A Vessel Formed

Harry did not sleep in Severus’ bed that night. For the first time since his sixth birthday he did not curl up beside Severus or feel the urge to crawl into his bed.

When Severus had returned from wherever he had been while Draco showed him about the manor Harry had refused to speak to him.

Laying in the silk sheets, a higher quality than he had ever known, his ears rang.

He did not sleep that night, nor would he in the days following because Harry had decided not to speak to Severus and the tension that stretched between them made him feel as if his bones were coming out of his skin.

Severus had warned him. He had told him over and over that the Death Eaters would say anything, do anything, to lure him in — but this? Raise him? Love him? Harry couldn’t wrap his head around it.

Had it always been a lie, a trick, some elaborate ploy?

He wanted to ask but the only person he could interrogate was Severus and he was out of the question. As far as Harry was concerned he would continue to be out of the question for a long time.

Lucious came to the manor. He greeted Harry, as Adam, warmly, offering to buy him all kinds of new outfits and magical toys, suggesting an outing to Diagon Alley, the nearby wizarding shopping district similar to the one he was used to back home. Severus had refused and Narcissa had offered up a plying excuse - Harry hadn’t been listening,

His whole world felt flipped upside down.

He’d always been told to avoid Death Eaters, but one had raised him and he was in the home of another. His greatest fears had come to life.

He wanted to do something. Some vicious part of him, bigger than his body seemed to be capable of containing, knew he should be able to do something. And he had, he’d done something before, he’d taken everything from Black and he’d made Severus sleep, and he had wanted to but now — now he felt small and lost and frustrated because what could he do? If he hurt the Malfoys surely more Death Eaters would appear or Order members and Harry did not want to fall into a cruel cycle.

He wanted to feel safe again.

Harry didn’t feel safe anymore.

The feeling clashed horribly with the things he knew from before, from the voice, from his vision, from his knowing. He knew Severus was his, had been over and over so why was he a Death Eater now? Why was he dangerous? It wasn’t right.

And maybe that was his punishment.

Harry knew he had messed the cycle up, that he had placed his soul into the apples and then, through the fruit, into the bodies of others. He had doomed Arthur, Severus, every incarnation to something terrible - loneliness.

Maybe Severus’ soul was angry. Maybe he resented Harry.

Perhaps he had a right to that.

Maybe it was the voice’s idea of fun. It had said so itself that it enjoyed irony. Maybe its cruel hands were at work as they seemed to have always been.

And so Harry did not sleep. In his bed alone he stared at the wall or out the large window that gave him a view of the estate.

It was a beautiful place.

Lucius came on the third day that Severus and Harry were trapped in the manor. He claimed that his business had kept him away far longer than he had intended it to, although Severus did not trust his words.

He had no reason not to trust him — beyond him having been a Death Eater during the war, as plenty of business could have kept him seeing as he had always had his hands in the Wizarding World’s politics and markets, but his fuse was short. He was making no progress with Black.

It was impossible.

He was skilled in the mental arts, yes, but not dog mental arts. An animal was a completely different, well, animal - or so the saying went. How was he supposed to navigate a dog’s consciousness to try and retrieve the human inside him? Was there a human inside him? Had Harry buried it or gotten rid of it completely? Was Sirius dead in the sense that everything that had ever made him himself had been obliterated? Or was he merely laying dormant in the shell of his animal form?

Severus had no clue.

“What brings you here, after all this time?” Lucius asked over dinner on his first night back

“I’m researching a potion I intend to begin and the manor’s library stood out to me as a starting point,” the reason was beyond weak and he knew it, but between Harry’s silence weighing on him and the daunting task of restoring Sirius, he hadn’t had the time or energy to think of something more viable. And so he had chosen a weak response, hoping and praying that Lucius would see that and in turn fill in his own blanks, make assumptions. People always lied the best to themselves and if he could offer up a sham of a reason Lucius would come up with a reason of his own.

Severus had looked away from the other man, hoping to convey shame and perhaps guilt, an apology of sorts covered in a shoddy excuse that Lucius could cringe at and fill with his own reasons for Severus to have returned.

He did not know if Lucius knew of the Carrickfergus library and as such refused to speak of it around him. Narcissa had made no efforts to tell him otherwise and if that was a plot of some sort or not Severus wasn’t sure.

Lucius’ gaze lingered on his missing arm, where his dark mark had been burned into his skin - now discarded years and years ago. But he said nothing.

“Your Adam is a charming boy,” he offered out of politeness, to keep the table’s conversation flowing. “I saw him out on the grounds with Draco when I arrived back from work.”

“Yes, he seems quite taken with Draco’s crup, Leo - I believe.”

“Leopold, yes,” Lucius said, “has Adam always enjoyed animals?”

“Yes, he’s always been drawn to them,” Severus answered, glad that they had decided to stick to small talk. It was better that way, easier. Salazar knew he had enough on his plate as it were.

Black lunged forward, snarling, mouth open and ready to bite.

Severus pushed him away with a flick of his wand, “Idiot!” He snapped, knowing Black did not understand, but not caring. He’d never wanted to kick a dog more, not that he regularly had the urge. He’d been a murderous Death Eater but he didn’t take joy in hurting animals — but Black? God he wanted to dig the heel of his boot into the mutt’s ribs.

“I’m trying to help you, you useless, mange ridden mutt,” he said, tone murderous. He had been in the room where Black was locked for nearing twelve hours, trapped in the heat and the smell of Black’s leavings and the food he had not eaten, rotten kibble shoved into the corners of their mutual jail cell.

Narcissa had insisted he put in several hours of hands on effort. Severus had been working on research for the past two weeks, but he had not yet attempted anything up close and personal. Narcissa was beginning to grow impatient.

But there just wasn’t much research into the minds of animals — at least none that Severus had access to or had ever heard of. Even animals considered more sentient than others were lacking in research when it came to the magical conceptions of their consciousness and how to command it. Animals such as unicorns and phoenixes had the most research, being that they seemed consciously aware of when and to whom they would appear or be loyal to, but other than that he was out of luck.

Well, he was out of luck generally since witches and wizards didn’t tend ro obliviate animals or try other memory spells. Who wanted to cast legilimens on a dog? Who wanted to view the memories of a chicken in a pensive?

It just wasn’t an area of study.

Narcissa did not seem to care though. She’d forced him from the library in that polite yet threatening way of hers and told him to work with Sirius today.

She had locked the door behind him with a powerful spell and seeing that Malfoy Manor was an old wizarding dwelling, host to a powerful family, the doors were reluctant to open even to some of his best attempts, the wood and latching deferring to the lady of the house in all things.

