Stolen Innocence

Chapter Two

Before Terror

*~*July 28^th 1970 *~*

James

James Potter had just turned ten. He had had a wonderful birthday and was just about to sit down and open his birthday presents. The day had been filled with lots of fun, lots of presents and lots of cake. His grandfather pulled him aside and handed James a present.

'Open this later, when no one else is around,' his grandfather said. 'It will come in handy next year when you start at Hogwarts.' His grandfather winked at him, as James thanked him for the gift and ran to hide it upstairs.

James returned to open the gifts from the rest of his family. The Potters were always very generous when it came to exchanging gifts and James found himself with many different kinds of gifts, but the highlight would have to have been the broomstick he received. It was his first very own broomstick. James sat admiring the make of the broom. The newest Cleansweep. James could picture himself soaring through the sky on top of it. He was disappointed when his mother took it from his hands, placed it in the cupboard and told James that it could only be used under strict supervision. He pouted but it was no use. Her mind could not be changed.

Later that night James located the gift his grandfather had given him. He opened the card.

James,

I thought that this might come in handy. It was mine and was once my grandfathers and now I am passing it onto you. Make good use of it.

James wondered what it possibly could be. He ripped the paper off the present to reveal a cloak.

A cloak? What a let down.

James examined the cloak carefully. It didn't look like anything special. Sure it could have belonged to someone wealthy but he didn't see why his grandfather had wanted him to keep it a secret.

In the end he decided to try it on. He stood in front of the mirror and draped the cloak over his shoulders. He looked at his reflection. He blinked and looked again. He couldn't see his body. Could it be an Invisibility Cloak? James took the cloak off to ensure that the mirror wasn't playing tricks on him and when he could see his entire body again, he draped the cloak over himself again and stood in awe as he watched his body disappear again.

An Invisibility Cloak. He was going to have fun with this one. This was the best birthday ever.

*~*

Sirius was ten years old.

Although he didn't completely understand what was going on, he knew that not everything was right in the world. His parents spoke more and more in whispers. They talked about missing people and about a man whom Sirius did not know, but sensed was someone who meant trouble.

Sirius didn't like seriousness. He even thought his name was funny. But he especially didn't like it when his parents talked that way. His father was working more and more hours than usual and had hardly anytime to spend with his family.

Sirius missed the time that they had usually spent together. He wished that his father had had more time this year, especially as Sirius would start at Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry next year and would be away from home for most of the year.

He closed his eyes and imagined what it would be like at Hogwarts. He would live in a dorm with other boys his own age. It would be nice to meet some other boys his own age. Most of his parents' friends had very young children, still babies or toddlers so they weren't much good for a best mate. His sister was three years younger and she was a girl and she was only fun when Sirius was playing a joke on her, as she was far too interested in her dolls most of the time to pay much attention to Sirius. The closest thing he had to a best mate was his father's friend Uncle Alasdair's daughter Chrystal. And she would do anything for him; all he had to do was ask. He smiled as he thought of the last time he had been at Dunvegan Castle. (The Black's were in the habit of spending a month at Dunvegan Castle in the summer and would sometimes visit far more often.) He had challenged the girl to a broom race and finally had beaten her. He had to admit that for a girl she was kind of fun, but if he could get his hands on a wand he would curse her good. She needed a good cursing and then she would be far more bearable. He smiled as he thought of the prospect.

Only a year to go and I'll have a wand and she won't! I'll be going to school and she'll be stuck at the village school conjugating verbs and doing Arithmetic while I, Sirius Iain Black, will be learning some real magic.

His parents had stopped whispering. Sirius had an awful feeling in his stomach. He crept back upstairs to bed hoping that his parents didn't discover that he was eavesdropping.

*~*The next morning *~*

'Sirius, wake up.'

Sirius groggily opened his eyes to see his father sitting on the bed.

'Dad, what are you doing?' he asked.

'We're going on a holiday today,' his father said with a big smile on his face. 'I've got two weeks off work.'

Sirius jumped out of bed.

'Are we going to Skye again?' Sirius asked given that Sirius loved the castle.

'Yes,' his father said. 'Now Trixie has packed your bags, so why don't you come down and have breakfast so we can head off.

Sirius ran downstairs and demolished his meal extremely quickly. This was followed by Sirius running towards the broom cupboard to retrieve his broom, because he was going to race Chrystal all day long. Or until he beat her.

The entire family travelled to Dunvegan Castle by Floo and when they arrived, there was a house-elf waiting to accompany them to their rooms. Sirius led the way to the room that he had stayed in since the time he was three.

He turned to the elf.

'Where am I to go now?' he asked it. He had not met this elf before.

'I am to take you to Mistress Chrystal,' the elf stammered. 'Those is my instructions.'

