Chapter 4
Without any rush, Harry walked around the house looking for the kitchen and really taking in the gothic theme. Everything around him was some sort of black or gray. Occasionally, however, Harry was able to see some dark purple. He remembered in muggle elementary school how the history teacher talked about purple signaling royalty in some cultures. The Blacks really thought highly of themselves, didn’t they? Any portrait he passed looked like they had rotten food placed right under their nose and Harry was a bit creeped out by all the beheaded house elf heads on the walls. That was a bit strange.
After wandering for a bit, he finally was greeted with the smell of bacon, sausages, and eggs. Entering the kitchen, Harry took notice of the table. In addition to the foods he had smelt, the table contained toast, butter, jam and a variety of fruit. There were several drinks placed at the center of the table, including pumpkin juice, milk, coffee and tea.
Sitting at the table were the Weasley kids, minus Bill and Charlie, Mr. Weasley, Hermione, Sirius, Tonks and a few strangers. Everyone seemed to be too invested in their conversations to notice him enter. On the other hand, Mrs. Weasley, who was currently standing up and cooking, seemed to notice him right away.
“Harry! I was just about to send someone to find you! Come, eat while the food is still hot. Why didn’t you sleep in the room with Ron? Was it his snoring, dear? I understand. Anyways, don’t think I forgot how skinny you are! Have a large meal,” Mrs. Weasley said in a way of greeting.
Wow, casually insulting his weight, totally not making him insecure.
“Thanks for the food,” Harry responded a bit awkwardly.
He didn’t really know what to say to that.
“Oh it's no problem, Harry! Really, my children should take after your manners. They always take everything for granted,” she grumbled, turning back to the stove.
Walking over to the table, Harry was met with a dilemma. Where should he sit? He didn’t want to sit near Ron or Hermione and he still didn’t know what to think about Sirius. He didn’t want to sit next to strangers and the spots near the Weasley twins were all taken. There was a spot that was next to Ginny at the end of the table but Harry didn’t really feel up to dealing with her less than subtle attempts at flirting.
Harry considered all his options and decided that he should sit next to the strangers. There was a possibility they might be Boy-Who-Lived-Obsessed and then wouldn’t stop trying to talk to him, but they also might just ignore him. He was willing to take his chances. Besides, it looked as though most of them hadn’t had their morning coffee yet.
Taking a seat, Harry politely greeted the three strangers around him. The person to the right of him and in front of him politely responded and then returned to their meal. The last stranger on the left, however, looked Harry up and down, grunted and then continued reading the edition of the Prophet he had been holding. Oof. That kind of stung. Thankfully, all three of the strangers hadn’t tried to start a conversation with him so he was free to just enjoy breakfast in silence. Well, as silent as it can get with the rest of the table having loud conversations.
For breakfast, Harry decided to go light and have some toast with jam and coffee. Since he hadn’t eaten much in a while, Harry didn’t want to have something too heavy or that was too large. It would be a shame if he threw up the first real meal he had had in a while. He just hoped Mrs. Weasley didn’t say anything. What happened to that chocolate bar Ms. Figg had given him? It must have fallen out of his pants when he was flying. How sad.
Before the first task, Harry had actually hated coffee. It tasted too bitter for his sweet tooth. When he started losing even more sleep because of increased nightmares, anxiety from the trials and stress of school work piling up, he decided to give coffee another chance. This time, he was smart enough to add some creamer. That made his coffee taste ten times better. While coffee didn’t keep him as awake as a Pepper Up potion did, it was usually more readily available.
Harry was taking his time eating and minding his own business, thinking about what he was going to do with his day, when Mrs. Weasley interrupted his peace.
“Harry! You really need to eat more, you’re as skinny as a twig! You're a growing, athletic boy, you need more food. Here, eat,” Mrs. Weasley fussed while adding bacon, sausage, eggs and fruit to his plate.
He already felt full with his toast. There was no way he could eat all this, so he wasn’t going to.
“Oh, I'm really not that hungry,” Harry told her.
He was trying to stay polite since she had worked hard to make all this food and its stupid to anger the person who gives you what you eat.
