Half Lives – Chapter Fourteen

Harry thought that Mrs Weasley must be feeling guilty for keeping Harry and Sirius apart for so long, or maybe she just pitied them, because she was getting almost fierce in ensuring they sat next to each other at meal times. "No, Tonks, you can't sit there." She snatched up Tonks' plate and nearly slammed it down two seats along. It was a small group in the kitchen that evening – just the Weasleys, Sirius, Remus, Tonks, Harry and Hermione. "I mean," Mrs Weasley corrected hastily, "sit next to me, Tonks dear, I want to talk to you about Bill. Now, please, give me your professional opinion, do you honestly think that Curse-Breaker is a suitable occupation for a man about to start a family?" So saying, a blushing Mrs Weasley removed the last obstacle, and sat down with Tonks at the dinner table, leaving Harry free to sit next to Sirius.

Harry looked up and met Ron's eyes. Ron twirled his finger in a spiral next to his head. Clearly, he had also noticed his mother's strange behaviour. Harry sniggered. Sirius fixed Harry with a stern look. Harry turned his snigger into a cough, and tried to cover it up by saying, "So, Ron, do you think they will let us visit the twins when we go to Diagon Alley tomorrow?"

"Dunno. Hope so. –Can you pass the potatoes?- Fred said they've been working on an anti-Death Eater line. Of course, they aren't calling it that, but personally I'd like to see a load of five year olds running about taking on Death Eaters with Weasley products."

"Ron!" Hermione chided him. "You can't say that! Imagine if Ginny-"

"Geeze, Hermione, it was a joke!"

"Yeah, and I'm not five!" Ginny put in from the other side of her father.

"We are going shopping to buy everything on our lists, not to try out new Skiving Snackboxes. We'll be going into our sixth year, so I hope you boys are going to actually read the textbooks you buy this year?" Hermione asked sternly.

"Yes, we will, Hermione." Harry sighed. "It's a very important year, only one year from NEWTS – we know!"

"Okay," Hermione had the grace to blush, "I know maybe I've reminded you one too many times, but you've got to think you're Quidditch Captain now, Harry, and not to mention you'll have your lessons with Dumbledore all year..." She lowered her voice as she said that last, but raised it to normal volume again as she continued; "so you're going to have to be more organized than ever if you want to do yourself justice."

"She's right," Sirius said abruptly from next to Harry, "you will be under a lot more pressure this year, Harry. Not only Quidditch and Dumbledore, but Voldemort has made his move, and it seems unlikely that he will let it rest at that. And I know that James has already been through his sixth year once, but we can't guarantee he will want to help you."

Harry poked the food on his plate awkwardly.

-0-

"Oh don't look at me like that!" Sirius exclaimed suddenly, throwing his fork down. Harry glanced up- Remus and Arthur were giving Sirius pointed looks. "Harry's not going to spontaneously change into James just because I mention him!" He took a deep breath and forced his volume down. "Besides," he continued in a strained voice, "I think we can all agree that this is something worth talking about. Harry-" he looked back to his godson, "This is going to be a hard year for you, and things are only going to get worse, but you can't let that distract you from getting better. I don't want to hear of you avoiding the psychiatrist's, or pretending everything is okay, or something else as silly as that, you hear me? I want you to work hard at this; I would rather you failed all your exams because you were talking to the psychiatrist, than get straight Outstandings, but be more James than Harry. If James-"

-0-

Later, Harry would maintain it was one of the strangest experiences of his life. The last thing he remembered was Sirius giving him an impassioned talk about priorities, and then he assumed that James must have taken over, because the next thing he knew everyone had finished their meal, and he and Sirius were on their feet. Harry was shouting at everyone, and they were trying to calm him down, wands hidden beneath soothing words – whether to subdue or attack him, Harry didn't know. But he couldn't do anything about it, because for the first time, he was fully aware of what was happening, but James was the one in control. It was like watching the scene in a pensive. He was trapped, completely helpless in his own body, by his own father. Which was really unfortunate, as Harry would have given anything to regain control of James right now.

-0-

"No! I'm here to help Sirius! He's the one you should be yelling at!"

Remus stood from the table too, and spoke in a calm voice. "But James, we want to help Harry too. Harry's in trouble."

