What He Shouldn't Have Seen
Some lines taken from ‘The Order of the Phoenix’.
“I'm fine,” said Harry, as he gladly reciprocated Sirius’s tight embrace.
Harry had not seen his Godfather since they'd been together in the hospital wing after the third task. His letters so far that summer had been as void of proper news as Ron and Hermione’s, but they at least had contained words of caution and consolation instead of tantalizing hints.
“Better now that you're here,” Harry confessed. “I haven't been told anything. I've just been kept away at Privet Drive.”
“I know,” Sirius said. He kept an arm slung over Harry's shoulders as he steered him into the living room and towards the sofa where they could sit down together. “I understand how frustrating that must have been for you. You can ask me anything now. What do you want to know?”
Harry took a deep breath and asked the question that had been obsessing him for weeks.
“Where's Voldemort? What's he doing? I've been trying to watch the Muggle news but there hasn't been anything that looks like him yet, no funny deaths or anything -”
“That's because there haven't been any suspicious deaths yet,” said Sirius, “not as far as we know anyway….and we know quite a lot.”
“Because of Snape?” asked Harry. Snape’s sudden and dramatic departure to Lord Voldemort’s side had impressed him. A sure indicator that Voldemort had returned and it all was real, even while the Ministry worked overtime to ignore the truth.
“I suppose,” Sirius said darkly. “I must say that it's been lovely having to listen to Snape’s reports, having to take all his snide hints that he's out there risking his life while I'm sat on my backside having a comfortable time….asking me how the cleanings going --”
“What cleaning?” asked Harry.
“I offered my parents’ old house to Dumbledore to use as headquarters for the Order of the Phoenix,” Sirius explained. “No one has lived there for ten years, not since my mother died, unless you count her old house elf, and he's gone round the twist, hasn't cleaned anything in ages -- well, it should be slightly improved by the time you see it.”
“Snape said once I get the basics of Occlumency down, Dumbledore will let me stay with you,” Harry said.
For the first time, something like a grin flitted across Sirius’s face. “Snape isn’t giving you too hard a time then, is he?”
“Well, yeah, it’s Snape,” said Harry, even while recalling what he had eaten for dinner and how he had been permitted to sleep the day away with Snape’s scathing comments kept to a minimum. With confidence, Harry could say that he would rather be here, waiting for Snape to return from Voldemort, than back at Privet Drive; and knowing that made the awkwardness of his current situation more tolerable.
“Git,” Sirius muttered. “Honestly, I don’t see why Dumbledore isn't teaching you himself. You’ll tell me if Snape gets too out of hand, won’t you? I’ll set him straight.”
“Course I will,” Harry lied, thinking to himself that the last thing he'd ever feel inclined to do was instigate a fight between Sirius and Snape. They did that well enough on their own and Harry could handle himself, though it made him feel warm inside to recognize that he had something like a parent eager to step in should he need it.
“What exactly is the Order of the Phoenix? Harry asked.
“It’s the secret society that Dumbledore founded against Voldemort the last time,” Sirius explained. “We were all full-time Order members after we left Hogwarts. Thanks to you, Dumbledore was able to recall the Order of the Phoenix about an hour after Voldemort returned.”
“And what has the Order been doing?”
“Working as hard as we can to ensure Voldemort can't carry out his plans,” Sirius replied.
“What are his plans?” Harry asked quickly.
“Well, firstly he wants to build up his army again,” said Sirius. “In the old days, he had huge numbers at his command; witches and wizards he'd bullied or bewitched into following him, his faithful Death Eaters, a great variety of Dark creatures. You heard him planning to recruit the giants; well they'll be just one group he's after. He's certainly not going to take on the Ministry of Magic with only a dozen Death Eaters.”
“So you're trying to stop him getting more followers?” asked Harry.
“We're doing our best,” Sirius replied, squeezing Harry’s shoulder affectionately. “Voldemort is very practiced at operating in secrecy so it's been quite useful being able to infiltrate his inner circle.”
And Voldemort is convinced Snape is actually his spy, right?” said Harry.
“Yep,” Sirius said darkly. “Snape is playing so many roles, I wonder if he even knows who he is anymore. Although a big part of me envies him these days, I have to admit.”
Harry wasn't sure what to say to that. He could hardly blame his Godfather for wanting to get out and take action. Sirius had been on the run for the past two years and that couldn't have been a laugh but at least he had been free. Being shut up in a house after all those years imprisoned in Azkaban was nothing short of terrible, and Harry silently worried that he'd be tempted to do something reckless if that carried on for too long.
