The Lewis House 18 страница

"The sun," he said harshly, moments later, and Harry could hear him from all the way across the garden.

Remus pulled back from Ginny and patted her shoulder, moving toward the shed. He pulled the door open, then turned back and very quietly said something to Sirius, who stood stonily and did not reply. Remus waited a moment, and when there was no answer, he reached out and touched the top of Sirius’s arm, then turned resignedly away.

Sirius came to life. He grabbed Remus’s forearm before he made it into the shed and pulled him into what looked like a bone-breaking hug.

"I’ll be right out here." Sirius’s voice was low, but so urgent that it carried through the garden. "If it starts to go wrong I’ll let you out and Padfoot’ll deal with everything. I won’t leave you in there."

Remus said something with a shake of his head, disentangled himself from Sirius with a half-smile on his face, and walked into the shed without another word. He shut the door firmly behind him.

"Lock it," Harry heard him yell, from inside.

Sirius raised his wand, and bolts slid heavily into place. He then walked the perimeter of the little structure, muttering spells that Harry assumed were meant to fortify the strength of the walls and the locks on the door.

Ginny hadn’t turned toward the house. She remained where Remus had left her, staring at the door of the shed, her arms wrapped around herself as if she were very cold, though the evening was quite warm. She rocked forward and back, reminding Harry of when she’d been a little girl on the verge of telling him and Ron about Tom Riddle.

"Go in." Sirius came around the shed and motioned Ginny toward the house. His tone brooked no refusal.

Harry saw her spine straighten. She dropped her arms to her sides, but otherwise she didn’t move an inch.

"Go in, Ginny. You’ve done what you wanted to do. I want all of you to stay inside with the door locked, no matter what happens. Unbreakable Charms on the first floor windows aren’t a bad idea either. Understand me?"

"I want to be here – "

"In."

Harry felt a flash of anger on Ginny’s behalf, remembering what she had said the other day, about people always ordering her around as if she were a child. Sirius had been doing a lot of that, lately.

"Go ahead," Remus called out, much more gently. "It’s really all right. Go have dinner – I’m going to be fine."

Sirius folded his arms and stared Ginny down until she finally backed off. "Goodnight, Remus," she called, her voice thick.

"Goodnight, Ginny."

She turned and walked to the house, hugging herself again. As she came closer, Harry saw that her face was streaked with tears, though she was no longer crying. She looked tired and scared, and she stopped short when she noticed Harry standing there.

"Help me put spells on the windows?" she asked, her voice still slightly choked.

Harry nodded and followed her up the steps toward the back door. "What did he say?" he asked quietly.

She turned partly, her hand resting on the doorknob. "What do you mean?"

"Remus. When Sirius said he’d let him out of the shed."

Ginny pulled an uneven breath and Harry saw her knuckles whiten as she gripped the knob. "He said, no you won’t, because there are children in this village and I don’t want any of them ending up like me." She opened the door and went in.

Harry shuddered, wondering if the werewolf who had bit Remus ever felt guilty, or even remembered. Perhaps werewolves were unaware of the things they had done, in their bestial state – he’d have to ask Hermione. He stopped in the doorway and looked over his shoulder quickly, at the precarious metal shack that was Remus’s cage. The last of the sunlight glinted on its roof, then disappeared, leaving the world in a fire of purple and red dusk. Somewhere beyond the forest, down at the line of the horizon, the moon had already risen. It would climb into the sky and its light would fall on the shed - and then it wouldn’t matter how many contracts Sirius drew up. Nothing could stop what would happen to Remus.

Across the garden, Sirius still held his wand as if to cast a spell, but he had finished muttering and walking around the outside of the structure. Now he stood still, staring at the door, breathing heavily. His profile was sharp, his expression frozen with mute fury, and almost everything about his posture suggested that anger with Ginny was his uppermost emotion. But Harry noticed that his free hand dangled uselessly at his side, and that his left shoulder seemed to slump.

He tore his eyes away from his godfather and went inside, where he was surrounded by Hermione, Ron and Ginny, quietly casting spells on the windows of the sunroom.

"I’ll get the front room," Hermione said softly, and Ron followed after her to check on the kitchen and dining area. Ginny disappeared into the study. Harry fought the urge to follow her and instead fixed the glass and locks on the front door. He managed the little window in the loo, and secured the back door with a few deft twists of his wand and a few Latin words, which he spoke without a second thought. He paused to appreciate the depth of his education, but only briefly, before he went into the back garden again and locked the door from without. He needed to speak with Sirius. He had no idea, however, what it was that he wanted to say.

