Calm before the storm; set it off
And the sun burnt out tonight
Reception less than warm; set it off
And the sun burnt out tonight
Chapter Five: Empty Threats
Harry had finally managed to create the perfect picture in his mind about the world he was in but he quickly lost it when he heard a loud ‘thud’ resound from outside of his window. Harry looked towards his window and suddenly became more aware of Sirius’ warnings to his daughter about her opening her door, and noticed that they were gradually increasing in volume. The warnings dissipated quickly as it began to register in everyone’s heads what had just happened.
Harry sat quietly at his desk, afraid to move, but eventually he gave into his curiosity and got up to look out of his window. Below him, on the ground, Reign was casually brushing the snow that had gotten on her cloak, after a less than graceful escape from her room. Once she was sure she was cleaned off enough she headed off towards the woods just past the Quidditch pitch. When she had reached the edge of the awaiting forest, she apparated and a loud crack echoed everywhere. Instantly, Harry knew his parents and worse even, Sirius, had heard her decent from the Potter’s house too.
As if to confirm his suspicions Sirius growled out a cuss word. Shortly after this outburst of obvious outrage, Harry heard the distinct click of a lock being opened and then a door creaking open, again, Sirius began to cuss, to himself, under the findings of the girl’s room being completely empty, without any signs as to where his daughter had run off too.
Harry sighed openly as he went over to his bed, sat down and continued to stare at the door as he listened to the muffled words that were exchanged between his godfather and his parents. He had figured out from the way they hadn’t trusted his word in the kitchen earlier, and from the pictures on his wall, that he was obviously very close to Reign, and therefore would cover for her in such a situation as this because he would most likely know where she had gone. Of course, in this particular moment in time and space, he didn’t, but the confrontation with the three adults was evident whether he knew about Reign or not. So he just sat as he waited for these three people, that he barely knew at all, to interrogate him.
Overall, it took them only five minutes to stop bickering amongst themselves before they finally entered Harry’s room. When they emerged within his room, Harry looked up at them unsure as to how well this plan of his was going to go over. Maybe he should have taken his chances and run away too. Maybe that would have been safer than the wrath of his obviously distraught godfather.
He stared up at Sirius as the man faked a smile at him and casually walked over to his bedside. The much taller man then knelt down on his knees and looked Harry directly in the eyes. The man’s dark eyes looked searchingly into Harry’s emerald green ones until he gave out a final sigh and spoke softly. “Harry, do you know where Reign is?” His voice sounded both concerned and exhausted at the same time.
Harry looked at him and shook his head. “I don’t.”
Sirius glanced down at the ground. “Don’t lie, Harry. It’s not worth protecting her over something this stupid.”
“But I’m not lying.” Harry pleaded so earnestly that Sirius’ gaze fell back onto the boy’s face. His godfather stared at him for a long while before he looked back at James and Lily in obvious frustration. Harry followed his gaze and then stared at his parents. They had the same concerned yet exhausted fatigue as Sirius and Harry suddenly wished that he could at least tell them something. Anything.
“Are you sure you don’t know anything.” James asked as he stared at Harry.
Harry stared at his father for a second. “Are you positive that you didn’t find something in her room?” He said suddenly, but caught that he had even said it a little too late.
“Harry, don’t talk back to your father.” Lily warned.
Harry looked at her as an odd feeling filled his being. He felt ashamed, disappointed somehow by what he had just done. He sighed deeply unsure of what to do and then stood up from his position on his bed. He honestly had no clue about any of this but at the same time he felt as if he should. He slowly walked over to the tag board. He stared at the pictures, while Sirius and his parents watched him intently.
He stayed in this position for a few moments before a picture caught his eye. It was of Reign dancing with a man with long red locks. Harry stared at it for a long while as he tried to figure out why this particular picture bothered him so much. He stared at the man and then spoke aloud. “Bill.” He could feel his parents and Sirius watching him closely as he put two and two together, and then he finally turned around to face them once he was positive of the man’s identity. “She’s in Egypt.”
