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Ch 5 Reunion Part 1
🕑 Added 2024-05-02 13:32:45 +0000 UTCHeadmaster's Office I Hogwarts
"So he only heard . . . ?"
"He heard only the first part, the part foretelling the birth of a boy in July to parents who had thrice defied Voldemort. Consequently, he could not warn his master that to attack you would be to risk transferring power to you — again marking you as his equal. So Voldemort never knew that there might be danger in attacking you, that it might be wise to wait or to learn more. He did not know that you would have 'power the Dark Lord knows not' —"
"But I don't!" said Harry in a strangled voice. "I haven't any powers he hasn't got, I couldn't fight the way he did tonight, I can't possess people or — or kill them —"
"There is a room in the Department of Mysteries," interrupted Dumbledore, "that is kept locked at all times. It contains a force that is at once more wonderful and more terrible than death, than human intelligence, than forces of nature. It is also, perhaps, the most mysterious of the many subjects for study that reside there. It is the power held within that room that you possess in such quantities and which Voldemort has not at all. That power took you to save Sirius tonight.
"That power also saved you from possession by Voldemort, because he could not bear to reside in a body so full of the force he detests. In the end, it mattered not that you could not close your mind. It was your heart that saved you—"
Dumbledore abruptly stopped speaking and his head suddenly jerked to the window behind him as if something had called him. But a confused Harry could see nothing out there except for the quidditch grounds—but, out of nowhere, something large and silver appeared in the distance closing in towards them, and before Harry could even blink, the silver Lynx landed in the middle of the room.
"Wha—" Harry began to ask but Dumbledore silenced him with a raised hand, his blue eyes staring intently at the silvery patronus, which immediately began to speak in the deep, low voice of Kingsley Shacklebolt.
"Dumbledore! Sirius is alive! I can't explain how, but we are at the Tonk's house and you need to come quickly! Oh! And Sirius wants Harry!"
With its message delivered, the patronus burst into a shower of silvery lights, leaving the occupants of the room stunned for a few moments.
"Wha—Who—How is he—" Harry felt as if the Hogwarts Express had slammed into him, his brain felt as if it was malfunctioning, he was having trouble breathing, and while his stomach was still stuck in the depths of despair it had been in since Sirius had died, his heart had now begun to beat furiously with rising hope... hope that Sirius was... "W-What did that message mean?"
"I... don't know," Dumbledore replied in a rare stunned voice. It was probably the first time in many many years that the Headmaster had felt this off guard and genuinely surprised about any piece of information.
After his short talk with the Minister, Dumbledore had only made two brief stops before coming here for his talk with Harry, one was at St. Mungos to check on Mad-Eye, and Nymphadora and the other one was at the Hospital Wing, where Madam Pomfrey had all the students in a potion induced sleep.
While he had been a bit surprised by Kinglsey and Remus's absence at that time, he hadn't thought much of it, just assuming that they were tired and had gone home to sleep, but now... it seems something monumental had happened during those few minutes... something that he had been kept out of the loop for, which was quite jarring for the old man, who was usually the most informed in any room.
"Could it be true? Is S-Sirius really alive?" Harry asked in a broken whisper, his voice filled with so much hope that it hurt. He knew that it would only break him more if he got his expectations too high, he also knew that he had seen for himself that Sirius hadn't been breathing before... But no matter how he tried to explain to himself, his heart just refused to stop hammering with hope.
"I don't know," Dumbledore repeated before he gathered himself and said, "but we can find that out at the Tonk's house," He abruptly stood and walked around the table towards Harry, "Are you coming?" he asked even though he knew the answer.
"Y-Yes." Harry replied immediately while standing up, his legs still felt like jelly but he thankfully managed to stay on his feet without falling, "How are we leaving? Are we taking Fawkes-Ah!" midway through his eyes caught sight of the little featherless Fawkes sitting in the ashes under her perch and remembered that she'd recently taken the Killing curse for Dumbledore couldn't teleport them.
"No, we are going to take the normal way," the Headmaster replied and for a moment Harry wondered if he was talking about brooms before he noticed him approaching the fireplace and realised what he meant by normal.
