He finds the boy at last, seated with his legs crossed on the carpet floor, with the book Hogwarts, A History pushed to the front of his face while five others are strewn around him. There’s a muffled muttering coming from within the pages, and Severus has half a mind to shout at him for sneaking off.

As it was, he yanks the scruff of the boy’s shirt back and practically drags him to a more secluded section of the book shop where they were less likely to be seen by prying eyes. He’s on his feet now, which is an improvement, but he’s still got that damn book in his hands with a finger inserted between the pages as a pseudo bookmark.

“You will not leave my sight again,” he warns lowly, voice velvet soft. “Must I remind you to stay with me like an insolent child unable to comprehend simple instructions? Or do I have to hold your hand?!”

“I wouldn’t actually mind that, if you’re offering, y'know.”

“Potter!”

The boy brings his hands up in the air as the universal sign of backing down, “Okay!” He shuffles back, away from Severus, absently folding one of the upper corners of the page he has marked down before shifting his eyes to the ground. “Sorry.”

Severus tells himself that it isn’t regret that’s pulling at his heart; he’s spent years, even through childhood, fortifying walls upon various types of barriers around it. Lily may have melted her way through to him way back then, but those were times best long forgotten.

(He remembers being eleven and looking at the world through inked lenses, seeing only black and grey, bad and worse, and never at what could have possibly been something good, something worthy of calling a memory. To be young but experienced in some aspects and none; where memories were tainted with self-loathing and fear.)

(Then came Lily, all roses and colour; colours so vibrant and new, redefining his world in ways he never thought possible before snatching that all back— gone.)

And despite what most of the Hogwarts population thought of him, Severus wasn’t emotionless, he was human.

So he did the next best thing: took his feelings and shoved them down so far they may have been lost forever.

---

Be strong. Be fierce. Life is more than a small cage.

That is what the animals here say, from the slithering reptiles with the shiny scales, to the hairy creatures that scratch against the metallic wires that keep them prisoners from their ever-craving freedom into the open world.

It is loud and it always reeks of so-many-too-many smells inside this cluttered building that holds all of them. The owl hates it hates it hates it. She tries and tries to stretch her wings far and wide, but the cage restricts them and it makes her wings curl and bend and hurt.

Be strong. Be fierce. Life is more—

The bell that hangs above the door (her escape, their escape, all of them) blares, only adding fuel to the fire of whispers and whimpers from the others. But it isn’t the sound that draws her away from gawking out through the window, it isn’t the quiet chittering of take me, take me, take me please that comes from the fat rat residing in the cage highest to the wall (it’s nearly his time to be thrown to the bin because he is too old, too invisible to the long-legs that enter and leave with one of them).

It is the smell of— of old things and treats and, and—

She turns in her cage to face the opened wires, to face the source of what’s making her feel all jittery with hope and love and—

Harry.

It is a single word that comes unbidden to her mind, a word— a name.

Wild, emerald eyes that are as green as the leaves from the pine trees she remembers once venturing through meet her own large golden ones. They hold light and so much love in them, a love that is so so so powerful that it’s too hard to let go of once you have it in your hands.

He offers out his scrawny little stick-like limb to her, and she lunges, claws sinking as gently as she can manage into the cloth of his feathers. She thinks it’s his feathers, at least. There’s no hurt in his eyes when she looks back at him though, so she takes it that he’s fine.

Be strong. Be fierce.

His eyes make those words all the more significant, but there’s a definitive promise in them that makes her heart — is that what it is? — soar like she’s a newborn all over again.

His touch reminds her of the beak of her mother’s preening back her feathers, with nubbling nuzzles, with soft cuddles. She leans into the stick of his finger, leans into the warmth his body seems to radiate as though he’s lavishing her with gifts that keep on giving.

There’s another long-leg creature that’s standing over this boy— her boy — just over his shoulder. He’s tall and reminds her of dark nights and starry skies, and he looks mean, but smells nice.

Do you really require an owl, Potter?

Her boy doesn’t look back at the other long-leg creature behind him, but he does show his teeth, shiny and happy.

What I require doesn’t really matter here, sir. She’s looking for a family, just like the rest of these animals. And I can offer that. I can offer to make her a part of my family, can’t I?