Sirius kept his back to the house as Harry approached, giving him time to think about what exactly was on his mind. There were so many things to think about at once that Harry hardly knew where to begin. He had been ill at ease, lately, with Sirius’s worried, protective... fatherish behavior toward him. It wasn’t that he didn’t like it, or that he wanted it to stop, but it was something he’d never experienced and it was difficult to accept - especially because it seemed to Harry that if Sirius was so over-concerned about his welfare, he must think him incompetent in some way.

Harry pulled thoughtlessly at high stems of grass, shredding the stalks in his hands as he went through the garden, his eyes trained on the back of Sirius’s head. Mingled with his irritation was another unsettling feeling - a new, protective loyalty to Ginny. It bothered him that Sirius was so dismissive of what Ginny was trying to do for Remus. Partly it only annoyed him because Sirius was essentially treating her like a child and he knew how it felt... but part of him was angry simply for Ginny’s sake. Seeing her upset made him irrationally, defensively angry - but whether it was his right to stand up to Sirius for her, or whether she would even want him to, he didn’t know.

He was only feet from the shed when his approach was detected. Sirius jumped and jerked his head away from the door to glare over his shoulder. His expression only barely softened when his eyes fell on Harry.

"Go inside and lock the door," he said shortly. "It’s getting too close."

Harry bristled. "Look, I just wanted to..." But he stopped. He still didn’t know how to explain himself, and suddenly, looking at the door of the shed, he realized that Remus could hear him. It probably wasn’t the time or place for demanding adult treatment from his godfather. He looked up at the sky, then back at Sirius, who had gone back to narrowly watching the shed, every muscle tensed.

"We can talk in the morning about whatever it is," Sirius muttered, not turning back. "I want all of you inside." He looked edgily toward the treetops that marked the horizon where moonrise would begin. "Go now."

But Harry didn’t move. For reasons he wasn’t quite sure of, he stayed put and pulled his wand. "I’ll stay in case you need help," he insisted.

Sirius’s gave a tense, bitter laugh, then smothered it almost immediately. His eyes flitted dangerously to Harry’s wand. A silent, incomprehensible struggle played itself out on his face, before he opened his mouth to speak. "Unless you're planning to kill him with that, a wand isn't going to do you much good here. And what I need is to know you're inside where it's safe."

Harry straightened his shoulders and stayed where he was. "I think I can take care of myself," he said, his voice low and even.

Sirius’s eyes flashed and he turned on Harry with sudden, violent energy. "I know," he said harshly. "I’ve seen you take care of yourself often enough when you shouldn’t have had to, and I don’t want you doing it again - especially not here, and not now - and not about this, of all things - damn it -"

Harry nearly jumped at the unexpected honesty of his godfather’s remarks. He stared wordlessly at him, having no idea how to reply.

"Sirius."

Remus’s voice issued from behind the metal walls with a strange, quiet strength, and Sirius’s head dropped for a moment. He took several long, ragged breaths and raised his head, then surveyed the sky with one long sweep and, seeming to come to some decision, swept past Harry in the direction of the house.

"I’ll be right back, Moony," he barked. "Harry, follow me."

Harry did so, glancing briefly at the shed. "See you, Remus," he said, and heard a faint, muffled reply in the affirmative.

Sirius was inside in several long strides, with Harry not far behind. In the sunroom, Ron and Hermione had returned to their spot on the sofa, where they were talking in low voices. Both of them stopped, however, and looked up at Sirius in surprise as he pulled the door shut with a decided slam.

Harry shrugged at the worried look Ron shot him, then paced across the room, as if on instinct. Balled up in a chair with her arms around her knees, Ginny was staring out of the window at the shed. Her posture shifted entirely as Sirius entered; she sat up straight, put her feet on the floor, and fixed him with a defiant look. Harry stopped beside her chair and pinned his eyes on Sirius as well.

"These windows?" Sirius asked curtly, gesturing to the one on his left.

"They’re Charmed," Ron replied. "So’re all the rest on this floor."

Sirius nodded, and his eyes shifted from Ron and Hermione, to Ginny, and then slowly to Harry, before he spoke. "No matter what you see or hear from Remus tonight, you are not to mention it to him afterwards." His tone was not as cold as it had been earlier; he seemed closer to some kind of emotional explosion than he had then, and seemed to be having trouble keeping his tone of voice under control. "Do you think he wants to be witnessed at this?" He laughed hoarsely and looked back at Ginny. "You can’t really understand what this means to him. He appears calm and cool where the wolf is concerned – and he’s anything but. This is a private –" Sirius clenched his fingers, looking as though he couldn’t quite continue.

