Chapter Text
A Shift In The Stars
Disclaimer – I do not own Harry Potter; all rights and characters belong to JK Rowling.
Chapter 1 – A New Purpose
It was a dark Friday night in late October that found a nine year old boy by the name of Harry Potter sat on a swing, staring up at the sky. The sky was clear, not a cloud in sight, but Harry shivered slightly in the cold autumn air. A passer-by might wonder why a young boy with unruly black hair, who looked no older than seven or eight, was sat on his own in Little Whinging park at 11 o'clock at night, with not a parent in sight. Not only that, but sitting there in just an oversized t-shirt and a pair of shorts which looked more like jogging bottoms on the scrawny boy. However, there were no passers-by at this time on such a cold night – Harry was completely and utterly alone.
The feeling of being alone was not a rare feeling for Harry, nor was it an unwelcome one given the company he had to endure most of the time he wasn't alone. Despite this, he couldn't help but feel lonely as he slowly swung back and forth on the swing.
He shouldn't even be out here in the park at night – if his 'family' found out, they would be furious and throw him back into his cupboard with the promise of no meals for a week. Then again, they'd already done that earlier the very same day, so there would probably be an even stricter punishment in store for him.
Earlier that day, at lunch time in his primary school, Harry had been running from his cousin Dudley and his gang, which was a very common occurrence in his life, when he'd suddenly found himself cornered between two walls and some bins. Knowing he had to somehow escape or hide, or else face another beating at the hands of his whale of a cousin, he tried to jump over the bins to hide behind them. However, something very strange happened: one moment he was leaping over the bins, and the next, he was landing on the roof of the school kitchens.
Harry couldn't for the life of him explain what had happened – he figured that some freak gust of wind had caught him mid-air and blown him onto the roof – he was certainly light enough for something like that to be possible. Unfortunately, the head teacher didn't seem to believe him and decided to inform Harry's Aunt Petunia that her nephew had been climbing school buildings.
His aunt had acted completely calm and reasonable in front of the head teacher but as soon as they had got home, she had snapped, shouted at her nephew and forced him to do some very unsavoury chores. Harry had obliged and got on with said chores while his aunt watched him smugly throughout, sipping her cup of tea.
That, Harry could deal with, even if it did fill him with even more resentment toward his unfair aunt – it was his uncle's punishments that he dreaded most. As soon as his Uncle Vernon had walked through the door after finishing work at his drill company (Grunnings), Aunt Petunia had loudly told him what had happened at school today and that was when Harry knew he was screwed.
His uncle had stormed over to him and roughly threw him to the ground before removing his belt and standing over Harry's prone form menacingly. The pudgy but strong man had delivered strike after strike after strike with the belt until Harry was left crying on the floor with horrible red welts all over his body. Uncle Vernon had then delivered a hard kick to his ribs, grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and threw him roughly into his cupboard, whilst informing him he was allowed no meals for a week.
Harry had silently wept for hours, as his body shook with pain, both physical and emotional. Why did his aunt and uncle hate him while doting on his cousin? Why did he even still live with his aunt and uncle when they made it so clear they wanted him gone? What had he done to deserve this being his daily life?
Hours later Harry had heard his aunt, uncle and cousin going to bed. His injuries had healed over the last couple of hours – he didn't know how they did so – he was sure that cracked ribs were supposed to take far longer than a couple hours to heal, but his injuries always healed abnormally quickly. His aunt and uncle put it down to his 'freakishness'.
Harry had waited another five minutes without hearing a sound to make sure they wouldn't be coming back downstairs, then as quietly as a mouse, he pushed open his cupboard door, closed it behind him and tiptoed towards the kitchen. Once he was inside, he set about grabbing some food for himself – he hadn't eaten anything since the half of a ham sandwich with no butter which had been his lunch for the day. Harry had become quite accomplished at discreetly stealing food in the last few years, then again it wasn't too difficult – if his Aunt Petunia noticed any food had gone missing, she just assumed her obese husband or son had eaten it. Harry grabbed a packet of crisps, a chocolate bar and a banana before silently letting himself out of the house.
