When Hermione got a perfect score on Lockhart's stupid quiz, Harry felt even more worried. If his girlfriend now liked this "stud," did that mean she didn't like him anymore? He remembered last year, when he first realized he was in love with Hermione, the way he had written HJP+HJG on all his papers and written her a long love note. What if that was how she felt about Lockhart now? Was all their love for nothing?

Harry's quill was mindlessly wandering around on his paper, remembering his awkward Christmas kiss with Hermione, and wondering if Gilderoy Lockhart ever kissed a girl under the mistletoe. Harry was pretty sure his DADA professor wore some kind of lip gloss, and he didn't know if women liked to kiss a guy who wore lip gloss, but still…the girls all seemed to want to kiss Lockhart. Harry was ripped from his thoughts, though, when Ron nudged him. Lockhart's hand was over a cage with a blanket on top of it.

"I must ask you not to scream," he was saying. "It might provoke them."

And next thing you know, the class found themselves surrounded by freshly caught Cornish pixies, destroying the classroom and terrorizing the students. When even Lockhart couldn't stop them, he hid under his desk too. It looked like they were done for, until the door of the classroom swung open and Harry heard a familiar voice.

"Will you lot keep it down, I'm trying to—oh my God!"

It was Sirius, holding Phoebe in the crook of his arm, his other hand holding a bottle, a dirty burping cloth over one shoulder. He had evidently been trying to get his daughter to sleep; her cries were louder even than the pixies' chatter. Harry wondered at first why he was on the third floor, then realized he had probably just gotten back from Hogsmeade.

"What's going on?" he shouted.

"Pixies!" Harry yelled back. "Lockhart unleashed them on the class!"

"You idiot!" Sirius grouched, glaring at Lockhart. "Do something about it, then!"

"I can't!" Lockhart whined. "They just threw my wand out the window!"

"Pathetic," Sirius mumbled, setting Phoebe's bottle down on the nearest desk, then taking out his wand. Lockhart flinched like he thought Sirius was going to curse him, but the whole class watched in shock as Sirius, with a few waves of his wand, swept all the pixies neatly back into their cage. When he snapped his fingers, the cage slammed shut.

The class cheered, coming out of hiding. Sirius held Phoebe against his chest so she could feel his heartbeat. He bounced her very gently, and after she finally burped up milk all over his shoulder, she went to sleep. Some of the girls squealed and clamored over to see a fresh baby in their classroom, but Sirius politely told them she was sleeping. Then he turned to Lockhart.

"What were you thinking?" he demanded, but before Lockhart could say anything in response, Dumbledore strolled in.

"Ah! I thought I heard the cries of a newborn baby!" he said. "So here's the newest member of the Black family tree?"

"Yes," said Sirius, "but can't you see she's sleeping?"

Harry knew better than any of his classmates that the times when Phoebe slept should be savored. If she wasn't sleeping, she was either screaming, throwing up, or filling diapers, sometimes more than one at the same time. From the way Sirius looked these days, you'd think he was still in Azkaban. That was one of the reasons why sleeping in a dorm, as opposed to down the hall from a newborn, was a welcome change.

"Very well," said the headmaster. "Now, what have you all been learning?"

Lockhart stood up, straightening his robes and adjusting his hat, and threw one arm across Sirius's shoulders.

"I was just showing dear old Sirius here how to take care of a Cornish pixie attack," he declared. "They were about to attack his baby, but I whipped them back into their cage at the last minute."

Sirius bared his teeth in shock and anger, but Dumbledore smiled.

"Well done, Gilderoy!" he said. "Sirius, you must be more careful about where you bring her."

"Don't listen to him, Professor Dumbledore!" Harry burst out, standing up in his seat. "Sirius saved the day, not Lockhart."

"Lockhart is lying," added Ron.

"Professor Lockhart, Ron," Dumbledore corrected gently. "Sirius, were you the one who put the pixies back in their cage?"

"Yes, I was," Sirius told him. "It's a simple spell any grown-ass wizard should be able to do. Besides, Dumbledore, why did you even hire someone who would do something like that? He was right about one thing—they could have attacked Phoebe, or any of these students."

"Well, it's just that…" Dumbledore glanced at Lockhart, but Lockhart was distracted by brushing his hair, so he said in a whisper, "Gilderoy was the only man for the job."

"Rubbish," said Sirius. "I seriously doubt that a job as prestigious as Defense Against the Dark Arts professor had only one applicant."

