Now that I'm here, you'll stay with me.'
Harry stared at him with wide eyes, shaking his head. 'No, no, Sev'rus is my Dad.
'Not once I get his arse thrown in Azkaban for kidnapping, he won't be.' Sirius rose from the bed and grabbed one of Harry's arms. He twisted the boy around to meet his eyes. Harry had to know something before he opened the door to the hallway and the stairway to the first floor. Walburga had only been dead a year or so, but he could imagine what sorts of hellish games she'd play on invaders to her home. 'You've got to be quiet once we're out this door, or you'll wake my mother. I guarantee none of us will like that. All right?'
Harry nodded, looking frightened, but Sirius didn't let up his grip at all. Just as well, as the moment he opened the door, the boy opened his mouth and drew in a breath like he would scream. Sirius clapped a hand over his mouth, hitched Harry up onto his hip, and whispered harshly into his wee ear, 'Don't you make a sound, boy. We need to get out of here, fast. I'll tie you up if I have to.' He hated saying that to James' son, but he'd have time to apologize later. James would understand.
'Do you understand me?' Sirius whispered in a near-snarl, and waited till the boy nodded beneath his hand, his green eyes impossibly wide. A faint tremor ran through Harry's small limbs, and even before he smelled it, Sirius knew the boy had lost control of his bladder. The warm liquid soaked both of them from the knees down. '
The boy's face reddened beneath Sirius' hand; he was obviously embarrassed. His tiny nostrils were flaring, as if he couldn't breathe quite right. But Sirius just wanted to get them out of there, maybe with a few provisions first so they wouldn't have to steal anything to eat right away. So he hitched Harry a bit higher on his hip, tightened his grip so the boy couldn't wriggle away, and eased the two of them down the stairwell to the first floor. From there, he knew it was just a hop, skip and jump to the kitchen and then out the backdoor. They could get away before the Aurors came, before anyone knew they'd been there; it just had to be fast.
To Be Continued . . .
*Chapter 22*: Chapter 22
Whelp II -- The Wrath of Snape
Chapter Twenty-two
By jharad17
Warnings for: Language, descriptions of past abuse
Previously on 'Whelp II -- the Wrath of Snape':
The boy held perfectly still in the Black man's arms. He didn't want to be tied up or hit or anything. He'd already made the man threaten to do it, and he knew it was only a matter of time before the man was angry enough to follow through. Mean people hit, and adults hit, and he had been hit enough in his life to know that this Black man hit, too. That he could be as mean as Dudders.
While carrying the boy, the Black man took the stairs quietly -- he'd said they had to be quiet -- and his hand was heavy on the boy's mouth, so heavy the boy could hardly breathe. But he didn't need to breathe, so much, if the man didn't want him to. He'd proved it in the bathtub when She had hurt him before. Mostly, mean people didn't kill you, except this man had killed his parents. Or had he? He'd said he didn't, but was he lying?
In his head, the boy kept calling over and over,
At the bottom of the stairs lay a long, dark hallway filled with dust and cobwebs, bigger than anything the boy had ever cleaned at the Dursleys'. The dust flew into his eyes as the Black man moved, stinging them and making them water. The two of them crept down a few more stairs into a large room with a table, and the Black man righted the boy and sat him firmly on a hard chair.
'Stay put, now,' the man breathed in his ear, then pointed a long-nailed finger in his face. 'I'm just going to get us some supplies.'
The boy rubbed the dust from his eyes, then stared at the man who had gone to the cabinets on the walls of this . . . kitchen. The man opened each one and left them hanging open if they were empty, which most of them were. 'Wanna go back to Sev'rus,' he said quietly. 'My
'He's not your bloody Daddy, boy,' the man snarled. 'I told you, he didn't have permission to adopt you.'
If that was true, would he have to go back to the Dursleys? He couldn't, not now. Not ever. They would kill him this time; he knew it. Uncle hated him so much. He had to make the man see, and even though he wasn't ever supposed to tell, he had to tell the Black man now. He slid forward to the edge of the chair, not daring to leave it, like he'd been told. 'But he
'Shush about him,' the Black man said, rummaging through the cupboards nearest the floor now.
'They kept me in the cupboard, you know,' he said.
'Unh-huh.' It was like he wasn't listening, not really, just grabbing a sack from one cupboard and then heading back to the other cabinets to stuff things in.
The boy needed him to listen. 'And they never fed me, not at the table. They just threw scraps on the floor afterwards, if the chores was done, and I'd been a good do-- a good boy,' he stuttered over his near mistake. He wasn't a dog; he
