Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or anything you can recognise from any books or TV series or movies. I do however take liberties with the plots or mentions provided by JKR or other writers. The only profit I'm getting out of it is improving my English.
Title: Secrets & Keepers – Keep Us
Rating/Warnings: R/M [AU; Manipulative Dumbledore (therefore not Dumbledore friendly); profanity; canon-typical violence; frank discussion of past child abuse (Harry but not only) and of past child abuse of sexual nature (not Harry); not very detailed descriptions of torture (not Harry); Black family feels.
Additional warnings: profanity, plenty of hurt but also a lot of comfort.
Chapter summary: Harry and Sirius examine one of the closets at 12 Grimmauld Place and find some disturbing stuff in there.
Word count: Around 12 000 words.
Author's note/personal ramble: This chapter was born out of sheer 'Regulus's gets too much screen time' which is both necessary for the progress of the story but at the same time can be pretty boring both for you and for me. Not to mention getting stuck at 'would you move already you bugger' is not fun. I know where he's supposed to go, things he's supposed to do but his part was extremely slow going as a writing process seeing that I have to tick certain boxes before he gets home and by have to, I really mean 'have to' because if I don't do it, if I don't show it some chapters down the line you will end up asking 'how did this happen'. So in an attempt to unstick myself, I left Regulus where he was and came back to Harry and Sirius. As for the Mirzam thing, I do have a detailed explanation for it at the bottom of the chapter if you're interested.
At the same time, this chapter was necessary for various reasons and also for various reasons certain things that happen here had to happen prior to getting this merry bunch together (and you will see it when it happens, it had to happen here because there was no other place for it to happen). As for the rest, the rest is a bonding exercise between Harry and Sirius. Granted it opens some interesting can of worms and I just can't wait to hear what you think about it. I'm not begging, I'm just very curious and slightly gleeful because in spite of quite heavy tones it was a fun chapter to write.
Happy Easter
Beta-read by Wilting Rose 08
Dedicated to all of my readers who stuck with me for so long. Thank You, I hope that You will find this story enjoyable. I would be the most grateful for constructive criticism.
"Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear."
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Chapter Six: The Ghosts of 12 Grimmauld Place
Harry Potter, 12 Grimmauld Place, London, 7th August, early afternoon
Harry looked around the room. It was spacious and must once have been handsome. There was a large bed with a carved wooden headboard; a tall window was partially obscured by long velvet curtains in a colour that might have been grey at some point. The chandelier in the middle of the room had candle stubs still resting in its sockets, solid wax hanging in frost-like drips.
The walls, or, more precisely, what could be seen of the walls between the amount of pictures, posters and banners that covered them, had to be silvery-grey at some point, like the walls in Regulus's room. In fact, the only things not covered with them were the bed, quite spacious desk, decently sized bookcase and a large wooden wardrobe that stood directly in front of the bed on the opposite wall of the room.
"What do you think?" asked Sirius.
"Truthfully?" Harry paused nervously. "It looks like how Dudley would decorate his bedroom if by some freakish accident he turned out to be a wizard and somehow managed to land himself in Gryffindor."
"Yeah," sighed Sirius. "I might have gone a little overboard with redecorating." He grimaced. "In my defence, I was fifteen at the time and suffering from a serious case of overcompensation so..."
"Overcompensation? What's overcompensation?"
"Trying too hard to create a usual or correct state from one that isn't usual," explained Sirius grimly. "At fourteen, fifteen I was very busy pretending I was normal."
"Why? Weren't you?" asked Harry curiously.
"Well, puberty started," sighed Sirius as he leaned against the door. "It was bloody confusing. The guys my age started seriously crushing on girls and noticing the changes to their bodies. It was ridiculous; you couldn't go from one class to another without hearing stray bits of conversations about the cleavage or bottom of this or that girl. I wasn't even free from that in my own dormitory, especially between your dad and Pettigrew. Moony was slightly prudish on the subject but I could see that his eyes occasionally strayed to a certain area of interest."
"And yours didn't?" asked Harry sceptically.
Sirius grimaced and sighed before he finally answered. "I'm what's called asexual, somewhat sex-repulsed and what Mirzam once described as bisexually romantic who has to truly know someone before I would develop romantic feelings for them. So this..." He waved his hand around the room. "Was me trying to convince myself that I was like other guys, that being interested in girls and their bodies was normal, and that a crush on a boy wasn't normal. And the way wizarding world, especially pure-blood families, view homosexuality wasn't exactly helping."
"How does the wizarding world view homosexuality?" asked Harry.
"Somewhat better than Muggle world does," said Sirius pensively. "It's definitely found less offensive than in Muggle world. There are no homosexual marriages in the wizarding world, but no one really minds if two individuals of the same sex live together and are seen together at public functions..."
"But?" Harry prodded.
"But getting married and procreating are still considered a public duty, especially amongst pure-blood families like ours. Sure, no one is going to frown too much as long as the family has a proper number of descendants, especially male. But like you've seen in our case where there's no male heir and the man is capable of procreating..."
"Then he gets a 'get married and procreate or else' ultimatum," finished Harry.
"Exactly," nodded Sirius. "The marriage forced my father back into the closet and in some weird solidarity with him, Uncle Alphard decided that he wasn't going to flaunt his partners in public or at big family gatherings. And I was the firstborn son, future Head of the Black family, so..."
"You were expected to get married and procreate."
"Luckily for me, not that it mattered at the time or was particularly easy on me back then, the boy in question was painfully straight, so I had to accept that it wasn't ever going to happen." Sirius sighed. "It took a while, but I fell out of love with him and had fallen for Mirzam instead."
"Successfully," said Harry.
"Yeah," sighed Sirius wistfully. "You would have liked her and more importantly she would have liked you. Aside from Bathsheda, she got along with boys better than with girls, had to since she had three younger brothers. She was fiercely protective of them since her mother and step-father were..." He grimaced. "Well, the less said about them the better."
"Where are they now?" Harry asked.
"Dead," Sirius sighed. "Her step-father was caught up in some black market deal with wizards. They were trying to launder money through the Muggle world, I think. The Aurors managed to close in on them, and captured some of them, but not before the rest managed to clean up the loose ends, including Mirzam's family."
"I'm sorry," whispered Harry.
"Don't be." Sirius smiled softly. "It wasn't your fault. None of it. It wasn't Mirzam's fault either and it took me ages to convince her to believe that. She was devastated by her brothers' deaths, especially the oldest one. They were really close. He was a wizard, too."
"Well, I can still feel sorry that it happened. Did you know them well? How did you meet them?"
"I snuck out of the house," said Sirius pensively. "It was the summer before my eighth birthday and for some reason we weren't in Derbyshire. I think it was early July. Reg was sick; he'd caught the flu. It was resistant to potions, so he was stuck in bed and mostly sleeping. Our parents left us under the care of the elves for several days. It wasn't the first time we'd been left, but with Regulus sick… I was suffering from a case of cabin. So one morning when Reg was sleeping and the elves were occupied, I decided to sneak out into Grimmauld Place."
Harry sat down on the bed and waited for him to continue.
"I only wanted to watch the Muggle kids playing in the square," Sirius continued. "Back in the day the square in the middle of the Place had a pretty big playground. Originally, I only planned to watch them from the gate. I was a Black and a wizard and Muggles..." he grimaced and shook his head. "But then I heard someone calling my last name, so I looked around."
"Wasn't Mirzam's last name Verascez?" asked Harry curiously.
