Chapter 18: Foot in Mouth
Lunch was awkward. The three remaining Marauders were talking up a storm without actually saying anything. It was embarrassing for Harry to have to watch their painful attempts to keep him from noticing that something was wrong. All three boys just wanted to shut up and not talk at all, but that would have been even more obvious.
As soon as he could, Harry interrupted the long-winded debate over which sandwich was better to bring them to a topic that was safe and comfortable for everyone. "So, tell me about the Quidditch team."
It was like a calming draught had been opened nearby; James, Sirius and Peter relaxed in their seats and sighed before James took up speaking again. "It's a rebuilding year, but last year we were the best. Montague and Curtis were the single greatest Chasers you've ever seen. They were brilliant to Captain."
"Brilliant to watch, too," Peter added. "I've never seen such great broom handling. They could out manoeuvre anything in the air."
"And Fenton was an amazing Keeper," James continued. "It was like we'd bricked up the hoops. Nothing made it through unless he wanted it to. His brother is trying out Saturday. I hope he's as good." He paused and considered the roster of names, which he had apparently memorised. "I don't see a good Seeker in the bunch this year."
"They haven't even tried out yet," Harry said. "How can you know?"
James looked at him over the golden rim of his eyeglasses. If his eyesight was even half as bad as Harry's he couldn't see a thing, but the glare was effective in making Harry feel stupid. "I've been at school with them for years, seen them in the corridors, watched most of them in tryouts since I've been on the team… trust me, they couldn't find their arses if their lives depended on it."
"So, I guess you'll be on the team after all," Sirius grinned.
"What about Beaters?" Harry asked, ignoring the comment. "We had a pair of twins on our team until last year. They were brilliant, like human Bludgers our old Captain always said."
"Well, you're sitting next to one," James commented.
Harry looked at the still-grinning Sirius Black. He wanted to smile, to ask when he joined the team or what broom he rode, but all he could think was that Sirius had never told him. Quidditch was Harry's only escape, his greatest joy in life and it was something he could have shared with Sirius if he had known. He forced the pain from his face and asked, "You play?"
Sirius's grin was fixed, but Harry couldn't tell. Only James knew when the boy was forcing his face to remain in place like a mask. It was a skill he generally used for unpleasant family gatherings or when he was being told off by professors, not when he was discussing Quidditch. But something had passed over Harry's face that made his own confidence waiver and he set his face to the mask to keep the boy talking.
There had been a moment of sadness and pain on Harry's face when he learned that Sirius was on the team, followed by a question filled with disbelief. It didn't fit; none of it. Something was definitely wrong with Harry James Granger, but Sirius could not sort out what.
"Yeah, I've been Beater for two years now," Sirius answered confidently, even though his thoughts were miles away… or, more precisely, three inches away, where Harry sat on the bench beside him. "Starting to think I might give up the position to someone else, though."
"Don't you even think about it," James said, his voice low and threatening in a way few ever thought he could sound. "It's hard enough Captaining without losing the only hope we have of a good Defence."
"Aye-aye, Captain," Sirius saluted and turned back to Harry, whose mask was good but not nearly as good as his own. "How long've you been playing?" He watched the boy's face as he spoke, looking for cracks in the mask where the truth could be seen. There weren't many while Harry talked of Quidditch, he clearly loved it and the joy was real, but he paused occasionally as if editing while he shared his stories. Sirius found this particularly intriguing and wondered what he could possibly have to hide about Quidditch.
"We'll have to pick this up later," James grumbled. "I've been putting off that Transfiguration essay all week and I need to get it done in time to have that sister of yours look over it." He grinned at the brainy gift the gods had bestowed upon him, standing and leaving the table without bothering to see if the others were following. He knew they were.
Harry watched him, wondering if there had ever been a time in his entire life when he had shown that much confidence. Probably not. Growing up a punching bag will do that for you, but there were times when he was pretty good. Leading Dumbledore's Army, for one.
