The Hidden House

Sirius wasn’t sure if he loved or hated the sunlight on his face. After three weeks of being practically nocturnal, it blinded him. Still, it was a sign that he was keeping his promise to Lily. He was going to try. Today, trying meant walking down the street aimlessly. He wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone and didn’t know about any events, so walking was his best chance of stumbling across something.
So far, the only things he had stumbled across were pubs. Or at least, they were the only thing he found interesting. He made a mental note of where they each were so that he could check them out later. He might be trying, but that didn’t mean he would stop drowning his thoughts at night. It just meant he would get out of bed in the morning, or at least before noon, and not return to pubs until the sun had set. Which led him back to his current situation of cursing the sunlight.
He was so focused on the light that he didn’t notice he had been staring, or more accurately, glaring, at a bookshop. Through the storefront windows, one of the workers looked as though they weren’t sure if they should be insulted or amused by his gaze. It was a small shop nestled between an antique store and a boutique. The sign on the window boasted used, new, and antique books. It was a bit of an everything shop and looked much more pleasant than trudging through the bright afternoon.
A bell rang through the store as he pushed the door open and made his way to the small man he had inadvertently glared at through the window. Now that he was inside, the man seemed to have decided on fear instead of his previous amusement or insult. He was short, mousy, round, and looked only a few years older than Sirius. For a moment, the man reminded him so much of Peter he felt an ache settle in his chest.
“Sorry mate, I was glaring at the sun, not you. Figured I should apologize.” Sirius mumbled, watching as relief flooded the man’s face.
“Nae bother, what can I help you with?” Sirius shook his head with a smile and made his way through the store.
Now that he was inside, he could see that the shop was more extensive than it appeared from the street. There were two levels, the main level, and a balcony. Both were packed with bookshelves. As he walked through the store, he was pleased to discover overstuffed armchairs hidden in alcoves. It was a book lover’s paradise, and he could easily imagine Remus or Lily nestled in one of the chairs, reading the day away. A smile stretched across his face at the thought.
He wasn’t sure how long he had been wandering when he finally returned to the front of the store. The woman behind the front desk was short, round, and sweet. The name tag pinned to her shirt read ‘Grace.’ She looked about 50 years old and as though she was born to love her grandchildren. He wondered if she actually had any or if she was just one of those people.
“What can I help you with?” Grace asked warmly
“I am not entirely sure,” Sirius said honestly. “I think I have fallen in love with your store, and I don’t want to leave!”
“You don’t strike me as someone who likes to spend their time around books.” Sirius was slightly taken aback by her words, but one look at her face showed him that she meant no harm.
“You’re right about that; I never used to be. I am trying to turn over a new leaf in my life and found myself drawn here.” Grace nodded her head at his words.
“I can understand that, lad. If you buy a book, you are welcome to stay until we close at six.” Sirius did not hesitate to take her up on the offer and grabbed the first book he saw. It was a used copy of Frankenstein. He had never heard of it and assumed it must be a muggle author. Grace nodded approvingly at him as she took his payment, so he figured he must have made a good choice.
Book in hand, Sirius made his way to a hidden alcove at the back of the store and situated himself in one of the chairs. For once in his life, he decided to take a page out of his friend’s book and spend an afternoon reading in a bookshop. He expected to get bored within minutes, but instead, he was startled when Grace found him and informed him that the store was closing. Three hours had passed in the blink of an eye. He wasn’t sure if Mary Shelley or the bookshop were to blame, but he knew it was the best afternoon he had had since his life went to shit.
The following day, Grace greeted him as he walked in the door. She did not seem surprised to see him and instead had a small stack of books at the front desk. A quick glance at the spines identified the books as Pride and Prejudice, The Crystal Cave, and Moby Dick. He didn’t recognize any of them.
“It’s gonna cost more than one book if you want to be here all day, young man. I think you’ll like these.” Despite the sternness in her words, there was a smile across her face.
“I will happily spend whatever price you ask, Grace. I do think you are overestimating how quickly I can read, though. I haven’t read half of the book from yesterday yet!”
“You’ll get through it. I believe in you.” Grace said with a straight face, eliciting a laugh from Sirius.
***
A week passed with the same pattern. He would wake up past 10, go to the bookshop, purchase a stack of books, and stay till closing. Then he would make his way to whatever pub seemed the most energetic until it was past midnight. He was careful to send Lily several letters over the past week. However, he still wasn’t ready to tell the truth, so instead, he told her the plot of Frankenstein, which he still had yet to finish.
