Harry’s body was pressed into the wall, and Luci was kissing him recklessly, so deeply that he thought his soul might be seeping out through his mouth.
When she backed away, Harry didn’t dare open his eyes. Instead, he just gasped, “What was that for?”
Then he opened one eye, because she hadn’t said anything.
“Something to remember until I get back,” she replied seductively, smiling up at him.
Harry’s pulse was already racing, but at her tone, it somehow picked up pace. “It’s going to be the longest two weeks of my life.”
“Oh, I doubt that.”
Harry laughed.
“What?” asked Luci in merriment.
He rapped on the wall behind him, and Sirius poked his head through the door.
“Sorry… uh… didn’t want to follow you in… under the circumstances…”
Luci had gone crimson and, apparently, speechless.
Harry continued to laugh.
“This is Luci,” he said to Sirius.
“Pleasure,” his godfather said awkwardly as he came into the room. He gestured to his own chest and said, “Sirius Black,” in introduction.
Luci nodded mutely. Then she unexpectedly threw herself at him, and he stiffened in alarm at her actions.
“So good to meet you!” she chirped, pulling away. “But how? I thought it didn’t work!”
“I thought you weren’t a hugger?” accused Harry jokily.
“It’s Sirius! We thought he was dead!”
Sirius looked as if he would rather be dead.
“The exchange worked,” said Harry. “The Veil just isn’t very punctual.”
“It was you,” cut in Sirius without warning. “You got me out of that… that place.”
Luci shook her head modestly.
“Yes, Harry told me everything that you did. I am in your debt.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” she grinned. “It was all for Harry. Though I’m very glad that you did get out, for your own sake, as well. It really is so wonderful to meet you!”
“What’s all this racket so early in the morning?” came Luci’s mother’s voice.
The three of them turned to acknowledge her, and then Luci said, “This is my mom, Melissa Keegan. Mama, this is Sirius, the one I was telling you about, Harry’s godfather.”
Sirius slanted his head in a fashion almost resembling bafflement, and Melissa extended her hand to meet his. They shook, languorously, studying each other’s faces.
“Very nice to meet you,” said Melissa, her voice uncharacteristically reticent.
“Likewise,” Sirius replied quietly.
“I’m on my way down to make some breakfast. Care to join me?”
Sirius stared at Melissa as if she’d invited him to snog her. Finally, he answered cautiously, “Love to,” and he followed her out onto the landing.
“Did you see that?” asked Luci, nudging Harry with her elbow.
“Yeah,” he answered slowly. “Gross.”
“Really gross.”
Downstairs in the kitchen, they were greeted by Hermione, who squealed uncontrollably the moment that she spotted Sirius. “Harry, you didn’t tell me!”
“Oh, yeah,” answered Harry wittily, “Hermione, Sirius is back.”
“Funny,” said Hermione. “I’m gonna go get Ron!”
Harry nodded his approval and plopped gleefully down onto the bench beside Sirius, who draped an arm around his shoulders.
“You know, it really is good to be back. You’ve all spiffed this place up quite nicely!”
Luci was already helping her mother with food preparation, and Harry knew that they weren’t employing magic. He watched her silvery hair fall into her face as she concentrated on slicing a large melon, and his hands ached to tuck the strands lovingly behind her ear. She must have felt his eyes upon her, because she glimpsed up and beamed at him.
“Where’s Kreacher?” Sirius asked Harry. “Your girlfriend and her mother shouldn’t have to make breakfast!”
“Oh, we don’t mind,” answered Luci. “We do a lot of things the Muggle way.”
“Unnecessary,” said Sirius, as if the idea of this made him ill.
“Kreacher’s at Hogwarts,” Harry chimed in, “but I’m sure you can call him back, now that he’s yours again.”
“Better around here without him,” Sirius disagreed. “Grumpy little bugger. Come to think of it, I was pondering, and I’m convinced that everything transferred to you because I was actually gone from this world, after all.”
“Logical,” concurred Harry.
“Turn around,” said Luci, out of the blue, nodding towards the doorway.
Lupin and Tonks stood side by side, their mouths agape. Mad-Eye Moody was directly behind them, barking about the pair of them blocking the path into the kitchen.
Sirius shot to his feet and dashed over to Lupin. Neither of them said anything, but they embraced warmly. Finally, they broke apart and Tonks said, “I… I don’t understand!”
Moody was seating himself at the table by now, seemingly unconcerned about Sirius’s return. “Sounds like the kids figured out that Veil. Question is “ who told them?”
“Being part of a really evil family can come in handy,” answered Luci, and she smiled rebelliously at him.
