Disclaimer: harry potter will never be mine!

Summary: What saved Harry as Death Eaters strike, but a large and particularly familiar black dog? Sirius might be gone, but Padfoot is back . . . Is this perhaps too much for Harry to hope to be true?

AN: My take on how Sirius could have survived! My second attempt at a long fanfic, hopefully will work. Not a native English speaker, so please be tolerant if you find anything weirded... thanks my beta for this chapter, who was formerly Rawiya, now Kaidan's Quill.

Now please read and kindly review!

Chapter 1: A Row

Vernon Dursley grunted and ground his square jaws together. He was highly distressed. He stretched his neck and looked around from his seat on the sofa of his spotlessly clean house and stared at the stairs leading to the second floor, willing something to happen, yet nothing did. He turned back to the newspaper at hand and groaned deeply again. His wife Petunia then appeared out of the kitchen. With a mug of hot steaming coffee in her hands, she approached her husband with her eyes fixed in the direction of the stairs.

"Vernon, dear, have another cup of coffee," said Petunia absent- mindedly. Without lifting his head above the newspaper, Vernon groaned a response, which was followed by the sound of the hot coffee being poured into his empty cup. Several seconds passed.

"Thank you, Petunia."

But the sound of pouring coffee didn't stop. And the next instant, Vernon felt the boiling liquid came into contact with his stout legs. "Petunia!" he yelped, and jumped up from the sofa, madly hitting his stinging leg with the newspaper. His screams snapped Petunia out of her trance. "Oh! Vernon, I am so sorry! I didn't mean to . . ." she squeaked with a shaken voice and hurriedly wiped at Vernon's trousers with the front of her apron. Vernon groaned in frustration, yet again.

Less than a year ago, Vernon would have given anything to get that freak of a nephew out of his house and out of his sight, but now what he wanted above all was to see the unnaturally slim and bony body of his nephew, Harry Potter, to awkwardly make his way down the stairs. Only last summer, the stupid boy had tried to butt in their living room so often to "listen to the news" and it annoyed Vernon to no ends. When he found out that some mad homicidal freaks were supposed to be after his nephew, Vernon had hoped to kick him out of his house and away from his family. Yet his lovely wife forbade him from doing so. Vernon kept trying to probe into the reason behind such behaviour, but Petunia had kept her mouth shut about the issue. Vernon then settled on praising his wife that she was being generous and didn't want to let her nephew suffer on the street.

However, this summer, Vernon had come to the conclusion that his nephew has finally gone mental. First of all, the temper of the boy seemed to have evaporated into nothingness. When Harry was spoken to, he would only utter a one-word reply or give a slight incline of his head. But what was troubling his family more was the fact that the boy didn't really give himself much chance to be spoken to. The first thing he had done upon entering the house was to head upstairs with his belongings and lock himself in his bedroom. For the two weeks since his return from school, he simply refused to come downstairs. He even didn't open his window to let all those bloody owls inside. This meant that Vernon and his family always were woken in the dead of night or early in the morning by the noises of persistent crushes of owl beaks against the glass window. What unnerved the Dursleys the most was that the boy was refusing to eat. The boy hadn't come downstairs once for a meal, even the food Petunia so kindly pushed into the boy's room was mostly left untouched. As a result, the fear that the freak might die in their precious house quickly mounted in the heart of the Dursleys. They didn't know which parts of the boy had gone wrong this time, but after being harassed by a group of full-grown freaks at the train station, they couldn't afford letting the boy die right under their roof. The risk was too high. Yes, the risk was indeed too high, Vernon thought to himself and then a grim determination set in on his face.

