A Promise Worth Keeping

Chapter Thirteen

Harry pushed his way through the crowd of children, heading for the stairway he had seen a few moments before. He had one thought in his head. Downstairs. He quickly ran down the stone steps, but half way down, tripped as a step he thought was there turned out not to be.

"You first years should know where the vanishing steps are by now!" a cheerful voice admonished from behind.

Harry picked himself up and turned round to see a tall, dark haired boy grinning at him. The grin faded as the boy said in a puzzled voice, "Where are your robes? Why aren't you dressed properly?"

"Erm…" Harry didn't know what to say.

"What House are you in?"

Harry panicked and ran on down the stairs, ignoring the shouts behind him. Then he heard footsteps pounding down them after him, but he'd always been fast, and when he came to a corridor that seemed to be on ground level, he followed it, nipping between groups of students presumably on their way to their next classes. Nobody else tried to stop him and he slowed down, thinking that if he could find that corridor with the archway going down to the Slytherin Common Room, he would find the dungeons. It seemed the obvious place to look for Sirius after what Remus Lupin had said.

He wandered for some time, but nowhere looked the least bit familiar. Then finally, the corridor opened into the huge space of the Entrance Hall. Quickly, Harry darted across to the Great Hall, still empty. He found the side door they had left by earlier and went through it into another corridor. He sighed with relief as he saw the archway and stairs leading down. He looked round, but there was no one about now, and he went down the stairs. It was cold and dank at the bottom; flickering torches lined the bare, stone walls.

He came to a door and stood before it irresolutely, wondering if it was a classroom or a common room or something else. Cautiously he listened, but there was no sound from inside. He had just stretched out a hand to try the door to see if it was locked, when it was pulled open from the other side. Harry took a step backwards in fright as he looked up into the sallow features of a tall man dressed in black, who sneered down at him.

"What the devil are you doing here?" the man exclaimed.

"N-nothing!" Harry stammered, backing away still further.

An unpleasant smile crossed the man's face. "Nothing, Potter? On the contrary, I suspect you're looking for your precious godfather."

Harry's puzzlement must have shown on his face as the man continued, "Or weren't you told about that, hmmm?"

Harry's eyes flicked up the corridor. It was still empty, and he tensed to make a break for it. Before he could do so though, the man reached out and grabbed his arm with one pale, long-fingered hand. "Oh yes, Sirius Black is your godfather, Potter. And the irony has not escaped those of us who have your interests at heart that, that murdering lunatic seems to be the only person you're interested in seeing."

"What do you mean?" Harry demanded.

"I'm beginning to wonder just what exactly Dumbledore did tell you about him. Never mind. I'm more interested in how you got out of the Hospital Wing. I never did think much of Pomfrey's ward setting abilities. Well? Speak up!" he added, giving Harry's arm a shake, as Harry said nothing.

"I wasn't in the Hospital Wing."

The man cocked an eyebrow in disbelief. "A liar as well, I see. Well that doesn't surprise me. You can explain what you were doing to Professor Dumbledore."

Harry experienced a familiar sense of injustice at this epithet. Things weren't so different here after all. He winced as the man tightened his grip on Harry's arm and pulled him along the corridor, then up the stairs. As they went, Harry considered mentioning that the severe looking woman with the glasses had said Professor Dumbledore wasn't available, but sneaking a glance at the man's face thought better of it.

Harry was completely lost by the time they arrived before a very ugly stone gargoyle. The man's sneer, which seemed to be a permanent part of his features, deepened and he said, "Liquorice Allsorts." This was apparently a password of some sort as the gargoyle immediately sprang to life and leapt out of the way to reveal the wall behind it opening up. Harry stared at it in amazement, and hardly noticed as the sneering man pulled him up the spiral staircase that had appeared. It brought them before an old oak door. The man stood for a moment listening, Harry could hear several people speaking inside. Then the man said, "Wait here!" knocked and walked in.

The door shut with a click and Harry was left standing there in the gloom. Immediately he ran back down the stairs, but at the bottom instead of the arched space they had come through, there was nothing but a blank wall that stayed a blank wall not matter how much he glared at it. He went back up the stairs.

He stood in front of the door blinking back tears, even though there was no one to see them. He'd been desperately searching for Sirius as the one familiar person in this nightmare world he'd woken up in. A familiar person moreover, who hadn't met him and then tried to pretend he was his friend. Anyway, Harry thought, even if Sirius had escaped from prison and was a murderer, wasn't he almost as bad? Uncle Vernon had nearly died and it really had been Harry's fault. A tear escaped and trickled down his cheek.