“Don’t be silly! You must be hungry considering how skinny you are. Really, do you ever eat?” she scolded him.
Sweet Merlin, why would she say that? He understood sort of where she was coming from. He thought she thought she was being caring or something, but she really wasn’t. Harry didn’t know how many more comments about his weight and lack of food he could take before he just got up and left. Thankfully, Fred and George joined the conversation.
“Mum, leave Harry-”
“-alone, he’ll eat when he’s
“-hungry. He just woke up, some people-”
“-aren't hungry first thing-”
“-in the morning,” George finished.
Harry didn't know how he could tell the twins apart but he just could. It was just like their auras were different. Really, everyone had a different aura. Sometimes, he could even tell when someone was coming before he saw them because of this aura.
He started noticing that he could ‘feel’ people during 3rd year when he was scared his godfather was going to jump out of a corner and kill him. That fear caused him to start paying more attention to his surroundings. When he realized that he was noticing people's presence before he even physically saw them, he made the connection that he was feeling their aura or at least something like that. Everyone had a different feel, which is how he knew which person was near him. He had no clue how to describe this feeling. It was more of a mental feeling, like he just had that feeling in his brain.
When thinking about what this aura could be over the summer, he came to the conclusion that it was probably people's magic. He came to this conclusion because he could never feel any of the muggles, but he could feel his trunk, which had his magic in it. Even before he came to the realization that what he was feeling was magic, he started learning how to stretch that feeling.
Knowing how to stretch that feeling was pretty much instinctual. He just knew how to do it. Obviously, it took time to expand how far he could stretch his magic, but knowing how to actually stretch it was all just instinct. By now, he could probably stretch it a few meters past the size of Grimmauld place. One day. he hoped to reach further.
Snapping back to the conversation at hand, Harry glanced around him. He had completely zoned out and forgot that people were talking. Looking around, he tried to see what other people's reactions were in order to try and understand what was happening again. Many people were listening in and the tone of Fred, George and Mrs. Weasley wasn't exactly friendly.
“But, I’m concerned for him!” Mrs. Weasley exclaimed.
“That doesn’t-”
“-mean you need-”
“-to force-”
“-food down his-”
“-throat,” Fred finished.
“I’ll eat more later Mrs. Weasley. I’m not all that hungry,” Harry promised.
Mrs. Weasley scrunched her face in thought while biting her lip for a bit, seemingly considering something.
Eventually, she said, “Okay, if you say so, but you must have a large lunch. I really am concerned for you dear.”
“Right, I’m gonna freshen up a bit,” Harry replied and left without saying another word, not without shooting the Weasley twins a grateful glance though.
Harry hated how he had such conflicting thoughts about how to feel about Mrs. Weasley. On the one hand, she made him extremely insecure about his body and couldn’t respect a boundary to save her life. On the other hand, she is the closest thing he had ever had to a mother. The first time he had met her at the station she had welcomed him with open arms. After only meeting him once, she sent him a Weasley Sweater. Harry still had every single one, even if the first year and second year ones no longer fit him.
Somehow, she had been even more welcoming when he had with her family unannounced during the summer of Third Year. She was always kind to him, going out of her way to make sure he was comfortable, even though sometimes her attempts to make him comfortable made him uncomfortable. The biggest thing that made him uncomfortable when he was staying with herwas the comments she made, and not always just about his weight.
Don’t get him wrong, he was more than grateful for her hospitality. It was just, she always made assumptions about him. She assumed that he chose not to eat. She assumed that he wanted to become an Auror. She assumed that he wanted to marry some pretty girl one day. ‘Like Ginny’ she always said. It just rubbed him the wrong way. This is why he tended to avoid the woman as much as he could. He just didn’t know what to do about her. As he was thinking, he was stopped by Sirius in a small hallway.
“Harry, I um… I wanted to talk to you. Well, more like I wanted to ask you something. Uhm… Are you mad at me?”
Harry rolled his eyes and gave Sirius that ‘you’re an idiot’ sort of look. The answer should be obvious. Sirius gave a sad sigh in response to Harry’s actions.
