The Leaky Cauldron

Never before had he been able to get up whenever he wanted or eat whatever he fancied.

"Really?"

"Yeah. Even when I stayed at the Burrow I still had to be up by a certain time if I wanted to actually have breakfast."

He could even go wherever he pleased, as long as it was in Diagon Alley, and as this long cobbled street was packed with the most fascinating wizarding shops in the world, Harry felt no desire to break his word to Fudge and stray back into the Muggle world.

Many muggleborns, and a few muggle-raised half-bloods, all nodded their agreement. They may love the muggle world, it was where they grew up and lived after all, but they would take the magical world over it any day; the magical world was so fascinating and, well, magical.

("Personally, I won't let any of the children out alone until he's back in Azkaban")

"Poor kids," Ron said. They would never be allowed out on their own again if he, Hermione, and Harry had anything to say about it; after what they'd gone through in their third year, they weren't letting Sirius go back to Azkaban without a fight.

Harry didn't have to do his homework under the blankets by flashlight anymore; now he could sit in the bright sunshine outside Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour, finishing all his essays with occasional help from Florean Fortescue himself, who, apart from knowing a great deal about medieval witch burnings, gave Harry free sundaes every half an hour.

"I learnt more about history over that summer than in my first two years with Binns," Harry said.

"And he gave you incentive to stay and actually listen rather than falling asleep during the lecture," Hermione said.

"If we had sundaes during History, I'm sure more of us would stay awake."

He had to keep reminding himself that he had five years to go at Hogwarts, and how it would feel to ask the Dursleys for money for spell books, to stop himself from buying a handsome set of solid gold Gobstones

"Who would even want gold Gobstones? They would work exactly the same as normal Gobstones," Padma said.

"The look of them probably," Terry said.

"And the fact that it's a way to brag about how much money they have," Michael said.

But the thing that tested Harry's resolution most appeared in his favourite shop, Quality Quidditch Supplies, a week after he'd arrived at the Leaky Cauldron.

"Firebolt?" Ron asked.

"Firebolt," Harry agreed, nodding.

Price on request… Harry didn't like to think how much gold the Firebolt would cost.

"More than seven Nimbus Two Thousand and One's," George said.

"Very true, brother of mine. Otherwise, Malfoy would probably have one," Fred agreed.

He had never wanted anything as much in his whole life — but he had never lost a Quidditch match on his Nimbus Two Thousand,

Harry winced slightly. He had lost one match with his Nimbus, and that had been the match where he lost his Nimbus too. That had not been a good day.

Harry didn't ask for the price, but he returned, almost every day after that, just to look at the Firebolt.

"That's fair."

"I would."

"Fair enough."

"Who wouldn't?"

"Something I would do."

He went to the Apothecary to replenish his store of potions ingredients,

"Why did you have to restock them? The first-year kit had enough to get most of us through to the end of third year," Neville said. Harry shrugged – he wasn't going to tell them that he had gone through his potions supplies quicker than most because of the prank potions he had brewed in his first two years.

and as his school robes were now several inches too short in the arm and leg, he visited Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions and bought new ones.

"You finally grew," Lee said.

"Still a scrawny git though," the twins said.

"A scrawny git that will hex you if you don't shut up," Harry said.

"We're not scared."

"I never said it would be now. Maybe I'll partner with you next meeting." Fred and George paled slightly at that, before quickly masking it and grinning at him. Most people in the DA didn't want to partner with him in the way he meant – duelling him; he was extremely good at Defence and no one had even come close to beating him yet, with Ron and Hermione being the closest since they knew him so well and could guess how he was going to react.

Most important of all, he had to buy his new schoolbooks, which would include those for his two new subjects, Care of Magical Creatures and Divination.

"Divination was a mistake," Harry groaned.

He drew on a pair of very thick gloves, picked up a large, knobbly walking stick, and proceeded toward the door of the Monster Books' cage.

"Why did he just assume that you would need that book?" Bill asked.

"I clearly looked like a third-year, and Care of Magical Creatures is the second most popular elective. With it having a new teacher, a lot of third, fourth, and fifth years would have needed that book," Harry said with a shrug.

"How do you know how popular it is?" Charlie asked.

"I asked Mione about the sizes of all the classes she had, and it was the one with the second-largest class size. And it was one of the only two electives that were split into two houses, rather than being combined."

I've been bitten five times already this morning —"

"Stupid books."

"They should have come with instructions."

"They bit me so many times."

"A belt should have been provided."

"They were vicious."

