Chapter 11
Dating Advice
Harry
"You are free to go Mr. Black," The judge ruled as he hit his hammer down with a loud thunk, causing tons of conversations to echo throughout the courtroom at the ruling.
Sirius Black looked very relieved as he couldn't help but look at the sky and declare loudly, "I'M A FREE MAN!"
Harry couldn't help but feel rather conflicted as he had watched the proceedings of the trial, he had heard the story from Amelia that this man was responsible for the deaths of his parents and he had hated him for it and yet it turned out Sirius Black had been totally innocent and Peter Pettigrew, believed dead but instead alive and hiding as a rat had actually betrayed his parents.
Much to his surprise Sirius then looked over in their direction upon learning that he was a free man and went over to him and his friends, along with Amelia and Karen.
"I'm a free man," Sirius told Amelia first as if to prove she didn't need to track and hunt him down anymore.
Amelia looked guilty but managed to say, "I'm glad it worked out for you, sorry no one believed you."
"You were the one who made sure Peter was discovered for the traitor that he is," Sirius told her, "I don't know how I'll ever thank you."
Amelia shifted her feet as she admitted, "I was also one of the ones who ensured that you were also convicted so I don't think I deserve any thanks, if anything I actually owe you 12 years of your life."
"Still I'm thanking you anyway," Sirius told her.
Amelia looked at him for a moment then nodded.
Sirius then turned to look at Harry, his eyes seeming hardly able to believe what he was seeing as he admitted, "I don't know if you knew this Harry but I'm actually your parent's godfather for you."
"I knew," Harry said simply. At the time he had heard this, he had been very upset about it as he had still believed that Sirius had betrayed his parents at the time, but now he didn't know what to think.
"I'm told that you are part of the Bones Family now," Sirius declared seeming to still be digesting this news before finally declaring, "I think your parents would have approved if they had been alive, I'm betting that you would make them very proud in fact."
"I try to make them proud," Harry agreed.
Sirius looked at him for another long moment as if coming to know it was really him before then looking at his assembled friends Hermione, Susan, Padma, and Daphne as he introduced themselves to him, "I'm Sirius Black."
Each of the girls also introduced themselves to him, all of them looking rather awkward about doing so and wondering what to make of this situation.
Sirius however seemed to not let the rather shaky conversation get to him and instead spoke to Karen as he nodded at her and said simply, "Karen."
She nodded back and said, "Sirius."
He looked at both the Bones women then as he commented, "you've both aged well. Looking even better than the last time I saw either of you over a decade ago."
Karen couldn't help but smile as she shook her head and admitted, "you always were the charmer Sirius."
Amelia however looked annoyed as she commented, "more like always the troublemaker."
"You can't blame a guy for trying," Sirius claimed with a shrug, "speaking of which, how would you like to go out with me sometime Amelia?"
Amelia actually looked quite surprised as she asked, "are you serious?"
"Why yes I am Sirius!" Sirius declared, laughing at his joke he likely hadn't gotten to use in a very long while.
Amelia rolled her eyes but her sister Karen teased her with, 'well you walked right into that one."
"So how about it?" Sirius pressed, "how does tonight at 7 sound? I'd really like to celebrate my first night of newfound freedom with a beautiful woman?"
"I'm afraid I've got a lot of paperwork to file," Amelia claimed, "which you by the way are the cause of, I'm glad that you are free but you're definitely going to cause a lot of legal headaches finishing sorting this whole thing out."
"I thought you said you owed me 12 years of my life?" Sirius pointed out, "the least you can do is give me one evening?"
"He does have a point," Karen pointed out to her sister, elbowing her as if encouraging her to accept.
Amelia finally relented as she said, "oh alright then, I suppose I can just get one of my underlings to do most of the paperwork like I'm usually tempted to do. Tonight at 7 it is."
"Tonight at 7 it is," Sirius repeated, a big grin on his face.
…
With Amelia having apparently gotten a date, Harry was reminded of whether or not he was going to have a date himself for the upcoming Charity Ball with Susan and he was wondering if he should ask her or if it would ruin things with his other friends.
He was sure they would understand as it would only be for the Charity Ball, it didn't have to mean that they were going out or in a relationship or anything, but still he worried about it.
When Sirius showed up to pick up Amelia for their date, Amelia was still getting ready so Sirius used the opportunity to talk to him.
"I see I'm not the only one who has game," Sirius observed with a sly smile.
"What are you talking about?" Harry asked.
"Those 'friends' of yours," Sirius pointed out, "really good looking girls Harry if you don't mind me saying."
"They are all very attractive," Harry agreed, "but they are just friends."
"I saw the way they looked at you after the trial," Sirius said, "I don't think they see you as just a friend and I doubt you see them as just friends either."
Harry sighed, not really wanting to talk about this to someone he didn't really know all that well even if he was his godfather but still admitted, "well yes I know they don't, but things would be just too complicated if I tried to date any of them, I might hurt the other 3 if I did that."
