Chapter 3 - What Should Have Been

Harry had fallen asleep, his head resting on Sirius's leg.

It was a wondrous thing to be free, but the regret, the near debilitating regret that he hadn't been able to save James and Lily, that he hadn't taken Harry from Hagrid instead of going out for revenge.

This summer Sirius had learned a lot about Harry. Learned that he was a great deal more like Lily than James.

Yes, he could be as adventurous as James, but Harry was also sweet, stubborn, and had a slight temper, which was all Lily Evans.

Sirius watched his face in the firelight, he certainly hadn't been this relaxed last year, but then he'd had a piece of Voldemort's soul in his head.

He wondered what Harry had been like when he was little, wondered at the thousands of questions he must have asked, at the trouble he undoubtedly got into.

Sirius' chest felt tight, and he swore to himself, to James, to Lily, that he would do things right from here on out. He would always be here for Harry, and he watched him, graduate, get a career, support him, see him through this damn war, see him win some girl's heart, and be there to see James' grandkids.

They were going to live life to fullest, and he was going to be there.

Harry waved to Sirius who waved back -in human form, as the train pulled away from the station.

Harry was smiling widely and he got a glimpse of tears in Sirius's eyes even as he smiled back. It had been the best summer, the very best.

They had gone school shopping the day before, and though people were still wary of Sirius, they made it through the day unharassed. They had even out at a restaurant. It was a first for Harry. Sure he had been to a dinner a few times, and pubs, but never a real restaurant with tablecloths and appetizers, and a main course and dessert. Only at Hogwarts or Mrs. Weasleys had he had that. And that was very different than sitting in a semi-quiet restaurant with only one person across from.

Harry was sad to leave his godfather, but excited to have someone to send letters home to, letters that didn't need to be coded, where they could use their real names.

Soon enough Sirius was whisked out of sight and Harry pulled back into the compartments looking for a real seat.

He bumped into Draco Malfoy who looked tired. "Potter," he growled.

"Hi, Malfoy," he responded cheerily, he was in far too good a mood to exchange insults with Malfoy today.

And his politeness seemed to through the sallow faced boy, he looked at Harry as if he had grown a second head.

Just for the fun of it, Harry reached out and snagged Draco's hand, saying, "Good to see you," giving it one firm shake, before Draco yanked his arm away as if Harry had burned him.

The shock on his face made Harry laughed, and Draco, as well as the other Slytherins, got out of his way as he walked further down the hall.

He heard Zabini, "Potter finally cracked."

"He is Heir to the House of Black now," Nott remarked.

"My mother was a Black," Malfoy snarled.

"We know," the Slytherins around him chorused.

Harry was still grinning to himself as he found Neville and Luna in a compartment together.

They greeted each other with friendly hellos and then Luna and Harry got down to business.

Harry transfigured his old history of magic textbook into a table and Luna and Harry both laid out their copies of the Quibbler to the seventh and eighth page.

"Um?" Neville said, peering at them both, "What are you doing?"

"Sssshhhhhh!" they both said, and Luna whispered. "You'll scare it away."

Neville didn't ask what they were looking for and went back to his book as Harry and Luna focused on the shifting drown image of a forest.

Luna kicked Harry's foot under the table and she pointed her wand at the page, "Engorgio, Revelio, Finite!" She cast the spells in quick succession.

Harry reached into the page and pulled out a kitten, at which point Ron and Hermione walked in.

Harry passed the kitten over to Luna who cradled the mewing feline.

"Um?" Ron began.

"What are you doing?" Hermione asked, "Did you just pull that out of the Quibbler?"

Harry folded the papers and transfigured the table back into a book, he nodded, "Some idiot cursed his semi-wild kitten into a picture after it bit him. He couldn't get the cat out and decided to print the picture in the newspaper. Luna and I were discussing it through letters and we decided the best thing was to do was to put two papers together and wait till we saw it."

Hermione frowned, "But couldn't it have been in any of the newspapers?"

"It's been a month since it was printed," Luna said, "we the cat was most likely to go to the pictures that had sunlight."

"We?" Ron asked.

"Is it okay?" Hermione asked worriedly.

