Chapter 14
Again, Harry landed face-first onto the ground and he was getting really bloody tired of that though he was so disoriented, he couldn’t even pinpoint where the pain was coming from, just knowing it was all-encompassing.
He laid still until he was able to gather his remaining brain cells and forced his eyes open, terrified at what he would see.
He was met with grey stone and managed to turn his strained neck to the side and was stunned to see that he was face to face with Sirius.
Only, his skin was grey and his cloudy eyes stared into his own unseeingly. His mouth hung open and the longer Harry looked, the more details he was able to catch. He noticed cobwebs draping between his decaying teeth and dirt was caked across his features with insects crawling through them. It looked as though Harry had pulled his corpse straight from a shallow dirt grave.
He was trembling as he slowly sat up. Every muscle and bone in his body shrieked in pain but he didn’t feel any of it as he stared at Sirius’ dead body lying awkwardly next to him, arms and legs contorted as if barely hanging on to his centre.
He began to shake and sobs racked through his body. He didn’t dare touch him but he couldn’t process what had happened.
That was when he saw it- the device, laying on the floor next to him, whole. When James used the time turner, it shattered completely, and Dumbledore said that this device should work exactly the same as before.
‘Nonono’ rang throughout Harry's head like a broken record. He’d failed. All his confidence from before soured and curdled into his bloodstream, turning into a poison that clouded his thoughts and vision.
Harry reached out bloody and shaking fingers to close Sirius’ eyes as the memory of Sirius dying the first time washed over him but he was stopped short as the body in front of him suddenly began to twist and morph sickly.
It was no longer the prone body of Sirius Black but rather, him, standing proudly, healthy and whole just a few steps away.
Harry scrambled back in an attempt to get away from the living nightmare across from him, his palms scratching against the gravel under him.
“W-What?” Harry whispered in horror.
Sirius didn’t do anything but stand with his back straight and chin up high in a white button up and black slacks. His skin was as smooth as porcelain and his hair was shorn short, he looked like an old photo of Regulus that Harry had found. He looked neat and polished, nothing like the Sirius Harry actually knew and he genuinely wondered if he was going mad, if somewhere along the way, he’d lost his mind.
He glanced at him briefly with cold eyes of steel before rolling up the sleeve of his left arm and there, peppered among the many smaller tattoos Sirius bore, was the writhing image of the Dark Mark.
Harry gasped in horror, unable to say or do anything until he heard a wheeze behind him.
He turned so quickly his neck cracked and it was…Sirius?
That version of Sirius was wearing a dusty brown coat atop a velvet waistcoat and striped shirt. His sleeves were torn and his slacks were tattered at the bottom but that was the outfit Harry remembered Sirius wearing that day at the Department of Mysteries.
“You always thought you were different from them, didn't you?” The gravelly voice spoke teasingly at Sirius who had just regained consciousness and stared back at the figure.
Harry rapidly put the pieces together as he saw a few desks were pushed back against the walls and the chalkboard was covered in a layer of dust- they were at Hogwarts.
On the far wall, a large cupboard rested on its’ side, the doors broken and fallen open and Harry knew it looked somewhat familiar.
It took Harry a long moment of staring past Sirius’ taunting to piece it together.
With great difficulty, Harry pulled out his wand that was miraculously still intact and spoke out in a scratchy voice, “ Riddikulus! ”
The evil glint in Sirius’ eyes and sadistic turn of his lips suddenly morphed and shrunk as did his body, his head dropping several metres until all that was in front of them was a small baby that babbled, clapping his hands. Harry unapologetically shot it with another hex that sent the mass shooting into the cupboard, the doors slamming shut behind it.
It was just a boggart, Harry sighed gratefully.
He heard the wheezing noise from behind him again and Harry desperately turned toward Sirius.
“Harry?” he asked and Harry could have cried from laughter, relishing the way his name came out whole from Sirius, who was alive, no signs of the terrors from before.
“Sirius,” he whispered though his voice, sounding garbled and wet, not quite believing that Sirius was in front of him. He raised a trembling hand to his face and it was warm under his palm. This was Sirius, he reassured himself.