I thought we'd seen the worst when we bought two hundred copies of the Invisible Book of Invisibility

"Who would even want an invisible book?"

Very good guide to all your basic fortune-telling methods — palmistry, crystal balls, bird entrails."

"So glad we didn't get to bird entrails," Lavender said. As much as she liked Divination, using bird entrails was just too much. Parvati nodded, totally agreeing with her.

"I was panicking when I saw that thing in Magnolia Crescent… It was probably just a stray dog…"

"Definitely a mutt," Harry said with a grin. Snuffles let out a huff of air; he was clearly going to get used to small digs at him like that. At least his godson seemed happy, so he could deal with it; plus, he was out of that forsaken house.

He raised his hand automatically and tried to make his hair lie flat.

"You really should know by now that that's not going to do anything," Hermione said with a sigh.

"Habit," harry said with a shrug. Half the time he didn't even realise he was doing it.

"You're fighting a losing battle there, dear," said his mirror in a wheezy voice.

"Even the mirror knows it," Ron said with a small laugh. Harry just sighed.

Harry hoped she never found out that he'd pretended to be Neville while on the run from the Ministry of Magic.

"She wouldn't have cared. She probably would have been proud that you consider me such a close friend that you cold pretend to be me," Neville said.

"Harry! HARRY!"

"You were totally oblivious. We had to have called you at least five times before you actually heard us and turned," Ron said.

"Sorry that I was lost in thought," Harry replied sarcastically.

"Eh. You know we love you anyway," Ron said.

"Should I be scared about what you were thinking about that made you get lost in thought so much that you didn't hear us?" Hermione asked. She knew that Harry was often pretty alert about his surroundings, so had to be thinking pretty hard about something – probably in the first level of his unresponsive thinking.

"Not really. It's already happened." He shrugged.

I filled the staffroom with balloons that screamed when they were popped.

Is that why all the teachers seemed a mix of annoyed and exasperated on the second day of term? Hermione asked. Harry smirked.

Maybe.

They were there, both of them, sitting outside Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour — Ron looking incredibly freckly, Hermione very brown,

"The sun treated you both really well that summer," Harry said when they turned to him, eyebrows raised at his description of them.

Mr. Weasley, who worked at the Ministry of Magic, would of course have heard the whole story of what had happened to Aunt Marge.

"Which is not how these things are meant to work. The whole Ministry isn't meant to know about underage magic or accidental magic mishaps," Amelia said.

"I was contacted, even though we were on vacation, because I was the best one to consult on what to make a muggle think had happened, rather than what had actually happened," Mr Weasley assured her – even as corrupt as the Ministry was, most of the processes surrounding accidental magic and underage magic were still followed.

"I didn't mean to," said Harry, while Ron roared with laughter.

"It was funny. Dad might have told me since it concerned my best mate, and I told Mione, but I didn't think it had actually been that bad until Harry confirmed it."

"Honestly, I'm amazed Harry wasn't expelled."

"It was accidental magic. He wasn't going to get expelled. Hence why I wasn't worried about laughing," Ron said with a shrug.

"And I didn't know if they could tell the difference. Especially because what he'd done to a muggle, even if it was an accident," Hermione replied; they had talked about it at the time and why they had all reacted differently, but it never hurt to go over it again, especially now they were hearing about it from a third party's perspective – namely, Harry's perspective.

"Your dad doesn't know why Fudge let me off, does he?"

"Because it was determined to be accidental," Mr Weasley said.

"Famous Harry Potter and all that.

"Sorry mate. I know you hate it. But he hadn't actually told me why you got off, just that you'd accidentally blown-up your muggle Aunt and had run away to Diagon, and weren't in trouble."

I'd hate to see what the Ministry'd do to me if I blew up an aunt.

"Mum would get to us first."

"You'd have to dig us up first."

"Mum would kill us."

"The Ministry aren't the ones we'd have to worry about."

"Brand-new wand.

"Thank Merlin."

The assistant nearly cried when we said we wanted two."

"I don't blame him."

"One's bad enough."

"Two would be a nightmare."

"I'd cry if I needed two."

"Those are my books for Arithmancy, Care of Magical Creatures, Divination, the Study of Ancient Runes, Muggle Studies —"

"How are you taking all of them?"

"There's not enough time for all that."

"Why are you even taking Muggle Studied?"

"But it'll be fascinating to study them from the wizarding point of view," said Hermione earnestly.

"Was it?"

