Part Two: The Tri-Wizard Tournament.
Chapter One: The Most Ancient and Noble House of Black.
Family... When Harry tried to taste this word on his lips, saying it aloud, it sounded... strange? Of course, Dumbledore was in very close relationship with the boy in question and Harry even called him always 'uncle', but the old wizard was more like a mentor, tutor, role model; he looked after Harry and made him feel that he never was alone in this world. On the other hand, his godfather in several weeks became a father-like figure for the young man. Family... became Harry's most favourite word.
Since the day Harry entered the Magical World, he had changed a lot. No, his ambitions didn't lessen, quite the opposite – the grew madly. It wasn't so much his physical appearance too, though he was five feet ten inches now and his face acquired more masculinity. What really changed, though, was his understanding how to get there.
Albus acknowledged his protégé that the Triwizard Tournament was restored, and that this great event would take place in Hogwarts. He did that just a day before Harry left school for Summer Holidays.
One day before in Hogwarts, the Headmaster's Office
Dumbledore and Harry enjoyed a nice hot tea, ate lemon-drops, and had a small talk. After about an hour, the old wizard became serious and connected his fingertips on the table. Then, he started talking
"My boy, I must inform you about something, although I was told by our esteemed Minister of Magic not to tell anyone. Do you know what the Triwizard Tournament is?"
"Some old and long-forgotten kind of competition between three great magic schools of Europe? Why? Are they going to start it anew?" Harry guessed.
"You just hit the mark, Harry. And while Mr Fudge and the Tournament Commission are excited by not one but two great and important events taking place in Magical Britain, I know that it's very good opportunity for the Dark Lord and his followers to strike." Dumbledore said.
"I understand what you mean, uncle."
"You soon will be fourteen, Harry. I think you are adult enough, so call me Albus, please." Harry's mentor was dead serious.
"Alright, uncle.. I mean, Albus." the boy said.
He felt odd to call the old wizard by name. Harry was hit by realization that he wasn't eleven now and, with time going on, he would carry more and more responsibilities on his shoulders. Though, he didn't brood about it – The-Boy-Who-Lived understood that it was just the natural way of things.
Dumbledore exhaled hardly – Harry only now realized how old his mentor was.
"How old is he? Hundred and ten or something like that?" our hero thought.
"Now, my boy, I think you should fathom how greatly in danger you are going to be. I warded Sirius' family household with Fidelius charm, myself being the secret keeper. Take this."
The old man scribbled a note on a small piece of parchment and gave it to Harry.
"The Black Family House is located on Grimauld Place Number Twelve, London." the green-eyed young man read aloud, feeling by his gut that something changed.
"You know where it is now, Harry. To the next matter then. It is imperative that you are everywhere under, as my old friend likes to exclaim all the time, 'Constant Vigilance!' Especially, during your fourth year here."
Twinkle started returning to Dumbledore's eyes. Fawkes flew to his right shoulder and perched on it. The fiery bird trilled happily and rubbed its head against Albus' cheek. He stroked his familiar gently, saying
"You may go, Harry – I bored you enough with old man's nonsense"
"Bye, Albus."
Back to London
Harry stood next to Sirius, looking at what was his new home. The House number Twelve, Grimmauld Place was a tall three-story building with large heavy entrance door and shut windows, but, obviously, it wasn't as pompous as Malfoy Manor, although it didn't make Harry jealous or sad even a bit.
His godfather gestured for him to follow, opened the door and magically lit the candles, which were the only source of light there, revealing a long hallway. It was clearly obvious that nobody took care of this place for the last decade or maybe even two – thick layer of dust and grease covered the floor and furniture; everything was so... decrepit.
"Sirius, when you told me your house was old and not taken care of, I never imagined that it could be this bad." Harry said and cast air-freshening spell.
The man had opened his mouth to reply when the dark violet curtains by the far wall abruptly opened, unveiling the portrait of an old woman with grey hair and features that resembled Sirius' ones. It inhaled deeply.
"FILTHY MAGGOTS, HOW DARE YOU TO BREAK INTO MY HOUSE! RETURN TO YOUR PILE OF COW FAECES AT ONCE AND NEVER STEP YOU DIRTY FEET ON MY FLOOR AGAIN!" she screamed. She did it so loud that even a banshee would cry bitterly and burst in shame.
"This" Sirius told Harry, pointing toward the portrait, "is my dear mother – Walburga Black. Now you know from whom I inherited such a temper. Thank Merlin, I didn't adopt her idiotic hate for people of not the purest blood."
Harry smiled.