“What happened?” he asked, trying to sit up quickly though he immediately swayed and went back down. Harry put a hand under his head for some sort of cushion and he could feel clotted blood in his hair.
“There’s too much to explain now but we made it out. I don’t know where we are but we shouldn’t stay here for too long, can you stand?” Harry asked quickly.
Sirius just sort of nodded dazedly and got up much slower this time and when Harry pulled his hand back, he saw that it was covered in blood. Beyond that, Sirius had two cuts on his face, a bruise on his neck, and possibly broken fingers as they were curved awkwardly, and these were only the most visible injuries.
Harry placed a steadying hand on Sirius’ shoulder and healed the cuts on his face and the bruise and cast a hopeful Episkey on his fingers. Sirius groaned in pain, clutching his hand, but when he slowly tested his fingers, they bent normally and didn’t hurt and Harry took that as a win.
Slowly, Harry was able to take greater stock of his surroundings and he heard shouts emitting from the hallways outside the door and the floor beneath them was faintly shaking as if from an earthquake.
“Wait here,” Harry ordered Sirius who just nodded and he strode to the doorway, cracking it open just slightly.
The corridor was empty so Harry took cautious steps forward as if each step had a chance of falling out from under him like a twisted game. He reached the fork at the end of the corridor- the one running left was dark and abandoned whereas the one on the right was lit with braziers and seemed to lead into Hogwarts proper.
He chose the right.
His wand was at the ready, aimed high and steady but he didn’t encounter anyone along the way. He took a few more turns, following the noise that steadily got louder until he reached the column of staircases that were turning madly, not connecting with any of the landings.
Scattered across the stairs like lost ants were men cloaked in black robes, shouting spells and curses to get the stairs to stop so that they may go up them and reach the greater floors of the schools but the stairs were impenetrable and refused to cooperate.
One of the said figures looked up with a face of frustration and anger and he saw who it was- Mulciber.
Harry quickly crouched and scrunched his eyes closed, hoping that it was too quick for Mulciber to spot him and when no shouts of alarm came after, he saw he was right and quickly crawled behind a pillar to stand up again. When he looked out of the stained glass window positioned next to him, he saw the grey sky was shimmering, as if seen through a silver veil and when he tilted his eyes downwards, he knew where he was.
2 May 1998.
Shite.
He retraced his steps back to Sirius who was leaning heavily against a wall and locked the door behind him.
“Harry, what’s going on?” he asked, slightly steadier than before but not by much.
Harry stood across from him, ready to level with him, “Okay so, I just saved your life. Like in the most literal way possible. I’m from the year 2000, you died two years ago from falling into the veil at the department of mysteries. I’ve used a time turner to go back in time, save you, and then another device to go back in the future, from the help of Dumbledore, or er- his portrait.”
Sirius’ face was blank, clearly not catching onto Harry’s words that were coming out rushed and confusing and Harry knew he had to change tactics.
“Scratch everything I just said, we need to get out of here, the final battle of Hogwarts is happening and I don’t know why we’ve landed here but it’s imperative that we do not leave this room, if I get spotted…it could change everything.”
Sirius just tried to sort through the new information while Harry’s mind started to turn in overdrive as he paced until he finally came to a solution.
“I’ll be back, hold on, here sit down” Harry sat, summoning a dusty chair and Sirius looked incredulous but gave in easily enough.
Wishing he had his Invisibility Cloak, Harry cast a very careful disillusionment charm, putting as much strength and resilience into it as possible before slipping out of the room again, taking a different path.
He didn’t dare look up from his feet for too long, not wanting to get sidetracked or waste a single moment thinking about anything or anyone else.
He went up a flight of stairs, hoping to at least use the height advantage to scan the surrounding areas for the one man he fully trusted for this task.
He went on a mad chase but knew he couldn’t wait much longer. His feet ached and his lungs burned and he just wanted his bed, maybe a cuppa, a nice pair of pyjamas wouldn’t hurt either.
He was exhausted, both mentally and physically, from the past few days and he didn’t know what he’d do if this didn’t work, if something went wrong now, because the hardest part was over. He’d gotten Sirius out and he relished in that feeling for just a moment.
