The summer after third year was one of those summers that started out bad but ended up being mostly bearable. At the start, Uncle Vernon had still been pissed because of the accident with Aunt Marge the year before. For the first week of Harry’s summer vacation, his uncle had taken his anger out on him on a mostly daily bases. He locked Harry in his room as soon as they got home, but came back an hour later to yell at Harry. For some reason Harry’s room wasn’t locked again but it might as well have been.

After the warning two years ago, and their run-in with the ministry officials last year, none of them were really afraid of magic anymore. Or, to be more precise, they weren’t afraid of Harry preforming any magic. Which meant that leaving the room was equivalent to being yelled at and pushed around, or summarily ignored if he wasn’t close enough for the earlier options. Staying in his room voluntarily seemed the better option.

That was until a little over a week after Harry had returned to Privet Drive. Dudley had been out all day, probably tormenting the children in the neighbourhood as per usual, when he returned home in a snit. Harry hadn’t seen him come home and thus, had no idea why Dudley was mad. He didn’t really care though, Harry’s cousin got mad over the silliest thing and Harry assumed one of his victims must have been able to escape.

During dinner that evening, Dudley told his mum that he thought they should eat dog meat. Aunt Petunia had sputtered in protest but only until Dudley told her why. Apparently, he had been followed by some mutt all day long. Dudley, being the whale that he was, had tried to discourage the dog from following him but had not been successful. Instead of leaving, the dog had grabbed onto his leg and wrestled with it until Dudley stopped trying to kick him. To add insult to injury, the dog had followed and jumped on him every time Dudley and his friends found another victim for their little games.

Harry had thought it absolutely hilarious that Dudley had been kept from bullying by a dog. After everything he’d gone through with Ripper, it seemed like a good start to getting back at Dudley. Except that Dudley said the dog had intervened when they were teasing a little girl from down the street. When Dudley said teasing, what he meant was that he’d been calling the girl mean names. If he had attacked the child, Harry could understand why the dog would intervene. But Dudley hadn’t said anything about roughhousing, as he called it, only teasing. How could a stray dog now that they hadn’t just been having fun.

It was that thought that had Harry going outside to check if the dog was still there. He hadn’t really thought anything weird was going on but figured it couldn’t hurt to check things out. He’d never expected to see the big black dog sitting on the driveway. Waving to the dog to stay silent and get his ass inside the house, Harry followed and tiptoed back to Dudley’s second room.

Ones inside, Harry closed the door and glared at his godfather. Who jumped on Harry’s bed and turned onto his human form with a grin. “Hi squirt, how are you doing?”

Harry shook his head in exasperation but went to hug Sirius before he admonished him for his idiocy. It wasn’t that he wasn’t glad to see his godfather, it was just that he couldn’t even think of what would happen if his aunt or uncle found a wanted criminal in their home.

Sirius however did not seem to be overly concerned. Instead of answering any of Harry’s questions, Sirius started rummaging through Harry’s trunk. Taking out the invisibility cloak, he grinned at it and sat down on the floor. With one last glance at Harry, he told him to go to sleep and disappeared underneath the cloak.

Harry tried to talk to his godfather for a while but after being ignored for over an hour, he gave up and laid down on his bed. It took longer than normal to fall asleep, having somebody you couldn’t see in the room would do that, but he managed to have a decent night eventually.

The next morning, Harry woke up feeling anxious. His aunt was yelling at him to get up and make breakfast. Sitting up, he was slightly shaken seeing Sirius sitting next to the bed in his dog form. He was looking at Harry with his head cocked, eyes looking rather worried. Sighing, Harry threw the cloak over the dog and told him to stay hidden. Dressing as quickly as he could, he went downstairs to cook breakfast.

Not much later, Harry was sitting down to eat breakfast as he listened to his aunt trying to get Dudley to talk to her. Uncle Vernon was reading the paper and drinking his coffee, while glaring at Harry every so often. Everything seemed to point to another normal and quiet day. But then there was a noise from upstairs, a door opening, and everything changed.

Harry heard his godfather coming down the stairs, the nails of his paws scratching the carpet. Holding his breath, he waited for his uncle to notice. It didn’t take long, and the result wasn’t pleasant. Uncle Vernon got up and stormed to the hall, where he started to yell vulgar insults almost immediately.

Aunt Petunia and Dudley had gotten up to see what was going on while Harry was still frozen on his chair. Shaking himself out of it, he followed and was just in time to see the dog shift and Sirius appear. In comparison with Uncle Vernon, Harry’s godfather looked skinny and extremely scruffy, hardly a treat. But Sirius had been all over the news last year and being on the run had not helped him look any less creepy.

