Shadowsmage/frankieau: can't blame Draco for that one. He's what his father made him, after all.
a1993: That would draw too much attention from Dumbledore. Then again...
Teufel1987/Arashi IV of VI: thanks!
Disclaimer: Did Harry's remaining relatives and family friends prior to 1991 never manage to find him despite knowing of Lily's sister? If yes, Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling and this story is entirely for fun, not profit.
...
"Sirius Orion Black!" the evil grandma hissed and Iris' godfather cringed. Good to know that he had at least some traces of self-preservation. "If you cannot behave yourself in a manner befitting your station, you'll be back in Grimmauld Place before you can blink."
"Come on, what's the big deal?" Sirius complained while twisting uncomfortably in his black, pressed, tailor-made suit, black leather loafers, and long black coat. His long black hair had been brushed so many times that they looked like a silken waterfall, his Azkaban-hollowed eyes had been hidden behind silver-framed sunglasses, and the silver buttons, watch, and House seal he was wearing completed the image. Auntie Cassiopeia had tried for "respectable businessman" but Sirius had ended up halfway between old nobility and gangster baron - which fit the Blacks to a T.
"They're just muggles, according to you." He continued as the three of them walked down a street framed by near-identical houses. "No need to impress them. Besides, the only reason we're in this place is because I told you where it is so you can't-" Forget about self-preservation; now, as in the future, Sirius had a serious death wish. Iris tuned out the argument and focused on not messing up her own dress. She had always favored dragonhide over any sort of fiber for practical reasons and her current attire being Acromantula silk did not comfort her in the slightest. Instead, it brought up memories of when the Acromantula population near Hogwarts had grown too large and too bold for the Forbidden Forest and had tried to colonize the rest of Scotland. That had been a nightmare for the Auror office and the Obliviators both.
"Ah, we're here." Cassiopeia said as they finally reached Number 4 Privet Drive. She straightened her own expensive dress one final time, made sure her wild iron-grey locks were secure in their hairnet, and checked that the Sticking Charm that held Sirius' mouth shut had not been broken, then rang the bell.
"Yes, can I... help... you..." Petunia Dursley's cheerful voice deflated almost instantly upon seeing the three of them. Cassiopeia only raised an eyebrow at that, while Iris was busy controlling the sudden impulse to Transfigure her to a newt, and Sirius gave her a knowing smirk, Sticking Charm or no Sticking Charm.
"You can." The aging Black witch said brusquely. Nobility and polite conversation had been practically bred into the older generations of Blacks, but so had an assumed superiority towards other wizards, let alone muggles. Iris licked her lips in anticipation. If Cassiopeia would not tolerate anything less than perfect civility from the House's heir apparent, she doubted the older witch would do so if it came from any muggle - let alone Petunia Dursley.
"We're here to see Harry Potter." Cassiopeia said perfectly calmly, but the aura of menace and ferocity radiating out of her made Iris' former aunt pale. The older Black might not be as powerful or impressive as Albus Dumbledore, but she was at least at Flitwick's level. The diminutive Charms Master might not appear to be very impressive at first glance, but he'd done pretty amazing things during the Battle of Hogwarts, and was a better Duelist than even Alastor Moody. "We're relatives of his on his father's side."
"Petunia, who's at the door?" Vernon was here as well? Oh, this was too good to be true. With any luck, the Dursleys would be their usual freak-hating selves and goad the 'evil grandmother' into doing something about them. Not that Cassiopeia needed them to act on their stupidity and bigotry, if the firm eye contact she kept on Petunia Dursley and her mounting fury were any indications.
"Iris, Mister Potter is upstairs, resting in the second bedroom." She said firmly. "Go and keep him company, will you? The Dursleys and I have some things to discuss." With her ex-Seeker's, ex-Auror's reflexes, Iris swerved through an indignant Vernon Dursley's reach, avoided a shove from Dudley, and went up the stairs two at a time. She might miss the festivities downstairs for now, but Sirius was bound to tell her everything later and they could always enjoy reviewing the imminent curbstomping in the Black family pensieve. Keeping Harry away from potential magical violence might be awkward, but it was rewarding too. If two decades working for the future reformed Ministry had taught her anything it was that you could never have too many contacts.
...
Harry's life in Number 4 Privet Drive had drastically improved the first few weeks after the strange lady's visit. He'd gotten his own room, he was being paid for the chores he was willing to do, he got full meals, and he had a magical book that told him about all the strange and wondrous things he could do while allowing him to sneak around invisible.
