Chapter Text
The neighbors next door had won a prize.
Loudly, as if hoping the other neighbors would overhear, Mr. and Mrs. Thompson regaled Aunt Petunia with the thrilling tale of entering a contest and winning a prestigious award—a townhouse in London remodeled by a famous architect.
“We didn’t dream we might win,” said Mrs. Thompson. “After all, I imagine there must have been hundreds of entries, don’t you think? I know Mrs. Fuller on your other side entered as well. She was devastated when she realized she hadn’t won, the poor dear.”
It was news to Aunt Petunia that the entire neighborhood had entered the contest. Even Mrs. Figg had received an invitation, though she claimed she had no intention of leaving Little Whinging and hadn’t sent her entrance letter back. The most baffling thing was that Aunt Petunia couldn’t seem to find the invitation that must have been sent to Number Four. After searching the house, parsing through old mail, there was no evidence they’d been offered to partake in the grand prize draw. Bitterly, she wondered if Mrs. Thompson had snooped through the post and stolen the invite for Number Four, and if she could find proof, perhaps they could hold the contest again. Aunt Petunia directed her nine-year-old nephew to search through the shrubbery and stalk the neighborhood for errant letters, though nothing came of it.
Harry, her nephew, thought it was a bit funny that the Dursleys weren’t invited to participate. After all, he didn’t care if they moved to London—they would just find a different cupboard for him, and who was to say it would be larger than the one he already had? But taking advantage of the situation, he volunteered to search for evidence that Number Four hadn’t been snubbed which gave him several chore-free days.
The Thompsons were gone in a matter of weeks, and once they vacated the house with its manicured grass and level hedges, Aunt Petunia’s interest had expired on Harry’s mission to find the missing contest entry. On the morning the Thompsons finally drove off, he was back in the garden pulling weeds. Mrs. Thompson made a loud show of waving goodbye to their old house, blowing kisses to the front door as Mr. Thompson shoved the last of their suitcases in the car.
To Aunt Petunia’s ire, the house next door waited no time to be occupied again. No one had seen it go up for sale, which Uncle Vernon insisted was rather suspicious, saying it might’ve been a crime ring.
“The contest was a sham,” Uncle Vernon said one night as Aunt Petunia set down a cat-sized plate of stroganoff before him and then Dudley. Harry noted with distaste that he got a cheese sandwich with a touch of mold.
“A sham?” said Aunt Petunia. A greedy, triumphant look gleamed in her eyes.
“Someone wanted the Thompsons out,” continued Uncle Vernon. “I’d say they’re setting up shop in there. Never seen a house go so quickly.”
Harry couldn’t imagine what sort of crimes were so important that they needed to be committed on Privet Drive, but Uncle Vernon quickly convinced Aunt Petunia it had something to do with fraud or drugs, and from that day on for the next week, Harry didn’t see Aunt Petunia once without binoculars around her neck. Personally, Harry didn’t think the new neighbors would be anything unlike Mr. and Mrs. Thompson. Most of the people in the neighborhood were over fifty and were obsessed with keeping the hedges trimmed, so Harry figured anyone who wanted to commit a crime probably wouldn’t want to move into a place where they would stick out.
The newest neighbor took up residence next door quietly while Harry was at school. He might not have realized it except for the flutter of curtains from the upstairs window that caught his eye as he walked home one day. Even Aunt Petunia hadn’t noticed, so quiet was the new resident, but Harry pretended not to have spotted the new neighbor, knowing that if he told Aunt Petunia he saw someone living there, she probably would have sent him out to hide in the hydrangeas and peer through the window. Besides, he had enough to do already without adding the high-risk bore of spying on the mysterious neighbor.
As school finished for the term and the summer holiday began, his heavy load of chores returned. Although he had more work to do than ever from cutting the grass to tending their own hydrangeas, the benefit of the holiday meant that Dudley was out with his little gang terrorizing the neighborhood kids and forgot about tormenting Harry. Sometimes if Harry finished early, however, Aunt Petunia sent him out of the house and Harry would spend the afternoon trying to entertain himself without attracting the attention of Dudley and his friends.
It wasn’t easy finding something to do when the play park was certain to draw attention, but if he simply strolled around the neighborhood, he could possibly find himself in trouble with the neighbors. Harry’s aunt and uncle often pretended they did not have a nephew who lived with them, so quite often, the neighbors assumed he was some sort of vagrant child looking to cause disruption, but if people did know who he was, they considered him a hoodlum. Even if he was incredibly lonely, he never felt alone. There was always at least one eye on him on Privet Drive.
Although the new neighbors hadn’t made themselves known, he felt watched each time he passed the house next to Number 4 as if someone he couldn’t see were simply staring out the window at him. When he glanced up, there was no one there. Keeping his head down, he ignored the strange feeling, walking faster. Maybe there really was a criminal living inside, plotting something under the cover of suburban bliss. If there was, he wasn’t about to get involved with that, not when the rest of the neighborhood already thought he was some sort of troublemaker.
One day, nearly a week after school had let out, Harry was certain he was being followed. When something darted out of the corner of his eye, he realized it was only one of Mrs. Figg’s many cats, a fuzzy black one called Howard. He frowned. Usually her cats stuck around her street, and they were several blocks from Mrs. Figg’s house, but the suspicion was quickly forgotten when he saw too late the oversized shadows of Dudley’s gang lumbering down the street.
Dudley and Piers Polkiss were chortling and pushing a boy called Dennis. Dennis was a boy who followed them around and usually faced the brunt of their bullying when Harry wasn’t available to torment. It was a good deal for Dennis who, in exchange for being a punching bag, got protection from the other bullies.
Dudley froze. Harry knew that he’d been spotted. Recognizing what was about to happen, his heart pounded in his ears as a grin stretched the corners of Dudley’s mouth. Every muscle in Harry’s body seized as the rest of Dudley’s gang caught on. He should’ve run, but like a frightened rabbit, Harry stood paralyzed. Piers, who was busy shoving Dennis to the street, finally looked up at Dudley’s nudging. A toothless smile shrank his weasel-like face.
