Sirius Black's Journal

by Flower 'n' Prongs

Sirius Black wrote in a journal, which he kept hidden from the world to protect his ego. This shows you four of the biggest days in his life after Hogwarts. Plus, what does Harry think when he finds a hidden book in Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place?

1. Harry's Discovery

Sirius Black's Journals

Author: Lily, pen name Flower 'n' Prongs

Disclaimer: A year since I first put this up and I still don't anything. You'd think I could have been able to use some of this time to my advantage but apparently not. Anything and everything that you recognize still belongs to JK Rowling.)

Summary: Sirius Black wrote in a journal, which he kept hidden from the world to protect his ego. This shows you four of the biggest days in his post-Hogwarts life, (the Secret Keeper suggestion, the day the Potters die, a day in Azkaban, and breaking out). Recently added -- Harry finds the hidden book.

Notes: Yes, I'm back and ready to go! I had a stroke of inspiration wondering to myself "what if Harry found the journals after his godfather died?" and voila! I'd really appreciate it if those who read reviewed, it's very frustrating to have the hits go up into the hundreds but only have three reviews. Thanks to all who listen. Also, I've been bumping the orders of the chapters around a little bit to try and make it more fun to read.

For this chapter…
Pairings: Lily and James (mentioned), Harry and Luna (very lightly implied)
Rating: T
Warnings: language, may contain spoilers for Deathly Hallows, minor AU

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Harry's Discovery

June 17th, 1999

2:42 PM

Harry James Potter was brooding. It had been one year since he defeated Voldemort in the final battle, which would most people were out celebrating. However, for Harry it also meant that it was one year since he had seen his parents, Sirius, and Remus. As good as his friends, the Weasley family, Kinsley, and were too him, it wasn't the same. The three true Marauders, Lily, and Dumbledore were the incredibly important to him as they gave him a connection to his childhood, and he couldn't have a single one of them.

Ever since the (second) fall of Voldemort, Harry had returned to Number 12, Grimmauld Place very often. It was a place where he could be alone and think, away from the group of people who cared most about him. He would never tell anybody where he was going, he simply would say "out" and hurry to the house he inherited. As much as he knew Sirius had hated the place and as much as he disliked it before, he connected the house to his godfather.

It didn't take much for him to imagine Mrs Black screaming at Sirius when he came back from Hogwarts and told her about his friends in a similar fashion to how the portrait screamed at the inhabitants recently. He could picture Sirius, very similar to how he had been seen in Snape's memory from the first day of school, be yelled at for being a Gryffindor and befriending scum. He could imagine his godfather being kept away from the rest of the Marauders except for respectable, pure-blood James Potter over the summer holidays much as he had been shut in the Dursley's house all those years.

He knew that his friends were starting to get worried about him disappearing without any mention of where he was going at an increasing rate, but he didn't feel like explaining everything to them since he was sure they wouldn't understand. He had lost so much where they had lost so little, he was positive they didn't understand how he felt when he thought about them all. It was more complicated and painful than the others could understand, even with the loss of Fred.

There had been times when he didn't go to Number 12, Grimmauld Place and went to go see another place or person instead. There had been several times when he went back to Godric's Hollow, to see where he had become famous and where his parents had died all those years ago. He needed to go back alone this time, just to spend time alone with his parents' graves and his first house. It had reduced him to tears every time, but he uncontrollable desire to go back. He had looked through the house from top to bottom, examining it. All of the things his parents had picked out were still there, and his first bedroom remained untouched. Harry had been returning more frequently, as it was the place that he felt closest to his parents in.

There had been a few of times when he went to see Luna Lovegood. Over Christmas and Easter he had gone to visit her, since he was positive that she would understand his anger and sadness of losing people in her own crazy, reassuring way. She reminded him of the voices behind the veil and that he had the chance to see Dumbledore again, for he had told her everything that he had seen after he had been hit with Voldemort's curse. In her typical Luna way, she understood everything that he was saying. Since she believed him entirely and didn't get confused in the slightest, Harry had told her the entire story, which he hadn't done to anybody else. She had assured him that between seeing their old headmaster and having his parents, Sirius, and Remus show out up out of the resurrection stone, it was proof that he would see them in the afterlife.

Her great understanding, her always being willing to listen, and her love had Harry feeling as if he could always go to Luna's and be welcome. Half-guiltily, half-happily, he had begun to feel closer and closer to Luna and not care so much about Ginny. He felt quite bad to put it in that way, the Weasley family had always been so good to him and he cared for the entire family a lot, including Ginny. But he was starting to notice Luna sneaking into his pleasant dreams recently and Ginny was appearing less frequently.

However, on that sunny day in July Harry was sitting in the kitchen of Sirius's childhood home, being served excitedly by Kreacher. He had visited his old home previously that week and was not sure if he had the strength to go back just yet. He had brought the old photo album he had with him and flipped through it in what seemed to be his mum and dad's old bedroom. He had remained there for hours, and when he finally went to see everybody at the Burrow they were extremely grateful for him to finally have showed up. He refused to tell anybody where he had been though, much to their frustration. What Harry really wanted to do was talk to Luna about missing his parents, but he knew that she was at Hogwarts for a little while longer before she finished school.

Without being able to talk to Luna, he decided that the next best thing would be to go back to Grimmauld Place, his most common destination. He had already spent the morning re-examining everything in the house, in hopes of finding something else that had once belonged to his godfather. With a bit of hope, he finally decided to ask the house elf for a bit of help. "Er, Kreacher?"

