Harry's Godmother - Part 2

One Bad Day After Another

Third Year

The perfect word to describe how Harry had been feeling since Halloween: annoyed. Sirius's "attack" on the Fat Lady alarmed not only the students, but the staff. Even through Dumbledore had assured the staff that Harry wasn't in danger, the staff continued to follow his around. Harry had personally told him that he didn't need a group of bodyguards, but they still made excuses to be going in the same direction. Madam Hooch watched over Quidditch practices, and Harry could've sworn that he spotted Nearly Headless Nick tailing him occasionally, and the portraits watching him as he walked down the corridors.

On top of the prying eyes, the students couldn't stop talking about Sirius's return to the castle. The younger students were terrified of "notorious murder Sirius Black" roaming the halls. the older students, the ones that knew Harry, were gossiping about Sirius's plans, and brushing up on spells to defend themselves if he was to come after them. The Slytherin's, lead by Draco Malfoy, had made a bet on how long it would take before Sirius offed Harry. Harry felt as if the gossip would never end. He already blew up on a couple of Ravenclaws who had been walking behind him, insisting that he was going to die at Sirius's hands. Luckily for them, Hermione and Ron held him back.

He knew that Sirius would never try to hurt him, but he wished everyone else know. If he tried defending Sirius they called him crazy, and kept telling him sane people don't break into towers. Even Hermione was starting to have her doubts about Sirius, but Harry assured her that if there was even the slightest bit of doubt in Harry's safety where Sirius was concerned, tawny would have already petitioned Dumbledore to bring him home.

Leading up to the first quidditch match, everything only got worse. With Malfoy's injury, caused by Buckbeak, Gryffindor wasn't going to be able to play Slytherin as planned. Instead, the schedule was rearranged so that Gryffindor would play Hufflepuff for their first match. Oliver Wood had told them too not underestimate Hufflepuff's team, seeing that their seeker, sixth year Cedric Diggory, would actually be able to give Harry a run for his money. Wood called for more practices, under the watchful eye of Madam Hooch.

The day before the first match was especially awful. Harry had actually been looking forward to attending a class with his favorite professor, and one of the only ones who understood about the Sirius situation. However, when the Gryffindor third years reached the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom they had the lovely surprise of being taught by Snape. When asked about Professor Lupin's absence, Snape assured everyone that he was ill, and that he would be back in a couple of days, then proceeded to go off schedule and teach a lecture about werewolves instead of hinkypunks.

After class when Harry tried to approach Remus's office, Snape refused to let him near the door. "Do you have ears, Potter? I said he is ill. We wouldn't want you to catch it."

"Since when have you cared about my health, professor?" That line earned Harry a detention and a loss of twenty house points.

Later that night, determined to see his uncle, Harry used the invisibility cloak to sneak off to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. However, when he got there he found the door locked. The alohomora charm wasn't strong enough to unlock the door.

"Uncle Remus, it's me, Harry. I know it's late, and you can be mad at me in the morning, but I just wanted to check and see if you were okay. Snape said that you were ill, but I trust him about as much as I trust Lockhart to teach me how to defend myself." Harry laughed, but heard no response from inside the door. "Uncle Remus?"

Pressing his ear against the door, he couldn't hear his uncle inside of it. The one noise he did hear was a light scratching, but Harry thought that had to be the next creature that they were going to learn about. Surely, If Remus was inside he would be responding to harry, if anything to scold him for being out of bed so late.