Harry stepped back, glancing at the house behind him. Someone was watching.
“Get him!” said Dudley.
It was like watching a stampede of elephants hurtle over the street. With a cry, Harry turned on his heel and bolted for the grassy lane between the Thompsons’ old house and Number 4, realizing too late that his shoelace was loose. He’d tried to cut across the drive when his shoe caught the lace and he went down, catching himself on his hands and knees. His glasses flew, scattering somewhere close. Desperately he felt around for them as the sound of pounding feet drew near. They were almost upon him when he heard the door open. Someone stepped out onto the drive.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” a man said.
Harry muttered an apology as he fumbled for his glasses. His fingers scrabbled against pavers in his search. It was only when Dudley and Piers failed to haul him away that Harry realized that the new neighbor hadn’t been speaking to him at all.
The neighbors usually saw Harry as a delinquent who was a burden on the poor, hardworking Dursleys, which meant they usually ignored Dudley’s beatings on Harry because they thought Harry probably deserved it. In matters where Harry wasn’t involved, however, the rest of the neighborhood were too apprehensive of the hulking ten-year-old boy to intervene when Dudley and his friends picked on other children.
But the boys halted now, muttering to themselves in what Harry vaguely recognized as fear. Their hesitation made the new neighbor advance.
“Go,” he ordered them, and to Harry’s astonishment, Dudley’s gang scattered back the way they’d come.
A bolt of dread hit Harry as he heard the man approach.
“Er—sorry, just need my—”
“Here, found them.”
The stranger knelt and gently pushed the glasses over his ears. Once Harry’s sight returned through scuffed lenses, he nearly fell backwards in surprise.
It was no wonder Dudley and his friends had bolted—the man was nothing like anyone Harry had ever seen. His cheeks were hollowed and his eyes were sunken and shadowed; he was thin, thinner than even Aunt Petunia. He regarded Harry with a haunted expression, until he blinked and offered a smile.
“All right?”
“Yeah,” Harry said, drawing away. His hands were bleeding and the skin over his knees had shredded. Bits of dirt and rock were stuck in the bloody mess so he wiped his hands on his shirt.
The man frowned. “No, you’re not. Can I see?” He held out his own skeletal hand, palm out.
Harry shrugged and stood, shoving his sticky, stinging hands in his pockets. Aunt Petunia was going to kill him for staining his clothes. “I’m okay,” he said. “It’s just a scrape.”
“It doesn’t hurt at all?”
“No,” he lied.
The burn in his eyes said differently, and the man wasn’t fooled. He got to his feet and told Harry to wait. The man disappeared into the house, returning a few minutes later with a small bottle and a towel. He told Harry to hold out his hands, which only reluctantly Harry did. A strange feeling tingled across his palms as the man dabbed the towel soaked into the deep scrapes. Usually Aunt Petunia had only iodine to give him which usually stung worse than the actual wound, and it surprised Harry that this man’s solution not only closed up his cuts but didn’t hurt at all.
“I’m Sirius, by the way,” the man said. He offered the towel so Harry could clean up his own knees.
“I’m Harry. I live next door.”
“Do you?” Sirius said, though Harry was quite sure he already knew that. “How do you like it there?”
Harry paused, pretending to be distracted by the skin missing from his knee. “Er—it’s all right, I guess.”
“Just all right?”
Harry shrugged again. He started on the other knee. “Why’d you move to Privet Drive?”
“There wasn’t enough competitive gardening where I was living before,” said Sirius.
Behind him, the roses Mrs. Thompson had curated for years had shriveled up and died, which Aunt Petunia pointed out every morning when they drove by. The hydrangeas had dried up too and the grass was overgrown.
When Harry finished, shocked at how quickly the solution had closed up his cuts, he handed the towel back to the man with a quiet thank-you. He bid Sirius goodbye and went to leave only his shoe caught on his lace again and he careened forward. Sirius shot out a hand and caught him by the arm.
“Careful, kiddo. Better tie those, I think.”
“Oh, yeah,” Harry muttered, his face hot.
--
Dudley told Aunt Petunia about the new neighbor, how he’d stood up for Harry, and for once, she peppered Harry with questions all through dinner. What he had to tell them only seemed to further confirm that the new neighbor was a criminal. Only when Aunt Petunia asked for the neighbor’s strange name did her lips press together tightly as Uncle Vernon went on to say that it was likely a fake name meant to hide his identity. While Uncle Vernon told them all just how criminals could change everything from their faces to their fingerprints, the blood seemed to rush from Aunt Petunia’s face. When Uncle Vernon suggested Harry might act as a spy so they could turn the neighbor over to the authorities, Aunt Petunia stood suddenly.
“No one will be speaking to him,” she said, a shrill desperation in her voice. Her eyes zeroed in on Harry wildly. “Especially not you.”
“Why me?” said Harry.
“Ah yes,” agreed Uncle Vernon. “Easily impressionable. We don’t need him coaching you to be a criminal too.”
But that wasn’t what seemed to worry Aunt Petunia who lowered herself back to her seat, watching Harry shrewdly.
The following days stretched like an elastic band, and Aunt Petunia wouldn’t let Harry out of her sight. A list of chores from scrubbing the floors and cleaning the wall trim with a toothbrush kept him inside and out of sight from the new neighbor. When Harry finished for the day, Aunt Petunia would direct him to clean something else until dinner, and after eating, he was so exhausted that he collapsed in his cupboard.
When it seemed like Harry hadn’t seen the sun in weeks, Harry awoke one morning to Dudley pounding down the stairs, hollering that it was his birthday. Harry groaned. Turning over, still exhausted from his chores the day before, he realized he’d forgotten the most important day of the year.
There were more presents than last year, Harry thought as Aunt Petunia shoved him toward the stovetop to finish breakfast. Dudley counted them all, which was difficult for him since he’d failed maths two years in a row, and anything above twenty-nine gave him trouble. Triumphantly he announced there were thirty-eight presents, which was thirty-eight more than Harry had ever received in his whole life, unless he counted the socks Uncle Vernon dumped outside his cupboard last Christmas.
