December15, 1988
Sirius' offered a toast to the baby and his parents that made their many friends and neighbors chuckle and Siska blush and Liana mock swat the back of Sirius' head with her hand. Sirius made his way back through the crowded village party making his goodbyes as he went. His prediction of Harry needing to crash halfway through the party had proved very accurate. He nudged the already half asleep Harry into following him to the car. And once they we're home he nudged him harder to get him into the house and into bed.
An hour later he received a panicked phone call from Cahaya the unfortunate policeman who had remained on duty while the rest joined the party.
"Bapak Black! You must come, you must help!"
"On my way but I need to know where."
"The village square!"
Sirius hung up, wrote a quick note for Harry in case he wasn't back before morning and then limped as quickly as possible to the gate house. Where he grabbed his wand and shrunken motorcycle, before apparating to a blind alley not far from the square. Even from here it was very obvious what Cahaya had called about. The one building that was big enough to hold the village wide celebration was engulfed in flames, even as he watched it collapsed. Swearing he forgot about secrecy and apparated to where he and his wand would do the most good.
Nine hours later Harry rode his bicycle towards town he wondered what emergency had called Sirius away but the fact he wasn't back said it was major. This was odd, he was at the park on the edge of the village where his martial arts class met most of the time; the park was usually crawling with kids by now. Maybe they were sleeping in after the party, but sensei should be here at least and he wasn't. Harry decided to go the rest of the way into town.
When he got to the edge of the town square he froze. It resembled pictures on television news of places that were attacked by terrorists. There were long lines of bodies some covered by sheets, some by plastic body bags, some by shirts, and a large number of those unmoving bodies covered by shirts looked like they were kids. Harry looked towards the building where last night's party had been held. It was a pile of rubble there were people trying to clear the rubble and there was an ambulance close by.
Harry could see Sirius was one of the people working. He moved towards the rows of bodies. His eyes had already given him the story but his mind and his heart weren't accepting it yet. He stopped next to a body of a child that was wearing familiar shoes. Gulping he slowly reached out and uncovered the face. He sank to the ground as tears flooded his eyes.
Sirius uncovered another body in the rubble. It was the one person he had both dreaded and hoped to find. Sri had obviously been killed when the roof collapsed. That meant that all of his and Harry's adoptive family here on Bali were dead. Killed because some idiot that was probably drunk had crashed his expensive muscle car that had a large illegal nitrus booster tank into a building filled with people in the worst possible place, near the propane supply. Most of those that weren't killed outright from the crash or the resulting explosion died in the brief fire or when the roof collapsed. Sirius estimated that half of the town maybe more had been here when it happened. It was only fate's whim he and Harry hadn't been. They had managed to find fifteen survivors late last night and early this morning but for the last six hours it had only been bodies. Heartsick Sirius lifted Sri's body into a fireman's carry she was light enough he would manage despite his leg besides it was something he owed her for the way she adopted him and Harry. Sirius figured at this point they were almost done anyway. As he got clear of the rubble he saw Harry next to Hadi's body. He carried his burden over and after carefully setting it down. He took Harry in his arms and they sat together crying.
Two hours later rescue personnel declared all the bodies found and started the task of identifying the seventy five bodies. By this time both Harry and Sirius had gone numb, so they helped as they knew most of the people anyway. One of the rescuers, a policeman from a neighboring village, took them home and stayed with them because both were showing signs of shock. Sirius took a hot shower then climbed into bed he'd been up twenty-nine hours. Two hours later Harry left his own room and climbed into Sirius' bed so he wouldn't be alone as he cried some more.
Chapter 23 What's Wrong
December 16,1988
Beth was puzzled when Sirius didn't call her that day. She couldn't wait to tell him that her mother had apologized and she wondered why he didn't call. But she had a busy day anyway with the monthly NATO talks. She didn't worry though because one, she was busy and two, she was tired she had stayed up way too late the night before to talk with her mother.
Maryanne Stevens went to the office she knew was used by Beth's security detail. "I would like to read the report your team has complied on my daughter's fiance." she told Radar. She sat at one of the two desks in the room as he pulled the file from the drawer. She wanted to read the report because she trusted the security team to be objective in their assessment. Beth's track record with men spoke for itself. She skimmed Beth's account of her vacation already familiar with it because of the six hour talk she had had last night. She the read the ICW alert that had gone out in November 1981 judging him as highly dangerous. She read the British trial transcripts from March 1982 and frowned. There was nothing until else in the ICW file until July of this year when there was a description of a workshop being taught by Sirius O. Black muggle police techniques and their practical application by aurors which was very curious by itself then she started the reports on what Indonesia had told them through general security reports and lastly the phone interview with Secretary of Security Budiono. "Can I get a copy of this."
Radar wasn't about to tell the first lady no; so he pulled out a stack of paper equivalent to the file and performed a duplication spell handing the new papers to her.
Maryanne left the office thinking. Wondering when she should confront her husband.
December 17, 1988 Bali Indonesia
Sirius hated this. Even though he was officially retired, because he was highest ranked officer and knew many of the victims he got recruited to do notifications this was in addition to making all the decisions about the belongings of Sri's entire family and making arrangements for the funeral. At least a mass funeral wasn't an unheard of thing in Bali.
It was 8 p.m. and he was just getting home. Harry had been alone almost all day and he probably shouldn't have been. But what was Sirius to do, everyone he would normally leave Harry with was dead. The only two people that weren't were working overtime like he himself was, trying to get things together in the aftermath of yesterday's tragedy. Crap he was so tired he was quoting the bloody news agencies. He found Harry sitting in the living room looking bewildered and sad.
.....
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