"Knut for your thoughts," Sirius muttered very close to Harry's ear.
"Stop sneaking up on me," Harry grumbled.
The irritatingly grinning boy laughed, "I've been walking beside you for the past five minutes. It's not my fault if you're lost in your head."
"Sorry, I do that."
"A lot," Sirius agreed. "I've noticed. Should I put a lead on you to keep you from walking into walls? Come to think of it, why don't you get lost in the corridors while you're lost in thought?"
"How could I with you always walking beside me?" Harry grinned cheekily. "Leave me alone for five minutes and then see what happens."
Sirius was slightly annoyed at basically being told to piss off, but he didn't let it show.
"No worries, mate. I'll always be there to keep you on the proper path."
It was just a playful comment, the sort he made to everyone, even teachers, yet it tore the happy mask from Harry's face. Where a breath before he had been smiling, Harry now looked grim and haunted. The transformation was frightening. "You shouldn't make promises you can't keep."
Sirius didn't know what to say. He didn't dare call it a joke or insist that he was serious. Words came to his head and each one sounded more and more likely to anger the boy further. "Harry…"
"Forget it," Harry said, adding steam to his movement and walking quickly ahead of Sirius. He disappeared around the corner and down a secret passage, leaving the corridor mysteriously empty when Sirius rounded the corner.
"Knowledge of secret passages," Sirius noted with a quirked eyebrow and a leaden stomach. "Think that's right up there with worryingly large burn scars."
His mental list of curiosities about the boy was growing by the day, but none of it made any sense. The last time he bothered with a list of unusual behaviours, everything pointed to Remus J. Lupin being a werewolf… and he had been right. With Harry, nothing pointed to any one definitive answer and it was going to drive him mad.
"Perhaps it's time I spent some quality time with the sister," he said to himself.
He ran the rest of the way to Gryffindor tower, barely slowing down as he gave the password to the Fat Lady. Most of the students were already clearing out on their way to classes; only a handful, mostly sixth years, had this period free, one of them was Hermione. She was sitting by the fire, reading her Astronomy text and jotting down notes that she deemed important or worthy of further research.
"Don't you think you ought to rest if you've got a midnight class?" Sirius asked and dropped onto the couch next to her.
Impossibly, the girl ignored him. She turned the page in her book and continued to read, pausing only to add ink to the quill's tip and write a note about the Andromeda galaxy. Sirius had the most disturbing sensation of what it must be like to be someone who wasn't him, someone unpopular and unworthy of attention. It was not at all pleasant, and he would not allow himself to feel like that for a second longer.
"Have I offended you, Miss Granger?" he asked, his voice polite and charming and yet slightly sarcastic.
She sighed and dropped her book, glaring at him. "What do you want?"
Perhaps this was why James was so intent on chasing Evans. She didn't want his attention, clearly, but it only made him more eager to give it. "To talk to you, obviously."
"Well, I'm busy," she huffed and lifted her book again.
"And I'm curious," he smiled. "Were you this studious in South Africa or are you that far behind?"
"No, I was top in my class and we are in exactly the same place as you are here," she snapped not bothering to look away from her book. Sirius let her read a few minutes more while he considered how to approach her. Charm clearly didn't work. So school, then?
"Well, since you're all caught up and the brightest witch at whatever school you went to –"
"Saint Brutus's," she informed him crisply.
"Right, St Brutus's," he grinned. "Would you mind talking me through Transfiguration?"
Watching her eyes, he could see she wasn't reading, but the book stayed up to block him from seeing the rest of her face. So she had something to hide, as well. It took a full minute for her to close the book and turn to look at him.
Being looked at by Hermione was unlike anything he had ever experienced. Her dark brown eyes, so warm when she was laughing with Harry or Tildy, studied him with the cold precision of a scholar; it felt like McGonagall was eyeing him. "I somehow doubt you need my help in any of your subjects, Sirius," she said as her eyes finally settled on his. "So what is this really about?"