Birthdays for Dudley usually entailed Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon whisking him and a friend away for an afternoon at a park or zoo or movie, while Harry was dumped at Mrs. Figg’s house two streets away to browse photographs of her cats. This year, Dudley and Piers were keen on going to an amusement park, and for days, Dudley bragged about the sweets he’d make his parents buy for him.
“I’ll save the wrappers for you,” Dudley had promised Harry with a sneer.
Harry had never been to a park with rides and sweets. He’d really not been anywhere interesting except for school trips that the Dursleys couldn’t make an excuse for him not to go.
When he’d finished watching Dudley open his tower of presents, Aunt Petunia ordered Harry off to Mrs. Figg’s house. Resigned to his fate of listening to Mrs. Figg talk about her cats for the next four hours while Dudley wedged himself into a roller coaster cart and ate enough sweets to make himself vomit, Harry sighed and pulled on his trainers before dragging his feet out the door.
A thick layer of clouds loomed over Dudley’s special day, and a nasty voice in Harry’s head urged it to rain, but it stayed dry as he shoved his hands in his pockets and sauntered down the street, wishing he could just walk past Mrs. Figg’s house to the park. Aunt Petunia would know, however. Mrs. Figg would call to wonder where Harry was, and then Harry would be in trouble.
“Where are you off to?”
Harry jumped. It was Sirius the neighbor, leaning against the frame of his door. There was a mug in his hand and his long black hair was mussed as if he’d just gotten out of bed.
“It’s Dudley’s birthday, so they’re taking him to an amusement park.”
“I didn’t ask where Dudley was off to,” said Sirius. “What are you doing?”
“Oh, I’m not allowed to come, so I’m going to Mrs. Figg’s.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re afraid I’ll burn down the house.”
“No, I mean, why aren’t you allowed to go to the amusement park?”
Harry shrugged. It was hard to explain that strange things tended to happen around Harry, things that enraged Uncle Vernon and terrified Aunt Petunia. They would never bring him out in public if they could avoid it.
“Hold on a minute,” said Sirius. The doorway hung open and empty as he shuffled off, leaving Harry standing awkwardly on the walk, hoping the Dursleys wouldn’t see him as they bundled into the car. A minute passed until Sirius reappeared dressed in jeans and a T-shirt.
“All right, let’s be off then,” he said. “Lead on, won’t you?”
Harry jerked a glance over his shoulder at Number 4. The front door opened, and Harry hastened down the street before they saw him, Sirius falling into step at his side, keeping up with his long stride. It wasn’t until they turned the corner, out of sight, that Harry slowed down, panting slightly.
“I haven’t seen you outside in a while,” Sirius said. Something in his voice, though the timbre was mild, put Harry on edge.
“Oh yeah, I haven’t been feeling well,” Harry lied. “I’ve been in bed.”
Sirius raised his brows. “Have you? I’m sorry to hear that. Summer’s the worst time to be sick. Now that you’re well again, you’ll be out playing, won’t you? I see your cousin all the time.”
“How’d you know Dudley’s my cousin?”
“You don’t look like Vernon Dursley’s son,” Sirius said, a wry look on his face.
Harry was glad he thought so. Sure, he had knobby knees and unkempt hair, but he was glad he wasn’t beefy like Uncle Vernon and Dudley.
A cat trotted from a nearby garden and wound around Harry’s legs, a sign he was close to Mrs. Figg’s house. When he strode up to the walk, he was confused when Sirius followed him.
“Er—it was nice talking to you,” said Harry awkwardly.
Mrs. Figg opened the door before he could reach it, wobbling on her cane as she greeted Harry. Her eyes shifted to Sirius in surprise, and Harry didn’t miss the questioning look she gave him… Harry frowned. Had they already met?
“Hello, Mrs. Figg,” said Sirius. “Harry mentioned he’d be stopping by for a visit. Do you mind if I join?”
Mrs. Figg swallowed, gaze darting from Sirius to Harry and back to Sirius. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea—”
“Nonsense, unless Harry was counting on a private visit?”
In fact, Harry was glad Sirius wanted to come, though why Sirius would want to sit in a house that smelled like cabbage was beyond him. Mrs. Figg seemed about to protest, but her tight expression softened and she sighed.
“Well, I suppose it will be fine just this once,” she said. “Harry, go on in. I’ve added an entire camera roll’s worth of photographs to Tufty’s album.”
Harry inwardly groaned as she allowed him to pass. The smell of cat litter and cabbage filled his nose the moment he stepped inside. Mrs. Figg assured him they would join him in a moment and shut the door to what she had to say to Sirius, though Harry lingered, straining to hear.
“—promised you would leave him alone—” he could make out Mrs. Figg’s whisper.
“It’s fine,” Sirius insisted.
“—it’s not fine, it’s—” and then her whisper dipped too low for Harry to hear. The conversation wasn’t long, and suddenly the door was opening. He scrambled for the sofa, dislodging a cat from the cushions which jumped back, hissing.
Sirius strode inside and dropped into the seat beside Harry on the sofa. He reached for the closest album of photographs, handed it to Harry as if to please Mrs. Figg who watched worriedly from behind a chair. Feeling watched by both Sirius and Mrs. Figg, Harry uncomfortably opened the book and stared at the blurry pictures of cats.
“Very nice,” Sirius said too enthusiastically, pointing at a fluffy black-and-white cat that Harry, unfortunately, knew to be Mr. Tibbles.
“I’ll…I’ll go put the kettle on, shall I?” said Mrs. Figg.
Once she’d left, Harry stared after her. “Do you know her?”
“Yeah,” said Sirius. “We’ve met. Listen, Harry, we’ve only got until she comes back to talk.” He leaned in, far too close for Harry’s comfort to whisper, “Do you feel safe at home?”
“Er—I don’t feel unsafe,” said Harry.
“Do they treat you well?”
“I guess, not as well as Dudley.”
“Are you happy?”
The question made his breath stop. No one had ever asked that before, mostly because no one really cared to hear the answer. Harry frowned. “Happy?”
