Back in Black Chapter 9

Harry Potter stepped off the plane in Dusseldorf international airport with a smile on his face. Hermione had spent the entire flight coaching him off a German phrase book and Harry had found much to his surprise that he was actually doing well at it. Usually he had to do things to learn things properly, but Languages, or at least German, seemed a breeze. He wondered briefly if it was the difference between Hermione teaching him and the other teachers. Eric certainly wasn't this easy to learn from… He'd ponder that later, Hermione was dragging him over to a food stand and chattering a mile a minute.

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Sirius Black Exonerated!

Sirius Black, notorious death eater and traitor of the Potters has been a household name for 11 years now, reviled by all, but what if the truth we all thought we knew… was wrong? Last week the ministry was in an uproar as the department of magical law enforcement, in a startling and unprecedented move, swarmed an apartment building in Devon to find none other than Peter Pettigrew alive and well. For readers who do not remember it was the testimony and death of the same Peter Pettigrew which convicted Black in the first place 11 years ago. After being interrogated by the Aurors…

Eric put down the paper and frowned, taking a sip of tea before nodding at Tom. History of Sirius Black page 4, experts discuss the events surrounding the potters deaths pages 6 through 9, Rumor of a son page 11. That last one had not been part of the plan; he wasn't supposed to be revealed until after the trial. He checked the author of the article, Rita Skeeter.

Media trolls… according to boss Taggart there were only two ways to fight them, buy their publication or avoid them in a way they couldn't follow. He couldn't buy the Daily Prophet, but he could certainly avoid her, after all, how many 11 cum 12 year olds could turn invisible, fly or teleport? Best way to get away from the wizarding world was visit the civilian one and what better place to start than to go back to the beginning? After all, now that he had money it seemed a good time to settle some old debts. Putting up a notice me not field Eric disappeared with a pop.

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The Granger's first stop had been a cathedral in Cologne Germany. Harry wandered around the cavernous stone building and couldn't help but be impressed. Even after having lived in an enchanted castle with animated artwork he still found himself marveling at the skill and beauty of the stained glass, mosaic and frieze that dominated the massive structure. As he listened to Hermione gob on about the history of the place and the artist whose work he was admiring Harry idly wondered if Hogwarts would allow him to add a few of these pieces to its structure. It was hardly as if the castle really used all the space it had, surely it wouldn't mind him trying to make it look more inviting?

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Maria Evelyn Stark 1958 to 1985 5'7" Auburn (dark bloody red) hair, pale skin, Brown eyes. When Maria met first met Sirius she was a med student at Queens University of Belfast Medical Sciences. 22 years old and brilliant Maria was working on her second doctorate in medicine with a thesis on immunology and it's relation to patient genetics. She and several 'girl friends' had taken the night off at a local pub to unwind when they met a man spinning wild yarns about magical adventures and fights with dragons and evil overlords who had a fondness for snakes. There was an air of levity around the man and he'd had most of the pub alternately roaring in laughter or clutching their brews at the edge of tears. He was well dressed, well groomed, had a brilliant smile, a badboy attitude and was handing out drinks like they were going out of style.

She and her friends sat there for an hour listening to him tell his stories when the barkeep came over to her with one of her favorites. As she hadn't been to that particular pub very often so she was confused at first, until the man telling the stories had caught her eye and raised his glass to her, looking directly into her eyes. The left the pub together four hours later, hanging off each other's arms, still howling drinking songs. Their nights activities were such best left to private company and when she woke the next morning he was in her small kitchenette wearing nothing but an apron and cooking a large English breakfast.

They had sex several times more that Saturday before he left. Though they parted on good terms, she never saw him again, only holding with her the memories of that day and the name Sirius Orion Black.

When she had popped positive on her pregnancy test three months later her friends had urged her to abort or, failing that, give the child up for adoption. She was going into the last year of her Doctoral classes, finishing up her thesis and rumor had it she was going to be offered a position with the research staff, she didn't need to be ruining her life with a child. She had countered them, saying that if the brat was even half its father she'd be pleased to know it was hers, "And besides, this will get my mom off my back!"

Maria's mother had been less than pleased when her daughter had applied to med school at Queens. After graduating high school at 15 her mother had started pushing her to settle down and find a man to raise a family despite her age. When Maria had been accepted to Queens the office worker had refused to pay for her daughters tuition prompting the girl go to the professors and request financial aid. They had in turn entered her onto a scholarship contest where her presentation won her several grants that amounted to a full ride, estranging the two of them. Maria saw the baby as a way to mend bridges with her mother.

And it had worked.

Maria finished her doctorate shortly before Eric was born and the pair of them moved back into her mother's house. Eric was watched over by his grandmother while Maria worked at the university and paid the bills, coming home most nights to play with and mother him.

Eric grew quickly into an active and curious baby, getting into everything and driving his grandmother spare. He was walking by six months, talking in short sentences by 10 and started reading at picture books aloud at 1 year old. All feats accomplished by his parents before him, much to his grandmother's consternation. Maria pushed for him to start attending grammar school at three years old where he began devouring books the way the other children scarfed the cookies parents occasionally brought in. Maria often told her son how proud she was of him which only encouraged him to read more.

Easter 1985 everything changed.

Home for the Easter Holidays Maria and Eric were playing together on the floor when four people in black robes and hoods shadowing their faces blasted the door in, killing Eric's grandmother. Maria directed Eric to run and hide under the bed while they locked themselves in the bedroom. The men rifled through the house, ignoring anything valuable and then came upstairs shouting about 'black'. The men shouted at Maria for several minutes asking about Eric and he saw multiple flashes of light from under the bed, each accompanied by his mother screams. Then they set her on fire her on fire and left.

