Disclaimer – I do not own Harry Potter; all rights and characters belong to JK Rowling.

Chapter 7 – Knockturn Alley

Sirius grimaced, his face covered in a thin sheen of sweat at the exertion of casting so many spells in a short period of time. It was a show of his strength and endurance starting to return after Azkaban that he was even able to cast all of those spells, yet try as he might, he couldn't make a dent on the locket.

Since Kreacher had told him the true story of Regulus' death and how he sacrificed his life in order to steal this locket from Lord Voldemort, Sirius had been borderline obsessed with the seemingly unbreakable item. Kreacher and Sirius had spent the last couple of months working to try to destroy it together and despite this, there wasn't a single scratch mark or dent which could be found on the locket for all of their efforts.

What on earth did Voldemort do to this object to make it so formidable and impossible to break? And why was it so important to him in the first place?

Those were the questions which were keeping Sirius up at night in his struggles to uphold his promise to Kreacher. Further than simply fulfilling his end in the bargain though, Sirius really wanted to figure out what it was about this locket that made it so special, and he really wanted to destroy it for his brother who died to steal it.

Sirius got the feeling he was going about this all wrong. To destroy the locket, it seemed like the key would be to unlock and open it first, however Sirius had been unable to do just that. Furthermore, he suspected he would be unable to do that at all. If his assumptions were correct, this locket may need the words of a parselmouth to unlock. He came to this conclusion since on the locket there was a depiction of a snake, and since this belonged to Lord Voldemort, it made sense that the key to opening it would be with the use of an extremely rare ability that he himself happened to possess.

Sirius placed the locket back inside the drawer, locking it. His best course of action would be to research any leads to possible parselmouths still around, then attempt to hunt them down. For now though, his best course of action was to get back to training his body up to how it had been before Azkaban.

On that front, Sirius was making significant progress. He had progressed his morning workouts quite a lot in the last couple months, and he was feeling less and less out of breath whilst exercising now.

Sirius came downstairs to find Harry already tying his shoelaces by the front door, waiting for him. After Christmas, Harry had asked to join Sirius with his morning workouts and Sirius had happily agreed – speed, strength and stamina were skills which were sure to be extremely useful to Harry as he grew up – Alastor Moody had deeply ingrained that fact into his mind each and every day of the rigorous training routine the Auror put him, James, and the other recruits through when they were in Auror training after leaving school.

What did surprise Sirius though, was Harry already had the speed. Sure, his stamina wasn't amazing and his strength was extremely poor for a boy of his age (no doubt due to malnutrition), but he was quick! When he asked his godson about it, Harry put it down to all the times he had to escape Dudley and his gang as they chased him to beat him up.

Another thing Harry had which impressed Sirius and reminded him of James and Lily was his sheer determination. During their workouts, even when you could tell Harry was getting exhausted and struggling, he didn't complain and he pushed through the pain with determination etched all over his face. In fact, Sirius actually had to tell Harry to stop sometimes because the boy would simply push himself too hard if Sirius didn't say anything.

Sirius finished pulling his shoes on, and in a comfortable silence, the two left the house and began their morning run together around the surrounding cliffs and beaches of the west coast of Ireland.

With just the sounds of the nature around them and their breathing, Sirius allowed himself to relax. In the months since he had taken Harry from the Dursleys to come live with him instead, Sirius was thrilled to see Harry now looked a lot healthier than he did before. Sure, he was still scrawny, but it was more of an athletic type of scrawny than an underfed type of scrawny. Perhaps more importantly, he noticed that as the weeks went by, Harry grew more and more confident. He no longer flinched in fear when he thought Sirius was angry at him, and he wasn't afraid to ask questions any more.

One thing Harry was struggling much more on improving was his Occlumency. In the last couple months, Sirius had ensured his godson did daily Occlumency exercises, however so far they seemed to have yielded no results. Whilst Harry had an extremely strong willpower, he really struggled to remain calm and in his own mind for long. Sirius was not a very accomplished legilimens, meaning he couldn't test Harry with passive Legilimency, however with full frontal attacks, Harry struggled to locate Sirius' probes in his mind. When he did manage to, he was able to force his godfather out, although it was usually too late by that point – if it were another intruder in his mind, they would have had all the time they needed to find what information they were looking for.

