Disclaimer: Two reasons that I don't own Harry Potter or anything
associated with it—1)Do I really look all that much like JK Rowling? and
2)Would I really be writing fanfiction if I owned the original story? And I
couldn't make a profit off of any of my fanfiction stories, even if I
wanted to!
A/N: I want to thank everyone who's reading this sentence—thank you soooo much that you've decided to give my story a try! Thank you! This is my first published fanfiction story, and also my first that has ever exceeded a single page. Since I couldn't fit the summary that I would have liked to post on the Harry Potter FanFiction page, I'll put it here, somewhat in full: When Sirius gets injured in a Voldemort attack, Harry goes to visit him in St. Mungo's. Lots of other stuff follows—whether Fudge is giving Sirius a trial, Harry is having foreshadowing dreams, a teensy bit of romance (Harry/Ginny, and some other stuff later on that I'm not saying yet!), time travel, more Voldemort attacks, new characters, legal stuff, and other things that I'm sure I'm forgetting.....
It's PG-13 because of some mild swear words here and there, some not exactly lovely stuff happens in later chapters, and there's tiny bit of romance later on, too. =italics
Chapter One—Strange Conversations and Even Stranger Dreams
Harry Potter was not having a good day.
The day had started off with Harry—due his stupid broken Muggle alarm clock--failing to wake up early enough to clean the bathrooms, something that he really wasn't looking forward to doing, as he found it quite disgusting. He wanted to get the chore over and done with as soon as was humanly possible, and as a result, he was rushing through the cleaning of the upstairs bathroom when he slipped on the wet linoleum floor and banged his head on the bathtub.
There was still a consistent ringing in his ears as he made Dudley's breakfast later that morning, causing him to gaze out the window, lose concentration and burn his cousin's pancakes. When Dudley received his burnt food, he wasn't very happy, to say the least. He moved as if he was going to give Harry a good, hard smack in revenge but instead fell off his chairs—yes, chairs, he now had to sit on two chairs as his large behind wouldn't fit on one. When he landed on the floor, he started bawling and wailing his head off, causing Uncle Vernon to come half running, half falling into the kitchen to see what was wrong. In response to Dudley's yelling, Uncle Vernon took Dudley's Smelting stick from school and slapped Harry—hard—across the knee.
After breakfast was thankfully over, Harry limped his way up to his room, wincing and scowling angrily as he lost his footing at one point while climbing up the steps and his hurt knee jerked painfully forward. When he finally entered his small room, he fairly collapsed on his bed before turning to talk to Hedwig, an activity that he had been doing a lot of in recent days. Since his fourth year at Hogwarts had ended three weeks before, Harry had spent a lot of time up in his room, alone, without any human contact whatsoever. He couldn't talk to the Dursleys about anything, even if he had wanted to—which was extremely unlikely in itself--so he resigned to his new favorite conversation partner—a bird.
It didn't matter if that particular bird was nocturnal and happened to be asleep at that moment. Harry felt like talking anyway, and so he did.
"Stupid Dursleys," He muttered bitterly, resting his head on his bed's old pillow. "You know what, Hedwig? I hate them. I really, really do. They're a poor excuse for a family.....if you could even call them a family in the first place....."
Hedwig shifted slightly from her position in her birdcage. Taking her head out from under her wing with an almost human-like reluctance, she looked at him and hooted softly. Harry ignored her and continued to talk very animatedly, his hands gesturing around as he spoke, staring at the ceiling. "They don't care about me in the least, and I don't care about them.....ugh, why do I even have to be here.....?" He paused for a second, then sighed. "I wonder what my mum would say if she saw her sister now....."
The owl cocked her head quizzically at him in a way that was quite comical, and would have normally made Harry laugh if he wasn't feeling so miserable at the moment. So instead of laughing, he turned to her and frowned. "My mum's sister thinks my mum was crazy because she was a witch, and they didn't like my dad and any of their friends because of it, and now the Dursleys think I'm crazy because I'm a wizard." A small ghost of a smile appeared on his face. He couldn't remember the last time he had truly smiled. "Well, I'm not completely crazy, am I, Hedwig?"