"But Sirius..." Hermione’s voice was soft, her face studiously turned toward him. "We - well, most of us - have witnessed this before."

Sirius looked at her sharply. "Do you think that was the real werewolf? You think what you saw that night, outside the Shrieking Shack, was everything? That was a moment, Hermione. You have no idea what he’s capable of, like this - at least in that circumstance I was there to fight him, but tonight –" He shut his eyes, but Harry had a feeling that if he’d opened them again, he would have looked directly at Ginny. "He’s in a cage, in that shed. He’s got no one to fight but himself. And the damage – when I’ve already seen..."

Harry was glad that Sirius didn’t finish his sentence. He’d imagined, too many times, precisely what damage Sirius must have seen.

When Sirius looked up again, his gaze was directed at Harry. "He needs a little bit of control over this," he managed, and Harry wondered for one terrified moment if he was about to see his godfather cry. He had a panicked urge to look away, but made himself keep eye contact. "The Wolfsbane Potion gives him that. We used to be able to give him that." He smiled, brokenly. "Your father had a pair of horns... there wasn’t any way that Moony was getting past him."

Beside him, near his elbow, Harry heard Ginny take a small, choked breath. He didn’t look at her. He didn’t know what would come of the burn in his chest if he looked at anyone. He let his eyes wander out of the window and rest on the shed, as Sirius continued.

"I don’t know why he’s given that control away. I can’t - pretend to understand it. And you - Ginny, you don’t know what this is going to do to his spirit -" Sirius went quiet. His voice had failed him.

The silence that descended on the room was punctuated only by Ginny’s dry, shallow breathing. Harry tore his eyes from the shed and looked down at the top of Ginny’s head, coppery-bright even though the light outside was nearly gone and no one had bothered to light the lamps. Without knowing why he did it, Harry lifted his hand and placed his fingers softly on the crown of her head. She jumped, slightly, beneath his touch, but didn’t move away. And Harry wasn’t certain, but he thought that her shoulders had relaxed - if only barely.

Ron cleared his throat abruptly. Harry raised his head at once, expecting to see a meaningful glance directed his way, but Ron was pointing to the window, looking grim. "The moon," he said simply, and replaced his arm around Hermione’s shoulders.

Harry felt the gloss of Ginny’s hair disappear from beneath his hand as she leapt to her feet. For a split second, Sirius faced her, his face devoid of color. Then he whirled to the door and bolted through it, leaving it wide open as he ran toward Remus.

Ginny nearly threw herself against the window to watch, and Harry did the same. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hermione lock the door with her wand, then felt her and Ron come up behind him.

Harry squinted into the darkness at his godfather, who disappeared in mid-stride and was replaced by a streak of ebony in the moonlight. Padfoot. The moon itself had pushed partway above the trees and hung there in the black sky, immovable. Harry had a fierce urge to change its position, to black it out with a spell or force it back down and end this now. But there was no stopping the silver light that spilled gracefully across the forest and garden, reflecting gently off the slanted roof of the shed.

"I shouldn’t have done this." Ginny seemed to be speaking more to herself than anyone else; it took Harry a moment to hear what she’d said. Her fingers curled against the glass. "I don’t know what made me do this. I don’t know what I was thinking."

"Ginny..." Hermione put her hand past Harry and touched Ginny’s shoulder. "It’ll be all right."

Ginny shook her head. "Remus is going to get injured," she whispered. "It’s my fault. I have to do something, I want to go out there –" She turned as if to move toward the door, but Harry, Ron and Hermione closed in around her, keeping her near the window. She made a soft sound of protest, but stayed where she was.

Seconds later there was a high-pitched, animal whine.

All four of them went still and listened. In the darkness, Harry could just make out the shape of Padfoot. The enormous black dog nuzzled his nose into a crack of the shed’s door, where he continued to whine fretfully, as if seeking an answer.

"Shouldn’t we hear a... growl, or a howl, or something?" Ron asked, anxiously nudging Hermione.

Harry was about to answer that they wouldn’t hear anything, if the potion had worked properly, but he never got the chance. A very faint, tired whine echoed back to Padfoot from within the shed, and all of them froze.

"He’s transformed," Ginny breathed, breaking the silence first. "He’s a wolf. Oh, Remus..." She flattened her hands against the window and went paler than Harry had ever seen her. "Please," she muttered, to no one in particular.

Padfoot barked, making the four of them jump together, and continued barking in what sounded like a patterned succession. Harry imagined that they must be able to speak to each other, like this, because when Padfoot had finished making noise, Moony returned a quick, low, growling noise through the metal wall.