Scrambling out from under the bed Eric grabbed a blanket from the closet and tried to smother the flames like they had been told in school during a presentation with a fireman, but the magical flames resisted smothering and only grew larger in retaliation, consuming the blanket and setting fire to the rest of the room. Opening the door, intending to get water from the bathroom Eric found the rest of the house to be on fire as well. When flooding the bathroom and tossing small pails of water on his mother did no good, stopping the screaming, but not the fire, he ran. Out the bathroom window and into the streets Eric watched as the house burned in spite of the firemen's efforts to quench the flames. When more men, this time in red and blue robes showed up, Eric disappeared into the streets of Belfast.

Eric's next six months were hard. Wandering around the streets of a large city is no place for a lone child, despite the, relatively small, number of homeless street rats already living there. His second night on the streets he gave up trying to beg for food and raided a dumpster. Revolted by both the contents and concept he quickly and easily turned to theft. Like his parents before him, Eric picked things up quickly, observing pickpockets, purse snatchers and lock pickers he learned at the speed of experience and necessity.

Young children were almost unseen, running everywhere, getting underfoot, tugging on their parents and strangers coat tails and begging for treats so it was easy jostle by unremarked, lifting watches, wallets and keys. Eric got caught often in the first month but improved quickly. Store rooms were a good source of food as were the back doors of restaurants' who would often toss perfectly good portions of excess food if you were there to take it and refrigerator cars at the local train yard often had rusty locks or hinges. Libraries were also a good place to get away from truant officers, police and child gangs. Coupled with Eric's persistent love of books and memories of his mother's praise of his intelligence he spent quite a bit of time among the shelves, reading everything from math's, sciences and history, to far more childish pursuits of comic books and young adult fantasy, particularly the yank comic series, Marvel entertainments Invincible Ironman and the Erik Lehnsherr's X-men in Age of Apocalypse.

Eight months into life on the streets Eric was sleeping in the back alley of an industrial complex where they kept the heating/cooling units along with a number of other urchins. It was winter so the compression pumps were a popular sleeping place and the workers didn't bother them so long as they didn't damage anything. Eric had been sleeping through the afternoon snowstorm when he was pulled out of his cardboard with the other wretches by a gang of young teen thugs. They demanded tribute for protection and beat those who didn't have enough to satisfy them.

Eric didn't have enough.

Keeping oneself healthy on the streets is a difficult balance. Proper exercise isn't hard to come by, even in the winter, but to maintain a healthy diet you have to break into a wide variety of places and have plenty to steal to sell or trade for food. That was where most of Eric's money had been going. He'd seen what happened to kids who didn't get enough loot or spent it on stupid stuff and starved and he never wanted to be one of those wretches.

When the boys came around he only had a Rolex he'd been unable to hawk because it was engraved and plated in sterling silver. The boys had looked at him in disbelief and rifled his area and cloths looking for more. When he 'refused' to tell them 'where he had hidden the rest', one of them had hit him over the head and four more had started kicking him.

That's when Eric snapped.

Literally. Several of his ribs broken and fractures forming on his skull with the repeated blows Eric's subconscious had decided enough was enough. Black flames started to flow out of his body, latching onto the offending limbs and turning snow, cardboard, cloths and bodies around him to ash. Eric watched in horror as the ebon energy flowed across his skin and outward to consume the boys who had attacked him, their screams and bubbling skin, flaking away to ash, all too familiar in his memory.

Again Eric ran, ignoring the pain in his ribs he ran until he collapsed in exhaustion, the flames long gone, unconscious in front of a soup kitchen cum homeless shelter. As Eric was picked up by one of the volunteers' and carried inside his name was scrawling itself into the ledger of prospective students at Hogwarts Academy of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Eric smiled nostalgically as he looked at the slightly ratty storefront of the kitchen. Having recently traded in half of his gold to the bank a couple of days ago and was up to 616 thousand pounds, now he was going to start giving a little back.

Eric walked into the kitchen and stood in line for a bowl of soup. There were a lot of strange stares from the people in the line at his silk pants and leather duster, as if they wanted to be mad at him for coming here but there was some niggling confusion at the back of a lot of people's heads. He was familiar to them and they were struggling to understand why. As he got up to the counter and held out his bowl with a smile the server looked at him closely, a frown marring her pretty face. "Eric?"

"How is everything Abby?" Eric smile back.

"Eric! How are you?! When you disappeared in last August we thought the worst!" She stepped away from the other side of the line, asking the now smiling selection of volunteers to step in for her and stepped around to the front.

"No, actually I got picked up by this special boarding school." Eric said conversationally as he sat down with Abby at one of the tables. Pulling a pair of filled soup bowls from behind his back and setting them down between the pair.

Abby shook her head and smiled. "I've always wondered how you do that." She said laughing.

"Magicians secret," Eric shot back, grinning "If I told you…"

"You'd have to kill me." She finished. "You and your cliché's." she laughed shaking her head. "So! I'm certainly happy to see you, but if you're going to a rich kid's school, what are you doing back here? And how exactly are you attending a school like that?"

Eric nodded. "Good questions," Stark said, taking a sip of the chicken noodle "remember how my fathers' been playing absentee dad for the last 12 years? Turns out he was one of the honored alum and they managed to track me down, offered me a scholarship and everything. Then when school ended a few weeks ago and Dad showed up." He took another long sip of the soup and looked at her.

"That's great," Abby said. A dozen or so of the regulars patted him on the back and offered their congratulations as well, though a few of them grumbled and shot him sour looks as well. "I guess though, this means you won't be coming here anymore?"

"Nominally," Eric nodded "But I also intend to make a rather generous donation to the shelter in thanks for my time here. How does a hundred grand sound?" Understandably Abby didn't take it entirely well and sat there, gaping like a fish. Everyone else was silent and someone rushed to a phone and dialed the shelter's manager. Eric ended up staying at the shelter for the next several hours, entertaining the inhabitants with an updated version of his stage show, now featuring the transported man act, fire eating and making people float or disappear.