Hedwig simply stared at him, her beak opening and closing once, making a faint clicking sound.
"You don't think I'm crazy, do you, Hedwig?"
After just staring at him for a moment more, Hedwig hopped out of her cage, spread her wings, flapped them a few times, then flew clear out the window, swooping on the cool morning air.
Harry stared at the empty spot in her cage where she had just been moments before, then laughed suddenly—something that he hadn't been doing a lot of recently, either, his last true laugh probably being before the third task of the Triwizard Tournament. His laugh now was soft and bitter, and what little humor there was in his laughter didn't quite reach his bright green eyes.
"Maybe, I am crazy. Yeah, I bet I am—look at me, sitting here, talking to an owl." He paused for a second, glanced at Hedwig's empty cage, then laughed again. "Even when there is currently no owl to talk to."
Harry sighed and closed his eyes. As soon as his mind was somewhat calm, he found himself inevitably thinking of Hogwarts and how much he missed it. He missed the location—it was certainly nicer than Privet Drive—he missed Quidditch, he missed his classes, he even missed homework and exams to study for, simply because they gave him something that he could keep busy and occupy his mind with. For the past few weeks, the definition of a productive evening for Harry was lying on his bed, talking to Hedwig, staring at the ceiling, and maybe reading the occasional Daily Prophet that Hermione sent him.
As he thought about the Daily Prophet, he speculated about what was going on in the magical world while he was stuck here in Official Boring Muggleville.....and then soon, as inevitably as was thinking about Hogwarts, Voldemort was filling his thoughts.
Whenever his mind turned to the uprising of the Dark Lord, the sick, scared, nervous knot that seemed to forever reside in his stomach seemed to intensify, if that was at all possible. There were going to be more Death Eater attacks.....and more deaths.....and things would probably be worse than they were fourteen years ago, because Harry had a horrible feeling of foreboding that Voldemort was more powerful this time around.
He tried desperately to push these disturbing thoughts out of his pounding head, but somewhere in the back of his mind, Harry knew that it was no use. Even if he could push thoughts of Voldemort away from him now, they would plague him later, no doubt. Maybe while he was eating lunch with the Dursleys, or trying to catch glimpses of the evening news on the telly. Even if he somehow did manage to keep all thoughts of the Dark Lord away from him during the day, they would most certainly haunt him at night.....in his dreams.....while he slept.....
As he thought about sleep, Harry grew steadily more tired. He sighed, turning over on his side. Well, now was as good as time as any to take a nap.....maybe it was due to the semi-conscious thoughts about the magical world floating around in his brain, but Harry begin to dream.
Sirius Black was not having a good day.
The day found Sirius in his dog form pawing through dumpsters in a rather disgusting alleyway, looking for food. He had not eaten very much the day before, and he was getting very tired of searching the city of Southampton on the coast of southern England looking for somebody's leftover fish and chips, which he had never really liked very much in the first place.
Of course, if there weren't any leftovers that he could find—which was unlikely in itself—there were always the rats to eat. Sirius had somewhat of a grudge against rats and had no problem with the idea of eating them, but the actual eating of them.....? Well. They weren't exactly the tastiest creatures in the world, very slimy and disgusting.....and in that respect, they reminded Sirius of Severus Snape.
After thinking that thought, if dogs could smile, a very particular large black one would have right at that moment. Back when Sirius was a student at Hogwarts and unhappy for some reason or another—perhaps one of his girlfriends broke up with him after he commented admirably on the looks of another girl—James would always talk about Slimy Snape to cheer Sirius up.
But Sirius was having even less and less to smile about in the days and weeks that followed the third task of the Triwizard Tournament. Not only did he have Dumbledore's orders to fulfill—he was searching for a particularly slimy rat that went by the name of Wormtail—he was also very concerned about someone else in his life.
