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gingersparkFandom: Dreaming of sunshine, Naruto, Harry potter
Summary: DOS team 7 reborn into the Harry Potter universe
Sirius was in his dog form when the little girl appeared out of nowhere in his cell. He stared in confusion at the small form in front of him, far more vivid than any of his rare hallucinations.
He sniffed in confusion. Her smell was unfamiliar, unlike the heart rendingly familiar scents of his hallucinations.
“Hello Sirius.” The girl smiled kindly at him, reaching a hand out for him to sniff.
He slowly emerged from his huddle in the corner of the cell, letting the girl pet him. It had been far, far too long since someone touched him with kindness and affection. Even if this was another hallucination, and he was descending into madness, he didn’t want it to end.
“Sirius, could you transform so we can talk?” Would she stop petting him if he was human? Or would she stop if he didn’t do what she wanted? But it had been such a long time since he’d talked to anyone properly.
Sirius shifted back to his human form, feeling the dementor-cold settle over him. He retreated to his corner, trying not to scare the girl. He knew he must look terrible. The girl (how old was she? Seven? Eight? What in merlin’s name was she doing here?) didn’t follow, but she didn’t look scared either.
“I-I’m innocent, I didn’t do it, I swear- “he croaked out, pausing at the girl’s quelling hand motion.
“I know Sirius, I know you didn’t kill James and Lily. I believe you.” Sirius buried his face in his hands, sobbing softly. After a moment she moved closer, and resumed petting his head. He took deep, gasping breaths and tried to compose himself.
When he’d mostly succeeded, he tried to ask his most pressing questions.
“Who… How are you…Who?”
The girl smiled at him reassuringly.
“I’m Shikako. I broke in using my family magic because no one deserves this, especially not an innocent man.”
Desperate hope bloomed in his chest. “Are you here get me out?” As soon as he’d said it, he could see by the flicker of pain in her face that it wasn’t true. He slumped, feeling the despair press in again.
“-us. Sirius. Sirius!” He looked up at Shikako’s insistent call. “Sirius, I can still help.” Concern and distress were plain on her face. “I can’t get you out yet because they’d order you kissed on sight, but I’m working on it and I’ve got things to give you.”
She was so small, and she looked so guilty that she couldn’t rescue him. How could he have asked something like that of a child? Of course she couldn’t break him out. She’d be only a few years older than Harry. How old would harry be now?
He tried for a reassuring smile, although he wasn’t sure he succeeded. “I’ll be alright, don’t you worry about me.”
He could see a flicker of exasperation on her face, before she started pulling things out of thin air. He stared in bemusement as she pulled out ink and brushes, several books and blankets.
“I can’t get you out, but I can make things a bit easier for you. I’m good with runes, so I can hide things here for you and protect you from the dementors a little.”
Sirius stared at the girl in shock. “You… You…”
She shot him a quick smile, then started explaining. “It’s simple really, just a bit of runework to store things.” She opened the book to a random page, whispered “activate” and a chocolate bar appeared, resting on the open book. She handed it to him.
When he just held it, staring at her numbly, she tore it open for him. “Eat it. It’s good for dementor-sickness.”
While he slowly ate, Shikako explained her strange runework. She was clearly more than “good” with runes. He’d never heard of someone being able to use runes for dimensional storage quite like that. At her prompting, he attempted to activate the runes himself, succeeding after only a few attempts and gaining himself a second chocolate bar.
“I don’t know when I’ll be able to get you more, but there’s quite a lot of food in there, fresh fruit and things, and it won’t go off while it’s stored.”
“This… this is wonderful Shikako. Thank you. This is more than I could ever…” He trailed off.
“I can draw storage runes somewhere on your body so you can hide the books and blankets when human guards are here – somewhere that’s usually covered.”
He thought for a moment before pulling his shirt up slightly. “Stomach be ok?”
Shikako nodded and reached for the ink and brushes. He fought to stay still through the ticklish sensation of runes being drawn on his body. When she was finished, Shikako showed him how to store things in them. With his food storage book, blankets and the small stack of other books she pushed at him safely tucked away she started to glance out of the cell.
“I really can’t stay long, I’m sorry. I should be back in a few months.”
“It’s alright, you’ve done so much.”
“One last thing, I’ve got a seal that should keep the worst of the passive dementor effect away, even when you’re human.”
He felt his jaw drop. How… Who on earth was this girl? He’d never even thought such a thing would be possible.