The three adults eyes grew wide as this information registered fully within their minds. Harry looked at each of them in turn as his mind began to reel just as badly as his parents’ undoubtedly were at that moment in time. Why had he said that? And worse yet, why did it seem to make sense? For nothing about the idea made any practical sense at all. He was torn away from his thoughts as Sirius exclaimed. “Why the bloody hell would she go to Egypt?”
The man looked at Harry who only shrugged his shoulders and muttered. “I don’t know.”
Sirius threw up his hands in frustration as he began to pace absentmindedly around Harry’s room like an aggravated animal. “What do we do know?” He asked as he looked up at his best friend of so many years.
James only shrugged his shoulders and looked intensely at the man across from him. “We wait for her to come home, I guess.”
Harry sighed deeply as the three adults retreated out of his room after having another brief discussion on how Sirius was going to ‘kill’ her when she came back. Harry though, was left alone with his own thoughts, after they had finally left, but it only took a little while before he grew lonely and walked out of his room and wandered down to the living room where Sirius and his parents sat silently around the fireplace. Harry edged towards them and sat down beside Sirius who only smiled half-heartedly at him and patted him on the leg gently in appreciation for what he had told him earlier.
As they sat in silence Harry took his time to take a good look at the decor. The decorations for the room were mainly paintings of forest scenes and other wilderness depictions, all of which were hung up against the white walls, making for a very well thought out contrast between the colors of both the paintings and the wall. His eyes were then drawn to the empty tree in the corner with boxes of old ornaments sitting around it waiting to be placed on the awaiting tree.
“You want to decorate it now?”
Harry looked over at his mother questioningly, first not entirely catching her meaning but then, when he understood, he just stared at her blankly. He’d never decorated a Christmas tree before. The Dursley’s would never let him and aside from that he usually spent Christmas at Hogwarts, and the one time that he didn’t Sirius couldn’t exactly leave Grimmauld Place to go collect the tree and the other members of the order were much to busy to do so, too.
He stared at his mother unsurely but then nodded his head. She smiled at him and stood up and walked over to the tree. Harry followed as he heard his father and Sirius fall into a bit of chatter.
His mother carefully opened one of the boxes and began to pull out each individually wrapped ornament, unwrapped them, and slowly began handing them to Harry as she took the time to tell him of their origins along with other stories of both her mother and of Harry’s father’s family as she gave him an odd assortment of both muggle and wizarding decorations.
Harry, though, was not put off by the combination of Christmas decorations, as he hung on his mother’s every word as she spoke softly to him. He learned more about his family’s past in that half hour of decorating than in the last six years of his knowing that he was, in fact, a wizard. When he had placed the final decoration on the back of the tree his mother looked at him and asked, “Traditional star or fairy?”
Harry looked at her slightly confused by the question. “You have to top it off with something, hun, so, what will it be this year?”
Harry laughed uncomfortably at his stupidity and quickly selected the star, to which his mother kindly said that she had figured that he would as she handed it gently to him. Once Harry had done the honor of placing the star on the top of the tree he carefully climbed back down the stepladder and looked at his mother who was contently staring at her husband. “Why don’t we go into the kitchen and you can tell me about your little schoolmates.”
Harry agreed and she led him back into the kitchen where they sat and talked. Harry was amazed by how easy his mother was to talk to, considering the all around oddness of the situation. He slowly grew more comfortable with what he was doing and eventually began to tell her as much as he could about Ron and Hermione, even Neville came into play once when Harry had slipped up and said that the boy was a bit accident prone.
Lily only listened to her son and laughed in some places, which had typically followed with her stating that he was a lot like his father, and always had been. And then she took the time to tell him about some of her experiences with the marauders before she had begun to date James. She was about to go into a particularly embarrassing moment for Sirius when a door slammed shut and they heard Sirius begin to yell frantically. Lily’s face grew concerned and she stood up from her seat and left the room. Harry followed and as soon as he had entered the living room he saw Sirius standing less than a foot away from his daughter as they screamed at each other.