"So just go on dates with all of them then," Sirius pointed out with a shrug, "I went on dates just about every weekend when I was in school and I made sure the girls I went out with knew it wasn't going to be anything serious, just an opportunity to have a little fun together and get a bit of dating experience as well as help both of us decide what was actually important to us in a potential relationship with someone. You're a teenager, you're supposed to date all sorts of different girls to see what you like in a girl and to have a good time, not to decide right then and there if you are going to marry the girl or not."
Harry did have to see his point, it did make a lot of sense to him.
"So what should I do?" Harry asked, now quite interested, "just explain I don't want to make a big deal out of anything, but I'd like to go out on dates with them if they want?"
"Of course," Sirius said, "it's only when you are older like me that you have to start worrying about marriage and all that. That being said, I'll be lucky to even get through this date with Amelia, I'm rather rusty with dating and this is actually the first time I could even get her to say yes.
She turned me down about half a dozen times while we were in school which of course only made me want to go after her more. I always did have trouble with the redheads getting them to go out with me which only made me want to go after them even more, I would have problems with her sister Karen too if she wasn't obviously already in love with her future husband Roger and I would have likely had problems with your mother too if I hadn't laid off her because James was so enamored with her."
Harry was about to ask if Sirius could maybe share some stories about his parents as he realized that he had plenty of them, but the first story that came to his mind that he wanted to hear was:
"So how did you escape from Azkaban anyway?"
Harry hoped he wasn't asking too difficult a subject for Sirius to answer, but Sirius didn't seem to mind although he did shudder a few times during his story:
"Well as was revealed in the trial, I'm actually an unregistered animagus," Sirius declared, "being in my dog form afforded me some defense against the dementors in Azkaban, but prison was still absolutely horrible and I thought about escaping many times and how I would do it. Yet when I saw Bellatrix try to escape I just knew I had to stop her, I wasn't really concerned about what would happen to me if I was recaptured, by then I was so done with prison I decided I would rather be killed in the attempt then stay where I was. I just barely managed to squeeze through the bars in my dog form as thin as I was and go after her.
Me and Bellatrix fought with it ending in a draw, but she managed to jump from the roof and I jumped in after her. I must have knocked myself unconscious in the landing but I was fortunate enough to wash up along the shore of the small island that Azkaban Prison sits on, hurt and very weak, but transforming into my black dog form under the cover of night, I managed to find a piece of driftwood to keep myself buoyant and swim slowly to the mainland.
After taking several days to recover, subsisting off garbage that I found in my dog form, I then decided to find out if Bellatrix had also escaped and decided to risk going to a magical neighbourhood to find a wizard newspaper and find out.
Unfortunately I was caught by someone who mistook me for a dog and decided to try and sell me to that pet shop. I'm sure I looked very mangy and out of shape, but for the first time I was actually grateful that I was a pureblood because as a dog that also translates to purebred, which made me worth bringing back to full health and trying to resell me.
I was figuring on trying to escape from the pet shop too, but then as luck would have it, I smelled Wormtail entering the shop and I saw it as my chance to prove my freedom.
Fortunately with the help of Crookshanks, the cat that I befriended while in the pet shop and who I have just now adopted, helped catch Wormtail for me.
Then once it was proven that Scabbers was actually Peter Pettigrew and Amelia eventually got a confession out of him, I was quickly given a new trial and with all the new evidence I was declared a free man."
Harry was rather impressed by such a story, Sirius clearly still must a lot in him despite everything that he had gone through to survive such an ordeal.
"So what are you going to do now that you are free?" Harry asked.
"I'm going to try and recover and get back on my feet and just enjoy life for a time," Sirius declared, "and then I really want to try and help Amelia track down Bellatrix, assuming that Amelia hasn't caught her by then, she nearly caught me somehow before I got to Peter first."
"She is good, but I have a feeling Bellatrix will be quite a challenge," Harry grimly admitted.
He was about to ask Sirius for another story, this one about his parents and how they had fallen in love but then Amelia came out, dressed very nicely in a black dress that showed off her still incredible figure...nothing too revealing, but enough that it certainly gave Sirius plenty to look over.
"Wow, you're absolutely incredible!" Sirius admitted, praising her.
Amelia for the first time that he could remember blushed as she said, "thank you Sirius."
Sirius then gave him a wink before leaving with Amelia as he said, "good luck to you Harry, I hope to be able to see you again sometime."
"Sure I would like that," Harry said, thinking again about asking Sirius for stories about his parents.
At any rate after a moment of talking, Sirius and Amelia headed off on their date, leaving Harry to think long and hard about his own potential dating life.
…
Hermione
It just so happened that all 5 members of the study group were over at Susan's house the next night and they were all busy in a rousing game of Magical Trivia.
