Beautiful World by Lissadiane

part 18

It rained for the next week, and Harry allowed his mood to reflect the weather. He grew quiet and depressed, prone to drifting off in class and staring out the windows at the rain rather than pay attention to the professors. But at least he was attending class, having been made to feel guilty for not attending it by Sirius and Hermione. Dumbledore had also decided that, as part of his punishment for running off to Hogsmeade and smoking on school grounds, he was to be forced to spend an hour talking to Sirius a week.

Funny, before all of this, Harry would have spent every waking hour with Sirius and enjoyed every minute of it.

The rest of his punishment was to be served in a series of three detentions. Draco got the same, three detentions, only instead of being forced into a show-and-tell with Sirius, Dumbledore sent a letter to his father.

For a moment there, after Dumbledore had announced that he would be owling Lucius, Harry had been afraid that Draco was going to faint or cry or something. The other boy had gone deathly pale. All he'd mumbled, however, was a quiet, ‘yes, sir'. Since then, he hadn't so much as glanced at Harry.

It was strange; he'd gotten Draco Malfoy into trouble. Harry supposed he should feel some sort of accomplishment over that, but he didn't. All he felt was desperately lonely.

His first session with Sirius had been, in Harry's eyes, a complete failure. He sat on an armchair in the room Dumbledore had secretly converted to a bedroom for Sirius' use, and Sirius sat on another chair, and they'd stared at each other, played with loose threads on the chair arms, avoided each other eyes, and made stilted conversation.

Harry had never thought about it before, about what it must be like for Sirius. He'd only ever thought that Sirius was sort of like a father to him, or supposed to be. He'd never known how to respond to that, he'd never had a father. Sirius had never had a son, and the more Harry considered this, the more he felt he understood Sirius and how difficult this must be for him. He'd never been a father, Harry had never been a son. It wasn't easy for either of them.

And he certainly wasn't in the mood to make it any easier.

It was only at the end of the hour, when Sirius asked rather desperately, "So how did you and Malfoy become friends?" that Harry showed any interest in the conversation.

"Oh, we're not friends," he said, smirking at the very idea.

"I should hope not. He is Lucius Malfoy's son."

"What's that got to do with anything?"

"Well, nothing, it's just —"

"We're not friends anyway, so forget it."

"What are you then?"

"Blood enemies," Harry replied matter-of-factly.

"Who smoke together on the pier at all hours of the night?"

"Precisely."

"Ah."

"What?"

"Nothing."

Harry studied Sirius suspiciously for a long moment and then noticed the time. "Right. That was an hour. Can I go now?"

Looking defeated, Sirius nodded. "If you ever need to talk —"

"I know. You'll be here. You and everyone else. Just waiting for me to talk. I don't want to talk."

"Then what do you want, Harry?"

It was the same thing Hermione had asked, and Harry thought carefully before replying, "I'll let you know when I've figured that out for myself."