Betrayal of the Best Kind
Ache
By Draco664
Ache
Freezing cold water was thrown into Cho's sleeping face, shocking her into wakefulness. She desperately tried to get her bearings, but a lack of familiar details foiled her attempt. She tried moving, but her wrists were bound to the wall with thin strips of leather, holding her arms spread on either side of her body.
Panic surged through her. Thrashing her entire body, she found other points of restraint. A rope tied below her small breasts fastened her body to the wall. A short, thin strip of wire connected the straps around her ankles, effectively hobbling her.
A scream tried to escape her throat, muffled by the dense, foam ball shoved in her mouth.
Slowly her eyes became accustomed to the low light, revealing a tall, thin man standing in front of her, holding a now-empty flagon. Moving his face close to her own, revealing pale blue, almost grey eyes, filled with rage.
The man reached up and pulled the foam gag from her mouth. Cho was trembling with fear. "Who, who are y-you?"
The man's face split into a grin that contained no trace of humour. "I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is Sirius Black. Pleased to finally meet you."
If Cho was scared before, she was petrified now. Her mind, normally so good at processing information, simply shut down at his announcement. His name echoed in her head. Sirius Black, Sirius Black, Sirius Black! The man who was the first to escape Azkaban, who killed thirteen people with one curse, who was one of You-know-who's closest supporters. Blackness overtook her again.
More icy water struck her face. "Don't keep fainting on me, bitch. That will get me mad. You don't want that. Trust me."
Cho opened her mouth and let out the loudest scream she could manage. Black just stood there with a smirk. "Silencing charm," was all he said when her breath had run out.
Tears of powerlessness spilled from Cho's dark eyes. A bony hand grabbed her throat and raised her sobbing face to his. Looking into his merciless eyes, Cho lost control of herself, and a dark, wet stain spread down the front of her clothes. A detached thought in the back of her mind told her that her mother would be angry with her for urinating on herself.
"You think you're in pain now? You haven't even begun to feel the pain you have inflicted on others."
His words confused her. What did he mean by causing others pain? Why did he care?"
Her confusion must have appeared on her face, Sirius let go and said, "You're wondering why a murderer like me, cares about the pain of others. Mostly, I don't. There are very few people in the world I'd bother to cross the street to piss on if they were on fire. My godson is one of them."
Cho looked at the man in front of her uncertainly. There was only one person she had pained recently. Unbidden, a memory of her very first phone conversation with Harry surfaced.
"My Uncle started yelling at me, but I told them that it was my godfather. My Aunt and Uncle have left to go out for a while, without their wallet, purse, or car keys I might add. I should have done that a long time ago."
Cho looked at Sirius in horror as realisation dawned. This man, this animal, was Harry's godfather?
"Harry?" she choked out, eyes wide with the disturbing thought.
Sirius nodded. "Excellent, it would appear your wits haven't left you just yet."
Yet? Cho thought. What is he going to do to me? Once more she struggled against her bonds. Futile.
"You know," Sirius continued in a tone that would have sounded normal to anyone not bound to a wall by a murderer. "I would really have liked to have met you under different circumstances. Harry told me he was quite smitten by you."
"H-Harry talks to you?" Cho asked incredulously.
"You sound so shocked."
"But, you, you killed those people. Harry wouldn't..." she caught herself. If Harry was a murderer, perhaps he did talk to this man.
"Wouldn't talk to a murderer? Why did you stop? Oh, you still think that Harry killed that boy Crabbe."
Cho's heart leapt at that, then sank when she considered who said it. "He did." Tears formed in her eyes. "I wish he didn't, I love him, but he did."
If Black's statement had surprised Cho, her statement stunned her captor. An almost gentle expression crossed his face. "You wish... You love..." He shook his head to clear it. The frightening visage returned. "Dumbledore has evidence exonerating him. Harry has never killed anyone. He even prevented me from committing the crime I was imprisoned for."
"If the headmaster had any evidence like that he would have used it!" she shouted. How could Harry have prevented him from killing those people, she thought. Harry would have been just a baby.
Sirius snorted. "He only received it a couple of hours ago. I gave it to him myself. We were on our way to stop you from springing that damned trap on him, only to arrive just in time to see you all standing at the edge of the cliff off which he'd thrown himself. Because you HURT HIM!" Sirius shouted.
A fresh wave of guilt flooded Cho. The knowledge that it had been her words that pushed Harry to suicide tore through her. Again, she had trouble breathing, and sobs wracked her small frame.
Sirius' next words struck her like a bolt of lightning.
"Now, he'll never trust any of us."
