Sanctuary

Chapter 97

Sunday, 17th June 1973

As he climbed the stairs back up to his bedroom after breakfast, Sirius wondered if staying up all night to read the occlumency book-on top of getting so little sleep the night before-had been such a good idea. He'd only made it about halfway through, and he was exhausted, which wouldn't help him protect his mind from his father's invasion. On the plus side, it turned out that occlumency was very similar to the meditation technique Remus had taught him, and the defences he'd already built in his mind were quite strong so, despite the exhaustion, he was feeling a decent amount of confidence that he might actually be able to pull this off and protect Remus' secret.

When he reached his bedroom, he checked his notebook first. After the meeting with his father the previous evening, he'd had a long conversation with Regulus-in his newly decorated bedroom, which Sirius was not a fan of-that consisted of a lot of ranting, more than a few tears, and ended with a hug. So, Sirius hadn't had time to make a visit to Remus to remedy the lack of a goodbye kiss situation, but they had been writing to each other a lot.

It wasn't quite eight o'clock, though, and Remus had stayed up late the night before, so Sirius wasn't surprised to find there were no new messages from him. Grabbing a quill from his desk, he wrote a quick message to him, and a second one on the whole group page, before hiding the book back under his mattress and heading for the passage to the training room that he was certain had not existed before yesterday. The entrance was through an archway that appeared in his bedroom wall beside the door to his bathroom whenever he walked up to it. There was no password or anything. He just walked up to the wall, and it appeared. And he couldn't believe that he'd lived in that room for thirteen years and never found it, so it must be new. Or maybe it was keyed to not open until he turned thirteen. Regardless of what the actual reason was, it definitely wasn't through any deficiency on his part.

His Father was waiting for him when he reached the other end of the passage, leaning against the wall and twiddling his wand between his fingers absently, looking thoroughly relaxed, but he raised his head at the sound of Sirius' approach and checked his watch. 'One minute late. It's truly remarkable how you manage to push boundaries in everything you do.'

Sirius smiled. 'It's a skill.'

'One you excel at,' Orion said, smiling back as he pushed himself away from the wall and walked towards him. 'Let's hope you prove equally proficient at occlumency. Did you read the first chapter?'

'I read the first fourteen,' Sirius replied. 'And I believe you may have your work cut out for you.'

Orion's smile grew into a grin and he chuckled, drawing his wand. 'What do you have to hide that would motivate you to go to such efforts, I wonder?'

'Why don't you try to find out?' Sirius waggled his eyebrows as he drew his own wand. 'If you think you can.'

Instead of replying, Orion pointed his wand at him with a smirk and whispered, 'Legilimens.'

In a similar way to the spell they'd created for controlling Moony, Sirius felt himself separate into two beings, his external self still stood in the training room while internally, he became aware of his subconscious self running down Hogwarts' Grand Staircase as a warning bell rang through the building. When he reached the Entrance Hall, he exited through the double doors and continued running across the grounds until he reached the gates, finding Orion standing on the other side of them.

'Hogwarts?' he asked with a raised eyebrow.

Sirius shrugged. 'It's the place I feel safest.'

'You built all this last night?'

'I know Hogwarts well,' Sirius said non-committally.

'Well, let's see how right you are about that,' Orion said, pointing his wand at the gates. 'Alohomora.' There was a click and, to Sirius' dismay, the gates swung open. 'Hmm, I doubt Hogwarts' gates would open so easily.'