Suddenly he froze. The voices on the other side of the oak door had been droning on, but someone had said Sirius' name. Harry started to listen more closely.

"I do not believe, Lucius that the whereabouts of Harry Potter are your concern," Dumbledore was saying.

"My only concern is the safety of such an icon of the wizarding world, Headmaster," responded a chilly voice that Harry didn't recognise. "Now that, as you say, we have a concrete admission from Black that he was responsible for the Potters' deaths that is even more important. However, I'm sure that once the boy is back with his relatives his safety will be assured."

Harry stared at the door in horror. They were going to send him back to the Dursleys! And then the Dursleys would send him back to St Brutus'.

The man hadn't finished. He continued, "And once Mr Milton's Aurors have removed Sirius Black back to Azkaban, society's safety will be assured. I'll bid you good day."

There were footsteps, and suddenly the door swung open and a tall man with white blond hair swept out and down the stairs. Harry jumped out of the way just in time. He didn't think the man even saw him. Quickly, he followed him down the stairs to find his instinct had been right - the wall at the bottom had vanished with the opening of the door at the top. The man turned left along the corridor, and Harry had just reached the bottom when he heard an enraged voice from the top of the stairs yell, "Potter!" He took to his heels in the opposite direction from the blond man.

---

Huddled in a heap on the dungeon floor, Sirius' mind was filled with Dumbledore's words. The Headmaster had not believed him either. He knew that when they sent him back to Azkaban his words, and the infinitely sad look that had accompanied them would stay with him, as the memory of his time with Harry would not. As with Remus, he had thought that if he could only talk to Dumbledore, explain what had happened, he would understand, would believe. But he hadn't.

In a way, of course, it didn't matter. At one level, so long as Harry was safe, Sirius felt that whatever punishment they chose to mete out to him was truly justified and would never make up for what he had done to Lily and James.

He hoped they would treat Harry well. The boy needed to be loved, especially after that dreadful place the Muggles had sent him to. Sirius remembered what he had felt as he realised he was beginning to gain the boy's fragile trust. Well that trust would have been broken by now, they would have made quite sure Harry was told all about him. And in some ways that thought was more dreadful than everything else that had happened over the last few hours.

The door banged open, jerking him out of his reverie, but he didn't move. He watched as two sets of feet walked towards him, suddenly aware that he'd been clutching his head. The feet stopped and there was a contemptuous snort.

"Look at him, the dangerous, dark wizard! Bloody pathetic if you ask me."

"Um, Meredith, don't you think he might be a little bit dangerous given that he did manage to get out of Azkaban when nobody else ever has, and find the Boy Who Lived when none of us could?" asked the owner of the other pair of feet.

Meredith snorted again. "Yeah, well he doesn't look dangerous to me. Never did think he used magic to get out of Azkaban anyway. We couldn't find any signatures." He gave Sirius a vicious kick in the ribs. "Come on, up! Time to go home!"

Sirius flinched and groaned, but it took them several more kicks before they could get him on his feet. Then one of them conjured shackles round his wrists and they marched him out into the corridor. He vaguely recognised it as one of the disused lower levels, but couldn't remember where it was. It didn't matter anyway. He hardly paid attention as the two Aurors took him upstairs, past the Potions classroom; he was already drifting down into a familiar daze of misery.

There was no one about as they climbed the last steps to the ground floor. Meredith gave Sirius' arm an unnecessary yank, "Come on, Black, get moving!"

Apathetically, he let them take him along the corridors and out into the Entrance Hall. They were walking across, towards the massive front doors, when he heard the sound of someone running down the main stairs. Sirius barely had time to look up and register that it was Harry, when a black robed figure came running down the stairs behind him and yelled, "Potter! Come back here!" It was Snape, an expression of murderous intensity on his face.

Immediately, Sirius froze. Harry threw a frantic glance over one shoulder, and stumbled then fell down the last few steps, landing in a heap on the tiled floor with his glasses askew. As Snape furiously bore down on him, the boy flung up an arm to protect himself, moaning, "Nooo, don't send me back, please."

With a bellow of rage, Sirius jerked his arm out of Meredith's grasp, and rammed his elbow into the man's face. There was a satisfying crunch of bone as he broke his nose. As the man collapsed to his knees, gasping, Sirius was already swinging round to deal with the other Auror. This man hadn't been quite so contemptuous, and was more on the ball, but he was inexperienced and fear threw the aim of the hex he flung at Sirius. Easily dodging the hex, Sirius charged into him, bringing them both crashing to the floor. He used the manacles to knock the man unconscious and looked up to see Snape raising his wand.