And so he had faced Sirius and begun a horribly doomed string of attempts to pull his sorry mind back into being. Honestly, it probably wasn’t even worth it, Black had never been that intelligent to begin with. Being a dog just gave him a better excuse to be an idiot.

Now, hours later, Severus was beyond exhausted. The mental arts required power, precision, and stamina. Such spells were draining even with the most agreeable of subjects to work on — something the mutt certainly wasn’t.

He wasn’t sure how much more he could take.

“Come on!” He spat, to himself more than anything, immobilizing Black with a flick of his wrist. He’d had enough of his canine temperament.

Pressing his wand rather cruelly to Black’s forehead, tip digging into the fur and skin, he murmured his incantation, diving back into his work, into Black’s mind.

It was a cacophony of sound and confusion and fear. He tried to narrow in on relevant details, thoughts that felt more cohesive, but that was hard considering Sirius Black had likely never had a coherent thought to begin with, dog or not.

Amongst the noise there was a thread, he had seen it - or well, seeing wasn’t the correct sense. It felt closer, stronger. He had encountered it on his last attempt, but it had evaded him, slipping between his fingers like orb weaver silk into a caldron, far faster than one might expect.

He dug into the sensation now, focused hard upon it and felt his lungs expand with a phantom breath and there, in the noise, was Harry, the smell of him, the knowledge of him, the instinctive drive of the hunt, of tracking him down, a singular purpose.

‘Yes!’ Severus thought.

If he could find the exact moment Harry had taken Black’s humanity away he might be able to work backwards and find his mind. He just needed a starting point, an origin.

Harry’s scent had been found, faded and old, in the Black ancestral home. Severus had tried to wipe away any evidence of Harry away when he had set the fiendfyre blaze in Godric’s Hollow, letting it consume the Potter home, but that hadn’t been enough.

It seemed that Harry had visited his Godfather’s home close to the time of the Dark Lord’s visit and the things Sirus owned for him, toys, blankets, changes of clothes, were still there, tucked away. The scent had been terribly weak, but it had still been there.

Searching through the memories Severus saw Black return to his trunk from high school and pull out an old shirt. That memory flooded Severus’ senses with the smell of James Potter, a scent he had never known, but found similar to Harry’s own. It became clear that Black had been attempting to learn Harry’s smell better by scenting his close relatives — although he didn’t seem to have found anything that smelled particularly of Lily. Still, genetics being what they were, Harry’s scent had become sharper in Black’s mind after he reminded himself of how James had smelled, more focused, more real after all the years apart.

Severus followed Sirius’ hunt.

“The scent went cold here, Remus, right in the yard!” Black said, gesturing to the remains of the Potter home. Years had passed, but he still remembered rushing to his friends’ home after he’d heard the news of the attack.

“What scent?” Remus asked, exasperated, spreading his arms out and looking as if he had gone half mad himself, “fiendfyre was set here! There was no scent! You-Know-Who set the place on fire after —” his words stumbled and his arms dropped. He looked down at the ground, “Sirius, they're gone.”

“Harry’s not!” Sirius insisted, leaning over, feeling the dirt and grass with his palms, curling his fingers into it and tearing it out by the blades. The action had no purpose but he needed to do something, something real and tangible. “The scent ended here, not in the house! I remember!”

“There was no house to scent! It’s all ashes.”

“Listen, Remus!” Sirius said, waving his hand in front of the other wizard, stray bits of grass flying this way and that, “If Harry had died in that fire then there would have been no smell of him, just as there was no smell from James! And think about this, really think, use your damn brain — Lily was laid out in the yard! She wasn’t strewn about like she’d run outside to fight, she was placed! She was placed outside the fire and Harry must have been too, but someone took him! Someone laid Lily out and took Harry, apparated with him.”

“Who would keep Lily out of the fire and steal Harry?” Remus asked, eyes lingering on the mess of ashes. It was difficult to imagine that it had ever been a home. “Certainly not You-Know-Who — he’s too brutal to keep a victim's body from destruction and he let James burn, anyhow.”

“They let James burn. Just James.”

Remus stiffened.

“Whoever it was let James burn, but laid Lily out in the yard and then left with Harry and we’ve seen nothing of them since.”

“You don’t think?” Remus’ gaze met Sirius’.

“He hated James,” Sirius whispered and they both knew who he was.

“Do you think — do you think he killed them?”

“He wouldn’t kill Lily,” Sirius said, even he didn’t hate Snivillus enough to be blind to that truth. Even at the height of his stupidity in school, even as he became a fresh little Death Eater, Snape had never shown the desire to physically harm Lily. Insult her, yes. Call her a mudblood, of course. Tear their friendship to shreds, absolutely. But never kill her. “Besides, the witnesses said they saw You-Know-Who.”

“But nothing else?” Remus asked, trying not to picture Lily’s body, dead and cold in the yard. She’d been found there, alone. Remus hadn’t seen. Part of him felt guilty about that, that he had been too scared to look, to come when he heard what had happened — but part of him was glad. He didn’t know what he would do if his last memories of his friends were Lily pale and still in the grass and James - nothing more than the smell of burnt hair and skin on the wind.

He didn’t know how Sirius did live with it.

“Nothing else. Everyone said they were hiding,” Sirius said and he wanted to add an edge to his voice, to insinuate that they were cowards for not rushing to help James, Lily, and their infant son, but such accusations held little weight. What was one witch or wizard to do in the face of a dark lord? Sometimes it was better to tuck tail.

“So what? Snape just shows up here and?” Remus gestured a bit, not in any particular direction, “tells You-Know-Who not to kill Harry and then makes sure Lily’s body is okay and then just books it to Merlin knows where.”

“I know it doesn’t make sense.”

“You’re goddamned right it doesn’t make any sense,” Remus said, looking down the street and then up it as if someone, somewhere nearby had a logical answer. “And just what happened to You-Know-Who? He’s gone. He’s been gone for a few years now. What? Think he and Snape went off together and decided to raise a kid? Did they get a little cottage in a forest, decide to play dads, kiss each other good night?”

“Disgusting!” Severus heard himself say as he jerked his mind away from Sirius’ own, bile rising to the back of his throat.

The Dark Lord and him? Involved? Living some fairytale nightmare life raising Harry?

Merlin, he was going to be sick.

If he ever saw Lupin again he would hex that damn werewolf black and blue for the institution, for even having that cursed thought. Then he would punish Black for going along with the thought because while he had felt Sirius’ disgust he had also felt him question if Lupin might be onto something.

It was horrid. Severus didn’t know why the Dark Lord had disappeared, but it certainly wasn’t because he had shacked up with him.

