Chapter 8

The next two months go by quickly for Harry, as he spends his free time between training for the tasks ahead, getting to know Ginny even better, and vice versa, and growing ever closer. He also gets more comfortable with the concept of having a real family, and whilst he knows that they can never replace his real parents, he is beginning to see Mr and Mrs Weasley as just that, parents. The biggest change for him is the fact that he now has two big sisters in the form of Tonks and Fleur, for while he has always seen Hermione as a sister, she is also a good friend and really not that much older than him, and the older girls bring the concept of having a big sister really home to him.

All in all, despite the threat of Voldemort hanging above him and with the knowledge that he will have to face him in the not too distant future, he finds he is really enjoying this school year.

One of the greatest things to happen is when Malfoy and his gang, the only ones in the school who still believe that Harry put his name in, finally get their comeuppance when they are thoroughly put down by Viktor after he walks in on them harassing Harry and Ginny as per usual. If that wasn't good enough, he and his gang also end up being put down by Fleur and Cedric in the Great Hall during one particularly memorable dinner, embarrassing him thoroughly and causing him and his gang to hurry out of the Great Hall with their tail between their legs, followed by the laughter of the other students.

Of course, the happiness he is feeling is fading quickly as the day of the second task approaches and two days before the task, Sirius finds a morose looking Harry sitting on the banks of the lake, leaning against a tree with a scowling Ginny sitting beside him.

Seeing Sirius approach, Ginny gets up and stalks towards him, causing Sirius to stop and frown.

'Sirius, please tell me you have some good news because I'm about to hex this git!'

Thoroughly confused, and not willing to get on the bad side of the redhaired witch in front of him, Sirius looks from her to Harry and back again.

'Eh, right, and, eh, why exactly are you about to hex my godson? Mind you, if he hurt you in some manner, I will hold him down for you.

He chuckles at his little joke but quickly shuts his mouth as he sees the look on Ginny's face.

'Sorry, not the time for jokes. So, eh, what exactly is the problem?'

Her face still set in a scowl, Ginny waves in the direction of Harry.

'This git won't stop worrying about the stupid task. And if that isn't bad enough, he is getting more and more morose and surly as the day of the task approaches. Never mind that Viktor, Cedric and Fleur have told him not to worry, that they will watch out for him and me. Never mind that the Professors have told him that the hostage will be perfectly safe and that they will be keeping an eye on the proceedings. Never mind that he is driving me barmy with his worrying.'

To Sirius's horror, the scowl on her face is now replaced by tears.

'The git actually tried to break up with me again so that I wouldn't be in any danger. Break up! As if the ring he gave me doesn't mean anything!'

As she burst out into tears, Sirius sighs and pulls her into an embrace.

'I'm sorry, Red, I should have expected something like this.'

Wiping away her tears, Ginny looks up at Sirius.

'What do you mean?'

Heaving another big sigh, Sirius looks to where Harry is sitting, moving his hand through his hair.

'You have to remember what his childhood was like, Red. He was brought up feeling that he was worthless, that he didn't deserve to live. We have that old fool to thank for that. Add to that Lily's compassion and kindness and voila.'

Seeing the confused look on her face, Sirius smiles and puts his arm around her once more.

'You know how people always say how much Harry look like James?'

'Yes, except for his eyes. They are his mother's.'

'Exactly. The thing is, while he indeed looks like his father, personality wise, he is Lily through and through. Lily was.. She was an exceptional woman. Ask anyone who knew her, and they will say that she was clever and brilliant. So clever and brilliant that she would put Hermione to shame, especially where Charms and Potions are concerned. She was compassionate and kind. I don't think you could find a more compassionate or kind person anywhere. The one thing that people tend to forget about her is that she was also fiercely protective about those she cared for.'

A wistful look comes over his features as he thinks about the friends he lost.

'It was the start of our fourth year. My parents, already dissatisfied with me because I was in Gryffindor instead of Slytherin, where even further outraged when they found out that I was friends with a half-breed and a muggleborn. That summer they decided to end it through various means. My mother loved to use the Cruciatus on me.'

'What! Your own mother used the Cruciatus? But that's illegal.'

'My parents didn't care. They were Purebloods and proud of it. As far as they were concerned, nothing could touch them. And in that house, they were correct.'

'Why didn't you get out? Run away?'

'Oh, I finally did when I was sixteen. I ran away and never looked back. I went to James's house and his parents, Fleamont and Euphemia, took me in, no questions asked. They were amazing. They were the parents I never had.'

The pair remain silent for a moment before he shakes himself out of his musings.