“Where were you?” Sirius growled.
“Why hello, dad, good to see you too.” Reign muttered as she tried to walk past the man. He quickly grabbed her hand, in a way to prevent her from leaving the room. “You’re not going anywhere, missy, until you tell me where you were.”
“Egypt. Can I go now?” She spat out venomously.
Sirius glared at her as he tried to keep his temper. “No, you cannot. Why were you there?”
Reign just rolled her eyes at him and quickly danced around the truth. “Well, it’s better than going to see Remus isn’t it?”
Harry’s interest was perked slightly as he looked at Reign and Sirius in confusion, which no one saw. He watched as Sirius’ face went rigid at the sound of his old friend’s name. Reign smiled slightly knowing she had her father exactly where she wanted him and continued. “Wouldn’t want that now would we?” She laughed slightly. “It’s a shame he turned me away. Said he wouldn’t want you to get mad. Now does that sound like a psycho back-stabber to you?”
Sirius’ glare only intensified as he let go of his daughter’s hand. “Do you want to jeopardize this families safety?” He made a wild hand gesture towards the Potter’s, which were all watching this family spat from the sidelines. “Do you want to see them dead?” Sirius stopped and waited for some kind of protest from Reign but when she said nothing he continued. “Given any chance Remus would turn them into Voldemort and then what?” He yelled passionately.
Reign just looked blankly at her father and continued with her defense. “Remus is my family. He was your friend. I don’t understand how you could even feel this way. And you can’t stop me or mum from seeing him, I mean, mum’s visiting him right now. What are you going to do about that, huh?” Sirius’ face flushed with rage as he quickly lifted his right hand and Reign’s eyes grew wide with terror. Sirius’ hand began to fall as it registered quickly within Reign’s mind that he was actually going to strike her.
Harry watched as the information they had just spouted into the birth of the living room, began to dawn fully on him. Sirius still thought that Lupin was the spy. Harry’s eyes grew wide as his mind began to reel in quick thought. Of course he would, because the Shrieking Shack incident never took place in this world. So obviously neither Lupin nor Sirius would know that...
“Pettigrew’s the spy.”
The words had slipped out of Harry’s mouth before he had even realized he was going to say it. Instantly, his hands went up to cover his mouth as Sirius’ hand stopped just in time before it made contact with his daughter’s now white with fear cheek. Harry’s parents slowly turned their heads towards him as they tried to understand where he would have gotten such an idea. Harry’s eyes shifted from his parents confused gaze to Sirius’, whose own eyes had grown wide with shock as he stared down at his hand.
“You almost hit me!” Reign stated in utter astonishment.
Sirius stepped back and looked over at his daughter as though he were afraid he would possibly hurt her. He looked over at Harry and then back at his daughter, suddenly torn between the two situations. Then he finally looked back at his daughter. “I didn’t mean too. I never wanted to strike you.”
“You didn’t.” Sirius continued to stare at Reign, without hearing what she had said.
“Oh my God. I’m just like my father.”
While Harry watched his godfather slowly edge away from his daughter, who was now truly concerned about her father and was now trying to get him to understand that he most assuredly was not like his father, his parents had made their way over to him. Harry looked at them, realizing that they, unlike Sirius, were actually going to see what he had meant by saying Pettigrew was the spy. He felt slightly sick, as he wished that he were now in his common room at Hogwarts enjoying Christmas with Ron and Hermione rather than being here. His eyes then quickly shifted from his parents to the floor.
“Harry, what do you mean, Peter’s the spy?”
Harry avoided their gaze and looked over at Reign who was now listening to what was going on with Harry because she was not entirely ready to deal with her issues with her father just yet and she also wanted to hear what exactly he knew. Under the weight of these added eyes he began to wish, even more, that he had Hermione beside him to tell him what he should do. He continued to look over in Reign’s direction and noticed that Sirius’ shock at his last action began to diminish once he had lost his daughter’s attention and the two made a silent agreement to continue with their argument at a later time. Harry sighed deeply. “Nothing.”