This lack of progress did worry Sirius, for if Dumbledore were to attempt to read Harry's mind as it currently was, it would be all too easy for the old man. Sirius doubted Dumbledore would launch a full-frontal mental attack on Harry unless he deemed it absolutely necessary, however passive Legilimency was likely to be used by the man, as it so easily went undetected. Sirius planned to train to improve his own Legilimency skills to the point where he could perform passive Legilimency on Harry, therefore helping to prepare him to defend against this kind of attack.

Living with Harry and preparing him for what life seemed likely to throw at him was undoubtably the toughest challenge Sirius had ever undertaken. Looking after a child is never an easy job, but when you factor in that this child lost his parents at age one, was abused by his aunt and uncle for eight years, was the Boy Who Lived, and had the threats of the two most powerful wizards of the age hanging over his head, the job became a lot tougher.

Sirius refused to let this faze him, however. This boy was his godson and was the son of James and Lily. Sirius vowed to himself he would give Harry the best childhood that he could in the short amount of time he had to do it, and would prepare Harry as much as he could for the challenges he would face at Hogwarts and beyond.

So that's exactly what he would do.

-o0o-

Harry panted heavily and wiped some sweat off of his forehead as he trudged upstairs towards the bathroom. He and Sirius had just finished their workout consisting of a thirty minute run then some strength and agility exercises, and that coupled with the fact it was an unusually hot April day meant that Harry in dire need of a shower.

Harry discarded his clothes and went to step into the shower, but paused as he caught a glimpse of himself in the bathroom mirror. The reflection staring back at him was almost unrecognisable from the boy living at 4 Privet Drive just over five months ago. Yes he still had the same startlingly green eyes and unruly black hair, but the rest of his body had changed considerably. No longer was he just skin and bones, his body had filled out a fair amount and he now looked much healthier, even with some small muscles starting to develop. Additionally, many of his scars given to him by the Dursleys had started to fade, and some had disappeared completely, with only the worst ones remaining visible as souvenirs of his life in Little Whinging.

Harry moved away from the mirror and turned the shower on, starting the flow of water over his aching muscles.

The last few months had been brilliant for Harry. Back in November, he wouldn't have believed how quickly his life could be turned on its head, or how significant a convicted mass murderer would have been in changing his fortunes for the better.

Every day, Harry would do a morning workout with Sirius, as well as evening Occlumency lessons targeted towards preparing him for Hogwarts. On top of this, Sirius gave him some lessons on subjects he would be having at school – all theory of course (with the exception of potions), but Harry couldn't wait to get his wand when he turned eleven and put his knowledge into practice.

In his spare time, Harry would often go flying on his Cleansweep Seven, making sure to avoid areas where Muggles might be able to see him. He loved the feeling of being free in the air on his broomstick; it was the complete opposite of being locked in the cupboard under the stairs in number four Privet Drive. Harry also spent a lot of time reading about various magical subjects. Part of this was because he found the content fascinating – who wouldn't be interested in learning about the different types of dragons and where you could find them, or different hexes and jinxes you could put on your enemies which would cause their legs to dance uncontrollably, or bogies to start flying out of their nose and attacking them?

However, another large reason why he put so much time into reading up on magical subjects was so that he could prepare himself to be the best and strongest wizard he could be. After hearing all of Sirius' warnings to him about the likes of Albus Dumbledore and Lord Voldemort all having sinister plans for him, Harry knew he had to pour all of his effort into becoming as strong and powerful a wizard as possible, so that one day he could rival them and be able to successfully defend himself from them. He also hoped to make his parents proud; he wouldn't let their sacrifice be in vain.

Even with all of this to take up his time, Harry still found himself having lots of free time which he didn't have much to do in. Sirius was always happy to spend time with him, and take him to Diagon Alley whenever he wanted to go, but Harry still found himself feeling a little lonely a lot of the time. His godfather was a lot of fun to talk to and be around, but there was only so much they could talk about before they circled back to the same topics. Harry never grew tired of hearing stories about his parents and the Marauders at school, but Sirius often wasn't in the mood to tell these as it was quite emotionally tough for him to drag up all the old memories.