"She is nice. Maybe I should tell my friend Hermione if you know what I mean – she likes to burn stuff with fiendfyre and is short of flaming material."
Sirius' eyes lit and he patted him on the shoulder proudly
"That's my boy. There is a lot of things for us to do and so little time to finish everything. I want to tell you something first, though, so let's go find the most suitable place for our talk."
They entered the dusty Living Room with the Black Family Tapestry on the far wall. A black tree was drawn on it with dark green leaves that contained the name of every family member and his or her miniature portrait – some of them, though, were evidently burnt from it.
Sirius removed the dust with help of several charms here and there and sat on a large sofa by the far wall, the tapestry right above him. It was quite symbolic from Harry's point of view – his godfather was the last member of once fearsome and great magic family.
He was still weedy like a mummy from the film Harry had watched once, but his godson also understood that for someone who spent his last twelve years in the Hell's Magical Britain Branch or Azkaban, as most people called it. The ex-convict gestured for the young man to sit on a big, soft and cushy chair on the opposite from the sofa.
Harry sat on the edge of the chair and started asking his godfather to clear the slough, as people say.
"What do you mean – little time? There are two months!"
"No, just one, pup. And what hell of a month it will be, Harry. We need to clean all this pile of my ancestors' dung! Though, after, we will go to the Quidditch World Championship Final – Bulgaria versus Ireland!" Sirius replied, adding wild happy gestures to his words.
What the man told made Harry to jump in joy... almost – he suddenly remembered again that he wasn't a child anymore.
"After that, Albus will take you with him somewhere – he haven't told me exactly where, but assured me that nothing bad will happen to you. I guess the old fossil wants to channel some more of his magical awesomeness into you."
Harry looked thoughtful when Sirius told that.
"What does Albus need from me?" Harry wondered.
There was a loud pop – a house elf, which was old, filthy and dressed even worse than Dobby back from the Malfoy Manor, looked, apparently disgusted, at his master.
He fought with the bond magic to not bow to Sirius, but the magic was stronger and he surrendered to superior power.
"Mudblood-loving master has returned! Kreacher should serve someone better than you! What would dear mistress say if she was still alive and saw you.." the elf exclaimed defiantly.
Sirius didn't look touched even a bit by what the elf told him. He held his hand up, making the disgusting creature stop talking.
"It's nice to see you again, too, Kreacher. How were your holiday decade, by the way? Wait, don't speak, I don't want to hear you annoying voice interrupting my charming one. You chose the right moment to appear.
Now, listen carefully. I want this house to be clean as soon as possible, so you are going to help us to do that. You will also cook meals for us – three times a day – some decent food would be nice after eleven years in such a hell hole.
You must start right now, Kreacher."
The elf bowed to him respectfully
"Master has changed after Azkaban. Kreacher will start to do what Master ordered at once. Meal will be ready for you and your godson by 7pm, Master."
He disappeared with a pop. The distinct sound was considerably less harsh this time.
"He is the most strange house elf I've ever seen in my life, Sirius." Harry told his godfather
His godfather glanced at him and snorted.
"Strange? Crazy is the right word, pup, but he starts to respect you, once you don't act like some silly idiot. Though I would like nothing more than just strangle this little bastard, I can't."
"Why? We can ask Hermione to take care of him too, Sirius. She is for everyone's equalityso it doesn't collide with her ideals." Harry suggested.
"Because although he is git, as house elf, I mean, as servant he is extremely experienced and good. Just wait and see. Now, pup, this dust won't disappear on its own. I also dread to even think what else is in this house now."
They stood up and started cleaning.
For the next five days they cleaned the whole house from a thick layer of dust that lay on everything. But not only the dust was there: boggarts hid in, literally, every dark corner, cupboard and under every bed; the doxies were beyond every curtain, and cockroaches – huge representatives of their species, to boot, sneaked everywhere. Once they'd finished, Sirius and Harry breathed with eathe.
Harry just loved the library in the house – though it wasn't as big as the Hogwarts' one, it had a huge collection of unique, one of a kind books. Although the most of them were about dark magic and, while Harry didn't think it was wise to use it, he studied it just to be prepared to what Voldemort and his followers could do.
He soon learnt that a person with wide knowledge of Dark Arts could flay his opponent alive, burn it with unquenchable flames, crush the bones of one to dust, even make the blood inside the body boil. But the Boy-Who-Lived knew the cost of such power – the very soul of dark magi would shatter to pieces with time, so, if the one died, there was no 'Next Great Adventure', as his mentor liked to say, - only the absolute nothingness. There was no turning back once you tempted, and Harry wouldn't be so short-sighted. The boy knew that to be a great or even the greatest wizard, he would never need to use the Dark Arts - Albus Dumbledore was the best example. Also, he dreaded absolute nothingness, because he could not even truly imagine one.