Harry sat outside in the front seat of the police car, chatting with Barry and a child psychotherapist named Mabel. He enjoyed himself telling her his 'fantasies' of flying on a broomstick and changing into animals. He almost laughed when she told him that his fantasies were his mind's way of expressing its desire for freedom.
Carter finally brought Harry's Uncle out of the house. Vernon had several bruises on his face, a lip cut in two places and, Harry noticed during his uncle's tirade about police brutality, three missing teeth. He looked questioningly at Barry.
"Probably fell down the stairs. A couple of times," Barry smirked. Mabel gave him a stern look, but Harry's appearance convinced her that whatever happened to his Uncle was probably richly deserved.
Vernon was placed into a police car and taken away. Every resident of Privet Drive was out, watching with interest as the events of the evening unfolded. Harry supposed that the Dursleys would never be considered 'normal' anymore.
"Harry?" Barry tried to get Harry's attention.
Harry looked over to him. "Yes?"
"Apart from your Aunt and Uncle, does anyone else live here?"
Harry nodded. "My cousin, Dudley. He goes to a school called Smeltings. He was upset when I got to have his second bedroom."
Barry just shook his head. The more he heard about these Dursleys, the more he hated them. "Where do you go to school, Harry?"
As Harry opened his mouth to answer, a hand lightly gripped his shoulder and a gentle voice from behind said, "To a boarding school for talented individuals, in Scotland."
Harry almost got whiplash from spinning round so fast. He looked into the serene face of Albus Dumbledore.
"He'll never trust us? Harry is alive?" Cho's heart became lighter.
"Bah! Are you kidding? Harry has survived attempts on his life by the most powerful dark wizard of recent times, and more often than any other wizard. You think that jumping off a cliff would stop him?"
"How? Please, is he OK?"
"Why the hell do you care? It's because of you that he jumped and fled in the first place." her captor snarled.
Cho flushed with shame. Tears ran down her cheeks, dripping off the end of her chin, falling onto her already wet clothes. Fear had filled her on realisation of her predicament, now the awesome weight of responsibility for Harry's situation crashed down. Months of repressed emotions broke through the dam of her denials. She opened her mouth to reply, but couldn't get the breath to say anything.
Sirius watched the girl, and her unexpected reaction. She was trying to say something, but had started to hyperventilate. "Take a deep breath," he said.
Without thinking, Cho obeyed. She dragged in a quivering lungful of air and let it out. "I said some bad things to him. I wish to God I hadn't. Draco Malfoy used to tell me that Harry killed Cedric just so he could go out with me." Cho took another breath. "Then Harry kill- then Crabbe was killed. Harry went to that awful place." Her voice choked up again.
Sirius watched her as she struggled to release the pain she had buried.
"I believed it. It was too painful not to. I couldn't face anything that reminded me of Harry. I quit Quiddich, and avoided his friends."
"Did you lie in the letter?"
"No. Yes. I mean, I meant what I wrote now. I mean, what I wrote is what I feel now. But not when I wrote it, I was still angry with him." Cho looked at Sirius pleading him to understand. "When he held me, on the cliff, I just couldn't imagine leaving him again. But it hurt, I didn't want to believe that I still loved him, and I said all the bad things to him. I wish I hadn't. I just need to be able to make things right." Cho wept quietly for a few minutes, while Sirius regarded her, a thoughtful expression on his face. Cho suddenly looked up and gave him a bewildered look. "How did you know about the letter?" Her eyes widened. "You're professor Dumbledore's operative! The one in contact with Harry!"
Sirius nodded. Cho pleaded with him, "Please, you have to believe me! I need to make things right! I didn't mean to say those things to him, please! Let me go, I need to help him!" She started crying again.
Harry leapt up and backed away from the headmaster. "Not anymore!" he shouted at Dumbledore. "You expelled me, remember?"
Dumbledore made no move to follow. "Yes. I do remember, Harry. But things have changed since then."
"Not enough!" Harry turned and ran from the headmaster. He ran towards the ring of bystanders, still watching the events at number four. The neighbors moved out of his way. Except for one man.
Harry skidded to a stop. "Professor Snape?" Harry turned to run in a different direction, heart racing, desperate to escape again.
Professor McGonagall appeared and stepped in front of him. "Harry, please stop." she said.
"No!" Harry shouted. "I won't go back there!" Turning, looking for an escape route, Harry could see professors Vector, Flitwick and Sprout spaced through the crowd. He turned back towards the police car, to see professor Dumbledore looking flustered at being restrained by Barry. Harry saw no other option, he ran straight into number four, Privet Drive.
Snape was the first to react. He ran straight after Harry, dodging the second policeman, and entered the house. From the front door, he saw a flash of movement at the top of the stairs. Racing up them three at a time, he rounded the landing and raced down the corridor to the bedrooms. Only two doors were open. Looking in one, he saw an sparsely furnished room with a plain, empty bed.