"I'll get to that," said Sirius with a quick smile. "One of the kids, a big, bulky one, called out 'Black, you bloody wimp.' So, I had to check it out. I was about to reply that I wasn't a wimp. I was quite tall at that age, you see, at any age really and while never bulky, I wasn't small either. Then I saw a small kid, about Reg's age, certainly no older. Small, scrawny, with black, curly hair and big glasses. He was sitting on the ground in the middle of the playground, holding his scraped knee while trying to hold back tears, and failing miserably. The other kids started to laugh at him, and started to call him a wimp too and then..." He smiled wistfully.
"Mirzam appeared," Harry guessed.
"She came running from the other entrance to the playground with the younger two toddling after her. She immediately zeroed in on the bully, and before I realised what happened, the kid was laying flat on the ground," said Sirius fondly. "You have to understand that she was not quite eight at the time, same as me, but was not nearly as tall. The kid she sent flying to the ground was like twelve or thirteen and quite big. Once she was done with him, she looked around with that dangerous glint in her eyes and asked 'Who's next?' You should have seen them run. It was glorious!" He chuckled. "The playground was immediately deserted. She turned back to the bully and said that next time he should pick on someone his own size or better yet on someone bigger than him. Then she kicked him in the balls. He called her a lunatic and screamed something about telling his parents as he was running away. She called after him that they already knew where they were living and that her father would be waiting for them."
He took a deep breath.
"Then she turned to her brother and knelt before him. Wiped his tears and told him that everything was going to be all right before she placed her hands on his scraped knee," he said softly. "When she took them away the blood was gone and his knee was as good as new. I was amazed." He smiled wistfully. "I realised that she was a witch and I just had to introduce myself."
"How did that go?" asked Harry curiously.
"Could have gotten better," Sirius chuckled. "The first thing that left my mouth was 'You're a witch,' to which she replied 'Yeah, got a problem with that?'" he sighed. "So I had to explain it a bit better and told her that I was a wizard myself. She didn't appear to be convinced so I started listing the signs of accidental magic, and then I saw the realisation dawning on her face and a quick look on her younger brother who was listening to our conversation very intently with an amazed look on his face."
"You told him that he was a wizard, too?"
"Not directly and I had never seen him do magic, but from their reactions, it was evident that he was magical like Mirzam. I'm not sure about the twins, they might have been magical but they were about three at the time and unlike the older two, they definitely had a different father. It was evident just looking at them. They might have been wizards but maybe not. Either way, that was how I managed to introduce myself to Miranda and Reginald Black."
"Black?"
"It was an eye-opening meeting. In the Wizarding world, the name Black is pretty bloody rare, unlike in the Muggle world. Their mother's name was Black and their step-father..." He frowned. "It was some weird and elaborate foreign name. It was very hard to spell, so when he married their mother, he took her name and all of the children had the same name."
"But Mirzam?" pressed Harry.
"Mirzam Verascez was the name she used at Hogwarts," said Sirius grimly. "I didn't recognise her at first, until at some point, early into our first year, she kicked me in the balls. Can't say that I didn't deserve it. I had been waiting to hear Miranda Black, and when Sirius Black came with no Miranda, I assumed something must have happened to keep her from coming to Hogwarts," he sighed again. "It took me a while to get out of her how Miranda Black managed to turn into Mirzam Verascez and it wasn't a pretty story. Verascez was the name of the family that eventually adopted her, an older couple as unfit of being parents as her own mother and stepfather, except they hid it better. Mirzam was the name she gave to Muggle authorities when they found her wandering through the streets of London, no last name. But they searched and eventually, someone made a connection between the girl and the missing Miranda Black from the massacred family. She was placed in protective custody under the name she gave them and the last name they gave her. Someone pulled some strings and instead of ending in an orphanage, she wound up in a foster family with the Verascezs who later adopted her. She ran away from that house during the summer before our fifth year. She spent some time with Bathsy and one of Bathsy's brothers. She was living on her own and working to support herself by the time I ran away from home. I ran into her when I was wandering through Diagon Alley. She set me straight on certain things, helped me make sense of it, helped me find a job. We reconnected at a truly vulnerable time for me and the rest... She was unwavering. I think that's what I loved the most about her. She had a plan for her life and she was steadily working towards making it true. She still despised bullies and boy, did I hear a lot about my behaviour and how bad it was from her," he smiled wistfully.
"You ran away from home?" asked Harry.
"After my fifth year. Went to your dad's place and stayed the summer but it happened after my attempted murder on Snape," he grimaced. "The Potters had nothing against me but James... There were good days but there were also bad days so when the atmosphere there became too heavy, I started getting away for a while. I usually wandered around Godric's Hollow until I started going to Diagon Alley. I ran into Mirzam, who was working at Fortescue's at the time. She convinced me to start working there. She set me straight when I needed it, and did a better job than my parents or my teachers ever did. I will be forever grateful to her for that. Indirectly, she is responsible for the man I eventually became."
"I would have loved to meet her." Harry admitted. "She sounds pretty great."
"She was," admitted Sirius. "And she would really love to meet you. She loved Sheba to bits, same as she loved Bathsy but I think she felt more confident with boys. She really didn't have a clue what sort of things small witches preferred. But boys... She knew all about boys. At some point during your mum's pregnancy she managed to complete a list of possible future birthday, Christmas and we-haven't-seen-you-in-a-while presents. The list was very helpful when you were finally born. I got you a toy broomstick for your first birthday because Mirzam managed to track down the manufacturer and managed to find the limitations of each model."
"You really got me a broomstick for my first birthday?"
"Yeah," nodded Sirius. "It could only rise about two feet above the ground but you were a little daredevil on it." He chuckled. "Lily wrote me that you almost managed to kill their cat and managed to smash a pretty ugly vase that Petunia had sent her. They would both be embarrassing Quidditch mums, your Mum and Mirzam. Always there for every game, always cheering. Lily couldn't fly to save her life. I think she was limited by the fact that she was Muggle-born and was asked to believe that a charmed stick could not only fly and hold a person but also by the thought that the combination of charms and spells which hold the broom together might fail at the worst possible time."
Harry smiled at that thought "Can it happen?"
"It can," said Sirius pensively. "Especially if the broom isn't maintained properly but mostly when it's produced by some shady broom manufactures. Happened to a Ravenclaw seeker in our second year. Poor bloke nearly died. The healers managed to put him back together, but he had to be held back for another year. He also developed a fear of flying, so Lily's initial reservations about brooms had solid foundations. And I cannot say that I don't share them."
"You dislike flying?" asked Harry curiously.
"I love flying," said Sirius with a smile. "But like Lily, I wasn't really into believing that charmed sticks were a good way for wizards to fly. I preferred more solid methods. Our grandparents kept a flying carpet at their home in Derbyshire, and it was a pretty great way to fly. Reg preferred brooms. He made the Slytherin Quidditch team in his second year, played seeker for the rest of his school career. He was good. He gave your dad a decent run for his money for as long as your dad played seeker. He called James a bloody coward for switching to chaser. He made it a point to rub it in that he was a better Seeker than anyone Gryffindor could come up with after your dad switched."
"Why did he switch?" asked Harry. "How did that work out?"
