The world around Harry suddenly felt… distorted. That was the only way to describe the way his brain felt fuzzy and the way the world went three degrees crooked and sound felt like it was coming in his ears and bouncing back and forth inside his skull without actually entering his brain. Or maybe his brain wasn’t actually inside his body anymore. But that didn’t make any sense, because he was hyper-aware of the cold sweat that beaded up on every square inch of his skin- leaving him slippery with terror. His lungs inflated quickly but also not nearly quick enough, and as he scrambled to kick off the blankets and sit in some kind of vertical fetal position- pillow crumpled up behind his knobbly spine- he raised a shaking hand to frantically trace the raised pattern of his scar.
It was the same as always- aching and somehow also numb, stretching from the hairline on his right side down over the eyebrow, segmenting it in several places, before spidering across his eye and the bridge of his nose. It truly did look like a bolt of lightning, especially because the scar tissue was pale and reflected light in a way that contrasted the deep warmth of the rest of his face. He had taken up tracing it when he was very young, in the dark of his cupboard when he couldn’t help but stay awake, body aching and green light flashing behind his eyes. Before he even knew what any of it meant, when he still thought everything was explicable by horrid fucking luck.
Now, as his breathing began to slow and he began to gain awareness of his surroundings, in the same breath he was grateful for his silencing charm, he almost wished he had never learned about wizarding at all. As soon as that thought was processed, though, Harry tried to dismiss it outright. The wizarding world gave him friends, family , a home. He belonged here. But also…
No. Stop. Breathe. Think of Ron and Hermione and Neville and Professor McGonnagall, Professor Lupin- please just call me Remus, Harry, for godssake - and Sirius. God, Sirius. As much as Harry hated this house and the order meetings that he couldn’t actually attend, Harry was sure his godfather was in a much worse position. Harry had no right to sit here and wallow like this. Cedric was not the first person to die at Voldemort’s hand, and technically, he wasn’t even the first one that had died in front of Harry . He should be stronger about this, his closest friends were still alive, he didn’t spend twelve fucking years in prision for something he didn’t do and getting his soul chipped away at bit by bit.
Harry wiped some stray tears off his cheeks with the side of his hand and then, because he already felt disgusting and hated himself a little bit, he wiped his nose with the inside of his wrist. His right hand was still tracing his scar, up and down and up and down and up again, a strangely soothing motion, for how unconscious it seemed to be.
Harry could feel, as he sat curled up in a much bigger dark room than he was used to, the sweat on his skin drying down tacky and the tears leaving a crust on his cheeks. He was sure his eyes were still puffy- he could feel the way his sinuses felt gooey and swollen still- and he knew he would most definitely not be returning to sleep. A quick tempus charm confirmed that the sun would be up in only a couple hours anyways. He wanted a shower but also hated the idea of being naked, still feeling flayed open and exposed within the confinements of the bed, which was in desperate need of laundering after how much sweat had pooled onto the sheets during his nightmare.
But laundry was most certainly not happening until after tea, Harry thought, especially since he had to strip the bed and put on the new sheets himself lest he allow Kreacher into his space. Harry may have shared this room with Ron and the twins, but there was also an understanding that Harry was fiercely protective of and particular about his bed. Even the one he occupied in the Hogwarts dormitories. And he was still, unfortunately, an underage wizard- which meant that he could not perform the charms to fix his bed himself unless he wanted to be in more trouble than he already was with the ministry. The ambient and inherent magic present in Grimmauld Place allowed him to cast short, simple spells that were lost in the greater magical signature of the house, but he wasn’t really interested in pushing his luck again this summer.
Mind made up, Harry shakily scooted out of bed and placed his slightly tacky feet on the cool, polished wood below. He shivered, and ran his hand through his greasy, sweat damp hair before standing and quietly making his way out of the room. The hall that led to the stairs was eerie- pitch black and dusty, with only the heads of the old black family elves cast in a faintly glowing greenish light that seemed to emanate from the cases themselves to lead the way. Harry could feel the floorboards shift and creak ever so slightly underneath his feet as he made his way down the hall and the stairs and into the kitchen.
There weren’t many rooms in Grimmauld place that could be considered anything but forgotten, dusty, and dreary, but the kitchen was one exception. Mrs. Weasley had truly put her mark on the place since summer began- charming warmer lights and cleaning what seemed like an absurd amount. There was life in this room: a dish towel hung slightly crumpled over the handle of the oven, a couple of forgotten water glasses were sitting on the table, pots and pans were stored on shelves and kept switching around their lids on purpose. Immediately upon entering, Harry felt some of the tension in his shoulders drop.
He shuffled around the pots and pans-who seemed a bit perturbed until they realized that they weren’t needed at the moment and continued quietly clinking about their shelf- to grab the kettle and fill it with water from the tap before setting it on the stovetop, which immediately lit itself. Harry rifled around in the tea cabinet for a bit before finding the breakfast tea Remus had showed him back in third year.