But as weeks turned to months, things had become ugly. Unable to directly harm him due to the contract the strange woman had had them sign, the Dursleys found other ways to make his life a living hell. His full meals started arriving with too much salt or pepper for him to eat safely. The Dursleys often left on 'business trips' and locked him up in the house 'for his own safety' as nobody could be found to supervise him, and his magical book, his most prized possession, had disappeared. Had the Dursleys somehow stumbled upon it and decided to get rid of it? Things got even worse one morning when Dudley's 'condition' was suddenly cured and his fat lump of a cousin, furious at having spent so long as a half-pig and too stupid to consider the consequences, started attacking him with far greater frequency than before. Harry's evil Aunt and Uncle soon realized their beloved Diddykins had signed no contract -magical or otherwise- so they encouraged him to punish Harry where they could not. Harry had taken to hiding in his room, lying for long hours on his bed, and practicing anything he could remember from his lost book. That's what he'd been doing this evening too, when someone knocked on his door.
"Who is it?" He said guardedly. None of the Dursleys would ever do something as polite as knocking before entering.
"Your cousin." Came a young girl's voice from the other side of the door. "Open up! I'm supposed to keep you company while Auntie Cassiopeia is increasing the Dursleys' number of orifices."
"I don't think I got any cousins." Harry said, quashing the suddenly springing hope fluttering in his heart. His life had been hell for as far back as he could remember. Even his latest dreams of escape from the Dursleys through magic had been crushed less than a month ago. He doubted his fate would allow him to know his true family. "And what's an orifice?"
"It's a big word cousin Sirius often uses when having an argument with cousin Bella. It seemed appropriate." The girl on the other side of the door giggled. "Now will you let me in? Your cousin Dudley is getting closer and he doesn't look very friendly."
"Get in, quickly." Harry said, opening the door. He wouldn't let any kid to face Dudley alone, let alone a girl - even if she was taller than him. Long black hair swinging left and right as she all but danced her way in, the girl helped him slam the door in Dudley's face then laughed.
"That was fun." She said, staring at him with gleaming emerald eyes identical to his own. The same chin, the same shade of black in her unruly but elegantly styled hair, the same knowing smirk he saw in the mirror when thinking of Dudley's dumbest moments. The girl could have been his sister - the resemblance was quite strong. Her eyes were more heavily lidded than his own, her cheeks a bit higher, her face fuller, and she wasn't as skinny as he was, but other than that they were the same. They were definitely elated unless...
"How do I know you're really my cousin?" He'd heard Uncle Vernon talking about scams many times and if there was one thing he'd learned from the Dursleys it was that there were bad people in the world - bad people that looked just like good people if the neighbors did not look closely enough.
"Hello, we're practically identical." She said. "What else could we be but kin?"
"Dunno..." Harry said, Dudley's recent predicament suddenly coming to mind. "You could be discuized or something."
"It's 'disguised', not 'discuized'." She said primly, but there was a hint of a smile in her face. "I'm glad you've learned something from the Book."
"You know about the Book?" he gasped. Her tone, the emphasis she'd put in the word, made that clear enough.
"Of course! An older member of the family gave it to you before she had to leave Britain." She frowned, biting her lip. From Aunt Petunia's spying on the neighbors, Harry knew that indicated deep thoughts about something less than honest. "Wouldn't be fair, you know? The family library has many books and you didn't even have one. Now where is it? Have you read it all yet?"
"Umm..." Harry stared at the floor in embarassment. "It disappeared..." he admitted in a small voice.
"What?" The girl growled, suddenly looking furious. "It's enchanted, the Dursleys could never have taken it from you. I doubt you lost it either so who..." her eyes widened comically in revelation. "I'm gonna bury that old meddler! The nerve - stealing your book like that!"
"What do you mean?" Harry said even more warily than before. The girl jumped from cheerful, to secretive, to angry too fast for a normal person. "How could someone steal the book from inside my room? Nobody saw anything."
"Oh Harry." She said compassionately - another emotional jump. "You really think the Dursleys would tell you if someone came here and took your things?" Well, when she put it like that... she didn't seem half as crazy as before. "Besides, a magical thief would have other options."
"Like what?" Harry asked, but then was too busy keeping his jaw from reaching the floor to hear any reply. After winking at him mischievously, the girl had started fading away until she was transparent like a well-cleaned window. Someone not paying attention could easily miss her.
"Bloody hell!" She exclaimed, making him blink as she suddenly returned to a more normal state. "I'm getting rusty - that was barely halfway to full invisibility."
"I think it was awesome!" Harry said, the girl's weirdness totally forgotten. "Was that magic? Can you show me how to do it? What's your name?"
"Oh, right, names. I totally forgot." She giggled. "I am Iris Black, pleased to meet you." She shook his hand. "Can you not mention it to Auntie Cassiopeia? She's always telling me I must remember my manners."
"I'll do anything if you show me how to do that." Harry said excitedly.