Sirius grabbed his broom and said to the house-elf;

'Let's go.'

The house elf led Sirius outside to a green paddock, where Chrystal was with her father and her broomstick. Sirius had rarely seen her without it at Dunvegan.

'You ready to fly?' Sirius called out.

'You ready to race?' Chrystal replied.

They hopped on their brooms and raced round and round the paddocks; until finally they both were so exhausted they nearly fell off their brooms.

'I won,' Chrystal said.

'No you didn't,' Sirius replied. 'I won.'

Their bickering continued until both Alasdair and Iain had to intervene.

'You both won,' Iain said. 'Sorry lad, but she beat you the same number of times you beat her. Anyway tomorrow you're going to get your wish. You're both going to get a game of Quidditch. Alasdair has organised a group of nine and ten year olds from all over the Isle to come over and play tomorrow. So then you can try and outfly all of them. They'll be no need to try and race each other.'

Sirius grinned. Now that sounded like fun.

He didn't have a problem falling asleep that night as he dreamt of Quidditch and beating Chrystal in broom races.

*~*

Early the next morning children arrived from all over Skye, for what Alasdair hoped would be an annual event for young children to play a friendly match of Quidditch.

Chrystal eyed the other children carefully. It was okay for Sirius and Maddie to invade her castle, but she wasn't too sure about the others. Even if it was for Quidditch.

As her father lined them up in teams, Chrystal noticed that there were only five players to a team.

'Daddy, why are there only five players?' she asked. 'There are supposed to be seven players on a Quidditch team.'

'In a moment Chryssy sweetheart,' her father said as he finished organising the children on the other team. 'Now children, because I cannot find Bludgers that will not do serious damage to you all, Mr Black and I have decided that there will be no Bludgers used, and therefore no Beaters are needed. So each team will have three Chasers, a Keeper and a Seeker.'

He handed the children coloured robes, Chrystal's team receiving green and the other team blue.

As they stood in their group, Sirius was the first to speak.

'Chrystal will play Seeker and I will play a Chaser,'he announced. 'The rest of you can decide what positions you want.'

The other three children talked quickly and decided that a small girl called Flora and an eleven-year-old boy called Allan would play the other Chasers and an unusual looking boy called Severus would play Keeper.

Soon enough her father blew his whistle and Chrystal soared into the sky. She began to look for signs of the golden Snitch. Despite having watched Quidditch her entire life, it was more difficult than she had first thought. She couldn't see very far, it was a misty sort of day, and she had no idea that the Snitch would be s difficult to catch. She looked down at the play beneath her, wondering what the score was. She saw Sirius beneath her, with the Quaffle in his hands. He flew towards the goal. The other teams Keeper was no match for him. (But then again he was a scrawny little boy who didn't look like he'd be much match for anyone) Chrystal felt a surge of pride as she watched her friend score. She glanced at the cheeky smile on his face before something behind his head caught her eye. She leant forward and began travelling full pelt on her broom towards him. It appeared to her that he was trying to get her to slow down, so she wouldn't run into him. She travelled closer and closer towards reached out her arm as she neared and both of them fell off their brooms.

'What was that about?' Sirius yelled at her.

'I caught the Snitch,' she said with a grin on her face as she revealed the little golden ball in her hand. 'Did we win?'

At that moment her father laughed as he went to retrieve the Snitch from his daughter.

'Of course you won,' he said and gave his daughter a big hug. 'Now it's time for the picnic.'

Almost everyone stayed for the picnic except for the boy called Severus and his family. Both Chrystal and Sirius were happy about that. There was something creepy about him. Chrystal couldn't remember ever having this much fun before. There was plenty to eat, games to play and races to be run. And finally that night, when she and Sirius crept into the house, there was not much that could worry the children.

Not much except what they overheard in the drawing room.

'I don't have a choice,' Iain Black was telling Alasdair MacLeod in a hushed voice. 'If I refuse they will kill Sirius or Madeleine. I will not have my children's murder on my conscience.'

'Iain,' Alasdair replied with urgency, 'Don't you see that there has to be another way? If you do this you will compromise everything you've ever stood for. And they will kill you for it. Now look, I'm not sure what exactly is going on in the world at the moment, but I know it's not good. There is something very evil out there. I'm not sure what it is or who's responsible. Quite a few important Ministry officials have already disappeared, presumed dead. If I were you, I just would report it and hope for the best.'

'I've thought about going into hiding, but if it's just me the same thing will happen,' Iain said sighing. 'If only there was another solution. I will not and cannot put the entire family into hiding. That's just not living Alasdair.'

'We will work out a solution Iain.'

Alasdair was about to say something else, when Chrystal noticed him heading over to their direction.

