A Hound and a Hearth

Notes:

Welcome readers back to Under the Hunters Moon.

This chapter is about a hound and a hearth, about broken promises and the pain they cause, about choosing what is right over what is easy.

This will also be one of the shortest chapters in the whole story. So forgive me for that.

On with the show!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

The castle was quiet as a shadow snuck through the corridors, stopping every now and then to slip into a secret passage or a hidden door to hide from those who patrol the halls or the ghosts who were keeping a lookout. But, thankfully, the castle was large and easy to make your way through if one knew how to. Sirius Black and Padfoot certainly did know how to, they had spent seven years exploring the castle with other boys in his year, James, Ramus, and the rat. He remembers a map, but doesn't remember much else about it, he thinks it shows people on it. Maybe if he could find it again he could catch the rat if he ever tried to leave. But it didn't matter, hopes and wishes could only get so far, he needed to focus and a healthy dose of luck, which so far he has had.

The fireplaces and torches seemed to dim as he passed, the sound of footsteps echoing louder than normal, the quiet of the castle and how it seemed to guide him to the stairs of Gryffindor tower. Not to mention the best stroke of luck he could ask for, a list of the passwords for the portrait guarding the tower, he had found it in front of the fireplace in the Shrieking Shack of all places, some Gryffindor must have broken in on a dare and dropped it. It doesn't matter in the end, he was close to the rat, he could finally end this and make sure he wouldn't hurt…hurt…someone, Sirius guessed, it doesn't matter, only the rat mattered, only revenge. So when Sirius got to the fifth-floor landing for the tower, instead Of the fat lady he was expecting he was met with Knight. He was dozing, leaning back against his horse, dressed in black and gold armor, with a windmill in the background of the painting of farmland.

"Umm, Hello?" Sirius whispered to the knight, tapping on the frame.

The knight snorts before pushing up his visor "What!? Who goes there!? State your business scoundrel! Or perhaps you are here for combat, eh?" The knight says as he gets to his feet and draws his sword.

"Shh, I'm not here to fight, just keep it down," Sirius whispers looking behind him, to see if anyone was coming, the knight looks put off by his statement but says nothing.

"Then what are you here scoundrel, speak up!" The knight says as Sirius flinches at the volume of his voice.

"I just want into the tower, that's all," Sirius says while still looking behind him, keeping low in the shadows.

"Password?" The knight says in a dejected sigh.

"Oh, umm I've got a list, one moment," Sirius says as reaches into his pocket, pulling out the said list and looking for the right day and starting at the top.

"Pig snout?" Sirius asks.

"Nope!" The knight says gleefully.

"Dracarus?"

"No."

"contemne legem, posside meretricem;" Sirius had no idea how the knight came up with these passwords.

"Wrong!"

"filium oblitum, canis meminit," Sirius says.

There's a moment of pause with the knight, as he was about to answer no once again, but the portrait swings open, and Sirius smiles and enters through the hole behind it, never noticing one of the other paintings leaving a portrait. As Sirius enters the tower, a familiar warmth washes over him, as he looks around the gold and red common room of his youth, he couldn't help the past that he had forgotten drag him backwards.

"Hey, Padfoot, your back later than planned, run into Minnie?" James says from the chair by the window, his face a blur but the snitch buzzing around his head.

It was like he couldn't help it as he looked over at the chair, "No," he whispered, "The map worked like a charm, those snakes won't know what hit them in the morning."

James laughs before looking at Sirius with a crooked smile, "well hurry up, we need to grab Wormtail and head out soon to meet Moony." He says before fading, and Sirius shakes his head like a dog, no, no time for ghosts he couldn't even remember the face of, he was close to the rat now. Pulling the knife from his waistband, he takes a breath, it was time for revenge, his steps are light, trying not to make a sound as he makes his way over to the right-side stairs leading up to the boy's dorms, he'll have to search each one for the rat, hopefully, his luck wou-

Scrape!

The sound of metal scraping on stone stops him as he quickly turns his head to the sound and finds what made it, a young girl with brown hair falling in ringlets down her back, she was dressed in Gryffindor robes, and while Sirius couldn't see her face, he could see what made the sound, the girl was stirring the ashes and embers of the fire, stoking it back to a full flame.

"Fuck." Sirius thought to himself as he lowered himself behind a couch, hoping the girl hadn't seen him, and continued his way to the stairs, he was so close so he wouldn't stop now.

"I know you are there, Sirius Black." The girl says, making Sirius curse under his breath and slowly stand up, with his hands up.

"Okay, listen, little girl, I don't want to hurt you, I don't want to hurt any of the students, please, please, please don't scream," Sirius whispers to the girl.

She doesn't even turn to face him, only reaching out to grab a log and placing it in the now roaring fire, "I know," she says as she continues to look into the fire, "You will find what you need on the third-floor landing, and you will remember Sirius Black. But be wary of the Lioness, for she is very protective of her cub." The girl says in a soft voice.

"Yeah, Minnie is like that," Sirius says absentmindedly.

"I was not speaking of Minerva McGonagall, I speak of another who considers you a threat to the boy." The girl says.

"What boy?" Sirius asks, confused.