"Stupefy!" yelled Snape.

Sirius ducked, and grabbed the Auror's wand out of the man's limp hand. "Expelliarmus!" But he missed as well.

Harry's mouth had fallen open in surprise, when he saw Sirius. The boy ducked down as Snape came charging down the bottom steps and dodged past him, wand raised to hurl another curse at Sirius, who was now back on his feet and starting to run towards him.

As soon as Snape began to utter the curse, Sirius automatically dived to one side flinging a hex back at him, noticing that behind him, Harry was scrambling to his feet. "Harry!" he yelled, "That way!" He pointed to the right hand corridor, on the other side of the stairs. He wasn't sure if the boy would listen to him now and was relieved to see him start to move. Sirius picked himself up quickly tapping the manacles with the wand as he did so, to end the charm, freeing his hands and started to run towards the corridor himself.

Snape whirled round and made a grab for Harry, "No you don't, Potter!" However, fear must have given Harry impetus as he darted out of reach.

"Impedimentia!" Sirius yelled. And finally a curse hit.

Snape slowed down. "Damn you, Black," he snarled.

Then behind Sirius, another voice choked out, "Reductio!"

"Mind the boy, you fool!" Snape shouted at the Auror.

Sirius grunted as he was hit, square in the back by a sledgehammer blast from Meredith's wand, all the air blown out of his lungs. He fell forwards onto his stomach, the wand clattering from his hand onto the floor.

"Sirius!" Harry screamed and stopped dead.

That scream was enough motivation to get Sirius to his feet, and he thrust the pain from bruised muscles away. Making a grab for the wand he staggered forwards, and finally managed to seize Harry's hand.

"Look out!" Harry yelled as Meredith climbed to his feet and raised his wand to hurl another curse.

"Stupefy!"

Sirius ducked, but Meredith hadn't been aiming at him. Harry collapsed to the floor.

Snape tried to disarm him again, but again Sirius managed to dodge out of the way, desperation driving his reflexes.

Sirius cast the first curse he could think of at the Auror, and grinned as the man's legs locked and he crashed to the floor. He quickly turned his attention to Harry, and muttered, "Ennervate!" Even before Harry's eyelids started to flicker he pulled him to his feet, supporting him with his left arm. Now Snape was raising his wand to hurl another curse and Sirius tried to disarm him. He missed.

Harry was woozily coming back to himself as Sirius steered him towards the corridor. "Come on, this way," he said. Muttering a shield charm, which saved him from Snape's Impediment Curse, he half carried Harry the last twenty yards and at last they were out of the Hall.

"This way," he repeated, steering Harry forwards. The boy was all right now, but still Sirius kept one arm tightly round him. He was frantically thinking of routes and ways out, hoping he would remember the layout of the castle. The passage on the fourth floor would be best he decided. The third floor one, under the statue of the witch was on the other side of the building.

They came to a stairwell. "Up here," he told Harry. "Two flights up." It would be easier to shake off pursuit if they took an indirect route.

Snape's footsteps ran into the corridor behind them. "Black!"

Sirius gave a slight smile, and they ran up the stairs. He began to flag as they got to the second floor, still not recovered from Meredith's Reductor Curse. As he ran, he muttered a pain relieving charm, he was sure though he would have a bright purple bruise covering his entire back.

Harry glanced at him, "Are you all right?" he asked in a worried voice.

"I'll be fine," he promised. Then he amended, "At least until I get us somewhere safe. We need to get to the fourth floor."

Snape had reached the bottom of the stairs and was coming up. Sirius led by various twists and turns to another set of stairs, hoping to shake off the pursuit. They ran up this one too.

Finally they were there. "Which way?" whispered Harry.

Sirius shook his head, to try and clear it. "Um, along here," he said after a pause. He led Harry round a corner, until they came to a large, ornate, floor length mirror. He gave Harry a strained smile, "Hope I can remember the right spell."

A few tense moments later he sighed with relief and tapped the mirror with his stolen wand. "Aperito!" It swung open revealing a dark passageway. "Lumos! Come on."

As they stepped into the passageway, the mirror swung shut behind them, and Sirius let go of Harry's hand, sagging against the wall.

"You're not all right!" Harry exclaimed.

"I'll be okay in a minute," Sirius promised, gritting his teeth. "We need to get further down. There's a stair down in about twenty yards, with a space at the bottom we can rest in."

