23
- Location
- https://discord.gg/z9tBvbh
Chapter Twenty-Two
Harry woke up two hours later, when Stan came to warn him the bus had arrived.
"Now," I said calmly. "You must ask for Sirius Black, say you want to talk to him, and that you..."
And I stopped.
You know, there are no Wizards in Azkaban.
I didn't know.
Harry paled and gasped as a black cloaked Dementor floated near him, and clutched the side of his head.
"Grit your teeth!" I snarled at him, and he buckled, "Ignore the screams! Refuse it! Deny yourself! If you want your freedom, show me you're willing to fight for it until you bleed to death!"
The Dementor stopped floating a moment later, and apparently eased up on his 'dementor-aura'. The bus disappeared with a loud bang.
"Who are you visiting?" the Dementor asked, calmly.
I half-expected a dark, despair-filled voice.
It didn't.
It was positively British.
And moderate.
Then again, the Dementors were the Wardens of the place, and they had to have someone assigned to 'visitors duty'.
These little things of Harry Potter that were 'behind curtains' were quite nice to see...especially when the aura of despair and darkness didn't touch you at all.
"S-Sirius Black," Harry ground out.
The Dementor nodded, and replied. "Follow."
And Harry stumbled on his next step on the wet rock of the prison's 'entrance', but otherwise managed to climb his way up the rocky and treacherous steps while the sea behind him seemed to be in a permanent state of raging on.
Azkaban was somewhere in the Northern Sea, wasn't it? And the weather was pretty terrible, all things considered.
He was the only visitor.
The Dementor-Warden wailed something, probably a call ahead, and the dementors that circled above Azkaban gave Harry a wide berth.
"Kill your heart if you must," I said. "Dementors feed on happiness...technically, you have little to be happy about, but don't let them give you fear! Turn angry. Let hatred run its course. Hate them. Hate the world. Hate, and their power will wane on you. Hate...and they'll come to like you."
This was only a theory.
A well thought out theory on why Dementors flocked to Dark Wizards, on why Dark Wizards who could not cast a Patronus still kept Dementors nearby, and on why some people could stay in Azkaban without going more mad than they already were.
See Bellatrix Lestrange.
Then again, she was mad on principle of things.
The Dementor stopped halfway through, and turned to cock its cloaked head towards Harry.
"You are the Boy-Who-Lived," he said calmly.
"Yeah," Harry ground out.
The Dementor nodded. "Sirius Black is the man responsible for the death of your parents. You came to visit him alone. Very brave of you, mortal."
"Oh please," I sighed. "The 'Mortal' bit was really required? Technically you can't die and breed with the fog in despair-filled areas, but I'm pretty sure a mean to end you exists. Just don't know what...maybe send you lot to a Hippie Convention on peace, love and happiness? Drown you in chocolate at the chocolate factory? Maybe turn you into a chocolate candy? Or a lollipop? Does sugar make you rot?"
Harry chuckled softly.
The Dementor floated a few steps away from him.
Ka-Chink.
And that was two. Not receiving any reply, the Dementor resumed his floating. We climbed a few stairs, all while staying away from the iron barsa and the prisoners within -husks of people, whimpering, pleading, crying out...
"Keep an eye in front of you and one on the ground," I said. "Don't look at them. Misery begets misery. Ignore their cries. Either they deserve it, or you can do nothing to change their fate. Unless you become Prime Minister that is, but even then there's the Wizengamot...ah, to change a rotten country, maybe you'd have to become a Dark Lord yourself? There can be surprisingly good Dictators, you know? But for that, you'd need the concept of Democratic Dictator from the Greek Poleis...The Greek cities of old. Or the 'Roman' Dictator, serve for six months and then back to your camps."
The Dementor's aura could not affect me, since it was a 'magical' effect and I had seen creepier things than a floating skeleton in a black cloak.
Seeing misery on the other hand? Yes, that could.
And I babbled.