"Mostly because he grew," said Sirius pensively. "Mind you James wasn't overly bulky, not as bulky as our keeper or any beaters really but he was playing against Reg, Mirzam and some pretty tiny Hufflepuff seekers, and they were all far lighter than he was. He managed to wrangle few victories here and there, but by fifth year, it became evident that while skills obviously matter, so does the weight of the seeker. It was a hard lesson to swallow, but James really wanted to win, so when we lost one chaser due to N.E.W.T.s anxiety, he took his place and put some tiny second year in his own place. Even then, the only reason we didn't lose miserably was because James made a far better chaser even with less training than he was a seeker. And Slytherin had some pretty lousy chasers that year, so Reg was their saving grace. They still lost but only by ten points."
"I'm sure that went over well," snorted Harry.
"It did," chuckled Sirius. "As I said, Reg called your dad a bloody coward, and spent the rest of that school year calling him names."
"They really didn't get along, Reg and my dad?" sighed Harry.
"They were both pretty territorial where I was involved," grimaced Sirius. "James was a very sheltered only child with very limited contact with other kids before Hogwarts. In fact, the only children his age were the Abbott girls and a much younger bunch of kids from other families. So he kind of latched on to me in a way. And Reg? Reg was jealous because up until I went to Hogwarts, we were practically inseparable and suddenly he found himself replaced by James or so he felt."
Harry nodded slowly. "And my Mum?"
"Reg didn't interact with Lily, outside of prefect duties. At least I never heard of anything between the two of them. And from what little I could see when they were around each other, he was coldly pleasant towards her. Sure, he claims that he skulked around, but other than being a Muggle-born he had nothing really against her, and by the time he worked up enough bravado to try anything, Lily was quite a skilled adversary so he left her in peace. They might have had a common ground in Snape because Reg did follow him around sometimes, but since your mum was Snape's friend and his fierce defender..." he grimaced. "It's hard to say. You will have to ask him when he gets back."
"What about after Hogwarts?" Harry changed the subject. "You said that you were an Auror. What about my parents? You said that each of you got your dream jobs."
"Your Dad went to play Quidditch professionally. He made reserve chaser of Puddlemere United straight after graduation and quickly made first string. There was a point in time when he planned to be an Auror like me, but he failed his Potions O.W.L. He could have still gotten into Advanced Potions, but by then Euphemia managed to convince him that being a professional Quidditch player was far more interesting than being an Auror. I can't really say, we weren't exactly talking by that point and by the time we started talking again James was really into playing Quidditch professionally."
"And Mum?" Harry asked eagerly.
"Your mum, on the other hand, was busy," smirked Sirius. "I can't say when she decided, but she was always drawn to either an Auror or a Healer. Both careers required a pretty heavy workload, and Lily's was the heaviest of all of us. By the seventh year, she'd decided Healer. She even managed to complete the second year of Healer training before she had you. Passed her exams with flying colours. She was planning to finish her training and use some of the Potter family fortune to open a free clinic for destitute families. That was Lily. She had this way of looking after people, especially when they had no one else to look out for them. She was one of the kindest, warmest people I ever met," he paused again and smiled fondly. "She could also be pretty bloody scary when you got on her bad side but you really had to work to get there."
"Like say bullying her best friend?" supplied Harry.
"Yeah."
"Then how did she and Dad get together? He didn't use some sort of love potion on her, did he?"
"Sweet Merlin, no," protested Sirius vehemently. "James was desperate to get her attention, but he wasn't that desperate. He entertained that idea for all of about ninety seconds before Moony told him that no love potion is actually capable of creating love just an intense lust and obsessive infatuation. If he still managed to entertain some notion to use one after that, new legislation had made all love and lust potions strictly forbidden, and if someone got caught using them, their victim could choose to press charges. It carried a maximum penalty of three years in Azkaban," he added grimly. "I'm not sure whether or not that law has been changed, but in mid-seventies, love and lust potions were a very big no-no. The only thing allowed were some pretty weak pheromone-based perfumes."
"Then how'd they get together? Because I'm living, breathing proof that they did."
"That you are," smiled Sirius. "I think to a certain extent my split from the rest of the group played a part. I wasn't staying in Gryffindor Tower, and it bothered Lily. I didn't go into details, but at one point I made it abundantly clear to her that I didn't have a choice when I left Gryffindor tower. She started bothering the rest of them instead. She started with Moony, who was a fellow prefect. Once she got to him, she went after James and since James couldn't really say no to her… He tried for a while because it meant that Lily was willingly talking with him, but even he caved in eventually. But they didn't really get together until seventh year, and it took a lot of wooing from James. It would have taken even longer if Lily hadn't decided that every seventh year Gryffindor girl was driving her nuts. Apparently studying in her dormitory became unbearable, so she wound up in ours. Supposedly it was quieter."
"Was it?" asked Harry dryly.
"Goodness, no," chuckled Sirius. "We were pretty bloody loud, always had been." He smiled fondly. "Moony and I liked to debate certain points from the lessons. James wisely avoided getting involved, but when two fuckwits argue in your bedroom about the dangers of an improperly sanitised cauldron, you do learn something. It didn't matter what subject, James learned best by listening."
"You can't learn wand movements from listening," Harry pointed out.
"True, but our study sessions were usually loud and we all tried to motivate each other and correct one another when one of us got something wrong. Weirdly, it also suited Lily and our arguments quickly turned into three and then four people arguments because James really tried to impress Lily. How do you study?"
"By reading, mostly," grimaced Harry.
"You don't talk about your lessons with your friends?" asked Sirius curiously.
"Mostly about how Potions suck," snorted Harry. "Ron isn't very studious and the other guys-" He grimaced. "Well, Neville occasionally helps with Herbology, but we would be both lost without Hermione," he admitted.
"Did you always had problems with studying?" asked Sirius pensively.
"Well, I wasn't exactly allowed to have better grades than Dudley, so it wasn't as if I had a good motivation at home," he grimaced. "But when stuff was really interesting, I did learn. I still couldn't get better grades than Dudley which didn't always go well since Dudley is pretty bloody dumb."
"But Dudley didn't go to Hogwarts with you so what's stopping you at Hogwarts?" asked Sirius curiously. "I mean I knew that I was a wizard all my life, but if I didn't, I would have tried to learn everything about magic I could get my hands on. Lily certainly did."
Harry shrugged and looked at his feet.
He remembered that there was a point in time after he learned that he was a wizard and the Dursleys left him in peace with his books when he paged through all of them pretty thoroughly. Granted, he hadn't learned everything by heart, he didn't have Hermione's visual memory, but he did manage to memorise some things, and he did read ahead. Especially in DADA.
"Ron was your first friend, wasn't he?" asked Sirius gently.
"For a while, the only friend I had," admitted Harry timidly. "So." He grimaced and waved his hand.
"You didn't want to lose that?" supplied Sirius, moving towards Harry.
"I'm going to lose that anyway, won't I?" Harry grimaced again when Sirius sat next to him. "I got expelled from Hogwarts for using magic on a Muggle and even if I hadn't..." He shook his head. "Would you really consider sending me back to Hogwarts?"
"With great reluctance," admitted Sirius with a heavy sigh as he shuffled closer and wrapped his right arm around Harry's shoulders. "And quite frankly, it's too early to tell whether or not you've been expelled from Hogwarts."
Harry opened his mouth but Sirius cut him off.
"We won't know anything for certain unless we will manage to get our hands on a Daily Prophet. I should have sent Kreacher after one, come to think of it. Dumbledore pulls strings all the time. He may be able to convince them to let it slide, since I'm supposed to be after you." He grimaced. "Anyway, your eventual expulsion or return to Hogwarts is theoretical until we know where we are. If it were up to me alone, I wouldn't send you back to Hogwarts because even after nearly twelve years in Azkaban, I can still teach you pretty much anything you need to know at least up to O.W.L. level, and in certain subjects beyond that. In some we could even go beyond N.E.W.T. level," he added pensively.
