It's Deku Scrub Time! If you need a refresher on what they look like in this fic, I've posted higher-def redraws (and tweaked designs for Belle, the soldiers, and aristocrats) under the "concept art" and "dungeon 3" tags on my blog. And now, we have a chapter entirely from Sirius's point of view to get the Ravenclaw situation better established. They're going to be in the Lost Woods for a while. It might seem mean, but this will actually be good for Sirius and these kids in the long run! Call it a learning experience. I hope you like my portrayal of Luna here! I find her tricky to write, but I wanted to let her have a cool moment like Neville did in the Boggart Scene. Also, we've got some Hylian in this chapter with translations listed in the endnotes.

Q/A:

To Odin's Eye: Since seeing your comment, I've gone back and added some more displayed images on Ao3! A lot of my art has alternate versions or would blur out if I crunched it to an Ao3-friendly size (usually 600-800px tall to avoid taking up too much space), so that's why it often gets hidden behind Tumblr links. I'd still suggest that readers do a speed run through my blog's "personal fanart" tag—the full dumping ground of my story art—for the real gallery experience, but now the Ao3 version of this story is a step closer to that. I have some questions for the audience, though: would adding more displayed concept art (fashion, NPC/creature designs, tech, and other things that aren't strictly in-story illustrations) on Ao3 feel like an annoying interruption to reading by making chapters even more art-heavy, or improve the reading experience by adding visuals you don't have to click away for? Also, is the current sizing of images good or would you rather I make the more detailed pics up to 1000px high to improve the visual readability? You can review here, on Ao3, or use the poll I've added to my profile to let me know what you think!

Sirius wriggled his hands against the tightly twisted cloth tied around his wrists. "Must you?" he asked in long-suffering tones.

"Yes," said the leader of the seventh-year trio staring him down, Ravenclaw's Head Girl. Kajiwara was a tall, waifish kid with long black hair slowly slithering out of the hurried bun she'd put it in. She was flanked by Clearwater, a nervous-looking girl with curly blonde hair, and Turner, a stern-faced boy with a close-cut Afro. "You said you wanted to stick around, so fine. Stick around. However, we're going to take certain precautions."

"If my Animagus magic still works, I can shape-shift out of this," he pointed out.

"And we can choose to light you on fire or let you run off from there. But then you'd never be able to clear your name—assuming you have any standing to clear it in the first place," she countered. "We're the only people around who know any of the details of your court case. If we're in another country and you run off to find help from authorities who don't know you, don't speak your language, and only see you as an illegal immigrant, who knows what might happen?"

Oh, that was very true. Sirius hadn't considered that. He knew he could survive in the wilderness just fine, but getting justice for his friends and making sure everyone knew what Peter had done? How was he supposed to do that from some random corner of the world? "I helped you evacuate the tower without trying to hurt anyone, though," he said. "Why do I have to be tied up after I helped? If I intended to hurt you, I would have made an attempt by now. I've never been a patient man."

"If you want to earn our trust and convince us to serve as character witnesses, you're going to have to jump through a lot of hoops first, Mr. Black," Kajiwara said without an ounce of sympathy. "Until you can prove that Ron Weasley's rat is a man in disguise, we're deeming you guilty. Since we have no idea where said rat is, you're just going to have to stay guilty for now."

Sirius sighed. "Alright, I'm guilty for the time being, then. What's the plan, other than tying me up?" he asked. "Are you going to risk abandoning shelter—as ruined as that shelter is—to travel the forest in a large group? Are you going to split up to cover more ground, risking people getting separated and lost? Is one group going to leave while another stays?"

"We're all going to leave in one group, of course. There's no point in staying by the tower; it's sideways and full of broken glass," she said. "If we're all together, no one gets lost and the injured kids can be carried." She walked past Sirius and motioned for him to stay behind her. "I'm going out front, and you're going to stay right behind me so the others can watch you. Understand?"

