It wasn’t like I had a lot of options,” Harry responded simply.
Snivellus made a scathing sound of disgust and turned vicious eyes on where Sirius was slumped on the footrest he claimed.
“You disgust me,” he sneered down his nose.
Sirius agreed too much to even bait the other man, ask what regrets he had. Sirius disgusted himself.
Remus and Tonks took a supportive seat on either side of Sirius though. It was support he didn’t deserve, but appreciated. He appreciated it all the more so when Remus clenched Sirius’s shoulder with a somber reminder.
“You have to keep it together,” Remus told him. “You must, for Harry.”
For Harry.
A little longer, that was what Sirius told Harry to do. Just go a little longer, it all had to end eventually.
Sirius had to stay in one piece until the game ended… one way or another.
The already quiet room went absolutely silent when the anthem began to play and the dead tributes of the day would be shown.
Sirius already knew which kids were dead and which were alive so he only watched Harry. Harry was doing something odd during the show. His face was scrunched up with concentration and Sirius could see him silently wording something.
Sirius couldn’t guess at Harry’s behavior until the anthem ended, the seal flashed, and that reckless boy started talking.
“Dean. Seamus. Cho. Cedric. Sky. Greene.” Harry ended his recital of the dead kids’s names and raised his middle finger in what Sirius was beginning to see was Harry’s signature move. “The Capitol killed six kids today.”
The quiet became tense, strained.
There was no lie in Harry’s words, but fuck if they weren’t as dangerous as a barbed wire covered tree branch.
Was there ever a tribute more dedicated to making himself the top target than Harry James Potter?
“I adore him,” Hooch suddenly said, her voice firm with rebellion. She narrowed her eyes at Sirius in an eerily bird-like expression. “Send that boy some water, Black.”
Water?
Sirius faltered for a moment, unsure what was being asked of him. Send Harry water when he just called the Capitol murderers on television?
Maybe it wasn’t being shown, Sirius told himself as he clumsily flipped through the screens of his cuff to find Harry’s stat page.
Or maybe thousands of citizens just heard Harry saying the name of their children and decided to thank him in sponsorships.
When Sirius last checked Harry’s stats, he had twenty-nine credits. Suddenly, he had fifty-four. Even while Sirius struggled to comprehend how a nation chose one spitfire and angry boy as their tribute - their champion - Harry earned three more credits.
“Water… Water…” Sirius laughed a little hysterically when he found the store and used five credits for a bottle of water and two nutrient bars.
Sirius only added one bottle of water, despite there being two boys. They needed to find a water source in the arena, they couldn’t get compliant on Harry gifted with something as necessary as water.
Especially when Sirius saw the weapons selection that could be sent in as gifts… they were expensive, but could make all the difference.
Harry was good with a knife, Sirius remembered that from his training. If Harry could just keep it up, continue to earn sponsorships from people who might be depriving themselves to show Harry that he did speak for them… Harry could win.
Harry could win.
Just before sending in the three items he selected, Sirius hesitated. Neville was already laughing, the boys saw Harry’s words as nothing but reckless and hopeless words of a tribute. How could Sirius get Harry to see that they meant so much more in the districts?
It wasn’t much, but Sirius ended up sending in a can of the candied carrots Harry had said he liked earlier. Harry got them before by defying the Capitol and living his life on his own terms, Sirius hoped that cynical little Harry could interpret the message in Sirius sending them to him in that moment.
It was a lot of pressure to put on a can of brown sugar covered vegetables, but Harry wasn’t exactly a trustful kid. He would know Sirius had a reason for what he sent… Sirius was certain of it.
And it worked, some.
Harry certainly looked confused while he sifted through the meager supplies Sirius sent. Neville teased Harry about the boy from three that called him handsome, but Sirius watched closely as Harry brushed him off.
Harry would figure it out, Sirius was suddenly certain of it.
“Why the carrots, Sirius?” Harry murmured later when Neville was asleep.
Sirius leaned forward, accidentally displacing Tonks who had fallen asleep on his shoulder.
“Figure it out, kid,” Sirius murmured back. “Come on… figure it out.”
“It’s fucking carrots, whatever message they carry is just vitamin A,” Remus muttered from where he sat on the carpeted floor beside Sirius’s footrest.