Vernon pushed her wife's brushing hand away from his still stinging legs. Petunia stopped babbling apologies and stared at Vernon in fear. At that particular moment, their son Dudley strode into the room with his piggy hands full of food. He stopped in mid stride as even his unbelievably thick head registered the serious atmosphere that hung heavily around the living room. Vernon surveyed his wife and son with his eyes set. "Well, Petunia. " Petunia's body quivered like a tree caught up in a lightning storm. "We cannot let this continue. It's time we contact the boy's . . . his bloody. . . bloody teachers. "

Harry banged his head dejectedly against the window and stared unseeingly to the street below. The sun had just set and everything outside was still vaguely covered with the last rays of daylight, making everything seemed unreal. Harry could feel Hedwig's large relentless amber eyes following his every move. He wanted to shout at Hedwig so that she would stop her accusing glare, but Harry simply didn't have the energy to do so. He had tried to shove her out of his window, freeing her from the cell that he had built around his soul in the small bedroom, but she had persistently flew back into the room before he could snap the window shut.

Harry brought his body towards the desk to the cage where Hedwig was resting. "You don't have to do this, you know," Harry dragged his limp hand up and stroked Hegwig lightly over her back, "I don't deserve your company." Hedwig snapped her beak impatiently and again shot Harry a disapproving glare. Harry was sure that if Hedwig could speak, she would tell him to stop being silly.

"I cannot help being stupid and useless, you know." Harry withdrew back into his now favourite corner of the dark bedroom and threw himself on the floor. His life, his sense of purpose, and his whole world ended the moment Sirius Black fell through the veil in the Department of Mysteries. If Harry had known that all his efforts and struggles would ultimately lead him to this place of despair, he surely would have stopped trying or struggling a long time ago. What was the point of fighting so hard, if in the end, he was to be all alone? Harry drew his legs up to his chest and banged his head against the cold wall repeatedly.

Somewhere inside his body and beyond his grief, Harry felt an all-consuming rage. He was angry at Dumbledore for not involving him in anything, at Snape for not telling him Sirius had not been captured and stopped giving him Occlumency lessons, at Professor Lupin for holding him back when Sirius needed him most and doing nothing as his last remaining best friend fell through that veil, and above all, at Sirius, who had let himself be senseless killed, rendering Harry alone with no one but his own guilt for company. How could he have imposed such a horrible fate on him? Harry couldn't believe and didn't want to believe all these were true. He wanted to put the blame on anyone and everyone else other then himself, because he knew the blame solely lay on him and no one else. But such a thought would surely drive him mad . . . was he not mad now? But why should he or anyone care . . .

In his trance, Harry was dimly aware that someone had pressed the doorbell. But he couldn't care less about some stray salesman, even if it was beyond working hours. His exhausted and overwhelmed brain hardly registered the sound of soft footsteps being made by someone slowly making his or her way up the stairs. There was some strange sound outside his door, and it took Harry a good long minute to realize that someone was knocking gently. Harry stopped pounding his head against the wall but made no move to acknowledge the knock.

"Harry, may I come in?" a hoarse, but gentle voice rang from outside his room. Harry tried to associate a face to the familiar voice, but it was pointless. He didn't care who was standing outside his room.

"Harry, I know you are in here listening. Is it okay if I come in? I really want to talk to you." Harry finally recognized the voice as Lupin's, the very man who held him from his godfather as he fell through the veil. Would it be too much to hope that his former DADA teacher would think that he was asleep and leave him alone if he kept silent?

"I am coming in now." Curiously, Harry could hear the metallic scrape as the key slid into the lock of the room. The lock clicked open, meaning the man standing outside got the key to his room. What was his uncle thinking by letting a werewolf into his house, and giving the key to his room no less? Harry laid his forehead on his bent knees and buried his face with his mess of damp black hair and arms before Lupin's eyes could make contact with his. The faint, almost inaudible footsteps announced that Lupin had entered the room. The gentle click on the door meant that Harry, who did not welcome any contact with any living beings in the world, was locked in with a werewolf.

A few minutes passed in silence. Harry started to believe that Lupin entering his room had only been an illusion produced by his malfunctioning mind, until Lupin shifted his weight and caused the floorboard to crack slightly in protest.

Lupin, presumably having finished his survey of the battered teenager hiding in the shadow of the corner, broke the prevailing silence with his hoarse and strained voice. "Harry, do you know why I am here?"

