Summary: SSHG, AU, Sirius Black hates Severus Snape. When an ugly confrontation occurs between them at Grimmauld Place, Sirius throws an old Black family curse at him, only to have Hermione Granger attempt to stop him. She's hit head-on, and everything changes— starting with her. As her fellow students shun her more than ever, certain things thought long dead come to light, casting an ever-greater shadow over the champions of light.
Beta Love: The Dragon and the Rose, Dutchgirl01, Flyby Commander Shepard
Warning: Not canon, SSHG, HEA, probably crack
Heart of Stone
Chapter 2
People are like dirt. They can either nourish you and help you grow as a person or they can stunt your growth and make you wilt and die.
Plato
Yawwwwnnn!
Hermione's yawn peppered Severus' face with emerald and ruby-spiced breath.
He grasped her muzzle in his, giving her a taste of his peridot and tanzanite breath.
Mmphf, her reply mumbled as her warm tongue pegged his eyelid.
He let go automatically, licking his own eyelid to get the odd sensation of twitching to stop.
His distraction gave her the upper paw, and she pounce-wrestled his head down, gnawing on his ear with a playful tug, setting her entire weight on his head to drag it down.
Grroowwlf!
He shook his head, but Hermione clung on like one of the headmaster's pillowcases to his face. He growled, shook, and pawed at his attachment, but she refused to release her grip on him. He set his head down between his paws with a low grunt.
She released her grip, licking the bottom of his chin in appeasement.
Hrk! Hrk!
He coughed up a shining gem from an inner pouch he didn't even realise he had.
Hermione took it happily, crunching on it with radiating contentment.
Well, then—
Good to know.
He idly scratched his itchy ear with a hindfoot.
He tried to quell the rather embarrassing swell of pride and happiness he had in providing for Hermione in such an unexpected way. It made sense— Ædeweard had fed them so often— but he hadn't expected it to happen so soon. The protective instinct hadn't gone away, no. In fact, it was stronger than ever, and seeing her standing there licking her chops after the meal he had provided for her made him want to—
He groomed her assiduously until her mane of stony frills practically stood on end, feeling a shiver down his spine as her happy purr rumbled through him from head to toe.
Odd, he didn't remember her mane being quite so thick and spiky before— not that it mattered. Between his magical tendrils and tongue he had her purring with satisfaction.
It wasn't until she groomed him back that he realised he was done for. His entire body trembled with waves of nigh unbearable pleasure as she ruffled his mane and tamed his strands. His ears practically stood on end just before he fell over, belly exposed and utterly vulnerable.
Oh, but for her, and her alone.
She groomed him until he was but a puddle of magma, quivering like human jelly on a plate. She purred louder, snuggling against his chin with her head, her tail wrapped tightly against his.
Oh, he could but die in that very moment and he'd have absolutely no regrets. None at all—
Yoink!
Hermione and Severus dangled helplessly in the great maws of Ædeweard and Edolie as the two adult gargoyles carried them out of the Room of Requirement without a single word.
Oh well. Being carried off by the adults was okay too.
At least they weren't hungry anymore.
Even as they submitted to the transplantation, their tails remained wrapped tightly together in complete solidarity.
Hermione had gone off exploring again.
Severus sighed.
Her nose led her into all kinds of adventure, and he only went along if he paid enough attention to follow her.
How was he supposed to protect her if she kept skillfully eluding him? That was hardly fair. A strange sense of déjà vu was settling deep in his gem-loving liver while his stomach was too busy digesting other things.
He sniffed the air and followed her scent, dodging legs and walls. No one ever seemed to see them, and he was a-okay with that. Ædeweard said that humans only saw what they expected to see. It took a well-trained eye to see what didn't want to be seen, and gargoyles were created to be seen only when perfectly still.
Ædeweard was chock full of neat information just like the other adults, and usually, Severus and Hermione would soak it all up during bathtime. Bath time was also storytime and lesson time, obviously. When else did they hold still long enough to listen?
