Out of the Books

Chapter 12 - An Unexpected Sign

"Ha, I'm first!" Laughing, Amy threw her bike on the lawn in front of the house, as she sweatily and triumphantly watched Leo and her parents turn into the driveway with their own bikes. Padfoot was running along, his ears flying in the wind.

The Pearsons had used the last day of the summer holidays for an extended bike tour. Tomorrow, school would start again for both the children and for Jack. Liz had already been working during almost the whole summer, but had taken the day off.

Even though the Pearson family had not gone on a real vacation this year, the summer had all but flown by. Halfway through July, Leo finally had gotten rid of his cast and Padfoot had recovered so far that he often joined the twins on their explorations of the nearby forests or on trips down to the beach. Leo and Amy had been somewhat tense around Padfoot during the first few days after the revelation of their parents' story. Knowing that he was actually a grown up man it had felt very odd to scratch him behind the ears or to play with him. But soon they had gotten used to it and found it quite exciting to have a friend who united the best qualities of a human and an animal within himself.

Sirius, too, had enjoyed the summer holidays. When he had first arrived here in June and had learned that he might never turn back into a man, it had been quite a shock to him. But with friends as Jack and the twins, it made the permanent life as a dog much easier to him than he had dared to imagine, at least as long as the holidays lasted. Once school started, they would lead their everyday lives, had tasks to fulfil. Jack had work to do, while the twins were in school, learning, having fun - all without him.

Enviously, Padfoot watched Leo and Amy putting their bikes into a wooden shed behind the house. Tomorrow they would use them to go to school while he, Sirius, would be cooped up alone in the empty house - yet again.

His head hanging, he trudged through the open front door, along the corridor and finally let himself collapse on his favourite blanket in front of the sofa in the living room.

When Jack entered the living room, Sirius feigned sleep. He didn't want to deal with his friend's attempts to understand him or to cheer him up. He just wanted to wallow in self-pity in peace.

He felt how Jack sat down next to him on the floor, leaning his back against the seat of the sofa. Padfoot grunted and turned around in his "sleep".

"Mate, I've known you for too long to fall for this," the annoyingly patient voice of Jack penetrated his sulking thoughts. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to ignore his friend.

"Sirius, would you do me a favour?" Jack asked casually.

Padfoot sighed and turned to face him, knowing that it was useless to ignore him any longer.

"You know how Leo and Amy had been pestering me all last week that they can go to school by bike instead of taking the bus?"

Sirius nodded warily.

"Well, it's a pretty long way, and Lily and I are a bit nervous about letting them go all by themselves, and I thought that you maybe could accompany them," he asked and slightly tilted his head, as he looked down at the dog.

Sirius sighed, but then grinned reproachfully at Jack. It was unbelievable how Jack knew exactly what was wrong with him and what he could do to make him feel better. He had seen right through his friend's real motives for this favour. Of course the twins didn't need someone to look after them. Jack only wanted to provide Sirius with something to do, but he appreciated it all the same.

Jack smiled. "Great," he said cheerfully. "And if you want, you can meet me in the park near the school after lunch. I'll have a P.E. class then, and I guess I'm going to let them run some laps."

***

Days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months as the school year went on. Jack and Liz had tried to find more information on the Veil, but as Padfoot seemed to have appeared from out of no-where and there wasn't any portal of any kind near the house were he had been found, this proved more difficult than they had hoped. And soon they had hit a dead end.

Three times a week, Jack, Leo and Amy still went to Tae Kwon Do practice. In the beginning, Padfoot had accompanied them every time and was amazed to watch them fighting, but as he had never been someone to only watch instead of being active himself, he now only came along sporadically.

Amy and Leo had become so used to cycling to school together with Padfoot that they didn't even mind the cold and wet weather in November and December. Sometimes, when the roads were very slippery, Liz tried to persuade them to take the bus instead, but they now saw Padfoot as a fellow "Twister" and would never let him down.

Accompanying the twins to school everyday and usually meeting them during lunch break, Padfoot had become quite well-known at the school. Even when the twins had lessons, there were always some other students, who were willing to spend some time with Padfoot, and one of the teachers had even suggested to involve him in the celebrations for the 150-->^th[Author ID1: at Tue Aug 22 13:16:00 2006 ] anniversary of the school, which was going to take place in July during the first week of vacation. In the twins' eyes, that was a brilliant idea, and Padfoot, too, thoroughly enjoyed the idea of showing off in front of so many people and being admired by them.

So as the summer came closer, Padfoot and the twins spent many, many hours plotting their performance. Those meetings usually consisted of the twins suggesting many different things, Padfoot trying those and several ideas of his own and just ragging around. Padfoot wasn't a friend of serious practicing, instead he very much preferred improvising and the twins enjoyed his approach as well.