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Harry shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Up until a good ten minutes ago he had been rather enjoying listening to a performance of the Frankfurt Grand Orchestra with Hermione's family. Everything had been going well and he'd finally gotten to hear Pachelbel's cannon in D that Eric had told him about rather passionately a few times they had discussed music, and then Hermione had taken hold of his arm and was leaning into him. As if that in of itself wasn't awkward enough now Dan Granger was ignoring the concert and glaring at him. Putting a finger in his collar he tugged nervously and considered just abandoning all pretenses and flying to a safer position. This was going to be a long night.

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Eric sat in the back of the wizengamont with a frown on his face. The trail had gone well, all told. Both Sirius and Peter had been brought in separately and answered a number of questions under the influence of the wizarding truth drug, veritaserum. After a great deal of deliberation and several speeches they had decided to immediately have Pettigrew kissed and award Black ten million galleons in reparations for his unlawful imprisonment.

Watching the kiss, in Eric's honest opinion, was the single most horrifying and disgusting thing he had ever witnessed. The dementors were not wraiths as he had first assumed them to be, but rather rotting cadavers with melted leprous green skin that hung off their bones like some horrible feted jello. As the thing opened its mouth and clamped it over Peters own he felt as if his very magic were being somehow sullied and he shivered uncontrollably.

As the trial ended Eric mad his way down to the chair where Sirius had been seated after his questioning and helped the man up. "It's over." He said quietly to Eric "Thank Merlin it's finally over." He laughed bitterly. "I'd have far preferred to kill Peter myself though, you know?" he said looking at Eric. "Be kinder to both of us than what just happened. I don't think even he deserved that."

"Soul sucking monsters," Eric agreed, shaking his head. "Kinda makes you wonder just what kind of world this is that the government keeps things like that on hand rather than eradicating them."

"Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned; the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity." The pair of them turned around to see Lucius Malfoy standing there, an odd not quite smile on his face. "One of the better poems by your people, Mr. Stark an may yet be appropriate to answering your question. The ministry keeps them around because in the five thousand years of their existence only one person has been known to kill a dementor and the secret died with her. Better to keep a demon under your thumb than let it run loose, and if you can control it, why not use it?"

"Then obviously your people aren't trying hard enough to kill them, Mr. Malfoy." Eric returned. "How did you like your son's progress?"

"It was fairly disappointing actually." The silver haired man replied. "I was actually quite intent on speaking with you about that, he blames you."

"Do tell? All his arguments where he refused to learn my methods were accredited to you, Lucius." Eric returned sweetly.

"Indeed." Mr. Malfoy's face turned dark at that.

"All in all though, I think he did rather well once we beat some cooperation into him." Eric continued. "Watching him lose to Hagrid in a magic only duel was quite the entertainment. He proved himself to be quite the student after that little episode, even explained to me your position on blood purity. If he keeps the attitude I left him with Draco should be throwing fireballs by Christmas and relearning his course spells wandlessly around Easter."

"Very well" Lucius murmured. "I shall leave you to it then, though I must admit to being curious about your presence here."

"That, dear cousin" Rasped Sirius "would be my fault. You see, Eric is my son." He said with a vicious grin.

Lucius blanched. "You can't be serious!"

"Oh, but I'm always Sirius, Lucius! It is my name after all."

The elder Malfoy gave him a dirty look. "Would that I never hear that stupid pun again." Lucius growled. Then he turned to Eric. "So you're a half blood then?"

"Only found out myself recently." Eric nodded. "Tried to open an account at the bank…"

"And they required a little blood." The platinum blond finished. "Good day then."

Eric and Sirius watched as the man swept off down the hall. "What was that all about?" Sirius asked.

"I found out about my magic soon after mom died and refused to leave it at just accidental." Eric said as they made their way to the lifts. "Ran a stage magic show to keep myself in food and clothing. It kind of snowballed after I got to school. I've been building up quite a following, so naturally one of them Ran afoul of Draco, the great ponce. Mr. Malfoy got involved and threatened to shut me down if I didn't add his son to my roster of students. Now, let's get you out of here."

After Reaching the Ministry atrium Eric directed them to the flu portals instead of the visitors exit and sent them to St Mungos. They had an argument in the Lobby over whether or not Sirius needed to be here but after one of the healers supported Eric that dementor trauma was a well-documented problem they managed to get him to the fourth floor to see Mind Healer Barnabus. After a lot of cajoling and many glares they had the older man set up in the long term spell damage ward with daily potions and sessions with various Mind Healers.

Eric looked over the rest of the wards inhabitants curiously as he pulled out his trunk and unshrunk it between the wall and Sirius' bed. Ward 47 had two possession cases, a long term Imperious victim and some guy muttering about dead gods who dream beneath the earth. Eric shook his head and directed Sirius to follow him into the trunk. The man raised an eyebrow at the space within, but otherwise said nothing. Entering Eric's room the small redhead took a rubber ball off the shelf and began cutting it away to reveal a Ruby.

"Sirius," Eric said, as he held the gem out to his father "can you tell me what this is?"

"Looks like a bloodstone." The black haired man said after a few minutes close inspection. "I'd have said ruby, but the textures wrong, why?"

Eric summoned a Beetles coffee mug from one of the shelves and held the stone over it, Purple fire enveloping his hand. The stone issued a stream of clear liquid into the cup until Eric stopped the power and Sirius looked a little surprised. "Geomancy. Not bad." He said a musing look on his face. "Not many people practice that any more, most think it's too limited, where'd you find a book on it?"

"Geomancy?" Eric asked, giving his father a confused and questioning look.

"Yeah, it's the practice of using different minerals to channel magic. Fell out of fashion shortly after the fall of Rome but it was dying by then anyways. Runes were easier to use and didn't have to be gathered and Rome's war with the woads had brought the use of wands and staves to Europe. Shouldn't you know this though? Didn't you just use a rock to make water?" Now Sirius was the one looking confused.

