Beaten and Blown By the Wind

Chapter Four: Did You Hear That?

"You're late, Harry," the voice of his godmother made familiar though his walks through her memories echoed out of the mirror before her face entirely materialized.

"I was sleeping," Harry replied, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes as he set the mirror on his desk so he could sit and still see and be seen through it.

"I could start preaching right away about what I think is important, but we will get to that one way or another, so if you'd rather, or rather, if you have any questions, maybe it'd be best if you asked them first. Well, those that I won't answer in my preaching," she smiled a smile that spoke volumes to Harry. He realized she was as nervous about meeting him as he was of her, but it was a kind smile, overjoyed at seeing him. He watched her eyes search his face as if she'd never seen it before and decided he'd never forget the way she searched his face with a light in her eyes so much like Sirius' as if she were seeing Harry, not the boy who lived. Ultimately grateful for the assurance that she was friend, not fan, Harry couldn't get the thought of Sirius off his mind when trying to form a question for her.

"Anything?" When she nodded, Harry tried to think of a tactful way to pose his question, but was blurting it out before he realized it. "How did you know Sirius? I mean, were you just his friend like you were a friend of my mum's or are a friend of Snape's, or was it different. He was weird about you."

"I knew Sirius better than most people, even better than your father in some respects. We were very close friends from the time we were children, you saw us meet. He was the first person to look at me and not immediately hate me other than my younger sister, and I know I was the first to do the same for him, he told me as much once," she paused and smiled, reminiscing. "He was weird about me. Always so possessive and protective, it was weird for me. I had an older sister, three older brothers, a twin brother, and a younger sister at home, but only my younger sister cared that I lived, but I had to watch out and be protective of her. My dad always thought I was the odd one, but none the less the strong one, so he didn't watch me too carefully. Sirius always was appalled that no one really watched out for me but him, maybe that's why he was insane about it."

"Oh," Harry blushed. "I had the feeling he, well, he fancied you. I guess I was kind of off target there."

"Oh that!" Aislynn laughed heartily. "You mean the way he'd scowl at every other guy I noticed was alive and would practically growl at the ones I talked to or smiled at?" Harry nodded sheepishly and joined her laughter a bit as she laughed harder. "Well, with Severus, you know the deal there. The two of them hated each other right off the bat. I was just an excuse for them to growl and throw insults at each other. As for everyone else? Well, it took a great many years and many disgruntled, jealous, and downright homicidal girlfriends later before he finally admitted that he did fancy me."

"Disgruntled, jealous, and downright homicidal girlfriends?" Harry asked, no longer sheepish, but laughing at Sirius' unfortunate choice in women that sounded much like his own.

"Well, they didn't start out that way for the most part. Sirius was pretty popular and knew how to work his way into a girl's heart. He was the playboy. Your father caught a great many girls as they walked by as well, but he was wasted to all women the moment he met your mother, even though he was too young to realize it then and too proud to admit it later. Sirius? He dated anyone who crossed his path and spiked his interest. Of course, he was only serious about very few of the girls he dated and always managed to screw it up with them," she smirked in memory of Sirius' girl troubles. "In a few rare cases with unusually understanding girls, he managed to screw it up all on his own. But most teenage girls have a slight...issue, shall we say...with boyfriends who have a lifelong best mate that's, well, a girl. You ran into something like that with Cho, unless Ron and Ginny exaggerated, and Sirius ran into that countless times."

"I did, you talked to Ron and Ginny?"

"Aye, I just met them this afternoon. They're what one would refer to as 'good people'. You've defiantly found the right wizarding family to befriend and take you in."

"You can say that again," Harry smiled, truly happy for the first time in months at his godmother praising his judgment and telling him stories about Sirius when he was Harry's age. "So you're why the girls were disgruntled, jealous, and homicidal? Did you fancy him or something or were they just being stupid?"

"That's a tough choice," Aislynn laughed. "I did fancy Sirius; in fact, I had since I met him as a little girl. He sort of became my knight in shining armor that day he led me safely past the elf heads. They still give me the willies," she explained sheepishly. Harry laughed along with Aislynn at the undeniable creepiness of the Black's mounted elf heads. He imagined that being a small child and seeing such things would be highly traumatic and couldn't blame her for making Sirius a knight in shining armor for taking her worries from them without question, especially if even her father told her to just shut up about it. Harry could see her brow furrow a bit in contemplation as she tried to answer his question efficiently.