“It’s definitely not: ‘Nothing.’” James retorted. He looked Harry straight in the face as the boy met his gaze and tried to come up with something clever to say but couldn’t. Oh, how he absolutely wanted Hermione with him to tell him what to do. As he looked at his father he quickly decided to tell the truth, well, part of it anyway.
“Pettigrew’s the spy. Lupin had nothing to do with it. He thinks you’re the spy.” Harry stated firmly as he looked at Sirius. Sirius’ face was blank of all expression. James just looked over at Sirius with confusion written plainly on his face.
“But we met up with Peter a week ago. He still seemed to be fine with not being secret keeper, like we had played with for awhile, but even then that was nearly fifteen years ago when we made that decision.” James then looked to his son. “So, what would give you such an idea?”
Harry just looked at him and shrugged his shoulders, figuring that it was not worth his time to try and explain himself. He wouldn’t know what to say even if he could tell them the truth, so he lowered his eyes to the ground, and stood with all eyes on him as he waited for someone else to talk first. When the voice finally emerged from the silence he found that it annoyed him greatly. “I never told you that.”
Harry then glanced up over at Reign and he stared vacantly at the girl. How had this somehow gone back to her? It had nothing to do with her. It was about him, Sirius, and Lupin, even if two of the party members involved didn’t know it. Then, before he could stop himself, he felt the anger of everything hit him full force as it had been doing frequently since his fifth year and then he quickly laid into the unsuspecting girl.
“My God! Why does everything have to revolve around you? Sirius likes me more than you, well, from what I just saw. I doubt that. He’s your father, he loves you, treat him with respect.” He took a deep breath and then listed the other thing she had now somehow gotten to involve her. “I know about Lupin and suddenly you think it has to deal with you. You ever think that I might actually have other means of figuring things out! The world does not revolve around you. If anything you are the least of its problems.” Harry yelled out and then looked at the girl who stood shocked for a moment but quickly recovered. She laughed a bit and then came back with her own smug comment.
“Ooh, ickle Harry yelled at me! I’m scared.” She shook her hands in mock fear and continued. “And by the way, I could care less about how you found out about Remus not being the spy, but informing me to respect that man,” She gestured quickly towards Sirius, “who spends most of his time in hiding and never sees me is pointless. If he doesn’t take the time to show he cares, then why should I?”
“Because he’s your father!”
Reign rolled her eyes but said nothing. After a moment of silence Harry figured he had won the argument and quickly started towards the staircase to go and hide in his room for the rest of the evening. He’d certainly done enough damage for one day and he definitely did not want to cause anymore. But once his foot had hit the bottom stair Sirius’ daughter seemed to have found her voice. “And what are you going to do if I don’t?”
Harry casually looked over at her, completely forgetting that there were any added people in the room, opened his mouth and came out with the one thing that he had on his mind. The one thing that had been his answer to everyone that had even mildly annoyed him since Sirius’ death, only this time he said it out loud. “I’ll kill you.”
Reign laughed at this, which only upset him further. “Really?” She retorted, as if this were the funniest thing in the world.
Harry glared at her. Finding that he really did not like this girl very much, at all. “Yeah, I will. I have to take out a dark lord, why not add another person to the list?” As soon as the final bit of his threat had left his mouth he instantly felt the presence of his parents and Sirius, who were now looking at him as though he were a completely different being.
Harry stared at them and then before they had the chance to begin being outraged with him or whoever had told him that particular secret, Harry ran up the stairs as fast as his legs could take him. He opened the first door he came upon and stepped inside the room. He could hear the voices downstairs, each of which were trying their best to figure out how he had known that particular bit of information about his young life. Harry then carefully walked over to the mirror over the sink and stared at his scar-less reflection. He’d created a mess in a matter of three sentences and now he was stuck. He sighed deeply, all he wanted right now was to be at Hogwarts, with his friends, even if that that meant there would be no Sirius.