Recently, Harry had begun sneaking out almost every night after his relatives were fast asleep. He did this for a number of reasons: one of these being that he didn't have to worry about eating quietly outside and another being that it just felt nice to be in the fresh air once in a while, as opposed to the stifling environment of his cupboard. However, the biggest reason for Harry was that it just felt good to go behind his relatives' backs and do what he wanted for a change, even if he had to face the consequences for his small act of rebellion if he was caught.
So that was how Harry found himself sitting alone on a swing in Little Whinging park at eleven o'clock at night. He had just finished his food and was now simply having some time with his thoughts as he stared up at the sky and enjoyed the clear, starry night.
Should he just run away? He didn't know where he would go but anywhere would surely be better than having to endure constant neglect and beatings from the Dursleys. He wondered, as he so often had over the last few years, if there was somebody, anybody out there who knew about Harry and was trying to find him and rescue him. Surely he had to have some family members remaining besides the Dursleys – or even some friends of his parents before they died who knew of his existence and cared about him.
Harry shook his head dejectedly. Of course there wasn't anyone. Nobody cared about him because he was a freak. Yet still Harry couldn't help but hold onto a tiny sliver of hope that someone, somewhere cared for him and would come and save him from his abusive relatives.
A quick movement in the sky caught Harry's eye. It was a shooting star. Harry heard from one of his teachers at school that when you see a shooting star, you should make a wish and that wish would come true. He doubted it. But still he made the wish before trudging back to his cupboard for the night.
He wished that somebody would come and find him so that he wouldn't be alone any longer.
-o0o-
On the very same night, albeit many miles away from the town of Little Whinging, a wild storm raged around a menacing, dark building on a small island in the middle of the North Sea. The temperature around this island was also far colder than the temperature in Little Whinging, although the inhabitants of this island were very used to these conditions – they had been the same for as long as any one of them had been imprisoned there.
The building on this island was more commonly known as Azkaban Prison.
There were many prisoners on this island. Most of these could be found in the lower security wings of the prison, where prisoners have a horrible time of things but are usually at least still sane when they are released back into the wizarding world.
However, a select few prisoners were unfortunate enough to be placed in the high security wing of the prison. Few return to the wizarding world at all from there and even fewer return with any semblance of sanity left. The high security wing is the part of the prison which is inhabited by dementors at all times. Dementors are soul sucking creatures that feed off happiness and force a person to relive their worst memories, therefore being exposed to them for twenty-four hours per day for years on end will more often than not, drive a person to insanity.
If a person were to walk through the high security wing of Azkaban on this particular night, they would see a wide array of dark witches and wizards reduced to nothing more than shells of their former selves. They would also see dotted about, stronger individuals, who while they may not have remained fully sane, had still managed to cling onto their minds throughout their stay in Azkaban. This group was largely made up of some of Lord Voldemort's most fearsome and powerful former followers, including Antonin Dolohov and the Lestranges. Lastly, and most strangely of all, they would see a great big black dog sat in a cell, deep in thought.
This dog was not an ordinary dog – it was in fact the Animagus form of one Sirius Orion Black: a man locked up for being a high ranking follower of Lord Voldemort as well as the murder of twelve muggles and one wizard, named Peter Pettigrew. However, this man currently in the form of a dog was, unbeknownst to almost everyone in the wizarding world, innocent. On top of this, he was, for the first time in a long while, thinking clearly – and he wasn't going to waste a minute of it.
Sirius had been able to transform into a dog for the first time in weeks because the dementors had left him alone to pay some particularly close attention to one of his fellow inmates, meaning Sirius was able to regain enough strength to perform the transformation.
Due to the fact non-humans are less affected by dementors, as a dog Sirius was able to get a reprieve from the constant assault on his mind and actually think for a while.
Sirius' thoughts, as they so often were when he was able to think, were fully focused on the occurrences that saw him end up in Azkaban in the first place. Every night and day for the past eight years, Sirius had been plagued with immense guilt at the role he played in the deaths of James and Lily Potter. It was all he thought about whenever he could think and it was all the dementors reminded him of when they attacked him. It was his fault James and Lily were dead.
