To Hope For Nothing

To Hope for Nothing

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Miss Him

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-3 Days

~*~*~

It was the time to get Dudley Dursley to London to buy him new clothes - the old ones had become too small.

That meant that Harry was going to spend the whole day with Miss Figg in her cat-filled house, looking at photos of the cats and listening to her stories about them, as the Dursley's wouldn't just leave him home, afraid that he might break something. Very annoying to a fifteen-year-old boy.

This time, however, Miss Figg had a surprise for him. "Go look at the living room, my boy," she chirped happily as soon as Harry was inside. "I'm sure you'll be delighted."

Harry mumbled a bit. He hardly thought anything Miss Figg would describe interesting would make him delighted. He stepped into the living room, his head bent down.

"Nice to see you're happy to see me," a familiar voice said not too far away.

In an instant, Harry's head jerked up. He stared at the person in front of him. Then he gasped slightly, rubbed his eyes, and looked again. And yet, it was still the same.

Sirius smiled slightly at his actions. "Yeah, Harry, it is me," he said. "Really. I came here with the aid of Floo powder."

"So - so Miss Figg is -"

"A Squib, a wonderful old woman and an old friend of mine." Sirius smiled. "And kind enough to let me meet you here."

"I said you would be delighted!" Miss Figg chirped as she peeked her head inside the door, disappearing again after a second.

"Oh, it's so nice to see you!" Harry exclaimed after getting over the first shock, and flung himself to his Godfather's neck. "Nice to see you're safe, too."

"Same here, Harry, same here." Sirius grinned. He then sat down on a couch and pulled Harry down next to him. "So, tell me, Harry," he started, "how have these Muggles been treating you?"

"The usual," Harry replied, rolling his eyes towards the ceiling. "Chores. Blame me for anything. No surprises there." He fixed his eyes on the older man. "What about you?" he asked curiously. "How you've been doing?"

"Gathering all the old friends," Sirius shrugged. "Running from house to house, actually. I honestly don't know why Dumbledore didn't simply owl them all, but I assume he has his reasons."

"And the others?" Harry continued his questioning. "Is everything okay with everyone?"

Sirius chuckled slightly. "Always concerned of others over yourself, aren't you?" he teased. "Well, everyone's all right and happy. All the Weasleys are perfectly healthy - although I hear there have been some problems with the third boy, Percy was his name. Nothing too serious, I assume."

"No other news?" Harry asked, and he didn't know if he should have been relieved or disappointed. After all, at times like this, no news was good news.

"Well, Virginia Weasley had a little flu a week ago," Sirius grinned. "And Nymphadora - she's a cousin of mine - broke two plates yesterday, and Mundungus - a friend, but not always so law-abiding one - got Molly mad by offering some stolen stuff to the twins. And Mad-Eye put his magical eye at last on some serious use and found your friend Ron's collection of Playwizards under the stairs."

Normally Harry would have laughed at Ron's misfortune - he was bound to get the yelling of his life with that little crime - but now he couldn't. Something in Sirius's talking distracted him. Sirius's voice was a bit too carefree, his words a bit too light. Something surely was wrong, but what?

Then it hit him like a lightning from the clear sky.

"But why haven't you said a single word about professor Lupin?" Harry asked. He noticed that his godfather was trying to avoid his gaze, and he suddenly understood that something bad had happened. "What it is, Sirius? Where is Lupin? Is something wrong with him?"

"Harry... Remus has been missing for two weeks now," Sirius says, his voice barely more than a whisper.