Sirius’s eyes swam with emotion. His brows twitched as if the question had hurt him in some way, and his hand convulsed on Harry’s arm. “Are you happy with them, Harry? If I said you could live somewhere else and never see them again, what would you think?”
“Leave the Dursleys?” Harry said dully. He’d thought of it before, of course, imagining a kind person knocking gently on the door, saying they’d come to take Harry away. He was too old to believe it would happen now, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t wish it. “I guess that would be all right.”
“Yeah?”
It seemed strange to admit it, but Harry wanted to leave the Dursleys probably as much as they wanted to be rid of him. He’d never have to hear Uncle Vernon complain about his hair again or Aunt Petunia bark at him not to burn breakfast. But the worst part of admitting he never wanted to return was that he knew he still had to walk down the street back to Number 4 and back to his cupboard when the day was over.
Harry shrugged. “I dunno, I guess it’s not all bad,” he said. No one hit him except for Dudley. They fed him and gave him Dudley’s old things to wear. Maybe he did all of the chores that another family would’ve split between him and Dudley, but Aunt Petunia still let him play outside sometimes, and even if he didn’t get to choose what he watched, sometimes he was allowed to watch television with Dudley.
Mrs. Figg returned shortly after that with a tray of tea and biscuits that had gone stale.
“What do you know about your parents, Harry?”
Mrs. Figg nearly choked. “Sirius!”
“What?” said Sirius, glaring. “That’s a normal question.”
“You know very well why you can’t ask that question!” she said shrilly.
“They’re dead,” Harry told Sirius.
“That’s terrible, Harry, I’m sorry,” Sirius murmured. There was no surprise as if he’d known already.
“Did—did you know them?”
“I—”
Mrs. Figg’s teacup shattered, splintering over the wooden floor. The crash made Sirius jolt and reach into his pocket suddenly. Harry jumped to his feet to find a broom and towel in the kitchen, but when he returned, he stared at the spot where he was certain she’d dropped the tea and porcelain. The floor, however, was completely clean.
“It’s all right, I’ve taken care of it,” said Sirius.
“But how?”
Mrs. Figg’s lips were white with anger. “Perhaps you should leave, Sirius.”
Harry glanced at the clock, knowing it would still be hours until the Dursleys would come collect him or call Mrs. Figg to send him home, and back at Sirius, pleading. He really didn’t want Sirius to go, not if it left him alone with Mrs. Figg.
“No,” said Sirius firmly. “I’m not leaving him.”
“It’s for his protection!” Mrs. Figg said, exasperated. “No one wants him with live with them, you know. Don’t you suppose I can see how miserable he is? But Dumbledore said—”
“I don’t care. Harry said he’d live somewhere else if he could and never see his aunt and uncle again—”
Harry gritted his teeth. He was used to the Dursleys talking about him as if he weren’t there, but somehow, this was worse.
“But it cannot happen, and you know that,” said Mrs. Figg. “Not when Pettigrew is—” she shut her mouth suddenly, eyes darting to Harry. He had never seen her so animated before. Usually she was rather dull.
“What’s going on?” he said, looking between them. Could it be a bizarre joke put on by the Dursleys? What it some sort of prank for Dudley’s amusement? Were they all hiding behind cat furniture and sofa, snickering at Harry’s expense?
“Nothing, dear,” insisted Mrs. Figg. “Sirius is very confused, and perhaps he ought to go home and lie down.”
Sirius didn’t seem confused, but he did look about ready to leave. A bit defeated, Harry’s shoulders dropped, realizing Sirius was going to abandon him. He felt stupid for thinking it, but for a minute, he thought Sirius was about to say that he’d known Harry’s parents.
What did he care about this stranger anyway? Sirius was a bit frightening to look at, asked questions that Harry didn’t know how to answer, and was very possibly some sort of criminal. Maybe it was the fact that he seemed to care about what Harry had to say—maybe it was that he hadn’t insulted Harry even once. So when Sirius cast Mrs. Figg a very nasty look and turned to leave, Harry’s stomach dropped.
“Goodbye, Sirius,” said Mrs. Figg, ushering Harry back to the sofa.
Sirius’s absence left a gaping hole in the rest of the afternoon. Mrs. Figg let Harry watch television and fed him more stale carrot cake, but he couldn’t concentrate on anything.
Hours passed before Aunt Petunia finally phoned Mrs. Figg to tell her it was all right if Harry came home. It was nearly dark which struck Harry as odd, considering that Dudley really only had a few hours’ worth of energy before he got too tired. How they might have dragged Dudley into the car when his day was through, Harry wished he could’ve seen. Mrs. Figg, unusually stern, told Harry to go straight home. She watched him leave with beady eyes from the front door. It wasn’t until he passed through the gate that she retreated back into the house, though he could still feel something staring at him in the growing darkness. Streetlights flickered on as he walked while the air grew thick and cool as the evening pressed into the neighborhood.
Sirius wasn’t in his doorway this time when Harry went by yet that same feeling of being watched persisted until he made it to Number 4. Harry paused at the front door, unable to put the mysterious neighbor from his mind as he recalled the strange interrogation. Are you happy? It seemed like a completely average question, and yet, Harry found himself unable to spit out an answer.
Harry sighed and pushed the door open, expecting them all to be singing a final birthday chant as Harry sneaked into his cupboard.
But something was different at the Dursley house.
Harry ventured inside, though the entryway was empty. He knew better than to announce his presence, so he tiptoed straight to the cupboard and went to crawl inside when his stomach dropped. Someone had cleared out the cot and his things. There was nothing left but spiders. His throat became stuck with fear as he beheld the gaping hole where everything he owned was supposed to be.
Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon were in the kitchen, their voices only soft murmurs, and from the sound of banging feet on the ceiling, Harry figured they must have sent Dudley up to his room. Aunt Petunia’s bony cheeks were ghostly, and Uncle Vernon was purple in fury and fear when Harry came in.
“Where’s all my stuff?” asked Harry.
“We’ve decided you’re too big for the cupboard now,” said Uncle Vernon, his mustache twitching. “Your aunt has moved your things to Dudley’s second bedroom. Would you—er— you’d like that…Harry?”
Aunt Petunia’s lips disappeared.
