Chapter 13: A Night Alone
The awkwardness considerably diminished, Harry and Lily continued to walk to Gryffindor Tower. It was late when they stepped through the portrait hole. The few students still in the common room were not interested in either of them, and kept their heads down and quills working on the essays due first thing the following morning. The girl sighed her disapproval, but didn't seem to care enough to tell them off for not doing their assignments sooner.
"You're a prefect," Harry reminded her, "shouldn't you say something?"
"Like what?" she asked with a frown. "If they haven't learned to do their work on time by now, my yelling at them won't do anything." She squared her shoulders and pushed her chin up. "Besides, a prefect leads by example."
"Not doing a very good job there," he muttered, receiving a smack on the head for his commentary.
"None of your lip," she chided, but a smile tugged at her lips. "Now get to bed. It's late and you've had a very long day."
"Whatever you say," Harry said, grinning at her turn toward motherly affection. Their misunderstanding had done wonders for the barrier between them. All of the polite standoffishness was gone. Lily treated him as if she had known him for years while Harry no longer worried about offending her or what she thought of him. It was more than Harry could have hoped for after meeting her properly only thirteen hours earlier.
He was still grinning as he stepped into the bedroom he shared with the other sixth year boys. The lights were low and there was snoring coming from James and Peter's beds, so he didn't have to worry about explaining why he was so happy or recounting the main events of the evening. Part of him was sad that no one was waiting anxiously for his return; Ron or Neville would have still been sitting up and awake in anticipation of his coming through the door, eager for him to tell them what the Slug Club dinner had been like. But Harry supposed that these four Gryffindors were used to Slughorn and knew all about his dinners. For all Harry knew, they might have attended one. Well, probably not Peter.
Given Sirius's family, James's talent on the Quidditch pitch and Remus' status as a prefect and top-performing student, Harry had been surprised not to see any of them there. "Too many detentions probably," he concluded in a quiet mutter.
"Oh, you're here," Remus said in a low voice, glancing up from his book. "I was hoping you'd be back before I fell asleep and the House Elves put the lamps out."
"You didn't have to wait up," Harry insisted, feeling bad that he had deprived the boy of his sleep.
Remus shook his head and waved the concern away. "It's the only time I get to read in peace without those idiots interrupting," he said.
"I resent that!" Sirius declared in a sleepy yet still very impressive boom.
"Resent it all you like, Pads," Remus laughed. "It's still true."
"Well, then go back to reading," the boy instructed with a lazy gesture of his hand. "I need to speak with Harry James Granger."
Harry shifted nervously toward his bed, watching as Sirius sat up and yawned. "Uh… maybe that ought to wait till morning. You look kind of tired," Harry hedged.
"Nonsense," Sirius shook his head and waited for Harry to sit down. Their beds were directly beside each other's and carrying on a private conversation was not difficult, but Harry still didn't care for the stern look on Sirius's face.
"What is it?" he asked.
"Wormtail," Sirius said simply.
Harry frowned his lack of understanding, convinced Sirius was too tired to realise he wasn't making any sense. "What about him?"
"How do you know his nickname?"
"Hermione told me," replied Harry slowly. They had already been through this after Herbology. Why bring it up again?
A smile pulled at Sirius's mouth. It made Harry uncomfortable to see that smile because it gave the boy a decidedly smug air. He could have dealt with annoyed, confused, even angry, but smug set his gut to twisting anxiously; smug made him think that he had said too much, given something away.
He might not have known him well, but Harry knew how bright Sirius was. Even at sixteen, his young Godfather was sure to be able to work out that something was different about Harry and Hermione. Granted, even with all the clues laid out before him, the odds of arriving at the correct conclusion were pretty slim. What boy, even an exceedingly clever one with a thorough knowledge of magic, would decide that someone's strange behaviours were a result of that person being from the future?
No, they were perfectly safe.
"If you say so," Sirius replied vaguely.
