Come Home + Sirius Black

six: padfoot

Ever since it was revealed that Sirius had broken out of Azkaban, it felt like Charlie was slowly losing it. Every black dog she passed on the street made her do a double take. She doubted that she would have been able to recognize him if he really had appeared in front of her. She only saw him in his animagus form a few times, and that had been years ago now. But sometimes as she looked again, the big black dog she had seen merely seconds ago would disappear.

It did not help that her colleagues were now looking at her with scorn. Many of them attended Hogwarts around the same time she did, and it was well-known among them that she and Sirius had been close friends in the time leading up to the Potters' murder. But as there was no proof that she had any involvement, she was never formally questioned about his whereabouts. Though she was being watched closely all the same.

She was glad that Harry had been staying with her until he was due to return to Hogwarts. It simply felt easier to deal with when she had one more person in her home, though she felt it a little silly that she was relying on the kid when it ought to have been the other way around.

Their short time together was coming to an end very quickly, and before she knew it, Harry was due back on the Hogwarts Express. And though she had been on edge, dealing both with the scrutiny of her colleagues, and the sighting of vaguely familiar black dogs wherever she went, she did her best to not let her worries show. The last thing she wanted was to worry her godson; the mere knowledge that the man who had sold out his parents to Voldemort was on the lose again was already more of a burden than she wanted to put on him. So she tried to carry on the past week as normal, letting Harry join his friends in Diagon Alley when they invited him (with supervision, of course), and even hosting Ron and Hermione for dinner one night.

She always hated parting with Harry, but she knew — despite his affinity for getting into trouble — that he would likely be safer at Hogwarts under the watch of Dumbledore. Not only that, but with Remus taking on the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, she knew that he wouldn't let anything happen to Harry. She knew all this, and yet, she was filled with dread, as if she knew that something was going to go wrong.

Charlotte didn't discover what was responsible for her dread until the night before Harry was supposed to leave, well past midnight when he was already fast asleep in his room.

The design of her kitchen made it so that her back was faced to the rest of the room, and the entirety of the open living room next to it, whenever she was either cooking or washing the dishes. It didn't normally bother her, nor did being in the dark alone did, but that entire night she felt as if she was being watched. Though she tried to shake it off and ignore it, she was determined to finish the rest of her chores and head straight to bed. But as she turned away from the sink with a towel in her hand to dry her hands, having just finished the dishes, there was a man standing in the middle of her living room, staring right at her.

She gasped, backing up to create as much distance between her and the man as possible, until her behind hit the counter.

Charlotte didn't have her wand. She had left it on the couch, right next to where the man was standing. For a split second, she wondered if this was how James and Lily felt mere minutes before they died. She knew that they had died without their wands; they had been nowhere near where their bodies were found. The only thing she thought to do was to reach for one of the knives that sat in its block on the counter next to the sink, though she knew that it was a pathetic line of defense.

It was Sirius that stood in front of her. She recognized him immediately, though he looked nothing like the Sirius she knew. He had lost even more weight in between now and whenever that photo used in the Prophet was taken. His hair was past his shoulders, and his beard was scruffy and unkempt. He might as well have been dressed in rags, considering how tattered his clothes were. She didn't think she's seen anyone in such an awful state, but still, she recognized him.