Usually, Harry would’ve celebrated. After all, he’d wished for years to have his own bedroom with a real mattress instead of sleeping in the cupboard on a cot, but the fearful expressions on their faces made Harry uneasy. It made him wonder what had changed their minds after all the years.
“And it’s time you wore clothes that fit you, we think. Your aunt is going to take you shopping tomorrow for—for some new things.”
A vein pulsed in Uncle Vernon’s temple as if the words were coming out of his mouth without his permission.
“Okay,” Harry said dumbly.
His aunt and uncle stared at him for a moment longer before Aunt Petunia faked a cough and told him to go up to his room. Harry turned on his heel, withdrew from the kitchen, and made his way upstairs.
The next week, life at the Dursley house was very odd. For one, Aunt Petunia gave him only a few chores each day which he finished before noon, and after a sandwich lunch that matched Dudley’s (to Dudley’s horrified confusion), she sent him out to play. Another bizarre thing was that he hadn’t heard a single comment from Uncle Vernon about his hair—though a grunt whenever Harry entered the room made him think that Uncle Vernon wanted to criticize him, but swallowed whatever he was going to say. Only Dudley was his normal self, whacking Harry whenever he could with his new cricket bat. However, when Aunt Petunia noticed, she snatched the cricket bat from him and told Dudley to leave Harry alone.
Aunt Petunia brought him and Dudley shopping, and though Dudley ended up with a stack of new shirts and trousers twice as tall as Harry’s, Harry suddenly found himself with a wardrobe that actually fit him. She even bought him a new pair of glasses which she warned him not to break, though darkly Harry thought to himself that it was usually Dudley who snapped them with his meaty fists. Once they arrived home, Aunt Petunia ordered him to put on his new things and bring down his old clothes to give away.
For once in his life, Harry felt like he looked like a normal kid. Sure, he was still small and skinny for his age, and maybe his hair stuck up all over the place, but he no longer looked like a sapling in an oversized pillowcase.
His life had changed in a matter of days, though a nagging voice in his head whispered that nothing was as it seemed, that it all had to do with the neighbor next door. A week went by, and Harry didn’t see Sirius, nor did he feel like he was being watched anymore when Aunt Petunia sent him off to play outside the house.
When his tenth birthday came around, Harry had no reason to suspect anyone would remember. Never in his life had he received a birthday card—in fact, he couldn’t recall a single person acknowledging his birthday even once. While he never needed the mountains of gifts that drowned the house when Dudley’s day came around, Harry wanted someone to, at the very least, wish him a good day.
Morning broke and Harry lurched out of bed. A recurring dream of a motorbike and blinding green light had woken him again. His legs wobbled in his fatigue as he pulled back the coverlet and stumbled across the room to shove on a shirt and jeans. If he made it downstairs quickly, the sooner Aunt Petunia would list his chores for the day and the sooner he could get them done. Like most days recently, she only had a few things for him to do, and by lunchtime, he was free.
July had shriveled the grass and left Mrs. Thompson’s old roses nothing more a dead bush, looking blackened as if someone had torched it. Harry pitied it. After all, it wasn’t the rosebush’s fault that Sirius had no interest in watering it. Sometimes when Aunt Petunia had him look after the hydrangeas, Harry would spray the hose onto the rosebush. But the heat was too much and the roses had no chance of coming back.
Today he shuffled by when he saw Sirius leaving the house to fetch the newspaper. It had been weeks since they’d seen each other, and Sirius’s face brightened at the sight of him. Harry waved but continued on.
“Wait, Harry! Hold on a minute.”
Sirius tossed the newspaper behind him where it fell into the decrepit rosebush. He caught up to Harry, grinning. The last month had treated the man well—his hollow cheeks were beginning to fill out and his pale skin had spent some time in the sun. Although he still didn’t look entirely healthy, he was more humanlike than last time and Harry could see that he might have once been handsome.
“I heard it was your birthday today,” said Sirius.
Harry blinked but the words were lost on their way out of his mouth. All he managed was a choked grunt. Had someone really told him what day it was?
“I’ve got something for you,” Sirius went on. He nodded toward his house, and Harry thought his chest might cave in. He didn’t know what this Sirius was playing at, but the idea of a present was too good to pass up, so he followed Sirius across the drive and up to the front door.
Once there was a time when a police officer came to his school and told everyone about interacting with strangers. The officer warned that a stranger might tempt a child with sweets or gifts, but under no circumstance were you supposed to go anywhere with a stranger, even if they knew your name. Harry thought of this, wondering if Sirius really were a criminal. In sort of a pathetic way, Harry never figured anyone would be interested in kidnapping him and supposed that the advice was probably for other children.
The house opened up to a staircase and just beyond the entry, there was a washroom on the right. Windows let sunlight brighten the trailing florals on the wallpaper, no doubt a choice made by Mrs. Thompson years ago when she boasted to Aunt Petunia about having the walls done. Sirius led Harry to a room furnished with a sofa and a table and not much else. Mrs. Thompson had left lacy curtains which filtered some of the light, but otherwise, it was a bit drab.
The sofa sank when Harry sat down at Sirius’s invitation, and awkwardly he waited while Sirius went to the other room. There was a newspaper strewn over the table, and only a half-empty mug and a pair of discarded shoes indicated that anyone lived here, and not for the first time, he wondered why someone would choose to live in such a big house alone.
Sirius returned with the strangest shaped gift Harry had ever seen. It was wrapped in brown craft paper and almost as tall as Harry himself. He rather thought it was shaped like a broom. Trembling, Harry took the gift from Sirius and with shaking hands, started to peel back the paper. It was his first present he’d ever unwrapped in his life. Dudley shredded the paper on his gifts but Harry savored the mystery as the paper fell away. He frowned.
It really was a broomstick.
A glance at Sirius’s amused look made Harry’s face burn with embarrassment. Of course it was a joke. Who would actually give him a real gift?
“Er—thanks,” Harry said in a small voice. For a broom, however, it was rather expensive-looking; the wooden handle gleamed and in shining gold letters it read Nimbus 1900. The bristles were smooth and combed to a perfect point. It was no cleaning tool that Harry had ever seen.