Despite spending most of his time in a bookshop, he was still not a particularly fast reader. The corner of his bedroom was overflowing with books that had not even been opened. Remus would curse him if he knew that the nearly full and very tall bookshelf was wholly neglected. The thought brought a smile to his face as he inspected the open space, trying to determine if he needed to get a larger shelf or if he could make it another week.
Grace had started giving him small tasks to do around the shop. She had checked on him one day and found him asleep with his face in the still open book. He had gotten distracted while reading, and his poor sleep schedule had finally caught up to him. Grace had chastised him, claiming that she was running a bookshop, not a bed and breakfast, and the next thing he knew, he had a long broom in his hand and was scouring the ceiling for cobwebs.
Under different circumstances, that might have irritated him, but he found the simple tasks oddly cathartic, which Grace seemed to have picked up on. He knew that when he arrived at the bookshop today, he would find a list of tasks and a stack of books waiting for him at the front desk. He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t told Lily about his time spent in the bookshop, he knew that she would likely be proud of him for doing something useful, but he wasn’t ready to share that piece of him yet.
Today, Grace had instructed him to shelve the new books that had come in that day. It was frustrating work; the books were organized according to a numbering system he had never seen in his life. Grace assured him that it was a very commonly used system in libraries, but he found it frustrating and confusing. He was confident that she would have finished the job faster than him. Part of him wondered why she was having him do it, but a more significant part of him was just grateful to be trusted with something.
He wasn’t sure how she seemed so aware of what he was going through, and he didn’t ask. She was simply a good friend that he hadn’t meant to make. By the time he had finished his tasks, Grace had found him again. She startled him by appearing around the corner at the exact moment he turned away from the bookshelf. His scream was less than dignified, but he didn’t have the energy to be embarrassed.
“I think it is time I know some more about you, Sirius.” She said matter of factly. “You’ve spent a week in my shop, and I don’t even know your last name.”
“Why do you want to know anything about me? I’m nobody.” He was only slightly surprised to realize that he meant that.
“Nobody is nobody, young man. I have a proposition for you, but I need to know you better before I offer it.” Sirius saw the slight look of triumph in her eyes as she spoke. She claimed not to know him, but she clearly knew him well enough to realize that his curiosity would be the death of him.
“Okay, so what do you want to know?” Sirius finally answered after a long pause.
“You really do have a flare for the dramatic, you know? I just closed up, have dinner with me and answer all my questions.” Grace walked away before he had a chance to answer, and a few minutes later, he was seated across the table from her at a local restaurant. He was suddenly overcome with the uncomfortable feeling that he was about to be interrogated by his mother. Before that thought could continue into something worse, he shook it off. Grace was not as dangerous as Walburga, and Walburga was dead. The world was a better place for it.
“Okay, we are at dinner. Fire away.” Sirius said once they had finished ordering.
“First, what is your last name?” He was afraid to answer her for a moment but then let out a small sigh of relief as he remembered that this muggle woman would not hate him for his name. She didn’t have any knowledge of his family or what they had done. What he himself had been accused of doing.
“Black, my name is Sirius Black. I have no family left beyond a few cousins.” He offered up that bit of information in the hopes that it would serve a dual purpose of being an olive branch and preventing specific follow-up questions.
“So you are all alone? Is that why you are in Scotland?” The question seemed harsh, but the kind look on Grace’s face set him at ease once more. He kept reminding himself that she was not a threat to him. He was not at war anymore.
“In a way, yes. I am not totally alone. I have a few friends that are like family to me. They are back in London. I am here because I needed to get away from it all for a while.” Grace raised her eyebrow at his words, clearly unsatisfied with his answer.
“You had to get away from your friends who love you?”
“It sounds silly when you say it like that.”
“Is it silly?”
“No. I lost my little brother less than a year ago, and my two friends, who are basically brothers, almost died in front of me within two months of each other. They are safe now, and they are moving on, but I can’t seem to. I didn’t want to suffocate them with my inability to move on, so I left.” Sirius wasn’t sure why he was trauma dumping on this woman he didn’t know, but he decided it was probably because he didn’t know her. She had no preconceived notions of what had happened. She didn’t know James or Lily or Remus. She didn’t know Regulus or how Sirius had failed him. If she hated him for it, it didn’t matter.