He dutifully followed Hermione's familiar scent until he suddenly found himself in a rather cold, damp room.
Hermione was rolling around in a pile of black human clothing, rubbing herself all over them quite thoroughly.
"What are you doing?" Severus asked, his ears swivelling to catch any signs of movement.
"Smells just like you," Hermione replied. As if that answered everything.
He snuffled curiously at the woolen cloth. "I don't smell anything."
"Because it smells like you," she replied, giving a soft groan of pleasure as she did her best to smother herself in wool.
"You could just sniff me," he said, puzzled.
"You weren't here at the time," she replied. "And I really liked that it smelled like you."
Severus boggled at that, his tail reaching back up to scratch his head for him.
Hermione finally finished her ecstatic rolling and dragged the wool to drape back over a nearby armchair. She eyed the vast array of wall-to-wall books with utter fascination. Her nose was working overtime.
"I like this room."
"Seems a bit dreary to me."
Hermione shrugged. "It's cosy. These books seem very well-loved. They smell like leather, aged parchment, and you."
Severus perked his ears and shrugged rather uncomfortably. "Well, er… whatever you say."
The way Hermione rubbed her head against the smooth, worn wood of the shelves seemed much like she would rub against him— savouring the feel as she gathered the individual scents in her nostrils.
Severus felt a strange stirring in his stomach.
Something… familiar.
A phantom moved about the room, his lank dark hair hanging around his face like a shroud. Long, pale fingers touched the bindings of the books. In one place, he sat in a chair, cradling his head in his hands. In another place, he flung a table, scattering objects across the floor in a hail of broken bits and pieces. In the bed, that same figure curled up in a foetal ball in the middle of the bed, the very picture of misery— so terribly alone.
No one should suffer alone, Professor.
Severus shook his head violently as if to clear it, thoroughly unnerved by the feel of the strange phantom scenes.
Hermione rubbed up against him in comfort, her warmth dispelling the bitter cold of the phantom memories. "I'm here for you."
Severus felt so utterly small at that moment. "Promise?"
"Always." She tenderly licked the side of his muzzle, her warm brown eyes driving the last vestiges of pain away. "I love you," she said, her muzzle turned up in a smile of glistening diamond-like fangs. Her eyes shimmered like imperial topaz in the firelight. That simple confession filled something within him he hadn't realised needed filling.
And she was gone, having zoomed into the nearby wall and disappearing.
Gah!
Severus shook off his paralysis and chased after. Would he never get any rest!?
Severus screeched to a halt as he saw Hermione being lured toward some adult human male sitting on a chair in the hallway outside one of the classrooms. He held out a hand, palm up—
Hermione, all too trusting, was approaching, her nose working overtime as she attempted to figure out if the man was friend or foe.
"Well, hello there, little lass," the man said, his voice rough and broguish.
Hermione wasn't exactly tiny anymore—
They were both about the size of— well, he wasn't really sure what they were the size of, but they came up to the man's waist.
Bellies packed full of tasty magic-laden gems did make a gargoyle grow and all.
As Hermione submitted to a skilful ear scratch and chin rub, her eyes closing, Severus saw the man's other hand start to move from behind him.
He saw red, and he launched himself between Hermione and the man with a ferocious growl, shoving her back with his rump and fanning his wings and baring his teeth at the man with unmistakable menace.
"Whoa—" The man said, extending his hands out, which were empty. "Easy now, lad. Nothing in my hands, I swear it."
Hermione whinged unhappily from behind him, protesting his instinctive protective behaviour.
Severus growled at her, nudging her back a little more while eyeing the human male with deep suspicion.
The man, strangely, did not pull his hands back. He left them there in mid-air for Severus to sniff and inspect. They smelled like worn leather and loamy earth, rusted iron, and— was that pumpkin juice?
Severus sniffed a little closer, his nose and ears working furiously.
Hermione made a soft squeak and nudged him over to press her head against the man's hand to resume her blissful ear rub.