Only God wanted to know why you were here, but I do not, thank you very much, Harry thought dully to himself.

"Harry, actually we have been thinking of getting here for a while now . . . to see how you are coping. But what urged me here earlier than planned was your uncle's message. "

Harry remained silent.

"He told us that you haven't been eating properly since you got home. "

Home? What home? The home, which his heart belonged, fell through the veil weeks ago, didn't that stupid werewolf know?

"I won't ask you whether you feel fine or not. I know as a fact that you feel like crap, because I do. But you very well know that starving yourself or killing yourself will get you nowhere. It's not helping anyone, and it's not achieving anything. You are not even punishing yourself by doing this. You are merely punishing us."

Why was he still babbling? Someone please have mercy and shut him up.

"Always remember that there are many people who care about you. Stop hurting yourself, Harry. I know it is hard to accept. It is hard to cope with and it is most unfair. You are not the only one who have a difficult time dealing with it,"

Something strange, something akin to a different emotion than grieve or anger stirred within Harry's battered heart. Lupin's voice croaked slightly as he continued, "and I won't lie to you that I have not been able to eat properly for weeks. But I know that I couldn't carry on like that. He wouldn't want me grieving and wasting away like that, I know. And I also want you to know that many people do not want you to waste away your life as you are doing now. Molly is dead worried about you, you know, and is threatening to come here any day now to push food down your throat if she must. "

Mrs. Weasley? Wasn't she the one who was particularly mean to Sirius last year? Who cared about what she thought? The feeling that previously stirred in Harry was then abruptly extinguished and replaced by a burning sensation. He tightened his loose fingers into fists.

"So I think it is a good idea for you to eat something soon, Harry." Anyone could have seen through the fake cheerfulness straight away and it was lame, thought Harry grimly. The floorboard gave a string of protests as Lupin crossed the distance between himself and Harry with a few strides and knelt down. "Harry, I want you to understand that you cannot hide in this corner forever. You will not have to face what is outside of this room alone. Stop trying to punish yourself because you haven't done anything wrong to deserve punishment. You will have to come out of your shell one day," Lupin uttered his words in a determined voice, "because Sirius would have wanted you to."

Anger flared up. Harry jerked his head up so fast that bright colour spots and sparks exploded in his vision. "Don't you dare to bring Sirius into this!"

Harry's outburst would have caught most people off guard, but Lupin's calm and sad demeanor remained steadfast. "Why would I not dare to mention Sirius?" Harry's fist clenched even more tightly as his godfather's name came out of Lupin's mouth again. Lupin continued. "He has every right to be remembered by all of us, and we should do what he would have wanted us to do. I know what he would think of your behaviour. Is it so hard for you to figure out, Harry? You might not have known him as long as I have, but you know that Sirius would not have wanted you to suffer. " Harry really wanted to retort to his words, but Lupin suddenly grabbed Harry's shoulders with his hands and shook him slightly, forcing Harry to listen to every single word he had to say. "I am not afraid to bring Sirius's name into this because I am seeing history repeating itself. Sirius knew that your parents' death was not his fault. He switched secret keeper out of his love for his best friends. He would not have foreseen that Wormtail would betray us. It was not his fault. He knew that they would have hoped that he would not blame himself, yet he did. Do you blame Sirius for your parents' deaths?"

"Of course not! I – "

"Didn't you go to the Department of Mysteries because you wanted to save him from Voldemort? Was what you did not purely out of your love of Sirius? Would Sirius blame you for this? " Harry wanted to scream in frustration and hit Lupin. Lupin did not understand. He did not understand even a bit of what he felt. Knowing something and accepting something were two completely different matters! Harry was sure that Sirius would have understood how he felt. His heart gave a painful lurch at the thought of Sirius once again. He did not want to think of all of these. He did not want to be reminded of the painful incident! Leave him alone! Let him be . . . Lupin did not understand. His own pain could not light a candle to Harry's anguish.