He made his way along to where, as he had told Harry, stairs curved downwards into the dark. Then he looked back along the passage and swore. Their footprints were clear on the dusty stone flagstones of the floor.

"They'll be able to follow us," Harry said, looking worried again.

Sirius smiled and said, "Don't worry, we'll soon fix that." And he muttered a charm under his breath. Immediately a magical wind surged along the passage, blowing up the dust and obscuring the marks their feet had left. "It's not perfect, but it'll do," he said. They went down the stairs.

There were a hundred and fifty steps down, he didn't have to count them, he simply remembered. It was strange how completely irrelevant things had stayed with him, while much that was important had gone. At the bottom, as he had said there was an open space about fifteen feet across. Sirius sank to his knees and closed his eyes for a moment, finally allowing himself to relax. He began to shake as the last of the adrenaline disappeared from his system. Harry sat down beside him, leaning back against the wall.

---

They sat in silence for a moment, as Harry's panic slowly subsided. Sirius had been breathing hard, and Harry could hear his breathing start to slow too. He looked round at the space they were resting in. It was roughly oval shaped, the spiral stairs they had come down, opened out at the head of the oval and at the bottom, Harry could see stretching into darkness, another tunnel, lower than the one above - Sirius would probably have to stoop.

Then Sirius asked in a low voice, "Why were you running from Snape, Harry? I thought you'd be safe here."

Harry flicked a nervous glance at him and bit his lip. "I heard them say they were going to send me back to the Dursleys."

"What!" Harry jumped at the force of Sirius' exclamation. "Who said this?"

Swallowing hard, Harry couldn't stop himself shrinking back slightly; afraid he was going to be accused of lying. "That man, Snape? He took me up to Professor Dumbledore's office. I was waiting outside and I heard them talking, Professor Dumbledore and other people. I really don't want to go back." Harry's voice shook as he finished. He turned away so Sirius couldn't see that he was blinking hard. There was the lightest of fluttering pats as Sirius touched his shoulder. He turned back towards him.

Sirius' eyes were strained as he began, "I can't promise you won't have to," then as Harry must have looked uncertain, he added vehemently, "but I'll do my damndest to make sure you don't."

Harry considered this in silence for a minute or two. Sirius sounded so much as if he cared what happened to him, Harry thought. He wondered why, but didn't like to ask, fearing the usual response. Then he chided himself. Sirius most definitely was not like Aunt Petunia, so taking a deep breath he burst out, before he could change his mind, "Why do you care? That man, Snape, said you're my godfather. Is that true, is that why you knew me?

Sirius nodded slowly. "And you want to know how come, if I care so much now, I never came before?"

Harry didn't say anything, keeping his face as still as he could, but Sirius didn't look angry, just terribly, terribly sad. Eventually Harry said, "Professor Dumbledore said you had escaped from prison, that you had done dreadful things."

Sirius put his head in his hands - Harry could see they were trembling. "I'm so sorry," he whispered.

Did that mean…? Nervously, Harry shuffled away from him, but froze as Sirius looked up, his eyes dark and haunted. Harry shook his head. "I don't understand! Professor Dumbledore told me that a wizard called Voldemort had killed my mum and dad, but I heard them say just now, in Professor Dumbledore's office that you admitted you killed the Potters." A horrible thought occurred to him and he swallowed convulsively. "You're not Voldemort are you?"

"No!" Sirius exclaimed, horrified. "Of course not! It's just that, it was my fault. I was responsible." To Harry's surprise, the man's eyes started to tear up and he blinked rapidly. "If only I hadn't -" He broke off, glancing at Harry. Then as if he were trying to reassure him said, "I'm sorry. It must be very confusing." A slight smile flickered across his face and he stretched out a hand, but then seemed to think better of it, and pulled it back, almost as if he thought Harry would reject it.

Harry stared at him for a long moment, not sure what to think. It was confusing. He wasn't sure who to believe, or who to trust. But then he remembered why he'd been looking for Sirius earlier - he'd felt safe with him. And it wasn't a feeling he'd experienced much in his life. Suddenly he relaxed and smiled back, knowing that he trusted Sirius.

After a few moments, Sirius slowly stood up, wincing. He held out his wand and the light showed more of the tunnel ahead. He looked down at Harry, "Come on, we've got some way to go, and we don't want to find them waiting for us at the other end."

Alarmed at this thought, Harry quickly got up and followed Sirius down the tunnel.