Severus wanted to protest this but the man's other hand was rubbing his ear and he went cross-eyed with the pleasure of it, tail starting to swish back and forth. They both drooled copiously, their cement-like saliva making a stalagmite on the floor.
"Name's Alastor," the man said, his voice seemingly rough with disuse. "Who might you two be, hrm?"
His eyes went to the magical swirl around their left paws, but as he tried to focus on them, the class bell rang loudly.
Pooffft!
The two gargoyles disappeared, leaving Moody alone as the halls began to fill with students moving to their next class.
He grabbed Potter up by the collar and bag as he emerged from the charms classroom, jerking Harry back toward him. "You stay with me, Potter," Moody barked. "You won't be goin' anywhere without me or another Auror anymore, boy."
"We do understand this places the school in a most difficult position, Headmaster," the scribe said as he passed the scroll over to Albus. "We did not expect his condition to change, and there is no other place that will be safe enough for the protection of a man without magic from the minions of You-Know-Who. The Wizengamot has already determined after extensive memory extractions that while he was found not guilty of the crime he served time for, the time served along with his new status as a non-magical is, at the very least, considered the ultimate punishment in our world."
Albus steepled his fingers together and set his jaw. "I see. So the Ministry would place a falsely accused, found innocent, newly convicted for another crime criminal in the midst of a castle full of impressionable students? This is what the Ministry deems safe?"
The scribe fidgeted uncomfortably. "I do not pretend that this is the best solution, Headmaster," he replied. "But admittedly, it has been determined that the majority of the danger lay in the use of magic, which he cannot do, and the influence of ancient Black-family magic, which he no longer has access to. If anything, the healers have said his temperament and psychological evaluations are more stable now that such things are no longer a part of him."
"And what do you have to say for yourself, Mr Black?" Dumbledore asked, fixing him with a stern blue-eyed gaze.
The black-haired former wizard frowned and straightened. "I feel as though a great weight has been lifted from my chest, Headmaster. The foul compression around my thoughts— the drive, the madness— I have never felt so free before, sir. I feel a profound sense of regret for what I have done and the people I have hurt. I am greatly relieved that I no longer feel as I once did. I can only hope that I live long enough to fully atone for what I have done, for what I did was truly unforgivable. Even now, I cannot even imagine doing such a horrific thing to another living person. That I did— I can never truly express the depth of the terrible madness, but I can say that in finally being free of it, I realise just how heavy the burden truly was. This new life—one without magic— it is both freedom and punishment in one. But I will gladly take it over the crushing insanity. I can only state my immense relief that the tainted magic of the Black family has been banished from my mind and body."
A muted chuckling came from one of the portraits.
Sirius stared up at the portrait wall, a faint frown of confusion crossing his face.
"The taint upon the purity of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black is at last no more, boy. The magic of the Blacks shall be forever so, just as its keepers." The portrait face of Phineas Nigellus Black was both utterly smug and malevolent. "Toujours Pur, indeed."
"Whatever are you babbling about, Phineas?" Albus snapped.
Phineas smiled rather evilly, his long fingers weaving into his painted robes. "You cannot kill what has devoured Death," Phineas said. "And what has been done cannot be undone."
"Kindly explain yourself, Phineas," Albus ordered. "As Headmaster of Hogwarts, I command you to tell me at once!"
Phineas tilted his head back, flaring his painted nostrils. "Where is your special ring, Headmaster?"
Dumbledore paled. "What have you done?"
"Me? Nothing. Nothing save bless the new Lord and Lady Black. May they reign forever," the former Slytherin headmaster said, "and always."
"That's impossible," Sirius said. "There are no Blacks left save Bellatrix and Narcissa, and they are bound to other families."