Scratch thinking he had wanted to kick Sirius earlier— Severus wanted to strangle him.

“You’ll pay for that thought,” he said, unsure exactly how he would make Sirius pay now when he was powerless to actually do anything considering his need to get into the library. “Lupin too.”

Despite the traumatizing thought of him and the Dark Lord and his ever rising anger towards Sirius, he plunged back into Black’s mind, taking no precautions to go slow and easy.

The night was bright with the full moon. Sirius had always paid close attention to the moon, well, he had for about as long as he could seriously remember— since meeting Remus.

But they were apart from each other now.

No scent of him lingered nearby. Sirius had said goodbye to him days ago. With Harry’s scent cold in Godric’s Hollow they had resorted to searching in wizarding areas for any signs, hoping that something, anything would turn up.

“If you think that Snape stole him then wouldn’t his scent have been in James and Lily’s yard that night?” Remus had asked and admittedly Sirius had been wondering that too. Surely Harry hadn’t wandered off by himself - dragged his mother’s corpse into the yard and vanished.

It had taken him too long to realize why Snape’s scent hadn’t been present - or rather, why it seemed as if it hadn’t been.

“His potions!” Sirius said, one afternoon while searching Diagon Alley, “his damn potions always muddy his smell, the sneak!”

Of course, of course— how had he forgotten such a thing? Snivillus had spied on them while at Hogwarts so many times and a good portion of his successes had come about as a result of him smelling so damned bizarre that his brain didn’t register the scent as human. Remus had a similar struggle and the two of them had learned to smell not only for humans, but for ingredients, for plants, mushrooms, insects, and what have you in places they should not have been.

But in a wizarding community like Godric’s hollow they had expected such smells. Hell, a woman down the street had been making a batch of pepper-upper when they’d returned to inspect the ruins of James and Lily’s home. It had made Remus sneeze.

That Halloween night, in the depths of his panic, fear, and grief, he hadn’t been aware enough to distinguish the smell of potions from the normal smells of the town around him - and certainly not from the fiendfyre, ashes, and James.

“Maybe we’re going about this wrong,” he said, an idea forming in his mind, “we could search high and low for any trace amounts of Harry’s scent and find nothing. But what if we looked for high quality potions?”

Remus looked over at him, the barest twinge of hope in his eyes. “If Snape sells anything we’ll know - or at least, we could narrow things down.”

“Exactly!” That damned snake needed to make money somehow, surely. He’d never had much at Hogwarts; he would need Galleons if he was keeping Harry — for food hopefully. Hopefully he was feeding him.

And so the search had shifted gears. Hunting about nigh aimlessly for a scent trail morphed into asking potions shops about their supply chain, and then darker stores about theirs.

It took a while, frustratingly so — and then a tip off.

In a wizarding community in Ireland called Revellane there had, over the past while, been an uptick in the quality of the under the counter potions sold in a little dark shop named Yeatswrite’s and Yearling’s. It had also seen an increase in the types of potions offered. Clearly, they had acquired a new supplier and the witch of wizard knew what they were doing.

Ireland? A place near enough to wizarding Britain to receive the Prophet, but far enough away to hide. A place with access to wizarding communities, a market, supplies, an income. A place with lush magic forests that stretched for miles.

Sirius had prepared himself for travel as soon as he’d heard. Ireland ticked too many boxes, it was perfect for Snape.

Remus hadn’t joined him. Extended travel was hard on him with his monthly transformation. Being in cities he didn’t know, with little time to take proper precautions, it was dangerous. He hadn’t liked to stay behind, but Sirius had reassured him with a promise of an owl a week at the very least.

The letters passed between them soothed Remus and kept Sirius’ hopes up as he found Revellane and immediately began to search. He wanted something to report back to Remus and soon, he wanted to write, ‘I found Harry.’

Or perhaps, ‘I told you Harry wasn’t dead.’

He wanted to say, ‘We’re coming home soon.’

‘We.’

It was that thought that had lingered as he’d sought out Yeatswrite’s and Yearling’s, holding in his mind’s eye the image of Harry finally being with family. Too many years had already gone to waste. He hadn’t been imprisoned long, but the search had stretched on. Sirius didn’t know how he was going to apologize. How could he after everything Snape had probably done to Harry?

He’d kill the bastard.

Severus was breathing heavily when he pulled himself from Sirius’ mind, he leaned over to press his forehead to the room’s cold tile floor.

All those precautions, every step he’d taken to block his natural scent, to change his and Harry’s names while in public, to ward their home, to lay low and stay low and his potions had given him away.

Damn him!

Severus cursed himself inwardly. He should have thought about that. Back Alley shops had low quality potions, that’s what they were known for - cheap, quick potions that weren’t great but got the job done, especially if the customer shouldn’t have been purchasing them. But his pride had blinded him. Of course he had sold good potions. All of his potions were high quality. He hadn’t thought of making his potions poorly on purpose. Such a thing was disrespectful to the craft,

Even angry at himself, even upset, Severus still hated the idea of making subpar potions. Even knowing they had led Black to him, it was just wrong to plan to do a poor job when it came to potions!

Using something so close to Severus to take him down … that was low. Potions were part of who he was. It had been his only solace in Hogwarts. It was one of the few things he was passionate about and brought him joy and now Black had ruined it.

And what now if they escaped? Black would remember where Harry was hidden, or at least have a general idea.

If they made it out of this they would have to move all over, Last Landing would no longer be Last Landing - his final backup. He’d have to construct a completely new safe house, perhaps using the apartment near Carrickfergus in the meantime if Narcissa didn’t tell Black about how he had gone to the old castle.

“I should have killed you,” he said, even as he knew that wouldn’t have done anything in the long run. Lupin would have found them too. He would have come looking for Black and picked up the trail. It was a wonder he hadn’t already.

What would have happened if Harry had taken everything from Lupin, he wondered. He only transformed during the full moon. There was no animal for him to revert to, no primal existence to hide in.

What would happen if Severus forced Black into his human body? Would he stay a dog, mentally speaking? He already knew Narcissa could not get him to change back. No Finite Incantatem could fix this. But if he could… if he could turn him human, what would Sirius Black be?

He pushed the thought away. He could ruminate on the idea later in bed while he stared at nothing and uselessly hoped that Harry would open his door and sneak into the room with him.

“I need to see what happened,” he said, knowing that was the key to dig out the kernel of Black’s consciousness, because while the memories were present that meant nothing if the spark of personhood, a soul, an essence, whatever you were going to call it, was gone. That spark put everything into perspective and took the stings of memories and made them a person, a constructed being.

