A/N: Happy (belated) Veteran's Day! I was going to put this in the last chapter, but it was too long to be one chapter, so yay, a flashback!

Disclaimer for last chapter: I forgot to put in a disclaimer last chapter… no one noticed.

Disclaimer: I would love to own Harry Potter, but who has the time?

Italics: French


As Harry prepared to retire for the evening, he thought back to when they explained the situation to the Delacours.

*Flashback*

"At the end of term last year, a dog kidnapped by 'friend' Ron. Hermione, my other close friend, and I went after him. To our astonishment, the dog turned into Sirius Black. I was shocked and angry, so I attacked him. To my surprise, our (then) DADA Professor, Remus Lupin, showed up and stopped me. Then he started going on about how 'they must have switched without telling anyone'. Then he pulled Sirius up and gave him a hug. I, of course, had absolutely no idea what they were talking about, and thought Remus must have been helping Sirius. But then, Sirius explained to me how my he had convinced my parents not to make him the Secret Keeper, because he was too obvious of a choice. Instead, they made Peter Pettigrew the Secret Keeper."

Harry took a deep breath to calm himself before continuing. "Pettigrew turned out to be a spy, and betrayed my parents to Voldemort. After their deaths, Sirius, being the only one who knew who the real Secret Keeper was, hunted Pettigrew down. But, before Sirius could do anything, Pettigrew yelled something along the lines of 'How could you, Sirius? How could you tell You-Know-Who about Lily and James?!'. Then he blew up the street, cutting off his finger and turning into a rat to escape through the sewers."

"How did you know that he was telling the truth?" Madame Delacour asked curiously.

"Well, Madame Delacour-"

Madame Delacour interrupted him with a laugh. "Harry, you're bonded to my daughter. You can just call me Apolline."

Harry smiled at her and nodded. "As I was saying, Ron had a pet rat named Scabbers. Scabbers had been in his family for about 12 years, and was missing a toe on one of his front paws. Sirius and Remus used a spell to force him back into his human form. While he was in human form, he confessed to being the Secret Keeper. Of course, all of this just had to happen on the night of the full moon, so Pettigrew escaped."

"You must be joking!" Monsieur Delacour said with astonishment. "How did he know that that was the same rat? And why didn't your ministry send out a warning to the general public that Sirius was an animagus? For that matter, why didn't they check to see if Pettigrew had turned into his rat form? I know that your ministry keeps a registry for animagi."

Harry smiled wryly. "Earlier that summer, Ron's dad won a lottery thing at the Ministry and their picture got put in the Prophet. Sirius managed to get ahold of that newspaper and shen he saw the picture he immediately recognized the rat. As for the animagi bit, myy dad had a group of friends in school. They were pranksters who called themselves 'The Marauders'. There were four members, my dad, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew. Well, when Remus was a little boy, he was bitten by a werewolf called Fenrir Greyback because of a dispute between Greyback and Remus' father. Well, when the other Marauders found out about his 'furry little problem', they decided to become animagi in order to keep him company on full moons. My dad became a stag called Prongs, Sirius became a big shaggy black dog resembling a grim, called Padfoot, Pettigrew became a rat called Wormtail, and they nicknamed Remus' form Moony. They never bothered to register with the ministry as animagi."

*End of Flashback*

Harry smiled. Once that issue had been cleared up, it had been a surprisingly fun evening. After he had gotten over the initial nervousness of meeting Fleur's parents, they had proven to be extremely pleasant to talk to. Apolline had an extreme love for Quidditch that made her extremely easy to talk to, and, interestingly enough, Alain enjoyed cooking. He and Harry had been able to discuss different recipes, and the pros and cons of real butter versus margarine.

At one point, Apolline ended up asking why Sirius could withstand the veela allure.

"Deed your ztay een Azkaban render you, ah, 'ow do you zay, eenfertile?"

Sirius just laughed. "I don't understand why everyone seems to think that. Dementors suck out all your happiness, not your ability to have kids."

Apolline looked puzzled. "Zen, 'ow?"

"Occlumency. It was one of the few useful skills that my mother taught us."

"What eez occlumency?" Cecile asked before anyone else could.

"Occlumency is the art of organizing and protecting the mind. An accomplished occlumens can recall any memory of theirs and view it in perfect detail, and block some emotions entirely."

"That's amazing!" Harry said excitedly. "Why don't they have a class on that here at Hogwarts?"

"Occlumency is an extremely hard art to learn. You can only start it after hitting puberty, and it takes years to get up to that level of proficiency." Sirius said matter of factly. "It takes dedication and patience that few adults, let alone teenagers possess."

"Oh." Harry's face fell.

"Don't be so down, kiddo, if you want, I'll teach you when you're mature enough."

"Thanks, Sirius."

Harry was brought back to the present by a loud yawn that came out of his own mouth. He finished changing into his pajamas and climbed into bed. It had been a good day.

Pain, pure agony. That was all that Harry felt as he woke up. It was like his entire body was being stretched, as if he were on the highest setting on the rack. He couldn't stop himself from crying out. People rushed into his room. He couldn't tell how long it lasted, time had become meaningless in this torture. Finally it stopped.

Harry sat straight up in his bed, sweat beaded on his brow, gasping for breath. The world looked... different, somehow.

Sometime while he was incapacitated, Sirius, all of the Delacours, Cecile, and Marie had entered his room. They were all staring at him, with varying degrees of shock on their faces.

"What?" He panted.

No one replied, as Sirius handed him a mirror. The only thing that he could think as he saw his reflection was 'Holy shit.'


A/N: Yay, a cliffie! Thank you guys for all the awesome reviews, you're great. I read through all of them, and they provide inspiration for my muse. Speaking of which, I've been considering having a post schedule, and I think I'll post every Friday night/ Saturday morning, or every other week (on those days). I probably won't post again this Friday, but, you never know :D...