“I’m going to pretend that I didn’t hear that,” sighed her mother.
“You did this?” Tonks asked Luci.
Luci shrugged. “You guys kept asking me what I wanted with Peter. We traded him for Sirius.”
Lupin, who was now sitting on Sirius’s other side at the table, choked, “But… how?”
“Everyone keeps asking that,” said Harry casually.
Ron and Hermione burst into the room just then, and Ron rushed wordlessly over to Sirius. He seized his hand, shaking it, bumping Harry’s shoulder forcefully. But Harry didn’t care.
“Ron, so sorry to hear about your mum and brother,” said Sirius genially.
Ron briefly cast his eyes downwards, but then he smiled slightly and replied, “Glad you’re back.”
“Me too!”
“So… so the plan? It worked?”
“It would appear so,” grumbled Mad-Eye Moody.
Sirius grinned. “Harry was just about to explain my reappearance. Harry?”
“Oh, all right,” he sighed. Melissa was passing food around the table, but everyone was staring at him. So he began again, despite the fact that he was entirely sick of recounting his adventures.
He was just getting to the bit where Hermione had suggested the Wonderfluff (and, at this, Tonks grinned proudly), when Melissa cut in, “Sorry to interrupt, but Luci, we have to go. The plane’ll be taking off soon and we still need to stop by and see your brother. Why don’t you go upstairs and get your things?”
Luci glanced miserably at Harry and then got to her feet.
“Be down in a minute,” she said to her mother, and then to Harry, “Keep going,” in regards to the story. Then she left the room.
“Well, go after her, Harry,” said Sirius, gesturing towards the door. “She’ll need a proper good-bye.”
“Right,” stammered Harry, who rose and hurried from the room.
He found her flipping the locks closed on her trunk.
“Need any help?”
Straightening up and facing him, she pouted, “I don’t wanna go.”
He closed the space between them, taking her into his arms. They stood there in silence for a few minutes. He breathed her in, trying to memorize how she felt against him, telling himself that he could live two weeks without this electricity shooting through his body. But he didn’t really believe it.
Eventually, he said, half-teasing, “You told me your whole life was there, so don’t change your mind about coming back, OK?”
Luci pulled away, only slightly, only enough to look up into his eyes. “I won’t. Things have changed.”
“But you’re giving up your home and your friends and“”
She didn’t hesitate. “I know. But I’ve thought a lot about this. I’ve never felt about anyone the way that I feel about you. And moving across an ocean is a small price to pay. For what we have. And after what happened with my father, I need to be near Draco too.”
“No talk of Draco right now,” Harry sighed, feeling the romantic moment slip away.
“Hey, you called him by his first name!”
“Yeah, don’t get used to it.”
“Ah, progress,” she replied sweetly.
Harry lifted his hand to her neck, tangling his fingers in her fragile, silky hair. “I’m really gonna miss you.”
Then he brought his lips to hers, and her own hands pressed against his chest. His mind went sort of blank and time became strangely suspended. Stripped of his senses, he only knew that he was melting in their heat. He only knew that he loved her, and that his future, their future, was very bright.
Finally, and with great difficulty, he broke the kiss, and she panted, “Me too.”
He grinned. Their faces were still merely inches apart and he breathed, “When will I see you again? I’ll be at Hogwarts when you get back.”
“I can send an owl, if you like.”
“Yes, but I want to see you.”
“You can’t leave school once you’re there?” she asked in disbelief, her head snapping back.
“Not easily.”
“Hmm,” she said. “Well, I’ll just have to come to you then. Do you still have the Pass?”
“Hermione has it,” he answered distractedly, trying to keep himself from slamming her bedroom door shut and kissing her for the rest of the day.
Luci must have perceived his intentions, because she stepped away from him, leaving the air around him cold. “I’ll get it from her, and then I’ll come straight to Hogwarts when I get back. Will that work?”
He nodded.
“Oh, god,” she said suddenly, frowning.
“What?”
“I just realized that I’m going to be stuck in the Mansion all alone with Cissy.”
Harry laughed.
“It’s not funny! The woman is… dire.” Luci creased up her nose in aversion.
“Hey, I offered to let you stay here,” he said, “and it still stands.”
“Alone with Sirius? That’s even weirder.”
He shrugged. “My only other idea is Hogwarts. Come and stay there.”
“Oh,” she grinned, “and do what, exactly? An unlicensed Auror just wandering the halls all day and then sneaking up to her boyfriend’s dorm at night and pouncing on him? I don’t think we’d get away with it.”