If he could find Black’s conscious existence he would be done. He was sure of it.

Severus tried again.

The forest seemed to go on forever. It teemed with life, both magic and mundane, sparrows alongside unicorns. Sirius had been rather surprised to stumble upon a herd, they were such rare things.

He hadn’t caught the scent at Yeatswrite’s and Yearling’s. No, he’d caught something much better, a glimpse of Harry. Or well, of someone he knew was Harry. Snape had covered him in a glamour, but who else could it be?

Snape was disguised too of course, but Sirius knew what he was looking for. He had no doubt in his mind of who he was trailing. Sirius knew far better than to trust his eyes alone. Snape wouldn’t shake him with something so mundane as a glamour, certainly not while so much was at stake.

He had followed Harry and Snape around, careful to remain undetected, marveling at the pair of them. He hadn’t expected Harry to seem so … happy. He seemed to be a normal boy. He clung to Snape, asked him dozens of questions, begged for candy, and carried on about this and that. He seemed so comfortable, so open, as if being with Snape was the most normal thing in the world — as if the man weren’t some horrible, murderous Death Eater.

Sirius had wanted to confront Snivillus then and there, but getting into a fight in an area with multiple witches and wizards was never a good idea. But Snape and Harry smelled of nothing but potions, their scents masked and hard to track and as they’d wandered the shops Sirius had begun to worry about losing them.

That was at least until Snape had stopped to speak to an older witch, one that smelled of tea and a distinctive perfume. Sirius overheard Snape call her by her name —

Moira.

She had asked when Snape would come by her shop. She had said he never came often enough and it had been far too long.

He had promised to come by more often in the future.

Sirius knew exactly what to do.

Waiting for Snape and Harry to leave, he had followed her, shifting back into his human form at an opportune time and casting an imperius spell on her. He wasn’t a fan of using the unforgivables, but he wasn’t a saint either and never claimed to be. Besides, he wouldn’t use her for long.

Changing back into a dog he had willed her to go to her shop, wherever it was, without apparating. If she disappeared he would have lost the scent and lost the chance to find a location Snape frequented. He hoped it would be more private, less frequented by wizards — safer for getting Harry.

And he was in luck, the shop Moira led him to, was a tea shop that sold mostly muggle brews. There were a few magical options in a back room, likely meant for the witches and wizards scattered around who weren’t in the mood to go to the wizarding shopping district for a few small items, but other than that it was a muggle establishment.

They had taken muggle transportation to a small town with a dense forest at its edge and not too far from the coast. The bus had taken almost two hours and the driver hadn’t been too keen on letting him on as Padfoot, but Moira had confunded him easily and they’d settled down in their seats without any other issues.

A while after they had arrived at the tea shop. Sirius released her from the imperius, slinking into the shadows outside to wait. His ears picked up the sound of her muttering to herself, saying something about how she must be getting old.

He settled under a large tree not too far from a playground. He didn’t think Snape would show up that same day, his tone back in the shopping district had suggested otherwise and Moira had made no indication of when she would be back at her tea shop, but he waited all the same. He had to stay vigilant.

He sat, tucked up against the base of the tree, until the sun began to dip into the horizon and an owl alighted on a branch not far above him, a letter tied to its leg.

Checking his surroundings, Sirius transformed, lifting his arm for the bird to land on. She did and he scratched her head gently. She was Remus’, a long eared owl named Otsana who was getting up there in age but still did her job dutifully. Sirius regretted not having anything to give her, no treats or water. Staking out locations was never a comfortable endeavor.

“What did you bring for me,” he said, gently untying the letter around her leg. Given Otsana’s old age Remus was worried about wind resistance during long flights fatiguing her and so he had taken to keeping his messages short and tying them to her leg in the same fashion muggles used to do when using carrier pigeons.

He unfurled the paper, noting that it smelled of Remus, like warm fur, chocolate, and shaving cream. It read simply—

'Updates, love? Stay safe. Yours, RL.’ 

He settled down in the grass and transfigured a stick into a pencil. It wasn’t a quill, but it would do. He’d never been the best at transfiguring ink, something about liquids and his magic didn’t quite mix. He wrote on the opposite side of the paper his news, cramming as much as he could into the tiny space.

 ‘Saw both. Alive. H looks healthy. S same as ever, selling potions to dark shop in Revellane. S has contact with a witch near Galway, Moira. Believe he lives nearby. Attempting extraction soon. Yours, SB'

Tying the letter back to Otsana’s leg, Sirius debated sending her off again, wanting Remus to have his letter in hand as soon as possible. But the night was settling in and while owls were technically nocturnal she’d had a long flight - during the time when she should have been resting, no less. She could use a break.

“It’s not a nice cage or a proper roost, but you’re welcome to stay the night with me,” he offered, changing back to Padfoot and settling down. At least as a dog it was easy enough to sleep outside. He preferred a warm bed, but there were worse things.

Otsana accepted his offer despite the delivery tied to her leg. She settled against his side and Sirius curled around her, nose pressed into her feathers as they both drifted off, resting for the tasks ahead

Moira.

It had been Moira who had led Sirius to them, not on purpose, but she had.

Couldn’t he and Harry have anything? Anything at all? He had taken such pains to hide them, but Moira had become close to the both of them. She was Severus’ only adult contact and well— friend if he was being honest with himself. He had never used the term lightly, but he owed Moira a great debt. She had helped him raise Harry. She had seen his confusion during that first little while with him, when Severus had no idea how to care for a child. She had helped him find what food to give him, what teethers to use, what books were helpful.

Later she had helped him learn about potions for children because although he was a potions master he had never had a great need to explore potions for adolescents. She had shown him vitamin supplement potions to make sure Harry was healthy even when he’d gone through a picky eating phase. She’d shown him a potion that gave the drinker good dreams, a bit like dreamless sleep, but modified so younger takers were safe while also providing colorful, comforting dreams instead of darkness.

She invited him for tea, chatted with him — hell, her grandchildren were the only exposure to other magical children Harry received and he needed that. He needed that connection to others like him, friends, little witches and wizards. Severus believed that. He believed that it was paramount that Harry socialize and experience life in the best way that Severus could provide… because he knew that by taking Harry he had robbed him of so much.

Couldn’t they have anything nice?

Apparently not.

Apparently asking for one single friend, one single bit of normalcy, was just too much.

Severus knew the rest of the story, at least the majority of it.

And yet he pressed forward.

He didn’t skip around or speed up, no, he simply watched it all unfold, knowing he was watching own cage close around him.