"Huh." Eric said, momentarily stumped. "I'll have to look that up in the library someday. No, this" he said placing the stone back in the broken rubber and repairing it "is the sorcerer's stone, and the liquid in the cup is the elixir of life; an all uses health potion which you are now going to drink."

Sirius looked between Eric, the cup and the ball, utterly gob-smacked. "How do you have a sorcerer's stone?" he asked, shell-shocked and stuttering.

"Not THAT is an interesting little story." Eric replied, taking a sip of the liquid and swallowing before forcing it into his father's hands. "It's also one you're going to have to wait for now because once that potion is down your gullet you're going to suffer the rather quick and undoubtedly painful reversal of a little over a decade's worth of abuse, so I suggest you drink quickly and get back to your bed. I'm not about to watch you die after putting all that effort into saving your sorry ass, dad."

Sirius frowned slightly, sniffing the liquid. "I don't have to keep drinking this to maintain the benefits do I? I read that the Flamels keep a big store room of the stuff because they have to take the elixir regularly."

Eric filed the name Flamel away before snorting in reply. "Don't be absurd, this isn't some cheesy fantasy book where the villain loses their source of power and immortality shortly before withering away to ash in moments. I had one of the healers, a guy named Erasmus, swear an oath of his life and magic to keep this quiet before letting them test some of the stuff. The elixir is like any other one shot healing potion, it'll perform its effect and then fade out of your system. Semi-permanent effects and all that, it'll give you a full work-over and fix your age to 20 or so, but after a few hours the potion fades and you start healing and ageing normally. I had to let Healer Erasmus use it on the sly a few times to get the workup on its full effects. Best I can figure if the Flamels need it that often then they're either very vain about their age or live incredibly dangerous lives."

Sirius nodded and chugged the elixir. "Bottoms up." He said grinning slightly before passing out. Eric caught him levitated the man up out of the trunk and tucked him in bed. It was time to track down a few more leads he didn't have time to deal with last time he was here. Plans within plans, maybe he should have been in Slytherin after all…

Shrugging to himself Eric walked down the hall to the Janus Thickney Ward, number 49 for permanent spell damage. There were a few people in there, none of whom he recognized so he went up to the healer in residence, a pleasantly chatty woman named Miriam Strout who pointed him to the two gaunt spacy figures at the end of the ward.

"Madam Strout, as best you can tell me, what exactly is wrong with them? Aside from the obvious psychological trauma you'd expect in a torture victim?"

The woman looked over at the pair of them sadly. "You seem like a nice boy, I really wouldn't like to bother you with such details. The cruciatus curse is forbidden for a reason after all." The woman said in a motherly tone.

Eric however wasn't to be deterred. "Please madam healer, they're parents of a dear friend of mine. Tell me. If I want to help him I'll need all the gory details."

The woman frowned deeply before setting her mouth in a firm line and setting him down on one of the beds. "The cruciatus curse" she began "is a dark curse not because of what it does, but in the details of how it's cast. Like the two other unforgivable it cannot be cast easily by anyone who is not inherently evil because it requires a deep seated desire to cause pain and anguish upon the person you are targeting. I could cast it on you now and throw my full and considerable power behind the spell and not do worse than make you itch uncontrollably. I simply don't feel that level of hate for anyone I know, least of all you. As to the details of the damage the spell causes it attacks the central nervous system slowly tearing at and shredding the nerve bundles like that muggle disease, what is it, Multiple Sclerosis I think?"

She frowned and looked back at the pair of the sadly before continuing. "A little here and there, however horrible, is recoverable. The body is amazingly resilient and Wizards far more so, but after being held under the spell for hours on end? It's a pure miracle that they're even alive, let alone able to function on this level. They haven't got much more than instincts and vague impression of their past personalities anymore, but that's just it, they should have been dead before we could get to them." She shrugged and smiled at him sadly. "Are you suitably depressed now, or would you like some of my other patient's stories?"

"No," Eric said quietly "I'm good. I do have a hypothetical for you though." The woman looked at him curiously, obviously humoring him and Eric continued. "Suppose I was able to get my hands of a couple vials of the Elixir of Life, would that be enough to bring the Longbottoms back to a treatable state?"

The woman looked at him for a long time, multiple expressions crossing her face as if she wasn't sure whether she wanted pat him on the back and call him a hopeless romantic, or rage at him for treating the situation so casually. Eventually she decided on being clinical. In a stiff professional tone of voice Miriam answered him "In short, yes, I believe it would, but there are few enough skilled alchemists in the entire world and none of them are particularly fond of sharing. The Flamels in Devon haven't left their manor since the early 1800's and Albus Dumbledore had to go to some fairly impressive lengths to get apprenticed to them. It's not likely that will ever happen in this case."

Eric nodded and left the ward, thanking the healer for her time and patience.

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Harry looked up at Neuschwanstein Castle and felt a horrible creeping sense of dejavu. Hermione was at his side blathering on about the places history and the types of architectures it used but Harry mind was stuck on his recent stint of Disney movies. "Oh, Merlin" He groaned "I'm touring Cinderella's castle." Hermione and Jean Granger gave him scandalized looks and Dan broke down laughing.

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Hagrid looked down at the freshly hatched ridgeback with a rosy glow in his demeanor. Beautiful, he thought. It had been nearly a month since school let out and he'd gotten everything set up just like he and Eric had planned. The forest really wasn't that hard to live in, with all those cute animals running around there was plenty to keep him fed and entertained and Freya to for that matter. Such a cute little girl; he was going to call her Norbert when he first got her egg, but Eric had insisted the little drake was a girl and that just wouldn't do. Freya was the giant's goddess of love beauty and war, and that suited the little dragon quite well he thought.