It should have been suffocating, having Tonks decide that Sirius’s lap was a pillow and for Remus to have his arm curled around Sirius’s calves while he tried to sleep. It wasn’t though, it made Sirius almost understand how they were able to make it through the games without getting high or killing themselves… they did it together.
And maybe they were right for that, but Remus was wrong about the carrots not carrying a message. Sirius could see it in Harry’s face the instant it clicked for him.
“You all want a show, don’t you?” Harry said, holding the can up with something akin to mischief making his eyes glimmer. “I’ll give you a show,” he smirked - James’s smirk. “Let the fuckin’ games begin.”
“Let the games begin,” Sirius repeated with a flicker of hope in his chest.
Harry could win the games… it would be the most difficult thing that Sirius or Harry ever pulled off… but the people had spoken, chosen a champion, and Harry could win.
Sirius drifted to sleep when Professor promised to wake him up if anything happened to or near his tributes. It was more kindness that Sirius didn’t deserve, but he appreciated all the same.
Sirius’s sleep was fitful, uneasy, and ended when someone laughed too loudly and woke him up. When Sirius fell asleep, he had been tangled up with Remus and Tonks, but they were both awake and clustered around a monitor with the others when Sirius ground the sleep from his eyes.
Tonks was the first to notice that Sirius woke up and she grinned at him and waved him over to where she stood with Remus, Professor, Snape, and Kingsley. They were all a little too amused for the circumstances and Sirius was wary as he walked over to them after seeing that Harry was asleep with Neville on guard.
“It is certainly a strategy,” Kingsley said to Snape in his deep voice that Sirius swore held a bit of laughter in it. “His fan ranking reflects how well it’s working.”
Sirius joined their group and saw that the two boys from three were paired up with the tributes from one. They were certainly hunting, all of them with weapons in hand, but thankfully not in a part of the castle that Sirius recognized.
Sirius didn’t get the joke - it could be Tonks, Remus, and Kingsley’s tributes that they were hunting?- until he heard the boy from three with the sharp cheekbones and dark-skin talk.
“I’m not saying we spare him,” he said, making no effort to keep his voice down. “I’m saying that he could be a guard with Dumb and Dumber.”
There was someone the boy wanted to spare? Add to their pack? Sirius tried to remember what boys were left…
Karkaroff’s boy? Perhaps Remus’s older one?
“We’re not keeping the kid with a fucking ten just because you have a crush,” the girl in their group snapped. “If you can’t do it yourself then I’ll be more than happy to end his life to prove that score was a fluke.”
Kid with a ten…? Harry? Did the boy from three want to spare Harry?
“You don’t understand, Pans,” the boy groaned, throwing his head back theatrically. “We all know you’re going to win. I just… if I don’t kiss his lips just once before I die, I’ll feel as if I’ve died twice.”
“I think his lips are chapped,” the boy in one quipped, sounding disgusted.
When the other boy from three snorted quietly to himself, Kingsley and Tonks burst in loud laughter. Remus was grinning broadly, Snape was rolling his eyes, and Sirius was confused.
“Why’s he talking about kissing Harry?” Sirius asked. He had been so concerned with watching Harry that he didn’t consider watching the other tributes. Suddenly, feeling on the outside of some sort of obvious plot, Sirius felt off-kilter.
“That’s his angle for uniqueness,” Remus told him. “After his interview, Blaise’s popularity shot up. Either he knows it, or he guessed, but—”
“But now he’s playing it for all it’s worth,” Tonks jumped in. “It’s very tragic romance. They met after the reaping, Blaise fell hard and fast, and he thinks they’re soulmates.” Tonks fanned herself, showing that it was meant to be a ploy for sponsorships.
“And it’s working?!” Sirius demanded, looking at Snape for an answer.
James went in the games with a damned pregnant fiancé, he was never number one in the rankings. Close to it, Sirius was sure, but James’s refusal to kill was almost as much of a rebellion as some of the shit Harry spouted off.
“People love a respectable tragedy,” Snivellus sneered, the implication clear.
Actually, it wasn’t clear. Sirius didn’t know for sure if he was being insulted or Harry was, but Sirius was about to pound an explanation from the greasy bastard when a girlish scream came from one of the many monitors.
Sirius looked toward the monitor that had his tributes on it first. They were both awake, running as the scream must be close to them, but uninjured.