Kreacher's head popped out from under the table. "Yes Master? Is there something that you would like Kreacher to do?"

Harry turned his chair to face the elderly house elf. "Yes. Kreacher, is there anywhere in the house that you remember Sirius going to often or hiding things when he was a boy? I would really appreciate it if you told me anything that you could remember."

Kreacher sad by the legs of the chair, apparently thinking hard. Suddenly, the elf broke into a wide, excited grin. "Yes Master!" he exclaimed, nodding so eagerly that his long ears flapped. "Come with me, follow Kreacher! He will show you to Master Sirius's old spot." The elf jumped up with greater force than Harry expected, quickly heading for the stairs. The pair went up and up the staircase to the fourth floor, before Kreacher turned down a corridor and brought Harry to a stop in front of a door.

Harry carefully pushed the door open and looked into the room. It seemed to be fairly normal, considering the rest of the house. The walls were a deep blue, the carpet was silver, and it seemed to have been a spare bedroom at one point. Harry didn't remember clearing it out, he assumed that it had been checked over before he got there so somebody could use it as their room. He figured that Kreacher would know, so Harry crouched beside him. "Did somebody sleep here when this house was the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix?"

Kreacher nodded. "Yes Master," he said seriously. "The older of the Weasley boys who stayed here, the two matching ones."

Harry sighed in relief. He figured that if Fred and George had been the two who shared the room, they wouldn't have spent too much time looking around the room to find something. He remembered that they had spent a lot of time that summer trying to perfect their Skiving Snackboxes, so he figured that the room was probably in almost the same state that it had been when they got there, minus some Dark objects. "Kreacher, do you have any idea where he might have hidden something in this room?"

Kreacher shook his head after a couple of moments, looking disappointed. Before he had the chance to harm himself, Harry hurried to give the elf his next order. "That's all right then, you and I will just have to look through the room ourselves then," he said with in a falsely cheery tone.

Harry and Kreacher spent nearly an hour in the room before any headway was made. It came from Kreacher, who had been checking the lower half of the room. Harry had already examined the ceiling, a rather large cabinet, and was just finishing up doing an inch by inch search of the wardrobes when the elf cried out, making Harry bump his head on the side of the wardrobe.

"Master Harry, there's something weird about the floor here!" the elf cried happily. He was pointing towards the baseboards near the far corner of the room, underneath the carpet. The floor was what the elf had checked after the beds and part of the cabinet Harry had also been working on. Harry went over to see what was suspicious about that particular piece of floor, but didn't see anything weird about it.

When Kreacher was asked about this, he merely shook his head and insisted that there was definitely something different about that particular area of floor, which was less than a 30 centimetre by 30 centimetre square. He figured that after doing so much cleaning, Kreacher must be able to tell the difference in something like a floor much more easily than he could, so he didn't question it any longer. "Master, you will have to," the elf gulped, "pull up the carpet." He looked terrified at the thought. Harry really hoped that it was because he was thinking of what his poor Mistress Walburga Black would say, and not because he knew about some Dark spell or creature that was going to cause them harm if they pulled up the carpet.

With a bit of magic and a lot of tugging, Harry and Kreacher managed to get the carpet away from the wall enough so they could see what was below it. Much to Harry's relief, it turned out that there wasn't anything Dark (as far as he could tell). The only think that he could see was a rectangle carved in the floor underneath.

It seemed that it would be simple and safe enough, but both Harry and Kreacher had a great deal of difficulty getting the necessary grip or force on the piece of wood to actually be able to pull it up. It took the pair several minutes, but they were finally successful in moving it. The hole underneath wasn't very big, Harry could put his fingertips on the bottom without having his wrist in the hole. There was only one thing inside the hole that Harry could find.

When he pulled it out, he was surprised to see that it was a book. Harry was surprised to see that there was no title and no author on it. Out of pure curiosity, he opened it to see what was so bad about the book that it had to be hidden away, under floor boards and carpet, to keep people from seeing it. Harry opened it to the first page and saw that the page had his godfather's handwriting on it. Harry read through it, amused.

The firs thing written was "Keep your nose out of this unless you want to be hexed to oblivion!", written in bright blue ink. It was followed by "Not being able to see your best friend can make people moodier than Moony at that time of month, so don't say that you weren't warned!" in black ink. Below it, Harry saw many things that must have been Sirius's nicknames in various coloured inks. Sirius, Padfoot, Snuffles, Blood-traitor Black, and, the last one made Harry laugh out loud, Mr Lily Evans (take that Prongs!) were all by the bottom the page.

When Harry turned the page over, he raised an eyebrow. Surely this book wasn't what he thought it was. However, as he flipped through seeing dates, times, photos, and the constant change of variety in ink, he began to laugh. He saw the phrase "journal, not a diary you idiots" and his suspicion was confirmed.

His manly godfather, who had been widely known as a mass murderer, had a journal.

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Notes: If I don't get reviews, I will assume that you didn't enjoy it and won't be continuing (only three reviews for nearly 500 views makes me think I won't be). Well, now that I've stuck this chapter in I'm not sure if I'm going to stop it here or add an extra chapter or two, possibly where any of the following would happen:

- Harry looks through the journal (I have ideas, don't worry).
- Harry goes back to the Burrow to see everybody there, possibly telling them about his discovery at Number 12, Grimmauld Place.
- Luna shows up again.

Anything you'd rather see? Ideas and opinions wanted. You've already read it, which is the hard part, so please review it now. Looking forward to hearing from you all! I'd really like to have at least five reviews for this story (hint hint).