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The Girl in my Arms	By : PotionMaster Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 3779 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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During the holidays meals were something of a casual affair, with staff and students mixing at will. While not officially on duty the Heads of House and their Deputies were expected to make an appearance in order to keep an eye on their students so none of them students were surprised when Professor Snape walked into the room on Christmas Day. Most of them were stunned however to see that rather than stalking through the room at his normal breakneck speed he strolled in casually, an expression on his face that most of the students had never seen before but that some of the older Slytherins would recognize as a satisfied smirk - the closest he ever came to smiling in public. Those that weren’t shocked into silence by this uncharacteristically relaxed version of the most feared Professor at Hogwarts were flabbergasted to see that rathern enn entering the room alone as he usually did, this year’s DADA Professor was with him, casually leaning into him as he talked to her in a low voice. As he passed they could see that his arm was wrapped around her waist and that she was apparently listening avidly to every word. There was complete silence in the Hall by the time they reached the top table, where they chose seats at one end, a discreet distance away from the other professors and carried on their conversation. The silence continued for another few breathless seconds before it was explosively broken by dozens of young voices all avidly gossiping about the dramatic change in the behaviour of their Professors and speculating on what it could mean.

Bella continued signing her opinions of the Harpies’ prospects in the Cup this season to Severus while carrying on a totally different conversation with him in her head.

*Sweet Merlin, did you see their faces? There’ll be owls carrying the news all over the country by this evening, * she thought.

*I’m just glad the Malfoy brat went home for Christmas, * Severus replied. *Although I suspect his friends will be keeping him well informed. I imagine the news will get to Voldemort within the day and then I’ll have to explain what the hell I’m playing at to him. Still he’ll hardly be able to turn his nose up at a prospective ally as powerful as you. *

*How soon before you can introduce me to the other Death Eaters without it looking suspicious? * Bella wondered.

*Lucius is holding a grand dinner party in about a month that will be little more than an excuse for us all to get together. It will only seem natural for you to come as my guest and if you put on a convincing enough performance they’ll probably want to meet you officially soon afterwards. *

*Ick. It’s bad enough having to play the role of a sympathiser without having to visit Malfoy Manor and socialise with the bastard, * she grumbled.

*I meant to ask - what exactly is it that you have against Malfoy other than the fact that he’s an arrogant prick? * Severus asked. *You practically threw up when he turned up at the meeting. I’ve never seen you react to anyone like that before. *

Bella shrugged, *It’s silly really but he used to bully me when we were at school and part of me still reacts like a scared kid whenever he’s around. *

Severus scowled, *God, I wish I could wring his scrawny neck sometimes! Did he hurt you? *

*Not really, mainly because I got careful and he didn’t catch me alone very often. He was pissed because I was brighter than him; because I was friends with James and co; because I used to humiliate him on the Quidditch field. You name it he didn’t like it. He cornered me a couple of times, along with his bully boy friends - and boy did that trait ever get passed on. I’ve given Draco detention three times for threatening the first-years. Usually he just threatened me, a couple of times he hexed me - but nothing serious. Actually the only time I was probably in any real danger you rescued me. *

*I did? * Severus asked, surprised. *I don’t remember that. *

*Well since you nearly got eaten by a werewolf later that night, it’s hardly surprising. You need to talk to Sirius about that, * Bella said.

*Why on earth would I want to discuss Black’s attempt to kill me? * Severus demanded, arching one eyebrow imperiously.

*Because tomorrow night Remus is going to wolf out and you need to deal with your feelings about the incident before then. And don’t glare at me like that, it’s true. He’s going to be perfectly harmless thanks to the potion and we’re both going to be there for him, or he’ll start worrying about it and somewhere down the track it’ll blow up messily. We can’t afford to let that happen, particularly with the incredibly complex game of bluff and double bluff we’re currently engaged in,* Bella lectured.

When she wound down Severus thought, *I have no intention of leaving him alone ‘ besides I’m curious to see if we can still communicate like this while he’s in wolf form or whether his wolf self will interfere with the process. I simply see no point in raking over ancient history with Black.* When Bella continued to glare at him he sighed and continued, *However, since I see I’m not going to get a choice in the matter, I will talk to him tomorrow.* Bella continued to glare. *All right, all right. I will get him alone this afternoon after your damn snowball fight, now stop glaring at me woman, it does nothing for the romantic mood we’re trying to get across to the children.*

Bella smiled at him, *It’s so much easier when you do things my way. Besides this is important. You need to know why things happened the way they did and Sirius needs to apologise, which I’m sure you’ll enjoy. And if you manage to get through the conversation without hexing him or hitting him with anything heavy, then Remus and I will just have to show our gratitude this evening. Now finish your dinner. I’m going to go and talk to some of my students about the game.*

__________________________________________________________

Harry wandered along an empty corridor towards Remus’ rooms where he had arranged to meet Sirius and Remus before the snowball fight that afternoon.