All three of the Dursleys sucked in a shocked breath and stumbled backwards in fright. Aunt Petunia didn’t move as fast as the other two, causing Dudley to bump into his mother and fall backwards. Which led to Harry’s aunt being pushed down to the floor, putting her in a prime position to become a stumbling block for Uncle Vernon. Harry’s uncle waved his arms a few times, trying to remain standing, but was soon overpower by the laws of gravity.

As they were laying there, scrambling to get up and cursing harry, Sirius as well as each other, Harry burst out laughing. The sight was simply too funny. Even knowing the consequences he would later face, he couldn’t stop himself.

When they finally got up, Vernon went to stand in front of his wife and son and glared at Sirius. Strangely enough though, he didn’t bellow at him.

Sirius ignored the three as he walked into the kitchen and sat down in Vernon’s spot. Harry was still chuckling softly as his sat back down and continued eating. Inwardly, he was squirming at the punishment that was sure to follow this little episode. Sirius didn’t seem to notice his turmoil though. He happily munched away at Uncle Vernon’s eggs and bacon before he asked, with a rather mischievous smile on his face “What is there to do for fun in this place?”

Uncle Vernon started sputtering but didn’t seem capable of uttering any real words. Dudley however, had scrambled just enough courage together to ask “Are y..you g..go..going t..t..to k..kill us?”

Sirius gave him a gimlet stare, one that made Dudley shrink into himself. “Maybe. Are you going to touch my godson ever again?”

Aunt Petunia looked from Sirius to Harry a few times, then asked “G..godson?”

“Yes, godson. Now, answer the question. Are any of you planning to put your hands on him again?”

Aunt Petunia and Dudley shook their heads quickly, but Uncle Vernon just grumbled something neither of the wizard heard, or wanted to hear. Sirius glared at him, which made Vernon wither and follow his wife and son’s example.

Sirius nodded in satisfaction and turned back to Harry with a beatific smile “So, what are we going to do today?”

Blinking a few times, Harry shook his head “You can’t stay here. You have to go back into hiding. Imagine what would happen if they find you.”

“Harry, please. I’m not going to run around looking like this, I’m not stupid. I just thought you might like to hang out for a day. You know, we could go to the park or something. I’ll even play fetch with you if you want..” Harry was sure Sirius would have been wagging his tail if he’d been in dog form at that moment. He looked so excited at the idea of spending a day with Harry.

If Harry was being truthful, he was rather excited at the prospect as well. So, even though he was still doubting the safety of the idea, Harry nodded in agreement. “Fine, we’ll go to the park. But after dinner, you have to go back into hiding and stay there.”

Vernon tried to protest the dinner invitation while Petunia did her best to remember Harry of the hours of chores waiting for him. One look from Sirius, shut both of them up quite effectively.

After Harry had cleared the table, while Sirius told him to leave it for his relatives to clean up, his godfather turned into the grim-like dog and they left the house. As there was no park anywhere near Privet Drive, they went to the playground around the block. They stayed there for several hours as Sirius bounced around making Harry laugh.

Harry had never really considered dog being fun, after Ripper he’d learned to stay away from them, but playing with Snuffels, as Sirius had told him to call him outside of the house, was the most fun he’d ever had while staying with the Dursleys. It was almost as relaxing as flying on a broom.

As they did not possess anything to play fetch with, Sirius ran around the playground and jumped on and of the different structures. Harry had a good laugh as Sirius tried to use the swing but kept falling back on his butt.

They played a few games of tag, until Harry climbed up a tree and made it impossible for Sirius to catch him. The game of hide and seek ended after only a few minutes, as playing against Sirius’ nose turned out to be no fun at all.

As the sun began to go down, Harry was sitting on the swing while Snuffels was laying in the sand in front of him. He’d been talking to his godfather for almost an hour now and was starting to come up empty on subjects. It wasn’t that there wasn’t anything to talk about, it was just that Harry really wanted Sirius to be able to answer.

Sirius chased Harry back home and they arrived just before the streetlamps were lit. He’d half expected the Dursleys to have locked him out and was pleasantly surprised when the front door opened with ease. The Dursleys had already eaten and had thrown the left overs away, most likely out of spite. So Harry made sandwiches for the two of them and went upstairs to eat in peace.

Sirius stayed only for an hour longer but promised Harry to keep in touch, and made Harry promise to do the same. Sirius had given the Dursleys one last warning to treath Harry better or else before they had said a teary goodbye -well Sirius was teary, Harry hadn’t cried since he was a child- and Snuffels had ran out the door and down the street.

The rest of Harry’s time at the Dursleys was about the same as it had been at the start of last summer. Harry did his chores without complaining and in return, he got at least one decent meal a day and was left alone most of the time.

There had been a small squabble when the letter from the Weasleys had arrived, but it hadn’t let to anything more than a bit of bellowing from uncle Vernon and screeching from aunt Petunia. Harry was just glad Sirius’ visit turned out to have a positive effect on the Dursleys, even if it was only temporary.