"A bit. But a lot of their information was about ten years outdated. It wouldn't matter much, but muggles are advancing really quickly these days."

"Are you planning to eat or sleep at all this year, Hermione?" asked Harry,

"It was a serious question," Harry defended himself. Hermione shoved him but grinned. She knew they had just been worried about her and her workload, they had been all year – they just had different ways of showing it.

"I really want an owl.

"But you don't have an owl," Parvati said.

"I got a different pet," Hermione said with a shrug.

"That's when you got that devil cat of yours," Seamus said. He didn't know how many times he had to chase that cat out of their dorm. And that cat seemed to always be sitting on the chair he wanted, and left it covered in cat hair – he didn't mind a bit of cat hair, it came with having a couple cats in the tower, but that cat had to shed three times more than the other cats to leave that much hair behind.

"Crookshanks isn't a devil," the trio protested.

"You two weren't saying that all of third year," Dean said.

"Opinions change."

I mean, Harry's got Hedwig

"I don't really have Hedwig. If anything, I'm her human rather than her being my owl." Hedwig had chosen him after all. Hagrid had taken him into Eyelop's to choose an owl he liked and Hedwig had flown off her perch and straight to his shoulder and refused to move until they got everything they needed for her.

"I don't think Egypt agreed with him."

"It wasn't Egypt that didn't agree with him," Ron muttered.

It was smelly and very noisy because the occupants of these cages were all squeaking, squawking, jabbering, or hissing.

"The hissing from the snakes was actually funny if I focused on what they were saying," Harry said.

"What were they saying?" Charlie asked.

"Some were complaining about not having enough food or about being stuck in a cage, but most of them were simply demanding food because they were royalty that deserved to be waited on or praising those who were looking at them for choosing the best snake to watch."

"Bang him on the counter,"

"Should have banged him," Ron muttered under his breath with a scowl. He hated how carefully he had treated the traitor. And it was even worse because they were going to have to listen to how that traitor almost tore their friendship apart.

"How old is this rat?"

"Old," the trio and Remus said. The trio all shot Remus looks – Remus was the same age as the rat.

"Quite old.

"How old is Snuffles?" Harry asked.

"He's almost 36," Remus said. "So pretty old."

"Aren't you the same age?" Harry asked quietly.

"His birthday in November. Mine isn't until March. So, he's old, I'm not."

"Who's the oldest?" Hermione asked curiously.

"Snuffles. The rat was about a month after him and James was the end of March, so was the youngest." The trio nodded, understanding why he called the rat old now – based on his logic, they were older than him, so they were old.

"What powers does he have?" said the witch, examining Scabbers closely.

"None," the trio said, almost growling. The rest of their group, apart from Remus and Snuffles, shot them confused looks, wondering why they were acting so aggressively towards Scabbers. The Weasleys were especially confused by Ron's reaction – he had been devastated when Scabbers had been eaten.

They're starting to notice. Maybe we should back off from Wormtail, Hermione said.

That's not happening, Harry replied, Ron nodding his agreement.

At least make it less obvious then, Hermione said, rolling her eyes; she didn't know why she thought they would back off.

"Well, if you don't want a replacement, you can try this rat tonic," said the witch,

"Hope it tasted disgusting," Ron grumbled.

Ron buckled as something huge and orange came soaring from the top of the highest cage, landed on his head, and then propelled itself, spitting madly, at Scabbers.

"He already knew?" Harry asked, shocked. He had known that Crookshanks had known Pettigrew was an Animagus, but he hadn't realised he had known from the start.

"Apparently," Hermione agreed.

"It was either a very big cat or quite a small tiger," said Harry.

"I'm going with small tiger," Lee said with a snigger.

"You bought that monster?" said Ron, his mouth hanging open.

"He's not a monster," Hermione said.

"I guess," Ron and Harry agreed. They had definitely learnt that year that Crookshanks wasn't a total monster.

Poor Crookshanks, that witch said he'd been in there for ages; no one wanted him."

"Did she say how long?" Remus asked. He had though the cat had looked familiar in the shack but had had a lot of other things on his mind and hadn't heard the name of the cat. But now he wondered.

"More than ten years. He was there when she started working there. Why?"

"I was wondering why he looked familiar. Lily had a cat that looked a lot like Crookshanks, from what I've seen of him, called Crookshanks. If he had been at the shop long enough, I was thinking it could be the same cat."

"Mum had a cat?" Harry asked.

"Oh yeah. You almost killed him a few times on the toy broom you got for your first birthday, according to letters from your parents. He was the only feline Siri could stand being around."