“You’re right; that’s not silly at all. I don’t know them, so I will not comment on the state of their healing, but maybe they’re not as okay as you think.” Grace said after taking a moment to digest what Sirius had told her.
“What do you mean?” He asked.
“What happened to you also happened to them. If you are not okay, they may also be struggling. They just might be dealing with it differently. I am not telling you that you are wrong for leaving. You may very well be right, but don’t cut them off because you think they are more okay than you. They might not be.” Sirius didn’t answer. She was probably right, but he wasn’t ready to face that yet. He didn’t want to be the one who was healing wrong. Who was processing incorrectly. He didn’t want to force them to remember what had happened through his complete inability to pretend to be happy.
“So where are you staying then if you are so new.” Grace broke through his thoughts, and he was grateful for it.
“Just a local hotel. I didn’t exactly plan this trip, so I don’t have a flat or anything.” Sirius said with a slight chuckle. Now that he was saying it aloud, he finally realized how ridiculous that sounded. Running away without a plan.
“Well, that won’t do. Christmas is coming up in a week, and you cannot celebrate alone in a hotel.” She seemed very set on the idea, but why she cared eluded him.
“I won’t be alone all day; I promised Lily I would visit on Christmas!” He wasn’t sure why he felt the need to defend himself to Grace, but he didn’t want her to be disappointed in him.
“I assume Lily is one of the friends you mentioned?”
“Yeah, Lily and James Potter, their son Harry, and our friend Remus.” He tried to ignore the pang in his heart when he didn’t add Peter’s name. He wondered how long it would take before excluding him stopped feeling wrong.
“Lovely, so you will spend the day with Lily, James, and Remus, and then you will go ‘home,’ and I use that word loosely, to an empty hotel room completely devoid of personal touches?” She raised her eyebrow again, and he decided right then that he did not enjoy that facial expression on her.
“Well, I do have a stack of books, thanks to you!”
“Good, but not good enough. You need a proper place, young man.”
“That is all good and well, but a week is a rather short timeline to find a flat!” At those words, a smile stretched across Grace’s face. It suddenly dawned on him that he had walked right into a trap. He wasn’t sure how, but he knew he had played right into her hands.
“It just so happens that I have a flat to rent. It has been vacant since my son and his wife moved out a few years ago, but it’s in good condition. I could let it to you.” Sirius froze at her words. In his experience, people did not do kind things for no reason. He wasn’t sure what she wanted from him, but he didn’t relish the idea of being indebted to her.
He wasn’t sure how it happened. One moment he was trying to understand Grace’s motivations, the next, he was struggling to breathe. He saw Walburga sitting across the table from him instead of Grace. She was giving him ice cream, and he was about to learn that the price for her kindness far outweighed the benefit. He was a little boy who still wanted to believe that his mother loved him.
“Sirius? Sirius, what’s wrong? Dear god, this boy is more damaged than I realized.” Grace’s voice seemed far away, and blackness started creeping around the edges of his vision. How embarrassing, he thought. He was about to pass out from a panic attack in the middle of a muggle restaurant.
Grace assured him that he was only unconscious for a few seconds and that nobody had noticed. He knew that she was lying, and he was grateful for it. One small mercy was that it happened in front of strangers, not anyone who knew him. He couldn’t stomach the thought of being seen in a weakened state in front of those he wanted to protect.
“That settles it, Sirius. You are moving into the flat. It is just upstairs from the bookshop, and the rent is 500 pounds a month. I’m gonna start paying you for your work too. You’ll be making $6 an hour part-time. I don’t want to hear any arguments on the matter.” Grace said matter of factly. Sirius felt relief swell in his chest at her words. She was charging him steep rent, even if it was a nicer part of town. He would be paying for what he was receiving and would not be indebted to her.
“Okay, Grace. When should I move in then?” Sirius said with a smile.
“I can’t imagine you have many belongings. You go check out of that hotel right now, and I will fetch your key. You’ll have to start parking that bike of yours in the alley, though. Can’t have it clogging up my road.”
A rather shocking realization overcame Sirius at that moment. He could trust Grace Duncan. For once, the knowledge didn’t frighten him. He simply smiled at Grace, thanked her, and then left to follow her instructions. The cold air on his face immediately brought with it a sense of calm. He was going to have a place to call home.