Second chance

Disclaimer: I don\'t own any original HP characters, they all belong to J.K! Though there\'s no harm playing, is there?

Please review (don\'t fear to criticize, I don\'t mind).
Enjoy



Chapter III - Lupin’s plan

Harry tried to ignore his cramped back as he strove to come to grips with the turn his life took in the past week. From his present perspective under the dirty blanket on Remus’ small hard couch things weren’t looking cheerful.

Harry heard footsteps approaching his head and after a moment of silence, “Harry, I’m going out for a while. Want me to bring you anything?” getting no response from the blanket-covered mound on the couch Remus tried again “Maybe I’ll stop by your house to see if you left anything there, alright?” sounding hopeful.

Harry gritted his teeth “There’s nothing there for me left. Maybe I never had, really. Just go already and leave me alone.\" He didn\'t have time for another one of Remus\' naggings filled with barely veiled hints to make up with Fleur. You would think Lupin would be on his side being his replacement for replacement father after all. No such luck. Instead, Lupin got all moony eyed at the thought of marriage and children. Harry secretly thought that Remus tried to realize his fantasy of having a family of his own through him. The poor man could never live down the shame of his Lycanthropy curse with women except maybe with Dumbledore and only McGonagall could think of him as attractive.

“You\'re sure? Well how about Ron and Hermione? I’m sure they’ll cheer you up in no time and besides you haven’t seen them for a long time I think.”

Harry sat up glowering. “I don’t bloody want to see anybody Remus. It’s hard enough to live with myself as it is without knowing that everyone knows how much she humiliated me. I know it\'s hard for you to manage with me living here on that charity fund you got from the Phoenix Order but I just have to know that when I’ll get out in the street I’ll still have my dignity.”

Remus looked at him strangely “You know that Parvati and Fleur are very good friends don’t you? Do you think Fleur will want to keep this under covers?”

Harry shut his eyes trying to block the cold cruel world that was bent on destroying his life completely. He never thought Fleur would tell anyone but now started wondering if she wanted to marry the ugly lame excuse for a git she took to their bed. He could hear her now chatting with her friends ‘Oui, \'arry was all right and made nice shepherd\'s pies but \'e was sooo boring. Victor may not be perfuct but he’s so strong and hard.\"

Trying to get his mind off this new grim future Harry imagined what his friends would counsel him to do:

Ron will probably just gape at him and say: \"You can\'t be serious giving up a babe like her. The girl is hot! If I were you I\'d be on my knees begging her to take me back. You beat up Krum at the Triwizard tournament and I\'d bet you could beat him up at Quidditch too, he won\'t have a chance against you.\"

Hermione will probably look daggers at Ron than plaster one of those broad smiles that meant that Ron will have to sleep on the couch tonight and tell him \"I read up in \'The magical Ooh in your magical relationship\' that you have to show your special other half how much you love and appreciate them and buy them gifts like flowers and chocolate and tell them how much you love them. You should try and read it. I\'m sure you can sort this all up with Fleur in no time.\"

It was a waste of time. They just couldn\'t understand him. Ever since his sixth year at Hogwarts he could never return to what they had for most of their school years together. How could they have been so blind to what was happening to him? They couldn\'t really be his friends and never notice what he was going through. He didn\'t want to remember it himself. It was over and buried now anyways. He could still smell it though, the sweet smell of decay emanating from the body that once held the fearful Lord Voldemort within it, clutching the charred and broken wand so similar to his own. He felt like he had just killed a part of himself at that moment.

Focusing himself back to present he tried to find something to distract Remus from their current painful conversation. \"Remus? What happened at the Leaky Cauldron that night? I only remember going there and buying a drink and the next thing I remember is standing on the doorstep telling you good night. I seem to recall hearing you talk about that Luna Lovegood fruitcake from school for some reason.\"

There was a hiss of drawn breath from Remus’ direction “I can’t believe I forgot. I was so busy with you this past week it went right out of my mind. Snape was right. I am such a waste. And to think how much he depends on me to save him. I failed him again. He must really hate me.”

“What are you talking about Remus? Who depends on you? You didn’t fail anybody. I bloody hope you’re not talking about Snape. The git deserves to be punished. I still hate him.”

“Snape? Of course not. Why would Snape need my help anyways? I was talking about Sirius. I was telling you last week that Luna and I thought we can bring him back to life. Its really complicated but it sounded possible to me.”