Whenever I was nervous, I babbled.
Whenever I was scared, I babbled.
And walking through a torture dungeon clearly didn't make you happy.
As it turned out, 'visitors' actually had to go into the rooms of the people they wanted to see.
That explained how the 'swap' had been done between Crouch Junior and his mother.
"Tell them they lost someone." I said offhandedly. "Barty Crouch Junior is currently residing in Crouch Senior's house, hidden and invisible. It was a ploy of Senior to save his son. The one that died was Junior's mother under polyjuice."
Harry frowned and looked at me. "Do it," I stressed out.
"You lost someone," Harry said. "A Barty Crouch Junior," he added as the Dementor stopped and spun around to look at him. "He's in Crouch Senior house. Hidden and invisible. The one that died was Junior's mother...under..."
"Polyjuice."
"Polyjuice."
"Amusing," the Dementor said flatly. "No one escapes from Azkaban. We cannot be fooled."
"Indeed," I said, "Dementors can't be fooled. Why not make sure it stays that way then?"
Harry bristled, and as I glared at him, he aptly obeyed and repeated word by word.
"You seem certain," the Dementor said. "Are you one of your people's 'seers' then?"
"If I were, I'd keep that knowledge hidden from my foes," I said offhandedly. "If I weren't, but had a source, I'd keep that hidden too from those who are not my friends."
Harry looked at me with wide panicked eyes, and I narrowed mine on his. "I've got a reason for telling this, Harry. Just trust me, will you? You're dancing now, so you better dance until the song ends, or you're going to crash."
And secondly, this was bound to keep Harry from trusting me for a long time.
The Dementor remained quiet for a moment.
"You are not what I expected the Boy-Who-Lived to be," the Dementor added. "If you were anyone else, I would call the aurors."
"If I were anyone else, I would not know how dangerous an enemy your race is, and how great an ally it can be in the right hands," I offhandedly remarked. "Post scriptum only for Harry's ears: this doesn't change things. We're removing them from the game later, but right now, you need allies. If you have them, then it will work in your favor later on. And I didn't know they had British speaking Dementors. Well, technically they know how to shovel and write too, but really...he even has the British accent down! It's like he studied at Cambridge or Oxford or something..."
The image of a Dementor having 'everyday college life' and 'parties' suddenly made me snicker.
"You are young for a wizard," the Dementor said.
"Age means nothing," I replied. "What matter the most is power and those who know how to best wield it, and how to best share it with their friends...food's awfully scarce this period of the year, isn't it?"
Harry was feeling sick. I could see it by the way he spoke my words, and how each of those revolted him beyond the previous one.
He was probably at his limits, but I knew how this game had to be played.
This was no different than trying to convince a few young Vampires to join your coterie and do the dirty job for you while you spent it getting blood dolls and enjoying the unlife.
"You speak empty words," the Dementor said in the end.
"Then we'll just have to wait and see if I can prove them or not," I replied. "Although do be careful. I have to speak with the ministry next week, and I think it is dreary how the prison is...maybe you'd like it if I sent some effort your way?"
The Dementor's face whirled down inches away from Harry's, and the boy screamed while I scoffed.
"You are too easily scared to give value to your words," the Dementor said calmly, as Harry clenched his chest. At least he hadn't been kissed.
That would have been bad, but then again...
No. It would have been bad, end of the line.
"See Harry, this is why we can't have nice things like allied Dementors. You're too easily scared by soul-sucking monstrosities from the Abyss," I sighed.
Harry barfed on the floor.
"Oh come on, you're showing weakness. You must never show weakness."
He barfed again.
The Dementor, I could swear he chuckled as he turned and began to walk once more.
"He just schooled you on intimidation, Harry, you really should learn how to work on your facade."
Harry eyed me with a bitter and hateful gaze, and I merely scoffed. "Get moving, Harry," I said. "We aren't done by a long shot."
I probably had to 'regain points' or something after this stunt, but it didn't matter.