It was Hooch and her whimper cut off by her hand over her mouth that told Sirius who the tribute was. When the others crossed back to Hooch - moving in a pack of their own - Sirius‘a eyes popped out of his head at what he saw.
Hooch’s girl stood in a small dungeon room, looking so small, as she screamed and stabbed a short toward what was undoubtedly a mutt. It was horrifying, just a giant fifteen-foot snake with gleaming black scales and fangs that were glistening.
“It got her,” Hooch whimpered when Professor was quick to take her hand in comfort and comraderie. “But she wants to take it with her.”
“Where the hell did it come from?” Tonks asked.
Even if her death only helped Harry, Sirius couldn’t help the small fist pump he did at his side when the girl drove the sword through the snake.
“The room was trapped,” Hooch told them, all the mentors watching as Susan fell just a second before the snake did. It landed on her, trapping her, and Sirius was stuck staring at her red hair.
“The sword was on the table, as soon as she touched it, the door locked and the mutt appeared.” Hooch wiped her wet eyes. “That girl was special.”
They were all special, all different, all deserved to live.
Sirius stared at the girl’s red hair until the door opened and the camera angle shifted at the new movement.
It was Harry. Harry and Neville.
“Ma, I want my ma,” the girl whimpered.
“What’s he doing?” Kingsley asked when Harry slowly stepped in the room, shadowed by Neville.
Sirius couldn’t begin to guess at the meaning behind the shadows in Harry’s eyes, so he said nothing at all. Neville went straight to the girl to try and free her from where she was trapped.
It took Harry a few seconds of Neville screaming at him before he helped.
“They know it’s a contest, right?” Karkaroff said nastily when Neville began trying to get to the wound.
As one, Sirius and Snape snapped at him, “Shut up.”
Ugh.
Was that who sober Sirius was? Snivellus?
Sirius shook it off and watched Harry with pride that he didn’t deserve to feel. Harry knelt at the girl’s head and began brushing the hair off her face as she slowly died.
“You killed it,” he told her.
The girl tried to tell him the snake was poisonous - Professor was ignored when he said it was venomous, a common mixup - then she asked for her mother again.
“Her mother is Elaine,” Hooch said, stricken. “She’s a good woman. She lost her sister in the game the year that Bellatrix won.”
Sirius didn’t really care about that, or the girl, really. It was callous, but Sirius was only hoping that the girl had some better-off relatives who would throw support to Harry as he stayed with the girl until she was gone.
Harry didn’t let her die alone, that had to mean something to someone.
Sirius’s nose stung when Harry began dripping tears down his thin face and he repeated the same thing over and over —
“You’re safe now. Susan, you’re safe.”
The only safe citizens were dead citizens.
Harry endeared himself to the citizens of districts with his opinions he refused to dampen. Then he did it again when he said the names of the dead and reminded everyone exactly who was at fault.
When Harry cleaned the blood from the girl’s face while Neville said a few kind words about her, Sirius knew without looking that Harry had done it once more.
Harry cried over a fellow tribute when many others would be rejoicing.
If Harry’s credits didn’t do another jump after his most recent actions, the most humanizing ones yet, Sirius would kiss President Dumbledore.
The boys cleverly took the fangs from the mouth of the snake, the sword the girl had as well. Harry subtly touched a gleaming part of the white fang to the girl’s exposed wrist and Sirius nodded in approval.
“If you stab me in the back, you better hope you lose,” Harry told Neville as he handed him the sword and kept the fangs for himself. “Cause I’m going to use my last breath to tell the Tent Kids to kill you.”
Sirius didn’t know what kind of response to that threat he expected Neville to have, but the boy surprised him.
“And if you stab me with a fang in my sleep, I’m going to ask Luna to haunt you for an eternity. She can be really creepy when she wants to be.”
“They’re a good match,” Remus said approvingly. “They remind me of you and James… the two of you were a perfect fit.”
They were.
“Don’t ever say his name to me again,” Sirius said with a soft tone that meant he was deadly serious.
Remus didn’t know James, didn’t love him. Nobody that was left did, only Sirius. Sirius alone carried the memories of the boy with the biggest and dorkiest glasses that he met on the first day of school.
Sirius watched James’s son send the dead girl one last look of pity before he left the room.
And then, to try and send along another message, Sirius sent Harry a basket of rolls just before it all went wrong.