He beamed at this, his heart skipping happily in his chest. “As much as I’d love that…”
“Luci!” came a shout from downstairs.
She closed her eyes for a moment and clenched her jaw. Then she said, “I have to go.”
“Yeah,” he answered sullenly.
“Coming!” she yelled to her mother, and then she pulled Harry against her again, standing on her toes and pecking his lips lightly.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” she said in a weak, dismal tone.
“OK,” he replied softly.
“Help me with my stuff?”
He nodded and turned to levitate her trunk. Then he followed her silently from the room and down the stairs.
The next few minutes went by in a bit of a blur. Luci and her mother said their goodbyes, and Hermione even hugged Luci after giving her the Pass, and then they were walking out the front door.
“Wait!” Harry called suddenly, tailing after them.
“What is it?” asked Luci in alarm, stopping abruptly.
“Nothing. I mean... I don’t…”
She raised an eyebrow.
“I love you, you know.”
She smiled, her eyes shimmering. “I love you back.”
That had been what he’d needed to hear, even if he hadn’t known it. His shoulders relaxed, slumping.
Harry didn’t even care that Melissa was listening, but she did fracture the moment between them when she called, “Hop, hop, plane to catch!”
It was the afternoon prior to the day that the three of them were to leave for Hogwarts, and Harry, Ron, and Hermione were up at the pitch. Ron was slowly coming ’round to display pieces of his former self again and had just made a crack about Harry’s uncanny ability to date girls of all hair colors.
“Watch out,” joked Harry, “brown is next!”
Hermione was reading below and couldn’t hear them, but Ron replied, “Don’t even think about it.”
“Harry,” a shout cut in, “there’s someone to see you downstairs.”
Harry looked down to see Sirius and frowned. “Who?”
“And old friend. Come and see,” called his godfather mysteriously.
Only minutes later, in the basement kitchen, Harry discovered a lanky man donning a hooded cloak, but his face was obstructed from view. A looming sensation instantly presented itself in Harry’s mind, and he coiled his fingers around his wand.
“No need for that, Harry,” came an oddly familiar voice, but Harry couldn’t place it.
The man slid back his hood, revealing an excess of long gray hair, which weaved itself into an equally gray beard. He cleared his throat and pushed his glasses up onto his nose.
Harry gawked. It was the man who tended bar at the Hog’s Head pub. Harry still thought that he recognized him from somewhere else too, though.
“Can I… can I help you with something?” Harry asked him apprehensively.
“Certainly not!” said the man. “It is I who have come to help you!”
Shaking his head, Harry fumbled, “How could you help me?”
“I have some information, and some valuable items, to pass on to you now that the Dark Lord has been vanquished.”
The bar man reached into his robes, and Harry positioned his wand vigilantly. But the only thing that he had removed was a small, olive-colored satchel. Harry lowered his hand.
“Not too trusting, I see?” said the man.
Harry narrowed his eyes.
“To be expected of you.”
“What’s in the bag?” queried Harry, tilting his head towards it.
The tall man gestured to the kitchen table. “Sit down; take a look.”
At Harry’s hesitation, he added, “Bag don’t bite. And I don’t bite people. Perfectly harmless, both of us.”
Harry raised his eyebrows, but he strode to the table and took a seat on the bench. He reached for the sack, untied the small knot at its mouth, and cautiously dumped its contents onto the surface before him. There was a folded piece of parchment, a plain black box, a pendant, and two brooches of some kind.
Harry’s hand went for the latter of these, and he recognized them as Head Boy and Head Girl badges from Hogwarts, though they looked somewhat different from the ones that Ron and Hermione wore. These two were very tarnished, and one read ‘Lily Evans,’ while the other was engraved with ‘James Potter.’ Harry dropped them noisily onto the table and looked up.
“Where did you get these?” he snarled at the visitor, who had seated himself transversely from Harry.
A slight, crooked smile played on the man’s lips. “This is only the beginning.”
“I’m sorry?” asked Harry, becoming angered by his own incomprehension, as well as the man’s ambiguity.
“Go on,” he answered, motioning to the items between them.
Harry stared fixedly at the bar man for a moment, and then he picked up the locket. It was silver, heart-shaped. He had to dig his fingernail into the metal to pry it open, but it was worth the effort, for the necklace unveiled a photograph of his parents. It was miniscule, in order to fit into the tiny frame, but he could see them waving in a lively manner. They looked so… happy. A bolt of pain shot through Harry’s heart, and he slammed the pendant shut, in an attempt to avoid palpable emotion.