Harry had opened up to Sirius about how he felt a little lonely, and Sirius replied that Harry was 'crying out for a friend'. Harry had then expressed his worries that he would be unable to make friends due to his supposed fame and how he had never had one before, but Sirius waved away his concerns, saying, 'you'll have no problem making friends, trust me. I was a member of one of the most bigoted wizarding families around, yet I still managed to make friends with a werewolf and a muggleborn – if I can do it, you sure can.'

Harry dried off, dressed, and made his way downstairs to find Sirius already with glamours on. "Come on! Diagon Alley today!" he exclaimed, "I've gotta stock up on potions ingredients for your next lesson, and I fancy a Sundae!"

Harry remained still so Sirius could place the glamours on him, then quickly threw his shoes on and followed his godfather out the door.

Less than ten minutes later, Harry found himself back in one of his favourite places: Flourish and Blotts. Tom, the innkeeper of the Leaky Cauldron, had stopped Harry and Sirius for a chat, then once they had left the pub and entered Diagon Alley, the two separated to head to different shops. This was something that happened relatively often now, with Sirius claiming he could trust Harry enough that he didn't need to babysit him all the time any more. Harry found this refreshing compared to the Dursleys who wouldn't trust him enough to even leave him alone in the house while they went shopping. Having an adult that trusted him that much meant a lot to Harry.

Sirius had headed straight to the Apothecary whilst Harry made a beeline for the bookstore. As he browsed the bookshelves for something new to read, Harry couldn't help but take notice of the blonde girl, sat in her usual spot in the corner, reading a book which looked as though it had around a thousand pages. Harry's curiosity bubbled within him as he wondered what she was reading about, but he forced himself to refocus on the books on the shelves in front of him, rather than the girl.

The two of them hadn't spoken a word to each other in the months since their first encounter on Christmas Eve, and Harry had heeded her advice and tried as best he could to stop watching her and paying attention to her presence at all. However, Harry had noticed her glancing over at him on a couple separate occasions. The one time he had looked up and made eye contact, he noticed she was looking at him calculatingly, as if she was trying to solve a puzzle, before she quickly looked away upon realising he had noticed where her eyes were directed. Even though Harry was attempting to not watch her, it was unavoidable that he still saw her in Flourish and Blotts at least once a week, and he spotted her leaving Knockturn Alley on two more occasions too. He really did try to put it out of his mind, but it still deeply intrigued him what on earth she was doing down there, and what he would find down there in general.

Harry turned his attention once more to finding a book. One of them caught his eye and he opened it and flicked through some of the pages. The book was full of jinxes and curses of varying levels of difficulty to perform, and it gave a description of each spell as well as instructions to cast it. It wasn't very fun to read instructions on how to cast spells when he couldn't attempt to follow them, but he did amuse himself for several minutes imagining scenes where he used these jinxes and curses against his aunt, his uncle, and Dudley.

When Sirius returned with a bag full of potion ingredients, Harry bought the book, plus another he found on the same shelf called 'Curses and Counter-Curses' by Vindictus Viridian. The two then made their way to the Leaky Cauldron, where they ordered some lunch and debated which of the curses from Harry's books would be most funny to try on his Uncle Vernon.

With their stomachs now full, Harry and Sirius headed straight for Gambol and Japes Wizarding Joke Shop, another of their favourite shops in Diagon Alley. Harry especially enjoyed Sirius' reminiscing of past pranks he had played on people using some of these items, and also his complaining about how much better his pranks could have been if some of the newer items in the store had been around during his time at Hogwarts. Sirius purchased some of these items he had not had the pleasure of trying out yet.

Once they were finished in the magical joke shop, the two of them arrived at Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour for a sorely needed sundae – it really was hot today, with the sun shining down brightly onto the shoppers in the Alley, meaning the Ice Cream Parlour was as busy as Harry had ever seen it. Looking around the seating area where lots of wizards and witches were enjoying their ice creams, Harry noticed a couple more kids that looked around his age. There was a chubby boy sat with a woman who Harry assumed to be his grandmother, who was clearly chewing him out for something whilst the boy looked dejectedly at the floor. There was also a dark-skinned boy sat with someone that could only be his mother, and they appeared to be eating their ice creams together in silence.