Stumping over to the edge of the rise he took the little girl in his hands and jumped into the water. He'd have to thank Eric later for teaching him magic, it would have been tough to find a place like this and building it was much easier. He'd been able to carve out a fair sized lake not a mile into the forest from his house and coaxed the rocks to form a large overhanging double cave for the fish and Dragon. He'd bought a number of different types of water plants, bugs and fish for the lake before filling it with water and multiplying his purchases a few hundred times. It had taken quite a bit of time to get it all right and he was certainly pleased with the result.

Landing with a big splash he floated there and watched as Freya darted out of his hands after a school of minnows. Smiling through the bubbles he pushed off the lake bottom and swam ashore, shaking the water out of his hair and cloths like a dog. Eric's magic was good for a lot of things but there were still some things that should be left the normal way, it was just natural like that. He sat on the shore for a while, whittling a massive guitar out of a tree he'd uprooted for Freya's home and listened to the connection between them.

He'd spent a great deal of time looking over that book the kid had given him and practicing on the ridgebacks egg, but it wasn't until after she'd hatched that he'd made any progress in his connection to her. Now though his eyesight had gotten better and he was getting much more adept at fire magic. He wondered what exactly it was that Freya was getting out of their bond. He nodded as he felt her decide she was full and walked over to the lake where she popped out of the water like one of them flying fish he'd seen off of Dover.

Freya was right, he thought, now was a perfect time for a nap.

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Eric stepped out of the fireplace at Longbottom Manor to a hug by Neville himself. The boy seemed to be doing well and they chatted pleasantly about the boys Green house that his gran had recently acquiesced to building for him. The place was a small glass building on the north side of the estate with an expanded interior and runes along the edges of each pane to allow for some rudimentary weather control within the confines for various, often delicate, species of magical plants. Augusta was apparently pleased with his magic and had even given the boy praise on occasion, a statement that Eric wasn't sure whether to smile at or grimace. He shrugged it off quickly though, better that she was actually giving him more good attention than bad nowadays, he'd take what he could get with that old biddy.

Speaking of the crone… Eric matched the woman's sour look across the island in the kitchen where they were being served lunch by the house elves and ran over his plot on exactly how to carry this one out. The thing Madam Longbottom wanted most was her son. The dour old woman was quite obvious about that and deliberately oblivious to anyone else's views that ran counter to that goal. From what he'd heard around the alley she was the very model of the upper-crust English dowager and crafty enough to maintain a considerable voting bloc in the Wizengamont.

It took a little maneuvering on Eric's part, but eventually he managed to leave the boy to his plants and ventured back into the house to fond Dame Longbottom. Perhaps unfortunately thought it was she who found him wandering in the halls taking to the elves a few short minutes into his search. Imperiously the woman ordered away the elves and deemed it that he should accompany her to a study on the other side of the mansion. When they had both sat down, a large stained wood desk between then the elderly woman spoke.

"I find myself… pleased" she bit out haltingly "by the progress your influence has developed in Neville and intend for it to continue." She said after a while. "However as I am not, at this point, particularly fond of you I still find myself asking just what you're doing here. While I understand you were not raised properly by your house, Black, it is considered rather improper to drop by unannounced. Tea?"

"I was wondering if you'd caught that." Eric said, grimacing. "I myself only found out three weeks ago."

The woman nodded as a house elf bounced in with a tray of tea and condiments. "I'm well aware of that Mr. Black. I'm also aware of how you checked your father into Saint Mungo's yesterday and made a point of visiting my son while you were there. I trust you had a good reason for doing so?" That last statement held a thinly veiled sense of menace that Eric found himself shivering at subconsciously.

"Yes, actually, you see, while not exactly close, I am of course friends with your son and heard once or twice how he didn't live with his parents, so I got curious. Upon further research I found out about the attack on them and my visit yesterday was an extension of that." He explained, doing his best to make it sound innocuous.

"And I suppose then that you are aware a former member of your house was involved in the attack that left them in that condition?" she asked, lips thin above the bone china of her cup.

"That's actually what I came here to talk to you about." Eric said, turning deadly serious, an affectation that looked fairly ludicrous on his nearly twelve year old body. Reaching into his pocket he held up three glass corked beakers.

"Explain." The woman intoned darkly.

"I want Bellatrix," he said without preamble "and I'm willing to trade you three flasks of the Elixir of Life, straight from Flamel's own store room for her. I know what she and the Lestrange's did to your son and daughter in law, but the Black is mine. I'm offering you your son, his wife and your youth and beauty if you'll drop all charges against her and have her transferred to my personal custody. I couldn't care less what happens to those bastards she's married to, have them kissed, killed or left with the dementor's for the rest of their unnatural lives, for all I care, but I want Bella."

Augusta looked at him and his offering silently for a very long time, rage, greed and hope dancing in her eyes. After a while she spoke. "And what would you do if I simply took those flasks from you and left you with naught?" she asked. "After all, you wandered so willingly into my manor, under the power of my wards, what would stop me?"

"I would." He growled, arcs of power now running up and down his arms, and making his bound hair stand slightly on end.

Madam Longbottom looked him over appraisingly and nodded as if she was unconcerned by his threat. "It's a noble goal to protect one's family." She said softly. "You have a deal." Standing up from behind the desk the stern looking matron walked over to a thoroughly confused Eric and held out her hand. Eric let his power go and took the offered hand. There was a slight glow of magic and they let go. "Meet me in this study in a week and I shall have the bitch caged and ready for you." The woman said, turning her back to the redhead in dismissal.

"In a week then Dame Longbottom, please try not to damage her more than she already is." With a bow Eric restowed two of the flasks of Elixir and left.