"I do," said Harry with conviction.
Smirking, the boy laid back in his bed and waved his wand to close the curtains. "'Night, Harry James Granger."
Harry closed the curtains around his own bed and lay down. He wanted to sleep, to drift off and spend the night recuperating from his trying day. He had not slept at all the previous night; there had been too much to think about, to worry about, to smile about. The stress of his second day in 1976 had worn him down – Potions, the confrontation with Snape, an evening with Slughorn, learning the truth of his mother's character and now this brief but nerve-wracking discussion with Sirius. Tired as he was, however, he was not about to start believing he would sleep through the night without incident. He raised his wand and performed the charm he had been placing around his bed since July.
"Omni Silencio!" he whispered and sat in silence as he listened for the sound of Remus turning a page or someone snoring. When neither sound came to him through the barrier, he set his wand beneath his pillow and dropped down onto it.
He expected to lay there dissecting the meaning of his conversation with Lily or Sirius for some time, but sleep overtook him swiftly.
He was in Gryffindor Tower, sitting by the fire on the worn old couch. Lily sat beside him, laughing at something someone had just said. Remus was on a chair, reading a book and commenting whenever he felt his words might add something to the conversation. As interested as Lily seemed to be in what they were discussing, Harry couldn't quite make out what they were talking about. The words were a buzz in his ears like insects in a summer field.
It didn't matter, anyway; their company and the rest of the world around him faded as someone new entered the common room. He could not tell if everything and everyone had really vanished or if this boy was simply that much more interesting than the world around him, as if he carried a spotlight around to draw attention to himself. Even his hair seemed to radiate light, quite the feat given that every strand was black as midnight.
He dropped down onto the couch beside Harry, sitting so close he was half on Harry's lap, one arm around his shoulder. Somehow he didn't mind. This was Sirius, after all. The Ministry and the rest of the wizarding world might have thought him a deranged psychopath, but he had been the greatest thing to ever happen to Harry. Somehow it seemed as if Sirius felt the same way. He was always hugging Harry, amazed to have his Godson safe and in his custody. It was a habit his cousin had taken up after his death. They had been the sole inheritors of a recessive affection gene in the Black line. Now that Sirius was gone, it was up to Tonks to keep that singular trait going.
'No,' Harry thought. 'He's not dead. He's alive and here with me.'
That was true. Sirius was there with him, alive and young as Harry could only have dreamed. He was nothing like the young Sirius Harry had imagined while at the Burrow. He wasn't wearing torn and patched clothes typical of a London punk. His face wasn't marred by a sneer. This Sirius was impeccably dressed in a Hogwarts uniform, handsome and smiling, his eyes bright as Harry had only ever seen in photographs before landing himself in 1976.
"Harry James Granger," Sirius said, making Harry smile, "you think too much."
He could only nod his agreement. "Why can I understand you?" Harry wondered. "I couldn't understand Lily."
"Because I'm brilliant like that," he said with a shrug, as if Harry ought to know this by now.
Again Harry could only nod as Sirius starting talking, reminiscing about a prank he had once pulled on the Ravenclaw Quidditch team. It was hilarious and devious and so like Sirius that Harry knew it had to be true even though this was a dream. Every time Harry laughed, Sirius smiled down at him and gave him a small one-armed hug. This was what it would have been like, the two of them together as Godfather and Godson. Laughing and hugging and happy.
This was what it would have been.
This was what it should have been.
But this was wrong.
Sirius should have grown angry at him by now. Every time Sirius appeared in his dreams, which was every night Harry dared to sleep, he was accusing or berating Harry for his stupidity. Lately, he had started rejecting him, too, shoving him away, denying the boy any right to apologise. Slashed and safety-pinned, Sirius would glare at Harry, punch him in the face or stomach and spit his rage down onto the crippled boy as he gasped for enough breath to apologise.