Sirius Black was in a corner of his cell, and when the Dementor arrived, he was in human form. "Black," the Dementor said. "You have a visitor."
Black laughed crazily.
"Visitor? Who? I don't want to talk with anyone. Leave me alone! It's my fault, it's all my fault. I...he..."
"Enough wallowing in self-pity!" I snarled, "Tell him that."
"Enough pitying yourself," Harry said, his voice squeaky.
"D-Did you just turn squeaky? N-No," he looked past the Dementor, seeing Harry for the first time. "Who are...you?"
"I will leave you here," the Dementor said. "The cell is closed. Do not try to open it. Do not give the prisoner a wand."
And then he floated away.
Or 'it' floated away anyway.
"Harry, my name is Harry," Harry said. "You knew my parents..."
"James' son? Harry?" Sirius slowly crawled forward. "This has to be...a hallucination. Why are you here? I... I killed your parents, Harry, I don't deserve to-"
"Whisper the next words," I said. "You didn't, and I know who did and where he is now. I need your help. I can get Pettigrew when I start at Hogwarts, because he's hiding there-"
"The damn rat!" Sirius snarled, hands against the bars. "He's still alive!? H-Harry? You're so young...how do you know-"
"I'm a seer, I know a lot of things," Harry said quickly, and I looked at him dumbly. That excuse could work on a Dementor who knew little of how wizard seers operated, but on a wizard there was just no way it would... "And I had to grow up awfully quick."
"Oh my...that's got to be Lily's side of the family then...I don't remember any on James...never gave much focus on it myself, but..." he winced. "What do you need Harry?" he whispered.
Really?
REALLY!?
HE was going to believe Harry like that!?
Come on man. He's ELEVEN. FOR THE LOVE OF MERLIN'S TIGHT PANTS!
I had to remember this.
'I'm a seer. I know shit.' That's how you roll.
"I need access to your house until school starts to prepare myself," I said, and Harry repeated. "Kreacher could let me in...if you told him I'm welcomed inside."
Sirius laughed and shook his head. "I can't pretty much believe that old elf is still alive! And you know him? I wonder what you saw in your visions...you're having visions right? Well...I don't have anything much, but I'm not letting you hunt Pettigrew alone."
"If you escape now, they'll look for you, and I need your house because I don't have a place to stay. If they come looking, they'll look there first. I can capture Pettigrew, and free you, but you need to stay here."
"I've waited years to get my hands on the rat," Sirius snarled. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't-"
"You owe me," I said.
And Sirius looked at Harry dumbfounded as he spoke my words.
"You owe me parents I never knew. You owe me a family I never had. My guardians treated me like hell for ten long years, and they were 'family' to me. I don't want to stay with them, if that's what it means to have a family. Sirius, please, my dad was your friend, and he always told you to think your actions through, didn't he?" I took a shot in the dark. And apparently, Harry wasn't the only one who could do it.
"He only began that in seventh year," Sirius acquiesced. 'Give me a lever, and I'll lift the world'. In this case, I had used his sense of guilt as the most powerful of leverages. A knee-jerk action? Yep. Evil? Yep. But had it worked? Yes. That was what mattered. "But I know what I can do... I'm sure it's not going to work but...Kreacher!"
And Kreacher appeared.
Now, please take a moment of your time to review this.
Kreacher appeared.
In Azkaban, a house elf appeared without any trouble, or problem, and he seemed pretty much at ease being there.
I looked at the house elf.
"Master Sirius in his pathetic cell calls for Kreacher?" Kreacher said with a hiss, "Kreacher cannot take Master Sirius out. Kreacher obeys the Wizard laws and cannot break them-" oh, so that explains why no wizard escapes with House Elf Teleport.
"Shut your trap you stupid elf," Sirius snarled. "You see that boy over there? He's my godson. And he can have my house and you included. Obey him as you would me, and he'll be a guest at House black."