“Why do you think he changed back to our side?” asked Harry.
“All I know is that he must have fed Dumbledore a pretty good story,” said Sirius bitterly. “Dumbledore won’t hear a word against him, but he’s never shared any proof with me that Snape really stopped working for Voldemort.”
He rose to his feet then abruptly and went over to examine the bookcases that covered the living room walls from floor to ceiling. “Look, most of these books wouldn't even be allowed in the Restricted Section of the Hogwarts library. Snape loves the Dark Arts. That hasn't changed.”
Harry craned his neck to follow Sirius's progress into the kitchen. He watched as his Godfather peered into every cupboard and the refrigerator before looking out at the back garden and then running up the stairs to examine the second floor. He reminded Harry, in that instant, of a caged dog that had been let out only to find itself tethered to the end of a short rope.
“Hogwarts must not pay very well,” Sirius observed upon return to the living room, motioning at the peeling wallpaper in the hall and the numerous cracks in the tile.
“Or Snape just spends all his money on bat spleens and snake eyeballs instead,” Harry said, a feeling of satisfaction welling within him when he saw that he'd managed to make Sirius smile again.
“Snape probably likes it here about as much as I like Grimmauld Place,” said Sirius. “I remember catching him crying on the train ride home at the end of our first year because Dumbledore had told him students weren’t allowed to stay at the castle over summer. But at least he gets to come and go whenever he wants now, unlike me.”
It was hard for Harry to imagine Snape as a tearful child who didn’t want to return home at the end of the school year, but that was something he and Snape apparently had in common. The best day of Harry’s life had been the day that he’d learned he was a wizard and was off to Hogwarts, and it was closely followed by the few minutes in his third year when he'd believed that he was going to get to move in with Sirius. If Wormtail hadn’t escaped and they had been able to prove Sirius’s innocence, Harry might have been living a very different life right now.
“My Aunt Petunia recognized Snape when he came to get me from Privet Drive today,” said Harry, wondering if Sirius would have any insight for him. “She said that he and my Mum had hung around together.”
“Well, sure…Lily was a very kind person,” said Sirius, after a moment’s pause. “Snape was this little oddball that nobody liked and I think Lily felt sorry for him. I think they were friendly until he ran off to be a Death Eater and she couldn't defend him anymore.”
“But they were friends outside of school as well?” Harry asked. “Neighbours?”
“I believe your grandparents’ house was on the other side of the river in the nicer part of town,” Sirius replied. “But close enough, I suppose.”
Harry wasn't sure what to make of all that. He was trying to imagine the pretty redheaded woman with the glowing smile in his photographs hanging out with his most hated professor. What had that even looked like? Had they studied together, gone into Hogsmeade on weekends, and played chess in the Great Hall like he did with Ron and Hermione?
“Ow,” Harry was suddenly distracted from his thoughts when his scar exploded with pain. The prickling returned with a vengeance as Harry clutched his hands over his forehead and his vision began to blur.
“Harry!” Sirius was immediately back at his side. “What’s wrong? It's your scar? Revelare.”
Sirius had his wand drawn and pointed at Harry’s head, but Harry neither knew nor cared what he was doing at that moment. It felt like someone had begun drilling a hole straight through his scar. He could think of nothing besides the pain.
“Listen to me, Harry, you're going hold tight right here while I send word to Dumbledore,” said Sirius.
But acting on instinct alone, Harry reached out a hand and gripped onto Sirius’s wrist, ensuring that he wouldn’t leave to call Dumbledore or do anything else. Harry felt like his head was being crushed from all sides. The pressure in his scar was continuously increasing until Harry couldn’t fight against it any longer and began to scream. The room he was sitting in faded from view and all went black, except when sizzles of electric energy flashed through his mind showing him things he knew he wasn’t supposed to be seeing.
“Undermine me, Severus!” Voldemort cried. “Do you forget where you are?”
Harry saw into those merciless red eyes and couldn’t make himself look away. The pain in his scar surged and there was another flash behind his eyes. He saw Draco Malfoy, trembling on the carpeted floor by Lord Voldemort’s pale feet. Another jolt of white hot pain and he saw torn black robes and a figure lying on the ground looking broken and incapable of helping himself back up.
As though from a far distance, Harry was still aware of Sirius speaking to him. Of the warmth of his body as Sirius gathered him tightly in his arms, repeating assurances that Dumbledore would be arriving soon and that he was safe. Meanwhile, somewhere else, Voldemort was furiously punishing the followers that had displeased him. Snape had been hurt in his business for the Order. And there was nothing that anyone could do.