“Oh,” said Sirius, smile widening. “You don’t know what it is, do you?”
“It’s a broom.”
“Yeah, but it’s a special broom.”
“It…it looks special, I guess.” Harry shoved the rest of the paper away. His fingers curled over the handle’s mahogany finish, feeling something humming against his palm, vibrating all the way up his arms. Was it electric? Yet it didn’t feel like it had a battery—it was quite light.
“The Nimbus line is known for speed and maneuverability,” Sirius was saying. “The 1900 is the broom of choice for the World Cup, so I promise it’s a good one. Never had a Nimbus myself, but I had a friend who couldn’t resist getting the 1300 when it was released.”
But Harry still didn’t understand, and he couldn’t see why a broomstick was…special. What sort of World Cup needed a team’s worth of brooms? Competitive sweeping?
“Okay, get up, let’s show you, then.”
Harry, feeling foolish, watched as Sirius pulled the table away from the sofa, leaving a wide space on the floor. Harry clutched his strange gift.
“I’m sure your aunt never told you about broomsticks since I don’t think your mum was half as interested in flying as your dad. She wasn’t bad at it, but I don’t think she ever had one of her own. Now, mount it and nudge yourself off the ground a bit with your toes. I don’t want you to go too high quite yet, not until you’ve got the hang of hovering.”
At Harry befuddled look, Sirius raised his brows.
“Just try it. I promise I won’t judge you. We all looked stupid the first time we got on a broomstick.”
Then it became very clear to Harry that his neighbor was completely out of his mind. Somehow, Sirius had convinced himself that people could fly broomsticks like witches and it was obvious he thought Harry could be deluded too. Maybe if he indulged Sirius and pretended to fly it, Sirius would be happy and let him leave.
Feeling like an idiot, Harry gripped the handle on the broom and straddled it like he was riding a bike. Bizarrely, it felt like there was an invisible cushion under his bottom instead of the hard wooden handle—he even glanced down, but there was nothing but the broom handle. He drew in a deep breath, hoping no one was hiding with a camera beyond the windows, and pushed off with the front of his shoes.
To Harry’s sheer horror, the ground rushed away and he was rapidly rising from the floor, leggings dangling on either side of the broom.
“Whoa!” said Sirius, dashing forward. He leapt and caught Harry’s ankle, halting the ascent to the ceiling.
Something bubbled in Harry’s chest as he gazed down at the room, fear abating as the tingling feeling spread across his body and sputtered out of his mouth as a nervous laugh. The floor was below him and the only thing keep him from hitting the ceiling was Sirius’s grip on his leg. When Sirius eased his hold, Harry hovered there, staring in wonderment at the broomstick.
“What—what is this? How is this happening?”
“It’s magic, Harry.”
But…there was no such thing as magic.
It was as if the thought made the broomstick wobble and suddenly Harry fell off the end into a pair of slender arms. Sirius set him down and plucked the broom from the air, handing it to Harry with a bemused twitch of his brows.
“But she’s told you about magic, hasn’t she? Your aunt?”
“Only that magic doesn’t…” The broom seemed to hum beneath his fingers. Could it be? Was that proof enough that magic was…real?
Sirius stared, a bit of color creeping in his face as he realized what Harry was saying.
There were forbidden topics at Number 4 including everything that fell under the umbrella of unnatural—any mention of magic, of course was a forbidden subject, but more often, Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon were offended by objects or animals doing things they typically shouldn’t. Harry thought they considered him something unnatural, which was why they were always offended when he walked into the room. Even Dudley wasn’t allowed to use the word magic, and if it came out of his mouth, Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon berated Harry for filling Dudley’s head with dangerous ideas even if he hadn’t said anything.
Harry looked down at the broomstick in his hands. How could he explain a flying broom? How could he explain that he’d hovered in the air for a few seconds without a rope, without a big fan pushing him up?
Strange things happened to Harry all the time—suddenly appearing on the school’s rooftop without the memory of climbing up there, his teacher’s hair turning blue before his eyes, his own hair growing out overnight following a disastrous meeting with Aunt Petunia’s scissors. Sometimes he thought he imagined a glass shattering when he was angry. Sometimes he thought he was hallucinating when he saw people in peculiar clothes staring at him on the street.
Harry swallowed as he caught Sirius’s eyes. “Is there something wrong with me?”
Sirius’s face softened. “No,” he said. “No, of course there’s nothing wrong with you, Harry.” Then Sirius moved, walking to the end of the room where a glass door led to the garden behind the house. He glared at the fence that separated his lot from the one next door. “You mean you don’t know anything about magic? You don’t know anything about the world your parents come from?”
“What d’you mean?” Harry thought about his parents, cataloging everything he knew about them. He knew his dad must’ve had wild hair like his (because Uncle Vernon had said so), and according to the Dursleys, his parents were unemployed, poor, and died in a car crash. It should have made Harry ashamed, but he knew he would have preferred parents who were poor and loved him to what he actually had.
Sirius turned, a muscle in his jaw tightening. “I know Petunia hasn’t told you a lot about your mum, but this is… You don’t know what she was?”
Harry gripped the broomstick and stepped back. “What was wrong with my mum?”
“Nothing was wrong with her!” Sirius said.
“So it was my dad—”
That made Sirius even angrier. Harry glanced back down the way he’d come in, wondering how quickly he could make it to the door if his neighbor lost control of himself. He was cursing how stupid he’d been to follow a stranger into a house, lured in by the promise of a gift.
Sirius began to pace, clenching and unclenching his hands as if he didn’t know what to do with them. Harry remained very still, unsure if he ought to excuse himself or try to calm the man down. He swallowed hard. Should he set the broom down on the table? Should he simply turn away and quietly walk out?
But he was too curious to leave, he realized. Here was a person who obviously knew something about his parents, even if that person didn’t seem to be entirely in his right mind.
Then Sirius inhaled.
“All right,” he said, though it was more to himself than Harry. He drew in another breath and let it out. “Okay. Look, Harry, I shouldn’t have gotten that broom for you.”