However, it was not his fault in the way that most people thought. The belief in wizarding Britain was that Sirius was James and Lily's secret keeper when they went under the Fidelius charm while hiding from Lord Voldemort and his followers, and that he had sold out their locations to the dark lord, sealing their fates. That couldn't have been further from the truth – Sirius would never have betrayed James and Lily – but he still blamed himself for their deaths.
It was Sirius who they had initially asked to be their secret keeper, it was Sirius who had come up with the clever idea to instead make Pettigrew their secret keeper, and it was Sirius who had not even been able to avenge their deaths after the fact, letting the traitorous rat escape while he himself had been carted off to Azkaban. It was all Sirius' fault.
All these years in Azkaban, it was only his ability to turn into a dog and his knowledge that he was innocent that had allowed him to cling onto his sanity with gritted teeth. However, when he got his moments of reprieve from the Dementors, all he used this remaining sanity for was continuing to wallow in self-pity and guilt over the role he had played in the Potters’ deaths.
But tonight was different.
Tonight, although Sirius' thoughts were still focused on the deaths of Lily and James Potter and the role he had played in them, tonight he was thinking more clearly. Tonight, he was thinking about Harry.
That was not to say that Harry Potter had never crossed Sirius’ mind – quite the opposite in fact – Sirius had spent weeks on end crying for his godson who, thanks partially to Sirius’ own actions, had to grow up an orphan. If Sirius had just been the secret keeper himself, James and Lily might still be alive, and the Potters would be a whole and happy family. Sirius forced himself away from this spiral of self-hatred once more. Lily and James were dead and there was nothing that could bring them back. Harry, on the other hand, was not, and he needed to focus his coherent thoughts on that.
The last time Sirius had seen his godson, he had made yet another huge mistake: he had handed over baby Harry to Rubeus Hagrid, who had told him that Harry was to be taken to live with his aunt and uncle, on Dumbledore’s orders. Sirius had never met said aunt and uncle, but he knew Lily had a strained relationship with her sister, and James had told him (in much more unsavoury words) that her and her husband were magic-hating pricks. Therefore, Sirius doubted Harry was being raised in the best hands. He could have prevented it, taken Harry himself – he remembered arguing with Hagrid briefly, but in the end, he had given up in favour of chasing Pettigrew down to take revenge. That had been Sirius’ second major failing as Harry’s godfather.
But now, with Sirius thinking much more clearly than before, he realised he had massively failed Harry in a third way. All these years Harry had almost certainly been raised in the Muggle world, meaning he likely had little contact with any witches or wizards, if James was to be believed about Lily’s sister and her husband’s hatred for magic. All these years, Sirius should have been there for his godson, but he had instead been wallowing in self-pity, serving out a sentence for a crime he didn’t even commit, all while the real culprit was out in the world, still posing a threat to Harry.
How could Sirius have allowed this to happen? What had he expected? That one day Pettigrew would be caught and he would be released? Or perhaps that Albus Dumbledore would figure things out and pull some strings to clear his name? Or had he simply been so intent on punishing himself for the fates of Lily and James that he had completely disregarded the most important thing: his godson.
Well, he would wallow no more, Sirius decided. His days of uselessly beating himself up in Azkaban were over. He had to fulfil his promise to James and Lily when they made him Harry’s godfather.
But to help his godson, Sirius first had to escape from a prison so impenetrable that nobody in its history had ever broken free from it. Countless dark wizards and witches had been imprisoned here throughout history, and not a single one had escaped – what chance did he possibly have compared to them?
Sirius' canine face lit up in its first grin in eight years. He was an unregistered Animagus.
With the greatest burst of energy Azkaban had seen from any living creature in its history, Sirius jumped to his feet, squeezed between the bars and ran down the corridor at the fastest speed his dog form would allow, stretching atrophied muscles that had been unused for almost a decade.
He had rushed down staircase after staircase before he eventually saw some human guards on the ground floor: aurors. There were two of them, one was a woman who looked to be in her early twenties while the other was a man who seemed to be around sixty. Both of them stood shivering, quietly talking to each other, clearly not enjoying their task of being stationed at Azkaban. The man stood with his wand in his right hand, but the woman's wand was lying discarded on the table behind them.