"Argh no!" James yelled furiously. "Ignore Harry! Don't help him – he's fine! Harry's fine! He doesn't need your attention!" he flung his arm out angrily, as though physically throwing their help aside. "I do! Sirius does! I'm here for Sirius! None of the rest of you care. None of you! But I do. I do. I'll help you, Sirius. I'm here for you." His words trailed off into a sad, quiet little repetition. "I'm here." He hung his head and sagged as though all the anger had been let out of him suddenly. He looked up through his hair at Sirius standing in front of him. "I'm here for you, Sirius." He said plaintively. "You need me."

Sirius looked at the boy standing in front of him. He sighed, "Oh James." He held his hand out unsurely.

James grinned wickedly and grasped the proffered hand. "Yes. That's right, Sirius. I'm here for you. That's what brothers do. Brothers to the end. I'll always be here for you, Sirius."

Sirius shook his hand free, and instead used it to clasp James' shoulder, and bent down slightly to look directly into the boy's eyes. "I know you will, James. And that thought has kept me going for so many years now. Look," he took a steadying breath and closed his eyes. For moment he looked as though he was going to be sick. Then he opened them again and continued in a voice laden with significance. "I don't know if you're really James, come back through the Veil, or if you're an evil sprite or curse, taken residence in my godson's mind, or maybe you're even the realisation of Hermione's muggle sickness, but that doesn't matter." James' smile took on a triumphant edge. "Because as much as I would kill to have you back, James old boy, I'd rather have Harry. And if I had to make that choice, it would be Harry. Every time."

The whole room held its breath.

-0-

"Sorry." Sirius let go and straightened up, taking a step back as he did so. He looked ill, but resolute.

James looked at Sirius in horror. He hung his head and half turned from the room. He stood in silence for a moment, and then his shoulders quaked a little, as though he was trying not to cry.

"James-" Sirius started forwards, looking contrite, "forgive me, but it's Harry. And that means there's no question, if Harry-"

James' head whipped up and round. His mouth was twisted in a hateful snarl. "Don't. Talk. About. Harry!" He roared and flung himself at Sirius, teeth bared and eyes blazing.

"Sirius, no!" Everyone in the room cried out, as James leapt towards Sirius with hate and anger. But Sirius dodged, and James went crashing to the floor.

-0-

The room stopped, shocked, with wands half drawn and shouts of warning dying on their lips. James lay in a crumpled heap on the floor, face hidden and not moving. Dust slowly swirled up around his prone body.

"Harry-" Sirius darted forwards and knelt beside him.

"Sirius, wait-" Remus said warningly, but he was ignored, and Sirius reach out his hand for the second time and gently shook James' shoulder.

The boy stirred slowly, and pushed himself up into a sitting position. His face was streaked with dirt, and his glasses were broken, but his eyes were clear and bright, and his famous scar peeked out from beneath his ragged hair. He looked around the room, and then up at his godfather for reassurance. "Sirius? Why is everyone standing? What am I doing on the floor? What's going on?"

Sirius face relaxed and fell into a grateful smile. "Oh Harry." He said in relief, and, mindless of teenage embarrassment, pulled his godson into a hug.

"Sirius? I'm confused."

After the incident at dinner, it seemed that even Mrs Weasley was becoming reluctant to let Harry and Sirius even in the same room together. But Harry was going back to Hogwarts in the next week, and he was getting desperate to talk to his godfather. About what, he wasn't sure yet, but it was going to be so much harder to continue with Project Get-A-Godfather when he was all the way in Scotland.

He was still musing on this, when Remus found him some time later, sitting half way up the hallway stairs. "Is everything okay, Harry?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." Harry said automatically. Then with a wince he remembered Project Anti-Catastrophe meant he really shouldn't say he was fine when he wasn't. "How is Sirius doing?" He asked instead.

Remus sat down heavily on the step next to Harry. "He's very angry. At the world in general, I think. But it's a good anger. I think it's always been there, and this s the first time he's let it out. You did a good thing, Harry, insisting he received help. He needs it. Maybe if we had stopped feeling guilty for imprisoning him, and actually thought about his imprisonment, we would have seen that for ourselves." He looked rueful. "You're a good godson to have."

Harry flushed with embarrassment. "Not being much of a godson now, am I?" He asked sullenly. "I'm either mad or half my own father, which I may or may not have brought upon myself. And the last time we had a 'family outing' I almost got my godfather, not to mention my friends, killed. I also destroyed a lot of Ministry property."