Although he wouldn't have admitted it to anyone right then and there, he was worried to death about Harry. No matter how hard he tried to concentrate on finding Pettigrew, the name of his godson kept flicking through his mind at regular intervals and distracting him from his work.
Damn that Fudge, Sirius thought furiously. If it wasn't for that infuriating son-of-a-gun, I wouldn't be in this ridiculous situation. Mind you, if it wasn't for Fudge, I would also probably be a free man now..... But then suddenly, Sirius stopped himself.
Wormtail, Sirius told himself sternly, trying to focus and keep his mind on one track. Giving up on finding anything edible in the alleyway, he started trotting out to the street. Think about Wormtail.
But at that moment whatever god that had previously neglected Sirius chose that moment to send a smiling, laughing boy of about twelve walking down the sidewalk with someone who was obviously his father. They were walking a dog.
Harry, Sirius thought suddenly, freezing in his tracks and watching the trio pass him. Oh, what he would give to be that father.....or even that dog, for that matter. That was how things should have been. Harry should have grown up with Sirius, not with those awful Muggles, and if that had happened, then more likely than not Sirius wouldn't be stuck on the coast of England, hiding his wand behind dumpsters while looking for a murderer and for food in the garbage cans.
But then Sirius came to and gave himself a mental shake of the head—not physical, he seriously doubted dogs did that. Wormtail. Find Wormtail.
Sirius was just about to get back to his searching when he was distracted once again. At first he didn't realize what he was distracted by, and was about to give a growl of frustration, when he realized that there appeared to have been some sort of small explosion down near the other end of the alley that he had just come from.
What the hell..... He thought, inwardly frowning, and spun around to see what was going on behind him and what had caused the explosion. Nothing could have prepared him, however, for what he saw, and he let out an involuntary yelp of surprise at the sight that awaited him. This couldn't be happening.....no.....it couldn't be.....
Death Eaters. There appeared to be about fifteen or twenty of them, setting off small explosions near the other end of the alley. Sirius watched, frozen to his spot, as all the Death Eaters pointed their wands to the ground—in unison—and set off another small explosion that contributed to a fire that the first one had caused.
Death Eaters..... Sirius thought, amazed. Death Eaters here.....in Southampton? Right next to me? Is this a coincidence? But then all thoughts of strange coincidences left his mind as he realized something else. Death Eaters. That means Wormtail.....could he? Could he be here?
Sirius soon found, though, that it was near impossible to tell one Death Eater from the other, what with their identical long cloaks and hoods pulled up over their faces to prevent just what Sirius wanted to do: Identify them. And, with the black smoke filling the alley, he probably wouldn't have been able to see the Death Eaters faces clearly even if they weren't covered. It occurred to him that the Death Eaters had probably planned it this way.
Normally, he would have picked up Wormtail's too familiar scent by now if he indeed was among the Death Eaters, but the acrid smell of smoke from the fires was just enough to overpower Sirius's acute dog sense of smell. He had rarely ever felt so frustrated.....
There was another small explosion, this time closer to Sirius. His dog reflexes kicked in and he jumped backwards a little, whimpering. He could feel the wave of heat that was made by the blast, and screaming Muggles from the streets started to run away from the alley.
Sirius found himself having an internal struggle. His human instincts wanted to go join the crowds of running, terrified Muggles as they sprinted away from the danger, and his dog instincts wanted to get as far away as was possible from the spot he was in and maybe hide behind a fire hydrant. Both parts of him could have easily compromised with the other, but there was another voice in the back of his head, a very stern voice, a voice that reminded Sirius unnervingly of Minerva McGonagall—telling him what he should really do.
There was another explosion. The Death Eaters were moving farther down the alley and closer to the large black dog; and the force of the explosion—stronger than the others—threw Sirius back into a trash bin.
Sirius fought the overwhelming urge to bury himself in the garbage that was surrounding him and maybe find a chicken bone or two, and forced himself to think rationally. Rational thought was shoved from his mind, however, as he nearly jumped out of his skin when the body of a dead Muggle was flung at his feet. Sirius stared at the corpse—that of a young man who looked only to be a few years younger than Sirius himself—with unblinking eyes, surprised and terrified beyond comprehension.