"Tell your goodbyes and leave with the elf." I said. "Because I can't remember what the address is."
"I'll go with him," Harry said, and his face was a mask of sadness and grief. "I...I'll set you free, and then we'll talk about everything else I saw," he added a moment later, and I sighed.
"Yeah, sure," Sirius said. "I'll hold up. I've got a secret that keeps me sane from the Dementors...I'll wait for you, then. If you can't get Pettigrew...just send Kreacher, and I'll escape with in my own way."
And then, he added. "How cool is it. My godson's a seer."
I inwardly screamed the sheer dementia that must have gripped Sirius to believe that.
Then again, as I watched Kreacher reluctantly obey and take Harry's hand, I gave one last long look at Sirius Black, and grimaced.
He wasn't really believing Harry.
Actually, he wasn't even sure Harry was really there.
His eyes were glazed over, and he was smiling as he morphed back into a dog...at least, he began the transformation.
He'd probably believe Harry to be a hallucination when the morning came.
But that was over.
I took a deep breath, and watched with fascination the entrance hall of House Black...Grimmauld Place! Now I remembered! Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place!
Uh...
Maybe I could have found another way to enter the house, like...knocking?
Still.
"Ask him to clean a guest room for your use," I said. "And tell him that if he respects you, you'll respect him and help him finish what Regulus began. He'll know."
Harry still looked unsure, but replied.
"What do you know of Master Regulus, you pathetic filth?" Kreacher snarled, "he was a great master, Master Regulus. The only heir of the House of Black, Master Regulus was. Not like Master Sirius, filth and treacherous! Master Sirius was burned out of the tapestry, Master Sirius was."
"For starters, if you were to take the locket and drop it on the desk of Albus Dumbledore at Hogwarts, you'd find it destroyed by the next day. Just leave a written message with the word 'Horcrux' on it. And it will be gone, destroyed forever."
Kreacher really didn't trust Harry's words.
"Don't make it an order," I said. "Just...tell him that's a way to go about it, but that no matter what, he cannot tell Dumbledore where you are, or from whom he heard the word 'Horcrux' nor where the locket comes from."
Harry was starting to lapse into bouts of frustration, his hands clenching and opening rapidly as he repeated my words again.
He was practically a meat puppet.
...
The thought was very wrong.
Still, Kreacher did prepare a room for him.
After passing by the 'screaming harpy' of Lady Black.
And surprisingly, once inside, Harry turned, stared at me, and then began to scream.
He screamed incoherently.
Literally.
For a long while, Harry just screamed, and screamed, and screamed, and wailed, and cried, and slammed his fists in the air as if trying to hit me, even though he couldn't, and then he screamed some more, and then he hit the bed, kicked the floor, and generally purged his body of everything that he had inside of stressful.
And when he was done, I clapped slowly.
"This, Harry James Potter, is the first time I assist to a live breakdown of a human being. Now that you have broken, let us glue you back together. We have a haven, we have food -arguably- and now we can proceed to do the second most important thing."
I smiled.
"We can power-up."
Harry just screamed a bit more and fell on the floor, ass first.
He just had to catch his breath.
...
I psychologically tore apart an eleven year old.
...
Not really my best.
I sighed.
It was still the only way to go about it without wasting time, and I couldn't tell him anything that would make him 'too friendly' soon...because if I did, then it would further lessen the time.
But yeah.
Quietly, silently, inside my head, I was very proud of Harry.
Where else do you find an eleven year old so brave he tempts monstrosities from the Abyss and watches his only friendly link to his family rot in jail without trying to oppose you if not in Harry Potter?
As long as Bravery didn't outlast Ambition...or Oddity. I had high hopes for Harry in Ravenclaw.
In Slytherin, if I managed, I would have to tell Harry of the 'Rule of Power, and how to deal with bullies effectively' which I had already explained to Shinji.
Harry fell asleep on the carpet of his guest room.
...
Really.