"Girls never took well to the way he was far more possessive and protective of me than them. A guy would whistle at them and he'd hardly notice, but he'd hex the same guy into oblivion for doing the same to me," a small smile found its way to her face. "My knight in shining armor, always defending my honor and such, always making sure no one had the audacity to even look at me cross or check me out. It was impossible getting boyfriends with him around like a body guard. That and the fact that I was unpleasantly aware that I was in love with him for years before he bothered to notice me," a slight frown took its place. "Looking back, I should have noticed that my feelings weren't unrequited as I so thought. I even yelled at him for it because it drove even the nicest girlfriends away. The way he'd watch me as I entered and left a room, the way his she could be crying on him but he'd run off to comfort me if I was so much as frowning, the way that sometimes I was the only authority over him when he wouldn't listen to even your father, the nickname, that letter he wrote my dad," she stopped to laugh at that one before getting that far off look in her eyes that told Harry she was remembering something she missed terribly. "Did you know that he'd never ask any girl, not even a serious girlfriend, to a dance or ball or Hogsmeade weekend before he was sure I had someone to go with?" Harry looked at her incredulously. "No, really. One Yule Ball his girlfriend dumped him three days beforehand because he still hadn't asked her."

"Did he go with you then?"

"Nope," she laughed at Harry's confused face. "No, I already had a date. He was trying to talk me out of it and ended up without one of his own. My little sister then offered to go with him just so he wouldn't have to go alone. She knew as well as any of us he wouldn't be alone there for long, but he took her up on the offer anyway. It was our third year and she was a second year, therefore not allowed to go. She didn't really have any friends in her year and hung around with Lily and I all the time, so she didn't even care if he went off with some other girl as long as she didn't have to sit in the common room bored all night. She never ended up going with him either. She went with your dad. He was trying to talk Lily into going with him and she wouldn't have it. To piss him off, she asked Sirius after talking to my sister, who told her to go ahead and ask. Lily and Sirius went and your dad took my sister as to not go alone and make Lily angry. They had a good time so he wasn't angry, but Lily wasn't angry either."

"Who was this date that you had that Sirius didn't like?" Harry gasped as a thought hit him. "You didn't go with Snape, did you?"

"No, no, I never went to anything with Severus, Lucius Malfoy would have never let him live it down afterwards," she laughed some more.

"Then why wouldn't Sirius want you to go with this guy?" Harry got more curious as she chewed on her lip with thought.

"He didn't think it wise to date a werewolf."

"You dated Professor Lupin? Did you know he was a werewolf?" Harry was hearing more than he had bargained for with 'how did you know Sirius', but was loving it none the less.

"I figured that out before the rest of the Marauders did. Remus always was the smart one, solving mysteries was his forte, not Sirius's or your father's, and certainly not Peter's. I dated Remus several weeks up to and including that Yule Ball. He always was the gentleman of the group, sweet as anything, but that's still apparent, so I'm sure you'll have no trouble imagining it. By the end of that night, it was quite obvious that he wanted to be there with my sister more than me and her with him. They took their damn time in getting together, it was a royal pain for the rest of us, but they finally made it official that spring and didn't break up until...for years. They didn't break up for years." Aislynn seemed hurried to change the subject, which confused Harry, but he didn't question it for the moment. "That's when your father and I realized how much fun we had together. We dated on and off for a week here and there for the next couple years, but it was more out of having no one better to date. We knew there was nothing serious there, but we did have fun. I liked his pranks and he liked the way I was able to keep him out of trouble almost effortlessly. The whole school, teachers included, could tell when the two of us were on - never until the Weasley twins did the school see such incredible pranking as when the three of us worked together. Don't look at me with a question. Sirius didn't trust Remus with me, do you really think he trusted your father any more? Besides, your father wouldn't hear of a perfect prank without Sirius involved."

"But did you and Sirius ever get together?"

"Of course we did," she smiled in memory once more. "I could never forget it either. That was the break up that was downright homicidal. It was the very end of our fifth year, the evening before the last day of O.W.L.S. and he got into an argument with her over my name, I believe. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it was Sirius and you know how stubborn he was. Everyone was silent and watching because they started screaming. I, meanwhile, had sunk into a chair in front of the fire with my back to the scene as far as I could go staring at the open book in my hands and pretending I didn't exist and couldn't hear them through my intense concentration. I can still remember the fight. 'Why do you need her? You've got me! What makes her so goddamn special?' 'Everything makes her so goddamn special!' 'Oh, I've already heard it! You've already said how beautiful and special she is, so you can spare me! What about me? Am I beautiful, Sirius? Am I?' 'You're gorgeous, I promise.' He calmed down at this point and gave up. I'm pretty sure he was sitting at a table with his head in his hands. 'But am I beautiful? Why can't I be beautiful, Sirius?' 'You're just not.' 'Oh, I see. You give her a nickname trying to embarrass her and all of a sudden no one else can be beautiful?' 'It's just a word! You're gorgeous, does it really matter how I say it?' 'If it's just a word, then it shouldn't matter if you use it on me too!' 'This is ridiculous!' 'No, you're ridiculous! Why can't I have it too? Is she really the only person in your twisted world that can be beautiful?' Sirius got really quiet then and everyone held their breath. After almost a minute, by which time I know he had stood, ready to leave the room, stopped somewhere between my chair and the portrait hole and looked at me. He just stopped and stared at me for a few seconds that were years at the moment in which I wished I could just scream at him to stop being so goddamned stupid, that it was just a word. Then he sighed and said 'yes'. That's all he said, but his eyes didn't waver from me the whole time.

