Lone Wolf | SIRIUS BLACK

Chapter Forty Six

| T H E B E S T K I N D
O F
D I S O B E D I E N C E |

March, 1990

IF PETUNIA kept rejecting the gifts I sent for Harry one more time, I would set her gross wannabe beehive style hair on fire.

I was getting so frustrated!  This was the only way it seemed I could be around him, even if I wasn't there in person and it was only the mailman making the delivery.  It still felt special.  It felt like I was his family.  But Petunia was stealing that from me. On our last explosive phone call, she'd pulled the 'I'll tell the world your secret and bring the power of the media upon you'.

It didn't scare me. I was never afraid of Petunia. But I was worried she might drift into treating Harry even worse if I dared do anything more in protest. Then, another thought occurred. He was ten years old now. In a couple of months, he would be in his first year at Hogwarts. Dumbledore had promised me, and he would never back out of anything as serious as that.

Petunia could threaten with words all she wanted. Like hell she would prevent me from seeing that boy.

I apparated into his village of Little Whinging, on the sleepy street of Privet Drive, when it was in the early hours of the morning. I had no doubt he would still be up at this hour, as it was probably the only time he got to himself, when he wasn't forced to do things for those lazy oafs I had to, unbearably, call 'relatives'.

Approaching the mail slot in their door, I willed the piece of parchment I slipped in to go into his bedroom, wherever that may have been. As it was, through the mail slot, I could see the paper fly under the cupboard beneath the stairs.

Wow, Petunia, guardian of the century award.

The tiny patter of footsteps was what I heard next, but the Dursleys wouldn't. They didn't have the advantage of werewolf hearing. I backed away from the door to see it slowly open. Harry stood there, with the dark wild hair that his father had always sported, and broken glasses perched on his nose. I looked over his striped blue pyjama set, which was a little too light for the slight chill in the air — at this hour anyway.

I pulled his coat off of the coat stand. His was arguably the one that offered the least coverage and protection against the cold, much to my disgust. Honestly, could his life be any lesser to how Petunia treated her actual son?

"Put this on." I motioned to the jacket when I handed it to Harry and he did so, slipping the coat on before following me out the door.

He didn't ask any questions until we were absolutely out of earshot from the Dursleys or the neighbours. Then, just one question, with a rather simple answer for me to give him.

"Are you Cassie?"

"Yes."

Harry kept walking at my side. Several seconds passed where we were quiet. "Aunt Petunia doesn't seem to like you."

I tilted my head in fake obliviousness. "Oh?"

Don't bring up all the history, Cassie, he's just a kid.

A kid who survived the killing curse.

A kid who is my honorary nephew, who must be sheltered for as long as he can be.