"Go, and learn." Is all the girl says back before she continues to stoke the flame.

Sirius backs away from the couch before making his way over to the stairs, turning around only once to look back at the strange girl, but she was gone. Another delusion Sirius decides and makes his way up the stairs to the third floor, wouldn't hurt to check it first, he enters the room as quietly as a ghost, he checks the first two beds and neither of the boys was one from the newspaper, so he moves on. The boy in the third bed looks familiar, but not the one from the paper, the fourth bed was empty, so he moves to the last and finds the boy with the rat, this was it. Sirius moves to the last bed, blade at the ready, he couldn't keep the manic smile off his face.

Until Padfoot screams danger to him, Sirius turns his head just in time to watch a shadow slam into him with a scream, knocking him to the ground. They flail and twist on the ground with the other person trying to get on top of him, he feels the boy's tiny fist slam into him, hitting everywhere he could with such force Sirius grunted with each blow, he could hear the other boys waking now.

"No!" Sirius thinks, "I'm so close!" And with a burst of adrenaline, he finally throws the boy off of him, and as Sirius gets to his knees the boy had rolled and popped up to his feet, and with a flick of his wrist, the boy had a wand in his hand and stepped into the moonlight that was coming through the window so Sirius could make out the kids face.

"James…" Sirius thinks as a lifetime of memories breaks through like a dam bursting in his mind.

"James, James Potter." Introduces himself on the train.

"Hey, mate, want to help up play a prank on Professor McGonagall?" James asks Ramus in their second transfiguration class with a smile.

"Come on Sirius, how hard could it be?" James says as he's waving the book on Animagus transformations around.

"Padfoot! Padfoot! She said yes! She finally said yes!" Prongs said as he shook his shoulders with the biggest grin on his face.

But it wasn't just James in the boy's face, for while James' face was angular with aristocratic features that came from being born to a noble house, the boy had a roundness to his face, how his nose slopped just so, or how his eyes brows sat on his face, and the eyes. While James' eyes were Hazel, the boy had vivid green eyes like the killing curse, Sirius has seen eyes like that before only on one other person.

"Sirius Black! how many times do I have to tell you not to prank the first years! keep to third years and up!" The redhead yells at him while flinging stinging hexes at him as he runs away laughing.

"Bad Padfoot! Off the couch, bad Padfoot!" Lily says with a giggle as she chases the untransformed Sirius off the couch and from her living room.

"Harry, that's what his name will be, Harry James Potter, and we want you to be the godfather," Lily says, eyes shining with unshed tears as she holds her growing belly.

"Harry…" Sirius says under his breath, he remembers, he remembers that he had to protect Harry from the rat, that was it. He remembers now, that he was there when Lily went into labor, he had been in the waiting room for hours, until finally, they had called him into the room and little Harry was placed into his arms. He had broken down crying over how tiny he was, how he was the boy's Godfather, he had sworn to James and Lily that he would protect Harry with his life, to care for him if anything happened to them.

He had failed them.

As Sirius had spoken Harry's name under his breath, Harry had heard him. Sirius watched as his Godson's face twisted into a look of pure hate, of the deepest loathing, and the deepest want for blood. Sirius watches as Harry's pupils begin to contract and elongate into those of cats, Sirius has another memory bubble up, about a girl in a silver jacket laughing at his fear, but before he could make heads or tails about it, Harry slashed his wand forward with a scream of "Diffindo" and as Sirius leans back to let the charm sail over his head. Sirius twisted his body to the side and ran from the room, ducking to his left to avoid another Servering charm thanks to Padfoot warning him. Sirius makes it to the door, blaming it behind him and ducking down to dodge the piercing hex that goes right through the door where his head would have been.

"COWARD!" Sirius hears Harry scream, and he agrees with him, he was running from him instead of begging for his forgiveness for getting James and Lily killed.

"Harry, no!" Another voice calls out as Sirius runs down the stairs as quickly as possible.

"GET OFF ME, HE'S MINE! IT'S MY KILL!" Sirius hears his godson scream as he makes it past the second-floor landing as soon as the door opens, as he jumps from the first-floor landing to the common room he hears a scuffle from upstairs before a yell of "Stupefy" and a thump of a body hitting the floor. Sirius hits the ground running, he had to leave, he had to get out of here, Minnie would be here soon and he really didn't want to be on the other end of that wand, so as Sirius vaults over the couch making his way to the Portrait Hole, he stops as he feels a snap in the air as if someone had just broken a charm and Sirius watches in a rising horror as someone forces the portrait door to Gryffindor Tower open with their bare hands.

When the woman steps in, Sirius can see the veins pulsing in her neck, the scowl on her face, and her forest green eyes focus on Sirius and he had never felt more like prey before in his life. Sirius takes a step back, and as the woman in green and golden cat paw print pajamas growls like a lion and the ears on the top of her head twitch, he now knew who his delusion was speaking of. She moved with a swiftness he'd never seen before and the next thing Sirius Black knew was the feeling of her heel digging into his stomach, if it wasn't for the fact he had not eaten today he would have thrown up on the woman's leg. She had kicked him with enough force to fling him over the couch and halfway to the fireplace in the room, Sirius tries to crawl backwards as he tries to refill his empty lungs. She was on him in a second, standing over him, eyes full of fury.