The two preteens spent the rest of the evening playing with magic, Iris patiently showing Harry a few minor tricks he might manage after months of hard work. The boy was a bit disappointed not to be able to do as much as she, but Iris nipped that attitude in the bud. She told him in no uncertain terms that magic was hard - harder than his chores - and the only way for him to get better was to work on it. She left him with the promise of more visits in the future, and maybe the return of his book if his remaining distant relatives could manage it.
Once more, things were looking up in Harry's life.
...
Sirius was glad aunt Cassiopeia had taken his wand and magically stuck his mouth shut. If she hadn't he'd have murdered the Dursleys where they stood. Only Vernon's size and the success of the murder attempt being in question stopped him from doing them all in with his bare hands. From the older witch's pionted questions and obvious fury, Sirius had a vague idea of how his beloved godson had spent the last five years. Even the little he knew had very nearly sent him into a blind rage. How dare they beat Harry, starve him, use him as their personal House Elf - if not for the intervention of a witch that sounded suspiciously like Iris' older form a few months ago, who knew what might have happened.
The young scion of House Black regretted persuading aunt Cassiopeia into accompanying her this day. He'd been so very happy when his memories of his godson begun to return as the Dementors' influence slowly faded. Half-remembered conversations about Lily's family and his last meeting with Hagrid that horrible Halloween had resurfaced and he'd eagerly shared everything he knew about the Boy-Who-Lived with the rest of the family despite Iris' silent protests. But now... now he wished he hadn't.
"What are we going to do about this?" He asked his aunt sharply as the three of them walked away from muggle eyes and towards a secluded point to Apparate from. "We can't leave him there with those... those animals!"
"Why Sirius, you're finally seeing muggles like the rest of us." Cassiopeia mocked him. "Where's your belief in the muggle-loving propaganda spread by Albus Dumbledore now?"
"I can't believe Dumbledore would do something like that, leave my godson..." Shouting in wordless fury, he kicked the nearest wall. Despite the dragonhide loafers, his foot hurt. The wall, not so much.
"Albus Dumbledore works for what he believes is the good of the Wizarding World." Iris said noncommitally. "But he's neither omnipotent nor infallible. He once told me himself that, while he makes far fewer mistakes than most men due to his prodigious intellect, the mistakes he does make end up being correspondingly vaster."
"Right." Sirius said darkly. "What about Harry, then? What will we do about my godson?"
"He's no longer your godson, boy. You're supposed to be dead, remember?" Cassiopeia admonished. "Bringing you here was a mistake - what if Dumbledore discovers something?"
"He's already been here." Iris provided with barely contained fury. "Stole my present for Harry's last birthday."
"I was wondering how young Harry knew all those wandless tricks." Cassiopeia said, fixing her with a penetrating stare. "Why didn't you share what you knew about the Boy-Who-Lived with the rest of the family like Sirius?"
"Because his doing so ended up so well." The girl mocked and Sirius growled. Saving him from Azkaban or not, she had no business getting between him and his godson - especially given Harry's treatment at the hands of the Dursleys.
"Enough!" the oldest member of the trio commanded. "Merlin, this is a mess. We're not going to resolve it by bickering in the streets. Let's go back to Grimmauld Place and discuss this like adults - those of us who are adults anyway." She stared at Sirius at that - unfairly in his opinion. The girl was so much younger than him.
With a loud pop, the three of them vanished into thin air.
...
Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore came back from his late night stroll relaxed and with a mind clear of worries for the moment. Further pursuit of the secrets of the magical book he'd taken from the Dursleys' home for Harry's safety had been put on hold, his political opponents were mostly quiet, the Ministry was finally stabilizing after the war, however slow that stability might be coming, and the coming year's crop of students would be small and manageable. Attendance had been steadily dropping in Hogwarts for the past few years as it was time for the generation born during the war to learn magic, but there was nothing to be done about it. The births after the war had almost doubled in under a year, so he was not very worried about it. All in all, everything seemed to be going well so it was time for a good night's sleep.
The Headmaster's good mood came to an abrupt end as he entered his office to find it all but blown up. His heavy desk and comfortable chair were gone, the magical instruments he'd created in pieces, except for those magically protected. Cabinets upon cabinets full of books, potions, and stored memories had been damaged - but managed to survive and protect their contents. Instead of a fully grown Fawkes there was only a chick staring up at him indignantly from where it lay on the ruin-covered floor. The only things entirely untouched were those directly protected by the magic of the castle itself; the portraits of past Headmasters, Rowena's Quill and the Book of Names, the Sorting Hat.
"What happened here?" He said as soon as he'd found words again.
"Oh, nothing of importance Dumbledore." Said Phineas Nigellus snidely. "Your latest bit of light reading just packed a heavier punch than expected."