"What are they –"

"I don’t know, Ron, shhhh."

Padfoot barked again, then chased his tail in a circle once and howled up into the night sky before bounding with shaggy, fluid grace up to the back door. Harry lost sight of him on the stairs, as he neared the side of the house, and an instant later, Sirius had blown the back door wide open, his wand out, his eyes bright and wild and focused entirely on Ginny.

Harry took an instinctive step back, to protect her. He couldn’t tell, from the statement on Sirius’s face, what his godfather was about to do.

But Sirius paid no attention to anything in his way. He came toward them with fierce purpose, reached between Ron and Hermione and around Harry, and took Ginny by her arms. In seconds, he had grabbed her up entirely, lifting her feet clear off the floor. She gasped as if Sirius was squeezing the life out of her, which Harry thought he probably was.

"I’m sorry," Sirius rasped over her shoulder, clutching her to him so hard that it looked painful, keeping his eyes pressed shut. "I’m so sorry, Ginny. You’ve done it."

At those words, Ginny’s body seemed to slump, and she dropped her head on Sirius’s shoulder. He held onto her for a moment longer, then kissed her forehead swiftly, making her give a laugh that sounded more like a gasp of shock. Hastily, he restored her to her feet and, with a joyful bark, he morphed into the dark and massive canine shape that had been Harry’s first glimpse of Sirius Black. He disappeared back into the garden, taking giant leaps toward the shed, where he settled down, barking and whining at intervals, and seeming to shiver with relief whenever Moony answered.

In the midst of the noise and movement, Harry was surprised to feel a hand grip his wrist. He turned to see that Ginny, though standing on her feet, was swaying slightly and using him for support.

"I’m not..." she began, as if to explain herself, but trailed off, apparently lost, and looked around. Hermione and Ron were both staring at her - Hermione with open admiration; Ron gawping. Ginny barely laughed. "I know," she said to her brother, and shook her head, seeming as dazed as he was by her success. "I know. I think I’ll... go to bed."

She let go of Harry’s wrist and attempted to walk to the hallway, but her legs seemed weak, to Harry, and he felt she shouldn’t try the stairs alone. Quickly he caught up to her and took her hand, pulling her arm across his shoulders so that she could rest on him. He reached his own arm across her back to hold her up by the waist. It was slim and soft in his grip, and suddenly it felt quite an intimate place to touch her. He nearly froze from nervousness, especially when it hit him that Ron and Hermione were still in the room, and most certainly watching his attempt at getting Ginny up to bed. To sleep, Harry told himself quickly, irritated to feel himself blushing when nothing had been insinuated at all, by anyone except himself.

Ginny turned her head slightly, shifted her body, and put pressure on his shoulders, for balance. "Thank you," she murmured, and barely caught his eye.

It was only a second, but Harry’s heart leapt in relief. The look she’d given him told him that there was no need to move his hand away. He supported her out of the room and up the stairs without daring to glance back at the looks he knew were on Ron’s and Hermione’s faces. He barely registered the fact that her legs seemed quite steady on the stairs, and that she was hardly holding onto him at all, meaning that she was probably fine to walk without his help. But, as his mind didn’t seem to be working properly, he didn’t think it was a good idea to trust his perception at the moment. He kept hold of her.

The girls’ room was dark and quiet. Someone had left the window open; a cool, humid summer breeze played through the curtains and grazed pleasantly across Harry’s unusually hot face. His cheeks seemed to burn more intensely the closer they got to Ginny’s bed. When they reached it, she slipped her arm off of his shoulders, but he didn’t follow suit. He couldn’t bring himself to let go of her. Not yet.

"Thanks," she said again, her eyes lowered. "I’m okay now, really."

Her voice was oddly thick, and Harry wanted her to lift her face so that he could see it and make sure that she was telling the truth. "You are?" he asked doubtfully.

She nodded. "Mm-hmm," she replied vaguely. "I’m just surprised, you know?" She paused. "And really tired." She smiled a little and raised her eyes, and Harry saw that they were brimming with tears.

"Oh," he said awkwardly, "er..." It was the second or third time he’d seen her like this, in a week, and he couldn’t get used to it. It was one thing when Hermione had an emotional outburst and flew into tears; he was almost used to those moments, though they were rare indeed, and he could laugh at them a little, thinking that Hermione was rather highly-strung. But Ginny was much lower key, and her tears unnerved him. Harry didn’t have anything to give her, and he didn’t know any way to stop them, though he somehow felt he should have known. Helplessly, he met her gaze. Only a few weeks ago, Ginny had put him to bed and given him his nightclothes when he’d returned from ushering the Dementor back to Azkaban. She’d known exactly what to do.