Sirius stood up then on four shaky legs. He knew what he had to do. He was fairly sure that there were no wizards in the immediate area, because he thought that if there were they would have been at the site long before now. Someone had to do something, and it seemed he was the only one capable of doing anything until the Ministry of Magic got there.
He transformed.
Sirius had only been a human for a total of about two seconds when there was yet another explosion, this time right at Sirius's feet. Luckily, the force of the blast threw him backwards before the fire started so he wasn't burnt—but the force was so strong that Sirius found himself being thrown into the back of the alley with his arm being bent back behind him and his head slamming against the brick wall.
Two thoughts drifted through his half-conscious mind before he completely passed out.
First, he hoped that the father, his son, and their dog had gotten far away from the alley before the explosions had started.
The second thought was simpler.
Harry.
At the exact moment that Sirius Black lost consciousness, a teenage boy sleeping in the smallest bedroom of Number Four, Privet Drive was jerked out of sleep. He had had the strangest dream.....but had it been a dream?
Harry noted quite distantly that he had an overwhelming fear inside of him, a fear for the safety of his godfather.
A/N: If you love it and want to praise me, review. If you hate it and want to flame me, review. If you're ambivalent and have nothing to say—still review!
Thanks for reading!
IMPORTANT A/N ADDED 9/20/03: I am beginning to do a big old rewrite of this whole story—fixing things I don't like, filling in holes in the plot, doing technical editing, etc. But one thing I am not going to do is "Order of the Phoenix-ize" it. I started writing this story over a year before the 5th book came out, and although I finished it after June 21st, I didn't change anything. I kept to the vision that I had started with, and didn't alter anything that I hadn't known about at the time—like the appearance of St. Mungo's, the presence of Grimmauld Place, etc. I don't call this story an AU, though. I just lump all these stories written between July 8th, 2000 and June 21st, 2003 into one category: STWWBTFB—Stories That Were Written Before The Fifth Book. So there you have it. And now back to the story.
A/N: I want to thank everyone who's reading this sentence—thank you soooo much that you've decided to give my story a try! Thank you! This is my first published fanfiction story, and also my first that has ever exceeded a single page. Since I couldn't fit the summary that I would have liked to post on the Harry Potter FanFiction page, I'll put it here, somewhat in full: When Sirius gets injured in a Voldemort attack, Harry goes to visit him in St. Mungo's. Lots of other stuff follows—whether Fudge is giving Sirius a trial, Harry is having foreshadowing dreams, a teensy bit of romance (Harry/Ginny, and some other stuff later on that I'm not saying yet!), time travel, more Voldemort attacks, new characters, legal stuff, and other things that I'm sure I'm forgetting.....
It's PG-13 because of some mild swear words here and there, some not exactly lovely stuff happens in later chapters, and there's tiny bit of romance later on, too. =italics
Chapter One—Strange Conversations and Even Stranger Dreams
Harry Potter was not having a good day.
The day had started off with Harry—due his stupid broken Muggle alarm clock--failing to wake up early enough to clean the bathrooms, something that he really wasn't looking forward to doing, as he found it quite disgusting. He wanted to get the chore over and done with as soon as was humanly possible, and as a result, he was rushing through the cleaning of the upstairs bathroom when he slipped on the wet linoleum floor and banged his head on the bathtub.
There was still a consistent ringing in his ears as he made Dudley's breakfast later that morning, causing him to gaze out the window, lose concentration and burn his cousin's pancakes. When Dudley received his burnt food, he wasn't very happy, to say the least. He moved as if he was going to give Harry a good, hard smack in revenge but instead fell off his chairs—yes, chairs, he now had to sit on two chairs as his large behind wouldn't fit on one. When he landed on the floor, he started bawling and wailing his head off, causing Uncle Vernon to come half running, half falling into the kitchen to see what was wrong. In response to Dudley's yelling, Uncle Vernon took Dudley's Smelting stick from school and slapped Harry—hard—across the knee.