'Anyway, that's not important. Now, where was I? Oh right, beginning of fourth year. I arrived back at Hogwarts, hurting more than I had ever hurt. Of course, I hid it from my friends, not wanting their pity. Did them a disservice there if I'm honest. However, Lily wasn't fooled for one moment. One week in the new school year, she cornered me. She straight up told me that she knew that I was hurting, then scolded me for not telling anyone or to at least go see Madam Pomfrey. Next thing I know, she is pointing her wand at me and casting Healing Charms. When she was finished, she just stepped back and looked at me with a satisfied look before turning around and walking away. The last thing she said was that she better see me in the Hospital Wing, or she would drag me in there herself. I, of course, went straight away, knowing better than to ignore her. She never told anyone, not even James, about it. Of course, several months later, I was the target of her ire. I came across Snape one day and decided to have some fun. Unfortunately, I didn't see Lily coming up from behind. When she saw what I was doing, she tore into me.'

'What? She defended Snape?'

'Yes, you have to understand, the two of them grew up close together and she considered Snape to be her friend, although I always had the suspicion that Snape saw her as more than just a friend. Anyway, she let me know in no uncertain terms what a buffoon I was. Merlin, she could be scary, but like I said, very protective of those she considered a friend.'

'Eh, what ever happened to her and Snape? Did they remain friends?'

Sirius lets out a barking laugh.

'No, even then, Lily wasn't happy with Snape. From the day that we arrived at Hogwarts, she did her best to remain their friendship. She knew how important it was for Snape, but Snape threw it away. From the start, he showed an unhealthy interest in the Dark Arts and in Slytherin House he found likeminded people. Time and time again, Lily tried to warn him, tried to get him to turn away from the path he was traveling. To be honest, I think by our fourth year, she had already all but given up on him, but still she persevered. The final straw came in our fifth year. James and me, well, we were being idiots and bullies and Snape was our target. Lily saw us and told us to leave him alone. That's when he called her a mudblood. I understand that he tried to apologize to her later that day, but Lily had had enough, she broke off all ties with him.'

After another few moments of silence, Sirius rights himself and smiles down at Ginny.

'In any case, the point I was trying to make is that Harry is so much like his mother in that he wants to do anything he can to protect those he loves. Add to that the way he was raised, if you can call it that, and you get a boyfriend who wants to break things off purely for the sake of keeping his girlfriend safe. So, please don't hold it against him. He still has a lot of issues to overcome and it will take time for him to break free of his so-called childhood. Now, shall we go and see if we can cheer my godson up?'

Still trying to wrap her head around everything Sirius just told her, Ginny simply nods her head and follows him back to where Harry is still sitting, staring into the distance.

Grinning at the young redhaired witch, Sirius marches confidently over to his godson, plopping down in the grass facing him.

'Well, hello there, Cub. What's this I hear about you upsetting this beautiful, young witch?'

Harry gives him a weary look before returning to stare out over the lake. The next thing he knows, he is lying on his back with a big, black dog sitting on top of him.

'Get off, Sirius! This is not the time to play games!'

Changing back, Sirius stands in front of him with his arms crossed.

'It's not? Why ever not? I mean, here you are sitting in a beautiful, secluded spot, away from the other students, in the company of your gorgeous girlfriend and you aren't even snogging the living daylights out of her. So, if you don't want to play and don't want to snog your girlfriend senseless, what else is there to do here?'

'She is no longer my girlfriend. I broke up with her.'

'Well, I didn't accept you breaking up with me, Mr Potter!'

Sighing, Sirius hunches down in front of his godson, looking him straight in the eyes.

'Right let's get serious here for a moment. And I don't mean me.' He frowns and shakes his head. 'I can't believe that I actually said that. Anyway, back to what I was saying. Why do you feel that you need to break up with Ginny?'

Frustrated, Harry jumps up and starts to pace, waving his arms about.

'Because she is in danger when she is with me! Don't you get it! Voldemort likes to go after people close to me and if he finds out that she is my girlfriend, he will come after her with a vengeance! I don't want her to get hurt! If I lost her, if I lost Ginny, it.. it would destroy me. She means everything to me!'

Harry finally falls to his knees, tears streaming down his face. Ginny immediately runs to him and gives him a hug worthy of her mother, with Sirius looking on with a sad look in his eyes.

When Harry has calmed down a little, he gently squeezes his shoulder.

'Cub, I understand where you are coming from, but this isn't the way. If you push her away, you have to push everybody that cares about you away, leaving you all alone. If you do that, old Snakeface will have already won. Think about it, Cub. Your mum and dad knew that he was after them and did they decide to stop seeing each other? No, they got married and had you and the day you were born was the happiest day of their lives. And before you say anything, they wouldn't have changed a single thing if given the chance. They loved you more than anything.'