*I am not lonely and I am not going to sulk,* he instructed himself silently. *I encouraged Ron to go home. I will not complain about it now. Besides, Sirius made it back in time for Christmas and Remus and Prof - Bella are here, not that I’ve seen them much since the Ball and what on earth was that display she was putting on with Professor Snape of all people at lunchti - I will not sulk. I am happy, I am enjoying myself, it could be worse. I could be back with the Dursleys. Right, happy, not sulking, Christmas spirit.* He wound up his lecture as he got to Remus’ rooms and pasted a smile on his face before knocking.

Sirius opened the door and pulled him into a hug. Stepping back and shutting the door he took a good look at his godson. ‘Well, you look like you dropped a Galleon and found a Knut,’ he exclaimed. ‘Missing your friends?’

Harry sighed, ‘I was trying to look happy!’

‘You’re not very good at it,’ Sirius informed him. ‘Come on, tell me what’s bothering you and then you can open your Christmas present. I didn’t put it under the tree because I wanted to give it to you myself.’

‘It’s nothing I’m just - bored I guess. I’m used to entertaining myself over the summer but Ron’s always here at Christmas. Except he isn’t this year and I told him to go so I can’t complain about that but the only Gryffindors left are first and second years and I’ve got no-one to talk to. Pathetic isn’t it? I mean I’m here and you’re here and it’s Christmas and I got some really nice presents and I’m sulking ‘cos my best friend is spending the holidays with his family instead of me.’

‘Come here,’ Sirius said, pulling Harry across the room to the couch and sitting down on it with his arm around the boy. ‘It’s not pathetic, it’s natural. I can’t tell you how proud I am of you for letting Ron go without tellhim him how bad you felt about it. I’m always here if you’re bored ‘ to tell the truth I’m a little bored myself. You could have come and visited me this morning if you felt like this, you know.’

‘Are you kidding? Not having to get up at some ridiculous hour on Christmas day is the only good thing about Ron not being here. He always wakes me up at the crack of dawn and insists on opening presents before we do anything else.’

Sirius laughed. ‘I have to admit I was the one who bounded out of bed at sparrow chirp when we were kids. The others all wanted to sleep in and I didn’t. I used to bounce on Remus’ bed till he got up and then he’d help me get the others up. Mainly because he felt if he didn’t get to have a lie in then no one else should. Peter always ...’ Sirius trailed off, stricken.

‘You should talk about him more,’ Harry said. ‘You’re letting him taint all your memories and it’s not fair. Peter always what?’

‘He always gave in fairly easily, said he was used to it because Bella used to act like some kind of lunatic at Christmas too,’ Sirius finished in a more subdued tone. ‘Anyway,’ he said, determinedly changing the subject. ‘What did you get for Christmas other than that jumper?’

‘How do you know the jumper’s a Christmas present?’

Sirius laughed. ‘It’s a Molly Weasley special,’ he explained tugging on one sleeve gently. ‘Bill used to get them too.’

‘I didn’t know you were at school with Bill,’ Harry said in surprise.

‘Really? He is only three years younger than me you know. Although if you want to know what he was like at school you should interrogate Bella about it - she was his girlfriend for a couple of years. Come to think of it, your father set them up on their first date. Bill was one of the reserves on the Gryffindor Quidditch team. He was a beater like me and a pretty fair one at that - nowhere in Charlie’s league of course. Bella had been griping that we used to scare off all her prospective boyfriends by giving them the third degree so Jamie decided to make it up to her by getting her a date. He wasn’t terribly subtle or tactful about it and he embarrassed her like mad but she forgave him pretty quickly because Bill was great. I think if they hadn’t got on together so well James might have been in more trouble than he could handle.’

Harry grinned, ‘Thanks, I like hearing stuff about mum and dad when they were kids. It makes them more real, you know? Although Bella’s taste in men has clearly deteriorated since then if the way she was acting at lunch is anything to go by.’

‘I shouldn’t encourage you to gossip about your professors, even if one of them is Bella, but how was she acting?’ Sirius asked.

‘She was all over Snape like a rash,’ Harry grumbled. ‘I mean all right, I’ll admit he’s not evil like we first thought - and it only took four years of suspecting him of everything while he went around trying to keep me in one piece for me to finally get that - but he’s still a slimy git and I can’t imagine what she sees in him.’