"But?" mumbled Harry. "Because there's a 'but' in there."
"But my private feelings about Hogwarts, its safety and Dumbledore notwithstanding are just my private feelings about Hogwarts, its safety and Dumbledore. They aren't your feelings or Reg's and Reg might find a different alternative once he has enough time to think calmly about it," said Sirius. "I don't want to see you in danger or become Dumbledore's pawn but..."
"I'll be one anyway," sighed Harry heavily. "Because of the prophecy and because Vold- the Dark Lord believes in it."
"Yes, V- the Dark Lord believes in the prophecy, that much we know," admitted Sirius. "But just because he does doesn't mean that you have to," he added stiffly. "The only reason I took Divination myself is because your dad picked it as an elective and I already knew that I wasn't going to waste my time on Care of Magical Creatures, and I knew that James wasn't going to go with me to Ancient Runes. Three long, miserable years in Divination taught me one thing. Most of it is bogus, and any branch of it relies heavily on the user's belief. All prophecies are self-fulfilling prophecies if you believe in them."
"You're saying that I shouldn't believe in it even though the Dark Lord does?"
"Do you remember what it says? The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches, born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies," he recited. "Do you have the power to change the family you were born in? Or when you were born? No, you will always be Harry, son of James and Lily, who managed to 'thrice defy' the Dark Lord before you were born."
"I can't change that he marked me, either." Harry pointed to his scar.
"But you can change the rest," said Sirius quickly. "The Dark Lord cannot die because of his horcruxes that keep him anchored to life. And yes, right now we don't know how to destroy them, but we can find out. If not in here, there's the Black Manor in Derbyshire, which holds the main Black family library, and if not there, then there are other Black properties that are filled with books about Dark Arts. That much I know; I've seen them. The library in Black Manor is the biggest library on Dark magic in the world. There will be something about horcruxes in there, I guarantee it."
"What about neither can live while the other survives?" asked Harry thoughtfully.
"Maybe it's about his fixation with you," supplied Sirius. "He's proved to be pretty bloody obsessed with you so far. He can't exactly live in peace as long as you live, and because of that neither can you. But that doesn't have to mean that you have to be the one to destroy him. It just means that for as long as you both live, you will be the target of his obsession."
"And the power the Dark Lord knows not?"
"Like I said with Reg earlier, maybe the power is knowing the horcruxes exist and knowing that as long as they exist he cannot die," answered Sirius simply. "Harry, prophecies can be that simple. They are only as complicated and as strong as the individual that believes in them." He sighed heavily. "Merlin, I wish Lily was here."
"So do I, but why you do?" admitted Harry.
"Because your mum was one of the most rational people I knew," explained Sirius. "She was a Muggle-born, and being raised Muggle always influenced her approach to learning magic. It wasn't enough that something worked. She had to know why. That's why she was so great in Potions, it's a pretty logical subject. If you screw up adding A then add B at the wrong time, you aren't going to get the reaction you wanted. Same with Charms where she was also a terrific student. In spite of many discoveries in Charms being the result of happy accidents, the subject itself is very logical. If you mess up an incantation or a wand movement, you can screw up pretty badly."
"You think that she wouldn't believe in it, in the prophecy?" asked Harry.
"I think that the only reason she believed in it for as long as she knew about it was because your dad and Dumbledore believed in it. When you add the constant fear for your safety, for their safety... Her belief was inevitable, but that doesn't mean that if she was given the opportunity to think clearly about it that she would come to the same conclusion."
"Dumbledore and the Dark Lord believe in it and they're pretty freaking strong," muttered Harry.
"But so are you. Don't you see that? You withstood events that would have broken lesser people; that have broken lesser people." He paused for a long moment. "I can't imagine what your life with the Dursleys was like, the unedited one I mean, and part of me doesn't want to imagine that because if I start, I know that I'll be out of the door and on my way to Little Whinging to live up to my alleged reputation as a mass-murderer."
Harry opened his mouth to protest that it wasn't so bad, but Sirius placed his finger over Harry's mouth and continued.
"What I do know for certain is that my own parents were the last people on the planet that should have married and had a child, let alone two," said Sirius grimly. "For as long as our grandparents were frequent and unannounced visitors here, they tried to maintain some semblance of normalcy, but they were still both very neglectful. For Merlin's sake, we were raised by house-elves and I pretty much had to raise Reg myself after I figured out that keeping a crying toddler in the dark room wasn't bloody right. I was four at the time." He removed the finger from Harry's lips and smashed his hand against his knee. "But the abuse?" he grimaced. "It was waiting just around the corner and Merlin, Harry, you have no idea what both of our parents were capable of together and individually." He grimaced again. "I wouldn't even trust them with a dog, let alone a child. I shielded Reg from what I could, but I wasn't always successful. I even went as far as trying to talk Grandpa Arcturus into holding me back for another year so Reg and I could enter Hogwarts together and maybe if I told him why..." He shook his head. "Maybe then our lives would have been different. Grandpa Arcturus wasn't the warmest and kindest person on earth, and he had his own faults." He shook his head again. "But at his worst, he was still better than our parents were at their best."
"How did you make it?" Harry asked timidly.
"Because I had to," sighed Sirius. "Because I had Reg, and I had to protect him at all costs. I had to be strong for him because if something happened to me, then he would have no one. Maybe if I was alone I would have given up." He sighed again. "But I wasn't," he mumbled, "and during the darkest hours I found strength in that and in distant future years down the line when I would no longer have to bow to my parents will and put up with them. It wasn't exactly the wisest thing I could do but for as long as I lived here, I lived in a constant state of fear. I think that's one of the reasons why I was sorted into Gryffindor. I wanted to be brave."
"You are," mumbled Harry.
"Bravery, true bravery has nothing to do with bravado. It has everything to do with knowing that you're afraid, but still conquering your fears because something else is more important. My truly bravest moment didn't come in a fight against a group of Death Eaters, although they're pretty memorable, but at one of the lowest points of my life after I was broken into tiny pieces by someone who should have protected me above anything else. It came when I looked into a mirror and saw the shadow of myself and found in myself just enough strength to say that's it, I'm done and you can all go fuck yourselves, I'm out and I'm not coming back," he added vehemently. "That's true bravery, Harry, knowing that at any moment, at any time you can walk away from everything without turning back. Sometimes it takes more bravery to walk away than to stay, like Reg. I don't know exactly how much it cost him to walk away from the Death Eaters, or how terrified he was. He was serving a maniac and by the time he left, he had seen enough to know what they'd do to him for leaving. You don't have to be a pawn in someone else's game. I would burn the world down to make sure you get to make your choice, even if I didn't agree with it."
"You don't have to," Harry mumbled, truly touched.
How could running away take more courage than staying? Then again, how many times had he dreamed that someone rescued him from the Dursleys? How eager he was to get away from them when he headed to Hogwarts? Yet he knew he wouldn't make it if he left.
