Written Dec. 3, 2015
Disclaimer: I own neither Harry Potter nor Heaven Nor Hell. Harry Potter and related characters belong to J. K. Rowling and Heaven Nor Hell belongs to the band Volbeat.
Warnings: Dumbledore bashing, slight Ron bashing, AU, Dark Harry, Grey or Dark Hermione, mentions of child abuse, OOC characters, canon character death.
Chapter two. I think this one is slightly longer than Hermione's chapter. I'm sure I misspelled some things, but internet is spotty and I didn't have my books with me when I wrote this up. I have finished writing chapter 6 as of this afternoon, but I'm not sure if I want to write a 7th chapter as a sort of epilogue, or if I should leave it as is. I'll let you all decide when I get there.
Comments and the like are always welcome. Review or PM me.
Thanks to desireejones99 on FFN and Dreams2shatter on AO3 for being the first reviewers! Also. You guys are awesome. 15 Kudos, 4 bookmarks, 14 follows, and 6 favorites? And so many hits on both sites. I love you all.
The Morning Star of a Prince
Well, I've heard that the Morning Star of a Prince
Was invoked on a Monday on Earth
I found his business card in the mud
1995
Sirius Orion Black, escaped convict, former Marauder, grim animagus, and godfather to Harry James Potter, was absolutely livid. After a lot of coercing from Hermione, Harry had told the animagus about how he was treated at the Dursleys. It wasn't just their treatment of his godson that had angered Sirius so. It was the fact that Harry was placed with Lily's sister when the Potters' wills explicitly stated Harry was not to go to Petunia. On top of that, Dumbledore refused to let Harry go elsewhere for the summer holidays. Sirius swore he would get back at all of them somehow, though he pretended to let it go when Harry practically begged him to leave it.
Hermione later told the prankster about her own silent vow to never abandon her friend, for which the animagus was extremely glad. At least Harry would have one person that wouldn't turn him away. The two (plus Remus) began talking about everything that happened, and were quickly becoming disillusioned with the Light Lord. The man had left his godson with Lily's sister, even though anyone who knew Lily knew Petunia despised her and anything to do with magic. On top of that, Dumbledore had left Sirius in prison—in Azkaban—after the headmaster was the one who cast the Fidelius for the Potters and knew exactly who the real secret keeper was. Dumbledore could have called for a trial, being the head of the Wizengamot. There were many other little things the trio found that conflicted with the image the Light was trying to portray.
It was honestly no surprise when the convict caught Harry practicing some Grey—leaning toward Dark—spells and curses in a hidden room, warded to prevent anyone without Black blood from entering without invitation.
"I want to be able to protect myself, Padfoot," the teen had murmured when questioned. "Voldemort is so much stronger than me, and he has decades more experience. If I can throw him off by casting Grey or Dark spells, then I might have a chance."
Sirius couldn't fault the raven-haired Gryffindor, and began tutoring him. Hermione soon joined in on the tutoring sessions, keeping to her word and sticking beside Harry. Moony even helped teach the two some of the Grey magics he knew. Sirius grew up in a Dark-oriented house, so he knew many dangerous spells, hexes, and curses that would give the two students an advantage, even if it was just surprising their enemies with Dark and borderline Dark spells.
When asked if they wanted Ron to join in the sessions, the teens firmly said no.
"He's too prejudiced against the Dark to approve, even if we explain why we're learning Dark magic," Harry said. "He'd go right to Dumbledore, then we'd end up in a bad spot."
Ron joined in the sessions when the two Marauders went over Light and Light Grey spells, but nothing more. The twins, however, jumped right in after managing to sneak into the room. The two took to the Darker magics like a griffin takes to flying.
The only concern Sirius had was Harry's nightmares. He may be a child in an adult's body, but Sirius wasn't stupid. He could tell Harry wasn't getting enough sleep. The only thing he could think of to help his godson was Occulmency, but the grim animagus had never been very proficient in that area. (Actually, he'd never been proficient in any of the Mind Magicks. He wasn't able to sit still for the amount of time required to even begin meditating. The animagus meditation took him forever and a day to accomplish.) So, he raided the Black library for every text he could find on Occulmency to give to Harry.