Hogwarts must have been guiding him because he turned a bend and ran into him.
Remus was valiantly duelling two death eaters and took both of them out with a single fell swoop of his wand, obliterating them entirely, leaving only dust behind. He turned swiftly, ready to dive back into the fray but Harry grabbed his arm and quickly dropped the charm.
Remus gaped for a moment before shoving him against the nearby wall, his spine cracking with the force.
“Harry?” he asked, shaking his head as if just now seeing him. He was in full battle mode, only seeing red targets through his amber eyes, unable to decipher between friend and foe.
He nodded desperately before Remus let him go and swallowed down hungry gulps of air.
“I need your help, please,” he pleaded and Remus nodded, lifting a hand in a ‘lead the way’ gesture.
He led him back to the room without interruption and only when his hand was on the handle did he turn back, “I’m going to warn you for something that’s in there, but I just need you to trust me and do as I say, okay?”
He looked wary but nodded nonetheless and Harry unlocked and pushed the creaky wooden door open, quickly allowing them space before shutting it again. Sirius was looking out the window when they arrived but he turned at the noise, confusion written across his features from what he saw outside but the expression intensified as he saw Remus beside him.
“Moon-” he began.
“Harry…” Remus gasped out painfully, his eyes locked onto Sirius’.
“It’s him,” Harry whispered.
Remus blinked rapidly, as if unable to process the sight in front of him and though Sirius clearly didn’t feel the same, not knowing the fate that befell them both, he seemed emotional just at the sight of him.
“Pads?” he whispered, his voice cracking. He wasn’t standing quite as tall or as powerful as before, merely cowering at the sight of Sirius.
“Moony, do you know what’s happening outside, it looks-”
Remus took three wide steps and was instantly in front of Sirius and in a motion similar to Harry, he brushed aside a piece of his hair but he took it a step further, tucking it behind his ear and letting his hand rest on his cheek.
“Moony?” he finally asked without interruption. “Are you okay?”
He nodded rapidly though tears welled in his eyes and he only held it for a moment longer before letting it out, sagging and coughing wetly. He wrapped his arms around the other man tightly, pulling him back so the heels of his feet slightly lifted off the ground.
Sirius hugged back until he winced from the pain in his sides and Remus seemed to come back to his surroundings, realising where he was and what they were doing.
He spun quickly, “Harry?”
It was question enough and Harry leapt up at the chance to give a very abridged version of events only explaining Dumbledore’s devices and time turners and how they might work to bring Sirius back.
He omitted the parts about his parents. The words bubbled up inside him but died on his tongue because he knew it would be too much to drop now when Remus was just moments from death. He didn’t want to turn his life upside down for nothing, rather choosing to give him the sense of closure he deserved.
Remus caught onto his words much quicker than Sirius had, “So I need you to shoot a curse at us, as powerful as possible, if Bellatrix’s stunner got us this far, we only need something of equal magnitude to push us the rest of the way,” he finished.
Sirius chimed in then, “Wait, Harry I don’t fully understand what you’re talking about but are you saying Moony isn’t coming with us out of here?”
Harry should have known this was a bad idea. He was presenting Remus with an impossible decision just after bringing Sirius back.
Harry knew quite early on that they were more than just best friends. From the moment they reconnected in the Shack and the time after, Harry could see the way they looked at each other and exchanged light touches, just enough to be suggestive but nothing more.
“He can’t,” Harry said painfully, looking back at Remus, feeling horrible.
“It’s okay,” Remus assuaged Sirius, turning his head back to his gently with both hands, “I understand.”
Sirius put his hands atop Remus’, shaking his head vehemently, tears gathering in his eyes at the prospect of losing Remus in a world where nothing else seemed to make sense, “I don’t want to go if you’re not going to be there.”
“Love, you can and you will,” Remus said gently.
He had the look of a man that understood what his fate was that night and wasn’t angry about it or desperate to change it. He was ready to face whatever happened to him, much like how Harry felt walking into the Forbidden Forest for the last time, knowing that he would die that night. “I never thought I would have had the chance to say ‘goodbye’ to you but now I do.”