Running further down the corridor, he entered a larger bedroom, one filled with muggle gadgets and toys. An open window looked out over the backyard. Snape ran over to the window, and looked out into the yard. Harry was nowhere to be seen.
"How in Merlin's name do you do that, Potter?"
Snape turned and made his way back downstairs, only to be confronted with an angry police officer. A quick memory charm later, Snape walked out and over the Dumbledore, who looked rather affronted that he was wearing a pair of handcuffs. "Better organise for the ministry to clean up here, get memory charms on these people." Snape pointed his wand at the cuffs and they fell to the ground. "Potter got away. Again. That's rather a nasty habit he has."
Dumbledore rubbed his wrists. "A habit of which I'm glad he has when it comes to Voldemort." Dumbledore looked at his potion master. "Severus, I'm beginning to wonder if Mr. Potter isn't hiding something that we should know about."
The potions master snorted. "Since when has that not been true?"
Dumbledore smiled. He pulled out a small blob of what looked like putty. It moved and twisted in his hand, finally turning red and pointing in a northerly direction. "Come, Severus. Harry is not too far away. The beacon I placed on his clothes is working perfectly."
Sirius looked at the wet, limp girl tied in front of him. She had been crying non-stop for almost ten minutes now. She only responded to his questions with repetitions of the same thing, that she needed to help Harry, to fix what she did wrong.
The interrogation had not gone the way he had expected. For someone to write that letter, and then yell those things at Harry, he had expected the girl to have hated his godson. It appeared that Lucius Malfoy had almost killed another person that day. Cho's feelings for Harry were now very apparent. Sirius shook his head. It would appear that, indirectly, Harry had once again stopped Sirius from committing a crime.
"What will you do to help Harry?" he finally asked the girl.
Cho looked up at him, and in a voice croaky with tears replied without hesitation, "Anything."
Cho felt her arms fall to her sides, and the other restraints disappeared. Unable to balance, too weak to keep herself upright, Cho fell forward into the strong arms of Sirius Black. She felt his arms surround her, and hold her tightly. Rather than be alarmed, Cho felt oddly safe.
"Me too." she heard him say, as she cried into his shoulder.
Harry flew over only two houses before changing back. Hiding between two cars parked in an empty street, Harry sat and tried to slow his heart rate. Occasionally, a car drove down the quiet street.
After a while, Harry slowly peeked over the roof of one of the cars and he looked around. The street was deserted, with the exception of a man walking his dog on the other side of the street, and a cat watching him cautiously in the semi-darkness. Harry waited until the man had rounded a corner. Standing up, he brushed the dirt off the seat of his pants. A frown crossed his features. "How the hell did they find me so quickly?" he said out loud.
"The wards placed around your relatives house are still there." A voice said from behind him. Harry almost jumped out of his skin. He spun and stared at the head of Gryffindor house. "Harry, please wait. You are safe."
Harry gave her a disbelieving look. "Oh, I beg to differ," he scoffed, backing away.
Professor McGonagall didn't make a move towards him. "When the police broke down the front door, the wards alerted the ministry." she continued in her lecturing voice.
A faint pop, and professor Snape appeared beside her. Another, and suddenly professor Vector was there too. More apparations occurred.
Harry looked nervously at the growing number of Hogwarts' teachers appearing. Most of the faculty had come to collect him. A final pop, and professor Dumbledore stood amongst them, smiling at Harry.
"I must admit, Harry, you're skills are improving at an extraordinary rate." the headmaster remarked. "The ability to apparate usually take weeks of study and assistance to learn."
"You think I can apparate?"
The headmaster frowned. "I did indeed believe so. Is that not the case?"
Harry shook his head, still slowly backing away. None of the teachers moved to follow.
Dumbledore chuckled. "Then it is a mystery indeed. Harry, since your escape, which is an incredible feat in itself, you have survived the fall from a cliff, without breaking your glasses, as Miss Granger pointed out, appeared at the other end of the country less than half an hour later, and managed to escape a ring of teachers with several centuries of experience between them." The Headmaster's smile widened. "Without the ability to apparate, I'd say you have some other secrets."
Harry swallowed. Something was wrong here. Something bad.
"Snuffles came to see me earlier this evening," Dumbledore continued. "He brought me som-" Dumbledore's eyes widened, staring at something behind Harry. As one, each of the teachers grabbed their wands and pointed them in Harry's direction. "Harry! Run!" he shouted.
Harry spun on his heel, ready to transform. The sight of several hooded and masked figures aiming their wands at him shocked him into inaction.
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