Sirius showed Harry a few tricks he could use in fight and also explained him why the young man should use everything from surrounding environment to help him in fight – why waste a lot of power to constantly block the incoming spells by 'Protego' or its more powerful counterparts, when he could just do the same by summoning stuff from around him? He showed Harry that charming several items around for the sake of distraction and annoying his opponents, and managing his magical power output could do wonders too.
But the outcome of their duels were always the same – Sirius, disarmed and incarcerated with red napkin stuffed in his mouth. It made him furious, but Harry was just too fast, too unpredictable. The man knew, though, that he will have his chance for revenge, and that moment would be sweet.
Harry was just passing through the corridor on the first floor when he saw Sirius trying to throw away all the dark artefacts from his house. He rolled his eyes in annoyance – his godfather would throw away everything if Harry didn't stop him, and some of the items could be just too important, maybe, one of the vessels was just there lying in this huge pile of dangerous stuff.
"We need to keep every one of them, Sirius – once Dumbledore will have taught me how to analyse the magical aura around objects, I will check everything here, because one very important thing may be here." Harry said, putting his hand on his godfather's shoulder.
Sirius looked at him incredulously.
"What? Are you going to be the new Dark Tosser, pup? No? Then nothing here is of any value for you!" he exclaimed.
Harry was very serious now.
"I can't tell you the full reason – once you know, you will become the proud member of the Dark Lord's private list of people, who Voldemort would like to kill himself, preferably in a slow painful way too."
His godfather was hurt that the boy couldn't tell him the full reason. He already had been angry because of what Albus did to his godson, depriving him from childhood, but now he started to tell him some nonsense.
"You spend too much time with Dumbledore, pup – you even talk the same way he does." The gaunt man made his point, wildly gesticulating.
"Why, thank you, Sirius, I'll take it as a compliment." Harry replied, his eyes twinkling as one certain old wizard's.
"See! That's what I'm talking about!" Sirius exclaimed, "You now just need to wear those annoying half-moon spectacles and a pack of lemon drops!"
Harry pulled out the aforementioned kind of sweet from his pocket and smiled.
"Would you like one?"
"AAAARGH!" Sirius shouted in irritation and stomped out of the room he had been in.
The man had started scheming a lesson to teach for Harry already.
"The young prat would never know what hit him!" he thought and cackled evilly.
It was a beautiful sunny Summer day, people walked outside, birds chirped and a nice cool breeze gently caressed everyone. But, back in Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, the black-haired gaunt man executed his carefully-planned revenge on Harry Potter.
"Wake up, Harry! The sun shines brightly already and we have a long and eventful day awaiting us!" Sirius shouted excitedly and tore the blanket on Harry away.
"Aquamenti" A harsh powerful jet of water hit Harry right in the face.
"Argh!" the green-eyed boy screamed and jumped from the bed. He was herded by Black's water charm expertly, precisely into the bathroom.
"Go to Hell, old bastard!" Harry exclaimed, closing the door. He heard a barking-like laugher.
When Harry turned up at the kitchen, his godfather was waiting for him there. The man sat at the head of table, smirking evilly at Potter.
"Good morning, pup."
Harry didn't reply at all – he sat on the opposite from Sirius and subtly pointed his wand under the table to the man.
"Flipendo"
Sirius was caught off-guard and crashed backwards with loud 'Argh!'
This time it was Harry who smiled.
"Hah! Got you with such simple spell! You are too old, dog." The young man teased.
Sirius recovered his pose quickly and cast a disarming charm at the young brat, which was deflected easily with simple 'Protego'.
"Nice try, old man." Harry teased him.
Kreacher chose this moment to apparate inside and started to put food on the table.
"Master could become better now, but he still plays stupid childish games. He can't even beat the annoying boy too! What a shame on Master's noblest house." elf mumbled, shaking his head in irritation.
"We will continue this later, little dunderhead." Sirius threatened.
"Yep, start chewing now, dog – the food can't eat itself so you must help it. I'm sure even you can do such a simple task. Though, who knows?"
Sirius growled and gave Harry a murderous look, promising another revenge.
The Kreacher-made food was actually very tasty and, surprisingly, wasn't poisoned. Harry and Sirius ate quietly, enjoying themselves.
After they finished their breakfast, the young man and his godfather had twiddled for the next hour, lounging lazily in the living room and listening to the Magical Wireless. Then they went to the improvised duelling platform in Master's Bedroom, which Sirius had never used – he was disgusted by a thought that his mother slept there once.