“Right, I guess you are. Look, I’m really sorry about not sending you letters this summer and I'm sorry about not inviting you here. Trust me, I wanted to. It's just Dumbledore said you would be safer there because of the whole He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named rising thing. I want you safe, cub,” he defended himself.
“Sirius, you're telling me you couldn’t come up with one way to send an undetectable letter. You, a Marauder, not being able to get away with something? Doesn’t that go against the name or something?” Harry pointed out.
“But… Dumbledore said no!” Sirius whined, like that was the only excuse he needed.
He was acting so much like a child Harry was surprised he hadn’t crossed his arms and stomped his foot yet.
“Mhm, and if Dumbledore told you to jump off a roof, would you?”
“Well, it depends. Did he have a good reason?”
“Merlin, do you realize how fanatical you sound?”
“Harry! Dumbledore knows what he is doing!” Sirius suddenly shouted, flailing his arms and escalating the situation.
Harry took a step back, trying to distance himself a bit. Harry knew logically that Sirius wouldn’t hit him, but the stupid Dursleys had made him wary of everyone. At one point in his life, he thought the Dursley’s would never hit him as well.
“Sure,” Harry said flatly.
Surprisingly, Sirius seemed to calm down a bit and even put down his arms. Sirius then created a bit more space between them, allowing Harry to feel less trapped. While he was thankful for what Sirius did, he had a knowing look in his eye that Harry didn’t like.
“Harry, Dumbledore has done so much for you. I just don’t understand how you couldn’t be a bit grateful to the man.”
Harry just laughed in disbelief. Was this dude actually brainwashed or something? Be grateful, he said. To that man? Yeah, no thank you. What a funny joke. Harry took in Sirius’s body language. He was a bit tense and anxious. He seemed oddly desperate for Harry to accept his words. It was like he needed Harry to believe these words so he could believe them as well.
Was Sirius actually questioning Dumbledore? That would be great, yet probably too good to be true.
“Please, I get what I did was wrong. You just have to understand that all I ever have wanted to do is protect you, from the moment you were born, pup. Dumbledore said that not sending you letters was the best way to keep you safe so that is what I did. He also said that you would be safer with the Dursleys. Dumbledore has always been right, so why wouldn’t I believe him? What can I do to make it better?”
“Sirius, I get you want to keep me safe, but can you look past what Dumbledore has said and form your own opinion for once? I mean seriously, I think you’d realize a lot of things. You want to make it up to me? Look back on your past and think about how your life would have gone differently if Dumbledore had done what he was supposed to or just wasn't there at all. Starting with your lack of trial. Once you see what went wrong with that, start thinking about the rest of your life and every event that has ever happened where Dumbledore could have had even a little influence. When you finish that, find me. Maybe things might be better after that, maybe not. It really depends on you.”
Harry hoped Sirius would come to the right conclusion. He didn’t want to lose his only family member. If Sirius couldn’t look past Dumbledore’s wrong doings though, Harry would have no choice but to lose Sirius. Harry was trying to take control of his own life and he knew he couldn’t do that if Dumbledore was there in any form.
After finishing speaking, Harry continued to walk past Sirius. He could tell Sirius was struggling with how to respond. Sirius turned and moved his arm up a bit, as if he wanted to stop him. He must have thought better of it though because he turned around again and started toward the kitchen. Hopefully, Sirius would think about what Harry said.
Continuing his way towards the room, Harry noticed a set of double doors with elaborate carvings on them. The carvings contained a mix of humans, animals, random designs, and the occasional bit of latin. Harry was interested so he decided to get closer and take a better look. He tried to see if he could recognize some of the latin since he knew a bit from Hogwarts but he soon realized he couldn’t understand any of it.
Harry felt a strange pulling feeling in his gut. It was like something wanted him to enter the room. Harry took a step back from the door and thought about it for a moment. He should definitely leave because that would be the smart thing to do, especially in the Black household, but like, you only live once. Besides, what did he have to lose? He was already expelled from Hogwarts anyways. He decided ‘fuck it’ and grabbed the door knob. He twisted it slowly, hoping he didn’t trigger something like another Walburga or some dangerous spell, and opened the door. Looking inside, Harry found an extremely elaborate library. The place was massive with bookshelves made of wood that seemed to go on forever, shelves all completely full.