Harry found it extremely interesting watching out for young witches and wizards around his age to see what they were like, however none of them seemed too different from the muggle children Harry had attended primary school with. Well, except for the blonde girl who was always alone anyway.

After a short wait, Florean Fortescue spotter Harry and Sirius and immediately bustled over to take their orders, and before long, Harry had a delicious chocolate ice cream sundae in front of him which he savoured every mouthful of. Sirius, who had opted for a strawberry flavoured sundae, wolfed it down quicker than Harry thought possible, then fished around in his pocket for the money to pay Fortescue with.

"Ah, looks like we're a bit short," he said after counting the sickles. "Looks like I'll have to go top up at Gringotts."

Sirius called over Florean Fortescue and told him that he was going to pop to Gringotts to get the money needed to pay for his and Harry's ice creams. Fortescue protested, saying it was a good day for business anyway, and he didn't mind discounting some of his favourite customers a couple of sickles, but Sirius waved him away. "Don't worry about it Florean, I've got to go Gringotts anyway, and how else am I supposed to tip you for the great service? Just do me a favour and keep an eye on this one." Sirius grinned and ruffled Harry's hair before standing up and walking straight to the wizard's bank.

Even though Sirius had made several trips to Gringotts already, and insisted the goblins wouldn't turn him over to the Ministry since all they cared about was getting extra business, Harry still worried for his godfather whenever he had to go, since the thing Harry was most afraid of was Sirius getting arrested once more, and Harry being sent back to the Dursleys.

As he finished up his chocolate sundae, Harry promised himself that if that ever happened, he would run away from the Dursleys himself – no way would he ever let them control his life again!

Now having finished his ice cream, Harry let his mind wonder for a while, until a flash of pale blonde hair to his right caught his eye. As expected, it was the mysterious girl leaving Flourish and Blotts, although without a book today. She glanced left and right, as if to check if she was being watched; Harry hastily averted his gaze. He looked away determinedly for another couple of seconds, but couldn't help but glance back to see where she went. He couldn't spot her distinctive hair through the crowds of shoppers in Diagon Alley, however just as he was about to give up looking, he noticed a petite figure slipping sneakily down the dark street of Knockturn Alley.

Just as he suspected. Harry felt the now familiar feeling of curiosity bubbling up inside of him. Why did she keep going down there? Surely if it was safe for her, it would be safe for him?

An idea blossomed inside of his head, not for the first time. What if he were to just venture down there? He wouldn't be long, all he wanted to do was see what it was like down there. Sirius wouldn't need to know anyway – he hadn't been gone for that long, and one glance at Florean Fortescue showed he was far too busy serving customers to notice if Harry slipped away.

Harry bit his lip as his curiosity and want for adventure battled with the feeling of guilt that popped up at the thought of disobeying his godfather, who'd done nothing but look out for Harry's best interests. With a surge of courage, Harry squashed down his feelings of guilt and rose from his seat, moving swiftly through the many witches and wizards towards the one place Sirius had forbidden him from journeying down. He hesitated for a second when he reached the entrance, then entered Knockturn Alley before he lost his nerve.

The first thing he noticed was that the street had a sinister feel to it, and it was very dark down here despite the sun shining brightly in the sky. There were also far fewer shoppers down here, and many of those that he could see had their hoods up so that he couldn't make out their faces.

He slowly made his way further down the twisting alleyway, checking out the various items on display outside shops and being held by street vendors. Harry could see shrunken heads, mysterious objects, and to his horror, what looked like some human bones. Harry was also now receiving a lot of looks from the other people in the alley. He swiftly pulled his hood up over his head. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea, and he should turn around and leave again now.

Just as Harry was about to do just that, he spotted a small figure moving sneakily through the shadows towards a spot where two men seemed to be having a disagreement of some sort. Harry crept closer himself, eager to see what it was that the mysterious girl came to this horrible place for in the first place. As he drew nearer, he caught a couple snippets of what the two wizards were saying to each other.

"Don't try an' play any of these games with me, Dung. You said you'd have them here for me today, so where are they?" growled the taller man menacingly.