"Do you not remember Toujours Pur, boy?" Phineas asked haughtily. "Always pure. The Blacks exist where pure magic exists. There can be no other place, lest the line grow corrupt and fall into insanity. Those that muddy the lines of Black are cast out, but many believed that meant other things." Phineas' scowl was dripping with malice. "Breeding with each other as if it would somehow preserve the purity of magic— well, you see what that idiocy brought you."
"What have you done, Phineas?" Dumbledore demanded.
Phineas pointed at Sirius and sniffed, "I didn't. He did." Phineas began to cackle madly, retreating into the frames before anyone could stop him. "Idiot. Long live Lord and Lady Severus and Hermione Black!"
Sirius Black and Albus Dumbledore now shared the same pale, utterly gobsmacked expressions.
The scribe looked back and forth between the two and the now-empty portrait. "What?"
"There must be some mistake," Albus said as he shuffled the papers around.
"There is no mistake," the elder goblin said. "The ownership was shifted the very moment the magical binding was cemented. The Black family vaults and properties belong solely to Lord and Lady Severus and Hermione Black, the new heirs and scions to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.
"But this property was given into my keeping fifteen years ago by the only remaining heir!"
The elder goblin licked his teeth. "Magic does not lie. The locks were set under the supervision of a great many witches and wizards of the original founding family."
A rustling came as a jangle of coins clattered together, seemingly floating in the air across the desk.
"My Lady! Please! I shall give you gems in return for the galleons!" A younger goblin chased the hefty sack of galleons across the back of the room. "Please forgive my slowness!"
The elder goblin's lip twitched, a glint of fang showing.
"Problems?" Dumbledore asked dryly.
"Training our youth to be much more attentive," the elder goblin said, smiling with all fang.
"But Severus and Hermione have been missing since—"
The goblin tilted his head, his black claws tapping the desk. "Missing, you say? How very— curious. How terribly unfortunate for those seeking to find them."
"I'm so sorry, My Lord! Please, allow me to make up for my inadequate service!" another young goblin said as he chased after a large, leather-bound tome that seemed to be navigating the room by its own power.
The elder goblin stared a hole into Albus as if blatantly daring him to attempt Legilimency on him.
"I see," Albus said icily, straightening his hat. "I will attempt to contact them to rectify this situation as soon as possible."
The goblin bared his teeth at him. "As you wish, Mr Dumbledore. Thank you for choosing to do your banking with Gringotts."
As Albus left, the elder goblin put his hand into a drawer and pulled out two large, shimmering rubies. Instantly, two young gargoyles lay against him, their backs on the desk and bellies up.
"Amateurs," the goblin sniffed, baring his teeth as he took the sack of coins and the tome from the young gargoyle pups. He rubbed their bellies and fed the rubies to their open, eager maws.
"Allow me to take you down to your new vault, honoured guests."
Ædeweard assiduously groomed himself by the back table, his tail flicking with amusement as he lay sprawled on top of a young goblin page.
"A little help here, please?" the goblin whinged.
The elder goblins simply continued with business as usual.
"I fear there has been a rather unexpected development with regard to the status of Grimmauld Place," Dumbledore said to the cramped gathering in his office. "It is now under new ownership."
"What? How?" Molly cried. "It belonged to the Order!"
"No, Molly, it belonged to the Black family," Albus sighed. "Sirius Black was head of it as the sole survivor until most recently— when the portrait of Phineas Nigellus decided to magically acknowledge a new head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black."
"Who was left to acknowledge?" Remus asked, frowning. "A long-lost bastard child?"
Albus shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "The new seat of magical power of the Black family is… "
"Just say it, Albus. These cryptic riddles of yours are not helping," Moody finally snapped. He stared up at the portrait of Phineas Nigellus Black that had been covered with a black curtain. His eyebrows knit together.
"Lord and Lady Severus and Hermione Black."
"WHAT?!" cried many, many voices.
Alastor, one of the very few silent ones, simply rubbed his chin. "So that's what happened with the Black family magic."