"Harry!" Lupin tightened his clutch on Harry's shoulders and shook him with a renewed vigor. "I, no, we all need you be strong. It is what Sirius would have wanted. No one is asking you to face all these alone. Even if he is not here physically, his spirit will be with you! Ron and Hermione will be with you! I'll be with you!"

"Ha! So this is what you want!" Harry madly shoved Lupin's hands off his shoulders with a strength that surprised Harry himself. He wildly flung his arms out in front of himself to increase the distance between himself and the werewolf and he sharply stood up. He panted heavily and fixed his gaze on Lupin, hatred filling his whole being. Lupin followed his movement and also stood up from the ground with less calm and grace than before.

"Harry – "

"I know what you want now! Is it why you held me back back there? YOU WANTED HIM GONE! You want Sirius gone so that you can fill his place! So you can start bossing me around with him out of the picture!"

"I most certainly didn't!" Harry was triumphant to see Lupin's calm demeanor broken – he would stop putting up a caring face now. He would show his true colours! But as Harry stared, Lupin unclenched his fist and looked Harry in his eyes. "What gave you the idea? I cared about Sirius, just as much if not more than you do! He is – he was the only friend I had left!"

"YOU LIAR!" Harry couldn't see reasons. He allowed himself to be consumed by his rage. "You believed that he was a murderer just because he was thrown into Azkaban! You just accepted that your best friend was a murderer without questioning because some idiots thought he had been! WHAT KIND OF BEST FRIEND WAS THAT! You never forgave him for not letting you know they switched, did you? DID YOU! "

"I DID FORGIVE HIM!" Lupin bellowed like a wounded wolf desperate for escape and the sheer volume of his voice froze Harry for a second. Lupin shakily raised his hand to cover his eyes. When he lowered his hands, the cool demeanor was almost restored, but his sad smile looked more like a grimace than a smile. "Harry, you really hit a nerve. But you won't get rid of me that easily, after all you are not yourself."

"I am myself! I am not possessed! AND I DO NOT NEED YOUR SYMPATHY! What I need is him! Him!" Lupin's calmness, no matter whether it was genuine or false, was fueling Harry's anger almost as much as the Dumbledore's calmness had done in his office when he tried to 'explain everything'.

"I am not – "

"YOU ARE! " Harry stormed past Lupin and tried to get to the door.

"Harry!" Lupin grabbed Harry's hand and turned him around, where he was faced with not only Harry's anger, but his wand point as well Harry directed his wand straight over Lupin's heart.

"Release my hand," Harry hissed through gritted teeth.

"Do you think I would comply? I can't let you wander on the street by yourself. You mustn't leave, even if it means I will have to tie you up to make you hear what I'm saying. I am not giving up on you. "

"Release me," Red sparks were springing from Harry's wand point, charring Lupin's shabby muggle shirt.

"Go on. Curse me if it is what you want. But I won't release
you. "

In a flash, Harry hurled the stunning curse at Lupin. At exactly the same instant, Lupin withdrew his wand from the back pocket of his jeans and deflected the curse with a shield. He threw the curse off completely, but the recoil of the curse made him stagger. He didn't release his grip, but for fleeting second it was loosened and that was all Harry needed. With a swift fling of his malnourished arm, Harry freed his hand from Lupin's grip. Harry threw the door open and with equally surprising speed, Harry raced down the stairs for the first time since he arrived at number 4 Privet Drive. Lupin quickly followed Harry's progress out of the room, but then found himself face to face with none other than Vernon Dursley, who had obviously been spying on them. Vernon Dursley bombarded him with insignificant questions and blocked Lupin's way to the stairs with his bulky body. Lupin simply roared, "Out of my way!"

When Lupin, after a hell lot of struggling, got Dursley out of his way he flew down the stairs and hurriedly made his way out of the open front door. He whipped his head around to both sides of the road, and with a sinking heart realized that Harry was nowhere to be seen.

What Lupin really wanted to do then was to tilt his head towards the starless sky and howl. But he restrained himself. He had got more urgent matter at hand – finding Harry before anyone else did.