"Do you think he recognised them?" Ron asked.

"It is possible," Remus agreed. "It would make sense how he knew. No matter how smart a half-kneazle like him is, he had to have known something before he first saw them."

"Black's not going to be caught by a thirteen-year-old wizard.

The trio all did their best to stifle their laughter. Thirteen-year-olds weren't able to catch Sirius, yeah right. They may not have deliberately caught him – he was the one who caught Ron and lured them to the Shack – but they had disarmed him and had him at wand-point before Remus had arrived.

"That's enough, now," said Mrs. Weasley.

"Always ruin the fun," the twins muttered. They loved their mum, but she just didn't understand their joking and their pranks.

"I don't doubt that," said Mrs. Weasley, frowning suddenly.

"Do you have no faith in Ron?" Harry asked, slightly coldly – he had noticed Ron's expression when she had said that the first time, and he had the same expression now, if a bit more muted.

"Of course, I do," Mrs Weasley protested, shocked by the question. Harry just stared at her; that comment really didn't enforce that she had any faith in Ron being able to make Head Boy.

It's fine Harry. I don't care.

It does matter. She's your mum. She should believe you can do it.

It's fine Harry, just let it go. I don't care. I don't even want to be Head Boy. Prefect is hard enough and it's only been a few months.

That's beside the point. The point is that she didn't believe you could do it when you're perfectly capable to become Head Boy. Ron sighed and wrapped an arm around Harry's shoulder, nudging his knee with his leg. He knew why Harry was annoyed though; both he and Hermione knew that Harry was extremely defensive of those he claimed as his, and they had been his since their first year.

"I notice they haven't made you two prefects."

"Why would the twins want to be prefects?" Hermione asked. She may have really wanted it, but she couldn't see the twins wanting it. For one, only one of them could be prefect. And the twins hated being apart from each other – they acted as one person half the time, they were that close with each other.

"It'd take all the fun out of life."

"I don't know. I was Prefect. And James was Head Boy. It didn't stop us. If anything, it gave us more freedom and leverage, since Prefects and the Head students have wider access to the school – they have the passwords to some extra places – and they have later curfews with reasons to be out of bed," Remus said.

"Please don't encourage them Lupin," Minerva sighed. She really didn't need the twins to have more help with their pranking. At least it was too late for one of them to become Head Boy or Prefect – they were just lucky that their year level had four boys, and one of them stayed out of trouble, otherwise either one of the twins or Lee would have had to be made Prefect; Lee may not have been as bad as the twins when it came to pranks, but he still caused a lot of mayhem. They hadn't been as lucky when the Marauder's were at school – one of them had to be made Prefect, since there wasn't any other boys in their year.

His voice was casual, but Harry couldn't help noticing that Mr. Wesley's ears had gone red, just like Ron's did when he was under pressure.

Mr Weasley frowned slightly; why did Harry have to be so observant and notice that?

A nice sight you'd be on the Muggle Underground…

"Why couldn't you use the floo? They're all old enough now," Remus said.

"Harry got lost the first time. We weren't going to risk that again. Especially not with Sirius Black on the loose and on the day of the Express," Mrs Weasley said.

"He's dumped them on my bed."

"Snitch," Ron muttered.

"My Head Boy badge is gone," said Percy, rounding on Harry.

"Why did he think Ron did anything to it? Anyone could have told him that the twin took it," Bill said.

"Harry's got a right to know.

"Yes, I do. It's my life," Harry said. "It's not like we won't find out anyway." He looked directly at Dumbledore as he said this; he was referring to more than just third year. If Dumbledore didn't want to tell him what was going on this year, then he, Ron, and Hermione would find out one way or another. And it was only so long before they found out the information too late and someone got hurt because information was withheld – or worse, someone died because of it.

Those in the Order shifted at those words, knowing that he was making a deliberate jab at them and how they weren't telling him anything about what was going on with Voldemort.

"Arthur, the truth would terrify him!"

"It really didn't," Harry said with a shrug.

"It scared us more than him," Hermione agreed.

"I don't want to make him miserable, I want to put him on his guard!" retorted Mr. Weasley.

"At least someone tells me these things," Harry grumbled. He knew that, if he hadn't have known before going back to school, he would have reacted a lot differently when he overheard that Siri was his godfather and had apparently betrayed his parents to Voldemort.

"You know what Harry and Ron are like, wandering off by themselves — they've ended up in the Forbidden Forest twice!