‘Oh, that,’ Sirius said. ‘I’ve already expressed my opinion on Snape to Bella and I have no desire to have that argument again so we’d better change the subject before she and Remus get here.’ He pulled a brightly wrapped box from a pocket in his robes. ‘So do you want your Christmas present or not?’

‘Of course,’ Harry said, grabbing it excitedly. Before tearing the paper off he pulled a larger package out of his robes and handed it to Sirius. ‘This is yours. Remus gave me the idea when he said you wished you could spend more time with me.’

Sirius tore the paper off to discover a leather-bound album. Opening it, he discovered it was a collection of wizard photos of Harry playing Quidditch, or studying, or messing about with his friends.

‘Thank you, Harry. It’s wonderful. I wish I could come to your games more often. Someone other than your friends should be there to cheer you on. I’m not much of a godfather to you, I’m never around and when I am I have to hide down here. If your dad were here, he’d be at every game, cheering louder than the rest of the crowd put together. He’d have been so proud of you, you know,’ Sirius said softly.

Harry threw himself into Sirius’ arms and hugged him hard. ‘That means a lot to me, Sirius and I know you come and visit whenever you can. You’re always there when I need you, you know. Dad couldn’t have chosen a better godfather, I swear.’ Eventually Harry pulled back, surreptitiously scrubbing at his eyes. ‘I thought you were supposed to be getting me into the Christmas spirit.’

‘I don’t know that this is going to help much then,’ Sirius said, picking up his gift to Harry, which had been discarded as they hugged. ‘But that shouldn’t stop you from opening it.’

Harry finished unwrapping it and pulled out a leather case that looked like it had originally come from a jeweller's. Carefully opening it up he saw an elegant silver pocket watch, which opened to reveal a face with several hands and, instead of numbers, settings for ‘At home’, ‘At school’, ‘At work’, ‘In trouble again’ and several blank spaces which could be set to whatever the user wanted.

‘It used to belong to James,’ Sirius explained. ‘When he and your mum went into hiding he put several things he wanted to keep safe into a lockbox and hid it. He told me that if anything happened to him he wanted the things to be given to you ‘when the time was right’. I found it and put it in my vault before I went after Peter. This is a family heirloom. His father gave it to him just before he took his OWLs as a good luck charm, so I thought it was about time it passed to you. If you want Remus can probably show you how to make sure you’re the only one that can read it. That way you can put me on it. You don’t have to, but that way you’ll know where I am when I’m not here.’

Harry carefully put it back in its case. ‘Thank you Sirius, it’s wonderful.’ Once the watch was safely put away he hugged Sirius tightly. They stayed that way for a few moments before a knock at the door caused them to pull away.

‘It’s probably Remus,’ Sirius said. ‘But just in case you’d better open the door.’ He got up and moved so that he couldn’t be seen from the doorway. Harry opened the door and was immediately swept into a hug by Remus.

‘Happy Christmas, Harry,’ Remus said, slinging his arm around the boy’s shoulder and walking further into the room so that Bella could enter.

=Yes, Happy Christmas,= she signed. =You too, Sirius.=

She shut the door behind her and pulled a couple of envelopes out of her robes. =These are for you,= she signed, handing them one each. While they were opening them Remus opened a cupboard and pulled out several more gaily wrapped packages.

‘Well, there’s a first time for everything,’ he said. ‘It seems Sirius didn’t go rummaging through the cupboards to see what we’d got him.’

‘Hey, I’m not that bad,’ Sirius grumbled.

=Right, = Bella signed. =After all it’s not like the guys used to have to give me your presents to hide in Ravenclaw Tower when we were at school or anything!=

‘What is this - pick on Sirius day?’ he complained. As he was talking he pulled the card out of the envelope Bella had given him. ‘Gift tokens?’

=I know, I know, terribly boring but I didn’t know your measurements so I couldn’t buy the stuff myself. I was going to get you to tell me the sizes and then pick the things up myself in a few days but now you have that potion from Severus you can go and get it all yourself.=

‘What are the tokens for, Siri?’ Remus asked.

‘See for yourself,’ Sirius said with a grin, handing him the card so that he could hug Bella. ‘Thanks, it’s great,’ he said.

Remus laughed, ‘Leather jacket, jeans and motorcycle boots. I hope this doesn’t mean he’ll be collecting another harem.’

‘Harem?’ Harry choked.

‘I did not have a harem,’ Sirius exclaimed.