Remus smiled. "I think Sirius was quite impressed with that last one, actually." He joked. "But, talking more seriously, Sirius doesn't care if you are mad, or being possessed, or breaking and entering – you are his godson, and that will come before everything in his mind."

Harry snorted disbelievingly, "Yeah, right."

-0-

"Harry, don't you see?" Remus leant down to put his hands on Harry's shoulders and look into his eyes. "The one thing you've been working so hard for this summer is a bond with Sirius. I get it, I really do. You finally have someone to call your own, a place which is actually your own home, and you saw the Weasleys and thought, maybe Sirius and I, maybe we can have a relationship like Ron and Bill, or maybe, if I work really hard, if I'm really good, like Ron and Arthur. But don't you see, Harry? Not only will you never be like them –you two are very much different from the Weasleys- but this isn't something which you put research and work and drive into, and expect to reach a definitive goal. You just run straight at it with your eyes closed, fight and flail a bit, change direction a million times, and basically just wing it and things just seem to work themselves out by a miracle. That's how you've always acted before now, isn't it?"

"Yeah, and look how that turned out." Harry grumbled, shuffling his feet, uncomfortable both in Remus' grasp and with how his words hit unnervingly close to home.

"And that's exactly why you're not running blind now, isn't it? The last time you went on instinct you ended up in the Ministry and Sirius almost got himself killed. The exact opposite of what you're working for. So you sat back, decided for a change of tactic, and tried Hermione's approach. Well guess what, Harry, you're not her. I think it's an admirable plan, really I do, but between you and me, Sirius never was much good at this sort of stuff." He joked, trying to lighten the atmosphere. "It's best just to walk straight up to him and start this sort of thing without giving him time to react."

"Yeah." Harry looked at his feet on the step below. His face felt like it was about to go up in flames he was blushing that much.

"Don't feel embarrassed that I know your plan. It's not easy to see." Remus said, guessing the source of Harry's discomfort. Now it was Remus' turn to blush. "It's all Nymphadora really." He stammered. "She loves people watching. She explained the whole thing to me." He collected himself. "Now, let Albus worry about the Horcruxes, the Order about Voldemort, Hermione about research, and Ron about Ginny. You concentrate on beating James, and for now, Sirius is in the drawing room. Just go and sit next to him, and be his godson. Okay?"

"I don't think I'm meant to talk to him in private." Harry said.

"What makes you think that?"

"Well everyone is certainly doing their hardest to keep us apart. Dumbledore included."

Remus looked around them. "Well, I can't see anyone here to stop you. What they don't know can't harm them, hey?"

Harry smiled, and nodded slightly. "Wish me luck." With a shoulder squeeze from Remus, Harry ducked out the grip, stood up and headed for the drawing room.

He didn't knock, but walked straight in. He sat down next to a surprised looking Sirius. "Hey, Padfoot. So, what do you think I ought to do next time I see Ginny?"

Sirius looked a little lost, but gamely tried to keep up by shrugging. "Well, the way I see it, I've got two options. Run or flirt."

"I don't think I even know how to flirt! I've always heard when you were at school, you..."

-0-

Hermione Granger closed the drawing room door softly on Sirius and Harry talking closely and laughing as if they'd known each other their whole lives. The war may just be beginning, but Harry was happy. She allowed herself a little smile. Her work here was done.

And so it all ends. I'll leave it to you to decide exactly what happened to Harry. We may never know. I do have planned a sort-of sequel, which would follow the books rather closely for as long as I could keep it going, but showing how having a living Sirius would change events (think how he egged Harry on do break the rules and tried to live his life through Harry in OotP), and especially what would happen if Harry had not been a Horcrux for the last two books. But I'm afraid I need the books for research to do this, which due to a change of circumstances I currently don't, and won't have for several months. So, you may just have to decide that for yourselves too.

Or, if anypone feels up to tackling this monster, message me and I'll give you a more detailed outline of how I imagine the plot would continue.

But, on a related note, if a Basilisk fang, or a sword dipped in Basilisk venom destroys a Horcrux, then why didn't it destroy Harry's when he was bitten in book two?

And lastly, I must say thank you to my lovely Reviwers. They have made me laugh and smile throughout the whole story, and they have certainly helped my ego.

Addicts.