So unfitting of a future Prime Minister of the Magic World.
Harry woke up two hours later, when Stan came to warn him the bus had arrived.
"Now," I said calmly. "You must ask for Sirius Black, say you want to talk to him, and that you..."
And I stopped.
You know, there are no Wizards in Azkaban.
I didn't know.
Harry paled and gasped as a black cloaked Dementor floated near him, and clutched the side of his head.
"Grit your teeth!" I snarled at him, and he buckled, "Ignore the screams! Refuse it! Deny yourself! If you want your freedom, show me you're willing to fight for it until you bleed to death!"
The Dementor stopped floating a moment later, and apparently eased up on his 'dementor-aura'. The bus disappeared with a loud bang.
"Who are you visiting?" the Dementor asked, calmly.
I half-expected a dark, despair-filled voice.
It didn't.
It was positively British.
And moderate.
Then again, the Dementors were the Wardens of the place, and they had to have someone assigned to 'visitors duty'.
These little things of Harry Potter that were 'behind curtains' were quite nice to see...especially when the aura of despair and darkness didn't touch you at all.
"S-Sirius Black," Harry ground out.
The Dementor nodded, and replied. "Follow."
And Harry stumbled on his next step on the wet rock of the prison's 'entrance', but otherwise managed to climb his way up the rocky and treacherous steps while the sea behind him seemed to be in a permanent state of raging on.
Azkaban was somewhere in the Northern Sea, wasn't it? And the weather was pretty terrible, all things considered.
He was the only visitor.
The Dementor-Warden wailed something, probably a call ahead, and the dementors that circled above Azkaban gave Harry a wide berth.
"Kill your heart if you must," I said. "Dementors feed on happiness...technically, you have little to be happy about, but don't let them give you fear! Turn angry. Let hatred run its course. Hate them. Hate the world. Hate, and their power will wane on you. Hate...and they'll come to like you."
This was only a theory.
A well thought out theory on why Dementors flocked to Dark Wizards, on why Dark Wizards who could not cast a Patronus still kept Dementors nearby, and on why some people could stay in Azkaban without going more mad than they already were.
See Bellatrix Lestrange.
Then again, she was mad on principle of things.
The Dementor stopped halfway through, and turned to cock its cloaked head towards Harry.
"You are the Boy-Who-Lived," he said calmly.
"Yeah," Harry ground out.
The Dementor nodded. "Sirius Black is the man responsible for the death of your parents. You came to visit him alone. Very brave of you, mortal."
"Oh please," I sighed. "The 'Mortal' bit was really required? Technically you can't die and breed with the fog in despair-filled areas, but I'm pretty sure a mean to end you exists. Just don't know what...maybe send you lot to a Hippie Convention on peace, love and happiness? Drown you in chocolate at the chocolate factory? Maybe turn you into a chocolate candy? Or a lollipop? Does sugar make you rot?"
Harry chuckled softly.
The Dementor floated a few steps away from him.
Ka-Chink.
And that was two. Not receiving any reply, the Dementor resumed his floating. We climbed a few stairs, all while staying away from the iron barsa and the prisoners within -husks of people, whimpering, pleading, crying out...
"Keep an eye in front of you and one on the ground," I said. "Don't look at them. Misery begets misery. Ignore their cries. Either they deserve it, or you can do nothing to change their fate. Unless you become Prime Minister that is, but even then there's the Wizengamot...ah, to change a rotten country, maybe you'd have to become a Dark Lord yourself? There can be surprisingly good Dictators, you know? But for that, you'd need the concept of Democratic Dictator from the Greek Poleis...The Greek cities of old. Or the 'Roman' Dictator, serve for six months and then back to your camps."
The Dementor's aura could not affect me, since it was a 'magical' effect and I had seen creepier things than a floating skeleton in a black cloak.
Seeing misery on the other hand? Yes, that could.
And I babbled.
Whenever I was nervous, I babbled.