"I swear on the stixs that if you have hurt him the Dementors will be the least of your concerns, Black." The woman growls out before leaning down and grabbing him by the front of the rags he wore and slamming her fist into his face, Sirius feels his nose break with the hit, and she continues to beat on him.

"What is Black? Was taking his parents away not enough!?" She cracks him across the face again, "come back to finish your master's work and kill him!?" She screams in his face, "Was damning him to a hell not enough!?" She punches him again, Sirius' hands searching for something, anything he can use to defend himself.

"No, not him." Sirius says through blood and a broken nose, "Never Harry." While looking the woman in the eyes, she pauses in her assault, for just a moment, surprise and confusion on her face as Sirius' hand finds something and grabs it before swinging and the object collides with the side of her head sending her flying with a burst of power and heat. Sirius scrambles to his feet just in time to see a red-haired boy come down the stairs pointing his wand at him as he moves in front of the woman.

"Stand down Black, it's over, drop the fire poker!" He yells at him as the portrait hole opens again and he sees McGonagall walk in and sees him, her face goes white as her wand snaps to her hand as rage encompasses her face.

"No, no this wasn't supposed to go like this!" Sirius thinks as he backs up to the fireplace, the rat! Harry was still in danger!

As McGonagall jabs her wand at him and the red light of a stunner shoots out, he feels the heat behind him roar and swallows him, before dragging him through the fireplace. He tumbles and turns through the fire pulling him downwards. Before too long it spits him back out with force, he skids across the floor and slams into the wall on the other side of the room. Sirius groans and tries to stand but finds no strength in himself to do so, looking around where he was spit out at, he recognizes the room, he was back in the shrieking shack and he wasn't alone.

"To be fair, I did warn you about the Lioness," she said, the same girl from the common room, her back facing him as she stood, looking into the flames of the fireplace, "Do you remember now, Sirius Black?" She asks quietly.

Sirius rolls to his side, never taking his eyes off the girl, "Yes…" he whispers, "I do."

"Good." The girl says and finally turns to face him, and in the shadows of the fire, he looks into eyes that burn like fire, like hot embers in a hearth, "Then you remember the oath you broke to someone who was all but your brother born in blood, about Harry?" She asks.

"I-I-I couldn't, Azkaban, The-the rat." Is all Sirius can say while he was caught in the eyes that burned like perdition.

"No, Sirius Black. You made a choice that night, did you not? You choose blood and vengeance over doing what you had promised, what you had sworn to do, didn't you?" She says this softly, almost in a disappointed tone, disappointed in him.

"Y-Yes," Sirius chokes out, shivering like he was back in the cold cell in Azkaban, "But he went to family, he went to people who could care for him." Sirius makes his excuses, looking away.

"Could, yes, but they choose not to." She says in the same disappointed tone, as she walks closer, "Look at me, Sirius Black, Look at me and know." And like he was compelled to do so, he does, he looked into those burning ember-like eyes, and then he knew, He knew he wasn't the only one locked away in a hell they didn't deserve. He tried to close his eyes to the truth, to look away but he could not, he was stuck in their disappointed gaze.

"Why do you haunt me so, Specter!?" Sirius yells from the ground, "Why do you show me these visions…" he asks softly from his spot on the ground.

"Because, Sirius Black, I am the ghost of the past you had forgotten and now remember," she kneels in front of him, "to bring you fire and hope so that I need not become the ghost of what is yet to come." She stands and walks back over to the fireplace, "Come, Sirius Black, warm yourself by the hearth and look into its flames." She orders him, and slowly Sirius stands and limps over to the flames and kneels in front of it, and looks into them. What he saw in the fire was something he never wanted to see, he saw his godson, dead, laying in a pool of his own blood with an arrow through his heart, and knew this was what was to come.

He closes his eyes, before he asks the girl, "Why do you show me these things…" His voice is weak and broken.

"These are only visions of what can be, not will be, Sirius Black." The girl turns to him, looking upon him as a judge would to a criminal, "I come to you this night to offer you a chance of something sweeter than revenge."

Sirius looks up at the girl, "and what is that?" He asks in a whisper.

"Redemption," She speaks the word like it was a lifeline for the man who knelt in front of her, "to pick back up the oaths you swore to long ago, and to find Redemption through them, for yourself, for Harry. For, in the end, you're the only one who can save him." She says, in a voice full of understanding.

"From what?" He asks.

"From his greatest enemy, himself." The girl speaks with a soft smile. Sirius looks away from the girl and back into the fire, where he had seen a nightmare he had promised James and Lily that he would protect Harry from.

"Who are you?" Sirius asks without looking away from the flames.

"I am Hestia," she says, "I am the Goddess of the Hearth, of the Home, and of Family," Hestia says, revealing herself.

Sirius is quiet for a long moment before looking back at the Goddess, eyes once glassy and unfocused as a cloudy gray sky, now hard and focused as steel, his hands ball into fists and he sits up straighter, "What must I do?" Sirius asks, and the Goddess smiles down at him.