“I’m not sure how well it’ll hold up to constant exposure, but it should help. If you want it, it needs to go over your heart.”
Want it? Of course he wanted it. He pulled his shirt over his head. “Please.”
The girl painted a far more complex design onto his chest, a look of intense concentration on her face. When she murmured “activate” he felt suddenly warmer. The chill of the cold stone was still there, but he felt lighter than he could remember feeling.
He could distantly hear the rattle of an approaching dementor, and the girl whispered “Goodbye Sirius” before vanishing into shadow.
He stared in bemusement at the place where she’d been, before realising that the approaching dementor wasn’t affecting him and crumpling to sob in relief.
*
Sasuke
Sasuke really, really thought he’d got used to team 7 ridiculousness, but he was sitting in a boat having successfully broken his friend into Azkaban, the supposedly impenetrable fortress. Months of discreet spying on dementors with his eyes, using his family magic to help locate the island itself, and watching Shikako create a seal that stopped dementor influence had finally paid off. They all had the seals, they’d “borrowed” a fishing boat, and now he and Naruto were waiting for Shikako to emerge from the shadows so they could get back to the manor before dawn.
The temporary seal on the underside of his headband was deactivated, and he could see the soft red glow of the wards, Naruto’s bright signature and the supernova of Kurama within him. The dementors he could see patrolling the very highest levels were foul, twisting and flickering to his sight. He resisted the impulse to look away and continued monitoring for shifts in their patterns.
Shikako’s deep green magic emerged right on time, still wrapped in the stars-deep-eternity that was gelel. She pulled herself out of shadow just past the wards, and water-walked to the boat waiting a few hundred yards from the shore. She grinned at her teammates, and Sasuke started the motor and turned for the mainland.
*
Sirius
His investigations of the gifts his strange visitor had hidden on his stomach began the next morning, just after the daily human guard check in.
He had a volume which, on further investigation, contained seals containing hundreds of muggle novels. A second contained more muggle books with strange titles like “Overcoming post-traumatic stress disorder: A self-help manual”. A third was blank, with muggle pens in seals inside the cover. The fourth however, instantly became his most treasured possession. It contained a mixture of muggle photographs and wizarding ones, all of them of Harry. Harry smiling as he levitated a leaf. Harry chasing after a dark haired boy. Harry, walking up a tree. Harry grinning and eating cake. Harry smiling with Shikako, the girl who’d broken into Azkaban to give him the most precious gift he’d ever received. His godson was alright. He was a little concerned about the boy’s thinness and oversized clothes, but he looked happy, smiling with the two children his own age.
It wasn’t until he curled up under one of the soft wool blankets as padfoot that he noticed that Shikako had given him another gift. The blanket smelled like home and friends and Harry. Not as he’d smelled as a baby, wrapped the scents of his parents and the faint odour of dirty nappies, but how he must smell now. It was both familiar, but new and different enough that he knew it couldn’t be another hallucination. Shikako must have given one of the blankets to harry before giving it to him. Sirius curled up under the blanket and slept without nightmares for the first time in years.
*
By the time Shikako returned a few months later, Sirius was halfway convinced she was some kind of benevolent spirit he should be worshipping. A powerful magical being was certainly more plausible than a child capable of blocking the effects of dementors when not even present. Either way, Shikako was helping him survive Azkaban without going insane, and looking after Harry for him, and for that he owed her. Even if she turned out to be unseelie of some kind (dissolving into shadow sounded like the sort of thing unseelie fae would do) he owed her enough that he would give her anything she asked for.
She’d done him an even greater favour than he’d first realised. It had taken him time to get used to this strange new reality where he could hope without his thoughts vanishing into the gaping void of the dementors. Once he’d adjusted however, he was able to think strategically about getting himself exonerated in a way he hadn’t been capable of before.
He was capable of remembering the good things grandfather Arcturus Black had done for him, not just the times he’d turned a blind eye to mother’s actions. He remembered while he might have been disowned by his mother, he’d never received a notice from the head of the family formally casting him out. He wouldn’t have been able to continue using his family name if he had. With Regulus dead, he was Arcturus’s heir, and the old laws still gave him the right to contact the head of his family. Six months after his saviour visited for the first time he finally demanded his right to write to his family head.
***
I really liked writing this chapter, Sirius is my fave.
Let me know what you think, comments always make my day.