'Quick Sirius, we have to leave,' she said hastily. 'If Da sees us there'll be hell to pay. You can come up and look at my spell books.'

They scampered upstairs to Chrystal's bedroom, where she pulled out the latest volume that she had sneaked out of the library.

'Curses for bullies?' Sirius asked raising his eyebrows. 'Is this seriously what you read at night?'

'Yes it is Sirius,' she hissed. 'I am learning how to protect myself from bad things so that when I have a wand nothing will be able to hurt me. Ever.'

She didn't tell Sirius about the latest book she had found discussing Celts. She didn't want anyone to know what she had discovered. Not even her mother.

'You can't protect yourself from everything you know,'Sirius said softly. 'There's lots of bad things out there.'

'Well I can,' Chrystal said in a very naïve way that nine year olds tend to do when they think they can control the world. 'I have to be ready for when something bad happens to Mummy and Daddy.'

'What do you mean?' Sirius asked curiously.

'I just know something's wrong,' she said. 'I can feel that there's something wrong, but I don't know what it is.'

'Your Mum and Dad seem happy enough to me,' Sirius replied.

'But you don't see them everyday,' Chrystal said. 'Ever since Mummy lost the baby, Da won't go near her. It's like he hates her.'

'I'm sure he doesn't Chrystal,' Sirius replied. 'What do you think my Dad has to do?'

Chrystal thought about this for a while. She didn't really have any idea.

'Well obviously someone very bad wants him to do something,'she replied. 'He's really scared. He thinks someone will kill you. Are you frightened?'

'No,' Sirius replied boldly. Chrystal didn't need to be a Celt to know he was lying. The boy shivered as he spoke. 'Why would someone kill me?' His teeth were chattering.

'Do you think your dad was lying?' Chrystal asked. 'You know, trying to get my dad to listen to him.'

'I think so,' Sirius said. 'I mean he wouldn't let me play Quidditch if someone was trying to kill me would he?'

'Course not,' Chrystal replied quickly. 'Quidditch is dangerous enough without someone trying to kill you. And don't worry; Dunvegan Castle is as safe as anywhere. You couldn't get in here if you tried!'

On that note Sirius said that he was going to bed. Chrystal watched as he walked out of the room before she sprung off the bed and located a big fat book from underneath her mattress. Chrystal turned her bed lamp on and began reading The Ancient Secrets of Celts.

Celtic witches were once a force to be dealt with......

She flipped through the next couple of pages. It was far too advanced for her to read, let alone understand. As she flipped through the pages, she found one that intrigued her.

Powers.

There were a few special powers that were exclusive to Celtic witches.

The most well known of these was the ability to sense other people's emotions, to sense their feelings and from this they could determine whether or not someone was still alive.

Celts also had the ability to manipulate people's emotions.........

Chrystal didn't know what manipulate meant, so she skipped to the next section that grabbed her eye.

The most important thing to note about Celts and the reason as to why they were slaughtered was because a few select Celts could do wandless magic. Therefore wizards at the time felt the only way to disarm them was extinction.

Wandless magic.

It was what she had been looking for.

She read on to discover that only a few Celts had the ability, but if they had it they could do magic without a wand from an early age.

She had to try. It was something she wanted to have up her sleeve.

She saw the feather on her desk, got up out of bed and decided that she would try and levitate it. She had levitated things before with her mother's wand. It had been easy enough.

'Wingardium Leviosa!'

She pointed her fingers at the feather and concentrated hard. At first it didn't budge, yet eventually the feather began to rise off the desk.

She could do it.

She would practice when she was alone. She would tell no one. This was her secret. It would keep her safe.

*~*

Sirius crawled into his bed. He was shaking. Someone was going to kill him if his father didn't do something. No matter what he wouldn't be able to sleep tonight.

He lay in bed wondering what it was the person wanted his father to do. Sirius came up with numerous possibilities all of which seemed infeasible to a ten year old. He rolled over and tried to sleep.

Every time he heard the slightest sound that night he jumped.

When he woke the next morning he looked like he hadn't slept a wink.

*~*

Iain Black was rather cheerful in the morning.

Sirius could not see any sign of the frightened man he had seen last night.

Sirius liked this version of his father better. His father came up to embrace him.

'I'm off for a couple of days Sirius,' his father said. 'I want you to be a good lad and take good care of your mother and sister for me.'

Sirius promised he would. He would do anything for his father. Just as long as he remained happy.

He watched as his father walked out the door with a big teasing smile on his face. Yes, this was the father he liked. Happy, carefree and without a worry. Sirius knew that everything was going to be fine. And besides, it was time for a broomstick race. He offered the challenge and then raced Chrystal outside, determined that he would be the victor this time.

*~*Later that week*~*

Sirius' father had still not returned.