“Sirius? Bring him back to life? You mean like how Wormtail brought Voldemort back? That was very dark magic.” Harry shuddered. After a moment though, his eyes brightened up in mischief. “Now that I think about it, though, we can get all the ingredients without any problems. We’ll take his mother’s bones. After all he hated her, so he wouldn’t mind. And we can steal some of Snape’s blood. You can leave that part to me. And you can ask Wormtail to donate his other hand in exchange for release from Azkaban. He wouldn’t be able to do anything without both his hands now, would he?” Harry grinned. “It’s perfect. But how will you get his soul back to his body?”

Remus looked at Harry worriedly. “You’re not serious I hope? That’s very black magic indeed. We could get to Azkaban for it or even Kissed!” he shuddered. “Besides, we still have his old body although I once heard a rumor that Snape took his balls to decorate his private office, but that’s just nonsense I’m sure. Minerva would never allow it in her school.” At Harry\'s blank look Remus elaborated \"When he went through the arch his body became part of the arch. That\'s why after the battle the arch looked heavier and had less cracks in it.\"

Harry frowned at Remus “I don’t understand. How can we possibly bring him back after all these years? Even headless Nick said that he was gone and he should know. He’s a ghost after all. It took me a lot of time to accept it but I know he’s gone and will never come back. And if you didn’t mean to use black magic I don’t see how we could possibly do it.”

“That’s what I thought too. But Luna is really up to snuff in all the Higher Mysteries, you know. Personally I don’t think she really believes in what she puts in that paper of hers. She just wants to give it a good publicity. So I think you should hear it out and really give it a try. You know if this works out it can really impress Fleur. Maybe when she hears of it you can get together again and forget this ever happened, eh?”

Harry tried to smile. He wasn’t sure what to think but felt a small spark of hope long banked, ignite in his heart. He never forgave himself for his godfather’s death and if he could really bring him back to life it would be like he never did bring his death in the first place. He really hoped Remus wasn’t fooling himself with this but he was willing to hold on to any straws if it meant there was a hope of bringing Sirius back. “Well we can discuss it over lunch. I’m starving.” He told Remus getting off of the cramped couch and heading for the kitchen corner.

“Good idea. I know how hard this last week was for you but you can’t live just on those cheep margarine beers you seem to like so much. They’re not good for you, you know.”

As Remus prepared their lunch (cold bacon and eggs sandwiches with mayonnaise, the man just didn’t have taste when it came to food) Harry asked what the plan was.

“Well, do you know anything about that arch in the Department of Mysteries? The one we thought he died in? I suppose you heard that it connects our world with the realms of the dead right? Well Luna claims that that is just a cover story for what it really is and it really made sense to me once she finished explaining it all to me. You see, Luna claims it connects our world to the Spirit Realm.” Looking at the blank look Harry was giving him again he continued on excitedly “The Spirit Realm! That’s got nothing to do with death or the afterlife; it’s where prophecies and such come from. You see? This means we can still save him, it means he never really died.”

Harry drank his pumpkin juice, for once forgetting to sneer in his mind at the unholy combination of pumpkin and bacon. “What are you talking about Remus? I saw him die with my own two eyes. He didn’t get out after the battle was over and winked. He was cold dead and gone. Besides, what is this ‘Spirit Realm’ you keep talking about? Half the people in that department are wakkos like Luna and the other half are wakkos like Trelawney, my phony divination teacher from school. You shouldn’t believe anything they say.”

“Well the Spirit Realm is a really important part of the magical world you know. Without the Spirit Realm there wouldn’t be any werewolves like me for example. Didn\'t you learn anything at your divination classes at Hogwarts? The Spirit Realm is a place without physical being or time or maybe I should say a place of all times and places at once. Didn’t you ever wonder how prophecies were possible? People with the ability to touch the Spirit Realm with their minds can glimpse events from the future or the past in there because time doesn’t exist in that place. Anyways, Luna told me that about a thousand years ago a group of witches and wizards with the inner eye, led by the great Cassandra Trelawney herself, decided to create a secret order for themselves that would decide how to use the prophecies they made to the betterment of our world. They made several objects, the greatest of them being the ‘Spirit-Arch’ as they called it. Its original purpose was to help their families understand what their life was really like even if they didn’t have an inner eye. They would take them to the Spirit Realm for a visit using the Arch. Also it was much easier to initiate young Order members that way. You just had to stand by the Arch and let your mind roam free.