Many sets of eyes now turned to bore holes into the resigned-looking figure of Sirius Black. "Magic can never die," he said quietly as if repeating a long-lost lesson. "It can only move. It must find a new vessel that is pure enough to hold it, lest it find another path outward. Toujours Pur. The vessel must be pure. Always pure."
"What nonsensical babble are you spouting now, Sirius?" Molly blurted after a moment.
"My father once said that we— myself and Reg— were impure because he married my mum and not a pure lady. I had always assumed he meant it was because their marriage was inside the family." Sirius stroked his beard thoughtfully. "He said we would die for our choices, and that magic would leave us when we needed it the most. I rebelled against my family, and Reg tried his best to make up for my faults. Each of us had thought this would somehow fix whatever wrong my father believed us to possess. My mum poisoned my father to 'cleanse' the family tree— while burning me off of it— but the damage she sought to heal was already done. I see it now."
"The Black line has not been pure in centuries, for to be truly pure you must give yourself over to magic and allow it to decide your fate. That was something no member of my family had wished to do in untold years. The process required to do so— is agonising. It burns away all impurities. The last time the spell was used, the family banned it from being used ever again. That was the spell I used at Grimmauld, thinking it to be a spell meant for torture. But it wasn't. It was a spell of remaking. It was a spell to induce purity of magic-to burn away any and all imperfections and allow magic itself to decide their fate."
"Igneus Hominum is not a horrific curse per se— but rather it is a charm for unmaking and rebirth. To survive, to willingly to give oneself over to it is to become truly magical— a bonafide member of the House of Black. This was once the only way to become a Black, save birth. To survive the unmaking and surrender to magic's choice."
Sirius closed his eyes. "I never believed the stories. They were just— stories."
"The Blacks were once a great line of many, not only in number but in— species. All magical. All pure. They took their mates into their embrace, and those mates were consumed to become pure beings. These were all fairy tales to me, you see. Like the old tales of the Beedle the Bard. And many thought the same as I— cutting the supposed impure in blood from the family if they were not human, not pure. Assassinated. Shamed. Names were changed, the stories were changed and rewritten to reflect a false 'truth'."
"I never believed any of it, you see. I used the Black spell of Remaking fully believing that Snape would die from his supposed impurities— but then it struck Hermione instead. Do you understand what I'm telling you? The reason it required so much magic— is because there were no pure magical beings left within the House of Black. It was a spell designed to embrace a new life into a family of magical beings, and I foolishly used it as a weapon with the intent to kill."
Sirius' face was haunted and pale. "I transformed her in pain instead of love— with hate instead of purity of purpose. That she survived at all can mean only one thing— someone of powerful magic was able to love her and ease her through the transition, and she loved them back. Magic then took them both into its embrace."
"But Severus? Hermione?" Minerva gasped in shock.
"Magick cares not of age," Sirius said in a near-whisper. "For Magick is Pure."
Sirius stared into his hands in shame. "How very wrong I've been. I deserve this fate. My unreasoning hatred did this. My deliberate blindness."
"I understand now, Father," Sirius wept as he cradled his head in his hands. "I'm so sorry."
Remus reached around and took Sirius into a hug, embracing the other man in comfort, letting so many wasted years of bitterness and anger drain out onto the front of his robes.
The Order members all looked at each other in shocked silence, unsure of what to say, do, think, or even believe.
Fawkes warbled suddenly and passed gas, making the room smell like fresh-cut pineapple.
Hermione sat around a giant pile of beautifully cut (well-chewed) and faceted gems, her talented chewing having refined Severus' talent for making gemstones into the purest of magical pastimes for the both of them.
For them, such gems were the utmost quality in food, but for the goblins— oh, but they were so much more.
For their service, the goblins gave them rare gems from the farthest reaches of the planet, and she then chewed them into perfection to share with Severus. He, in turn, incubated those gems he didn't eat in his hidden pouch and then shared them with her when she hungered.
The goblins gained the purest of magical gems to sell to whatever markets could bear it and reap the rich financial rewards. The coffers of the Black family continued to fill, and there were plenty of excess exotic gems to share with the gargoyle family back home.