After breakfast was thankfully over, Harry limped his way up to his room, wincing and scowling angrily as he lost his footing at one point while climbing up the steps and his hurt knee jerked painfully forward. When he finally entered his small room, he fairly collapsed on his bed before turning to talk to Hedwig, an activity that he had been doing a lot of in recent days. Since his fourth year at Hogwarts had ended three weeks before, Harry had spent a lot of time up in his room, alone, without any human contact whatsoever. He couldn't talk to the Dursleys about anything, even if he had wanted to—which was extremely unlikely in itself--so he resigned to his new favorite conversation partner—a bird.
It didn't matter if that particular bird was nocturnal and happened to be asleep at that moment. Harry felt like talking anyway, and so he did.
"Stupid Dursleys," He muttered bitterly, resting his head on his bed's old pillow. "You know what, Hedwig? I hate them. I really, really do. They're a poor excuse for a family.....if you could even call them a family in the first place....."
Hedwig shifted slightly from her position in her birdcage. Taking her head out from under her wing with an almost human-like reluctance, she looked at him and hooted softly. Harry ignored her and continued to talk very animatedly, his hands gesturing around as he spoke, staring at the ceiling. "They don't care about me in the least, and I don't care about them.....ugh, why do I even have to be here.....?" He paused for a second, then sighed. "I wonder what my mum would say if she saw her sister now....."
The owl cocked her head quizzically at him in a way that was quite comical, and would have normally made Harry laugh if he wasn't feeling so miserable at the moment. So instead of laughing, he turned to her and frowned. "My mum's sister thinks my mum was crazy because she was a witch, and they didn't like my dad and any of their friends because of it, and now the Dursleys think I'm crazy because I'm a wizard." A small ghost of a smile appeared on his face. He couldn't remember the last time he had truly smiled. "Well, I'm not completely crazy, am I, Hedwig?"
Hedwig simply stared at him, her beak opening and closing once, making a faint clicking sound.
"You don't think I'm crazy, do you, Hedwig?"
After just staring at him for a moment more, Hedwig hopped out of her cage, spread her wings, flapped them a few times, then flew clear out the window, swooping on the cool morning air.
Harry stared at the empty spot in her cage where she had just been moments before, then laughed suddenly—something that he hadn't been doing a lot of recently, either, his last true laugh probably being before the third task of the Triwizard Tournament. His laugh now was soft and bitter, and what little humor there was in his laughter didn't quite reach his bright green eyes.
"Maybe, I am crazy. Yeah, I bet I am—look at me, sitting here, talking to an owl." He paused for a second, glanced at Hedwig's empty cage, then laughed again. "Even when there is currently no owl to talk to."
Harry sighed and closed his eyes. As soon as his mind was somewhat calm, he found himself inevitably thinking of Hogwarts and how much he missed it. He missed the location—it was certainly nicer than Privet Drive—he missed Quidditch, he missed his classes, he even missed homework and exams to study for, simply because they gave him something that he could keep busy and occupy his mind with. For the past few weeks, the definition of a productive evening for Harry was lying on his bed, talking to Hedwig, staring at the ceiling, and maybe reading the occasional Daily Prophet that Hermione sent him.
As he thought about the Daily Prophet, he speculated about what was going on in the magical world while he was stuck here in Official Boring Muggleville.....and then soon, as inevitably as was thinking about Hogwarts, Voldemort was filling his thoughts.
Whenever his mind turned to the uprising of the Dark Lord, the sick, scared, nervous knot that seemed to forever reside in his stomach seemed to intensify, if that was at all possible. There were going to be more Death Eater attacks.....and more deaths.....and things would probably be worse than they were fourteen years ago, because Harry had a horrible feeling of foreboding that Voldemort was more powerful this time around.