Luna held up the partially albino Serval kitten, looking it deep into its blue eyes. Its greyish black spots contrasted against its milky fur, its ars were larger than most cats, and its neck was elegant. "She seems okay, we'll have to give her a name."

"She's really been trapped in the newspaper?" Hermione asked again, "Isn't it starving?"

Harry held up a hand, and pulled the small dish out of his trunk. "Sirius and I went shopping, it's chicken breast." He pulled out a second dish and cast, filled it up with water with his wand. He held the water dish out to the kitten as it cowered in Luna's lap, slowly she extended her long neck and lapped at the water. She wasn't interested in eating just yet.

"A full month though," Hermione remarked sitting beside Luna.

"She didn't age in the picture," Luna comforted her.

Ron sat beside Harry and asked, "How did you get roped into this?"

Harry frowned at Ron's phrasing, "Luna and I have been exchanging letters all summer."

"You exchanged letters with us too," he objected.

"Yeah, but after the second letter you didn't seem to have more to say."

"But you did."

Harry shook his head, "What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing, just thought we would see each other more this summer."

"You-Know-Who is still alive," Hermione defended, "He could have put you all in danger if they visited the Burrow."

Ron deflated, "Right."

Ginny burst in then her face flushed, her eyes blazing.

"What's wrong?" they all asked her.

She said one word, "Dean."

"What did he do?" Ron asked.

"Talking about things he doesn't understand," she said haughtily, sitting down across from Ron with Luna and Hermione.

Ginny gave Harry an appraising look, "You look better, Harry. Did you have a good summer?"

He smiled brightly, "It was the best! How about you?"

She blinked at him, as if she had suddenly lost her words, "Er, it- it was alright."

The rest of the train ride went by pleasantly until Slughorn summoned Hermione, Ginny, and him for lunch. A Lunch that lasted for nearly the whole ride to Hogwarts. Dumbledore had brought Harry to meet Slughorn the new Potions Professor over the summer.

It had been an interesting first impression, not greatly improved by the second.

Blaise was bored. Another party.

Well, this wasn't exactly a party but it was similar enough to the hundreds of gatherings his mother had dragged him to.

Always be received, never give away what you're feeling unless it is was to show superiority over others.

It was exhausting.

But not as exhausting is been in the same closed space as Harry Potter and his mudblood.

Although, even he had to admit neither was hard on the eyes. It wasn't something most boys thought about other boys, but his mother was obsessive about fashion and good grooming -or breeding, that it was now hard for him not to notice.

Potter had gained a few inches of height, and though he wasn't a thickly built, he had filled out so he no longer looked half starved. He also wasn't scowling or looking self-absorbedly depressed.

Blaise hoped his change of mood meant that war, if one could call it that, would be over soon.

The muggle-born had undergone a more impressive filling out. And she seemed to finally to have done something with her hair. He rather liked her hair, and her dark eyes reminded him of milk chocolate.

It grated that this ill-born girl was the smartest in their year.

He also couldn't fathom why she was in Gryffindor, Ravenclaw would have seemed so much more natural.

But then he so supposed she would have to be brave to be Potter's friend. After all, it wasn't every mudblood that went looking for Death Eaters to exchange spells with.

It really was a pity she had been muggle-born.

"I can't believe Snape is the DADA professor," Ron mourned.

"I'm just grateful I can take potions this year," Harry said.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"Exceeds Expectations is enough to get into Slughorn's class."

"Oh, good," Hermione said smiling, "That's another class we'll all have together."

"I didn't register for potions," Ron said, "And I won't either. I don't think Slug will be much better than Snape, I've never met a Slytherin I like."

Hermione and Harry exchanged a look.

"Harry," someone called down the table, "When are Quidditch tryouts?"

"I will let you know soon," Harry called back, "I'll post it in the common room."

The Feast was over and Hagrid waved to their trio, "See you lot tomorrow morning, bright and early!"

Harry waved back while Hermione and Ron looked nervous.

"Oh, what are we going to tell Hagrid?"

Harry gave her a sideways look, "What do you mean? What do we need to tell Hagrid?"

"We need to tell him we aren't taking his class," Ron said, "But he had to know we didn't like his subject."