Sirius slowed down and silently crept towards the wand, keeping to the shadows. If possible, he wanted to just take the wand and go but if the situation arose, Sirius would use any force necessary to escape, including lethal force. This was too important – failure wasn't an option.
He was so close to the wand when all of a sudden, he saw the woman's eyes widen as she spotted him approaching. In an instant, she reached for the wand as Sirius jumped for it – but she got there first.
Sirius landed and skidded to the side before standing up straight again and turning to face the two aurors, both of whom were now facing him with their wands raised.
"A grim," said the man fearfully.
"Stupefy!" shouted the woman.
Sirius jumped out of the way to avoid the woman's spell then charged towards the aurors as quickly as he could. The woman moved to fire off another spell, but this time, Sirius was quicker – he jumped and sank his teeth into her forearm. She screamed loudly and the male auror fired a cutting curse towards Sirius.
Unfortunately for the female auror, Sirius released her arm from its grip between his teeth, meaning the man's cutting curse sliced cleanly through her wrist instead, severing her right hand.
If the woman's scream before was loud, it was nothing compared to this one as she held the bleeding stump of her right arm, rolling around hysterically. The man, seeming horrified at what he had done, froze momentarily and that was all the pause Sirius needed. He leapt back up and sank his teeth into the male auror's thigh. He screamed out in pain and kicked out at the dog that caused him the pain, sending Sirius flying where he landed on top of the female auror who had passed out from either shock or blood loss.
Sirius went to move when his one of his feet knocked into the woman's dropped wand which rolled across the floor. While the man was still recovering from the bite, Sirius transformed into his human form and dived for the wand on the floor, grabbing it and standing up straight facing the remaining auror.
Upon seeing Sirius, the man's face paled considerably and he said "You?" in horror.
"I don't want to hurt you," said Sirius slowly, "Just let me Obliviate you and I will leave in peace."
The man didn't seem to get the message and fired off a spell, which Sirius dodged.
"Fine," croaked Sirius, "Have it your way."
The two men began exchanging spells back and forth, both using an advanced repertoire of spells and blocking expertly. The problem for Sirius was he was quickly running out of energy; he hadn't used any magic for eight years and now he was throwing around spells at a lightning quick pace. Sirius knew he had to end this quickly before he passed out from magical exhaustion, so he made his move.
One thing Sirius had noticed about the auror's fighting style was that he had not dodged once. Whether this was just how he fought or if it was due to the injury to the man's leg, Sirius did not know, but either way he was going to use it to his advantage. Sirius sent three spells in rapid succession, meaning the man had to focus on how to block all three rather than just sidestepping the lot of them. While he was distracted, Sirius moved to the side and fired a blasting curse right at the man's midsection.
The auror had just about managed to block the three prior spells but couldn't do anything to prevent the blasting curse from striking him in his abdomen, exploding his midsection in a shower of blood and guts.
Sirius grimaced as the man slumped to the floor, dead. He hadn't meant to put that much power into the curse, and now his body was feeling the after-effects of it. All he felt like doing was curling up and going to sleep, but Sirius refused to give into these feelings. He couldn’t stop now, especially now that he was so close to escaping.
He turned to the woman who was unconscious and obliviated her so she could not remember what had attacked her – this way his Animagus ability would remain a secret. He hoped that the woman was found before she bled out on the floor of Azkaban prison.
Without further ado, Sirius turned and hurried out of the prison and towards the sea. As he got to the edge of the land, he couldn't see a boat and some dementors were beginning to converge on him. There was only one thing for it: he would have to swim for it.
Sirius placed the woman's wand into his mouth, transformed into a dog and waded out to sea before paddling away from the island as fast as his body would allow him. The water was ice cold and choppy and the dementors around made him want to give up, but he persevered and swam on.
Eventually, he felt himself swim past the ward barriers so he turned into a human, took the wand into his hand, and with his last remaining strength, he disapparated.