Sirius was still talking, speaking now about a prank he wanted to pull on Snivellus Snape. "—and then we ought to—"
"I'm sorry," Harry interrupted, not caring if it turned the dream into something more painful.
"You should be," Sirius said darkly with a quirked eyebrow. "You weren't listening, and I am highly offended."
Harry laughed. Where had this boy come from? Just two days ago, a sneering, resentful Sirius had punched him in the gut and left him lying in a litter-filled gutter of London. Even in his dreams that had hurt… yet somehow Harry felt it was no less than he deserved. He wanted Sirius to make him pay for his recklessness. He had gotten the man killed, when all he had to do was dig into his trunk and find the two-way mirror the man had given him. Sirius had the other mirror in his pocket; if he had just used it he could have seen Sirius with his own eyes. Sirius could have told him where he was, that he was safe and that it was all a ploy.
"No, I'm sorry…" Harry stopped. Did he really want this to end? Did he want to lose this happiness? Did he really want Sirius to know what he had done? "I'm sorry…"
"You're sorry that you keep interrupting me?" Sirius offered, eyeing him with concern.
"I'm sorry I got you killed. Voldemort, he—"
"You worry me, Harry James Granger…" Sirius said and shifted away from him on the couch; the sudden loss of contact left Harry feeling cold. "Here we were having a grand time and you start talking nonsense." He turned away and started talking to James, who had apparently been there the whole time, though Harry hadn't seen him.
"Let me explain," Harry begged. "It—"
"No, I think that's enough from you, Granger," Sirius said dismissively. Somehow it hurt more than when Sirius had punched him. "You're clearly too odd to make friends with. I've enough insanity in my life already, thanks."
Harry tried to reach out and grab hold of his arm, to turn him around, to make him listen, but his hands refused to move. "But—"
"Just stop talking, Granger," James chimed in, glaring at the boy for daring to speak to them. "I already have Snivellus to play with. I can't be bothered with you right now."
"Really, what were you thinking?" Remus shook his head. "Spouting nonsense about deaths and Dark Lords. Next thing, you'll be saying one of us isn't what we seem!"
"But he isn't!" Harry shouted. "Peter's not like the rest of you! He's a rat! A traitor! He'll get you killed!"
They turned their backs on him, shaking their heads and muttering about him. Their voices lost their distinctiveness and became a loud and painful buzzing in his ears. Every time he tried to grab them, his arms refused to listen. Every time he tried to shout, his mouth remained shut.
"It serves you right for trying to tell them," Hermione shook her head sadly. "I told you third year about the rules! You cannot alter the past."
"I just want to apologise!" Harry insisted. "I have to apologise."
"He can't know," she told him firmly. "None of them can ever know. You can't tell them what happens or who you are. They can never know you."
Harry looked to the small pride of Gryffindors sitting so close to him – his mother, father, Godfather and the man he made a mentor. "But… they're my family."
"You are nothing to them," she said flatly. "A stranger. And that's how it's going to stay."
Remus looked up, sadness on his face as he looked at Harry, but it turned to a smile. He raised his hand and gestured welcomingly. Harry thought it was for him, but he still couldn't move.
"I have to go," Hermione said. She gave him a small hug and went to sit by Remus, leaving Harry alone. Her voice joined the indistinct droning in his ears and she was lost to him, too.
How could she join them so easily? Sit with them and live life alongside as if they were anything but the most important people in the world? Straining against the bonds of magic holding him in place, he only succeeded in causing himself physical pain.
It was pointless.
He was powerless to save them, to help them, to warn them. He couldn't even apologise.
He could only sit on the couch and watch them laugh and talk, not understanding a word of it and not being able to join in. They were lost to him, little more than pictures. Unable to watch any longer, he turned his back, but they were still there in front of him. He couldn't get away. He was stuck, forced to watch the people he loved live their lives unaware of what was coming. He was unable to do anything to change it.
He was alone.
Useless and alone.