Prologue
Harry Potter looked at his watch. It was nearly five o' clock in the morning and the sun would be rising soon. With a sigh, he looked down at the piles of books that his friend Hermione Granger had gathered for him to use in his research. Ever since his godfather Sirius Black had died, Harry had been struggling not to feel that it was in vain. His antidote to that was to research the life of the best friend of his father to see what had motivated him.
It had led him to countless accounts from old school friends mostly found by Hermione and written down in the journals now stacked around him. So far, they were mostly the same: "He was always getting into trouble," "Pity about that Azkaban business.." "Pity about him, you know…" Harry rubbed his eyes sleepily and noticed that Hermione had inserted a bookmark in one particular volume. Upon further inspection, it turned out to be an almanac. What was Hermione thinking when she left her Astronomy homework here?
Out of pure boredom, Harry opened up to the page that was bookmarked and began reading. It was on constellations that appeared in the latter part of the year and signaled the begin of harvest in ancient times and all that. But wait. One of the constellations that appeared in the sky was shaped like a dog and was called Sirius. Harry started and thought that maybe it was not just a coincidence that Hermione had bookmarked this page.
Making a mental note to thank Hermione for paying close attention to such a detail, Harry called his house-elf to him. Kreacher appeared, as always dressed only in a loincloth but not appearing to be cold even though Harry had let the fire go out a while ago. "Kreacher, do you know how Sirius got his name?" The house-elf nodded even though he still glared at Harry with contempt that he did not even bother to conceal. "Can you tell me?"
Kreacher nodded again. Harry knew that Kreacher did anything to dodge obeying him and knew that he only needed to say something the right way to force him. "I command you to tell me." With a snarl, Kreacher began to talk. "Mistress Black and Master Black were just going to bed one night when dear Mistress said, 'You know, dear, my due date is during the time when Sirius and Orion are in the sky, in late November. Mightn't we consider them as names? Besides, it would be fitting to name the baby after a heavenly body to indicate his pure-bloodedness.'" "Keep talking," urged Harry as he dipped his quill into his inkwell and started to write what Kreacher was saying. By sunrise he had more information than he had gotten from all the old classmates combined.
Satisfied, he rolled up the scroll to show Hermione so that she could make any grammatical corrections, which she was always sure to find. He yawned and finally dismissed Kreacher so that he could go to sleep to the delight of the house-elf. As the light crept in the window, he felt that is was also shedding light on the godfather he had barely known and now felt closer to by the scroll in his hand. Before he got Hedwig to send it to Hermione and taking a nap, he read it through once more.