'Yes, and because of me, they are dead.'

Muttering under his breath about wanting to kill the Dursleys and Dumbledore, Sirius takes hold of both of his shoulders.

'Cub, Harry, they didn't die because of you! They died because a power-hungry maniac came after them. Remember, the night that they died wasn't the first time they had faced him! Both of them, both your father and your mother had already faced him three times before that day. Prophecy or not, they already had a dragon sized target on their backs. I know that you are scared, Harry, but you are not alone. You've got me and Remus. You've got the Weasleys. You've got Fleur and Tonks and Hermione and Luna and Neville and Susan and so many others. Most importantly, you have a beautiful young witch who loves you as much as Lily loved James. All those people aren't a weakness, Harry. They are a strength, your strength!'

Finally looking back into his godfather's eyes, Harry gives a weak smile before turning to a crying Ginny.

'Forgive me?'

Laughing through her tears, she launches herself at him, hugging and kissing him.

'Of course, you prat! Just don't do it ever again.'

Sirius watches on happily as the two teens proceed to snog each other senseless, clearing his throat when he feels it's time for them to breath, laughing as he sees the goofy smiles on both their faces.

'Right, now that's settled, let's get back to business. We are now three down and we are working on number four. We are reasonably sure where number five is, leaving number six unaccounted for.'

Harry looks at him in confusion before realization dawns.

'You destroyed two more? That's great! Where were they?'

Looking rather smug, Sirius proceeds to tell them that his hunch about there being a Horcrux in Gringotts was correct and that the Goblins were quite happy to retrieve it for him, further explaining that it was the Cup of Helga Hufflepuff. The next one, he found purely by chance. He and Remus had gone to his old house to see if it could be made liveable again and during their inspection they found a strange locket. When they went to examine it, Kreacher, his family's old house-elf showed up, bawling his eyes out and saying some unintelligible stuff about Sirius his brother. When they managed to calm him down, Kreacher told them all about the locket. To say they were stunned to find out that not only was Regulus working against Voldemort, but that he had also managed to get his hands on a Horcrux without anyone knowing, is a bit of an understatement.

When Sirius is finished, both Harry and Ginny look exited.

'So, we have destroyed three of them. That's great! Only three more to go.'

'Yep, and we have a good idea what and where two of them are.'

'Eh, Sirius, how exactly do you destroy a Horcrux?'

'Oh, that turned out to be actually quite easy, although I'm not half glad that we have the Goblins onboard. You see, to destroy a Horcrux, you need something that will destroy the container completely, like Basilisk venom. Luckily, the Goblins were more than happy to provide some.'

Following his words, Ginny turns to Harry, a pained look on her face and her voice barely audible.

'I guess we were lucky then that you stabbed the dairy with that fang, even if it almost cost you your life. I know that I've said it before, Harry, but thank you.'

With a soft smile on his face, Harry wraps her in his arms and kisses her forehead.

'No problem, Gin. I'm just glad that I was in time to safe you.'

Sirius gives them some time as they comfort each other before clearing his throat. Taking a final sniff of her hair, causing her to giggle, and without letting her go, Harry focusses his attention back on his godfather.

'You said that you know where two of the remaining Horcruxes are?'

'Yes, from everything that you told us of your, eh, visions for lack of a better word, and from what we found out; we are positive that his snake is a Horcrux. Unfortunately, that also means that it's more than likely that we have to leave her until last, but we will cross that hurdle when we get there. As for the other item, we know where it is and thanks in no part to your brother, Red, we are positive that it will be in our possession shortly. The biggest problem is that we are pretty certain that old Snakeface is hiding out close to where it is hidden, so we have to be careful. As it is, we are going to try and get it after the next task.'

It's Ginny who asks the next question on their mind.

'And what about the last one?'

Sirius sighs and scratches his head.

'Yes, well, that is where we hit a snag. We have no idea what it is or where it is. Dumbledore believes that it's something that belonged to Rowena Ravenclaw but has no idea what it could be. As for where it is, the only clue we have is that Snakeface likes to use places that are important to him in some way or another.'

Putting on a look of confidence, he smiles at the two.

'But don't you worry, even if we can't find it in time for the final task, the Unspeakables are hard at work and are confident that they can contain Voldy if we manage to capture him.'

'That's a big if. And what about Fudge? He didn't exactly strike me as someone who would go along with this.'

Sirius actually laughs at this.

'Oh, you are quite right, Red, but we needn't worry about him, Amelia has him well in hands. He knows that he is precariously close to being not only out of a job but to being thrown in Azkaban as well. And as far as his benefactors are concerned, Amelia has made sure that all those who we suspect, or rather know, are Death Eaters, like Malfoy, are being kept under close surveillance by people we can trust.'