"Take this," Dumbledore handed Harry a pinch of floo powder from the nearby flower pot, "The place is called Tonks' Cottage..." he said before waving him into the fireplace, "Go on, you can go first."
Harry nodded his head and after taking a deep breath to somewhat calm his frayed nerves, he stepped into the fireplace. Throwing the floo powder towards the floor he shouted clearly, "Tonks' Cottage!"
Almost immediately an emerald fire sprang up and covered him making him disappear in a swirl of fiery colours.
It wasn't the first time Harry had used the floo, but the dizziness and the nausea were as worse as the first time. He felt as if he was being propelled through a very narrow tube, many random fireplaces were blurring past him and he even heard some indistinct voices, before the pressure around him abruptly disappeared and he was expelled through the fire.
And it was only as he was being thrown out that Harry remembered that he needed to land on his feet but it was too late by then, and fumbling so late only made his balance worse and he fell straight onto the floor face first, "Ugh!!"
"Harry!!" shouted several voices simultaneously, but Harry was far too dizzy and disoriented to look up and see who they were.
"No! Stay down, Sirius, you need to stop moving so much—" snapped an unfamiliar adult female voice irritatedly.
"But I feel completely fine, Andy, you just worry too much..." The moment the familiar voice entered Harry's ears, it cleared all the fog in his head and jolted him awake immediately.
"Harry?" Remus's concerned voice sounded somewhere besides his head but he wasn't listening, no all his focus had gone towards that voice, Harry woodenly looked up from the floor to see his Godfather lying on a sofa in the middle of the living room, looking at him with that handsome grin of his, alive and breathing.
"S-Sirius?" Harry whispered in a scared voice.
"Hey, there, Harry, you've grown up quite a lot since—"
"Sirius!" he cried and stumbled and ran straight for him ignoring everything and everyone else in the room and dived straight into his godfather's arms, "Sirius!!" he cried again while hugging his godfather tightly.
"Hey! Hey! Hey! it's alright! it's alright! you're fine," Sirius said in a soothing tone while rubbing Harry's back up and down as he bawled his eyes out, "Look I'm fine, aren't I? Come on, now, don't cry, It's alright, Shh..." Sirius said as he tried to console his godson as best as he could.
A few minutes passed as the silent sobs racked through Harry's body, before finally someone interrupted them, "That's enough, lad. Get up from there, he's still a patient, and you shouldn't jump on him like that—"
"Oh! Shove it, Andy,"
"Um..." Harry coughed and slowly raised himself away from Sirius while wiping his eyes as his embarrassment finally caught up to him. His face immediately flushed as he realised that he had been crying like a child in front of a stranger. He took a deep breath before turning his head towards the voice that had reprimanded him, "I'm sorry about—Y-YOU!"
"Oh, no, no," Sirius hurriedly said as he stopped an angry Harry's hand from moving towards his wand, "She's not—I mean, Harry I'd like you to meet my most favorite cousin, Andromeda Tonks,"
"I-I-She is-What?!" Harry was too bewildered to articulate himself as the face of the person he hated the most was just a few feet away from him, standing nonchalantly.
But it was only when he looked closely a few moments later that Harry realised that while she resembled Bellatrix quite a lot, there was some distinct difference between their features, most prominent among them was that her eyes didn't scream insane, "Tonks?" he questioned turning to Sirius.
"Yeah, she's Tonks'—I mean, Nymphadora's mother," Sirius replied nodding his head, "I know what you mean—Even I was shocked that Dora turned out to be such a blast with her as her mother..." he then lowered his head to whisper, "You know, I like to think that it may just have been my influence on her that saved her..." he finished with a wink at Harry.
"Nymphadora was only six the last time you saw her, Sirius." Andromeda's witty reply came equally quickly, "You know before you decided to dive headfirst into Azkaban,"
"Aw! How can you hurt my—"
"Um, Sirius," Harry knew that he was interrupting and that it was rude, but it had been a very long and exhausting night so he just couldn't keep his emotions and questions bottled up anymore, "How did you—Why are you—I mean, how are you..."
"I would like to know the same," came the quiet voice of the Headmaster from behind him