Everyone won.
Well— everyone that mattered.
They filled the vaults with all sorts of inedible things— rare tombs, ancient relics, and the tasteless clear quartz, diamonds, and wurtzite boron nitride that looked pretty and all but tasted bland when eaten alone. They stashed the tastiest of morsels in the stone of the walls like any good gargoyle would— just in case there was a famine somehow.
It could happen.
Maybe.
Possibly.
Ædeweard and Edolie looked on with thinly veiled amusement at their organisation and antics turning the Black family vault into a sort of unknown relic museum that no human knew existed. Yet, if one were to look closely, there was no mistaking the tremendous pride the elder gargoyles had in their younger charges for taking care of the future even before they were fully grown.
Ædeweard snuggled up against Edolie, wrapping his warm wing around her, and the female gargoyle purred in clear approval.
"I've truly missed you, love," he rumbled, grooming her ears tenderly.
Edolie rolled over on her back and batted at his jaw with her paws— then dashed away in a poof.
Ædeweard blinked and promptly tore off after her, tail poker straight in his eagerness to catch his most slippery and flirtatious mate.
Damned flighty gargoyle females!
Why couldn't they just cuddle!?
Alastor held out the cluster of titanite in his hand invitingly, holding very still as Severus sniffed it over. The male gargoyle gave the old Auror a distinct scowl of distrust, but he sniffed the cluster over thoroughly and then tagged it with his tongue once. He seemed to ponder a bit before he nuzzled Hermione and "let" her near it.
Hermione snuffled it over, giving it a few good testing licks before taking it into her mouth and setting to work. Her teeth ground away at it as a rain of perfectly faceted gems tumbled out from between her teeth. Severus took them all into his mouth and swallowed all but two, carefully pressing his muzzle to Hermione's to pass her the treasured food before working on his own. A soft glow grew in his inner pouch as the magic set in the stones to preserve them for later.
Hermione leaned in for her customary ear rub, and Severus tentatively allowed the Auror's hand to approach his ears. When the hand only rubbed his ears and not moved in another suspicious fashion, he allowed himself to enjoy the rub— albeit with one eye open to glower at the human.
Alastor chuckled as he rubbed their ears together.
Still a suspicious bastard, aren't you, Severus? He thought to himself. Not that I blame you. I didn't exactly treat you right at any point in life. I really wish I could apologise for that.
He stared for a while, savouring the feel of the gargoyle's warm, soft ears under his fingers.
"I'm sorry for doubting you, laddie," he said to the gargoyle, gaining him a puzzled expression from the gargoyle in question. "I was a bigot and a fool, and I hope you can forgive me one day."
Severus gave him a puzzled look, one brow raising in a very human and familiar expression.
Hermione nosed him, giving him an affectionate lick.
The two gargoyles pounced and tumble-played with each other in front of Alastor causing a smile to spread across his face. They might be the size of a good-sized polo pony, but they were still pretty damned adorable.
The class bell rang, and the pair disappeared into the wall without a sound.
Alastor sighed with disappointment as his time babysitting Potter resumed again.
Harry hoisted the rock up on the framework Sirius had started to rebuild. One of the walls in the outside gardens had collapsed due to careless students, and the rocks had scattered in so many directions that it was hard to tell a wall had even existed in the first place.
"Why don't we just use magic?" Harry whinged. "This feels like detention with Filch."
Sirius frowned. "Harry, I've already explained this to you. This is how I do things now. No magic."
"But you can, right?" Harry insisted. "They said you weren't going to come out of that coma and you did!"
Sirius sighed, sitting down on the ledge of the partial wall. "Harry, sit down with me for a moment." He watched as Harry set down the tools and sat.
"I did something terrible, Harry. It was one of a many-page list of things I have done that I should never have done and doubly should not have gotten away with."
"But it was an accident!"