He closed his eyes and exhaled through his nose as he reconsidered his decision to stay for the umpteenth time. The last scion of the House of Black, being bossed around by a kid half his age. His mother would have had an aneurism. "Fine," he said, standing behind Kajiwara. "Not that I could do anything without a wand…"

She sent him an aggravated glare, then squared her shoulders and strode confidently into the misty woods. Sirius shuffled after her, tailed by dozens of wary children watching for the slightest unsavory twitch.

They traveled through the forest at a frustratingly slow speed. Due to how the dormitories were laid out around the tower, their group consisted of most of Ravenclaw's first year and around half of second and seventh, coming to a total of thirty-two displaced children and budding young adults. Their numbers, as well as the amount of children struggling to carry their belongings, dragged them down. Sirius wished he'd turned into a dog and searched around before revealing himself to the kids. With his sharp nose, he could have easily navigated back to the tower, and bounding around as a pseudo-Grim would have given him a much higher foot-speed than this dirge.

Dying of boredom, he watched the trees gradually pass. They were on a narrow trail of sorts, a meandering line of ground minutely smoother and wider than the rest. Really, they could have wandered anywhere and it would have been hardly different; despite the forest being populated by a mix of oaks, evergreens, and shrubbery, there was no way to form any mental landmarks. It was a shadowed blur of blue-tinted green and brown visual monotony carpeted in an uninterrupted blanket of fog. They moved loudly through it, trundling across the carpet of leaves and pine needles with all the subtlety of a Muggle tank. If there were any chance of hearing the rustles of animals to hunt or the sounds of civilization, it was dashed by the thunder of the many children's heavy feet.

There was a tug at his sleeve. Sirius ignored it at first, chalking it up to his improvised restraints catching on his clothes, but then he felt the tug again, closer to his shoulder. He looked down to see a young girl with grayish blonde hair and round silvery eyes staring up at him. The child had a somewhat eerie gaze, as though she were simultaneously looking at and through him. She hugged the Ravenclaw copy of the Hylian Bestiary to her chest with one protective arm.

"There are too many of us," she said in a soft voice. "The Koroks aren't used to seeing this many humans in the forest at once."

He looked at the girl, and then behind them, where dozens of pairs of eyes were silently daring him to try something. "Why are you talking to me?" he asked.

"Because you were on Harry's adventure team. You know more about Hyrule than any of us here, Mr. Black," she answered. "Except Zelda, but that isn't really fair. She was the queen, after all."

Sirius's eyes opened wide. He could kind of remember the name "Zelda". Draco had mentioned Hermione talking to her, and how idiotically naïve the muggleborn girl was for accepting the potential lies of a possessed book so easily. "I was a dog, so I wasn't exactly paying close attention to the conversations, but I heard some things," he acknowledged. "What does Hyrule have to do with this place?"

"We're in Hyrule. Didn't you know?" She looked up at one of the trees. "The Koroks are afraid of us. The Skull Kids aren't, though. I think they're happy to have fresh ears to play for."

"What's a 'Korok'? Or a 'Skull Kid'? What are you looking at?" he asked, peering up into the tree. There wasn't anything he could see.

"Don't listen to her. That's Loony Lovegood," a boy behind them advised. "She sees things all the time. You're crazy enough without Loony filling your head with her ideas."

"I'm not crazy!" Sirius snapped. "I don't think she is, either." He took a closer look at the cloud of children trailing behind him. They had started out with the size of a full class. He didn't have much experience in keeping track of large numbers of people, but he could tell the crowd looked a bit smaller than before.

"If you hear music, don't follow it," Luna said in her lilting, misty voice. "It's the Skull Kids. They want to make friends. It's too bad that their human friends have to die before they can play with them forever. If we wandered off, we'd become Stalchildren or Skull Kids ourselves." She tucked a little closer to Sirius. "Your trumpet is very nice, but we can't play with you today!" she called into the trees. "I'm sorry!"

