"Here I am again, rock bottom. Dug this hole to hell to rot in" ~ Rock Bottom, Neckdeep
Never have I been in a stranger group. Crookshanks leads the way down the stairs; Lupin, Pettigrew and Ron follow, all bound together by a chain. Next comes Snape, drifting creepily along, his toes hitting each stair as we descend, held up by his own wand, being pointed at him by Sirius. Harry, Hermione and I travel at the end of the group, helping Tay limp through the passageway with her swollen ankle.
Traveling through the tunnel is extremely difficult. Lupin, Pettigrew and Ron have to turn sideways to manage it; Lupin still had Pettigrew at wand point. They have to shuffle awkwardly along in a single file. Meanwhile, Sirius makes no effort to prevent Snape's head from hitting the low ceiling.
"You know what this means?" Sirius says abruptly to Harry and me, as we make our slow progress along the tunnel. "Turning Pettigrew in?"
"You're free," I say.
"Yes..." Sirius says. "But I'm also - I don't know if anyone ever told you - I'm your godfather."
"Yeah, we knew that," Harry replies.
"Well...your parents appointed me your guardian," Sirius continues stiffly,"if anything happened to them..."
I don't say anything? Is he implying what I think he is?
"I'll understand, of course, if you want to stay with your aunt and uncle," Sirius says. "But...well...think about it. Once my name's cleared...if you wanted a...a different home..."
Some sort of explosion takes place in the pit of my stomach.
"What - live with you?" Harry says, accidentally cracking his head on a bit of rock protruding from the ceiling.
"Leave the Dursleys?" I add.
"Of course, I though you wouldn't want to," he says quickly. "I understand. I just thought I'd - "
"Are you mad?" I say, my voice easily as croaky as his. "Of course, we want to leave the Dursleys!"
"Have you got a house? When can we move in?" Harry says excitedly.
Sirius turns right around to look at us; Snape's head is scraping against the ceiling, but he doesn't seem to care.
"You want to?" He says. "You mean it?"
"Yeah, we mean it!"
Sirius' gaunt face breaks into the first true smile I've seen upon his face. The difference it makes is startling, as though a person ten years younger is shining through the starved mask; for a moment, he is recognisable as the man who had laughed at our parents' wedding.
We don't speak again until we reach the end of the tunnel. Crookshanks darts out first, clearly pressing his paw against the knot on the trunk because we are able to climb out without being savaged by the branches.
The grounds are very dark now, the only light comes from the distant windows of the castle. Without a word, we set off. Pettigrew is till wheezing and occasionally whimpering.
My mind is buzzing. We're finally going to leave the Dursleys. We're going to leave him Sirius Black, our parent's best friend. I can't help but feel dazed. What will happen when we tell the Dursleys that we're going to live with the convict we saw on the television?
"One wrong move, Peter," Lupin says threateningly, ahead. His wand is still pointed sideways at Pettigrew's chest.
Silently we treck through the grounds, the castle lights growing brighter and brighter. Snape is still drifting strangely ahead of Sirius, his chin bumping on his chest. And then -
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The Potter Twins and the Prisoner of Askaban {3}
FanfictionWHAT'S PAST IS PROLOGUE. Harry and Haylee are back for their third year at Hogwarts, and everything is changing. Haylee's past trauma has left her shaken to the core, and it only seems to be getting worse. But a new danger is coming their way in th...