"But I do," said Sirius vehemently, tearing Harry from his thoughts. "I had precious few people in my life that I cared for and in a span of two years I lost nearly all of them. I wasn't there for my brother when he needed me the most and I couldn't even attend his funeral because I wasn't allowed. I lost my future wife and my son because I put Order duty above their safety and I couldn't even bring myself to even mourn them properly. And your parents?" He shook his head. "I thought that that plan was fool proof, but it wasn't because I was so terrified that I would bring danger to them that I thrust their lives into hands of a traitor. And then I lost you." He hung his head. "I allowed my grief and my anger to drive me and the price we both paid for my mistake?" He shook his head again. "That's it, I'm done, I don't care what it takes and I'm still not sure how I will do it, but I will personally destroy every single bloody horcrux that slithering scumbag has. And then? When there isn't a single one of them left, I will go after him myself and I will fucking destroy him personally. How is that for a prophecy?"
"Pretty bloody stupid, since you aren't the one it concerns," admitted Harry timidly.
"It will be stupid only if I'm stupid about it," snorted Sirius. "Only if I act like the bloody Gryffindor I allowed others to convince me that I am, unlike the fucking Slytherin I was raised to be. For years I denied it, and fooled myself that I was someone else." He looked around the room with a sour look on his face. "I'm a Black. I was conditioned to think and act like a Slytherin and I allowed myself to forget it. Well, not anymore," he said vehemently. "I'll make sure that the Dark Lord will be destroyed and you don't have to have anything to do with it. And when I'll be done with him, I'll go after that ever-twinkling goat and I'll destroy him too."
"Are you going to kill him too?" asked Harry sceptically. "Because I get Vol.. the Dark Lord… obviously, he has to go but..."
"Oh, I'll kill him," said Sirius grimly. "I'll kill him and I will let him live through it."
"How?" asked Harry, uncertain how that was going to work.
"I'll kill the legend, not the man," snorted Sirius. "When you live as long as Dumbledore has, you're bound to wind up with some pretty nasty skeletons in your closet and I intend to find them all and show them to the world."
"You're still forgetting one pretty major issue," sighed Harry.
"Fugitive," sighed Sirius. "I know but there are ways around that, too."
"You could turn in Pettigrew."
"Can't happen for a while because the bloody traitor is on vacation in fucking Egypt," snorted Sirius.
"How do you know that?" asked Harry curiously.
"Saw it in the Daily Prophet. I couldn't bloody believe it at first." He shook his head. "So until he returns to England, going after him is not an option and I can't exactly risk exposing him where he is because he already killed enough people that I don't need to add to that."
"But how can you be certain?" pressed Harry.
"Because I saw the picture. I'm dead certain that it's him," muttered Sirius. "I should have it somewhere in my..." he stopped suddenly and then added grimly, "In my Azkaban robes, which I burnt," he mumbled. "Great planning, Black, you bloody Gryffindor," he snorted.
"Tough luck," mumbled Harry. "Maybe Reg can get the paper."
"Or maybe he put it somewhere else," grimaced Sirius. "I showed it to him when he brought us here. I need to search this place."
"I'll help," offered Harry. "Was it a full paper?"
"Not even that, only the picture. I had to make it waterproof and I wasn't strong enough to put the entire paper under an Impervious spell wandlessly. I couldn't even do the entire article, just the picture."
"So we are looking for a tiny object in a very big house," summarised Harry.
"We should start here. Reg put me in this room when he brought us here, so it could still be here if he didn't take it with him." He moved towards the nightstand.
Harry stood up, moving towards the big wardrobe. He pulled open the door. It creaked ominously, and something smashed violently against the sides.
"Harry, step back," Sirius said, calmly but firmly.
"Why?" Harry turned to look at Sirius.
He looked anxious, and he had his wand drawn and pointed at the wardrobe. Harry whirled around, watching as the door was pushed open, and a glistening, greyish, slimy and scabby looking hand curled over it.
"Harry, to my side, now!" Sirius hissed.
Harry ran to Sirius's side and, just in case, hid behind Sirius's back, grabbing on to Sirius's left arm just as the door fully opened and a tall, cloaked figure glided out of the wardrobe.
Sirius whimpered softly and that sound alone caused Harry to look at him. He was standing very still, with his right arm stretched out and wand pointed at the cloaked figure. His eyes were open wide and his mouth was moving as if he was casting a spell.
Except nothing happened.
In the meantime, the figure shifted closer, shaking its head mockingly before it shifted backwards, preparing to spring.
Then, a silvery light shot from Sirius's wand, turning in the air into a dog-shaped mist that sprung towards the figure just as it drew a slow, rattling breath. An intense cold swept through the room, and suddenly Harry felt that couldn't breathe. The intense chill swept through him, going into his body, into his very bones. There was rushing in his ears as if he suddenly found himself under water. The rushing disappeared and gave way to a terrified high-pitched scream.
Meanwhile, the dog was working to fight the figure back. As soon as it returned to the wardrobe, Sirius flicked his wand. The cold and the screaming stopped.
"What was that?" Harry choked out as he leaned heavily against Sirius, feeling as if his knees were going to give out under him at any second.
Sirius didn't answer, standing still with his arm still outstretched and wand pointing at the wardrobe. He appeared to be completely frozen.
"Sirius!" Harry hissed just as his knees finally decided to give up and still holding on Sirius's left arm he collapsed onto the floor.
Just as he landed, Sirius whirled around and hauled him up then onto the bed. Before he realised what happened he was lying flat on the bed, with Sirius wiping the sweat from his cold forehead. Sirius looked pale and mortified, but something in his pale, grey eyes was burning like fire.
"What was that?" Harry repeated weakly.
"Something I hoped to never see again for the rest of my life," whispered Sirius.
"Which is?" huffed Harry shakily.
"A dementor," muttered Sirius grimly. "A creature that was bound to Azkaban and serves as its inhuman guard. It wasn't a real one. They wouldn't be able to get here with all the protective wards in the place. But that puts a damper on my ability to clean this fucking hovel," he snorted.
"If it wasn't actually a Dementor, what was it?" whispered Harry.
"It's a boggart. A common household pest, a shapeshifter. Their defence is to take the shape of a person's worst fear. They're known for turning up in houses like this one." He waved his free hand around the room and Harry could see that it was shaking slightly. "They like small, confined space like wardrobes, boiler rooms, cupboards. They're relatively simple to get rid off normally, provided one doesn't summon something like that."
"How does it know?" mumbled Harry.
"Legilimency," sighed Sirius. "A decent Occlumens is capable of controlling its shape by feeding it with false images of what they want boggart to think that they fear the most. That's how the spell to get rid of them works, too. But you'd know that. It's typically one of the first spells you learn when you start Hogwarts."
"I didn't learn it."
"You had a Dark Lord for a teacher in your first year and an idiot in your second," snorted Sirius. "Laughter destroys a boggart. But to do that, you have to be able to turn your biggest fear into something funny. I can't, obviously," he muttered grimly.
"And the other spell, the silver dog?"
"That's the Patronus Charm. It's a spell designed as a counter to a dementor. Blessedly, I could pull that one out. For a moment, I was worried that I couldn't do that, either. It's far more complicated than the one for boggarts, and demands higher focus. Thank Merlin I was inspired." He tried to give Harry a small smile, but it looked more like a grimace. "I'm still going to turn all boggarts in this place over to Reg, provided that the bugger doesn't have the same problem as I do. If he does, we'll set all boggart infested stuff on fire."
"I could do it," Harry offered timidly.
"Possibly." Sirius sighed. "I'm not sure that you'll fare much better than I did. You see..." He paused. "When I first saw the hand, for a moment I thought that it was Vol… the Dark Lord. He's pretty bloody fixated on you, and I-" He stopped abruptly. "I was hoping that it was him. While he is scary, he's actually easier to deal with. My own fear might have been strong enough to overpower yours, even though you were closer. Or you fear what dementors represent."
