Chapter 2: Happy Birthday Boy
Harry dug into the bags as Tonks handed them to him. He barely had time to register what was in his hands before she thrust another bag into his lap. Jeans, trousers, socks, underwear (how exactly she knew what type and size he wore was a slightly worrying mystery), jumpers and tee-shirts, more tee-shirts than he thought made sense to own.
There wasn't a blank tee-shirt among them. Every shirt bore the name of some band or other, which struck Harry as odd. Tonks wasn't one to force her tastes on anyone. She had never once suggested Hermione chop her hair short and dye it a wild colour, never tried to drag Ron into a shop to get something pierced, yet she had given Harry shirts for what he assumed were her preferred bands. Remus watched his expression and understood.
"In memoriam, Tonks?" he asked with a soft chuckle.
"Of course!" the pink haired woman replied brightly. Harry stared at them both and then back at the heap of shirts. "Sirius gave me my first punk album, 'Never Mind the Bollocks'." A wistful smile overtook her cheeky grin as she remembered. "It was so beat up. The cover had been spell-o-taped back together at least twice. I can't imagine how many times he listened to it before he handed it off to me."
"I tried to stop him," Remus said. "She was only eight."
"It was the greatest present he could've given me," she insisted, slightly annoyed at the man's long ago interference.
"You were eight," he repeated with more emphasis. "That was far too mature for you."
Harry, while amused by the light-hearted argument, was sad. He hadn't known that his Godfather liked punk, or that he had influenced Tonks to her current state of spiked and pierced. What else didn't he know? "So," Harry said a bit too loudly. "Sirius liked the Sex Pistols?"
"Not as much as the Buzzcocks," Remus smiled. "He dragged me to a show once… once was enough."
"When was this?" Harry questioned, eager for more information about the friend he had lost.
"Uh… '78, I think. It was the middle of winter, rubbish everywhere," Remus frowned, remembering the smell rolling off the piles of uncollected garbage in the street. The Muggles had been having some sort of row over money and the dustmen refused to do their jobs until it was sorted to their satisfaction. It was no wonder that the witches and wizards that ventured into Muggle London thought so poorly of Muggles when that was what confronted them that long, cold winter. Remus hadn't thought particularly well of them either.
"How did he even know about them?" Harry wondered aloud. His Godfather was pure-blooded and lived with his domineering mother until he was sixteen. He then removed himself to the pure-blood Potters, where Harry couldn't imagine there being a vast collection of contemporary Muggle music.
"Tildy Moorehead," Remus said without pause. "She was Muggle-born and dated Sirius for about five minutes in our seventh year. She loved music, all of it. I think if she hadn't found out she was a witch, she would have been studying composition at some Muggle conservatory. Her parents sent her a new record every week. That album he gave Tonks was one Tildy had given him."
"Oh," Harry said. He felt stupid for not knowing what to say, for not knowing what Sirius liked or who he got what from or who he had dated even briefly. He knew so little about his own Godfather. He was starting to think he had no right to mourn the man since he was such a stranger.
"Sirius would have told you," Remus said when he saw the pained look on Harry's face. "He would have told you everything if there had been time."
"I know."
"Wait!" Tonks said and flung herself onto the bed beside him. "You inherited all his old records. Oh, Harry, please let me borrow some! Please!" She hugged Harry around the middle and squeezed him tightly as she pleaded.
"I wouldn't even know where to find them," Harry gasped between his laughter.
"I'll search the whole house—I'll clean the whole house. I won't break anything," she promised. "Please!"
"Fine, you can borrow them… once we find them," Harry wheezed.
"Yay!" she squeezed him even tighter and planted a kiss on his cheek before pulling away and thrusting a wrapped box into his hands. "Happy Birthday!" Harry stared at it for a moment. Surely, he had enough gifts already. "It's from Charlie. You can tell by the rubbish job he did wrapping it." Her eagerness got the better of her and she stole the box back and started shaking it next to her ear, trying to see if the sound would give away any hints to what lay inside.
"Oh," Harry said and took it from her before she broke it. "You know my birthday isn't until the thirty-first, right?"