No one seemed particularly worried except for Sirius. Even Chrystal who had overheard the conversation between Iain and Alasdair, and Alasdair himself did not seem worried at all.

But Sirius feared for his father. Something told him that not everything was fine. He just had a feeling inside that not all was fine.

Later that night a wizard came in a black cloak on a horse and knocked on the door. Sirius spied the rain outside. He associated rain with bad things. Something bad always had happened when it rained, this was no exception.

Sirius watched as Alasdair welcomed the man and showed him into the study. He ran to find Chrystal to ask how he could listen to what was going on. The monkey of a child knew every hiding place where you could eavesdrop on any conversation. She led him to a little alcove where they squeezed in together.

'So it's happened has it?' Alasdair said.

'Yes,' the black-cloaked wizard said.

'I shall fetch Heather for you,' Alasdair said sighing. 'I suppose you will want to talk to her.'

Sirius watched as Alasdair walked out of the room and his mother entered. Then he felt the presence of someone behind them.

'Chrystal, you shall have to find a better hiding place. Come with me you two.'

Sirius looked behind him to see Alasdair behind them. They had no choice but to follow Alasdair, meaning Sirius couldn't listen to what the black-cloaked wizard was saying to his mother. Alasdair led them to Chrystal's room, where he told them to wait.

'What do you thinks happened? Chrystal asked whispering to Sirius.

'I don't know,' Sirius said in a frightened voice. 'Something bad.'

Sirius was terrified. Everyone was acting so seriously he knew something had to be wrong. The two sat in silence in Chrystal's room until Nathaira Àille came to fetch both of them. She took Sirius to a room where his mother was waiting, and then whisked Chrystal off. Sirius' mother indicated that he should sit down on the couch.

'Sirius,' his mother began. She looked very upset. 'I want you to listen very hard to what I have to say. Your father had a job to do the other day. He didn't want to do it, but he didn't have much of a choice. I'm sorry to tell you this, Sirius, but he didn't make it back. Dark wizards killed your father. He was a hero. He was trying to stand up for what be believed was right. He was trying to protect us.'

Sirius felt his mother's arms around him and her tears falling on his shoulders. What did it matter that his father was a hero? His father was gone. There would be no more flying in the park together. No more joking around. No more fake punch-ups. No more joking around with his father. It wasn't fair. His father was his best friend and now he was gone. Just taken and Sirius hadn't even gotten a chance to say goodbye. Nothing mattered anymore. His father was gone.

'NO!' yelled Sirius as he tore himself from his mother's arms and ran upstairs to his room. He hid himself under the warm thick doona. He was safe here. No one could hurt him.

He lay in bed trying to be brave, trying hard to be strong and not let the grief overcome him. He couldn't believe his father was gone. His happy smiling father who liked Quidditch and broomsticks. His happy smiling father who spent time playing games with Sirius. His happy father who doted on him. He couldn't be gone. His mother was lying. It wasn't true.

He felt someone climb into his bed. He looked up to see who it was. It was Chrystal.

'What do you want?' he whispered harshly to her.

'You're sad,' she said. 'I came to take care of you.'

'Go away,' Sirius said. 'I don't want you here. You don't know how I feel.'

'You have to cry Sirius,' she said. 'Otherwise you can't feel.'

'Leave me alone.'

She came closer and held him in her arms.

'Go to sleep Sirius,' she cooed.

Somehow he felt better in her arms, he began to cry.

'It's not fair Chrystal,' he said between sobs. 'Why'd they take my dad?'

'Because they're bad people,' she replied knowingly. 'You and I will get rid of the bad people one day. We will hurt them the way they've hurt you. I promise you this Sirius.'

Sirius liked the thought.

'Until then you can share my dad,' she whispered.

Sirius did not understand the sacrifice that Chrystal had made to say that, and so snapped at her.

'What can he do? Nothing.'

The words came out of his mouth, quite harshly for the young boy.

'He can play Quidditch,' Chrystal said defensively. 'He can teach you. It's a start.'

Sirius closed his eyes and thought of his dad. He thought of the times his father had spent teaching him how to fly a broomstick. He thought of the times he and his father had had their little battles. Iain had always let Sirius win, no matter what. And in amongst all those memories and the sorrow that came with them, somehow Sirius was able to fall asleep in the arms of a nine-year-old girl.

*~*

The funeral for Iain Black was large and grand, honouring the brave man that he had been. People came from near and far to pay tribute to a man who upheld his ideals and had been respected for it. As Sirius bent down for one last look at the coffin covered in flowers, he swore he would never let anyone else close to him again. He couldn't do much about his mother and Maddie; they were already close. But from now on, there would be no one else as close to him as his dad had been. He didn't want to get hurt like this again. His innocence was lost.