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Aside from that first night at school, where Sirius had been thrilled with Harry calling and complaining about “the toad woman” as he called Umbridge and Seamus’ (and the school’s reaction) to him, Sirius hadn’t heard anything else from Harry much to his dismay. He'd been half hoping that they could talk every day the way they’d written every day last year, so that Sirius wouldn’t go to bed worrying about him, but logically, he knew most kids Harry’s age wouldn’t want to talk to their parent – like person every night.
Instead, he’d spent every night feeling increasingly worried for his kid. He just had a bad feeling about the situation at Hogwarts and wished more than ever that he could’ve taken Harry and run for the hills.
Despite this, he continues to carry around the mirror, and thank Merlin for that because at almost midnight, he hears, “Pads.”
Pulling out the mirror, Sirius smiles at seeing Harry rather than his own reflection. “Hey Kid.”
“Hey Pads!” Harry responds. “How are you?”
Sirius opens his mouth to respond with his recent worries about Harry when he sees his face, and realizes that Harry’s calling because he’s upset about something, “I’m good – how are you?”
“I’m f –” Harry starts to say ‘fine’, but changes it to, “Awful. I didn’t wake you up, did I?”
“Of course not. Tell me what’s wrong.”
“Everything!” Harry blurts out before going into the details. He talks about how Seamus hates him, how Lavender doubts him, how the whole school whispers around him, how even Ron and Hermione are giving him bollocks because he doesn’t want to listen to them argue, how alone he feels, and how nothing got any better having classes and what not because of his awful teachers and work. He mentioned Snape being an extra arsehole, how Umbridge didn’t want them to learn anything. He went into the details of being sent to McGonagall, who told him to ‘keep his head down’ and then he stops nearly forty-five minutes later, despite clearly having more to say. “If I tell you something, can you promise me that if I tell you something that you won’t storm the castle and get arrested?”
“Harry, kid, that makes more worried so you’re going to have to tell me what it is either way.”
“Just promise, please.”
Sirius sighs. He knows how important it is to remain calm in order to get Harry to share with him. “I promise that I will not do anything that will get me arrested if you tell me what’s going on.”
Harry nods, obviously still uncertain despite the promise, but he seemingly trusts Sirius to listen first. “I mentioned the detentions with Umbridge, right?”
“Yes, you have. I think you spent a solid ten minutes on detentions and how it’s affecting your schoolwork. You should be able to appeal that to the schoolboard as the whole point of school is to learn and you can’t be learning anything in detention like that,” Sirius offers. “Why?”
“Well, it’s – it’s just that Umbridge’s detentions aren’t normal detentions.”
“Well, of course not, they’re going way longer than they should be. She can’t keep you in detention passed curfew – what’s the point in curfew then?”
“Right, well, she had me doing lines – and those lines were with a quill that doesn’t you ink – it uses blood. My blood.”
“WHAT???” Sirius yells, standing up. “I’ll kill her!”
“NO! You can’t! I can’t lose you!” Harry yells, clearly upset.
“Harry, I can’t let her hurt you –” Sirius says, beginning to pace. He had to do something, anything to help Harry. Maybe take him out of the country after all.
“If you do anything – you are going to get yourself kissed! I can’t – I can’t – please, don’t – don’t do anything. I just wanted comfort and – and to ask if you can help with my hand so that I can heal it because I think it’s going to scar.”
Sirius pauses in his pacing. Harry has a point and if Sirius gets taken away from him, he’d have no one to even talk to. He could find another way to stop her from torturing his kid. “Okay, okay. I won’t storm the castle. Ask one of the house-elves for murtlap essence. Soak your hand for awhile and do it repeatedly until it goes away.”
“Okay – okay, I can do that.”
“Start now, we can finish the conversation as soon as your hand is soaking.”
“It can wait –”
“Now, kid.”
Harry rolls his eyes, calls for Dobby and minutes later has his soaking. “Oh, that does feel better.”
“I know – having been forced to use one of those quills before and I know how bad it can scar. Hopefully, we got to it soon enough, but you should’ve told me on Tuesday when it first happened.”
“I got back so late…and – and…”
“You were afraid to tell me,” Sirius finishes. He completely understands Harry’s worries. His reaction wasn’t great, and Harry had been right to be hesitant to tell him. “I understand, and I want you to know that I will work hard to stay calm as long as you promise to tell me things. Deal?”
“Deal,” Harry sighs. “Honestly, I wanted to tell you, but I – I was so worried.”
“Well, don’t worry, I’ll – I’ll do my best to deal with things in a healthier manner.”
“Thanks, Pads,” Harry says, relieved. “It really helps to talk to you – and it’d be great if I could tell you things and not be worried about you doing something that would – you know – make me lose you.”
Harry’s right, of course. He has a kid to think about and he has to be a source of comfort, not a source of worries. “You’re right, kid. You deserve to not be afraid to tell me things. I’m sorry that I made you so afraid.”