"Maybe I like you," he offered. The girl snorted and cocked her head to the side, clearly waiting for a proper answer. "Fine, I'm curious about Harry. He's odd."
"Yes, he is," she agreed. "But he's the best friend you could ever hope for or the worst enemy you could ever make." He wanted to laugh because it sounded as ridiculous as Harry's claim about Hermione having the best command of hexes in the country. That had turned out to be quite accurate, however, so he doubted that her words were exaggeration. "You would be wise to give him space; he's been through a lot."
"What gave him those burns?"
Hermione's glare faltered. "If he hasn't seen fit to tell you, then I don't think it would be right to say."
"Bollocks," Sirius said and stretched out on the couch. "He 'hasn't seen fit to tell' because he's had them so long he forgot they're there. What happened?"
"If that's what you think then ask him yourself," she replied waspishly, quickly collecting her things and marching away from him.
"Protective sister," Sirius remarked. She clearly knew all the boy's secrets. Sirius understood the importance of keeping a painful past hidden, but he failed to see what could be so devastating that Harry and his sister couldn't share even a little bit. "Granger! Wait up!"
"What now?" she snapped.
He pulled her back toward the fire and down on the couch where the rest of the common room couldn't see them quite so readily. "Look," he said, not bother to hide the irritation in his own voice, "I'm confused. He just changed, looked as if I'd hexed his puppy or something."
"What did you do?" Hermione demanded, her voice hard.
Sirius felt more than ever that he was in the presence of a hard-nosed prefect. "All I said was that I'd always be there to keep him out of trouble. I say shit like that all the time," he added defensively.
"Well, you shouldn't with Harry," she said, sadly. "Too many people have let him down. It's best to just leave him be."
"I'm not going to leave it," Sirius spat, insulted that she would even suggest it. "How could I after that?"
"If you're smart, and I know you are," Hermione stared him down, "you will stop playing games with him." His thoughts must have shown on his face because she nodded and left him alone on the couch to think over his own stupidity.
He didn't know Harry. The boy had essentially told them nothing about himself, and he had been incredibly foolish to play his usual games with him. He looked like James, but clearly he wasn't. The scars were proof enough of that; James had lived the life of privilege, getting away with murder because his elderly parents loved him to bits. Anyone who carried as many physical scars as Harry James Granger could not have parents who fretted and cooed over him. Sirius was starting to consider the very real probability of there being more mental scars to the boy than there where physical.
"What have you been up to?" he wondered as he stared intently at the fire and tried to arrange his Operation Not-Prongs list in such a way that Harry might make sense.
"Do that long enough, you'll need glasses," a boy commented to him. Sirius couldn't tell if it was James or Harry.
"Know a couple of blokes that look dead sexy in glasses," he grinned, keeping his eyes on the fire.
"Thank you," the boy said as he sat on the chair. With the simple act of sitting, Sirius knew that the boy was Harry; James would have sat down beside him.
"I don't know if you knew this," Sirius said conversationally, "but I'm an idiot."
"I had noticed," Harry agreed, smile on his face.
That was all it took. Harry was not angry at him and Sirius didn't actually have to apologise. He would have if it came to it, but only after another day or so of feeling like an arse. It was an unusual feeling, wanting to apologise; Remus often tried to shame him into feeling this way but rarely succeeded. Harry James Granger managed it inside a week of knowing him, making the boy even more special than Sirius already suspected.
"James sent me," Harry said after a quiet minute passed. "Wondered why you weren't upstairs getting ready for dinner."
"Dinner?" Sirius checked the clock on the mantle. "How the hell long have I been sitting here?"
"Apparently a while," the boy commented and let a satisfied smile take over his face. "Lost in thought?"
"Yeah, guess I was."
"Welcome to my world," Harry said. Sirius couldn't help thinking that Harry's world might be a very interesting place to be.