For Liz, the last two weeks of June were extremely strenuous. First, one of her three colleagues in the sports section of the Exeter Express had had a car accident and was in hospital and soon after that another one had caught a nasty flu, and especially in early summer there was always so much to do in writing about sports. So she had been left off to working on the oddest of hours and usually was so exhausted when she came home that she went straight to bed, only to wake after some few hours of dreamless sleep to hustle to work once again.

She was really grateful to Jack and Padfoot for taking such good care of the children, but still she felt too stressed out and unbalanced to show her appreciation. It drove her crazy that she hadn't seen Harry in her dreams for ages and she couldn't shake off the disturbing feeling that something important had happened in the wizarding world, which she had missed.

When Liz went to work one Thursday in the beginning of July, she was very relieved to see that both of her colleagues had returned to work and gladly took the offer of her editor to take the next day off work.

Friday began really nice for her. She slept really late, making up for the lack of sleep she had had in the last weeks. She had finally dreamt of Harry again. He was back at the Dursleys, which struck Liz as slightly odd, as the school year shouldn't have been over yet.

Padfoot stayed home with her that day, and it was nice to spend some time with him. It was amazing how much Sirius had gotten used to his life as a dog, how easy it had become for the children and Jack to communicate with him. For Liz it wasn't this easy, as she wasn't around Padfoot so much. Jack usually told her what he had learned from Padfoot about the happenings of their world.

Amy and Leo came home early from school that day.

"Yeah, that was it!" Leo shouted happily.

"Finally summer break!" added Amy.

They had some ice-cream and fruit instead of lunch, because it was such a hot day, and then they and Padfoot went outside into the garden again to practice for their school festival performance. The anniversary was only a week away and their show was almost ready to perform. They had decided to feature Padfoot as candidate in a quiz show.

Liz enjoyed watching them practice. It was amazing to see Sirius Black actually working on something productive for school-related purposes. The children took turns in asking multiple choice questions to Padfoot, which he answered by running to one of three areas, one standing for A, one for B and one for C.

After some hours of practice, Leo and Amy critically pondered about what they had so far.

"Something is still missing, isn't it?" Leo asked.

Amy nodded. Then she turned to her mother. "Mum, what would you say?"

Liz tilted her head in thought. "I think you have a really good idea there, with this quiz show. Maybe you could add some more physical action?" she thought loudly.

"Yeah," exclaimed Amy enthusiastically. "Padfoot, what do you think? You could do something, like jumping through a loop, every time you know the answer."

Padfoot nodded eagerly as well, then ran away some meters and jumped through an imaginative loop.

"That's a great idea," Liz praised them. "Why don't we go to Exeter tomorrow for some shopping, to get your loops. Your Dad needs a new suit anyway. Then we could have some lunch in town and on the way back, we could stop at Powderham Castle," she suggested.

"Yes, let's do that. Good idea. That's going to be fun," the twins cheered in a tumble.

So the next morning saw the Pearson family and Padfoot leaving for Exeter. They parked near High Street, the shopping district of Exeter.

It was a beautiful summer day, and many people strolled through the streets, which were lined with small stores. They spent the morning with buying the loops and the suit for Jack. Liz also found a nice pair of shoes for herself. Doing all the shopping, Padfoot got slightly bored and Jack had the feeling that he and the twins soon would start some mischief. So when Liz had exited the shoe shop, Jack suggested that they should look for a place to have some lunch.

They chose one of the restaurants with tables outside and sat lazily in the sun, chatting about the up-coming school-performance, while they were waiting for their food.

"So, Amy will read the questions and I will hold the loop for Padfoot to jump through," Leo told his father excitedly. "Do you think, the other students and parents will like it?"

Jack laughed lightly. "I'm sure they will. The three of you put together quite an impressive show."

"We need to try out how high Padfoot can jump in the afternoon. Maybe you can even kneel down, Leo, and hold the loop over your head. That would really look cool. Do you think, you could do that, Padfoot?" Amy asked

Padfoot perked up his head and nodded, scoffing playfully, as if this question was an insult to his jumping abilities.

Liz laughed about the enthusiasm of her children and Padfoot. "I guess you can just try the whole show in the afternoon and see how high the old dog can jump."

Padfoot scowled at her, but then sniffed the air delightedly and only moments later a waiter with their food approached their table.

"The steak and chips for the young lady and gentleman, the omelette with fried mushrooms and fried potatoes for the lady, the salmon with broccoli and potatoes for the gentleman." The waiter put huge plates with huge portions of good-looking and pleasant smelling food in front of everyone and also put a large bowl in front of Padfoot . "And the ground beef for the dog," he added.

The large amount of food and the sun had made them all content and a bit sleepy. So they sat in the restaurant a bit longer, after they had finished their meals, enjoying the beautiful summer day, before they got up to return to the car.