Whenever I was scared, I babbled.
And walking through a torture dungeon clearly didn't make you happy.
As it turned out, 'visitors' actually had to go into the rooms of the people they wanted to see.
That explained how the 'swap' had been done between Crouch Junior and his mother.
"Tell them they lost someone." I said offhandedly. "Barty Crouch Junior is currently residing in Crouch Senior's house, hidden and invisible. It was a ploy of Senior to save his son. The one that died was Junior's mother under polyjuice."
Harry frowned and looked at me. "Do it," I stressed out.
"You lost someone," Harry said. "A Barty Crouch Junior," he added as the Dementor stopped and spun around to look at him. "He's in Crouch Senior house. Hidden and invisible. The one that died was Junior's mother...under..."
"Polyjuice."
"Polyjuice."
"Amusing," the Dementor said flatly. "No one escapes from Azkaban. We cannot be fooled."
"Indeed," I said, "Dementors can't be fooled. Why not make sure it stays that way then?"
Harry bristled, and as I glared at him, he aptly obeyed and repeated word by word.
"You seem certain," the Dementor said. "Are you one of your people's 'seers' then?"
"If I were, I'd keep that knowledge hidden from my foes," I said offhandedly. "If I weren't, but had a source, I'd keep that hidden too from those who are not my friends."
Harry looked at me with wide panicked eyes, and I narrowed mine on his. "I've got a reason for telling this, Harry. Just trust me, will you? You're dancing now, so you better dance until the song ends, or you're going to crash."
And secondly, this was bound to keep Harry from trusting me for a long time.
The Dementor remained quiet for a moment.
"You are not what I expected the Boy-Who-Lived to be," the Dementor added. "If you were anyone else, I would call the aurors."
"If I were anyone else, I would not know how dangerous an enemy your race is, and how great an ally it can be in the right hands," I offhandedly remarked. "Post scriptum only for Harry's ears: this doesn't change things. We're removing them from the game later, but right now, you need allies. If you have them, then it will work in your favor later on. And I didn't know they had British speaking Dementors. Well, technically they know how to shovel and write too, but really...he even has the British accent down! It's like he studied at Cambridge or Oxford or something..."
The image of a Dementor having 'everyday college life' and 'parties' suddenly made me snicker.
"You are young for a wizard," the Dementor said.
"Age means nothing," I replied. "What matter the most is power and those who know how to best wield it, and how to best share it with their friends...food's awfully scarce this period of the year, isn't it?"
Harry was feeling sick. I could see it by the way he spoke my words, and how each of those revolted him beyond the previous one.
He was probably at his limits, but I knew how this game had to be played.
This was no different than trying to convince a few young Vampires to join your coterie and do the dirty job for you while you spent it getting blood dolls and enjoying the unlife.
"You speak empty words," the Dementor said in the end.
"Then we'll just have to wait and see if I can prove them or not," I replied. "Although do be careful. I have to speak with the ministry next week, and I think it is dreary how the prison is...maybe you'd like it if I sent some effort your way?"
The Dementor's face whirled down inches away from Harry's, and the boy screamed while I scoffed.
"You are too easily scared to give value to your words," the Dementor said calmly, as Harry clenched his chest. At least he hadn't been kissed.
That would have been bad, but then again...
No. It would have been bad, end of the line.
"See Harry, this is why we can't have nice things like allied Dementors. You're too easily scared by soul-sucking monstrosities from the Abyss," I sighed.
Harry barfed on the floor.
"Oh come on, you're showing weakness. You must never show weakness."
He barfed again.
The Dementor, I could swear he chuckled as he turned and began to walk once more.
"He just schooled you on intimidation, Harry, you really should learn how to work on your facade."
Harry eyed me with a bitter and hateful gaze, and I merely scoffed. "Get moving, Harry," I said. "We aren't done by a long shot."
I probably had to 'regain points' or something after this stunt, but it didn't matter.