A twinge of hurt made Harry’s fingers flex over the broomstick handle, and childishly, he leaned away as if Sirius was going to take it from him. His first gift he’d ever received would be gone without getting the chance to really use it.
“I don’t mean I’m going to take it back,” Sirius clarified. He drew a hand through his black hair. “It’s just… I wish I’d known. Listen,” he said, retreating to the sofa. “I didn’t expect to be the one to explain everything to you. Petunia should have told you about your parents…”
He sat down and patted the cushion as an invitation. Harry hesitated, but knew that if he wanted to keep the broomstick, he’d have to sit. Still clutching the handle, Harry sat at the very edge of the sofa.
Sirius watched him carefully as if he was worried that Harry was the one who might do something drastic.
“There is nothing wrong with you,” he began. “Nothing.”
There were a dozen reasons why Sirius was wrong about that. He didn’t know Harry at all! “But I—”
“No,” said Sirius. “There’s nothing wrong with you, and there was nothing wrong with either of your parents.”
“But Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon say—”
“They are liars, Harry,” Sirius said. “They’ve hidden the truth from you. Your parents were a witch and a wizard.”
Harry opened his mouth to say that there was no such thing as a witch or a wizard, and to suggest it was almost insulting. Did Sirius think he was stupid?
“They couldn’t’ve been,” said Harry. The room chilled. How could a witch and wizard have died in a car crash? “There’s no such thing as magic.”
Sirius rolled his eyes. “Don’t tell me you’ve already forgotten that you’ve flown on a broom just a moment ago. If magic isn’t real, then tell me, how could you do that? How can I do this?”
He reached a hand under the pile of newspaper pages on the table for a long, black stick of wood. He gave it a wave, and the papers tidied themselves into a neat pile. Harry gaped as Sirius chuckled. “Does that impress you more than the Nimbus? I think I’ve spent too much gold if that’s the case.”
“I don’t get it,” said Harry, realizing his mouth was hanging open. “If—if magic is real, then, does that make you…?”
“A wizard,” Sirius said, nodding. “Just like your parents. Like you.”
“Me?” sputtered Harry. He shook his head. “No. No, I’m not. I couldn’t be a wizard. I’m just…”
Nothing. Nothing special. A nobody. He didn’t have friends. He didn’t have special talents. He was just the nephew of Vernon and Petunia Dursley. Someone who used to sleep in a cupboard. No one had ever come to take him away from his family or tell him that he was anything more than a scrawny kid in oversized clothes and a scar on his head. There was nothing extraordinary about the boy who hid in the bushes from his oversized cousin. He was just Harry.
A lump in his throat made it hard to breathe. Sirius was looking at him as if he’d said something terribly sad, and for a moment, Harry thought he might reach over and embrace him, but the two of them remained on the opposite ends of the sofa. Harry rubbed his arms, feeling cold as he stared at the newspaper stack, words swirling into a dizzying spiral. It couldn’t be true. He couldn’t be something as special as a wizard.
“Here,” said Sirius.
Harry dragged his gaze from the newspaper to see Sirius offer handle of the black stick.
“What’s that?” Harry asked doubtfully.
“It’s my wand. Go on, take it. Give it a wave.”
Reluctantly, Harry curled his fingers around the polished wood. There was something about it that made Harry feel whole the moment it left Sirius’s grasp. It was like he could inhale and fill his lungs properly as he held it. Strange as it was to say about a simple stick of wood, but there really was something magic about it. He could feel the power from his palm to his heart, and he couldn’t help but smile.
Then he waved it like Sirius told him, and then the brief moment of elation shattered with the explosion of the patio door.
Harry launched backwards, gripping the wand in fear, gaping at the glass shining brilliantly over the carpet. Apologies gushed from his mouth as he stumbled from the scene. Of course he’d be a terrible wizard. Of course, when it came to the one thing that made him different, he was a failure at that too.
Sirius rushed forward as the smile vanished from his face. Had he been laughing?
“Hold up, Harry, it’s all right—”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to break anything!”
Harry shoved the wand back at him and turned to scurry from the room and make a break for the front door, anything to get away from what he’d done. A strong hand on his shoulder made him stay, however, and miserably he avoided Sirius’s eyes.
“It’s okay, Harry!” insisted Sirius. “Really, it is!”
“No, it’s not,” Harry said. “Look what I did! I’m not supposed to be a wizard.”
“Harry,” Sirius said sternly, his hand sinking a little painfully into Harry’s shoulder. “It’s normal for stuff like that to happen. It just means that my wand isn’t suited to you. I suspected something might shatter, not the entire pane of glass, but I swear it’s all right. Look.”
Harry looked away from his shoes to watch as Sirius pointed his wand at the glimmering catastrophe on the floor.
“Reparo!” said Sirius. It was like the glass was shattering in reverse, flying back to the frame of the door, splinter by splinter until it was whole again. Harry gaped. Not even a crack remained.
He couldn’t explain how Sirius did it except magic. It had to be magic. How else could glass return to its shape? How else could he have fixed the glass?
Harry remembered the teacup that shattered at Mrs. Figg’s house. He’d gone to fetch a towels and a broom to clean up the mess, but when he returned, the mess was gone as if it never happened. Could Sirius have used magic then? Then his heart pounded. Did Mrs. Figg know about magic too?
“You did that to the teacup,” Harry said. “At Mrs. Figg’s, didn’t you?”
Sirius nodded.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were a wizard before?” Harry said, frowning.
“I wasn’t sure how much you knew about our world,” Sirius confessed. “Mrs. Figg couldn’t tell me. She’s a Squib, not a witch—that means she comes from a wizarding family but can’t perform magic herself. I asked her how much your aunt had told you, but she wasn’t certain. I realize it was stupid of me to assume your aunt had explained to you about your mum, but I thought… I thought maybe you would realize what you are. What your parents were.”
Harry suddenly felt stupid himself that he’d never considered that the strange things that happened around him were extraordinary. They were simply things he couldn’t explain, not supernatural. Now, however, he couldn’t help seeing that he’d tried to explain away the obvious.