"It doesn't matter that it was an accident, that my spell struck the wrong person, Harry. It matters that I cast a spell fully intending to torture someone. If you kill an innocent by accident, they are still dead."
"But—"
"Harry, the fact that I am awake and able to talk is something of a miracle, and perhaps magic allowed me this to pay penance for a lifetime of doing awful things that I never once thought about until now—"
Sirius looked skyward. "The madness in my blood is gone now. The tainted magic no longer tears at my insides, demanding to be free. It was maddening, Harry. It whispered, lied, taunted— anything to be free of me. It wanted to be free of me, Harry. Imagine it as a person— being trapped with the only escape being to claw your way out. What would you do to your jailor to seek that freedom? What would you say to escape the one holding you hostage?"
"We use magic—"
"We are taught how to use it, yes," Sirius allowed. "But the magic inside most people is magic at peace with the person. It is a part of you, not a prisoner. But in my family, it had become a prisoner when originally it had been a cherished part of each member. Everyone who carried a piece of the Black bloodline had a bit of that wild magic that had once been free to choose. But my family bound it to the flesh, refusing to give it a choice, and it clawed desperately for freedom. It had been betrayed. It warped and corrupted inside us even as my family warped and corrupted itself. You see, the Blacks had been very powerful wielders of this wild magic, and they depended on it to be as powerful as those around them believed them to be."
Sirius picked up a stone and examined it. "But they forgot to honour the Old Ways— the ritual, the rite, the surrender. For to truly be one with magic, one must trust magic. To trust magic is to be remade in its image— its desires. One must give oneself over wholly to the wild and allow it to choose the partnership. That is the price of magic's gift and power if one wishes to be pure. Once, every magical family gave themselves over to magic— having nothing to lose should it fail. But as innate magic began to grow within their children that requires no bond, no sacrifice, no surrender— they grew arrogant and took it for granted."
"The Old Ways became stories and myths. New gods replaced old gods, and the idea that one must surrender to magic's judgement was but a story to scare the young with dreadful tales of unimaginable torture."
"I rebelled against my family to escape its insanity, but I took it with me," Sirius said. "It sang sweetly in acts of violence and darkness, convincing me that my acts of bigotry were not as terrible as my family's. It set me on a path of vengeance and rebellion, rewarding me for every act— knowing that sooner or later I would do something unforgivable."
"But then it was magic's faul—"
"No, Harry," Sirius said. "The blame is upon me. We all have choices we make, and I made them. I could have said no. I could have done my research to better understand what my father had tried to tell me, but I didn't. I revelled in the feelings of pleasure when I did horrible things, and I believed them to be rewards. I lured Severus Snape to the shack and tried to have my best mate— a werewolf— kill him. I believed he deserved it for being nosy. For being a Slytherin. For nothing but being a pain in my arse because on a train to Hogwarts he said he wanted to be Slytherin— and my baby brother wanted to be a dirty fucking Slytherin and I couldn't stand it."
Sirius threw the stone far into the field and closed his eyes in pain. "I am no better than my demented cousin, Bellatrix. She at least never made excuses for her terrible deeds."
Sirius looked Harry in the eyes. "We all did horrible things to people when we were your age, Harry. Me, your father, Peter— even Remus. We were a gang whose strength lay in our group bravery. Our becoming Animagi started out as a way to keep Remus company, but then we started to let him out thinking we could handle it if he should roam too close to the school. Maybe we were lucky. Maybe people were so fearful of the full moon that they stayed indoors, but imagine there are children in Hogsmeade. Innocents. What if they had wandered into the forest that night? What if Moony smelled them and was too fast for us?"
"I knew that Moony could kill him, and I didn't care, Harry. I wanted him to suffer. And that—" Sirius clenched his fist. "That and so many other incidents just like that is why I deserve this fate. This world without magic. I was no role model, Harry. I was an example of what is well and truly fucked up in this world— and now I have a chance to be a better person. I will be if I can. I will be the kind of person I should have been as your godfather all along. Starting here with this most important lesson. It doesn't take magic to be a real man, Harry. It means making hard decisions and living with the fact that sometimes you will make the wrong ones. It means admitting you're not perfect, but you're doing the very best you can. It also means not blaming others for your own mistakes."