Sirius had to wait far longer than he’d expected, a few months to be exact, despite how Snape had seemed to imply he’d be visiting Moira sooner. Otsana came a few more times, carrying words from Remus imploring him to be careful and expressing happiness, worry, excitement, and even strains of grief at the news of Harry being alive.

James and Lily’s son hadn’t been killed, but what had he suffered in all the years they had been separated? Sirius was his godfather and Remus had promised James and Lily over and over that they would protect Harry, love him, and raise him if something happened. They had been so scared of dying before they could see their son grow up. The pressure of the war had been closing in on them, on everyone — and now they were gone.

And Sirius and Remus hadn’t been there for him.

Harry had grown up under the eye of an enemy and although he had not looked damaged or fearful while in public, who knew what Snivillus did to him behind closed doors.

Sirius tried not to imagine it and felt weak for doing so, for shying away from the reality at hand. Over the years the guilt had grown in him like a cavern. Harry was suffering and he could not even bear to face it. Touching the idea of it was worse than a hot iron to the hand and he feared, perhaps more than anything else, that once he saved Harry his godson’s mental scars would linger and he would not be strong enough to provide Harry support. He would gladly kill Snape, face that danger, but the idea of watching Harry shatter frightened him, because he did not know how to deal with the grief inside of himself let alone within others.

He tried to focus on his mission even as the days blurred together and the spring turned to the heat of summer and he realized that Harry’s birthday had come and gone. He’d be six now.

Thankfully, not too long after, as July drifted into August, Snape appeared, Harry bounding along with him. He looked fine, but there were dark circles under his eyes. It was clear he had not been sleeping.

Sirius wanted to growl, he wanted to rush forward and snatch Harry up, keep him from whatever it was that Snape was doing to him to keep him awake at night, but he didn’t. He stayed still and waited, watching closely, ears perked at attention.

Snape and Harry entered the tea shop, but came out a few minutes later. Snape looked concerned as he spoke lowly to Moira, the witch nodding along beside him as they sat at a bench in front of the children’s playground not far from where Sirius had camped out. He couldn’t catch what they were saying, so he focused the most he could on Harry who, despite how tired he may have appeared, still wanted to play.

It warmed Sirius to know that despite whatever Snape had done to him, Harry still wanted to play, was still a little boy who could find joy and wonder in the world.

Harry picked up a stick and waved it about, not like a wand, but like a sword - slashing it through the air. Sirius would have smiled had he been human. He imagined Harry wielding the sword of Gryffindor, using the legendary blade to cast his enemies aside.

It wasn’t long after that that Harry spotted him.

Sirius stiffened as Harry looked at him, as he pointed and exclaimed that he could see a dog. Harry told Snape and Snape’s eyes lifted to his and it didn’t matter that they were far from one another, that Snape was in the park and Sirius was across the road, on a hill, Snape knew exactly who he was.

He felt a jolt of cold panic slide through him. His cover was blown. Snape knew who he was and what he was doing and there was no way around that.

It wasn’t long after that Snape and Harry left, Snape practically dragging Harry away.

Sirius ran.

He had scanned the area time and time again while waiting for Snape to make an appearance and had, in his time studying the town, planned out what he would do if Snape ran. He ducked behind an alley, transforming back, wand at the ready and laid down as many anti-apparition wards as he could. There were several alleyways to cover, numerous spots Severus could choose from, but Sirius made quick work of it. He had narrowed down which options Snape was most likely to take, placing his magic the thickest in the alleyways that stuck out as the safest for Snape to duck down.

His calculations won out. While placing a ward in an alley that he didn’t think Snape was too likely to use, his magic alerted him to an apparition attempt about half a block away.

Running at top speed he skidded into the alley where he found a ward tossed up, a quick shield that distorted the figure behind. He couldn’t see or hear anything beyond it, but he shouted anyway.

“Hey! You may be fucking disguised but I know what my godson smells like! Just like I know what you smell like, Snape.”

Snape’s shield dissolved and a stupefy whizzed by his head, crackling with energy. Sirius felt as if his hackles should have been raised, even while in human form - it had been so long since he’d fought a powerful enemy, he had forgotten the feeling.

He ducked, moving fluidly as he cast a body binding curse. Snape jerked away from it, just managing to avoid the streak of light which slammed into the brick wall, scattering shards and dust everywhere.

The battle stretched on from there, the both of them trading spells and blows. The sounds were overwhelming, crashes, bangs, the pops of electricity and cracks of thunder.

“Where is he,” he demanded, “I know he’s alive!”

He was alive and Sirius was going to take him, going to bring him home where he belonged. Sirius was going to keep his promise to James, to his best friend. He was going to keep Harry safe.

“Not even you can hide from me. Not now that I caught a whiff of you. I thought I’d had plenty of that back when you used to skulk about Hogwarts, leaving your smell behind the tapestries. You must have thought you were so clever.” He yelled over the battle, taunting Snivillus, wanting him to know that no matter what he did Sirius would find him, find Harry, and stop him from doing whatever horrible things he did to James’ son. “You were a snoop back then and you’re a snoop now, sticking your greasy nose where it doesn’t belong!”

Sirius poured his anger into the fight, firing off spell after spell even as his arm began to ache and a curl of exhaustion wound around his spine. His adrenaline pushed him through it. He was going to save Harry. He had to.

“Where is he?” He yelled again, and even tired his spells grew stronger, his magic crackling around him in his rage. He wanted to sink his teeth into Snape, wanted to tear him to shreds for daring to touch James and Lily’s son. How dare he. “What have you done to him?”

It was something. Sirius didn’t know what but Snape had done something. He had to have. People like Snape were not kind. Snape knew nothing but cruelty. As a Death Eater he was lower than scum, a horrible hollowed out shell of a man kowtowing to a murderous madman. Surely he had done something to Harry, something horrible, cruel, disgusting even. His mind ran rampant with scenarios.

“He’s mine,” Snape snarled and Sirius saw red.

His fingers twitched around the base of his wand, an unforgivable curse on his lips and he’d never wanted to use one more, never wanted to summon that bolt of green that had cut down so many of his allies, more than he did in that very moment. And he knew it would be easy - just two simple words. He could taste the ‘avada kedavra’ on his tongue, iron cold against the back of his teeth.

He clenched his jaw and ran forward instead.

“Like hell!” He yelled, too angry to stop attacking but knowing he couldn’t curse Snape. James had been killed with the avada, so had Lily, so had many people he had known. He wouldn’t stoop to the level of a dark wizard, no matter how angry he was.