He had no idea.

"What do you... need?" he attempted, feeling very stupid, and wondering again what on earth had ever made her like him. Maybe she didn’t, anymore. Or wouldn’t, after this. She’d just made a Wolfsbane Potion – done something incredible – and here he was, standing here next to her, stuttering like an idiot.

She didn’t answer right away, but did something that was, in Harry’s opinion, altogether better. She briefly rested her head on his shoulder.

Harry shut his eyes, stunned by the sensations that she caused in him with such a simple movement. He hoped she wouldn’t move again, quite yet.

"I don’t need anything," she murmured, sending a bolt of pure electricity through the center of his body as her voice and breath vibrated on his skin. He held tightly to the warmth of her waist – partly because he wanted to keep touching her, and partly because he had to hold onto something in order to keep his footing. "You’ve helped so much." She was beginning to sound drowsy, as if he’d just roused her from sleep to have this conversation. "If you hadn’t written to Bill, I couldn’t’ve done it. You’ve been... such a friend, to me."

Harry was on the verge of admitting that he wanted to be more than a friend, to her, when he felt the weight of her head disappear from his shoulder. Disappointment rushed through him – but was replaced almost instantly by sheer, startled pleasure.

Ginny’s lips were on his cheek.

"Goodnight, Harry." Her whisper stirred the little hairs on the skin of his face, giving him terrible gooseflesh and a painful desire to turn his face the necessary fraction and kiss her fully on the mouth. If her lips felt like this on his skin, he could only imagine what they would feel like, moving against his own. He gathered his courage.

But she was moving now, pulling away from his hand, slipping out of his grasp and crossing to her desk, where she picked up a scroll of parchment that Harry recognized as the contract Remus had signed. Ginny drew her wand and set the parchment on fire in midair, before her. It flared up beautifully in the darkness, lighting her like a flame for a fleeting second before for she twisted her wand once more, sending the fire and ashes away into thin air. She nodded briefly, lay down her wand and withdrew a nightdress from her bureau, then turned and looked at Harry, pajamas in hand, smiling a little. She was obviously waiting for him to leave so that she could change, and Harry knew he should go. However, he was rooted to the spot, watching her, wondering how it was that her hair could shine like that even after the fire was extinguished.

"I promise I’m fine," she said. He didn’t move. "Really, Harry," she insisted, as if concern for her welfare was his reason for continuing to stand there, staring at her. After another long moment in which he couldn’t seem to move his limbs, Harry realized that he had better pretend that it was the reason.

"All right," he said, hoping that his voice sounded normal. "Er... sleep well." He headed for the door, trying to shake the electricity from his brain and make it think properly. It was difficult. Only when he’d left the room and nearly shut the door, did he realize what he ought to be telling her. He turned back in the doorway so quickly that his glasses slid down a bit on his nose.

Ginny stood in the middle of her room, holding her nightdress and watching him questioningly.

"You were amazing," he blurted, feeling his face go red. "I mean it. Congratulations."

Ginny’s eyes widened, and she turned so pink that Harry could see it even in the darkness, but she couldn’t fight the lopsided smile that broke across her face.

They stood there for several seconds, gazing at each other, before Harry came to his senses, bid her goodnight, and shut the door with a shaking hand. He returned downstairs, hardly thinking of anything coherent at all. There was only Ginny, and how close he’d just come to kissing her, and how soon he was going to really kiss her, if he ever got the chance, and how damned brilliant she’d been for the past few weeks.

Past few months, really.

Maybe even the past few –

"She okay?"

Harry jerked out of his stupor and felt his face get hot again as he met Ron’s steady, arch-eyebrowed gaze with his own. "She seemed okay," he managed, furious with his voice for cracking so obviously when it hadn’t done so in years.

Ron’s mouth twitched, and he gave Harry a look so deliberately casual that it wasn’t casual at all. "Glad to hear it," he said evenly. "Going to bed. Hermione’s still in there – " he jerked his thumb at the sunroom "– if you want an Arithmancy lesson. Night."

"Night." Harry went past Ron, still hot in the face, and joined Hermione in the sunroom. She didn’t say a word, or lift her eyes from her book, and he was grateful to her for it. The two of them waited there halfway through the night, watching out the window at the moonlit shed, while Harry’s cheek burned beneath the touch of an absent mouth.

Chapter Fourteen

Plans for Autumn

~*~

A/N: Thank you, JediB, for letting us borrow your Sunseed reference, which you use to such good effect in your awesome "Dreams of Yesterday".

Дата добавления: 2015-11-04