“Don’t go Moony, stay here, or stay out of the fight, we can let the time catch up-”
Remus stopped his bargaining and turned to Harry, who was quietly watching the exchange, “Do we win? Is Voldemort defeated?”
Harry nodded somberly and Remus’ expression eased.
“We did it,” he smiled at Sirius who refused to join him. Harry felt like he could see a weight being lifted off Remus' shoulders with a confirmation that all they had done and lost was not in vain, that their side had prevailed against all odds.
The moonlight filtered in, basking them both in milky light and Harry felt like he was watching the final scenes of an opera, all the scenes and acts coming together to climax at this point.
“I want you to know that I have loved you ever since I’ve known you, through every phase of our lives, every year we spent together and apart, it was always you, Sirius Black. I wish I could have told you that more but now I want you to get out of here, take care of Harry, and live .”
“I don’t understand Moony, please ,” Sirius was clutching onto Remus’ shoulders like a lifeline and when Remus just leaned him to kiss him, tears fell out of both of their eyes, mingling on their wet cheeks.
He pulled back first, taking another step back before looking at Harry again, “Thank you Harry.”
He felt sick at how Remus could be thanking him.
He scooped up the device and clutched onto Sirius once more who tried to wiggle out of his grip but failed, unable to overpower Harry in his state.
Remus straightened his back and raised his shoulders as he faced them, wand aloft.
“No Harry, Stop,” Sirius repeated desperately, staring at Remus, drinking in the sight of him.
Harry memorised his features exactly, burning it into memory so that he may describe the exact shade of his eyes or tilt of his lips to Teddy when the day comes.
There was no great exclamation or duel, no dramatic scene of Remus dropping his wand and running to Sirius, vowing to die together, he just exuded pure love and strength as he shouted a spell unfamiliar to Harry before a stream of red shot at them, sending them into their final jump.
______
Fifteen days without Harry.
Grimmauld was unoccupied unless one accounts for the ghosts that remained, and occasionally visited.
James and Lily hovered from room to room, uninterested in anything and everything around them. Hermione, Ron, or Draco were not doing any better, visiting out of some sense of obligation but unable to offer any comforting words for they didn’t have any for themselves.
James headed outside into the garden when Kreacher shouted at him to get out of the bed so that he could change the sheets and was just laying in a bed of overgrown grass, looking up at the gloomy sky, odd for the summer months but he supposed everything was odd lately.
He heard the front door burst open, the wood practically splintering from the force but he didn’t look up, what was the point anyways?
______
Lily sat in the Library, alone as usual.
A stack of books rested next to her, all started and ended just a few pages in for she always found something that reminded her of Harry, the slightest mention of a young boy or brown hair had her slamming it shut, moving on to another one.
It was so silent all she could hear was her own heartbeat that was too slow. It was the heart rate of an aged and lonely woman, not one who was supposed to be in the prime of her life.
A loud noise jolted her from her reverie and for the first time in weeks, her heart skipped a beat before thrumming painfully against her ribcage, begging for more.
_______
“Why are we at this hell hole again?” Sirius cried out, his eyes and cheeks still wet from the tears he shared with Remus just moments ago, though technically, years had passed.
They landed a few streets away from Grimmauld in a small alley that Harry recognised instantly as a common Apparition spot and he quickly apparated the both of them from there to Grimmauld, unable to wait.
Fear, sadness, and excitement blended together.
He had done it. He saved Sirius.
He thought he ought to have been happier but the look on Sirius’ face quickly doused his enthusiasm.
“Mum? Dad?” Harry shouted upon entry. He had only been gone for like a day or two so he hoped they would just be somewhere downstairs but the space looked abandoned.
No one responded but when Harry looked deeper through the house, he noticed the door to the garden was cracked open and Harry guided Sirius to a sofa, setting him down before going to it, wanting to slowly introduce James and Lily to Sirius rather than just springing him onto them.
He spotted James lying oddly outside so he called again, “Dad?”
He became worried when he didn’t respond and quickly crossed the space until he was right on top of him, peering down at his shut eyes and grim face.
James slowly opened up his eyes, his pupils dilating at the light and his eyes seemed blurred before focusing on Harry and he sat up so quickly that he bumped heads with him.