"Which is what? Unbearable cold? High-pitched screams? Being unable to breathe?"
Sirius took a moment to collect himself.
"No," he said finally. "The coldness is just the effect they have on the atmosphere. They are the result of experiments performed by a dark wizard, Ekrizdis. He would lure people to his island to use. They were bred in the cold and damp of Azkaban Island, and they still breed in such conditions. They don't fear fire or light, and if they are decently fed they can survive in broad daylight, because they can alter their surroundings to their liking." He grimaced. "Granted to do that they need to travel in groups of minimum two, usually three. It really works best in higher numbers-"
"But what about the scream?" Harry interrupted him.
"Dementors feed on happiness, hope, love, everything that's bright and good. They feast on memories of such things, leaving behind only the worst, darkest, scariest memories. Ironically, the only thing that can drive them away is the very same thing they feed on. Happiness, hope," he paused and smiled gently at Harry before he added softly, "love. Patronus Charm represents all of them and summons a guardian that serves as a barrier between the caster and a dementor. Sometimes it allows the dementor to feed on it, giving the caster a chance to get away from the dementor. But occasionally, if the caster is strong enough, the Patronus can chase a dementor away. It can't destroy them, though."
"Yours chased it back," whispered Harry.
"Just barely." Sirius grimaced again. "Too many years in Azkaban, too many happy memories gone." He shook his head. "I'm not as strong as I used to be, and it was a strong memory, but it's too bittersweet to hold for too long."
"What was the memory?" asked Harry.
"You," Sirius smiled at him gently.
Harry felt himself blushing at that but he shook his head and asked, "And the scream?"
Sirius hung his head, remaining silent.
"It's a memory, isn't it?" said Harry slowly. "My memory," he added after a beat. "One of the worst that I have?"
"Probably," Sirius finally whispered.
Then he understood it completely. The high-pitched scream of pure terror.
"It's Vol… him," he mumbled. "Killing Mum." He felt the pinprick of tears in his eyes and his throat started to close up.
"I'm so sorry, Harry," whispered Sirius as he reached for Harry.
Harry was faster, and with strength he didn't feel like he possessed, he sprung up and launched himself into Sirius' arms. Sirius quickly wrapped his arms around him, and pulled him as close as he could without pulling him into his lap. Harry hugged him back, hiding his face in the folds of Sirius's clothes, allowing himself to cry into Sirius's shoulder for the second time that day.
Finally, after what felt like hours, he pulled away and, after wiping his eyes, he asked, "How did Pettigrew betray my parents? You said that at every opportunity he got… but how exactly?"
"There's a spell called Fidelius Charm. It's one of the most ancient spells in the Wizarding World. It's extremely complex, multifaceted and very potent. The complexity of the spell allows adding in some sort of anchors that, upon placement of the spell, become restrictions." Sirius paused. "The purpose of Fidelius is to protect information, like a secret, by placing the knowledge of it inside one's soul. Once the Fidelius is placed, only that individual can share the information with others. It has to be done willingly; the secret cannot be forcibly removed through any other means, no torture, no mind-altering spells or potions. If the Secret Keeper chooses not share the information with anyone, then the secret remains secret, even after the Keeper's death, until at some point, depending on the level of individual power of the Secret Keeper, the spell eventually erodes and reveals itself." He paused for a moment. "But even that takes ages, centuries really, often longer."
"Pettigrew was my parents' Secret Keeper?" asked Harry softly.
"Yes, although we did our best to convince everyone that I was the Secret Keeper," sighed Sirius.
"Why? If the information cannot be given in any other way but willingly..."
"Because we didn't want to completely cut James and Lily off from the world," grimaced Sirius. "You see, when a Secret Keeper dies after sharing the secret with someone, they become Secret Keepers, too. So while I trusted some people enough that they could visit your parents, I didn't trust them enough to become their Secret Keepers when I died."
"So you had Pettigrew do it," nodded Harry slowly.
"And it was one of the worst mistakes I ever made," muttered Sirius. "It should have been me, I should have quit the Aurors, quit the Order and holed myself up in Godric's Hollow with you and your parents," he spat. "But instead- It was supposed to be a fool-proof plan. The charm was placed; I was seen giving their location out. Whoever was spying on the Order would have seen, and the Dark Lord would assume that I was your parents' Secret Keeper. Then he would come after me with everything he had, and yeah, odds were that I wouldn't live long after that, but because I wasn't the actual Secret Keeper, I wouldn't be able to give up their location. Hopefully that distraction would work for just long enough for Pettigrew to hole himself up somewhere and keep himself safe. Turned out there was only one problem with that plan."
"You didn't expect Pettigrew to be the traitor," Harry answered grimly.
"So here we are," said Sirius sourly. "Pettigrew gave up the secret. Maybe he had a little loyalty left, maybe the Dark Lord saw an advantage to waiting, but it took him three months to attack after the Fidelius was placed. Didn't matter in the end."
"Why would he do that?" asked Harry sceptically. "If he considered me as a threat then why would he wait? Why he didn't go after me right away?"
"It could have been anything," sighed Sirius. "Maybe because he wanted to ensure your destruction or maybe..." he stopped suddenly, stayed silent for a very long moment. "Of course..." he mumbled finally.
"Of course what?" pressed Harry.
"Samhain," mumbled Sirius. "Halloween," he added after a moment. "The beginning of the darker half of the year and the day when the veil between life and death is the thinnest. Quite relevant to certain rituals and what better way to ensure his own triumph over the pesky toddler of the damned prophecy than by destroying him on Samhain night."
Harry frowned and mumbled, "He thought that it would be the moment of his greatest triumph."
"And what could be a better celebration than ensuring that he would be indestructible," muttered Sirius.
"You think that he created a horcrux then?" asked Harry slowly, not really wanting to know the answer.
"He might have," nodded Sirius and he grimaced. "He might not have been successful, but I imagine he intended to. If I were him, that's how I'd do it."
Sirius stayed quiet for a very long moment but his lips were moving as if he was trying to remember something.
"Son of a bitch," he muttered finally. "He wanted to turn the sword of Gryffindor into a horcrux! Truly ingenious, I'll give him that," he snorted. "The sword is made by Goblins, from the purest, finest Goblin silver, which is supposed to imbibe only substances that can strengthen it, including additional enchantments. It's rumoured to be indestructible and if he would manage to turn it into a horcrux..."
"Could he have had time to turn it into a horcrux?" asked Harry timidly.
"I'm not sure," grimaced Sirius. "When I showed in Godric's Hollow shortly after the attack, the sword wasn't there. It might have been there. There are supposed to be spells on it that allow it to come to true Gryffindors in their time of need. When they no longer need it, supposedly it returns to Hogwarts." He paused. "It might have."
"Or it might have never been there," supplied Harry.
"Or it might have never been there," agreed Sirius. "Lots of attacks were against Gryffindor families. The Order was mostly Gryffindors. We assumed that was why. Maybe it wasn't. Maybe he was hoping the Sword would show up, and he would be able to take it."
"Except the Dark Lord isn't a Gryffindor, so how he would manage to keep it if he somehow managed to get it?" asked Harry.
"There's more than one way to skin a cat, Harry," said Sirius sourly. "And they are many ways to trap people and objects, especially if they poses some degree of sentience like the sword is supposed to have. There's at least two ancient wards that can do that. They require a pretty powerful wizard to cast them, but then again the Dark Lord was a powerful wizard. He could trap it once he managed to get his hands on it."