Sirius put his hand to his chest. "I did this to me, Harry. Nothing and no one else. And I can only hope that those I have harmed can find some comfort in that I cannot harm them again. If I survive this war, I pray that I can remain the kind of man who deserves the second chance he has been given. I am sorry for having led you to think my biased opinions were reality. I took advantage of your naivete and the connection to your father to paint a picture of idealism, and it was a lie."
Harry stabbed at the ground with a spade, hitting the metal to an embedded rock over and over. "Was my dad a hero?" he asked finally.
Sirius closed his eyes. "Your father gave his life to save you and your mum, Harry. Whatever he was before then— what mattered most to him at that moment was you."
Harry stuck the spade into the ground, having neatly dissected a centipede with his enthusiasm. Harry winced, mumbling an apology to the maimed arthropod. "I guess—my dad was a man, after all."
Sirius let out a long, slow, cleansing breath. "Yes, Harry. He was a man, after all."
WHAM!
The Whomping Willow slammed a heavily noduled limb down in front of the two wide-eyed gargoyle pups.
They looked at each other and then jumped onto the biggest one and clung to it like burrs, sinking their claws and teeth into the hard, crusty bark.
Perhaps, if they had been anything but gem-eating gargoyles, the bark would have deterred them, but they sank both claw and fang into the bark and tore into it, sending bits and pieces in all directions as they both clung and held on for dear life.
Shhirrrk!
Shhriree-irk!
ShrrrEEK!
They tore away pieces with their teeth to expose the crusted knob of growth that had been struggling to free itself for—
Merlin only knew how long.
The leaves and flowers popped out in a mass exodus, filling out the end of the tree's branch like a rolled out carpet.
The pups fell to the ground as the branch went lower, scampering away and out of range of the living shillelagh.
Severus inspected Hermione all over, snuffling and licking.
She wiggled and pegged him with her tongue. "I'm fine."
"That was dangerous!"
"The book said that Whomping Willows need assistance breaking through the growth buds or they get really cranky!"
"And you believed it?! You believe everything you read?"
"Of course not!"
"But you believed that rubbish!"
"It's not rubbish!"
THUMP!
Both pups jumped as the Willow threw down another branch in front of them—
Only it didn't move it. It waited.
Hermione made expressive eyebrows at Severus.
"Fine, maybe it was right."
Hermione jumped on the branch's swollen burl and began to tear into it. Severus attacked it from the other side, and they peeled it like a banana with their teeth.
Shhhthhiiffff-POP!
The willow's foliage burst outward with a bunch of pretty blue velvet flower buds.
ShhhhTHUUP!
The other branches scooped up both pups and moved them to the crook of the willow's branches and deposited them before moving back into a less whomping figuration.
Hermione looked at Severus.
Severus looked back at Hermione.
Hermione's tail flicked back and forth.
Severus' ears flattened to the side, and he sighed gustily. "Fine. You were right."
Hermione beamed in delight, her tail twisting around his like a warm hug.
Severus kept his expression carefully neutral, but inside he was quite happy with the outcome. He wrapped his wing around her and felt her snuggle closer to him.
He surreptitiously coughed up a large pink sapphire and pressed it up against her muzzle.
Hermione's tongue snaked around it, drawing it into her mouth and she crunched on it happily, but not before sneakily stuffing the other half she had cracked off between his jaws.
Yes, he thought, admitting you were wrong was definitely worth it.
End of Chapter 2
A/N: Back to work, so there will be no updates for a while. Hope you enjoyed the first two chapters :) Please thank Dragon and the Rose for waking up just in time to beta this chapter before I published it unsupervised! (gasp!)
Have a good weekend, folks!