"It's- It's been 'ard tryin' to get 'em, give me another week and I swear I'll 'ave 'em for you," stammered the shorter wizard, Dung. The taller wizard pressed forward, clearly unimpressed and looking to intimidate the grubby-looking man. All the while, Harry noticed the mysterious girl creeping forward, closer and closer to the taller man.

As he watched, she slipped her hand into the pocket of his robes, withdrawing what looked like a wallet. Harry's eyes widened as he realised what she was doing, but unfortunately, so did the man called Dung's – he had noticed Harry standing close-by in the street behind the man who was threatening him.

Noticing where Dung's eyes were trained towards, the taller wizard spun around, just in time to see the blonde girl burying his wallet in the pocket of her robes. She gasped at his sudden movement and jumped back, but not quickly enough, as one of his hands seized a handful of her robes and pulled her towards him.

"What do you think you're doing, girl?" he spat, "How 'bout you just hand back my wallet like a good little witch, then I can teach you what happens to girlies who can't keep their hands to themselves!"

Harry's blood ran cold in fear at what he'd caused. He noticed Dung was using the distraction to make a hasty exit. Harry considered running for it, but he couldn't just leave the girl to get attacked after he'd made her get caught! Summoning all his courage, Harry stepped forward and said, "Leave her alone!"

The man looked taken aback for a second, but his expression quickly morphed into a sneer. "Oh, so we've got a hero, have we?" he asked menacingly. "Let's see how brave you an' your thieving girlfriend are when you're crying on the ground!"

The man shoved the girl to the ground, then pulled out his wand, aiming it at Harry. Harry's eyes widened in fear, and rather than try to run or dodge an incoming spell, he jumped forward and grabbed hold of the man's wand, and tried to wrestle it out of his hand. This seemed to take the wizard by surprise for a second, but he soon gained the upper hand, lifting Harry up with one arm and aiming a wand into his face with the other. Harry braced himself for whatever spell he was about to be hit with, but to his shock, the man howled in pain and dropped Harry to the floor, before clutching his shin.

Harry turned to see the mysterious blonde girl, her hood now down, standing over the wizard. Harry remained on the floor for a second, still shocked he didn't end up cursed, but quickly recovered his senses and jumped to his feet. Seeing the man was still recovering from the pain of a hard kick to the shin, Harry screamed, "Run!"

However, before he could even take a step, he heard a squeal to his left as the girl was caught with a glancing blow to the side of the head from the man's fist, crashing down onto the cobbled streets. Harry shrunk back in fear as the man rose to full height and levelled his wand at him. For the second time, Harry readied himself to be cursed, but the man's wand was suddenly and inexplicably ripped out of his hand, flipping through the air, where it landed ten metres away.

Harry turned around and was both extremely relieved and afraid to see his godfather standing there behind him. Now the danger was over, Harry felt the gravity of the situation rushing back to him; he had disobeyed Sirius, broke the one rule his godfather had given him, and would have probably been hurt pretty badly if Sirius didn't arrive at that exact moment to save him. What if this betrayal of Sirius' trust meant he wouldn't want to look after him anymore? What if he sent Harry back to the Dursleys tonight, after realising that they were right all along – Harry was a freak and a waste of space.

Sirius at the moment though still had his eyes trained on the man that attacked them. Harry noticed he didn't look anywhere near as intimidating now he was at the mercy of an adult wizard, and he didn't have his wand with him. "Leave!" snarled Sirius. The man scowled heavily, but was evidently too afraid to try anything now, so he skulked over to pick up his wand, then disapparated.

Sirius turned his attention to Harry with a stern look on his face that Harry hadn't seen before. "What were you thinking?!" he exclaimed, causing Harry to shrink back, "I gave you one rule to follow, and it was to not come down Knockturn Alley, so what do you do? Can you understand why I said not to now?!"

Upon seeing Harry's fearful face, Sirius visibly deflated from his outburst, and continued calmly. "I'm sorry Daniel, but I gave you that rule for a reason … please try to listen to me next time."

Hope and relief found its way back into Harry's heart. Sirius said next time. That meant he couldn't be planning to ship him off back to the Dursleys. With his heart rate now starting to fall, Harry calmed down enough to pay attention as his godfather turned to the blonde girl, who had now picked herself up off of the floor and was wiping blood from the cut on her cheek with her sleeve.