"Yeah, but you're already opening stuff…"
"And Tonks can't stand not knowing what's in a wrapped package," Remus grinned. "We've had to keep the door locked and warded against her for the past four days. Caught her picking the locks last night."
"Curiosity is not a crime," she sniffed and edged closer to Harry, eager for him to open the present.
Even as he laughed, Harry's throat felt tight and dry and his eyes itched as he thought about receiving a gift from someone he barely knew. Tonks prodded him in the arm and he tore into the paper to make her happy, opening the box. "Wow. Is that a tooth?"
He lifted what had to be a dragon tooth from the box and brought it closer to his face. A series of small gems had been inlaid into the serrated tooth, which hung from a leather thong. It was larger than the tooth he remembered hanging from the man's ear, but at least it wouldn't require him to pierce anything. Even without having to modify himself to wear it, he suspected it would drive Mrs Weasley to distraction. Tonks tore it from his hand and tied it around his neck, using a charm to fix the knot and make sure it wouldn't come undone. The charm would also ensure Harry wouldn't chicken out of wearing it.
"Harry, that looks wicked!" She grinned and turned the tooth so the light caught the gems. "Charlie's properly clever, so I'm sure these have meaning. Damned if I know what they are, though." She thrust another present into his hands. She kept him tearing wrapping paper until it his bed was cleared of all bags, boxes and parcels. It was the most he'd ever gotten in his entire life.
"Now that it's nearly midnight and your bed is free, I think some sleep is in order," Remus suggested. "Tomorrow we'll go to Diagon Alley and I'll give you Sirius's present. Don't get too excited," he smiled when he saw Harry's hopeful grin. "It's to get you some new glasses. We all agreed those are far too old and broken to be fitting the symbol of light and hope." He chuckled as Harry snorted.
"Thank you," Harry said.
"Wear something cool tomorrow, and give me your old clothes. I want to set them on fire. They are seriously awful," Tonks insisted and hugged him tight. "No one as dead sexy as you should hide under someone else's nasty old clothes." She pulled back and winked at him before heading out the door. Remus gave him a sound pat on the back as he left, and Harry was alone again.
His smile fell quickly without his friends to keep him distracted. He looked at the bed and considered sleeping, knowing that he wouldn't have time to rest during the day if he was going to Diagon Alley. Thankfully, he was in a wizarding house, so the Ministry couldn't prove he performed any magic. With a flick of his wand, he set a silencing charm around his door and fell onto the bed, dropping off in minutes.
Sirius came into his mind, young and carefree. His shirt was torn and safety-pinned back together; he wore a chain and padlock around his neck and the air of a young man eager to get into a fight. Harry followed him through the Muggle streets, dodging picketers and stepping around bags of rubbish until he found an alley. He ran into it trying to chase after Sirius, only to find him waiting.
"Why are you still following me?" he demanded and shoved the boy. "Leave me alone. Can't even rest in peace with you around."
"Sirius, I'm sorry. I was trying to save you," Harry pleaded. "It wasn't my fault."
He laughed, cold and hard and not at all like a bark, "I went to save you, and look where it got me. I'm dead now 'cause of you!" He sneered. "Should've let Wormtail take you. Useless."
"Please, it wasn't my fault. Voldemort tricked me," he grabbed at his Godfather, trying to pull him closer and keep him from falling away. "I love you. You're all I have left."
"Like I care what you have or what you feel," he shoved the boy to the ground and walked away.
"Come back!" Harry yelled. "Don't leave me alone. Sirius!" He shot up in bed and felt in the dark for him, but Sirius was gone in life and in dreams. Wiping the sweat off his face, Harry stood and threw the window wide open, desperate for air. He could barely breathe. The dream was different. Sirius had never sneered at him before, shoved him or denied him before. He had yelled at him, blamed him, but never since the dreams started had he been so cold. Shivers chased down his thin frame as he sat in the cool breeze. Morning was still hours away, but he wouldn't try to sleep again.
Sitting below the open window, Harry forced his mind to clear and let himself drift in a half-conscious state until the first sounds of life came to the house. He stole into the washroom as Mrs Weasley busied herself in the kitchen, making herself breakfast and preparing enough food to feed a small army. He took his time showering and gathering his wits for the coming day.