As the two of them are talking, neither of them has noticed the absent look in Harry's eyes as he thinks about what Sirius said.

'He hides them at places that are important to him? So which places would be important to Tom?'

As he is thinking this, his eyes unconsciously drift towards the castle, until the school fill his entire vision.

'Hogwarts. It's the first place I ever considered home. He said that we were alike, could it really be that simple?'

For a long time, he stares at the school, neither hearing or noticing anything else. Having noticed him staring off into the distance, Ginny silences Sirius by simply putting her hand over his mouth and points at Harry.

'He stopped the attacks when he was told that the school would be closing, meaning he had to go back to the orphanage because he couldn't stay at Hogwarts. It sounds crazy, but my gut tells me I'm right.'

Shifting position, Ginny takes hold of both of his hands and looks him in the eyes.

'Harry?'

Blinking, Harry refocuses on the girl in front of him, smiling and kissing her hand. Narrowing her eyes, she looks at him, before she smiles to.

'You thought of something, haven't you?'

'Yes. I think, no, I know where he hid the last one.'

While Ginny hugs him, Sirius waits patiently for him to explain. When he remains silent, his gaze still fixed on the school, Sirius clears his throat.

'Right, you know where he has hidden the last one. So, where is it hidden?'

As if speaking to himself, Harry begins to explain.

'Privet Drive was never a home for me. It was a prison. The very first place where I felt at home, where I felt I belonged was Hogwarts. Tom claimed that he and I were strangely alike and in one aspect he was right. Just as Hogwarts was my first home, so it was for him. If there is one place that is important to him, it's Hogwarts. He has hidden the last Horcrux here.'

Sirius looks at him dumbfounded but before he can say anything, Ginny speaks up.

'You're right, Harry! Hogwarts was an important place for Tom. But where could he have hidden it?'

She taps her chins as she thinks about it, her face lighting up for a moment before she shakes her head.

'No, not in the chamber, he wouldn't have kept it there.'

'Eh, why wouldn't he have hidden it in the chamber? Sounds to me like it would be the perfect place.

Having momentarily forgotten about Sirius, the two startled teens focus their attention back on him.

Shaking his head, Harry gives his godfather a look saying that the answer is obvious.

'He made the dairy with the intention that it would be used to open the chamber. He wouldn't hide a Horcrux in there seeing as he already had a Horcrux that was connected to that place. Arrogant as he is, he wouldn't risk the Horcrux to be accidentally found and possibly destroyed.'

Sirius thinks about what he is saying and has to admit that Harry has a point, but still thinks it's worth checking, and he tells them this.

Both Harry and Ginny just shrug at the suggestion, but it raises an interesting question for Harry.

'How are you going to get in? Only a Parselmouth can open the chamber and I have no intention of going back there.'

'Ah, well, that's one of the perks of being a member of a pureblood supremacist family, who also happen to be just a tad paranoid. My dear family, with a few exceptions like my cousin Andi, Tonks mother, and me and I believe even one of your relatives, believed whole-heartedly in the pureblood are better than anyone crap and to them, nothing screamed pureblood elitist more than the ability to speak parseltongue. Of course, that brought up the slight problem that no one in the family ever actually spoke parseltongue. Thinking that my dear family would not be content with this, I decided to search through the family library, which contains more books on the dark arts then I would consider healthy by the way, and found a book written by one of my ancestors containing various spells, including a spell that would give one the ability to speak parseltongue. It's actually a joke because the spell only gives you the ability to speak simple phrases, like open or hello, but I guess it was enough to convince the gullible. That's how we managed to open the locket. Anyway, enough of all this depressing stuff, let's talk about the second task. How are you doing on that front?'

Ginny snorts at that, seeing as how moody Harry was when Sirius arrived.

'Right, dumb question. Eh, so, have you figured out what you are going to do? The Bubble-Head Charm is probably your best bet.'

'Yes, that's what Hermione suggested as well, but I think I will go with Gillyweed. It's more practical for me and Ginny and Fleur agree.'

Ginny snorts again at this, mumbling something under her breath about Hermione and not listening.

However, Sirius looks confused.

'Gillyweed? Never heard of it.'

'It's a magical plant that, when eaten, allows you to breath underwater for about an hour. It also gives you webbed fingers and toes, making it easier to swim. Neville suggested it, Herbology is his best subject.'

'Hm, clever boy, remind me to gift him some Herbology books form the Black Family library. So, what else is going on in the hallowed halls of Hogwarts.'

They spend the rest of the day entertaining each other with tales of the school, with Sirius contributing several stories of Harry's parents.