“Ow,” Harry commented sourly, rubbing his head.
“Is it really you?” James asked, flabbergasted at the sight, half-crouching now as if scared to fully stand up.
“Yeah, I made it-” Harry was about to continue but stopped as James promptly burst into tears which morphed into full on sobs and he couldn’t believe the overt display of emotions.
“Oh Haris,” he cried into Harry’s shoulders, the force enough to jolt Harry as well.
“How long have I been gone?” he whispered.
“Fif-Fifteen days” he hiccuped and Harry was shocked to hear how much time it had been, not realising the time passing at all. “We thought you were d- gone.”
Harry gently pulled back, “I’m alive, we made it through…and I brought Sirius with me.”
James froze, his sobs ceasing as his mouth fell open, “You did it?”
Harry nodded fervently and they both dashed into the house.
James seemed unable to process everything going on, his emotions were a whirlwind but he didn’t quite rush to Sirius yet, going upstairs with Harry to talk to Lily who needed to be included in this moment as well as needing to see Harry.
When Harry walked in with a soft smile, Lily looked up from the floor once to see him in the doorway before looking back down again silently. She looked like a colourless portrait of herself, nothing like the woman Harry knew and he wondered if she was sick again from the lack of magic.
“Mum?” he called but when she didn’t look up, James took over, entering the room and sitting next to her, clasping her lifeless hand in his.
“Lils, he’s back,” he coaxed gently and Lily looked up to see Harry kneeled in front of her.
She reached a cold hand to Harry’s cheek and as if all the life rushed into her at this moment, she reacted, crying out. She thought he was just a hallucination when she first saw him and this confirmation of vitality was all she needed.
They embraced for a moment before Harry repeated the simple sentence he had said to James as the other stories could wait.
The three of them ran downstairs then, straight to the receiving room Sirius was in.
Harry wasn’t sure what he expected, perhaps an emotional reunion, some tears, hugs, and laughs as they saw each other but he would never have been able to expect what actually happened.
When they entered the room, Sirius looked up at them all and recoiled in horror, crouching horribly on the sofa away from them.
“Surprise,” Harry introduced with a light hand wave but Sirius was not enthusiastic.
“W-WHat are you, who? N-no no,” he stuttered out horribly, unable to manage his thoughts. He pulled painfully at his hair and spoke through tight lips, his body shaking horribly as his face blanched.
“Padfo-.”
“No!” he shouted, still not looking at them and Harry could tell the other occupants in the room were as confused as he was.
Lily stepped forward silently and made it to Sirius who thrashed the instant she touched him, shouting his refusal at nothing specific again.
He jumped up on his own and looked at them like he was a wild animal about to be put down. He was plotting his escape as his eyes darted to the window and then at the doorway behind him.
“Sirius, let me just explain I-” Harry offered placatingly, not daring to take another step forward.
He was muttering to himself and he seemed to have made up his mind as he pulled out his wand, shot a hex at the window to shatter the glass thereby distracting them before pushing past them out of the doorway.
They heard his feet bounding away down the main entryway and they stared at each other in silence.
“What…?” James asked, unable to complete his question. He looked like he was in physical pain at the sight of seeing Sirius so distraught, so broken.
Harry couldn’t figure out what had happened. Sirius was fine when he got him out of the battle, despite just losing Moony but even then, Sirius didn’t understand the full scope of the situation . He understood seeing James and Lily would rip open some scars but he assumed he would have been delighted to see them.
Did he think wrong? Did Sirius want to move on from this world, never looking back? He thought Sirius would’ve wanted to stay, remembering the plans he had described for him and Harry and the future.
“Maybe he’s just overwhelmed…” Lily answered.
They were happy to see Harry, of course they were, and they yearned to hear what exactly had happened to Harry and where he had gone but this had thrown the entire plan up in the air.
They only knew a small bit of Sirius’ life story, just whatever Harry had told them, so Harry knew he would have to take over now, leading them back together after decades apart.
“I’ll go find him,” Harry responded and they both nodded, James turning back to the mess while Lily started to mend the window.
Harry crept through the house, straining his ears for any sign of Sirius and there was nothing until there was a swoosh followed by the voices of two people shouting angrily in argument.