He tried desperately to push these disturbing thoughts out of his pounding head, but somewhere in the back of his mind, Harry knew that it was no use. Even if he could push thoughts of Voldemort away from him now, they would plague him later, no doubt. Maybe while he was eating lunch with the Dursleys, or trying to catch glimpses of the evening news on the telly. Even if he somehow did manage to keep all thoughts of the Dark Lord away from him during the day, they would most certainly haunt him at night.....in his dreams.....while he slept.....
As he thought about sleep, Harry grew steadily more tired. He sighed, turning over on his side. Well, now was as good as time as any to take a nap.....maybe it was due to the semi-conscious thoughts about the magical world floating around in his brain, but Harry begin to dream.
Sirius Black was not having a good day.
The day found Sirius in his dog form pawing through dumpsters in a rather disgusting alleyway, looking for food. He had not eaten very much the day before, and he was getting very tired of searching the city of Southampton on the coast of southern England looking for somebody's leftover fish and chips, which he had never really liked very much in the first place.
Of course, if there weren't any leftovers that he could find—which was unlikely in itself—there were always the rats to eat. Sirius had somewhat of a grudge against rats and had no problem with the idea of eating them, but the actual eating of them.....? Well. They weren't exactly the tastiest creatures in the world, very slimy and disgusting.....and in that respect, they reminded Sirius of Severus Snape.
After thinking that thought, if dogs could smile, a very particular large black one would have right at that moment. Back when Sirius was a student at Hogwarts and unhappy for some reason or another—perhaps one of his girlfriends broke up with him after he commented admirably on the looks of another girl—James would always talk about Slimy Snape to cheer Sirius up.
But Sirius was having even less and less to smile about in the days and weeks that followed the third task of the Triwizard Tournament. Not only did he have Dumbledore's orders to fulfill—he was searching for a particularly slimy rat that went by the name of Wormtail—he was also very concerned about someone else in his life.
Although he wouldn't have admitted it to anyone right then and there, he was worried to death about Harry. No matter how hard he tried to concentrate on finding Pettigrew, the name of his godson kept flicking through his mind at regular intervals and distracting him from his work.
Damn that Fudge, Sirius thought furiously. If it wasn't for that infuriating son-of-a-gun, I wouldn't be in this ridiculous situation. Mind you, if it wasn't for Fudge, I would also probably be a free man now..... But then suddenly, Sirius stopped himself.
Wormtail, Sirius told himself sternly, trying to focus and keep his mind on one track. Giving up on finding anything edible in the alleyway, he started trotting out to the street. Think about Wormtail.
But at that moment whatever god that had previously neglected Sirius chose that moment to send a smiling, laughing boy of about twelve walking down the sidewalk with someone who was obviously his father. They were walking a dog.
Harry, Sirius thought suddenly, freezing in his tracks and watching the trio pass him. Oh, what he would give to be that father.....or even that dog, for that matter. That was how things should have been. Harry should have grown up with Sirius, not with those awful Muggles, and if that had happened, then more likely than not Sirius wouldn't be stuck on the coast of England, hiding his wand behind dumpsters while looking for a murderer and for food in the garbage cans.
But then Sirius came to and gave himself a mental shake of the head—not physical, he seriously doubted dogs did that. Wormtail. Find Wormtail.
Sirius was just about to get back to his searching when he was distracted once again. At first he didn't realize what he was distracted by, and was about to give a growl of frustration, when he realized that there appeared to have been some sort of small explosion down near the other end of the alley that he had just come from.
What the hell..... He thought, inwardly frowning, and spun around to see what was going on behind him and what had caused the explosion. Nothing could have prepared him, however, for what he saw, and he let out an involuntary yelp of surprise at the sight that awaited him. This couldn't be happening.....no.....it couldn't be.....
Death Eaters. There appeared to be about fifteen or twenty of them, setting off small explosions near the other end of the alley. Sirius watched, frozen to his spot, as all the Death Eaters pointed their wands to the ground—in unison—and set off another small explosion that contributed to a fire that the first one had caused.