Harry could see a lounge in what appeared to be the center of the library. He couldn’t be sure it was the center since he couldn’t see the end of the room but he assumed. The lounge had cushy emerald chairs and couches to one side of a large table while the other side of the table had a fireplace in front of it. Off to the side of the fireplace area, there was a desk that had parchment, quills and an ink pot lying on top. The desk had a large emerald cushioned chair behind it, similar to the ones near the fireplace yet looking more regal. With the parchment still lying about, one would assume that someone had plans to return to the desk, but the amount of dust on the furniture said otherwise. It looked like no one had entered this room in ages.
Harry took a moment to observe the library and think about all the magic he could learn here. There were probably forgotten and forbidden spells somewhere in here just waiting for him to learn about. Harry realized that he could also learn more than just spells. There was definitely books on wizard customs, history, and maybe even law, all things Harry, muggle raised, really felt he needed to know. Especially with his upcoming hearing. He didn’t know how wizard hearings took place, what his rights were, or if there was a maximum or minimum sentence that he could negotiate for. What if he was eligible for something that would reduce his sentence and didn’t know it? What if he could get himself not expelled from Hogwarts? He would need to read in order to know.
Realizing he didn’t have much else to do, Harry decided he should just start researching now. He didn’t actually need to freshen up or whatever he had told Mrs. Weasley. He had just wanted to leave the room. Besides, he could avoid everyone if he stayed in this library. Nobody would think to look for him in a library. Now, he had a different problem though. How on earth was he supposed to find books specifically on law in this humongous place? He couldn’t use any magic and this room was massive.
As if the room was reading his mind, several books started flying toward his face at a high speed. So high in fact, Harry thought that they were going to hit him. Instinctually, he ducked to avoid being hit,s but the books just stopped moving when they were one foot away from him. Harry felt a bit silly ducking because there was no reason to. Why wouldn’t the books stop or at least avoid him? No one would read in the library if they always got hit by speedy flying books.
There were about 15 books now floating in front of him, all varying in size. Looking at their titles, Harry found that they were all on law, some of them even being specifically on the law of underage magic. Well that was bloody cool for a room to do. Harry was glad he wouldn't have to search this whole library. It would have been impossible to find any of this on his own. Walking towards the lounge where he planned to read, Harry was surprised to notice that the books following him. This meant he didn’t have to carry 15 books at once. Awesome.
He sat on an armchair located closest to the fire, which had started itself when Harry got close to it. Curling his feet underneath him, Harry grabbed the closest floating book, which was titled The Basics of Wizarding Law: Everything You Need to Know So You Don’t Make a Fool of Yourself. Vaguely insulting but okay. Harry did need something like that. When he had grabbed the first book, the other 14 floating ones all stacked themselves neatly at the center table. Did this room expect him to read 15 books in one day or something? Why did it give him so many books? Whatever, he would just do the best he could.
He read for a while, finishing three books and only stopping on his fourth because his stomach started growling at him. Looking up and around him for a clock, Harry wondered what time it was. It had been a while, maybe even past dinner time. Oof. Mrs. Weasley was going to be so mad at him. He hadn’t meant to skip any meals. It was just hard to remember to eat, especially when you get interested in something else.
In his defense, the books he had read were really informative. He had learned many things. For example, he had learned that he had a right to a lawyer. He didn’t even know wizards had lawyers. Additionally, if one wasn’t given to him, he could request one. He also learned underage magic was allowed if the minor was in a life or death situation. However, substantial proof had to be presented in front of a jury in order to avoid having your wand snapped. Surprisingly, it's kind of normal to snap someone's wand as punishment for wizards. Harry thought that was taking it a bit too far, but he didn’t make the rules.
