Conversation in the Fire

Sirius Black lay on his bed at Number 12 Grimmauld Place and swore. He'd had the perfect plan. All he'd wanted to do was send Harry an owl. It was a risk, fair enough, but it was a tiny risk and it probably would have worked. And yet again, he had been forbidden. Chastised like a child and rendered impotent, and this time by Remus. Remus had been the one who made him feel like a person again when he had been less than an animal. Even now, he treated him like an equal when everyone else acted as though he was just a useless burden, a nuisance who got in the way. If it hadn't been for Remus he sometimes thought he would have rotted away in this godforsaken house while everyone else forgot he was even there. And now Remus, of all people was acting just like the rest of them, telling him off as though he had asked for sweets before his tea or to stay out late on a school night.

He kicked the foot of his bed angrily, and then swore again when he realised he wasn't wearing any shoes and he'd hurt his foot. He couldn't remember the last time he had worn shoes, he thought as he rubbed his throbbing foot. There didn't seem to be any point when he wasn't allowed out, and he had always preferred to go barefoot anyway. He liked the feel of the different textures beneath his feet. In some small way it gave him pleasure, reminded him of being a dog and free from the complexities of the human mind. Not that he could even do that any more, the thought moodily.

He knew he would forgive Remus soon enough, but at the moment he was happy enough being angry with him. It gave him something to do other than cleaning, anyway.

They had been having a good day that day. There was no one else in the house but them; even Kreacher had been hiding away somewhere. Remus had nothing to do for the Order so they had sat around for most of the day reminiscing about the old days and playing chess which Sirius was hopeless at ("You're too rash, Sirius. You need to strategise instead of just diving in feet first."). It had almost made Sirius forget everything that had been going on, forget that he was caged in the house like an animal, powerless to protect Harry from the danger he was unknowingly facing.

All he had wanted to do was send an owl to Harry. He had worked it all out. Remus could have taken a very vague note to the Post Office and sent it off to Hogwarts for him. It could have been intercepted, but no one could have known where it had come from or who had sent it.

Remus had refused outright, saying it was too dangerous.

"I don't see why," said Sirius, a well of irritation building up inside him. His temper was short these days; the months of being locked in this horrible place had worn him down. "All I wanted to do was just say hello. I haven't seen him since Christmas. He's lonely, Moony, I know he is, and as much as he doesn't like to admit it, he's scared."

"I know, Padfoot," said Remus gently, idly watching his bishop destroy one of Sirius's pawns. "But even if they have no proof of who it's from it's not going to be hard for them to put two and two together is it? They know Harry knows where you are and if he gets an anonymous owl they're going to guess it's from you. They're looking for an excuse to make life difficult for him, Sirius, you know they are."

Sirius said nothing, but scowled at the board. He didn't want to admit to himself that Remus might be right.

"Look," he said gently, "I didn't want to tell you this, but Minerva told me that Umbridge has been making things hell for him. She's stopped him from playing Quidditch, taken his broom off him and she's taking every opportunity she can to bully him."

Sirius's eyes widened with horror.

"Why the hell didn't you tell me?" he snapped, his insides burning with anger on Harry's behalf. "Maybe I should just go up there and -"

"No!" Remus reach across the table and placed his hand on Sirius's arm in what was intended to be a calming gesture, but it just served to irritate him even more. He felt patronised and belittled. "The reason I didn't tell you was because there's nothing you can do about it. Minerva's dealing with it, but whether any of us like it or not there are more important things at stake than Harry being bullied by her. Horrible as it is, he's got to sit back and take it. He can't allow himself to be pushed into snapping and neither can you. We can't afford for him to be expelled, and they'll use any reason they can to make that happen."

This, at least, Sirius knew made sense. Harry's only chance for survival at the moment was to stay where Dumbledore could keep an eye on him, albeit a distant one. But still he was angry with Remus for not telling him about this sooner.

"You can't keep treating me like this," he said, standing up with such force that he kicked his chair over behind him. "I'm not a child. You can't just choose not to tell me things that you don't think I can handle. It's not fair," he said, realising as soon as he said it how childish he sounded.

Remus stood up and strode around the table towards him, reaching to grip his arm. He looked into Sirius's bottomless, black eyes with such remorse and compassion that Sirius could feel himself starting to soften, but he stared back defiantly. He was too angry to give in just yet.