"So it disappeared from Godric's Hollow because he no longer had a body, and therefore no longer had the power to maintain the hold over it," finished Harry.
"But we won't know for certain whether it's a horcrux or not until we can manage to get our hands on it ourselves," said Sirius pensively.
"It's in a display case in the Headmaster's office. At least it was there the last time I saw it. Except we'd still have the same problem."
"Which is?"
"You're still a fugitive," answered Harry. "And somehow I don't see you marching into Hogwarts and breaking into Dumbledore's office to examine it."
"Harry, my sweet summer child," grinned Sirius. "You're forgetting one very vital fact. I managed to escape from an inescapable prison. What makes you think I couldn't break into a badly guarded castle?"
"How did you do that then?" asked Harry curiously.
"Magic," said Sirius simply.
"Would my mum have accepted that explanation?" snorted Harry. "Come on, spill."
"How about I show you?" grinned Sirius as he stood up.
He took two steps away from the bed and before Harry's eyes, he started to shrink while his hair started engulfing his clothes and the rest of his body. Before Harry could truly comprehend what happened, a big, black shaggy dog with pale eyes was standing in front of him instead of his godfather.
Sirius cocked his head to the right and raised his left ear before it turned his head towards the wardrobe and suddenly bolted in that direction. In seconds, he was half-buried under the wardrobe, tail wagging like mad.
Harry shifted closer on the bed just as he heard a soft, barely audible squeak followed by a bark, a huff, and a quite loud clack of jaws closing on something. The dog emerged from under the wardrobe with a quite pleased look.
"I don't even want to know what that was," Harry grimaced.
"A snack," answered Sirius, suddenly human again. He grimaced. "Bloody mice. We're getting a cat."
"Eww," Harry scrunched his face.
"Don't be so judgemental," snorted Sirius. "Didn't you live in a castle with a cat Animagus for the last two years?" he asked pointedly. "What makes you think good old Minnie doesn't give in to her animal instincts during patrols?"
"Eww," Harry grimaced again. "How can you do that?" he asked after a moment.
"Fast. You do that fast. At least I do," said Sirius dryly. "One snap of the jaws to kill it, and then you swallow it whole. It's not exactly a balanced meal but meat is meat."
"Still eww," snorted Harry. He frowned, remembering somehow.
"Moony, Padfoot and Prongs," he mumbled pensively. "Did Pettigrew have a nickname?"
"Yeah," Sirius sighed. "Wormtail."
"Does that mean he's an Animagus, too?"
"Unfortunately, yes," Sirius sighed again. "He's a bloody rat, which kind of bloody fits considering how big a rat the bugger turned out to be."
"Was my dad an Animagus?" asked Harry curiously.
Sirius nodded.
"Let me guess," Harry said, eager for a distraction from the Dementor.
"Okay," said Sirius and he smiled at him as he approached the bed before he sat on it.
"Could he fly?"
"No."
"Could he swim?"
"Only when pushed," answered Sirius. "Into a lake and not very gracefully," he added after a moment.
"Was he small?"
"No."
"Mid-sized?"
"Define mid-sized," said Sirius.
"Smaller than you?
"No."
"Elephant?" guessed Harry.
"Not that big," chuckled Sirius.
"Giraffe?"
"Still within the same size range. A tad smaller."
"A lion then?"
"Wanted to be one but no."
"Some sort of big cat?"
"Still no."
"A bear?"
"No."
"A horse?"
"Nope."
"A moose?"
"Nah."
"Buffalo?"
"How about a hint?" Sirius grinned. "We came up with our nicknames after we became Animagi."
"So… Prongs," Harry drawled out and after a brief pause, he added, "You said no to a moose but Prongs could mean antlers, which means… Some kind of deer?"
"A red tail stag to be more precise," said Sirius with a smile.
"Well, that's not really a very practical form, is it?" said Harry pensively.
"No, it wasn't," snickered Sirius. "It was very helpful back when we had to control a werewolf, and very occasionally when spying on Death Eaters in the forest, but that didn't happen often so, after graduating from Hogwarts, James rarely used it."
"Could he have picked something else?"
"They didn't cover Animagi yet?" asked Sirius. He quickly answered his own question. "Of course they didn't, it doesn't really come up until later, although Minnie likes to show off earlier than that."
"Can anyone become one?" asked Harry.
"Not planning on becoming one behind my back, are you?" asked Sirius dryly.
"Me?" asked Harry innocently. "How could I?"
"I don't know," sighed Sirius dramatically. "Maybe it's this latent Black flair for dramatics or maybe it's this Potter flair for 'who says that I can't do that, hold my Butterbeer,'" he said pointedly. "Either way, I don't recommend trying it without supervision. The process is long and arduous, and when it does go wrong, it can go terribly wrong."
"But you still did it," pointed out Harry.
"Because we were a bunch of determined idiots," snorted Sirius. "Pettigrew had quite a lot of reservations but we bullied him into doing it. I wish we hadn't." He shook his head. "Add in that one of the most important part of the process is the preparation of a very delicate and complicated potion, and that the recipe has to be followed exactly word for bloody word. James came from a family of potion makers, but Fleamont and Euphemia never really encouraged him to follow Henry or Fleamont's footsteps, so he didn't. He did not like the subject, had no natural talent or instincts for it, and didn't exactly study beyond what was required of him. He knew that potion making wasn't his strength."
"Neither is mine," admitted Harry.
"Is it really or is it because of that particular teacher?" asked Sirius. "Did you ever try to brew unsupervised? You, yourself and not by minding a cauldron of Polyjuice Potion?"
"Not really. Never seemed worth the effort."
"We can try that again," said Sirius simply. "Potions is a very logical subject, and requires both knowledge and precision. Your mum thought it also required a little bit of daring to think outside of the box. Either way, you can't get far in without a solid knowledge of how to prepare ingredients properly. That wasn't really James's strength. Our first attempt at the Animagus Potion was a disaster because we turned it into a competition, and it turned out we could seriously fuck ourselves up. The second one was even worse, and by the third time I was so done with repeating the process that I strictly forbade them from helping. I did all the work myself, gave them the prepared base, told them what to do, and guarded the potion until it could be used."
"Apparently it worked." smiled Harry.
"Well, I told them we were doing it my way or I was going to rat us out to McGonagall because I wasn't going through it for the fourth time," said Sirius dryly. "By then James knew me well enough to stop pushing and Pettigrew never really had enough bravery to oppose me on his own."
"So what's so arduous about that process that you didn't want to repeat it?" asked Harry curiously.
"A lot of things are but one of the most annoying is keeping a single mandrake leaf in your mouth from full moon to full moon and if the following full moon happens to be cloudy you have to start over. During that month, you can't spit it out or swallow it, because if you do you have to start over. Speaking around it isn't a problem but eating was a nightmare." Sirius shook his head. "Let's just say that we botched up our very first attempt within the first week. Pettigrew didn't even last a day. He ate his leaf with breakfast, James sneezed out his on the third day and because they were jerks and wanted us to do it together, they spent the rest of the week trying to get me to spit it out or swallow it."
"That was it?" asked Harry. "Just that?"