He strokes the top of her head softly, carefully. The long-leg creature that imitates the dark of night gives a tired sort of sigh.

All right.

Thank you, Professor.

Her boy looks back at her, grin wider and eyes all but full of unadulterated joy that she can’t help but find herself cherishing the expression.

Hello, Hedwig.

She straightens at the name, and the way her heart roars throughout her body makes her shuffle closer along the arm that holds her. It’s something fulfilling, something that makes her feel so utterly complete to hear. She wants to hear him say it again.

Oh? Hedwig? You like that? Yes, hello. Hi. Oh, you haven’t changed at all.

She nips at his fingers affectionately, barely taking notice of the long-leg creature of starry nights that’s talking with the other one standing behind a counter.

Be strong. Be fierce. Life is more than a small cage.

---

The scent in the air is strong but vague. Remus knows nothing of the reason for why his senses have been going haywire for the past three days; the full moon has passed and he knows that he’s more than capable of mustering enough strength to build himself back up together again.

(He isn’t a small pup anymore, no longer fearful. Just worn-down and so, so tired. The thought of the next full moon makes the bones in his body ache, the muscles under his skin tense.)

Dumbledore’s requested his presence at Hogwarts, most likely the first time in— in— Merlin. He can’t even remember the last time he was able to just sit down and relax with someone. But there’s something else that’s telling him that the Headmaster’s invitation is about something more. And while he doesn’t think that he could possibly handle anything more, he’s curious enough to throw himself into it.

For tea, the letter that one of the Hogwarts school owls had delivered him had said, the script looped in a long-practised manner. Remus knew that it was anything but.

He sniffs the air, the tip of what would have been his snout under the full-force of moonlight tilted up to the sky. And there it is again.

It smells of old things and decay.

But he opens his eyes and all he sees is the starry night sky that looms above.

---

He stares long and hard at the ceiling above him, scratching bloodied nails along the wall beside him, clenched teeth chattering amongst the coldness of the atmosphere. Whimpers and frenzied cackles from the other inmates overwhelm his hearing, whispers that threaten to eat at the edges of his soul crawling into his ears from the creatures of darkness that saunter aimlessly through the air.

There’s a loud clanging noise where someone’s banging their head against the bars, no doubt coming from one of the more freshly picked idiots that had just gotten dropped into their cell.

Sirius almost laughs— no wait.

He does laugh.

It’s a stupid thing to do; but it’s a thing that almost everyone here has at least attempted once to do, if only to stave off the feeling of cold hands latch onto the last embers of being they have left inside them. But the only thing that it promises is a faster way to disintegrate yourself to ashes, as many have found out by witnessing it being carried out in front of them.

The Dementors — the fucking demons — have been more frenetic as of late, some coming in packs of unwavering floods of terrors that had more than a few inmates dropping dead like flies from too much stress on their bodies. Even Bellatrix had cowered into the corner of her cell, snarling and crying when she watched them ravage the corpses and wander too close into what was pathetically her safe haven.

The bars and magic barriers kept them inside, but it allowed any and all other parties free reign to invade their cells.

He can’t remember what year it is, how long it’s been.

He looks down at his hands, wondering, so very briefly with what little warmth that he still has buried deep inside him, how old Little Harry would be now. Would his small head still fit the palm of his hand? Where was he? Was he—

Sirius clutches the sides of his head and recoils when a pale, grey-ish hand ghosts across the front of his face, turning sharply and curling into himself on the ground.

“GET HIM! GET HIM!”

He’d rip Bella’s throat out the first chance he got when — if — he got out of this hell hole. The hands retreat, thank Merlin, and they melt back into the walls, away from him. He releases a breath he didn’t know he was holding and trembles, biting down on the inside of his cheek hard enough for him to taste copper slipping down his throat.

He’ll get out, one day. Soon.

He won’t let those demons get a hold of the last vestiges of hope he has yet to relinquish, he won’t let them. They’re his and not theirs, never. Never. And he’ll keep trying, he’ll keep living, even if it takes him another decade, another two, another three—

(“I love you, you know that, right? Your Uncle Padfoot loves you so, so much!”)

He’ll live to see his little Prongslet again.