"I'm sorry, I should have told you," said Remus gently. "I just couldn't bear to see you sit here and work yourself up over it. I know how much all this is driving you mad. I'm sorry, I know I was wrong." He looked at Sirius pleadingly, his eyes begging for forgiveness, but Sirius was not feeling very magnanimous. He shook Remus off him and stormed out of the room.

"Where are you going?" asked Remus desperately.

"To look for Kreacher," Sirius called over his shoulder. "At least I know where I stand with him."

He had ambled through the house for a while, waiting for Remus to get out of his room. He would have liked to storm out of the house, but since he couldn't even do that, he had no choice but to sit and brood alone in his room listening to Remus potter about in the kitchen downstairs.

He was just starting to realise that he was getting hungry when he heard Remus running up the stairs. Good, he thought. He was tired of being angry with him and was starting to wish he'd just forgiven Remus when he had apologised earlier. The truth was, he had so few people to talk to he didn't want to waste a whole evening ignoring Remus. He waited on the bed trying to look suitably sulky, expecting Remus to appear with a sheepish look and a plate of food.

The door burst open with a bang and Remus came in looking out of breath with a look of panic in his eyes. Sirius immediately knew that something was wrong.

"What's the matter?" he asked, leaping off the bed and running towards his friend.

"It's Harry," said Remus, panting slightly. Sirius felt the colour drain from his face. "He's in the fire. He wants to talk to you." He turned and ran out of the door.

Without another word, Sirius bolted after Remus and took the stairs three at a time. He arrived in the kitchen to see Harry's head sticking unceremoniously out of the fire. He didn't look good. His face was drawn and creased with worry, his eyes heavy with fear and pain.

As Sirius knelt down in front of him he suddenly had a desperate urge to grab Harry's head and pull it through the fire to give him the hug he looked so desperately in need of.

"What is it?" he asked, terrified of the answer. "Are you alright? Do you need help?"

"No, it's nothing like that." Harry paused, seeming almost embarrassed. Sirius started to feel a little confused. "I just wanted to talk... about my dad."

Sirius would have laughed out loud with relief, but the look on Harry's face stopped him. Whatever it was, it was certainly important to Harry, that much was obvious.

"I was having my Occlumency lesson with Snape the other day," said Harry, a little awkwardly, his eyes cast towards the floor. "Snape had to go out for something and he'd left some of his thoughts in Dumbledore's Pensieve. I only looked because I thought he was trying to hide something about Voldemort from me, I didn't expect it to be anything personal." Sirius felt a prickle of curiosity. "It was all of you doing your Owls. You'd just sat your Defence Against the Dark Arts exam and you were sitting around and you and my dad just started picking on Snape for no reason. He was just sitting on his own and you and dad had him upside down in front of everyone. My mum tried to stop you but you just carried on anyway. I just didn't think my dad would ever do something like that and it ... bothered me. He was acting like an arrogant bully, just like Snape always said he was. Anyway, Snape came back at that point so I didn't see what happened afterwards..."

Harry trailed off, still looking at the floor. Sirius felt a knot of shame in the pit of his stomach. He didn't feel guilty about what they'd done, he couldn't feel guilty about that, but he was mortified that Harry had seen something that would lessen his father in his eyes. He didn't know what to say.

After a moment, to Sirius's relief, Remus spoke.

"I wouldn't like you to judge your father on what you saw there, Harry. He was only fifteen," he said evenly.

Sirius winced a little at the last remark. He didn't think Harry would like that and he was right.

"I'm fifteen!" he said indignantly. Sirius stepped in, not really knowing what to say but knowing he had to say something to make Harry see that his father wasn't a bad person, that Snape had deserved everything he got.

Trying to keep his voice as calm as possible and as unbiased as he could, he tried to explain to Harry that Snape was jealous of his father, that James had only acted out of righteous dislike of what Snape stood for. He knew his explanation sounded weak, but it was the best he could come up with, having never considered that this would ever come up.

"But he just attacked Snape for no good reason, just because - well, just because you said you were bored," he said, sounding slightly sheepish. Sirius felt his short fuse beginning to burn again. He felt a hotness of loyalty towards James. Snape deserved everything he got, and why should Harry care anyway? He'd have thought Harry would be pleased to see Snape suffer.

"I'm not proud of it," he snapped, a little more aggressively than he had intended.

Remus glared at him, and in an instant he remembered who he was talking to. This was James's son, and he had every right to question both Sirius's and James's motives. As Remus tried to smooth things over he felt a rush of sympathy for Harry, suddenly understanding what was making him so upset. Here he was, a young boy who had already shown a vast amount of maturity beyond his years, and he was suddenly finding out that the two people he looked up to more than anyone else were people he would never have wanted to call his friends. Sometimes, he thought shamefully, he felt that Harry was the grown up and he was the child. The fact that he could show such empathy with someone he detested so much proved that he was wiser than Sirius even now.