Harry cursed as he shot after the noise, following the path he had traversed many times.
SIrius was crouched down in front of Walburga’s portrait, looking nothing like the man who proudly talked about running away from home and forsaking everything to do with his ancestral line. He looked more like an abused child, scared at the potential curse his mother would strike him with without hesitation.
“Blood traitor scum! You deserved to rot in Azkaban!” she shouted.
Sirius didn’t reply, just kept his hands over his ears and his head between his knees on the opposite wall.
Harry sighed at Walburga’s familiar tirade of slurs, shut her curtains and silenced her, hoping the spells would last longer this time.
“Sirius…are you okay?” Harry asked, crouching down beside him.
It was a stupid question, obviously he wasn’t okay but Harry needed to understand.
“I- I don’t know what’s happening, I- I’m seeing things, like in Az-Azk” he managed to choke out, unable to even finish the last word and Harry understood now.
He couldn’t tell if any of this was real. Harry remembered the pull of dementors, they way they sucked on one’s happy memories like parasites while forcing them to live out their nightmares. He would never forget Lily’s shrieks as she stood in front of his crib. He felt hopeless in that moment and Sirius had probably relieved his most painful memories repeatedly in his time in Azkaban and that feeling of helplessness was likely exacerbated by the fact that he was in Grimmauld, a home where he had known nothing but hate.
On top of all that, he was just in a duel with a cousin before being transported to an entirely different timeline where he had to leave Remus behind to face a fate he didn’t yet know,
“How about we just go upstairs yeah? Let’s rest,” Harry cooed as if speaking to a small child and Sirius nodded.
He led Sirius upstairs, turning him away from the doorway James and Lily were hopefully waiting in, and put him in a small guest room that was bare except for some furniture, away from his or Regulus’ rooms so as to stave away any unwanted memories that could come back.
He summoned some potions along the way, courtesy of Draco, and administered them to him swiftly. He didn’t want to risk leaving him alone for even a second before they took effect so once he’d downed the Calming Draught and Dreamless Sleep, he took off Sirius’ coat and shoes before lifting the covers and leading him in.
Sirius stopped shaking and he looked at Harry fearfully, “Is this real? Are you real?”
“I am,” Harry said softly, holding his hand and squeezing to assure him of his physicality.
“What about…?” he asked, eyes darting to the shut door.
“I’m real Sirius, now rest” Harry said gently and Sirius finally slumped at that. His muscles released all of their tension and his face smoothed as he fell asleep.
_____
“I can’t believe Sirius…” James said in awe to Lily.
Sirius looked so…old- that was the only way to say it.
Sirius looked nothing like the confident and swaggering youth he once did, or even the strong and bold young adult who fought for the Order, battling death eaters with ease. He looked like a broken down man who had so rarely enjoyed the bounties life had to offer.
When Harry came back downstairs he looked at them sadly, “He’s sleeping now, I think he just needs some time, I pulled him out in the middle of a battle and now the adrenaline’s coming down so…” he trailed off.
James shook his head, crossing the room to Harry.
Sirius needed time, he understood that, but Harry was real and standing in front of him, relatively unharmed. He was littered with cuts and bruises along his face, neck, and hands, but he was standing, speaking, and breathing, and that was enough for James.
“Oh meri jaan ka tota,” James muttered slowly in Harry’s ear, stroking his head in a gesture Harry didn’t know how desperately he needed until now. Harry felt like he had lived a dozen lifetimes in such a short span and in the silence and fragility of this moment, it was all catching up to him.
He didn’t know what it meant but the way James had spoken it so lovingly told him enough.
They sat back down on the sofa and Lily had guided Harry’s head to her lap while James sat next to her, an arm wrapped securely around her shoulders.
While they spoke in hushed tones, Lily absently ran her hand through Harry’s hair and soothed the bumps he had received. He blissfully fell asleep, having never felt safer than in this moment, and James and Lily followed soon after, reassured by the presence of their son next to them, having finally come back after having spent what felt like a lifetime away.
No matter what they would face tomorrow, they were all together, alive and well.
There was nothing more Harry could ask for.