“It’s good for headaches,” he’d said, before pressing a warm mug of it into Harry’s trembling hands with some chocolate after his first attempt at the patronus charm. It had calmed Harry then (maybe due to the specific blend, but probably just because it was Remus giving it to him) and he’d stuck with it since. It was sufficiently caffeinated for a fifteen-year-old up before dawn, and there was always some of it hidden in the back of the cupboard so it didn’t get mixed up with the rest of the morning teas. Harry grabbed a mug from the sink and washed it the muggle way before drying it on the towel hung on the oven. He left it slightly crumpled.
It must have been the running water that covered up the sound of another pair of footsteps making their way down the stairs and into the kitchen.
“Harry?”
Only years of practice managed to keep the empty mug in Harry’s hands from crashing to the floor and ending up in pieces on the tile. He whirled around, right arm reaching for the wand that he had tucked into the waistband of his plaid pajama pants, before recognizing the tired shape of his godfather in the entryway to the kitchen.
“Sirius,” he breathed out, “good morning to you too.” He turned back to the stove, willing his heart to settle in his chest.
“I think this barely qualifies as morning, Prongslet. Is that Moony’s special tea I see in that cup of yours?” Sirius pushed himself off of the door frame with what seemed like a herculean effort in order to shuffle into the kitchen properly and, in turn, closer to Harry.
“You make the tea sound illegal,” Harry commented. It wasn't his smoothest conversation avoidance technique, he would admit, but he also did not have enough energy to care if it was obvious or not. Plus, Sirius (for all of his many, many, many fantastic traits) was not particularly emotionally mature, and was generally content avoiding any and all elephants in the room- particularly before his morning tea. Or the sun. Or both.
“It might as well be with how much effort he takes to hide the stuff in the cabinet.” Sirius went to grab a clean mug out of the cupboard. “Is there enough water in the kettle for two cups?”
Harry relaxed a tad further before responding. “Yeah. You want the same? Or something else?”
“I’ll just take the normal stuff,” Sirius proclaimed, reaching around his godson’s body to open up the cupboard and fish out the tin of english breakfast tea off the bottom shelf. “Somehow I think that Moony would know if I somehow drank his special hidden tea. We wouldn’t want to summon him - that man is awful to be around if he’s not ready to be awake.”
Harry snorted. He had seen Remus only once after being woken up in the morning, and the man had promptly entered the kitchen, made a cup of tea, and sat down while glaring at the wood of the table. Everyone (minus Sirius, who had been bothering the man since age eleven and had a bit of a manic death wish anyways) had proceeded to give him a wide berth and shut up. Even the twins. He took the kettle off the fire.
“I’d be more concerned about summoning Mrs. Weasley, honestly.” Harry admitted. “That woman is terrifying when she senses something amiss in her kitchen.”
Sirius laughed- full bellied and honest. “You, Prongslet, are much smarter than you father and I ever were.” For some reason, maybe the nightmare, maybe the sleep deprivation, maybe something else entirely, the comment set Harry off, anger simmering underneath his skin. He felt his shoulders tug back up towards his ears and he gripped the edge of the cool countertop.
“Not smart enough to save Cedric,” he mumbled under his breath. “Or go to the order meetings that are about me, apparently.” To his absolute horror, Harry felt his eyes well up with tears again.
“What was that, Harry?” Sirius asked slowly, the joking attitude from only seconds before gone in an instant and replaced with quiet concern.
“I said,” Harry repeated almost dangerously as he turned away from the mugs on the counter to face his godfather who had decided to lean up against the sink, hair wild and greasy, scar glinting in the yellowed light of the room, eyes suspiciously shiny, “that I wasn’t smart enough to save Cedic was I? And I’m not smart enough to attend the fucking Order meetings that are about me! ” He realized only after he had finished speaking that his voice had raised to a shout. He wiped his hot cheeks and turned back to the tea. “Your tea is done, if you still want it.”
Sirius, for his part, thought that there were more pressing things to talk about with his godson than the tea steeping on the counter as he stood barefoot on the tile floor of Grimmauld Place’s kitchen that had been taken over in nearly every way by Molly Weasley. Reeling in the wake of Harry’s outburst (which, honestly, he should’ve expected, at least a bit. He got angry for far less at fifteen), Sirius regretted the fact that tact had never been his strong suit. Perhaps Remus would be better for this conversation- his silver tongue and inherent understanding of other’s emotions. Or, if he was still alive, James. But Harry was here, with him, in this kitchen and damn near begging for someone to take him seriously.
And, if he was being honest with himself, two things Sirius black knew very, very well were anger and guilt. He swallowed.