Such moral platitudes didn’t stop him from discarding his magic altogether and swinging at Snape as if they were common muggles in a bar fight. Snape dodged the first two swings, but it was clear he wasn’t used to physically fighting with just his one arm - if at all really, and his center of balance was thrown easily enough, he tumbled to the ground and Sirius followed after him.

Snape rolled over him and pinned him, holding him down by the throat. For a moment Sirius was shocked that Snape did so. He would have thought the other man would hex or curse him immediately. But it seemed his physical attack had knocked the both of them back to their more animalistic instincts, Snape’s fingers hard around his windpipe.

“Bastard,” Snape hissed, “You fucking bastard!”

Sirius reached out and wrapped his hands around Snape’s neck in response, legs kicking out underneath them, scuffling in the dirt, an instinctive reaction.

He may not have wanted to kill Snape with the avada, but he still wanted to kill him. And really Snape had started it, trying to choke him first. Perhaps Snape just wasn’t worth the magic. He’d always been a waste of space — being a waste of magic wasn’t far fetched. Sirius laughed at the thought.

Stupid, useless, Snivillus about to die in the dirt, in a back alley, killed by muggle means.

Served him right.

His laughter grew as they struggled and it became clear that he had an advantage with his two arms. Snape may have had him pinned, Sirius too tired to truly buck him off, but he was cutting off Snivillus’ air faster and more efficiently than Snape could hope to do to him. It was only a matter of time.

At least until Snape jolted and a shock of electricity poured into Sirius, directly from Snape’s hand and into his throat. He choked and spasmed, convulsing with the charge. His muscles tensed and jerked, the smell of burning hair and static filled the air. Sirius’ mind whited out momentarily.

Snape rolled off him, but Sirius wasn’t going to let him get away with such a cheap trick. Whatever magic Snape had cast it had been weak. Sure it had been strong enough to shock him in the moment, but it was easily shaken off and forgotten, Sirius’ body recovering quickly.

He scrambled up, muscles aching but ready, arm wrenching back. He punched Snape in the face, hard. His fingers popped with the action, joints retaliating and he felt the blunt burn of a jam working its way up his thumb. He hadn’t curled his fist right in the heat of the moment. It hurt like a bitch, but Sirius pressed ever forward. He needed to finish this, now. Who knew where Harry had run off to. With every second he was likely running further and further away.

He kicked Snape in the chest, a sick curl of satisfaction filling him as he felt the other man’s ribs give unnaturally. Good. He wanted to leave Snape with broken bones.

Exhaustion was beginning to overtake him and he had to lean against the alley wall, but still as he kept kicking, he demanded, “Where is he? Where did you send him? I saw him in the park, you filthy Death Eater! I saw him! You disguised him, but it was Harry!”

Snape did not answer and Sirius knew it was because he was laying into him, kicking him over and over, forcing the air out of him and his broken bones further into the soft tissues of his chest, but still it incensed him. “If you hurt him!”

Snape’s body, which was tense with pain, curled up defensively, went lax, his head rolling to the side and Sirius realized he was going to kill him before Snape could answer. Snivillus was either going to pass out or die and then Harry would be lost again.

And the thought almost made him stop attacking. But in the end what truly gave him pause was a voice and the appearance of a boy at the other end of the alley.

“Let him go!”

Harry was disguised, but it was him. Sirius knew it was him.

His knees went weak. He wanted to collapse.

Snape mumbled against the dirt, “Merlin— no, no,” and happiness filled Sirius. He was going to win. He was going to win and take Harry home. Harry was going to be safe now, finally. Finally he would be with family and everything would be okay.

“Harry?” He asked and his vision blurred with hot tears. They would be home as soon as tonight. After so many years. “God, Harry, it’s you.”

Harry ran towards Snape and Sirius wanted to lunge forward, to grab him, to disapparate, to leave the filthy alley behind and start moving on with their lives.

But Harry’s hand was on Snape’s robes and the two of them were gone.

Sirius stared, unseeing, static pressing into his ears.

They were gone.

Snape shouldn’t have had the energy to apparate normally, let alone with the wards Sirius had cast around the alley. But there he was, alone between the buildings.

Harry had been right there, right there, an arm's length at most and now he was just gone — gone and Sirius knew Snape would not be stupid enough to return to the town he had been staking out. He would not come to Moira’s tea shop or take Harry to the park. He likely would not even return to the magical shopping district to Revellane to sell his potions.

He would run.

He would run and Sirius would have to start all over again and tell Remus of how he had failed. He would have to start over and know that he could have saved Harry sooner, that he could have taken Harry home, that it could have been over.

He screamed.

“I would have run,” Severus said, mostly to himself as he pulled from Sirius' mind to sit momentarily in the dark. He was sweating, trembling, body aching with the memory of the fight. His ribs hurt despite having seen the event from a different perspective, phantom pains, his own memories seeming to tangle with Sirius’ own. It was always so odd to see the self through the eyes of others.

And worst of all was Sirius’ conviction.

He hated the dog, mutt, man — whatever you wanted to call him, but the truth was he loved Harry. The truth was Severus too had fought, and would fight, tooth and nail to ensure Harry’s safety. The truth was that, despite his hatred for Sirius, Severus could not begrudge him those feelings.

He fell back against the tile and breathed slowly, purposefully, taking in great lungfuls of air. He needed a break, a proper one, and he knew it. So much mental magic was not good for the caster or the castee.

Shaking, he felt the great desire to summon a house elf and request food, water, juice of some sort - sugars to replenish him. It was likely that Black wanted the same, that he was hungry and tired. But there was work to be done and Severus wanted to see the rest.

“I would have — would have taken Harry far away, America maybe, or Brazil.” But he hadn’t, couldn’t, not with the mystery of the library looming over their heads as it had for a year now. Too long. Things were taking too long.

Maybe this wasn’t the best avenue, he was beginning to get that feeling, but he wanted all the information he could get so he held out hope that he would find the thread of Black’s consciousness in the mess of his mind, find his soul and thread it into his wand and back to the surface, that he would render the dog human again. He needed, at the very least, one last memory and then - then he could determine if he needed a new approach.

Pushing himself up, Severus took in one last gulp of air, steadying his hand.

For the first time since he began, Severus was gentle when he slipped into Sirius’ mind.

In the forest, under tall evergreen trees and spiraling leaves, Sirius hunted. He could not recall how long he had been there. Forever felt correct, but it couldn’t have been.

He hadn’t been born there, after all. Of that much he was sure.

It hadn’t been long after the alley fight that he had taken off towards the forest. He had hoped not to enter it. If Hogwarts had taught him anything it was that magical forests were not to be trifled with. But in his desperation he had run towards it.