He also learned so many new laws. It had never really occurred to him that wizards had a functioning judicial system for some reason. Apparently, it’s illegal to wear pink on Ostara, which is the Spring Orthodox. Harry didn’t even know wizards celebrated the Spring Orthadox. His first book had actually led him to reading about wizarding culture and their history. He learned more in that one book than he ever had from Professor Binns. His third book had gone more in depth about wizarding law and the reasons behind each law. It was definitely a rare book because it talked a lot about the loopholes in the law, something Harry found interesting. It also appeared that the way the library had stacked the books was meant so the books information could build off of the previous books he read. The fourth, the one he was currently working on, was about how wizarding law differs for minors, something he wouldn't have understood if he hadn't just learned the basis of law from the other three books.
Harry decided to ignore his growling stomach and continue reading. He was just so fascinated with the inner workings of this world that he hadn't even known existed until a few years ago. Sure, the actual law parts were boring, yet Harry understood they were necessary to know. Besides, the history and loophole parts of the books were interesting. He read for another two hours and was just starting his fifth book, when his stomach growled at him again.
Harry wished he could do a tempus. He wanted to eat but wanted even more to avoid Mrs. Weasley. His goal was to hide until everyone was asleep, then he could sneak to the kitchen and make himself some food. His stomach growled at him again and this time he decided to listen. He would like to be at a healthy weight sometime soon and skipping meals wouldn’t help.
Getting up from the chair, Harry placed the book open on the table so he wouldn’t lose his page. However, a bookmark materialized out of nowhere and placed itself on the page where he had left off. Then, the book shut itself and floated on the top of the other books. Harry loved this room.
Making his way down to the kitchen was an interesting adventure. He couldn’t quite remember the way to go since he had only been there once. This led him into many random rooms. Very strange looking ones at that. One of them had nothing but a brain in a jar sitting in the center. Harry decided he was better off not knowing.
When he finally made it to the kitchen, Harry was relieved to see that no one was there. He found the pantry and scoured the shelves, looking for something to eat. In the end, he decided on making himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. He also grabbed a banana that was left out on the counter. He searched the cabinets for a glass to drink some water. He had no doubt he was severely dehydrated right now. When he finally found a glass, he just poured some tap water into the glass and then set his meal down on the kitchen table.
After eating in silence for a few minutes, Harry noticed a clock on one side of the room. It read 3:14 a.m. He hadn’t realized it was that late. He thought it was just like 11:00 or 12:00 or something. He should probably not make that a habit. He wanted to try to have a normal routine, one where he woke up at a normal time, ate at a normal time and slept at a normal time.
The hearing was in 5 days and he had no clue if he would ever return here. He might end up in Azkaban if worse came to worse. He wanted to live as normally as he could till them.
If he didn't get sent to Azkaban but was still expelled from Hogwarts, Harry supposed he would try to make a run for it and start a normal muggle life. He would work to get himself caught up to the standard muggle education level and enroll himself in muggle school. He could falsify parental documents if he needed. After schooling, if he didn’t feel like going off to university, he would get a job as a grocery bagger or something. He would from then on out live the rest of his days in peace. Harry scoffed to himself. He wished his life could be that simple. Dumbledore would probably hunt him down or something. Harry decided his Invisibility cloak would be Plan B.
His next four days passed similarly. He couldn’t avoid Mrs. Weasley in the mornings if he wanted to eat since waking up before her meant never sleeping. He honestly considered dropping down to one meal a day because of her and all of her ‘you need to eat more’ hippogriff shit. He would love to be able to eat 3 meals a day, but his stomach couldn’t handle that yet. Mrs. Weasley also went on about how he needed to stop disappearing and start helping with the cleaning and how she was concerned for him. She insisted that he wasn’t being grateful to what everyone does for him and that he should stop this attitude. The Weasley twins, his only saving grace, have had to help him escape the kitchen every single morning. He was glad he gave his Tournament earnings to them. They seemed to be the only good Weasleys. Of course, he hadn’t met Bill and Charlie long enough to have an opinion on them, so maybe they were okay as well.