“It wasn’t your fault, Harry.” His godson clenched his jaw and wiped a tear off his face before it could begin to fall. “I know that it probably makes it worse for someone to say it to your face but it wasn’t your fault that Cedric was murdered . I’m not- I don’t expect you to believe it, really, but you have to know that the people around you know that to be true. And you know just as well as I do that if it were up to me I'd’ve had you in on order meetings from the start, pup.” He hesitated a millisecond before reaching his hand up and out slowly to rest on Harry’s trembling shoulder. He was crying in earnest now, but it was silent in a way that was deeply unsettling to Sirius. People only learned to cry quietly like that if crying was punishable.
Harry, for his part, only startled a tad when Sirius’ hand landed gently on his shoulder. He had, at this point, given up on the tea but he remained facing away from his godfather. Initially, hearing Sirius tell him it wasn’t his fault had only made him angrier, but the more he thought about it the more he realized that out of everyone in this house, his godfather probably knew guilt the best. Sirius had admitted to him, when they were setting him free with Buckbeak third year, that he was the one who suggested Peter as the secret keeper. Sirius had wanted to let Harry know in case he wanted to place the blame on his godfather, because Sirius still mostly blamed himself.
It was this realization that broke the dam- Harry turned and fell, slightly curled, into his godfather’s chest. He cried more, then, feeling a bit safer and like the real world couldn't get to him when he was surrounded on all sides by the smell and feel of one of the only adults in his life that he trusted implicitly.
Sirius was only surprised for second before he gathered his thoughts and wrapped his arms securely around the boy curled into his chest. God, he was so skinny and small- one could even use the word frail without much of a stretch. He was so obviously a child - scared and traumatized well beyond his years.
“I’ve got you Prongslet, shhhh, just cry it it out, yeah? You’re allowed to be angry, kid.” Harry just cried harder, his shoulders shaking near violently in Sirius’ hold .
“Everyone always dies, Padfoot. Why do they have to die? Why haven’t I?” Sirius took a sharp breath in, and let it out slowly; held Harry a tad tighter and let him keep talking. And now that he was talking the word just poured out of him, it seemed, without a filter. “For some reason I didn’t die when Voldemort tried and then I somehow didn’t die with Vernon and Petunia even though I could have and then literally every school year and then the graveyard Sirius- the fucking graveyard that I somehow lived and Cedric didn’t even though, even though I was the one Voldemort wanted in the first place and he’s so obsessed with me and maybe it would just be easier if he finally fucking killed me because then everybody else could stop fucking dying trying to save me.”
“Oh, Harry, pup,” Sirius breathed out. “I wish I could tell you anything that would make this better but I don’t think there is anything that could possibly make any of this seem like a silver lining.”
“I can’t stop watching them die, Pads, over and over and over in my sleep, and sometimes it’s you and Moony and ‘Mione and Ron and I can never stop it,” he gasped, “and sometimes I’m locked in my cupboard and I can hear you dying and I can’t get out- can’t even see or help and then I wake up and some of it was real and I can’t top thinking that the rest might actually happen one day.”
“Oh puppy.” Sirius was intimately familiar with the kind of horror that came in half-truths in the darkest hours of the night. How you could never shake how almost real it was, even hours, months, after. Once those pictures flashed behind your eyes, they never truly left. “I wish there was something I could do to make it better- to make it go away for you.” On his chest, the boy’s cries had begun to slow to shuddering breaths.
“I can’t- I can’t promise that everyone will make it out of this war alive, pup. You have no idea how much I could. And I’m not going to sit here and treat you like a child that doesn’t know any better and lie to your face and tell you that nothing bad will ever happen to you or me again, because you an I both know that’s not how the world works. But I will promise you that, until my dying breath, whenever that is, I will love you with my whole fucking being- do you understand?” It felt almost cruel to pull the boy away from his body and force eye contact, but this was important. “Your father and your mother trusted me to love you and protect you and I will do that with everything I have. And Moony will too, and your friends, and everyone else who loves you. Because that is all you can do when you love someone like your family loves you, Harry. Because what you have here, Prongslet, is a family .”
“I don’t want you all to die for me, Sirius.” Harry damn near whispered.
“And I hope it doesn’t come to that, puppy. But you can’t deny that you’d die for any one of us, either. Regardless of whether we wanted you to or not. That’s how love works kiddo. It’s messy and we all wish it wasn’t, but that doesn’t change the fact that all of us would tell Voldemort to go fuck himself and suffer the consequences if it meant keeping you or, for that matter, anyone else in this house safe.” And was the truth of the matter wasn’t it, Harry thought. He was not the only one in this house with a selfless streak so large it bordered on being a suicide wish. He fucking hated Voldemort.
“I fucking hate Voldemort.” Siris barked an incredulous laugh and Harry smirked a bit- mood lightening marginally with the sky.
“Join the cue Prongslet- Moony and I have been in line since before you were even conceived.” Sirius hugged Harry tight to his body one final time before letting him have his own space again. “I think that tea is prolly just the right temperature to drink by now- whaddya think?”