Sirius Black was in a corner of his cell, and when the Dementor arrived, he was in human form. "Black," the Dementor said. "You have a visitor."
Black laughed crazily.
"Visitor? Who? I don't want to talk with anyone. Leave me alone! It's my fault, it's all my fault. I...he..."
"Enough wallowing in self-pity!" I snarled, "Tell him that."
"Enough pitying yourself," Harry said, his voice squeaky.
"D-Did you just turn squeaky? N-No," he looked past the Dementor, seeing Harry for the first time. "Who are...you?"
"I will leave you here," the Dementor said. "The cell is closed. Do not try to open it. Do not give the prisoner a wand."
And then he floated away.
Or 'it' floated away anyway.
"Harry, my name is Harry," Harry said. "You knew my parents..."
"James' son? Harry?" Sirius slowly crawled forward. "This has to be...a hallucination. Why are you here? I... I killed your parents, Harry, I don't deserve to-"
"Whisper the next words," I said. "You didn't, and I know who did and where he is now. I need your help. I can get Pettigrew when I start at Hogwarts, because he's hiding there-"
"The damn rat!" Sirius snarled, hands against the bars. "He's still alive!? H-Harry? You're so young...how do you know-"
"I'm a seer, I know a lot of things," Harry said quickly, and I looked at him dumbly. That excuse could work on a Dementor who knew little of how wizard seers operated, but on a wizard there was just no way it would... "And I had to grow up awfully quick."
"Oh my...that's got to be Lily's side of the family then...I don't remember any on James...never gave much focus on it myself, but..." he winced. "What do you need Harry?" he whispered.
Really?
REALLY!?
HE was going to believe Harry like that!?
Come on man. He's ELEVEN. FOR THE LOVE OF MERLIN'S TIGHT PANTS!
I had to remember this.
'I'm a seer. I know shit.' That's how you roll.
"I need access to your house until school starts to prepare myself," I said, and Harry repeated. "Kreacher could let me in...if you told him I'm welcomed inside."
Sirius laughed and shook his head. "I can't pretty much believe that old elf is still alive! And you know him? I wonder what you saw in your visions...you're having visions right? Well...I don't have anything much, but I'm not letting you hunt Pettigrew alone."
"If you escape now, they'll look for you, and I need your house because I don't have a place to stay. If they come looking, they'll look there first. I can capture Pettigrew, and free you, but you need to stay here."
"I've waited years to get my hands on the rat," Sirius snarled. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't-"
"You owe me," I said.
And Sirius looked at Harry dumbfounded as he spoke my words.
"You owe me parents I never knew. You owe me a family I never had. My guardians treated me like hell for ten long years, and they were 'family' to me. I don't want to stay with them, if that's what it means to have a family. Sirius, please, my dad was your friend, and he always told you to think your actions through, didn't he?" I took a shot in the dark. And apparently, Harry wasn't the only one who could do it.
"He only began that in seventh year," Sirius acquiesced. 'Give me a lever, and I'll lift the world'. In this case, I had used his sense of guilt as the most powerful of leverages. A knee-jerk action? Yep. Evil? Yep. But had it worked? Yes. That was what mattered. "But I know what I can do... I'm sure it's not going to work but...Kreacher!"
And Kreacher appeared.
Now, please take a moment of your time to review this.
Kreacher appeared.
In Azkaban, a house elf appeared without any trouble, or problem, and he seemed pretty much at ease being there.
I looked at the house elf.
"Master Sirius in his pathetic cell calls for Kreacher?" Kreacher said with a hiss, "Kreacher cannot take Master Sirius out. Kreacher obeys the Wizard laws and cannot break them-" oh, so that explains why no wizard escapes with House Elf Teleport.
"Shut your trap you stupid elf," Sirius snarled. "You see that boy over there? He's my godson. And he can have my house and you included. Obey him as you would me, and he'll be a guest at House black."
"Tell your goodbyes and leave with the elf." I said. "Because I can't remember what the address is."