Sirius avoided looking at him all together while Ron and Hermione had taken to glaring at him every single morning. Harry just thought it was way too early in the morning for them to have so much anger. He continued to sleep in Regulus Blacks room, caught up on some sleep, though not nearly enough, and tried to open the locket a few more times, just out of curiosity. He spent most of his time reading in the library and thinking of hypothetical hearing situations. He also entertained the idea of trial situations when he was bored of the hearing ones.
After the first day, Harry had moved from sitting on the armchair to sitting at the desk so he could take notes. He cleared the desk of all of the old parchment and whatnot and had found blank parchment to use. In one of the drawers, he discovered an unused quill and used the ink pot that was already on the desk. Surprisingly, the pot was almost completely full. Harry had never ever thought once in his life he would take notes for something other than school, but he was glad he did because he could actually remember the information he had read and look back on it when he needed to.
Over the course of the next few days, Harry had created probably hundreds of court situations and had figured out every single way to counter anything they threw at him. They all had varying outcomes, ranging from being able to return to Hogwarts to being thrown into Azkaban for the rest of his life. He had decided his best bet was trying to submit his memories to the court. The only problem was, he was a minor and he needed a guardian's consent to submit his memories. He knew that it was unlikely he would ever get Dumbledore, his magical guardian, to consent so he had several other plans in case the memory thing failed.
There was no one he could call as a witness. Maybe he could call Ms. Figg, but he had no way of reaching her before the trial. Hedwig couldn't send her a letter because she wasn’t here. Before he had left Privet Drive, he had sent her to fly on her own for a week so he could make sure wherever he was staying was safe for her. He didn’t want to lead her into a death trap or something. Besides, she hadn’t been able to really stretch her wings in a while so she deserved some time to fly. That caused Harry to realize he left her cage at the Dursley's. Oh well, he would just steal Pig’s or Earl’s if he had to. If someone asked him about a missing cage, he obviously knew nothing.
When it was finally the day of his hearing, Harry dressed in the dress robes he had used for the Yule Ball. He hated how stiff the outfit was but he knew that he would be better off wearing this than his school robes or Dudley’s old clothes. First impressions matter a lot. He also tried to tame his hair a bit but gave up after a few minutes. He knew it was a fruitless effort.
When he went down to breakfast, he only found Sirius, the twins, and a few strangers eating. Glancing at the clock, Harry read the time to be 5:52 a.m. Must be because of how early it was. Mrs. Weasley was standing, cooking some food as usual.
“Harry dear! I’m glad you made it down in time,” Mrs. Weasley exclaimed, “Look at you, all dressed up! I’m glad you aren’t wearing those raggedy muggle clothes. They look like they're about to fall off your body at any moment. Come! Eat, you need some fattening, I'll fetch you a plate.”
Ugh. Morning People
“I’m ok, Mrs. Weasley. I can make my own plate,” Harry responded.
“Nonsense, I’ve seen the food you give yourself every morning. Really, you need to start showing up for lunch and dinner so I can give you enough. Where do you keep running off to? We have searched everywhere!”
Obviously, they haven't searched the library so not everywhere but okay. And of course, she ignored his protests once again and started piling large amounts of food on his plate. She had made his plate every single morning now and Harry had taken to just making his own, smaller plate, completely ignoring the one Mrs. Weasley would lay out in front of him. He hated wasting food with a burning passion, but he had to remind himself that if he ate all that food, he would throw up. He had to ignore the extra food even when it made him physically feel wrong for doing so.
Hogwarts helped that wrong feeling go away because there was always food lying about, not being eaten, but being freshly starved made that feeling come back again. He was terrified that all the food was going to go away and he would be left to starve again. His brain kept telling him to eat everything because it might be the last time he ate even though he knew that wasn’t true. He wasn’t at the Dursley’s. To make himself feel better about the wasted food, he usually took some of the food from the larger plate and brought it with him to the library to leave a little less food wasted.
Fortunately, the twins distracted Mrs. Weasley from noticing his smaller plate by creating loud explosions on the other side of the kitchen. He shot the twins a grateful look when they made eye contact and then went back to making his plate. Harry decided to have an orange and a waffle for breakfast today and only took a few minutes eating it, ignoring everything around him until the other Weasley parent spoke to him.