Harry smiles. “Thanks for that, I’m sorry I make you stress so much.”
Sirius laughs, “Well, if I’m going to start graying, I’d like to get that gray hair from stressing over you.”
Harry laughs, “Well, I’m sure I’ve given you tons of gray hairs just from last year. In fact, the reason I chose to tell you about Umbridge is because when she was checking my hand to ‘see if the message sunk in yet’ –” Sirius growls at this. “– is because when she was checking earlier, my scar hurt – I know it’s probably nothing…”
Sirius shakes his head, “Listen, whenever you have any kind of concern about – about anything – school, friends, girls (even though I might give terrible advice having never dated any girls), but especially, your scar – I want you to tell me. Anything that concerns you is not nothing.”
Harry nods, and then gives him a strange look, “What do you mean you never dated any girls?”
Sirius chuckles to himself, “That’s what you’re focused on?”
“I’d rather talk about that than my scar hurting – it was brief, and I didn’t see anything like I did with my dreams last year – so…”
Since Sirius knows that it’ll likely happen more frequently anyway, he nods. “Alright, it might happen a bit more now, but you should absolutely tell me when it happens, okay?”
“Okay. So…girls?”
Sirius laughs, “Well, I – I did my best to be interested in them, but I just never was. I found that fancied men.”
“That’s okay?” Harry questions. “Because Aunt Petunia always acted like it was…”
“Wrong?” Sirius questions, and at Harry’s nod, continues, “Truthfully, many people believe that, but I’m happy as I am, and I stopped caring a long time ago if someone didn’t approve of me.”
Harry’s quite for some time before he says, “So – how do you know?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean – I get all – I don’t know – warm and fuzzy whenever I see Cho and make a complete idiot of myself – I did tell you about Neville’s plant on the train, right?”
Sirius laughs, “You did, and I’m sure she thought it was cute.”
Harry groans, “Cute sounds like something you say about a puppy dog – I don’t want to be ‘cute’ and I looked like a complete idiot! Same thing happened at the world cup – I slopped water all over myself waving to her.” Sirius laughs at this, causing Harry to give him a playful glare. “Yet, I can’t help thinking that there have been some attractive blokes around – I might have been a little jealous of both Cedric and Cho…”
Sirius smiles, “Being jealous and thinking they’re both attractive is typically a way to know, Kid.”
“I thought I was jealous of him because he was the champion everyone preferred and he had Cho and you know, he was …”
“Attractive?” Sirius supplies, trying not to laugh.
“You’re not allowed to make fun of me!” Despite his statement, he’s laughing a bit.
“I’m not laughing at you – exactly. It’s just funny to see you dealing with a normal teenage thing. If you fancy someone, you fancy someone. There are many attractive blokes and birds in the world.”
“Well, so – it’s okay? To fancy both?”
“Of course, it is. You’re allowed to fancy whoever you want.”
“And how do I not look like an idiot in front of Cho? Since she’s – you know – an option?”
Sirius smiles, “Well, I think, first, you should try and get to know her. You said they were seekers, right?” He’s laughing a bit because Harry’s clearly into jocks if both of his fancies so far are seekers.
“Yeah – I forgot I mentioned it.”
“Well, I do listen to you,” Sirius assures him. “And I would say, maybe ask her to go flying with you. It’s something you both enjoy, and it’ll give you something in common to talk about, and then, branch off to other things. I’d say ask about her summer, but I think that’s not the cheerful topic it normally is for you two, just try and stay into happy topics.”
“I guess I could try it.” Harry’s quite for a second, yawning a bit. “I still have some things I want to talk about, but uh, I’m kind of exhausted.”
Sirius smiles, “It’s late. You’ve had a rough week, and you haven’t had much sleep. So, get some sleep, and remember to get your homework all caught up tomorrow – you can’t afford to push it off and get even more behind, okay? Fifth year is rough enough. Once you’ve done at least half – go out and relax. Take a fly, get in the air, and clear your mind. Then tomorrow, you can call me, again, and I’ll be here to talk to you about all of your other worries.”
Harry smiles, “Thanks, Pads. That sounds like a good plan. If I need homework help, maybe I can call you?”
Laughing, Sirius says, “I can try to help you, but it has been a minute or two since I’ve been in school and my memory isn’t the best anymore – maybe you should reach out to Cho? She’s a year older, maybe she can help?”
“You know, that’s a brilliant idea. Maybe I’ll try that.” Harry grins.
“You’ll let me know what happens?” Sirius asks, hopefully.
“Yeah, yeah, I will. If it works – if I make a fool of myself, I’m not telling you a thing.”
Sirius laughs, “Then I guess I’ll have my answer either way.”
“Yeah, guess so.” Harry yawns again. “Anyway, thank you, Pads. I feel a lot better now, even if I have some other worries that we’ll talk about tomorrow.”
“I’m here to help you any time you need it.”
“Good night, Pads.”
“Good night, Kid.”