Stockholm Syndrome

Safety

Chapter 3: Safety 

When they arrived, Sirius was sitting at the kitchen table, his face a curious mixture of worry, relief, and anger.

"Where have you been?" he shouted. "I've been waiting here for two hours! I was about to go looking for you!" Ginny, still shaken from the events of the evening, shrunk back from his furious countenance. Unconsciously, she moved behind Harry for protection.

"She got away," Harry replied shortly. "She managed to get lost in a nasty neighborhood, and was cornered by a bunch of teenagers."

Sirius' angry expression gave way to one of concern. "Are you alright?" he asked Ginny kindly.

She stayed behind Harry, watching him warily, and making no answer. Harry answered for her, "I think she's okay, just a little shaken up. I'm going to take her to her room and let her lie down for a while. I'll be back down to talk to you later."

Sirius nodded, and Harry gently led her from the room by the hand. His godfather's voice stopped them at the door.

"So you got away from him, then?"

Ginny turned to look at him, and nodded slowly, apprehensively, perhaps expecting some sort of punishment, or at least some shouting.

Sirius just shook his head ruefully, and laughed. "Unbelievable." He grinned widely at his godson, and joked, "Slacking off? Distracted by our pretty guest no doubt."

Both of the teens blushed furiously and left the room in a hurry. Sirius' gleeful cackles followed them all the way upstairs.

Harry led the way up the stairs, cursing his godfather inwardly. He avoided meeting Ginny's eyes until they reached the room set aside for her.

Entering, he finally looked up at her, to find her watching him with an expression he couldn't quite identify on her face. When she saw him look at her, she blushed and looked away.

"Well," he started, a little flustered. "You can just rest for a while, I'm sure you're tired. It's been a long day, and you walked a long way at a very fast pace."

She did indeed look very tired, her eyes drooping dangerously low. She sat slowly down on the edge of the bed, nodding gratefully. He turned to leave, but her hand on his arm and voice in his ear stopped him.

"Wait," she said.He turned back expectantly. She looked uncertain for some reason. She was biting her lower lip nervously. "He's not angry with me," she said. She sounded confused.

"No," Harry agreed, "He's not."

"And you're not either," it was half a question.

"No, I'm not," he answered. He chuckled lightly, shaking his head again in amazement. "We fully expected you to try to escape. In fact, I daresay we should have been disappointed if you hadn't. We just didn't expect you to actually succeed." His tone turned a little more stern and accusatory. "I did warn you about the muggle world, though. You were lucky tonight."

She hung her head a moment, and then looked back up at him in wonder and a little bit of awe. "That was amazing, I've never seen anything like it. You saved my life, you know."

He blushed a little bit, muttering that it was nothing."No, it wasn't," she insisted.

He shrugged embarrassedly, and mumbled, "Perhaps." Before turning to go, he said, "I'll bring some dinner up later if you'd like." He paused, waiting for an answer. She shrugged and said, "Sure."

Satisfied, he turned to leave, but her voice stopped him once more.

"Harry?"

He paused, startled, and faced her. She had never called him by his first name, or any name for that matter, before.