"These should help with the nightmares," he'd told the teen. "The main focus of this branch of magic is to keep others out of your mind, but it should help. Something about organizing and clearing your mind. Never really understood it… Hermione should be able to help if you have difficulty. She's smart enough to understand those big, fancy words the books use, and explain it in simpler terms."
By the time the students left for Hogwarts, Harry had at least managed to keep the nightmares away (Sirius noticed a lack of bags under the teen's eyes, at least, so he was getting more sleep than he had been) and all four Gryffindors had at least enough spell knowledge to hold their own against lower level Death Eaters and trainee Aurors. Ron knew some, but he wasn't very willing to do the extra studying the others did.
Sirius also gave Harry a two-way mirror, so the man-child could continue teaching them, as well as being able to talk whenever Harry wanted.
He was worried when he heard a Ministry official would be teaching DADA that year. Apparently, the woman was Senior Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic. Sirius did a bit of snooping, and found out the woman had a strong hatred for creatures and people with creature blood and strongly supported Purebloods. When he found that out, he told the teens to keep their heads down and to try not to attract attention.
When Hermione told the animagus about Harry's detentions and the marks in the back of his hands after, Sirius confronted Harry. After getting the details, he urged them to write to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. It was illegal for someone to use a black quill (or a blood quill, depending on who you talk to) as a punishment.
Since that woman was apparently monitoring all mail, they didn't get the letter sent until October, during the Hogsmeade weekend. Only days after that, the Daily Prophet was reporting how one Delores J. Umbridge was taken into custody after using a blood quill on students as punishment. She was quickly sacked from both the DADA position and her Ministry position.
The only downside, according to the teens, was that Snape was teaching DADA, in addition to teaching potions. Neither Harry nor Hermione could deny he wasn't a good Defense teacher, since he actually knew what he was talking about, but he was strict.
Yule came, and the Weasley's and Harry were brought to Grimmauld Place after Harry had a vision of a snake attacking Arthur Weasley. Arthur was going to recover, thankfully, but it had left everyone rather shaken. It did present an opportunity to teach the twins, Harry, and Hermione (who joined the group soon after the Weasleys arrived) more spells.
Padfoot had a feeling something big was going to happen, and he wanted the teens ready. He had them training almost relentlessly. Harry's story was he was spending time with his godfather, while Hermione said she was looking through some of the rare tomes from the Black library and the twins stated they were coming up with more ideas for their store.
The rest of the year was rather quiet, though Harry had told Sirius he was getting Occulmency lessons from Snape, of all people. At least the teen was getting actual training in the subject.
It was in June that everything went tits over arse. Apparently, Harry had a vision during one of his OWLs, and took a group of students to the Ministry. Sirius found out from Snape who found out from…somewhere. The animagus wasn't really concerned about that.
Sirius went with the rest of the Order to the Ministry and ended up dueling his cousin Bellatrix Lestrange, who had escaped with a bunch of other Death Eaters from Azkaban earlier in the year. Of course, the duel was all for show—the two Blacks had ended up in cells opposite each other in the prison and had become rather close (or as close as they could, when one was clinically insane and the other was essentially a man-child). It was all fun and games until they ended up in front of the Veil.
Sirius didn't notice the spell from Moody until it was too late. A simple tripping hex. But it ended up tripping him right into the Veil. In the moments before he was enveloped in the Void, he stared at Mad-Eye Moody, grey eyes accusing, before he looked at his godson. Fear-filled green eyes were the last thing he saw.
Sirius ended up with James and Lily, where they watched over Harry. Not one of them could find it in themselves to be disappointed with the path Harry had chosen, because he had chosen it. It wasn't a path that was planned out for him by others.
Even when that path led to Harry joining Voldemort, the three were just happy that he was happy. They could see he would be much happier there than with Dumbledore. Besides, Hermione would stick by him.