His heart began to thud again. Sirius knew his parents. Not only were they a witch and a wizard, but they were also living people who had met and spoken with Sirius. Even the revelation that Mrs. Figg was someone from the magic world mattered so little when there was someone who could speak about his parents. If Sirius only could describe what they looked like, Harry needed to find out.
“How did you know them?”
Sirius paled. “What? Who?”
“My parents!” Harry blurted.
It was like Sirius became prey with nowhere to go. His eyes shifted, turning from Harry to the door, almost like he was afraid to talk. He drew a breath but clearly the question shook him.
“Er—they—I—we—” started Sirius, avoiding Harry’s gaze. “We went to school together. You’ve not heard of Hogwarts, have you?”
Harry shook his head. Without meaning to, he took a step forward eagerly, and he found that Sirius actually stepped backwards.
“It’s—it’s a school for witches and wizards,” said Sirius. “You’ll go there next year after you’ve turned eleven.”
Harry couldn’t help the lurch in his stomach. A school for magic? As thrilling as it sounded, Harry immediately knew that he wouldn’t be allowed to go. Maybe other children had guardians who thought it was a brilliant idea to learn magic, but the Dursleys would never let him attend. He tried to put the miserable thought from his head.
“My parents went there?”
“Oh yeah, they loved it,” he said. He swallowed. “I assume.”
“Were you friends?”
“We knew each other,” said Sirius.
“What were they like?”
“Er—they were nice. Listen, I didn’t know them that well, Harry.”
“But how’d you know who I was?”
“Mrs. Figg,” sputtered Sirius. “She told me.”
“Did Mrs. Figg know my parents?”
“I don’t know, you could ask her.”
“You didn’t?”
Sirius stared at him, and then Harry snapped his mouth shut, surprised at himself. Never in his entire life had he said so much at one time. Never had he spoken to an adult in such a way. Of course, he’d never had an adult interested in speaking to him at all, really. It was strange: Harry asked a question, and Sirius would answer. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon loathed when he asked them just about anything so usually he refrained from speaking too much, yet there was something about Sirius that emboldened Harry.
“Sorry,” Harry said, suddenly quiet.
There was so much more he wanted to question Sirius regarding his parents, magic, school, but he feared now that he’d gone too far and pushed Sirius to the edge of niceness. Maybe if Harry said more, he’d take back the Nimbus…
The broom was propped against the sofa, its handle gleaming in the sunlight. He felt a sudden longing to mount it and soar over Little Whinging. Why had Sirius gotten it for him? It must’ve been expensive if he’d paid for it in gold. Harry had never known anyone to spend money on him before, and now a relative stranger had purchased something for him for no apparent reason. He knew my parents, Harry thought. But simply knowing someone wasn’t a good reason for buying their son an expensive gift. Maybe it was more than that.
Sirius followed Harry’s gaze to the Nimbus, sighing. “I’m not angry or anything, Harry. I just wasn’t ready to answer your questions, I guess.”
“Sorry I asked so many,” he said.
Then a grin split across Sirius’s face. “I was just surprised! Here I thought you were a quiet kid, but there you go, interrogating me. But it’s all right!” he added at Harry’s nervous look. “Ask me anything you want. As the first wizard you’ve ever met, I owe it to you.”
“Why’d you get me a broom if you don’t know me?”
“I’ve got gold to spare,” said Sirius. “What else?”
“Can I actually fly it?” That seemed like another stupid question, but Harry couldn’t see any way that he’d be able to bring his broom out to the park to try it out. He could almost hear it humming from the sofa, begging to be ridden.
“Yes. I’ll take you flying soon, if you’d like.”
“I don’t think I’d be allowed,” said Harry, wistfully. “Plus, I don’t think Aunt Petunia will let me keep the broom at all, actually.”
“Keep it here, then,” suggested Sirius. “I’ll store it with mine. Any time you want to go, we’ll go. Your aunt will let you if she knows what’s good for her.”
An edge crept into his tone. While Sirius was friendly and perfectly pleasant to Harry, there was something else that was a bit unsettling. There was something dangerous about him, and Harry remembered his suspicion about his room change after Dudley’s birthday. Sirius had definitely been the reason why Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia moved him to Dudley’s second bedroom and gotten him new clothes. They were afraid of him, and Harry could almost see what had frightened them. Glad to be on Sirius’s good side, however, Harry simply nodded.
Then Sirius smiled again. “So, what have you got planned for the rest of your birthday?”
“Dunno,” said Harry. “I guess I was just going to walk around or something.”
“Is that all?”
“There’s not much else to do.” It was a bit embarrassing to admit that he had nowhere to go on his birthday when only a few weeks earlier, Dudley had gotten a whole day at the amusement park and Sirius knew it.
Sirius brightened. “I’ll take you somewhere—wherever you want! We could go to London. Or there’s the cinema or we could even go to the amusement park. What d’you want to do?”
Something inside of Harry soured. No one had ever asked him what he wanted to do on his birthday before and now more than ever, it seemed like Sirius was playing a trick on him. Maybe Harry really was a wizard, and maybe Sirius really had met his parents, but something about Sirius offering to celebrate his birthday with him set off alarms in his head. Even if he were just being kind, there was no reason for Sirius to treat him this way.
Uncomfortably, Harry shrugged and rubbed the back of his neck. “A-actually, I think I should go home. Er—I think Aunt Petunia has some things for me to do.”
“Oh,” said Sirius, disappointment turning his brows up. The smile had slipped off his face. “Are you sure?”
Harry nodded stiffly.
“Well, if that’s—” Sirius’s voice tightened. “I understand. The offer still stands, though.” Sirius gestured to the broom. “Whenever you want.”
“Thanks,” murmured Harry. He was reluctant to leave the broom behind, but the moment Aunt Petunia saw it, she’d confiscate and probably burn it. “And…and thanks for the broom. I’ve never gotten anything like it before.”
“Happy Birthday, Harry,” Sirius said, smiling sadly.
And though Harry wished he could’ve just said yes and gone somewhere fun with Sirius, receiving his first birthday present and finding out that he was the son of a witch and a wizard made it the happiest birthday he’d ever had.