"Once was for a detention," the trio said indignantly. The other time they had had a good reason too.

If the Knight Bus hadn't picked him up, I'm prepared to bet he would have been dead before the Ministry found him."

Harry tried not to scoff, he really did, but he couldn't help it. Siri had literally been standing not even five feet from him and had done nothing. He hadn't even been near a mass murderer until he met up with Ron again.

"Molly, they say Sirius Black's mad,

"He is," Remus said again, the trio nodding their agreement, causing Ginny to giggle slightly, especially at the Snuffles' betrayed look.

It's been three weeks, and no one's seen hide nor hair of him, and I don't care what Fudge keeps telling the Daily Prophet, we're no nearer catching Black than inventing self-spelling wands.

"That's an idea," Fred said. George nodded, pulling out their ideas parchment again, the two of them leaning their heads together, muttering ideas back and forth. Everyone let them be. It was safer to not know.

The only thing we know for sure is what Black's after —"

"And they weren't even right about that," Ron grumbled.

"But Harry will be perfectly safe at Hogwarts."

The trio snorted. Hogwarts was definitely perfectly safe. Totally. The amount of times they had nearly died while at Hogwarts must have been a mistake then.

Always the same words: 'He's at Hogwarts… he's at Hogwarts.'

"That could mean anyone though," Susan said.

"What do you mean?" Hannah asked.

"There's a lot of people at Hogwarts, and he never mentioned a name. Harry's probably the most obvious target, as well as Dumbledore, at Hogwarts, but he could have meant anyone."

Black is deranged, Molly, and he wants Harry dead.

Snuffles growled at the thought of him wanting to kill Harry. He would rather die.

Black lost everything the night Harry stopped You-Know-Who,

Remus and Harry both looked down, knowing that that was true. He had lost everything that night. His brother, someone close enough to be a sister, one of his best friends through betrayal, his other best friend thinking he was the betrayer, and his freedom. He really had lost everything.

He wasn't happy about it, but he agreed."

"No one would be happy about that," Dumbledore said.

"If they save Harry —"

The trio snorted again. The Dementors had been the thig that caused the most harm to him that year. They had caused him to collapse three time, almost Kissed him, and made him fall over fifty feet from his broom. But yes, they had definitely been there to save Harry. He definitely didn't have to learn extremely advanced magic just to protect himself from their extreme effect on him.

Surely Black, as Voldemort's right-hand man, would be just as frightened of him?

"Most of the Death Eaters are frightened of him," Remus agreed.

They seemed to scare most people senseless,

"For good reason," Amelia said. She knew how much her Aurors hated them, and punishment for shirking duty became a month or two guarding Azkaban because of that.

and if they were stationed all around the school, Black's chances of getting inside seemed very remote.

Everyone who had been at Hogwarts that yeah snorted or did their best to hide their laughter. He had gotten inside twice, so no, his chances of breaking in hadn't been remote at all.

No, all in all, the thing that bothered Harry most was the fact that his chances of visiting Hogsmeade now looked like zero.

"Really? You find out that a mass murderer has broken out of Azkaban, to most likely try and kill you, and you worry about not being able to visit Hogsmeade?" Remus asked sceptically.

"Yeah. Hogsmeade visits were my one escape and chance to just be a teenager, rather than Harry Potter. And that was taken away from me." He wasn't going to mention that he had gone to Hogsmeade every Hogsmeade weekend other than the first one, even if it was mentioned in the book.

Did they think he couldn't look after himself?

"I can. I've been doing it all my life."

He'd escaped Lord Voldemort three times; he wasn't completely useless…

"I doubt anyone could say you're useless."

"Useless isn't a word I'd use to describe you."

"You're anything but useless."

"Anyone who came to a meeting would agree you're not useless."

"That's the spirit, dear," said his mirror sleepily.

The room burst into chatter then as the chapter finished. Most of the talk was centred around Harry and Sirius Black. Everyone knew he had escaped Azkaban, but most people didn't know why. And now to hear he had escaped to try and kill Harry. Well, that was something they really wanted to talk about.

Eventually everyone calmed down so Filius could start the next chapter.

The Dementor

"The Dementor? Why is the chapter called the Dementor," Mrs Weasley exclaimed, already starting to freak out.

"We get our first look at what Dementors are, that's all," Hermione said calmly.

"And you're allowed a calming draught for this chapter if you need it," Harry added. Mr Weasley gripped his wife's hand, getting her to calm down, and nodded in thanks. The trio handed out the calming draughts as the chapter began.