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Harry looked at the shrunken box in his hand and felt a shiver go down his spine. It was his birthday and they were in Berlin visiting the Zoo when a Flourish and Blots post owl had flown down out of the blue and handed him Eric's letter. It was cryptic and full of bad puns but the gist of it was the present contained pieces of his history and knowing his best male friends sense of humor he was worried. Trancing in he put up a notice me not spell that excluded the Grangers and unshrunk the box.

At the top of the pile was a newspaper, labeled The Daily Prophet and headlined Sirius Black Exonerated. Harry's face turned to a scowl but held his temper in check as he read the article. Seeing rumors of a son posted at the bottom the green eyed 12 year old read between the lines. Eric, being his nosey, disruptive self-had gone to Azkaban to investigate his father like he'd told Hermione he would only to end up exposing Peter Pettigrew as the traitor of the Potters. He felt sick as he recognized the photo of the rat that was Pettigrews animagus form as Ronald Weasley's pet. Yet another reason not to feel quite so bad about dropping the boy as a friend.

Handing the paper to the Grangers Harry picked up the first book in the box and froze. The adventures of Harry Potter, The boy who lived!

No. Fucking! Way!

There were seven books in all starting from when he was four and going until just before he started Hogwarts. He skimmed the summaries and speed read random pages of several of the books and couldn't help but steam in disbelief. Horror and fury were good words too, but really a bit too strong for what he was feeling right now. Maybe that was the shock talking?

A note fell out of the book he was holding limply in his hand and Harry picked it up off the concrete. It was from Eric. Heya Harry, happy birthday! Did you know that you spent a year in china while you were seven studying under the immortal jade emperor and his dragons? It sure came as a surprise to me! And here I thought I was the friend you shared everything with! Harry burned the note, face red. He was certain he could hear the boys laughter from here.

He shook his head and vowed to prank the shit out of the feather brained claw for at least a month straight, he was pretty sure he could get Fred and George to help out. He'd also need some suitable revenge on the authors of this tripe. He'd never done any of this or told the writers they could reinterpret his life for the masses. Hell, this might even be why everyone at school held him on such a pedestal. He scanned the books publishing marks as Hermione had taught him and failed to find anything indicating it as a work of fiction and groaned.

Looking back in the box he found one final book with another letter in the front cover. Sorry about the fairy tales Harry, I was looking through the book store for something you might like when I spotted that tripe. Here's something that I think you might enjoy though, you always said you wanted to know more about your parents, so here's their biographies. Harry picked up the book with trembling fingers and dropped the rest of the box. He was peripherally aware that the Grangers were staring at him, but he didn't really care at the moment. If this book wasn't as much a work of fiction as the rest of them it could be a real connection to his parents, he'd let Eric off lightly he decided and he opened the book and began reading it hungrily.

Hours later and deep into the night he put the book down. The pages were filled with memoirs from people who had known his parents at school and a sparsely detailed overview of their lives afterwards. His mother, Lilly, had masteries in Charms, Potions and Ancient Runes, the last being a subject the woman had taught for three years before her death, and was known to have received NEWTS in in Arithmancy, Alchemy and Transfiguration as well. One thing that threw him though was that the book had very openly stated that Lilly Evans had been very close to the young Severus Snape up until the end of their fifth year where witnesses had heard him call her a mudblood.

He shook himself and briefly went over what he had learned about his father. The man had completed masteries in Transfiguration and Defense before joining Ministry as a Hit Wizard when the brewing war with Voldemort had claimed his parents and family manor. His father had also gotten NEWTS in Arithmancy, Care of Magical Creatures, Potions, Charms, Herbology and Divination. By no means stupid it was obvious his dad had been more action oriented than a study bunny like his mom. He did finally know why Snape seemed to hate him though. While thinking about it brought a sour taste to his mouth he remembered the passages about his father and his friends. They had been a cross between the Weasley twins and Draco Malfoy. He shuddered at the thought. James Potter was among the most popular and well liked people in his year as well as a notorious and deeply inventive prankster, but when it came to Slytherins and Snape in particular the man was consistently described as an egotistical bully.

Tiger Lilly though, he thought sleepily, and chuckled to himself as he remembered the passage about how his mother had gotten that name.

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The exchange had gone smoothly and Eric was now the dubiously proud owner of one deranged, emaciated sociopath currently screaming her head off in his trunk. Eric wasn't particularly worried about the woman, as the trunks rooms had been made into a nicely padded cell for the wandless wretch and she was quite safely locked away. But he would deal with her later, now was the moment of truth. Eric, Sirius, Augusta and Healer Tonks were currently standing in Saint Mungo's ward 49 ready to pour a liter of elixir down the throats of Frank and Alice Longbottom.

Healer Tonks was a bit of a curiosity to Eric; she and Sirius had greeted each other with a distinct air of familiarity but there was a sort of wariness there that the redhead didn't particularly like. Shoving his uneasiness to the side Eric did his best to stay calm and coax Mrs. Longbottom to drink the clear potion. The process was slow due to the near vegetative state the woman was in, but slowly, gulp by gulp, the light began to creep back into the woman's eyes and her body slowly filled out beneath the hospital robes.

As Mrs. Longbottom began to return to life and sanity it became strangely harder to keep the woman drinking the elixir requiring Tonks to step in and sooth the woman, performing diagnostic charms with every other breath. "There, there, Alice," she said soothingly "you've been sick for a very long time, please continue drinking your medicine. It'll all be better soon."

Nodding Neville's mother took hold of the bottle and upended it into her mouth and chugged the rest down. Swallowing, she immediately started talking. "Andromeda, where is my son? Last thing I remember is hiding little nev and rushing out to help Frank. Is my son alright? What's going on? How bad was it? How long have I been under? Where's Frank? He's not dead is he? It was the Lestranges! Did you catch them? Little Barty Crouch was there too!"

"Calm yourself cousin," Sirius said darkly "your son is fine and you're among family." He said gesturing to Augusta.

"Black," she said nodding. "I thought you were going into hiding after taking up as the Potters secret keeper?"