Liz and Jack would have liked to watch the charming shop windows in the narrow street a bit more, but Amy and Leo were walking rather fast, as they were looking forward to visiting the Powderham Castle. They had been there some years ago with their primary school class, and they had liked it very much back then.

Sirius was trotting along in front of the children. For him it had been a great day so far. He always enjoyed seeing something different than his home and the school of Jack and the children. He had gotten used to being the family pet of the Pearsons, but at times it could get boring to be a dog. So he welcomed entertainment, whenever he could, and family day-trips were his favourite kind of entertainment.

Suddenly Sirius heard something through the steady buzz of voices and cars. He had heard a name - a name he knew very well - a name, which he shouldn't hear here.

He stopped abruptly to listen intently. Leo, who was walking close behind him, nearly fell over him.

"Padfoot," he exclaimed startled, "What's wrong with you?"

The dog ignored him and stared into the direction where the voice saying the name had come from.

Liz and Jack had now caught up with them and looked around curiously to see what had caught Padfoot's attention. They were in a crowded cobbled street, to their right were a flower shop and a book store and across the street, there was a souvenir shop with lots of t-shirts and postcards outside in front of it.

"Padfoot, what is it?" Liz asked curiously, as the dog had his eyes fixed on the book store.

Noticing, where Padfoot was looking, Jack laughed. "Hey, old chap. I know you have taken a liking to books, since the children are reading them to you, but I didn't know, you were this amazed by a book shop," he joked.

Was Sirius imagining things? Had he just heard the name again? Why had James had to start speaking to him right now? Well, he would never know the meaning of all this, if he didn't look for himself.

Determinedly, he barked and started running through the open door of the book shop, towards the source of the voice.

"Hey, Padfoot, wait!" called Jack, "You can't go in there. They don't allow dogs in their shops!"

But Padfoot had already entered the shop. Sighing exasperatedly, Jack put the bags with all their shoppings into Liz's arms and ran after his friend.

The shop was much darker than the light-flooded street outside, and Jack needed some moments for his eyes to get used to it. But then it wasn't much effort to find Padfoot. Customers were pointing, partly annoyed, partly amused, but some also afraid, at the huge black dog, who was running around wildly between the book cases, stopping once in a while to listen or to look around.

A clerk was already trying to shoo him outside of the shop again, but was clearly afraid to go too close to him.

"Padfoot, stop this," Jack yelled angrily over the chaos.

The clerk furiously rounded on Jack. "Sir, is that your dog?" He didn't even wait for an answer and went on immediately, " Sir, dogs are not allowed in here! Please leave him outside! And if you can't control your dog, you need to put him on a leash!" he ranted, angrily and shocked about the dog wracking havoc in his shop.

Jack ignored him, ran towards the children section at the far end of the shop, where Padfoot was running along another book case, and leapt forward to grab his friend from behind. "Padfoot, what's gotten into you," he whispered fiercely.

The clerk, who had talked to him before, closed in on him again, and had already started another angry rant. Liz and the children had now entered the shop as well, and Liz was trying to calm down the furious clerk.

"Sir, we apologize for the behaviour of our dog," she said. "We are already on our way out. Look, there's no harm done."

And really, judging from the chaos and the noise level, which had prevailed in the bookshop only seconds before, it was surprising to see that there was no damage at all.

The clerk looked around in his shop, astounded to still find it in one piece, but then he rounded on Liz again, "No harm done?" he yelled. "Your dog scared the heck out of my customers! Out! Out!"

Liz started to leave the shop, leading Leo and Amy outside as well, while Jack wanted to take Padfoot outside with him. But the dog wouldn't budge.

Instead, Padfoot tore at the sleeve of his shirt and barked excitedly.

Jack and Liz looked at the dog, trying to figure out, what he wanted to tell them, while the clerk was snorting in rage.

Behind them an argument between a pudgy red-haired girl and her mother, which had been interrupted by Padfoot, started anew.

"But Mum," the girl whined, "Abby said that the book is really good. She talks about Harry all day long. Mum, please..."

"Kate, next week is your birthday. I'm not buying you something now," the mother said with a final tone in her voice. She grabbed the book, her daughter was holding and put it back on the shelf.

It was then that Amy saw the reason, why Padfoot didn't want to leave and had come in here in the first place. He must have heard the quarrel of the mother and her daughter, when they had passed the store.

"Look," she shouted disbelieving and pointed up to the book shelf.

The book had a colourful cover, the most striking object was the front of a glaring red locomotive, with Hogwarts Express written on it. Above it hung a small white sign, saying 9 ¾. In front of the train stood a young boy with dark hair, very round glasses and a lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead. Above it stood in huge letters:

HARRY

POTTER

and the Philosopher's Stone

J. K. ROWLING