Hermione couldn't help but enjoy this sort of game as it tested their knowledge of various subjects.
"What is the Draught of Living Death?" Susan read from the card, having decided to be the card reader and judge.
Immediately all 4 of their hands raised at the same time.
Finally Susan decided to pick Padma as she decided Padma might have raised her hand a split second faster.
Padma smiled and went into great detail on how to brew it, each ingredient to use and how to prepare them, their quantity, and the overall effect of the potion as well as potential side effects particularly if it wasn't brewed correctly, then what was the antidote and how to administer it.
Susan however sighed after the long winded explanation as she said, "it just says on the card what the potion actually does, the rest wasn't needed.
Daphne laughed and pointed out, "come on, you can't expect us not to want to explain as much in detail as we can. We're The Study Group after all."
"She does have a point," Harry agreed before suggesting, "maybe you'd better try a different subject, one that we wouldn't all know so well."
Susan then went to the category Popular Magical Artists and picked out a card.
"What is Celestina Warbeck's first hit #1 song?" Susan read aloud.
At that, nobody's hands were raised as absolutely all of them were stumped and seemed to have no idea. She couldn't even name one of Celestina Warbeck's songs, much less her first hit song.
"I'm a Muggleborn, how am I supposed to know that," Hermione questioned, thinking this unfair.
"I don't have a clue either and I'm a pureblood," Daphne admitted.
"Parvati my sister would have definitely known," Padma claimed, "clothes, music, fashion, and make up are what she knows, while I know everything else it seems."
"It's okay everybody, I wouldn't have known either," Susan confessed as she picked up another card from the same category and read that aloud, "what are the Weird Sisters' names?"
Again none of them had any clue.
"Evidently there is a subject we know nothing about," Hermione commented, feeling a bit better that nobody else seemed to know the answers for this subject either.
For all the studying that they did, they remained woefully ignorant of pop culture as none of them had ever really cared much about that even though it seemed the rest of the school did.
After reading several more questions in that category and getting the exact same results with none of them knowing anything, Susan decided it was best to get to the subjects that they actually knew a lot about even though she had to endure some overly long and unnecessary answers.
The game moved on with it being a 4 way tie late in the game, decided only by the final question.
"I win!" Hermione declared proudly, having just barely managed to get her hand up a split second faster than the rest of them to answer the final question.
"What does she win then Susan?" Daphne asked her.
"Learning that knowledge is it's own reward," Padma concluded.
Daphne gave her a look of annoyance at that as that seemed to be Padma's answer for everything.
"You can get the first slice of pie later?" Susan suggested, "I hadn't really thought there would be any reward for the winner. In truth I actually would rather have liked to keep it a tie and not had a tie breaker, that way everyone wins.."
"Ties are boring though," Daphne complained, "I don't even care if I don't win, I just want there to be a winner."
Harry seemed to straighten his shirt nervously as he suggested, "well I can think of a reward for Hermione as well as all of you if you would be okay with it. So I was thinking it might be fun to maybe get a little experience with another subject we don't really know all that well and try maybe dating?"
At that, there was complete silence as all 4 girls looked at him with wide and surprised eyes. Was Harry really going to-"
Harry looked nervous as he then decided to explain, "so I was just thinking it didn't have to be too big of a deal, I mean we're still young and have plenty of time for anything serious, just some occasional dates with each of you if you think that would be fun and beneficial."
Each of them seemed to mull that over for a moment before Susan declared, "well that does sound like fun and you're right we don't need to stress about making it a big deal. I would love to go with you on a date sometime Harry."
"Me too," Padma instantly agreed, a smile on her face.
"I guess I'll let you take me out on a date," Daphne added but she was also smiling.
"That would be nice," Hermione concluded as it did seem to be a good idea and quite fun to be able to go on a date with Harry, especially since they didn't need to make a big deal out of it or stress about which of them Harry was truly in a relationship with yet, "so since I won our game does that mean I get the first date with you?"
"If you want, I just thought of it as a potential reward," Harry said looking nervous.
"When do you want to have this date then?" Hermione asked.
"How about tomorrow night if that is alright?" Harry suggested.
"Sounds perfect," Hermione agreed even though she was already fretting about what she would wear and how she should act. It was just Harry and it wasn't something big, but it was still a date with her big crush and that still had her panicking.
"I was thinking maybe next I could take you this weekend then Susan," Harry suggested, "to that Charity Ball thing?"
Susan smiled, seeming to like the idea as she instantly agreed.
Harry then turned to Padma and Daphne as he then said, "then maybe each of you some other time?"
"Sounds good," Padma agreed, seeming pleased and satisfied with Daphne also just nodding, seeming to be trying not to sound too eager and try and keep a Slytherin like facade.
With that out of the way, Harry looked relieved but there was a bit of an awkward silence before Hermione decided it would be best to move on as she suggested, "anyone want to play Clue?"