"Oi! Hurry it up!" Ron banged on the door.
"Just a minute," Harry called and threw his new clothes on. The vintage shirt and jeans felt as comfortable and familiar as anything he had ever worn, and he made a point of hugging Tonks as soon as he saw her that morning. "The clothes are brilliant. Thank you."
"You're still too skinny. That shirt should be way tighter," she commented and poked at his ribs. "Eat something, would you?"
"Well, since it's you asking," he smirked and sat at the table, though he had no intention of eating much of anything.
"Eat, Harry," Remus insisted. "You'll need your strength for today… Tonks is coming with us as rear guard."
"Do we really need guards?" Harry asked, trying to keep the man from focusing on how much he wasn't eating.
"Someone has to watch your back," Tonks insisted. "And I'm more than happy to do it – you've a nice back to watch." She winked at him and turned back to her breakfast.
Remus shook his head and smiled at the woman's behaviour. She was so like her cousin, somehow making people feel welcome and at home even as she flirted shamelessly. "Eat, Harry," he insisted and pushed a plate in front of him, watching the boy like a hawk as he forced a few bites of egg, half a sausage and a slice of toast down his throat. It was all he could manage and even then he felt sick. Remus nodded and ate a similarly small portion in solidarity.
"The full moon was only last week. You should eat more," Harry said seriously.
"Pot. Kettle. Black," the man said with the barest hint of a smile as he pushed his plate away, leaving it heaped with as much food as Harry had his own.
Harry knew he was being manipulated, but didn't care. Remus was his friend and the last connection he had to his parents and to Sirius; he needed to keep the man from killing himself by slow starvation. "If I ate more, would you?" the boy asked.
"I would," Remus smiled.
"Deal… just not this morning," Harry put a hand to his stomach as a wave of nausea washed over him. "Can we go?" The others were starting to wake, filling the kitchen with noise and cheer that Harry just wasn't up for.
Remus nodded and stood. "Thank you, Molly, but we're in a hurry. I'm sure the boys won't let this go to waste." He gave the woman a kiss on the cheek and held the door for Harry to follow, giving them no time for argument or sentimental hugs. They were only going shopping and would be back well before dinner. Tonks chased after them, still chewing on the last of her bacon.
Wands raised in anticipation of attack, Remus and Tonks held onto Harry and Apparated to Diagon Alley.
The plan had been made well ahead of time, and their path from store to store was an odd zigzag across the cobbled street and back again. It would have been impossible to predict where they would move after leaving Flourish and Blotts or Madame Malkins. Harry, who had been coming to Diagon Alley since he was eleven, found himself turned around and practically lost by the time they had gathered all his school supplies. He was getting angry and tired. It had been weeks since he had exerted himself this much.
He was ready to call it a day and go rest, but Remus's words energised him. "And finally, Sirius's birthday gift to you," he said and handed Harry the scroll of parchment. "It's just a voucher for whatever you need at the ocular healer."
"I don't care what it is," Harry said and gripped the scroll as if it were gold. To him it was. It was proof that Sirius wasn't like the sneering boy in his dream but really was the man he remembered. Sirius was someone who cared about him, even cared about such mundane things as his glasses.
Remus cleared their path across the lane to the shop, Tonks keeping watch from behind, her eyes missing nothing as they walked the short distance. She stood out front while the boys went in. Her training had her standing at ease in front of the shop's window, scanning the crowds of shoppers for potential threats, but if she had her way she would be bouncing on her toes to look inside and gesturing which glasses Harry ought to choose. She was so annoyed that she couldn't go in and help. Her sense of style was impeccable, even Sirius had agreed.
Her sense of decorum failed her when Harry stepped out. "Fabulous choice!" she said and forced the poor boy's head in every direction to examine his new look. "Much better than those beat up old things."
"Thank you," Harry said as best he could with her hands crushing his cheeks against his teeth.
"We're done," Remus said quietly. "Let's head back and you can admire Harry's good looks in the safety of the Burrow."
"Will do," Tonks winked.