"The war's over." Eric spoke up. "Eric Black" he said, sticking out his hand for the woman to shake "Sirius' son."

"Oh, oh dear." Alice replied paling. "How long have I been out." She asked, voice shaking.

"To answer your questions in order," Eric spoke up immediately, turning away to fetch Frank Longbottom, "Your son is in his greenhouse dealing with a werewood I bought to distract him, I'm quite certain he's alright considering his skill with everything flora, you are here recovering from the cruciatus curse and it was bad enough to drive you into a decade of wasting insanity, your husband as well. As for the Lestange's and crouch, they've been dealt with." Eric said, coming back into the curtains, leading the emaciated Frank Longbottom by the arm.

Alice, who looked like she horrified and had been trying to deny what he had been saying, cried out in despair as she saw her husband. "Calm down Alice," Andromeda said, grabbing onto her as she tried to launch herself out of her bed "Frank will be fine in just a moment, you'll see." She turned to Eric who was now coaxing Frank into a chair like he was a slow dog. "And you, Eric, that was a horrible way to break things to the poor woman. You should have left it to us."

Eric looked over his shoulder from where he was coaxing the emaciated man to drink by tilting the man's head back and stroking his throat. "She'll get over it soon enough, she looked just like this vegetable over here a few minutes ago and honestly, I've always found trauma to be like a bandage, pull off the sticking plaster slowly you just draw out the pain and give it time to be psychological, better to tear it straight off so it's all sensation and shock. Besides," he said, pointing at the man who was slowly regenerating into the form of Frank Longbottom "He'll be functional again in a few more gulps."

"Be that as it may, it's unhealthy to be so insensitive to a recovering patient, and cruel besides!" his aunt returned sharply.

"And so was most of my life." Eric said with a shrug.

Alice, who had been looking back and forth between the two of them as they argued, spoke up. "What's going on? You said you were Sirius son, however irresponsible he is it can't be that bad of a father."

Everyone in the room looked at her. "Daughter in law," Augusta spoke up finally "Mr. Black has been in Azkaban for the last decade, just like you and my son have been here. Neville has told me much of young Eric and little of it pleasant."

"You don't have to make it sound so bad." Eric said frowning now, as he turned away from Frank, to look at them. "My early life was quite pleasant, despite Sirius' absence and ignoring my change of circumstances, I think I did quite well after as well." A bit megalomaniacal, perhaps though he thought, trying not to roll his eyes in amusement.

"Your change if circumstances? I'm still lost…"

"My mother was murdered" Eric bit out as he watched Frank Longbottom's cheeks fill out and eyes light up "and I had to watch."

Frank spluttered, spraying elixir all over Eric and Augusta. "Frank, son!" The elder Longbottom cried, in a sudden total lack of decorum as she launched herself on the returned man. "Thank Merlin you're alright."

"Mum, gerroff me!" he wheezed "What was that about watching your mother die, son?" the former Auror asked.

Eric glared at him, dripping, and thrust the rest of the glass beaker at the older man "Bottoms up old man. I'm not explaining anything till your medicine's done."

The man took the bottle and looked at him oddly, "you seem a little young to be training as a healer, son."

"I'm special," Eric countered, "now drink." Eric crossed his arms and starred the man down. Frank looked between him and Andromeda several times; taking in their similar expressions and the slight surprise Tonks was offering Eric and laughed.

"Fine, fine!" The man said, chugging the rest of the Elixir of Life and looking to him expectantly, his eyes touched by mirth, but focused in investigative curiosity. Once done Frank again demanded to hear what Eric had meant about watching his mother die. Eric deflected by explaining Frank and Alice's own circumstances as he understood them, Augusta and Andromeda filling in details here and there. The Longbottoms were suitably distracted and spent the next few hours crying at the events that ended the war and thanking Dame Longbottom for raising their son. Smirking, Eric took the opportunity to slip off with Sirius.

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Harry and the grangers stared at the bobble-headed gremlin calling itself Dobby with a mixture of shock, disgust and deep seated fascination as it explained, in between regular bouts of violent insanity, exactly what a house elf was and why Harry should not return to Hogwarts in the coming term.

"The wonderful Harry Potter sir needs to stay safe with his family sir!" the elf concluded.

"But dobby," Harry said "I have no family, and the Dursleys hate me. At Hogwarts I have friends and we're hardly defenseless." He said, floating a foot off the ground and lighting fireballs in either hand.

"Oh! HARRY POTTER MUST BE A GREAT WIZARD INDEED!" Dobby wailed. "IF DOBBY IS TO PROTECT THE GREAT HARRY POTTER SIR THEN HE SHALL FINDS HIM A FAMILY! GOOD BYES AND GOODS LUCK, HARRY POTTER, DOBBY WILL FIND YOU A FAMILY AND KEEP YOU SAFE FROM THE BAD MASTERS PLANS!" Then, with a crack like a whip, the little manikin vanished.

"What in the devil was all that about?" Mr. Granger asked, looking startled. Harry and Hermione shrugged, they'd been listening to the creature as well and they still had little clue. The pair of them looked at each other and nodded in agreement. This meant research.

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"Alright, sprog, what do you think?" Eric looked from his father to the house they had just apparated in front of and considered. It was a large two story Tudor in northern Devon with a good sized lawn and numerous trees in the back yard. "It's got five bedrooms, three baths, and plenty of living and cellar space and I haven't even started enchanting it yet!"

"Sounds good, but why, I thought the blacks had several properties?" Eric said nodding.

Sirius made a face. "That's true enough," he said, voice jocular "But they're all dark stuffy places. Good libraries if you want to raid them later, but the estates are fairly steeped in the dark arts and it's painfully visible in the architecture. I used to own a place like this, but being in jail for a decade it got sold. Received a notice a few years back saying all of my stuff was being moved to cold storage, so there's that at least."