“Of course once word of the Arch got around, dark wizards wanted to steal it so they could get prophecies about themselves without having to get the approval of the Order to look through their archives. The Order tried to hide it and Obliviate the public to its existence but they never got a moment’s rest. Finally in 1349 after the black witch Pestis Black stole it and used its prophecies to start the Black Plague among the Muggles and do all sort of other mischief besides, they wrested it from her, killed her and claimed it was destroyed in the battle. Ever since, they were very careful to hide it from everyone. I only learned about it after I agreed to sign my name on their confidentiality papers with my blood. She agreed to let me tell you about it if you will sign this paper.” he got up and after a moment search in his desk brought a crinkling piece of parchment.

Harry looked it over. It didn’t looked too bad, just a statement that he will never reveal any of the details he learned about the Arch to anyone or else. He looked back at Remus arching his eyebrows “And I have to sign this with my blood?”

“Ah, yes. She gave me a blood-pen. Here it is. I think you told me once you know how to use them?”

Harry shivered slightly under his shirt. He never told Remus what went on in his fifth year at Hogwarts. Snatching the pen he quickly signed the paper and grinning widely despite the pain, broke the bloody thing in two with a crack. The paper was meanwhile folding itself into a paper airplane that flew right into the fireplace, where it disappeared in a green glare presumably to the Department of Mysteries archives’.

Remus was frowning at him resentfully “I could have gotten a two galleon refund on it. If you didn’t like it you could have given it back to me.”

“Oh forget about the money for once. I’ll give you a refund myself, all right? I’ve still got some of my savings from my parents and Sirius’ accounts, you know. I didn’t spend it all.” But there wasn’t much left. He was starting to worry what Sirius would do when he learned that he was flat broke if they really managed to bring him back. He hoped that the bringing him back to life bit would be compensation enough to his new status in life.

“Well even if all you told me is true how does that help us save Black? He\'s still lost. If it was at all possible he would have come back by now.”

“You\'re wrong Harry. You see, what really happened when he crossed the Arch is that because his body couldn’t follow his soul there he was severed from his body and lost in the Spirit Realm. Usually if you use it right you only enter it halfway and keep in touch with your body so you can return whenever you want or even when somebody else pulls your body out of the room. What we have to do is restore his body to shipshape condition, go into the Spirit Realm ourselves and bring him back with us. Since there is no time in there he will never know it was more than a moment since he stepped through it. It would be like in the old days. He always saw your father in you, you know.

“Anyways, because he entered the Spirit-Realm all the way through, Luna said that they couldn’t find him there and that as his friends we will have an advantage. He couldn\'t have come back on his own, Harry. He was cut off from us and had no way of getting back on his own. He needs us. We will have to use a special breed of thestrals, more like ghost-thestrals in there and we\'ll drink a drought of living- death in order to enter all the way through like Sirius. The potion is supposed to disconnect our souls from our bodies and make us a sort of temporary ghosts and the Thespirtralls will guide us all back once we find him. It will be their first field trip. They were Luna’s personal project (with Hagrid’s help of course) in the Ministry using thestrals and homing-pigeons as breeding stocks to give them good homing capabilities and she is anxious to try them out. They look really nice.”

Harry took a minute to take it all in. Could they really free Sirius? He really hoped this would work out though the idea of breading thestrals with pigeons was plainly revolting “This sound wonderful. So when can we do it?”

“Well, we agreed to do it on the night of the dark of the moon at midnight. That’s the only day in the month they allow werewolves inside the Ministry grounds nowadays.” he added bitterly. \"So if you’re with me we have three days to get ready. They are preparing his body already with engorgement charms to put some flesh back on his bones. We can renovate his house at Grimauld\'s place so he will feel at home there and give him a surprise party when he returns. I can’t wait to see his face when he learns that he missed all the action and the war is already over. He’ll be devastated.”

As they discussed what they should bring to his old home to try and make it cheery Harry smiled contentedly thinking that in less than a week he will see his father’s best friend again. Life wasn’t so terrible after all. Maybe he could go and live with Sirius and start life over again. If Fleur didn’t want him he wasn’t going to beg her to let him return to their home. She will regret choosing the ugly Krum but he’ll just laugh at her face when she will beg him to return. He had his pride after all and he was tired of how domineering she was all the time. She didn’t really love him. She wasn’t interested in what went on with his life. All she ever talked about was Fleur. Harry started wondering if she had a masochistic streak in her he never saw, choosing someone who cursed her with Crucio at the tournament. You just never knew with women.

********

Author\'s note: I hope this wasn\'t too technical or boring. I will finish with the present in the next chapter and start on the past. Please, pretty please review.

Pestis – Latin for plague.