"Well, then there's also keeping track of storms, because you need to take the potion during a lightning storm. Then you have to repeat the incantation at sunrise and sunset and then, to make the process easier or harder depending on how you look at it, you have to meditate to find your inner animal. Meditation isn't strictly required, more like a tempered suggestion but it can reveal your form so we decided to try it. That part didn't go well, either, at least for James and Pettigrew. They were both quite displeased with their forms. James was hoping for a lion and Pettigrew was hoping for something bigger."
"What had you hoped for?"
"I was happy as a dog," shrugged Sirius. "It was practical, big enough to hold down a werewolf if I had to, and I liked what it said about me. You can't control what animal you're going to change in to when you achieve the transformation. Imagine devoting months, years even, to achieving it, and then finding out that you're a pig or a snail or a fish..." he grimaced.
"And what did being a deer say about my dad?"
"In some cultures, deer represent things like pride, independence, protection. James was at peace with himself, and he was proud of who he was. He was also fiercely loyal and protective of those he gave a damn about."
"What did being a dog say about you?"
Sirius chuckled. "There's some leeway with symbolism, you see. The meaning changes from person to person, since every single person looks at things differently. To me, fierce protectiveness and loyalty were always symbolised by Snuffles. It was a whoops puppy from one of Grandpa Arcturus's Newfoundlands. It was a mongrel, so it couldn't be sold, but Reg and I loved him to pieces so Grandpa Arcturus allowed us to take him home." He sighed heavily. "It didn't end well. Bellatrix killed him within few weeks after we brought him home. But even as she was torturing him, he was still trying to shield Reg from her and her wand. That, to me is the highest form of loyalty. As it probably is to Reg, because when he saw me in my Animagus form, he immediately recognised Snuffles."
"So we all ended up here together."
"And I will forever thank Merlin for that." Sirius patted Harry's foot. "It wasn't what I expected to happen when I escaped, but now that it has, I wouldn't trade it for the world."
Harry felt himself flushing slightly before he asked, "What about that other place you mentioned? The one with the library?"
"The Black Manor in Derbyshire," said Sirius with a sigh. "The proper ancestral house of the Black family. Both the manor and Grimmauld Place belong to the current Head of the Black family, and he can decide who can use them. Ever since Grimmauld Place was acquired back in the eighteen century, they've been used interchangeably as the ancestral house. Individual Heads favoured one or the other or travelled between both. Grandpa Arcturus favoured Derbyshire. He hated every moment he was obliged to spend here and happily turned it over to my father and mother after their wedding. He was a frequent visitor here in our early childhood, and spent an occasional night here when Wizengamot was in session, but I don't think he bothered to show up after we went to Hogwarts. In spite of my father's protests, all family functions were then spent in Derbyshire."
"Did you like Derbyshire?" asked Harry curiously.
"Far better than this hovel," said Sirius quickly. "It was a proper manor. Reg liked that. He always hated how small Grimmauld Place was compared to his supposed friends' manors. It has lots of room by any normal standards, but by pureblood standards, it's still pretty tiny. The Black Manor, on the other hand, is huge and the library there alone would fill this place from top to bottom. But it wasn't the size that I loved about it, although the number of rooms in which we could play hide and seek was pretty amazing. What I always loved about Derbyshire were the grounds. It had lakes, trails, copses of trees and a big, blue sky above it all," he smiled wistfully. "Granted, a medium sized Quidditch pitch was a treat, I generally preferred to keep both my feet firmly on the ground when I was younger. And when Reg and Cissy got together on the pitch, they had to be chased back to the house. They sometimes had their brooms confiscated when they failed to show up to meals."
"Sounds like a great place," smiled Harry.
"It was," nodded Sirius. "The happiest memories from my childhood are from Derbyshire, not from here."
"Why can't we go there?"
"It's the ancestral house of the Black family and the actual home of its last Head," sighed Sirius. "Who, I believe, passed away two years ago, and there was no one else to claim the title."
"Because by family law it's supposed to be you," supplied Harry.
"And I was unable to take the mantle at the time of his passing. There's nothing we can do until I will meet with Proudclaw and accept the position as the Head of the Black family, at least semi-officially, until I'm no longer a fugitive," he sighed.
"How can you do that?" asked Harry curiously.
"By accepting the position and forbidding the members of the family from divulging that information with anyone not a Black," explained Sirius. "It's an ancient Fidelius Charm at work. It's anchored to blood so as Blacks, since you're the grandson of one, we can talk between ourselves. If you weren't, I wouldn't be able to talk with you about it until I could perform a blood adoption ritual with you."
"Then thank Merlin for Dorea Black," smiled Harry. "Otherwise we wouldn't be having much to talk about," he smirked.
"Oh, I beg to differ, four eyes," snorted Sirius. "I'll have you know that I'm an excellent conversationalist, I was taught by a master of that art. Now, what can you tell me about the state of the current culture of the wizarding world?"
"What culture?" asked Harry sceptically.
"Anything really. Theatre, opera, popular music, popular books, current popular sports?" Sirius counted out.
"Well, there's Quidditch, although I don't really have a chance to follow the league properly," he blushed. "And apparently I'm what Aunt Petunia calls an uncultured swine."
Sirius frowned and shook his head before he mumbled, "That's it, I'm going to really kill Dumbledore."
"So there's more to wizarding culture than Quidditch and Celestina Warbeck?"
"Oh, my sweet summer child," sighed Sirius. "Let me count the ways..."
And he did. He counted them out for a very long time and by the time he was done Harry was as pissed off as Sirius was for being kept in the dark about the wizarding world.
Next chapter: Regulus makes his way home (with some difficulties). Probably (if Regulus's part doesn't get too long) Sirius ends up facing another old demon and Harry gets to show the Dementor what he thinks about it (either via description or through slight retrospect depending on the chapter's length).
As for the other thing, Mirzam thing. It was kind of hinted (very slightly) in The Blacks: Semper Slytherin. If you got through my other works (I'm not encouraging or discouraging going through the oldest of my works, only reminding that they were written ages ago) you can find her. Through various stories her appearance changes slightly and she's more or less of a Mary Sue in them (I'm not going to deny that, I was pretty young when I wrote some of that stuff and pretty inexperienced). But one thing I never wanted to change about her was her name, I liked it, I liked it's meaning, in fact, I still like it. But I also have to admit that it's a pretty wizarding name for a supposed Muggleborn. I know how she acquired it and why she acquired it but she needed to lose it. It would be a pretty big secret only someone who knew her prior to Hogwarts (however briefly) would know, hence Sirius being the one to divulge it rather than say Bathsheda (who doesn't know for various reasons). This story is named Secrets & Keepers for a reason, there are many secrets in here and those secrets have many keepers and there are layers upon layers of them. Some secrets stay secrets, others don't.
I'm very much on the fence about Sirius's secret and how well it's kept and will be kept in the future (as in whatever it will remain his alone or will he chose to share it). Yes, I'm not done torturing him and he can surely take a little more. Weirdly it makes quite a lot of sense, at least from where I'm standing, which is 'how it even got into your head if you knew how this stuff works and you knew that you would never choose to do that'. It's a very interesting question, one which begged an answer and I hope that I found it. At the same time it's very consistent with Sirius we get to see in canon (the one that succumbs to depression and alcoholism). So it's just me poking that beehive a little more. If anything the sings are all there. The fact that with, I think two exceptions, he doesn't get his own point of view also helps with it (note that when Harry is present for the conversation it's always Harry's POV and Harry doesn't see it). But I guess the Dementor has shaken something loose and it will come back to haunt Sirius, with vengeance.
As for the sweet summer child, I will explain it at some point, I promise.
Till next time.