Camped out above the children’s playground, watching Moira’s shop, he had become suspicious of the forest. If a wizard wanted to hide, surely that would have been the place to do it.

He had been able to see it, far in the distance, from his little spot on the hill. He could feel and smell its magic on the wind.

If he wanted to catch Snape while he was still weakened from the fight then he needed to go now.

He ran into the forest, adrenaline driven, grief filled, and did not think of the consequences.

The seasons changed.

Sirius could not remember the last time he had been in his animagus form for so long. He changed back every now and then in the beginning, but being a dog was easier - safer too. A lot of magical creatures were willing to ignore a dog, whereas they were attentive, if not hostile, to a wizard.

He tripped wards, he knew he did, he could feel them and when he did he became confused and turned around. Why had he come to the forest to begin with?

He wandered, sniffed the air and ground frequently. He was hunting. He knew that.

Every now and then Harry’s name would float to the forefront of his mind and he would remember. He would realize that Snape’s wards were confunding him and try to leave the forest, but it stretched on and on and he could not find its end.

Sometimes he would stare, through the dark and the leaves, up at the moon and wonder why it was that it was so big. He had never seen it so large. He had always paid close attention to the moon and he had never seen it so close.

After those nights, hours wasted looking to the sky, he would not remember Harry’s name for a very long time.

The seasons changed.

Winter was the hardest. Finding a place to rest and stay warm felt impossible. He could make fire, he knew, of course he knew, but when he tried to become human again it wasn’t easy, it exhausted him. He was missing something. He felt like half the man he had been before.

He was always hungry, always tired. His ribs poked through his fur.

The nights were longer and so the moon was brighter still and there was someone he desperately wanted, two people, a man and a boy. He did not know where they were.

The snow fell heavy. He wanted to close his eyes, maybe forever. Dogs did not hibernate, but oh how he wished they could. He lost count of the times he tucked his nose under his tail and prayed he would become warm.

The seasons changed.

The forest never looked the same. There were no known paths, no scents to leave behind and refer back to. Nothing.

There were more wards now, he was almost sure. He had a migraine nearly every day. He caught sight of two bucks slamming their antlers together and wished that he was one of them. Perhaps if something knocked him in the head the fog and pain would clear.

He followed one buck around for a long while. It looked familiar. He trailed behind it, letting it meander the both of them through the forest. It found a doe at one point and Sirius thought, 'that’s not quite right', but of course it was. The buck was a buck and it was spring and soon there would be a fawn and wasn’t he… wasn’t he looking for a child too?

Sirius found the buck and doe mauled to death one morning. Some creature must have gotten them. He stared at their bodies for a long while, horrified in a way he no longer understood.

He had seen this before, he was sure. Some other poor creatures cut down before their time.

He ate from them what he could. He was starving.

There wasn’t a fawn in sight.

The seasons changed.

It was summer again.

Again.

It had been summer before, back when he had entered the forest and it was summer now and the days were long and warm and the nights were shorter.

Clarity came to Sirius, in bursts and false starts. He refused to look at the moon. He cast his eyes downward and determined to push through, to find what he was looking for — Harry.

The boy's name was Harry and he was a wizard too.

He changed back into a man and stretched, flexed his fingers, and found, to his horror, that his wand was missing. Somewhere in the year that had passed his wand had been lost. It wasn’t all that surprising.

He thought of Remus and his chest ached. A year — he’d been in the forest for a year and had not once managed to speak to the other man. He must have been out of his mind with worry. Or perhaps he believed Sirius dead and was out of his mind with grief instead.

He walked for days, unable to apparate, praying he had chosen the right direction and then he met wards, stronger than the ones he had stumbled into before and painful.

He remembered Snape’s hand around his neck, the jolt of energy that had poured into him. It had been easy enough to recover from then, but not now.

With a gasp he fell to the ground, the world spinning around him. Vaguely he understood what this meant. This ward was stronger than the others, meant to damage, not simply confuse and deter. He was close. He was close to his goal and if Snape hadn’t run then he was close to Harry.

His vision swam, gray pressed in and then black. The forest bled away.

.
.
.

When he woke he found he was a dog again and he’d never changed in his sleep, of that he was rather certain. He wanted to change back, but he was tired and sore and his animal body always seemed to take pain better than his human one. He was scared of becoming trapped again as he surely must have been before, lost and confused in the forest, unable to remember to change, but the grass beneath him was warm and soft and the wards in front of him were stable.

He would stay and watch them for now and then, once he felt fully recovered, he would investigate the wards with a clearer head. It was going to be difficult without a wand.

The sun rose and fell two more times before anything happened. Sirius did not look at the moon.

And then, in the midday, the sun high above, the wards shivered and the woods he had seen beyond, the illusion of the forest, fell away.

And Merlin oh his throne, Harry stood before him.

He had been roused from slumber, jolted into awareness, and he was glad he had.

‘Harry!’ He said, only to bark and realize he needed to change back into his human form.

He did so with too much effort. Why did it always feel hard to change in this forest?

It didn’t matter, not now. Harry was in front of him and Sirius wasn’t about to lose him again.

“Harry!” He said, as he stretched fully into his human body and registered that the figure a good ways away in the clearing surrounding a cottage was Snape crumpled awkwardly in the grass. Had Harry done that? Had something happened?

He hit the ward with his hand before he could think better of it and flinched, expecting pain that never came. That was good. Whatever Harry had done to the wards it had weakened them enough not to hurt Sirius. He might be able to work with that.

“Harry, thank Merlin you’re okay!” He asked as he tried to think of how to get Harry out.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Harry asked and the sound of his voice made Sirius flinch with surprise.

“Harry! You can hear me?” He hadn’t expected that to change too. If Harry could change so much about the wards maybe he could get Harry to let him in. But why— why would Snape allow Harry, his captive, so much control over the wards. It didn’t make sense.

“I can,” Harry said, clearly nervous and his voice pulled Sirius from his questions. He could wonder about Snape’s actions later. He could dissect every moment of the past few years searching for Harry after he had gotten them to safety.

“I’ll get you out of there I promise!” He said, lowering himself to his knees so he was face to face with his godson. Merlin, he looked so much like James. He hadn’t seen Harry undisguised and now he was almost grateful that he hadn’t. Harry’s looks pulled up years of guilt inside him. How could he have left Harry to this for so many years? How could he have failed so completely in the one job James had given him?

“I don’t want to get out,” Harry said, his gaze breaking with Sirius’ own to glance quickly back, like he didn’t want Sirius to notice. “I want you to leave us alone so Rus can sleep.”

Sleep? Snape was asleep?