"I'm guessing you were the reason he came down here," said Sirius, almost to himself, before raising his voice, "Are you okay?"

She nodded; her facial features arranged in a perfectly practiced emotionless mask.

"You need to get that cleaned up and healed," Sirius motioned to her face. "Are your parents anywhere nearby?"

A dark look flitted across her face for an instant, but she recovered to shake her head stiffly, with the blank look back on her face.

"Come with us. I'll get some stuff to sort you out," said Sirius firmly, before turning on his heel and leading the two children back out of Knockturn Alley and into the light. He led them back over to Harry and Sirius' table at Florean Fortescue's ice cream parlour.

"I'm going to run over there and grab some stuff to clean the wound, can I trust you to not wander off this time?" Sirius looked pointedly at Harry. Harry nodded sheepishly, so Sirius headed off towards the shop he had motioned to down the street.

The two children fell into an awkward silence. After all of that, Harry wasn't sure what to say. He was certain the girl would be mad at him again for following her down Knockturn Alley. It was her who broke the silence, placing down two golden galleons from the man's stolen wallet on the table in front of Harry. "For the book you paid for," she explained.

Harry stared in confusion for a second – he'd forgotten that the girl had managed to steal the wizard's wallet. Once he'd recovered his wits, Harry shook his head and replied. "Keep them. You clearly need them more than me if you have to steal from people."

Instantly, the girl scowled fiercely. "Just because I need to steal doesn't mean I can't pay my debts!" Harry winced. Why was he so awful at talking to people?

"I'm sorry – I didn't mean it like that," he stammered, "Please just keep them. Si– my dad's rich enough as it is anyway." The girl scrutinized him for a while, but eventually conceded and dropped the galleons back into the wallet, which she placed in the pocket of her robes.

Harry took a deep breath and forced himself to look straight into her eyes. He noticed for the first time how startlingly blue they were. He readied himself to be on the receiving end of her anger once more. "I'm sorry I got you into trouble back there. The shorter man saw me, and that's why the man you were stealing from turned around. It was my fault."

As expected, she glared at him, anger swirling in her icy blue eyes. However, to Harry's surprise, she took a deep breath, seemingly to calm herself down, then replied in a less cold voice than she had used in their conversation so far.

"It's okay. You made up for it by trying to defend me. I don't know why you did that."

Harry looked at her in confusion. "What do you mean? I defended you because he was going to hurt you. Plus it would have been my fault if he did – it is my fault that he hurt you." Harry swallowed, feeling extremely guilty as he glanced at the painful looking cut on her cheek.

The girl's features softened more than Harry had seen them soften before. "Well thank you anyway. Not many people would stay to help."

The look in her eyes, and the implications of that statement saddened Harry a bit. Had she never met a witch or wizard who would want to defend someone to stop them being hurt before? Were most witches and wizards just like the muggles in Little Whinging? Unable to see the obvious signs that a boy was being abused, unwilling to help anyone if there was nothing in it for themselves. Harry tried to shake those thoughts and fears out of his head. Maybe this girl had just been unlucky in who she'd met. He refocussed back on the subject of his thoughts.

"I'm Daniel, by the way," Harry felt a short stab of guilt at using his made-up name, but he didn't want to break Sirius' only other rule he had given him. "What's your name?"

The girl froze and looked apprehensive for a second or two, but appeared to make up her mind, locking her icy blue eyes onto Harry's green ones. "Daphne. My name is Daphne."

At that moment, Sirius arrived back from the shop, causing Harry to jump – he'd been oblivious to everything else around him when he was looking into her eyes.

"Got the supplies," Sirius announced, seemingly in a more cheerful mood than when he left for the shop, "I could have cleaned it with magic, but trust me, the muggle way hurts a lot less. This might still sting though."

Daphne, to her credit, didn't flinch at all while Sirius was cleaning the wound, and only slightly winced when he cast the spell to seal the wound back up afterwards. "There you go," Sirius grinned, "Good as new!"

"Thank you," replied Daphne.