The little black box was constructed of cardboard, and the once-square edges were worn down and white, where the dark paint had rubbed from the paper. He popped off the lid and peered inside. It was a dainty gold band that held a small round-cut diamond. He frowned at it, and then sat it aside, going for the parchment. When he grasped it, it splintered in his hand, due to its staleness. He tried to be gentle when unfolding it, and it, in turn, revealed to him his own name and birth date. It was his birth certificate.
He creased it into its original form again and returned it gingerly to the table. Trying to keep his voice even, he demanded again, “Where did you get these?”
“The ring, it was your mother’s engagement band,” the man replied instead.
Harry slammed his fist onto the table. “Why do you have my parents’ things?!” he seethed.
“Sherbet lemon?” he inquired, pulling a handful of sweets from his pocket. They were covered in lint, but he tossed one into his mouth anyhow, and then reached out his palm, offering them to Harry.
Harry responded furiously, “No. Explain yourself, or there are Aurors in this house who would be happy to get it out of you.”
The man tittered, and Harry noticed indignation rising in his own chest.
“Aurors?” he said mockingly. “From the Order, I presume?”
Harry’s mouth fell open. “How do you…?”
“Why, I’m a member, of course! Aberforth Dumbledore. How do you do? Sherbet lemon?”
“You“ you’re…”
“Aberforth Dumbledore, that’s right. Necessary to get your attention before unmasking myself. Amusing little game. Had another ring too, actually, a rather fancy one, but it was taken from me by a dodgy little man called Mundungus.”
“Know him, unfortunately,” grumbled Harry, calming slightly, now that he knew the man’s identity.
“Any-owl,” said Aberforth, “where was I?”
“About to tell me why you’ve got my parents’ things,” prodded Harry.
“Ah, yes! Many, many years ago, the Dark Lord made an attempt on your life.”
“I know all of that,” Harry spat impatiently.
“Of course, you don’t!” countered Aberforth with a chuckle, and though Harry opened his mouth to speak, the man went on. “An enormous bloke called Hagrid was sent to search the house for anything valuable, sentimental, that sort of thing. Make sure the Death Eaters took nothing important. These are the items that he retrieved.”
“My dad’s Cloak?” asked Harry. “Was it found there too?”
“Heavens, no!” the man replied. “Your father left that with the Order before he went into hiding, for our use as it was needed. After the war was over, though, it was kept safe for you. And all of these things “ they’ve been kept for you too, to be given to you along with the truth.”
“Wh-what truth?”
“Truth is only your perception of it, though, as I’m sure you’d agree.”
“Huh?”
“That scar.”
Harry swept his hair over his forehead to cover it.
“Yes, that’s the one. That scar “ where do you think it came from?”
Harry frowned. “From Voldemort trying to kill me.”
“But the killing curse leaves no mark. What do you make of this?”
“I- I was a special case! Everyone knows that!”
“Ah, you were, but not in the way that you think,” burred Aberforth.
“Would you just… spit it out!” Harry fumed.
“As volatile as they say,” the man merely commented.
Harry hissed and ran a hand through his hair, trying to regain his temper.
“That fateful night,” continued Aberforth, “the Dark Lord was intending to fashion a vile creation with your death “ a Horcrux “ and was fully prepared to do so, had taken all the necessary steps and what have you. However, when his attempt to kill you backfired, he inadvertently“ You do know of Horcruxes, yes?”
Harry nodded hastily, hungry for the rest.
“Inadvertently, the Horcrux was generated, but the Dark Lord himself was sent into a shadow world.”
“Which Horcrux?” Harry asked, wondering which of the items could have possibly been inside of his parents’ cottage at Godric’s Hollow. “They’re all gone now.”
“When news spread and the Order finally reached you“”
“Did it really take them an entire day to find me?” Harry interrupted. “I wasn’t taken to the Dursleys’ until the following night.”
The gray-haired man frowned, probably at Harry’s discourtesy. “Of course it didn’t take us a day! What do you think we are? Incompetent? Listen, listen. Your answers are unfolding.”
Harry sighed and nodded for Aberforth to continue.
“When we sensed what had happened, you were taken immediately to my dear, departed brother, Albus, the only person who might possibly know what to do.”
“What to do about what?”
“It was something no one had ever seen before “ a human Horcrux “ and it was“”
Harry sputtered in confusion, but the man did not halt.
““difficult for my brother to decide what was to be done. Eventually, it was agreed upon that the Horcrux must be removed from you. Not an easy process, certainly not a speedy process, and it couldn’t be done without, regrettably, leaving a pretty nasty scar.”