"Hey, hey come on," urged a gentle voice.  "Slowly does it Harry.  Take your time, I've got you."

The voice sounded so familiar and a warm hand was pressed firmly against his own as he struggled to open his eyes.

"That's it.  Welcome back to the real world Harry."

Harry felt something cold and metallic being carefully placed across the bridge of his nose and his eyes focused on the concerned but seemingly relieved face of his Godfather.

"Sirius!" he croaked.

"Shhh," Sirius ordered gently as he reached a hand towards his Godson. 

Harry flinched away on instinct and immediately regretted his uncontrolled action at the sight of his Godfather's confused and slightly hurt expression. 

Why did he do that?  Sirius wasn't going to hurt him.

"Are you alright Harry?" asked the dark haired man, worry showing clearly in every inch of his once handsome face.

"W-wh," stuttered Harry.  "W-where am I?"

"It's okay," Sirius was quick to assure him.  "You're safe.  Dumbledore and Remus found you out in the middle of nowhere and brought you back here.  No-one is going to hurt you now Harry."

There was a hard undertone in that last sentence and Harry felt himself relax slightly from the tension that he had not realised that he was feeling. 

‘The middle of nowhere?' he thought to himself.  ‘The woodland!  But how? When? And - and - what about...  What about the Death Eaters and those ‘other' people???  Or-or the Chimera! Does Sirius know!?!  Does everyone know??  What happened to me?  Why did I - why did I... ‘change' like that!?!? And what about- what about Snape?  Snape!  He was there too!  What happened to him???'

The boy jumped at the sensation of a warm weight coming to rest on his shoulder and was pulled out from his downward spiral of ‘what if's' and ‘whys'.  He retreated backwards in to his pillow away from the touch before he realised that the pressure was coming from Sirius's hand again.

"Harry? It's okay, you're safe.  You're safe here," spoke the gentle voice of his Godfather again. 

He offered the boy a glass of cool water but the young Gryffindor just turned his head further away. 

"Harry?  Harry, please look at me."

Harry did his best and it took an incredible amount of effort to lift his head upwards in order to raise his gaze.  Far more effort than it ever should have done to simply look at his own Godfather.  Despite telling himself this however, Harry found that when he had finally managed to do as he had been asked he could not hold eye contact with the man trying to comfort him for more than a milli-second or so.

He felt his cheeks burn with embarrassment and frustration but all he could do was sit and desperately fight the strong urge to run away and hide.

At length he heard an unsettled sigh sound above his head. 

"Do you need anything, Harry?  An extra blanket?   Something to eat?"

Without much thought about the answer Harry shook his head in the negative without once looking up or making a sound.

"Alright...  Well, just, try and get some sleep okay?  I'll come back later and to see if you need anything then," relented Sirius.  He reached out a hand to pat the boy reassuringly on the shoulder again but thought better of it and withdrew the hand as he stood up instead. 

Unable to think of anything else to say to the boy and understanding that he was silently wishing to be left alone he reluctantly made his way to the door, pausing to straighten a few bits of furniture and decorative items unnecessarily along the way. 

When he finally did reach the door he turned around and looked back once more in the hope that a timid voice would call him back into the room for support or reassurance but when none was heard he slowly and quietly closed the door and headed quietly down the dusty old staircase towards the kitchen.

 ---

"Anything?"

The question was directed to him before he had even managed to sit down.  He looked wearily over to his friend and shrugged his shoulders sadly.

"He's awake," he answered and the werewolf's brow furrowed at the lack of enthusiasm in his old friend's voice.

"Is he alright?"

Sirius sat himself down at the table were Remus and the Headmaster were already seated.  He placed his head in his hands and looked thoughtfully at the heavy oak table before him.

"He wouldn't say..." he spoke finally.  "In fact, he wouldn't even look at me..."

"He's probably just very tired," suggested Remus.  "He has been through an awful lot in such a short amount of time Sirius."

"What if he hates me?" Sirius asked, more to himself than anyone else in the room.  "I failed him when he needed me the most and I haven't been there for him when I should have been."

"Harry does not hate you," spoke the werewolf with certainty.  "He knows that you would do anything to protect him."