“Oh Harry, I’ll be taking you to your hearing. I know Mrs. Weasley told you yesterday that we would be leaving around 6:30, right? Well, I mean obviously, since you're dressed and ready this early. I’m sure you remember but your hearing starts at 9:00 so it's best we get leave fairly early since we need to use the underground,” he explained to Harry.
It was currently 6:00 a.m., so Harry had 30 minutes to waste.
“Yep, where do you want to meet, at the front door or the kitchen?” Harry asked.
“How about the front door? Also, I just wanted to let you know, don’t fret about the hearing, Harry. Dumbledore says he’s got it all covered,” Mrs. Weasley tried to reassure him
How was Dumbledore going to help? Technically, Dumbledore could be his lawyer, but Harry had the right to refuse a lawyer if he wished, something he planned to do if they gave him one. He would have said yes to a lawyer if he had met this lawyer before the trial, but since he wouldn’t know this person, it was better he just went off on his own plans. That meant all Dumbledore himself could do was sit still looking ugly. So what would the man be doing to help him? Bribe the officials or something? Harry almost wished the man would do that. It would be hilarious.
For the 30 minutes he had to himself, Harry decided to just sit in Regulus’s room to have some alone time before a busy day. He would have loved to go back to sleep but he knew it would be a futile attempt. Besides, it normally takes him way more than 30 minutes to actually fall asleep.
He sat for like 3 minutes before he got bored and decided to snoop into Regulus’s stuff because why not? He found some nice clothing that Harry would have loved to wear since they looked actually comfortable but they were too big for him. He also found some cool jewelry that he wanted to wear. Seeing no reason not to, Harry picked up two bracelets that interested him and inspected them before putting them both on his left wrist.
Both of the bracelets were thin, made of leather and had some strange engravings. The only real difference between them was their colors, black and brown, and the actual engravings themselves. It was most definitely dumb to put on random magical bracelets, but you only live once so why not? Sure, it could have been warded against people who weren't the owner or something, but like he had survived Voldemort, multiple times. Two bracelets, hopefully, weren’t going to kill him.
Looking at his wrist, Harry decided that he would probably get annoyed with how big the bracelets were so he decided he should take them off. When he went to take them off, however, the bracelets sized themselves perfectly to his wrist. He couldn’t tell if that was a good or bad thing. Tugging at the bracelets a bit, he found they were loose enough to not be annoying but definitely would never come off. It appeared he had just gained some permanent jewelry. Hopefully the bracelets would not kill him.
Harry remembered a watch he had in his trunk and decided to put that on as well. It was always great to know the time. Harry started to walk down to the front door at 6:28 and got there right at 6:30. He found Mr. Weasley was already waiting for him along with, surprisingly, Sirius.
“Harry, good, right on time,” Mr. Weasley greeted.
“Are we ready to leave?” Harry questioned.
“I believe we are. Sirius, were you going to say anything,” Mr. Weasley politely asked.
“Right, yes,” Sirius cleared his throat, “Pup, I just wanted to say… No matter the result of the hearing, I will support you. I’m sure you won't go to Azkaban or anything, but if you do, I’ll break you out. I’ve done it once before, I’m sure I could do it again. Also, just know that I have been thinking about what you asked me to. I haven't quite found what you seem to want me to find, but I promise I’m working on it. Anyways, good luck. I’m sure you’ll do great,” Sirius told him.
That… that really meant a lot to Harry. No one had ever really cared for him like that. It meant even more to know that Sirius was actually thinking about what Harry said. Someone had actually listened to him for once. Harry didn’t really know how to respond to that.
“Thanks a lot, Sirius,” Harry softly said, nodding his head a bit.
Sirius nodded back, said good bye to Mr. Weasley, and then left.
“Alrighty, let's get going now then Harry. I’m a bit surprised Ron and Hermione didn’t come to wish you luck, but they’re probably still asleep. I’m sure they wish you good luck as well,” Mr. Weasley assured.
His ex-friends sure as hell did not wish him good luck.
Following Mr. Weasley out the door, Harry was ready to go to his hearing.