"I'll go with him," Harry said, and his face was a mask of sadness and grief. "I...I'll set you free, and then we'll talk about everything else I saw," he added a moment later, and I sighed.
"Yeah, sure," Sirius said. "I'll hold up. I've got a secret that keeps me sane from the Dementors...I'll wait for you, then. If you can't get Pettigrew...just send Kreacher, and I'll escape with in my own way."
And then, he added. "How cool is it. My godson's a seer."
I inwardly screamed the sheer dementia that must have gripped Sirius to believe that.
Then again, as I watched Kreacher reluctantly obey and take Harry's hand, I gave one last long look at Sirius Black, and grimaced.
He wasn't really believing Harry.
Actually, he wasn't even sure Harry was really there.
His eyes were glazed over, and he was smiling as he morphed back into a dog...at least, he began the transformation.
He'd probably believe Harry to be a hallucination when the morning came.
But that was over.
I took a deep breath, and watched with fascination the entrance hall of House Black...Grimmauld Place! Now I remembered! Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place!
Uh...
Maybe I could have found another way to enter the house, like...knocking?
Still.
"Ask him to clean a guest room for your use," I said. "And tell him that if he respects you, you'll respect him and help him finish what Regulus began. He'll know."
Harry still looked unsure, but replied.
"What do you know of Master Regulus, you pathetic filth?" Kreacher snarled, "he was a great master, Master Regulus. The only heir of the House of Black, Master Regulus was. Not like Master Sirius, filth and treacherous! Master Sirius was burned out of the tapestry, Master Sirius was."
"For starters, if you were to take the locket and drop it on the desk of Albus Dumbledore at Hogwarts, you'd find it destroyed by the next day. Just leave a written message with the word 'Horcrux' on it. And it will be gone, destroyed forever."
Kreacher really didn't trust Harry's words.
"Don't make it an order," I said. "Just...tell him that's a way to go about it, but that no matter what, he cannot tell Dumbledore where you are, or from whom he heard the word 'Horcrux' nor where the locket comes from."
Harry was starting to lapse into bouts of frustration, his hands clenching and opening rapidly as he repeated my words again.
He was practically a meat puppet.
...
The thought was very wrong.
Still, Kreacher did prepare a room for him.
After passing by the 'screaming harpy' of Lady Black.
And surprisingly, once inside, Harry turned, stared at me, and then began to scream.
He screamed incoherently.
Literally.
For a long while, Harry just screamed, and screamed, and screamed, and wailed, and cried, and slammed his fists in the air as if trying to hit me, even though he couldn't, and then he screamed some more, and then he hit the bed, kicked the floor, and generally purged his body of everything that he had inside of stressful.
And when he was done, I clapped slowly.
"This, Harry James Potter, is the first time I assist to a live breakdown of a human being. Now that you have broken, let us glue you back together. We have a haven, we have food -arguably- and now we can proceed to do the second most important thing."
I smiled.
"We can power-up."
Harry just screamed a bit more and fell on the floor, ass first.
He just had to catch his breath.
...
I psychologically tore apart an eleven year old.
...
Not really my best.
I sighed.
It was still the only way to go about it without wasting time, and I couldn't tell him anything that would make him 'too friendly' soon...because if I did, then it would further lessen the time.
But yeah.
Quietly, silently, inside my head, I was very proud of Harry.
Where else do you find an eleven year old so brave he tempts monstrosities from the Abyss and watches his only friendly link to his family rot in jail without trying to oppose you if not in Harry Potter?
As long as Bravery didn't outlast Ambition...or Oddity. I had high hopes for Harry in Ravenclaw.
In Slytherin, if I managed, I would have to tell Harry of the 'Rule of Power, and how to deal with bullies effectively' which I had already explained to Shinji.
Harry fell asleep on the carpet of his guest room.
...
Really.
So unfitting of a future Prime Minister of the Magic World.