"No problem," said Sirius, "Just try not to lead Daniel here down Knockturn Alley again, even though I'm sure you didn't mean to. And I know I'm not your father and I can't tell you what to do, but do try to be careful if you go down there again – it's a dangerous place."

Daphne nodded calmly, the emotionless look back in her eyes.

"Nice. Fancy an ice cream on me while you're here with us?" Sirius offered.

"No, thank you," she declined politely. "I'd best return home now." Her face was completely blank while she said this, but to Harry, her eyes plainly said that going home was the last thing she wanted to do.

Sirius nodded, and held out his hand for her to shake. "I'm Gary. Don't ever be afraid to come ask me for help if you ever need anything."

Daphne hesitated once more, but shook his hand quickly then took her leave. Harry watched her leave, somehow even more intrigued by her than he was before he found out what she did down Knockturn Alley.

Sirius waited until she was out of earshot before turning to Harry with his eyebrows raised. "We've got a long conversation to have, Pup."

Sirius paid Florean Fortescue for the ice creams that they had eaten some time ago now, then he and Harry left through the Leaky Cauldron before apparating back home. Sirius led Harry inside and all the way through to the back garden, where he collapsed onto a garden bench, whilst Harry sat on a lower branch of a tree which he often used as a place to sit and read.

Sirius turned to look at him expectantly. "So … care to tell me exactly what happened today?"

With that, Harry spilled the beans, telling Sirius everything that had happened, only leaving out the conversation he and Daphne shared back at the ice cream parlour. Sirius sat and listened, not reacting much at all to the story, but regarding Harry with a knowing gleam in his eyes. When Harry finished the story and then apologised to Sirius for breaking his rule, Sirius finally spoke.

"Thank you for being honest and apologising Harry, but I'm not mad at you for breaking my rule." At Harry's stunned look, Sirius grinned. "I should've known you'd be just like James. Me and Prongs would have done exactly the same thing. Honestly, the two of us broke so many rules, I don't know how we made it through Hogwarts without being expelled. Anyway, your dad would have been really proud of you today, with how you stepped in to defend the girl."

Harry allowed himself a small smile. He'd thought that Sirius would be furious at him with what happened. At seeing Harry's smile, Sirius continued.

"On the other hand, your mum would not have been pleased! Don't get me wrong, she would be proud of the bravery you showed to defend the girl, but she'd only tell you that after she chewed you out for at least an hour over breaking the rules in the first place. I don't blame you for going down there, Merlin knows I would have done the same in your position, but this is probably something your mum would have been right about. Being curious and being brave are not bad, but we really do need to try not to be reckless. It was me being reckless that got me sent to jail and stopped me from being able to take care of you when you were younger." Sirius tailed off, looking a bit down himself now.

"So … you're not sending me back to the Dursleys?" Harry asked stupidly, but full of relief.

"Of course not!" his godfather exclaimed, "The only reason I'd ever take you back there is to punish those bastards for all they did to you! Um … by the way, don't use that word. Lily would kill me if I taught you how to swear."

Harry giggled.

"Yeah, laugh it up! It would be my arse that gets a beating in the afterlife – I meant butt!" Harry giggled even louder. Sirius suddenly grinned. "So, speaking of women, I don't need to give you a talk about girlfriends yet do I? Because you looked like you were having a great time staring into her eyes when I arrived back at our table to patch her face up."

That wiped the smile off of Harry's face. He knew Sirius was exaggerating, but it still made him embarrassed when he said it like that. "Did you say her name's Daphne?" Harry nodded. "Do you know her last name?" Harry shook his head this time. "Shame, I might have known her parents. Can't be great ones to send her off to Diagon Alley every day alone, especially if she's having to steal to get money for books. So, do you think you might have made a friend?" He asked hopefully.

Harry shrugged. "I mean, she likes reading even more than you do, judging off how much time she spends in Flourish and Blotts. Maybe you could even steer her away from her wicked ways," Sirius teased.

Harry laughed weakly, but wondered, could she be his first friend? As Sirius pointed out, they both read a lot, and would see each other fairly often down Diagon Alley. Plus she didn't seem to dislike him anymore – maybe he would try to talk to her again the next time he saw her. What's the worst that could happen?

One thing was for sure though. Daphne was a very interesting girl.