"But I didn't!" Sirius broke in.  "He was right there in front of me and I couldn't do anything to reach him!  He saw me!  He looked right at me and I couldn't even open the stupid door that kept me from him!"

"That is quite enough, Sirius," the Headmaster finally spoke up and both men turned their heads to face him.  "There was absolutely nothing any of us could do to break down that barrier in time to reach Harry and you know better than any of us that we tried." 

In fact, the frantic black dog had tried everything from bombarding the solid door with his strongest magic to actually trying to bite and scratch his way through!

"As for finding him afterwards I am certain that you would have searched without resting had I given you the opportunity to do so and that is one of the reasons why I did not give you that opportunity."

"I should have stayed with him that night . . ." Sirius argued.  "I could have-"

"You were needed else were at that time," the Headmaster pressed.  "It is now  that Harry needs you."

"He doesn't even want to look at me," sighed Sirius.

"Are you giving up?" asked Dumbledore knowing fully well what the reaction would be.

"Of course not!"

"Then I suggest that you calm yourself and get some rest.  I believe that it will be some time before Harry can start to heal himself and while sitting with him without food or sleep is a noble endeavour, it will be neither helpful nor fair to neither you nor Harry in the long run."

Sirius sighed and nodded his head in understanding.  It wasn't that he had forgiven himself for failing Harry but the Headmaster was right.  If he made himself sick with worry then he wouldn't be fit to help Harry when he needed him.  That is, if he ever needed him.

"What do you mean?"

The question caught him off guard and he looked up to see Remus staring suspiciously at the Headmaster.

"What do you mean ‘heal himself'," the werewolf clarified.

Dumbledore released his own sombre sigh and looked sadly down at the kitchen table. 

"Harry has suffered a great deal at the hands of these muggle scientists, and over a good length of time.  We then have to consider that he has recently witnessed the death of one of his classmates and the rise of Lord Voldemort.  He has been chained up and goodness knows what else before being forcibly transformed into a horrendous beast and hunted down by muggles and Death Eaters alike who have intended to do him nothing but further harm. . ." 

The Headmaster straightened his half-moon spectacles and looked up at the two wizards.  "I would be greatly surprised if the boy comes bounding down the stairs any time soon and sits comfortably in a room full of people.  Particularly if all the attention is on him."

Silence filled the room for a good long while before Sirius finally spoke up.

"I will hunt them down and make everyone of them suffer for this," he spat darkly.

Remus smiled weakly at his friend.  "Don't do anything rash Padfoot."  Then turning back towards the Headmaster he added, "I assume that is why you haven't had anyone stay at Headquarters for the last few weeks?  I know that Ron and Hermione are anxious to see him."

The Headmaster smiled weakly back.  "That is precisely why Remus.  Too much attention could scare the boy and only serve to damage him further.  I have indeed received a number of rather large and demanding letters from Miss Granger and many rather shorter, but by no means less urgent, letters from Mr Weasley that have told me in no uncertain terms that they wish to see him as soon as possible.  I think that moderation and gentle reassurance are what the boy needs right now however.  Take care of him Sirius."

The aged wizard stood up and made to leave the room. 

"And Snape?"

Dumbledore turned to respond but Sirius cut in first.

"What about him?" he demanded.

"How is he?" asked Remus, by no means deterred.

"Better," answered the Headmaster after a moment's hesitation.  "He's-"

To this even Sirius raised his head in interest.

"Well.  I am sure that he will be back to his old self soon," finished the Headmaster.

"Goodie," mocked Sirius.

Remus raised a brow at the Headmaster's response but said nothing.

"Good day gentlemen," bid Dumbledore as he left the room and then the house itself. 

Neither men left in the kitchen had any idea about where it was that he was going but both had learned that there was never much point in asking.

"Get some sleep," suggested Remus again.  "I'll keep an eye and an ear out for Harry and let you know if anything happens."

With some reluctance Sirius agreed and slowly made his way upstairs into his own room.  Remus was sure that he had only given in at all because he had promised to watch over Harry himself and because the black haired wizard was practically falling asleep on his feet.

When he was alone and the room was once again filled with silence he sat back in his seat and allowed his thoughts to roam.