Death Eaters..... Sirius thought, amazed. Death Eaters here.....in Southampton? Right next to me? Is this a coincidence? But then all thoughts of strange coincidences left his mind as he realized something else. Death Eaters. That means Wormtail.....could he? Could he be here?
Sirius soon found, though, that it was near impossible to tell one Death Eater from the other, what with their identical long cloaks and hoods pulled up over their faces to prevent just what Sirius wanted to do: Identify them. And, with the black smoke filling the alley, he probably wouldn't have been able to see the Death Eaters faces clearly even if they weren't covered. It occurred to him that the Death Eaters had probably planned it this way.
Normally, he would have picked up Wormtail's too familiar scent by now if he indeed was among the Death Eaters, but the acrid smell of smoke from the fires was just enough to overpower Sirius's acute dog sense of smell. He had rarely ever felt so frustrated.....
There was another small explosion, this time closer to Sirius. His dog reflexes kicked in and he jumped backwards a little, whimpering. He could feel the wave of heat that was made by the blast, and screaming Muggles from the streets started to run away from the alley.
Sirius found himself having an internal struggle. His human instincts wanted to go join the crowds of running, terrified Muggles as they sprinted away from the danger, and his dog instincts wanted to get as far away as was possible from the spot he was in and maybe hide behind a fire hydrant. Both parts of him could have easily compromised with the other, but there was another voice in the back of his head, a very stern voice, a voice that reminded Sirius unnervingly of Minerva McGonagall—telling him what he should really do.
There was another explosion. The Death Eaters were moving farther down the alley and closer to the large black dog; and the force of the explosion—stronger than the others—threw Sirius back into a trash bin.
Sirius fought the overwhelming urge to bury himself in the garbage that was surrounding him and maybe find a chicken bone or two, and forced himself to think rationally. Rational thought was shoved from his mind, however, as he nearly jumped out of his skin when the body of a dead Muggle was flung at his feet. Sirius stared at the corpse—that of a young man who looked only to be a few years younger than Sirius himself—with unblinking eyes, surprised and terrified beyond comprehension.
Sirius stood up then on four shaky legs. He knew what he had to do. He was fairly sure that there were no wizards in the immediate area, because he thought that if there were they would have been at the site long before now. Someone had to do something, and it seemed he was the only one capable of doing anything until the Ministry of Magic got there.
He transformed.
Sirius had only been a human for a total of about two seconds when there was yet another explosion, this time right at Sirius's feet. Luckily, the force of the blast threw him backwards before the fire started so he wasn't burnt—but the force was so strong that Sirius found himself being thrown into the back of the alley with his arm being bent back behind him and his head slamming against the brick wall.
Two thoughts drifted through his half-conscious mind before he completely passed out.
First, he hoped that the father, his son, and their dog had gotten far away from the alley before the explosions had started.
The second thought was simpler.
Harry.
At the exact moment that Sirius Black lost consciousness, a teenage boy sleeping in the smallest bedroom of Number Four, Privet Drive was jerked out of sleep. He had had the strangest dream.....but had it been a dream?
Harry noted quite distantly that he had an overwhelming fear inside of him, a fear for the safety of his godfather.
A/N: If you love it and want to praise me, review. If you hate it and want to flame me, review. If you're ambivalent and have nothing to say—still review!
Thanks for reading!
IMPORTANT A/N ADDED 9/20/03: I am beginning to do a big old rewrite of this whole story—fixing things I don't like, filling in holes in the plot, doing technical editing, etc. But one thing I am not going to do is "Order of the Phoenix-ize" it. I started writing this story over a year before the 5th book came out, and although I finished it after June 21st, I didn't change anything. I kept to the vision that I had started with, and didn't alter anything that I hadn't known about at the time—like the appearance of St. Mungo's, the presence of Grimmauld Place, etc. I don't call this story an AU, though. I just lump all these stories written between July 8th, 2000 and June 21st, 2003 into one category: STWWBTFB—Stories That Were Written Before The Fifth Book. So there you have it. And now back to the story.