"Ah." Replied Eric nodding his head. "I guess a house is as good a birthday present as any."

"Birthday, what?" Sirius said, looking alarmed.

"It's the 13th of August, isn't it?"

"Well, yeah, you didn't tell me it was your birthday though! I haven't got anything!" the dark haired man said looking slightly panicky. "TO THE ALLEY!" he howled with a mad cackle before grabbing Eric in a one armed hug and disaparating.

They appeared in the middle of Diagon Alley with a thunderous crack that had people glaring at them and started walking up and down the street. Sirius wanted to buy Eric a broom but after showing him the cloak they shrugged it off as a bad idea. Eric wanted to look at the rare book shops but Sirius waved him off saying that if he wanted rare books they could look through the black family libraries. They settled on getting Eric a pet, as a first year the allowed list of pets was relatively limited, namely cats, rats, owls or toads, but after first year a student could bring anything that wasn't easily determined as being dangerous to the student body. Usually this extended the range of pets to things like kneezels, krupps, puffskiens and such though occasionally you would see something weird like a quintaped, Kniffler, fire crab or apparently a griffin thirty years ago. Slytherin students occasionally tried for snakes, but it was hard to get them judged safe.

"So," Sirius said, a shit eating grin on his face, "how about this one?"

"A sprite?" Eric asked, reading the name plate on the cage. The thing looked like a cross between a chameleon and a butterfly. "It's cute I suppose, but that's more Padma's thing. What about this?" Eric asked; walking down the row a bit to look at a selection of tarantula's that looked as if they were made of live coals.

"Not bad, cinderwebs are a bit hard to get past the teachers though. Tend to turn your possessions to ash when they inevitably get out. Smart little buggers too, Hogwarts hates them. Good for potions though." Sirius said shaking his head and chuckling.

"I smell a story there somewhere." Eric commented, moving along the aisle and looking at a small winged monkey.

Sirius laughed openly at that one. "Oh yeah, me and Remus bribed Hagrid to smuggle some in and we planted the eggs in Snapes four-poster. They infested the entire room causing all sorts of fowl smoke and leaving little scorch marks everywhere. Hogwarts killed them before anything real bad could happen though, warned the house elves to let our things go for a month after that little incident. It was horrible."

Eric looked up from a dark furred nemean lion cub he was scratching and frowned at his father. "I get the feeling that most of it was mutual, but Professor Snape's an incredibly sour and petty man when it comes to Harry simply because he's James' son, I don't doubt he's going to try and take it out on me too now that I've gotten you exonerated. Was it all really necessary?"

Sirius scowled and turned away from the Kneezel he'd been petting. "Probably not, but you didn't know him back then. Whatever he is now, Snivilus was this horrible creepy little shit back then. As much as we were bullies Snape would return fire with some of the nastiest jinxes and later curses I've ever seen, and I'm a Black. Greasy little prick started it when he hexed James for crushing on Lilly Evans our first week in and things escalated rapidly from there." He laughed softly "not that we didn't have a fair number of rough spots with Evans, but James fancied her since he first met her on the train and she gave a good as she got, better even on occasion!"

Eric tilted his head as he stopped beside the cage of a Shisa pup. "If it was like that then why did you hate Snape and not Lilly?"

Sirius crouched down and watched Eric tickle the pooch until its leg started kicking like a piston and shrugged. "Simple really, Snape reminded me of my family in that he was up to his eyeballs in the dark arts from the moment I met him. Kid knew more curses when he got off the train than half of the students in fifth and sixth year and while I was rebelling against my name, James upbringing made him unable to stand anything to do with the dark arts. Lilly on the other hand was always kind, friendly, openly loyal to people who were friendly back… she had a fiery temper, but she was never what you could call mean. Worst thing about her was that she loved to rub her accomplishments in the faces of 'the inbred bigots' to which she unfortunately included us up until nearly mid sixth year." Sirius grimaced before reaching into an adjacent pen and picking up a shishi kitten with comically oversized paws. "How about this?"

Eric came over and rubbed the felines chin, taking in the small tufts of flame that seemed to roll around its head and tail. "Seems cool enough," he said, coaxing a rumbling purr out of the dog sized kitten "what is it?"

"Shishi if I remember my Care of magical creatures' right." Sirius said. "They're close cousins to that dog you were just giving a belly rub, Chinese spirit guardians, the pair of them. Near human intelligence and impeccably loyal to most types of masters the Chinese wizarding community uses them as temple animals and such. Over here in Europe we've got the kneezel and krupp, but these babies fill much the same role and can get large enough to put a saddle on. A bit expensive normally, but hell, with as many presents as I've missed I'd buy you a whole kennel."

Eric stiffened slightly at this. "I'd intended to get myself a global menagerie when I first learned I was a wizard rather than a Psionic talent, but this'll do for now." Eric said holding the kitten up to eye level and smiling as it put a blue flame wreathed paw on his nose and cried cutely. "Can't exactly take a zoo to school with me, let-alone fit it in my dorm room."

Sirius chuckled "you could try!" he replied. "Hagrid sure did before he became gamekeeper if you believe any of his stories!"

Eric returned the grin. "I wouldn't doubt it too much, I'm helping him raise a Norwegian ridgeback in the school forest!" Eric laughed the whole way out of the shop at the look of utter shock on his fathers' face. It was a good birthday.

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AN: gah! Why was this such a hard chapter to write? I'll admit part of it was because I spent most of the last 8 days at a wedding, but seriously, I've had 60% of these scenes ready for details and dialogue for almost a year!

Regardless, it looks like summer is going to be stretching to three chapters instead of the original one 15k I'd planned on writing, sorry folks, those of you who actually enjoy my work I ask that you please be patient. Next week is school supplies, plotting over Bella and the train. Thank you everyone for your kind reviews, see you again Tuesday, I hope.