=Well what would you call it?= Bella asked. =When Siri was at school he had a gaggle of girls from all houses who used to follow him around and sigh over him from afar. Any one of whom would dance attendance on him if he so much as crooked his little finger at them. Hell, he had his own cheering section at Quidditch games.=

‘I can’t help it if the female population of Hogwarts used to exhibit particularly good taste in men,’ Sirius said, preening a little.

=Oh Lord, the ego’s back in force,= Bella exclaimed.

‘I think you’ve created a monster,’ Remus added. ‘Ah well, we survived it once, I’m sure we can cope.’ *Besides,* he thought to Bella. *It’s kind of nice to see some of the old Sirius showing through.*

Bella grinned at Remus, *Yeah, it is, isn’t it. I never thought I’d say this but I think I’ve missed the arrogance. Just wait it gets better.* =That’s not all actually,= Bella signed.

‘It’s not?’ Sirius queried.

=No, you didn’t think I’d just get you gift tokens did you?= Fishing in the pocket of her robe she pulled out a small, tightly wrapped packet, which jingled as she tossed it to Sirius.

He ripped the paper off and then looked at Bella, somewhat bemused. ‘Keys?’

She just looked at him for a moment, =Do they remind you of anything?=

He examined them clo and and then turned his attention to the ring to which they were fastened; a simple metal disc on which was engraved ‘Live Fast, Die Young, Leave a Fine Looking Corpse’. He turned pale and the keys slipped from his fingers. ‘What - How - Where?’ he stammered.

=Pick one,= Bella complained picking the keys up and tossing them to Remus as she hugged Sirius. Pulling back she explained, =Hagrid’s been keeping it safe ever since you leant it to him. It wasn’t his so he didn’t feel right doing anything with it. Of course over a decade languishing in a shed didn’t do it much good but the judicious application of a little magic and a little elbow grease got it running again. It’s parked in one of the outbuildings near the forest where Hagrid can keep an eye on it. I didn’t think I should bring it up to the school in case anyone recognised it.=

‘She found the ‘Silver Lady—’ he exclaimed.

‘The what?’ Harry questioned, happily watching Sirius as he hugged Bella again and then Remus, just for the hell of it.

‘My bike,’ Sirius answered. ‘She found my bike.’

‘You know this has actually worked out quite well,’ Remus said. ‘Because this fits with Bella’s present even though I didn’t know she’d done it.’ He passed the smallest of the parcels to Sirius and smiled as he shredded the wrapping on that one too and pulled out a small jewel box. Opening it up, Sirius smiled, and then turned it around so that the others could see. Inside was a small diamond earring.

‘I know the hole has probably closed up by now,’ Remus said. ‘But you can always get it pierced again and after all the trouble you went through to get the staff to allow you to wear one to school in the first place, it didn’t seem right that you didn’t have one anymore. Combine that with the clothes from Bella and you’re going to look quite the stud about town again.’

Sirius examined the stud carefully, ‘Thank you Remus, it’s perfect.’ He closed the box and put it on the table with the card and the keys. ‘So what did you get, Harry?’ he asked.

Harry was grinning so widely it was a wonder his head didn’t fall off. ‘Tickets to the New Year’s Day Quidditch game,’ he said.

‘Cool,’ Sirius exclaimed.

=It’s a private box so you’ll be safe,= Bella signed. =Albus says that it’s OK for you to go as long as Professor Snape, Remus and I escort you. I thought you might like to invite Ron and Hermione, and anyone else you like as well. Oliver should be playing so you might get to chat with him after the game - but the tickets are compliments of the opposition so try not to rub it in if a miracle occurs and Puddlemere acly wly win.=

‘Thanks,’ Harry said. ‘It’s brilliant. I’ll go and send Ron and Hermione messages straight away!’

‘Hang on, not so fast,’ Remus said. ‘Or don’t you want these?’ he asked holding out his presents to Harry. *I think you just made his day,* he thought. *I wonder what he’d say if he knew we’d been talking to the Harpies’ coach only a few days ago?*

*Well as long as he doesn’t find out where we were when we got them you can always tell him,* Bella thought back with a grin.

‘Cool, thanks Remus!’ Harry exclaimed, bringing their attention back to him. ‘Quidditch gloves and a subscription to Quidditch World magazine.’ He hugged Remus impulsively and then hugged Bella too. ‘I’m going to go and owl Ron, I’ll see you on the Quidditch pitch for the snowball fight later.’ He ran off excitedly leaving the adults to laugh indulgently at his excitement.
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The Girl in my Arms