Bragging rights
Date: 2019-01-08 10:04 pm (UTC)Meanwhile Sirius is trying to figure out how to say that the eldritch abominations Harry calls friends shouldn't count without actually calling them eldritch abominations because they're very nice eldritch abominations that are polite enough to pretend to be human and that happen to be on their side.
Re: Bragging rights
Date: 2019-01-08 10:10 pm (UTC)Re: Bragging rights
Date: 2019-01-09 12:44 am (UTC)Oh shit, if you make the Frolic's "Seal That Goes Ding When There's Stuff" tracker seal thing canon then like. She literally can whip something like that out and show she's got something even better than the mauraders map, because it will track everyone around you no matter where you are, not just at hogwarts.
Another point for the eldritch/god/thing to be VERY polite to category.
Re: Bragging rights
Date: 2019-01-09 09:04 pm (UTC)Padfoot bounded into the room, which was never a good sign. "Moony! I figured out what Harry's friends are!"
"Not again," Remus muttered. "I don't suppose the answer is precocious children?"
"No, they're Lares."
"Lares? Roman guardian spirits? How does that make any sense?"
"Not just any Lares, but Lares of the Seven Hills of Rome."
"Padfoot, Lares stay around the area they guard. That's the point behind being guardian spirits."
"Except after the fall of Rome the Lares of the the Seven Hills became vengeance spirits as well. I'm pretty sure Shikako is the Lar of Capitoline Hill."
"Do I want to know your logic?"
"Well she has that whole shtick about outdoing and trivializing all my accomplishments."
Okay, if Remus tilted his head sideways and squinted he could maybe accept that the spirit of Capitoline Hill would be about outshining her enemies. Glory of Rome and all that. "Is this about the map? She's just a workaholic, and besides James and I did most of the work on that. I think most of your contribution was the jokes."
"I worked hard on those jokes! And then there's transfiguring herself into shadow to one up the animagus transformation. And don't tell me that's family magic. She's a muggleborn."
"She probably has a squib ancestor somewhere."
"And the fact that they three of them spanked us in a prank war?"
"That was mostly Naruto. Besides, if they were trying to turn all your accomplishments into ash, they're awfully nice about it."
"Well, I really wasn't You-Know-Who's right hand and whoever summoned them probably didn't know that so they're nicely outdoing all my accomplishments. Oh. Maybe they were summoned as guardian spirits and not vengeance spirits and they're taking out their, uh, disapproval with my failure to look after Harry properly by going after my accomplishments."
"Padfoot, they're all older than Harry. As in born before anyone thought you were the right hand of evil, which rules out the vengeance spirit thing. And Lily and James would have mentioned to someone if they were going to summon guardian spirits. Lily would have been bragging about it."
"Not if they did it after they went into hiding. And I don't think linear time means much to spirits."
"Besides, the kids can't be Roman guardian/vengeance spirits. Their Latin is nowhere good enough. Especially Naruto. I swear he was two syllables away from turning the Lord's Prayer into a demon summoning ritual."
"Oh! But they all speak inexplicably good Japanese and they all have Japanese nicknames. Maybe they're Japanese guardian spirits." Sirius bounded out of the room, muttering under his breath.
Remus sighed and went back to his book. He probably had two or three hours before Sirius came back with another theory. Hopefully this was just stir craziness. Remus was going to be so much happier once Padfoot was cleared to be in public again.
Re: Bragging rights
Date: 2019-01-09 09:14 pm (UTC)Re: Bragging rights
Date: 2019-01-09 10:18 pm (UTC)I'm not sure it's that much of a compliment for Shikako though. Sirius's ego is such that if the spirit of the Seven Hills were interested in him, obviously that would include the spirit of the most important hill: Capitoline. He'd just try to twist the aspects of the most important hill to fit what he knows about Harry's friends, and as Remus's reaction implies, it's not a great fit. The spirit of Capitoline Hill would probably be more interested in conquest than a game of one upmanship. (Of course, one day Shikako is going to quote Conan in Remus's hearing and he's going to reconsider.)
Oh, the thing about Lares becoming vengeance spirits has no real world correspondence that I'm aware of. You can chalk that up to the fact that Sirius is using the Black Library for his research, which skews things, another one of the mythology differences in the Harry Potter world, or Sirius really stretching thing to fit his theory.
Re: Bragging rights
Date: 2019-01-09 10:38 pm (UTC)I love the idea of Sirius getting increasingly ridiculous with this, like tracking down obscure bits of mythology and bringing them to Sirius.
Aw, Sirius needs walkies, poor energetic puppy.