And here was Remus, who he had accused of treating him like a child only hours before, defending him against this very attack. He didn't deserve it.

"... if they sometimes got a bit carried away -"

"If we were sometimes arrogant little berks, you mean," he said, shooting an apologetic grin at Remus. Remus smiled back at him, and in that smile he could see instantly that he was forgiven.

"He kept messing up his hair," said Harry, looking for all the world like his father. A sudden relief washed over him. If the most important thing on Harry's mind at the moment was that his father might have been a bully, then things couldn't be too bad. And at least it had dissipated the bad feeling between Remus and himself. He could contain himself no longer. He laughed out loud. Remus was laughing too, and suddenly, Sirius felt himself transported back to those glorious days. They had been foolish, but it had been such a good time.

"Was he playing with the Snitch?" asked Remus. A glance at his friend told him that Remus was there with him, lost in the memory they both shared.

"Yeah," said Harry, looking a little bewildered. "Well... I thought he was a bit of an idiot."

Sirius laughed again. "Of course he was a bit of an idiot! We were all idiots!" He looked affectionately at Remus who raised his eyebrow slightly at the comment. "Well - not Moony so much," he said. I'm sorry for before, he thought, holding Remus's gaze.

"Did I ever tell you to lay off Snape?" Remus said, still looking at Sirius, his eyes loaded with meaning. I'm sorry too, they said. "Did I ever have the guts to tell you I thought you were out of order?"

"Yeah, well," said Sirius, "you made us feel ashamed of ourselves sometimes... that was something..." They looked intently at each other for a second, warmth and affection pouring between them like an invisible river. They both quite forgot Harry was there until he spoke again.

"And," he said, labouring the point, "he kept looking over at the girls by the lake, hoping they were watching him!"

"Oh, well, he always made a fool of himself whenever Lily was around," Sirius said. At least with this point he felt a little more confident that Harry wouldn't understand just yet. At least he didn't think he would, but that conversation was for another time. "He couldn't stop himself showing off whenever he got near her."

"How come she married him? She hated him!" Harry went on, still not looking convinced.

"No she didn't," lied Sirius. She had hated him, but there was no need for Harry to know this. If Harry wanted to think his parents had a fairy tale romance then Sirius was certainly not going to stop him. It wasn't far off anyway.

"She started going out with him in seventh year," said Lupin, obviously reading Sirius's thoughts.

"Once James had deflated his head a bit," Sirius cut in.

"And stopped hexing people just for the fun of it," said Remus, finishing his sentence. Sirius had always liked it when they finished each other's sentences. It made him feel secure, somehow. As though their minds were in tune with each other.

"Even Snape?" asked Harry. Sirius couldn't quite bring himself to answer that one. James had never stopped goading Snape and Sirius continued to do so with more abhorrence than ever so to make excuses for it would have been downright hypocritical, but then as Harry had seen, Snape did the same to him. Fortunately, as ever, Remus had the right thing to say at the tip of his tongue.

"Well, Snape was a special case," Remus said carefully. "I mean, he never lost an opportunity to curse James so you couldn't really expect James to take that lying down, could you?" Sirius gave him a grateful smile, relieved that he had glossed over the true extent of their battles with Snape.

"And my mum was OK with that?" Harry asked. Sirius took a deep breath.

"She didn't know about it to tell you the truth," he said, hoping this piece of information wouldn't undo the good work they had just done. "I mean, James didn't take Snape on dates with her and jinx him in front of her, did he?" He decided that it would be better for Harry to believe that his father had been less than honest with Lily, rather than to think that she had turned a blind eye to the bullying.

It suddenly occurred to Sirius that Harry was taking an incredible risk in talking to them in this way, much as he wanted to carry on talking to Harry, Remus's warning about Umbridge earlier weighed on his mind. It was time to put an end to this.

"Look," he said firmly, "your father was the best friend I ever had and he was a good person. A lot of people are idiots at the age of fifteen. He grew out of it." He hoped this would be enough to put Harry's mind at rest.

"Yeah, OK," said Harry. Sirius was relieved to see that he looked a little more at ease. "I just never thought I'd feel sorry for Snape."

"No you mention it," said Lupin, "how did Snape react when he found you'd seen all this?"

