The next morning Hydrus knew the other two men would be nervous, so he made a light breakfast of boiled eggs and soldiers. He gave Harry some dry cereal and a banana, and waited for the other two to emerge. It was a reluctant duo that came to the table. They played with their breakfast and sent pleading glances to Hydrus.
As if I have any true control over them. Hydrus thought. "Look, I know you guys are nervous, but really it isn't a big thing," he said calmly. "Just keep your talks non-magical and try not to use names. You can say things like, you were fighting a secret terrorist war. The main terrorist is gone, but his fighters are still out there. Tell about your losses and speak the truth, as much as you can, they can't help you if you hide things from them," the immortal said gently. "Remember you're doing this for yourself and Harry."
"They're going to want to know about my childhood," Sirius whinged. "You told me they always do."
"Well, yeah, I know that's a bit hard to talk about, but, I gotta tell ya, it helps. Besides, they'll only ask and if you're not comfortable they'll put it off until you are," he said calmly. He remembered how hard it was to accept that the Dursleys' treatment of him was actual abuse.
"I am more worried about me being a werewolf," Remus said, sullenly. "I cannot tell them about that, and it is my number one fear."
"That's a bit trickier, not much you can tell about that, other than it's an illness," Hydrus said, rubbing his chin in thought. "Or, you could just tell them you have bouts of uncontrollable anger, that you mostly have a handle on, but you fear hurting someone." Then he shook his head. "No, maybe not, they might want to observe and put you in a hospital for a few nights," he mused. "I'd keep that bit to myself, I know I just said not to do that, but in this case it can't be helped. You could just use the self-help books on yoga and meditation. Remus, you're a great guy and your fears are misplaced. You are one of the gentlest souls I've ever met. You've been a werewolf almost all your life, and only had one close call, that wasn't even your fault."
Sirius hung his head in shame and looked at his best friend.
"I forgave you years ago, Padfoot."
"Yeah, but if you want to get over that guilt you might want to tell your counselor about the prank that went wrong," Hydrus gently suggested.
"Yeah," Sirius replied, thinking over what he could and could not say. And the two men went back to pushing around their breakfast.
"Tippy," Hydrus called, when they were done.
"Master Hydrus is wanting Tippy?" the little elf squeaked. She had taken to wearing a child's dress; it was cute, pink and straight with no sleeves and a high neck. There was a huge daisy embroidered on the front. There were buttons down half the dress, which Hydrus thought would be the only way she would be able to get it over her rather large head. It wasn't anything fancy, but better than a tea towel.
"Hey, Tippy, how are you today?"
"Tippy is being bored, Master Hydrus is not letting Tippy do her job," the elf answered honestly.
"Hmmm," the immortal thought a moment. "It hasn't started to snow yet, so maybe you could clean up the garden, the flower garden needs to be fenced off, and it looks like we will need some of those trees trimmed. Do you think you could do that?"
"Tippy is a house elf, not a garden elf," she replied sadly.
Hydrus thought a bit more, and had another idea, "Tippy, sorry that I never asked, but can you read?"
"Tippy is reading very well."
So he called up one of his many book-readers and looked through the titles. He had raided all the libraries in London, not to mention all of the magical libraries, before he came back, so there was bound to be books on landscaping. He found a few, gave the reader to Tippy and showed her how to use it. "When you're not looking after Harry, this is yours to read. These books that I brought up are on landscaping, both magical and Muggle, so you can learn at your leisure."
The little elf's eyes lit up as she reverently took the reader and scanned the page. She then gently placed it in front of her dress. Hydrus never figured out how house elves hid things in their clothes, maybe they had pocketspaces too.
....
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