Harry Potter One Shots

In the Shadow of the Bottle

Unable to sleep due to the physical toll of his summer with the Dursleys, a restless Harry sneaks down to the kitchen of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, only to overhear what he believes is his godfather venting anger about him. When Sirius and Remus catch him, a flinch at the sight of a bottle of firewhisky opens the door to a long-overdue conversation about abuse and the trauma tied to alcohol. With his secrets out in the open, Harry finally learns what it means to have a family who cares.

Relationships: platonic only. No romantic.

Ron's snores could have rattled the heavy chains of the downstairs chandelier. They were loud enough to wake the deepest of sleepers. Even Merlin himself, who had been dead for over a thousand years, would have felt the floorboards shaking beneath his ghostly robes. Yet they weren't the reason Harry had abandoned the lumpy mattress in the second floor bedroom he had been shown to earlier that evening. He hadn't spent the past few hours in a deep slumber like Ron, nor had he spent them tossing and turning as nightmares of the graveyard haunted his sleep. He would have given just about anything to drift into unconsciousness, but sleep had been rendered impossible by the dull, throbbing ache of his ribs and the sharp, weeping sting of the welts on his back, courtesy of his Uncle for daring to cause the Dementor attack.

Restless and desperate to escape the confinement of yet another room, Harry had slipped out of bed and crept down the endless, shadowed staircases of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place. His bare feet tiptoed with practiced, feather-light silence, terrified of disturbing the sleeping house—and most of all, terrified of waking the shrieking, curtained portrait of Sirius's mother, which he had had the displeasure of encountering upon his arrival. He could still hear the shrill, echoing shrieks of "Mudbloods!" And "Filth!" ringing in his ears, a screech that put Aunt Petunia's worst scoldings to shame. But above all, he could still see the pained expression on is godfather's face as he pulled the curtains over the screaming portrait, effectively shushing her, and although Sirius had tried to make light of the situation, Harry couldn't bear to see that look cross his face again.

Harry held his breath, his feet making no sound against the worn carpet as he descended the final steps, keeping close to the shadows on the wall. He was halfway to the kitchen when a sudden, harsh sound drifted from the stone stairwell below—the unmistakable, and all too familiar clatter of glass against wood.

Harry froze, his blood running cold as a ragged, booming voice echoed up from the basement kitchen, swearing with a fierce, reckless intensity.

He recognized the voice instantly, though he hadn't heard that fury since the Shrieking Shack, back when Sirius had cornered Pettigrew with murder in his eyes. Harry couldn't hear the full sentences, but the sharp, jagged fragments drifting up the stairwell were dripping with venom. "Useless!" "Burden!" "Liability!"

The words sank deep, bruising something far more tender than any of Vernon's leather belts. They were insults written into the very marrow of his bones, too familiar to misinterpret. Standing alone in the dark, clutching his aching side, Harry knew, without a single shadow of a doubt, that Sirius was talking about him.

A spike of pure instinct flared in Harry's chest, screaming at him to turn around. His bruised ribs throbbed in sharp warning, telling him that nothing good ever came from lingering near angry, shouting adults. Every survival reflex he had learned at Privet Drive urged him to scramble back to the safety of his room. To lock the door and not come out until morning.

But then a stubborn, reckless spark of Gryffindor curiosity took hold. Despite his aching back and the warning bells ringing in his head, Harry took a slow, hesitant step forward, then another, until he was standing at the top of the basement stairs. Taking a deep breath, he placed one foot onto the step below and then the other, clutching the railing with a white-knuckled grip. Harry knew how to be quiet. He'd spent years learning the sounds of his aunt and uncle's house until he knew where to step and where not to step. But this wasn't the house he had grown up in, and he wasn't familiar with the stairs. As his foot landed on the last step, the old wood let out a sudden, piercing shriek that cut through the shouting like a knife. Harry froze, eyes wide as the shouting came to a sudden halt.