"People think it's cursed," Dumbledore reminded him.

"Be that as it may," Sirius insisted, glaring at him, "everyone knows that if the headmaster can't find a teacher for the job, the Ministry will provide one. Not that I think the Ministry is all perfect and wonderful, but the school board could certainly have provided a more competent teacher."

Lockhart was looking at himself admiringly in a little hand mirror, so maybe he didn't care that Sirius and Dumbledore were talking about him. Harry briefly registered that before now, Sirius was the only man he knew who carried around a little hand mirror. Lockhart even had the same one Sirius had—when it was open, it was a hairbrush, too, and you held the mirror part like a handle to comb your hair with the brush part.

"Okay, fine," said Dumbledore abashedly. "I thought…I suppose I thought if I let Gilderoy teach, it would expose his incompetence."

"Are you insane?!" Sirius barked. "You're potentially putting these kids' lives on the line just so you can expose this idiot? You're going to deprive them of their educations and set them behind a year just so you can further your lunatic plans?" Sirius was almost shouting now, and Harry was sure he was remembering last year, when it was Harry whose life had been on the line. "When are you going to understand that the entire world is not your little chess board? This is completely irresponsible and reckless! As the legal guardian of a student, I demand he be removed!"

Harry wondered what his father would have thought if he could see Sirius right now—lecturing the headmaster on responsibility, of all things, and recklessness, while he held a newborn baby in his arms. It was surreal.

"Very well…" Dumbledore shrugged. "But if I remove Lockhart, who will take his place? If I contact the Ministry, it will put the curriculum on hold, too."

Harry was all too eager to remove Lockhart, so he shouted, "Sirius can do it!"

"Huh?" said Sirius.

"Do it, Sirius!" chimed in Ron. "You taught it to the Gryffindors last year!"

"Well, true, but…" Sirius looked a little reluctant.

"If you want it, Sirius, the job's yours," Dumbledore said. "Think of it as a promotion. Like you said, the Ministry will provide me with a new Care of Magical Creatures teacher. Better to put that on hold than Defense Against the Dark Arts. Gilderoy?"

"Yes, Professor?" said Lockhart smoothly, placing his little hand mirror back inside the pocket of his robes.

"I think it would be in everyone's best interest if you went back to writing your books," he said. "Sirius is going to be our new Defense teacher."

Lockhart stared at everyone, eyebrows raised. The girls looked like they didn't know who they wanted as a teacher. Lockhart and Sirius were both good-looking; Lockhart had written those books, of course, but Sirius had been an amazing Defense teacher last year. Who would be the best choice? To most boys, however, there was no question.

"Well…fine," said Lockhart with a shrug. "See you laters, gang, celebrity awaits!"

And he swept out of the room.

"He's off to bigger and better things," said Dumbledore serenely, and then he smiled. "Sirius, I was quite impressed. You really do seem to have grown up—giving me a lecture on how I was being reckless. If someone like you gives me a lecture on that, I know I must have made a mistake. And think of all the other changes you've made! You don't drink anymore, even."

"You know, you're right," said Sirius in frustration. "Where did I ever go that made me so darn responsible?"

"Why, I should think that would be obvious, Sirius." Dumbledore looked down at Phoebe and smiled. "It's a place called fatherhood."

…

"I'm thinking he might be right about that," Sirius was saying back in his teacher's quarters as he washed Harry's hair over the sink. They had to get it wet again, so it could be styled. "They said in the childbirth class that having a son or daughter makes you a better man."

"Why?" asked Harry.

"Because pregnant women are really hormonal, and when you're around your baby's mother, some of those get attached to you," said Sirius. "Or something like that."

"But since Barbara's not pregnant anymore, isn't she not as hormonal?"

"Harry, human beings are basically walking piles of hormones and pheromones," Sirius said, finishing Harry's hair and lifting his head out of the sink. "Take it from someone who has a canine sense of smell, even when I'm not in my dog form. I can tell when people are feeling sad, nervous, horny, whatever, just by the way they smell. It's a weird ability to have, but it can be a useful one."

"You told me that when you were sneaking around after curfew with my dad, you could always smell when a teacher was coming," said Harry. "Before you had the Map, I mean. Then you could just use that."

"When your dad wasn't using it to watch Lily travel all around the school, that is," said Sirius, drying his hands on a towel and getting out his wand. "I had to snatch it away and tell him not to be such a stalker."