"I can tell Hagrid for you," Harry offered, "I'm sure he'll understand."

Hermione gave him a withering look, "You don't think telling him his three favorite students aren't attending his class is going to upset him? Honestly, I don't know anyone in the sixth year who is going to take his class."

"I am," Harry said.

"What?" they both asked him, shocked.

Harry put a hand to his chest, where he kept a padded pouch holding the Phoenix egg. Sirius had spelled it to ward against getting crushed or hit by basic spells. Harry could feel the warmth of it even through his shirt and the pouch, it hadn't shown any signs of hatching, but he was afraid to let it out of his sight.

"Fawkes saved my life, I can't not take Care of Magical Creatures. Besides a lot of the course work this year is supposed to coincide with DADA stuff. And I want to be the best, I want to be able to take down anyone without resorting to the Dark Arts."

Hermione grinned, "So you're going take coursework seriously this year."

He nodded, "Along with Quidditch, I mean, I am captain after all."

As Hermione had predicted no one had chosen to take Care of Magical Creatures that year, except for Harry.

Far from being displeased by this, Hagrid was elated.

"Well, I'll miss Ron and Hermione but this will be excellent. I can trust you and we can get into some really cool stuff."

By 'cool stuff' he was pretty sure Hagrid meant dangerous.

But Harry had dealt with Blast Ended Skrewts, Sphinxes, Dragons, Dementors, Centaurs, giant spiders, Basilisks- at this point Hagrid would have to tie him up and feed him to something to be more dangerous than Harry had experienced before. Which of course Hagrid would never do.

"Come on," Hagrid said, tossing Harry a length of dead ferrets, "Let's go feed the Hippogryphs, I'm sure Witherwings has missed you."

Slughorn's class was surprisingly fun.

Harry, possibly the only person not obsessed with winning the potion took his time with it.

He had spent a lot of time cooking this summer, experimenting with recipes that Aunt Petunia wouldn't have touched with a ten foot pole.

He and Sirius hadn't risked going out much to Diagon Alley, but that had spent a lot of time walking around in the muggle world under disguises.

Harry had picked up several cookbooks, his favorite was one from Southern France that had Spanish, Italian, and Greek recipes.

When Sirius had learned that Harry didn't think he was good at Potions, Sirius had been outraged.

"But you can cook and bake. You're better than your mum, and that was one of the reasons she was so good at Potions. Didn't Snape teach you Potions Theory?"

"No?" Harry had responded.

And an hour later Sirius was lecturing him about the proper stir patterns types of potions ingredients. "Animal parts or leavings are different from plants. And animated plants are different from herbs and spices that simple have magical properties."

Harry had learned more from his godfather than he had in five years with Snape.

"Disregard most of the things in the textbooks, at the very least, Snape must have taught you what explodes together."

Harry nodded, though he was pretty sure it was Neville who had taught the class that.

"So follow your instincts," Sirius said, "And don't explode you're cauldron or create noxious gas."

Harry had grinned at that.

It was this advice that had Harry frowning at the text. Instead of cutting his bean, he crushed it like a nut with the side of his blade.

The potion turned lilac like it was supposed to.

Harry smiled, and going on a hunch from the potions Sirius had had him brew with only an ingredients list, he stirred clockwise six times and once in the other direction.

His potion wasn't perfect and he thought that perhaps he should have stirred clockwise seven times and paused longer after the eighth.

He made a note in his book.

"Times up!"

Hermione glared at his potion, "How did you do that?"

"Sirius helped me this summer, he wanted to restock on simple stuff. He had me do nearly everything from the last five years with only an ingredients list and a hint here and there."

She stared at him, "Your memory isn't as good as mine."

"No, it isn't, Sirius made me learn the theory. It's kind of like baking. You know, you don't mix the sugar and the flower together when mixing a cake."

She blinked at him, "You bake?"

"Harry!" Slughorn said warmly, "The clear winner! Just a bit off color, but this would still do its job. A natural talent, just like your mother."

He felt great affection for the old Potions Professor in that moment, it was a wonderful thing to have a connection to one's parent for something other than eye color.

AN: Thoughts, reactions, desires? Pretty please?