The platform was actually a product of transfiguration of a huge four-poster bed into a large podium. The bedroom was enlarged magically and the walls were warded against stray spells not to burn anything. The rest of the stuff in the room was filtered and everything that was of no use for them was thrown far far away.
The pair of wizards approached the platform and climbed on it. They bowed to each other and took a stance of their choice.
Sirius chose classic one: placing right feet forward, his left was on parallel with its counterpart, his torso turned sideways, and his wand hand towards the opponent – it was the choice of many magical duellers. The reason for it was that it exposed only one side to be hurt and it was much harder to hit the mark.
Harry was told by his mentor to never believe in nonsense like duels
'… My boy, I want you to be prepared for a war and, though I don't like to shatter your dreams, I must tell you a fact – your enemies will try to kill you, to deflower and kill your girl-friends, and torture everyone you care about: they will never bow to you and wait while you prepare to fight...' Albus' monologue reverberated in Harry's mind.
Still he found it funny to see his godfather become purple with rage when Harry made him collapse on ass.
Harry's stance replicated his mentor's usual: right feet a little bit forward and wand hand loosely at his side, ready to lightning-fast strike opponent with spell, his balance steady and mind ready to obliterate Sirius.
Sirius cast an auto-counting duelling charm that made everyone around its area of affect hear a mechanical voice counting from one to three.
"One.. Two.. Three!"
'Incarcerous!' Sirius opened the duel, trying to immobilize Harry by thick conjured ropes right at the starting point. They shot through the air towards him.
Harry burnt them with 'Incendio'
'Stupefy' the young man cast at Sirius, who deflected it with quick 'Protego'
Harry cast 'Homenum Revelio' and 'Ricrusempra' in quick succession. Both spells were aimed a few inches to the left intently.
Sirius took the bait, side-stepping these spells.
"What's the matter, pup, tired already?" the man taunted.
Harry smirked evilly – his godfather was so easy to fool!
'Tempus Tardo' he mumbled and moved fast behind his opponent's back. He tapped on Sirius' shoulder and the man turned around in surprise.
'Flipendo Tria!' Harry cast at point blank range.
Sirius was shot into the air, flew eighteen feet in the air and wrecked like an old plane, that spent all its resource, somewhere beyond the edge of the duelling platform.
"Argh! It's not fare! You promised me to never use this trick anymore!" Sirius exclaimed, climbing on the platform again.
Harry laughed light-heartedly
"My dear godfather, promises exist only to violate them. Oh, you still have your wand by the way.." the green-eyed wizard said, pointing his wand at Sirius in a blink of an eye
'Expelliarmus!'
Harry caught the wand expertly.
"It's new record for you, old man. You fell on your ass three times already." he teased.
"Just wait until I fully recover, little scum-bag" Sirius growled.
"I've told this so many times, old fart, yet you still end up on your sorry ass every time we duel..." Harry said.
Sirius suddenly remembered something and cast 'Tempus' to check the time – it was half past twelve already.
"C'mon, Harry, we should go to the Diagon and buy all the stuff we'll need during the Championship – better do it now then later." He told.
They quickly changed clothes and floo'ed to the Alley.
The Diagon Alley was considerably less crowded than during the last days of August for sure. Still, there were a lot of people.
Sirius and Harry bought a magical tent with three large separate parts inside – two smaller served as bedrooms and one larger as combined kitchen-canteen.
They also bought a magical equivalent of fridge – large wooden box with one one side as a door, and stasis enchantment inside. The thing cost a crazy amount of money, because of the latter feature, but, 'Hey, am I the Lord of Noble and Most Ancient House of Black or no?'
Once they bought all the furniture they would need, food, some potions 'Just in case', two jerseys of Irish Quidditch Team ('No, pup, we won't cheer for Bulgarians!') and omniculars, the pair went back home.
Sirius quietly opened the door and tiptoed to Harry, who still was sleeping.
"WAKE UP!" the man shouted in Harry's ear.
Potter sprang from his bed at once.
"Ouch. Have I ever told you that you are blockhead?" He asked, walking toward the bathroom.
"No, but thank you, Harry. You have half an hour to prepare and dress – then we will portkey right to the campsite outside of the stadium. We'll spend two days there to see the fair... Be fast, pup - I've heard there will be veelas and I'm not Sirius Orion Black if I wont pick up one!" Sirius said excitedly and left Harry alone.
"As if the veelas would ever be charmed by this old fart" Harry mumbled, turning on the shower.
AN: So the first chapter of Part Two is finished. Tell me, do you like new story pace more?
Thank you for your reviews.