"It may have been a romantic moment had I not been paralyzed with fear of this other girl, a seventh year whom I thought was a lot prettier than me, but certainly a lot meaner and taller and stronger. She could snap me like a twig if she wanted, no magic needed. No one spoke; no one was even studying or doing homework anymore. Everyone just looked at them. She took a moment and collected all her dignity and said to him in almost a whisper that was so cold it could've given him hypothermia had he cared enough to listen to her tone at that moment, but he barely heard her words. She stood straight and tall and looked over at him and said, "It's her or me, Sirius. Either you forget she exists or you forget about me. Who's it gonna be, Sirius? Her or me?' And wouldn't you know the dolt didn't even look at her? He just kept staring at me and said, 'Her. It's always been her.' Oh, the fool, had I been able to think straight under his gaze, I would have cast an invisibility charm on myself right then. Sirius never did have a good sense of impending danger."

"What did she do about it?" Harry asked, amazed that Sirius could have pulled off such a scene without taking advantage of the spotlight to do something dumb, but perhaps his father and Sirius were a little different than he thought.

"She stood there a moment in shock. Then we saw the downright homicidal ex girlfriend. Did I mention she wore high heels? Very spiky high heels? She also happened to be an American muggle born state soft ball champion pitcher with an aim to beat a master marksman, in my humble opinion. Luckily enough, Remus wasn't entirely paralyzed by the oppressing silence and was able to deflect the heel before it rammed itself into Sirius' thick skull. I was right my first year when I called him a nincompoop...did you hear that?" Aislynn stood up and looked around. Harry saw her walk to the door and window and look out. "It's not here. Harry, take a quick peek outside your window...but be very discreet about it."

Harry peeked outside his window and saw something incredible. A green glow over everything. He was trying to figure out what it was coming from when he noticed hooded figures walking across the lawn of the house behind his towards his back door.

"Oh shit," Harry whispered, looking up and seeing the dark mark flying above his house. He couldn't even find words.

"Harry, what's that green light coming in your window?" Aislynn called before it hit her full on. "Holy shit! Damnit damnit damnit, I should have seen this coming!" Harry turned back to the mirror in horror, his mouth agape and saw Aislynn on her feet pacing and cursing up a storm.

"Aislynn, they're almost to my yard. How do I run for the Knight Bus again?" Harry's voice was quiet and shaky as he heard Aislynn tearing parchment and screaming at an owl, screeching back in excitement. She was in tears when she turned to the mirror.

"They haven't reached the front of your house yet. They're not even in viewing distance. Do you remember what I told you in my first letter, Harry?" she questioned through her tears, looking frantic.

"The devil was left handed?"

"Exactly. The devil was left handed. He still is. The devil will always strike from the left first...his left."

"Which is his left?"

"The same as your right when you face him head on."

"Which way's head on?" Harry was getting angry now.

"Whichever way you can see them. Look toward them and go left, that'll be his right."

"Will this always work?"

"Always with Voldemort, but you have to watch out for her, too. Send Hedwig out the front, tell her to go to Hogwarts for now. Put on a cloak, grab your wand, broom, and this mirror and head out the front. Run one block forwards and four to the right. You'll have turned around, your left will be the same as his. Stick out your wand for the knight bus, but don't light it. GET OUT OF SURREY."

"What about the Dursleys?" Harry asked as he gathered all she told him plus the photo album of his parents. Aislynn's face finally caught an expression to match the tears.

"There's nothing I can do to help them now, but I can help you. Go Harry, now. Go before it's too late." Harry hesitated. "GODDAMNIT, HARRY! HE DIDN'T DIE SO YOU COULD WILLINGLY STAND AND WAIT FOR VOLDEMORT TO COME AND KILL YOU! YOU'RE NOT STRONG ENOUGH TO BEAT HIM YET! FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING I KNOW, RUN!" The mirror went blank and Harry did the only thing he could: he ran.