It had been a fortnight since both Harry and Snape had been found half dead in a large woodland bordering the small, muggle village called Longleat.  Remus could only assume that when Snape had apparated both himself and Harry out of the battlefield that the Potions Master had instinctively concentrated on getting them as close to Hogwarts as possible. 

As it was, something- something had gone wrong.  The two had ended up too far West and too far South.  Nowhere near Hogwarts actually.  It was likely that the ‘Chimera,' he thought with a disgusted sneer, was far too heavy to be carried such a distance.

Whatever might have happened during the days the two were lost was a mystery to everyone but the two in question.  As a result all that mattered to him right now was that Harry recovered and Sirius stopped worrying.  It was almost painful to watch them both struggling with their own forms of grief and suffering and know that there was very little he could do to change any of it.

The werewolf sighed and raised his cup to his lips.  It worried him that Harry was so quick to reject Sirius's company. . .  From the boy's letters it was apparent that he loved his Godfather dearly and it didn't fit with reason that the boy would turn away from him now.

‘Poor Harry.' He thought grimly.  He knew all too well how it felt to lose yourself to a savage beast.  Knew all too well the pains of a forced transformation and the desperate fears one felt when they finally regained their human mind and wondered how many people you may have harmed or even killed this time. . .

Those monsters!  Being bitten by a werewolf was one thing. A mindless beast that the unwilling human has no hope of controlling but to do such a thing with knowing??? 

Those ‘people' knew exactly what it was that they were doing to the boy and while his manner was rather more subtle than his old friends, he too felt the burning rage and hatred deep within himself.  They would be stopped!

  ----hp----

He was tired.

He felt much better than he had done in the woods.  His stomach ached and his throat felt dry but no longer scratchy or sore.  His head thumped slightly but that was nothing compared to the heavy pounding he remembered beating against his skull.

He was just tired . . .  so very, very tired . . .

Yet he couldn't sleep.  The fear and anxiety were suffocating him and making it impossible to relax.

Harry had not moved an inch since his Godfather had left the room.  He pulled the sheets tightly around himself and shook uncontrollably. 

Part of him wished that he had let Sirius stay - wished that the man would have sat with him until he had fallen back to sleep but another part of him was glad that he was gone - glad that he was alone to try and gather his thoughts without having the distraction of someone fussing over him.

He felt bad at that thought.  Sirius always looked out for him.  Heck!  The man even went to Azkaban for twelve years for his family!  But he couldn't face him.  The simple thought of having anyone near him was terrifying!

What if he ‘transformed' again??  What if he couldn't stop the creature that resided within him from hurting one of his friends?  What if those people came back for him?  Or recognised him in the streets and took him back there??  Or- or what if everyone would be afraid of him now! And he would be alone again?

‘Alone.  Heh.  Pretty stupid thing to worry about when you don't want anybody near you anyway!' he thought bitterly to himself.

Finally laying himself down he pulled the covers over his head, hiding himself from view and curled up into a ball.

‘Pull yourself together,' he urged himself.  ‘You've pulled through before, right?'

‘Yeah, but I didn't remember anything then, that's why.'

‘Even so, I can just - just, forget again!  Right? . . .'

‘How can I just forget?  How in the heck did I forget in the first place!?'

Shaking his head he curled up tighter and closed his eyes. 

If only he could stay there forever.  Tucked up in a warm bed in a place that seemed far away from the world.

What was it that Sirius had said? ‘It's okay.  You're safe here.'? 

Yes, ‘safe.'  He liked that thought.  Most people take it for granted.  Children play in the park, the elderly browse the markets, friends and families walk the streets with little more in the way of concern than whether or not it might rain.    

But not him.  Never him.  Never ‘The-boy-who-lived.'

End of chapter 15.

Poor Sirius.  Now I'm torturing him as well :p

Random chatter:  Topics of the day are 1) Anybody seen ‘Hairspray' - the film or the show?  It's great!

2) It's almost Halloween!!!! Yay!!!!!  I LOVE that holiday!  Even more than Christmas sometimes.

3) ‘If' I decided to do a Halloween scene, what do you think Harry, Hermione and Ron should dress up as?  I'm open to any and all suggestions :) Also, what do people think of the idea of having a Halloween scene at all?