Snape knew Sirius had tripped his wards and he was asleep, outside, on the ground?

Again, he could think about the inconsistencies later.

“Rus?” He asked, trying to keep Harry’s attention on him as he desperately tried to think of a way to get inside. How would he even fight if he did? “Is that what he told you his name was?”

“Yes.” Harry answered, “You’re an Order member.”

Sirius paused, he hadn’t really expected Snape to have told Harry about the Order, or about how he was a member. Harry was still shaking. He looked so scared. What had Snape told him? Had he threatened Harry? Surely he would hurt Harry if he found out they had spoken. “Yes. Yes Harry, I am. I am and I’m here to save you.”

“From what?”

What?

Didn’t Harry know Snape was going to hurt him? Hadn’t Snape already hurt him? Wasn’t that why he was frightened?

“From him Harry, from Snape.” His voice held an edge of desperation that he wanted to school back into control, but he failed, worry pouring into him.

“No.” Harry said.

“No? What do you mean no?” Harry was likely under the imperius. That was the only explanation. Snape was controlling him. He pushed his hands against the wards, testing them “I don’t know what he has told you, how he has poisoned your mind, but Snape is a bad wizard, he’s a bad man, and I’m going to save you.”

“Rus is not a bad wizard.”

Bullshit.

Snape was one of the worst wizards Sirius knew.

“He’s got you under some kind of mind control! He’s got you imperiused or on a potion of some sort! Please believe me. I was one of your father’s best friends!”

“Who was that?”

The wind was knocked out of him. Who was Harry’s father? The question cut him to the quick. He pressed his forehead to the ward between them, wishing he could pull Harry into his arms, “James…”

“He’s dead too, isn’t he?” Harry asked and a lump of heat rose in Sirius’ throat, burning behind his nose and eyes. Snape had denied Harry so much. He had taken him from Sirius, from his family and he hadn’t even told him who his father was and what did he intend to do with Harry for the entirety of his life … keep him here in the forest, hidden away from other witches and wizards? He couldn’t have planned to let Harry go to Hogwarts. He denied him family, friends, an education, the knowledge of who he was — everything.

And for what?

Just to make some sick point of some kind? Just because he was a spiteful, pathetic bastard who wanted to take the last remnant of James and Lily and ruin him?

Sirius couldn’t stand it.

“Yes,” he managed, even though he couldn’t hold back his tears. “Please, I’m your Godfather, James and Lily wanted me to raise you if anything happened to you. I’m your family.”

“Rus is my family.”

Harry spoke with such self assurance, such confidence, that the sadness burning through Sirius curdled into anger. How dare Snape not only refuse to tell Harry about his true family, but poison his mind with the idea that he was Harry’s family instead.

He slapped his hand to the ward “No! No, Harry he’s not!” He curled his hands into fists and began beating at the ward, shoving against it. He had had enough of this. Harry had had enough of this. Sirius was going to get him out. “He’s an evil man! He’ll hurt you, has hurt you!”

But of course Snape’s magic didn’t budge, and of course he couldn’t get into the clearing. As desperation overtook him he tried clawing at the ground despite knowing full well that that wasn’t how magic worked and he could likely dig to the center of the earth and be unsuccessful.

When Harry spoke next his voice was frighteningly cold, “Leave, Black.”

Sirius paused, looking up, searching his eyes. He had never expected Harry to call him that and especially in that tone that reminded him so much of Snape and how he’d spit his last name while they were in Hogwarts, how his voice would curl around the letters with disdain.

Harry touched his hand to the ward and without anymore warning than that Sirius was shoved back hard.

“What are you—” the ward continued to push against him, forcing his heels to dig into the dirt as he uselessly tried to stop it. How was Harry expanding Snape’s magic? He didn’t have a wand, he wasn’t saying an incantation, and besides he was a child and this did not feel like an outburst of immature magic. No, Harry’s hand was set calmly on the ward, magic pouring out of him, intentional and calculated.

Sirius tried to use some of his own magic, but he wasn’t too skilled in wandless spells and certainly not strong enough after a year in the woods. He couldn’t have hoped to do anything no matter how hard he tried.

“I’m telling you to go, now!” Harry said and shoved his and Snape’s magic hard against Sirius, flinging him back against a pine tree.

He slammed into the wood, the branches rattling above him. His back ached with the pain and he knew he’d have a bruise up the length of his spine, black and dark purple, but he didn’t care.

Something fell onto him, a twig, surely. It tangled in his hairy, catching in the knots he had not brushed in a year, sending itself dangling in front of his face. He moved to brush it out of his eyes, but his hand stuck to it. It was covered in sap.

Clenching his fingers around it he moved to tug it out, to discard it, anger and aggravation lighting up his every thought. But as his fingers curled around the wood a jolt of familiarity struck him and pulling it, taking hair with him, he found his wand, returned miraculously to his hand.

What the hell? He looked about, glanced upwards to the sky then thought better of it. It wasn’t night, he reminded himself, it wasn’t night but he felt that if he looked up he would see something he couldn’t stomach seeing. The wards felt all at once, not merely in front of him, but above, pressing in. Terror dripped down his spine.

His wand had been returned to him, but he felt weaker than ever. He got the sick sense that he was being toyed with, that this was all some game he wasn’t aware he’d been playing.

Something was horribly wrong.

He brandished his wand anyway. It was all he knew how to do.

“I won’t!” He yelled but Merlin, he sounded frightened.

“Leave!” Harry said and the pressure from the sky pushed down again and Sirius envisioned, momentarily, his body in a weight press, ground down like an olive for oil.

He needed to run. Every last instinct inside him was telling him to run but he couldn’t, not without Harry. He wouldn’t lose him a third time. He couldn’t.

“No! I’m rescuing you Harry! Please! I’ve been looking for you for so long! I never stopped! Please …” panic and desperation poured from him, an unstanched wound. He aimed his wand at the ward but no spell would come to him. Something above him laughed.

“Please, Harry, I never stopped looking for you. I love you.” He said, but he couldn’t quite hear the words. He got the feeling that he should have said I love you already, that he should say it and never stop because he might not get the chance to do so again.

“Leave and forget.”

Sirius shook his head. The motion made him dizzy. “No Harry, no. I could never forget about you.”

But he had.

He had forgotten while in the forest. He had lost track of time, of Harry, of Snape, of Remus, of James and Lily, and of the Order. All of it, Sirius had at times forgotten all of it.

The pressure from above sank on and into him.

It hurt.

The thing in the sky laughed. Sirius swore for a moment it was night, swore that the moon swallowed the sun.

An eclipse.

“Leave, Black. And forget.”

The world went dark.