Sirius suddenly found himself feeling a little smug that Harry had got one over on Snape and found it, in a nasty kind of way, comforting that Snape was so bothered about this particular incident that he had chosen to hide this memory from Harry above all others.

"He told me he'd never teach me Occlumency again," said Harry, looking more than a little pleased at the prospect. "Like that's a big disappoint -"

Sirius's heart skipped a beat.

"He WHAT?" he shouted. White hot fury ripped through his body. Of all the things Snape had ever done, this had to be the lowest. Snape knew how important this was, to Harry's safety and everyone else's. He couldn't believe that even Snape would use this as a chance to punish Harry in such a dangerous way.

Remus and Harry exchanged a few words but Sirius wasn't really listening. His head was filled with hatred for Snape, and there was only one thing on his mind.

"I'm coming up there to have a word with Snape!" he shouted, getting to his feet. He didn't care if he got caught. He was going to rip that filthy little greaseball to shreds for this.

He felt Remus's arm pulling him forcefully back down to his knees.

"If anyone's going to tell Snape it will be me!" he said. The look of fear and desperation in Remus's eyes made Sirius comply, but only for now. They would have this conversation again when Harry had gone, of that Sirius was sure. "But Harry, first of all you're going to go back to Snape and tell him that on no account is he to stop giving you lessons." Remus continued. "When Dumbledore hears -"

"I can't tell him that, he'd kill me! You didn't see him when we got out of the Pensieve," said Harry with a look of mingled fear and anger. Sirius felt for him. He knew how hard it would be for Harry to go grovelling off to Snape, and he wanted more than anything in the world to take that burden away from him, go and force Snape to see sense himself and punch it into him if he had to.

He silently fumed while Remus tried to impress upon Harry how important it was that he learn Occlumency whilst skirting around the issue of why exactly it was so vital.

As suddenly as he had arrived, Harry went, leaving Sirius staring angrily into the empty fireplace.

"Before you say anything," said Remus calmly, "just promise me you won't -"

"do anything stupid, I know," said Sirius, barely containing the irritation in his voice. He stood up sharply. "I can't believe Snape would do this. Of all the selfish, narrow minded -"

"I know, Padfoot, I know," said Remus, placing a comforting hand on Sirius's shoulder. Once again, Sirius was in no mood to be placated, but he suppressed his annoyance, the sting of their earlier fight still fresh in his mind.

"I can't do this, Moony. I just can't sit around here and do nothing while Harry suffers at the hands of those bastards," he said harshly, his voice trembling with rage.

"I understand how hard this is for you, but you have to stay calm, for Harry's sake," said Remus evenly, though Sirius knew that Remus's anger was equal to his own.

"I'll kill him, I swear to God I'll kill him the next time I see him," Sirius ranted.

Remus turned to face Sirius, his hands on his shoulders.

"I promise you I will talk to Dumbledore and sort this out. I promise." His brown eyes stared into Sirius's imploringly. "Just please promise me you won't go up there."

Sirius didn't answer, couldn't promise not to do something that he longed for so much.

"I know you think this is just a risk you need to take," said Remus, still staring desperately at Sirius's hardened face, "but it's not just you you're risking. If you get caught, Harry will suffer too. Imagine how he would feel if you get caught trying to defend him. And what about me? Who will I have left to reminisce with if you're gone again?" He gave Sirius a wry smile and Sirius could feel himself softening slightly.

"Alright, alright," he agreed, rolling his eyes to the ceiling. "I won't do anything until you've spoken to Dumbledore, but if he can't sort this out with Snape -"

"Thank you," Remus whispered, smiling with relief.

"Fancy Harry sneaking a peak inside Snivellus's Pensieve," said Sirius, grinning wickedly as he heated up the kettle with a tap of his wand. "What Prongs would have given for a look in there. He'd be proud of Harry for that one."

Remus smiled indulgently.

"To be honest, I'm glad Harry was bothered by it," said Remus wisely. "It shows he's got a lot more about him than we had at that age."

"I know," said Sirius, a little shame creeping back into his thoughts. "I'm glad you were here. I wouldn't have known what to say to him."

"That's what I'm for," said Remus simply. "I'm the sensible one. You're the fun one. That's just how it was meant to be."

Sirius laughed. Despite the uneasy feeling he had about Harry, he was glad he wasn't fighting with Remus any more. As long as he had his friends, he had always felt that he could get through just about anything, and Remus was just about the only real friend he had left. He hoped that Harry felt the same. He somehow knew that however this all worked out, Harry was going to need his friends more than ever.