The hair on the back of Sirius's neck stood up. Luna might have been seeing and listening to things beyond his perception, but he could feel an odd buzz in the air. The scent of the forest was a little stronger than it had been at the start of their trek, the fog creeping higher up the tree trunks. His eyes were drawn to a spot of color. A trail of bushes leading to the left was alit with beautiful flowers untouched by the shadows. They almost appeared as if to glow in the gloom. The girl leading the group paused, her eyes affixed on the vivid blooms. She started drifting toward them, seeming hypnotized.

Unable to pull her back with his tied hands, Sirius quickly put himself between Kajiwara and the fairy trail. She thumped against his chest, then stumbled back with a cry of anger. "Why did you get in my way?" she demanded, leveling her wand at him. "You know I'm the one leading the group! Why are you trying to sabotage us?"

"I saved you, you daft girl! Didn't your parents teach you not to follow any suspicious trails in the forest? Those bushes were obviously a fairy trick!" he shouted with equal anger. "Do a head-count. We had thirty-two kids with us when we started. How many do we have now?"

"Wh-What?" She looked past him, at her diminishing flock. So did Sirius. He estimated the number of children was down to the mid-twenties. The smallest students were definitely fewer. "I didn't even notice," the girl said with horror.

"The forest lured them away," Luna said, her soft voice hardened by fear. She kept a firm grip on Sirius's sleeve, as though she were using it as a lifeline. "We can save them, but we need to stay quiet. Then we can ask the Koroks if they know where the Deku Scrubs are. The Deku Scrubs might help."

"Lovegood, I understand you're an imaginative girl, but now isn't the time for your silly ideas," Kajiwara said in a strained voice. "We need to get out of here as soon as possible—"

"Which is what we've been trying to do, losing people in the process," Sirius cut in. "Moving through the forest isn't helping. The fairies are only going to keep luring your classmates away."

"Let's just sit down and be quiet for a while. We can listen to the nice music while we wait for the Koroks to get used to us," Luna said. "The Skull Kids like it when people listen. The one playing the ocarina has been trying really hard to impress us."

"Lovegood," Kajiwara hissed. "You're not helping!"

As Sirius watched, another few kids pulled away from the group. The others didn't seem to notice, too busy staring wonderingly in every other direction. Sirius took a deep breath, praying his wandless magic still worked. Then he shape-shifted, yelping in pain as the restraints wrenched his shoulders. Fortunately, his paws managed to slip through the ties before he could dislocate his arms. He dashed forward and planted himself in front of the wayward children. He barked, sharp and loud, snapping out them out of their trance. They screamed and stumbled back into the flock.

Light, playful music reached Sirius's canine ears. He didn't recognize the instrument, but it might have been that ocarina Luna had mentioned. The flute-like sound had a specific directionality despite the way it seemed to drift everywhere. He could feel it urging him to turn around and seek out its source. Sirius kept his eyes fixed on the Ravenclaws fearfully staring at him; he wasn't going to be the next to be bewitched.

Kajiwara stormed over with Luna in tow. Luna strained against the firm grip the Head Girl had on her arm, reaching for something in the trees. Kajiwara pushed the little second-year at Sirius. "So long as you're going to be a pain in the neck, you can make yourself useful. Make sure the fairy girl doesn't wander off. I'm going to organize everyone." She walked around the cluster of children, shouting orders to her fellow seventh-years.

Sirius shifted back into his human form and wrapped an arm around Luna. She folded against him, not seeming to mind his ratty prison robes, and took shuddering breaths. He awkwardly patted her on the back, unsure of what to do. It seemed like she was being hit the hardest by the strange magic in the air, hearing music he could only perceive as a dog and seeing things—

Wait a minute, he had more magic than just his shape-shifting, didn't he? He'd been without a wand for some time now, but he'd still made it through three Hyrulean labyrinths. That meant he had a few tools to work with.

Sirius conjured the Lenses of Truth to his nose and the forest suddenly burst into life. The heavy blue-gray pall dragging down the colors was ripped away and the dull buzz in his ears became music and shrill whispering voices. He took in the sights of the verdant trees, the flowering bushes, and the strange motes of light filling the air. There was a spectral blue-white…not a rabbit, but something that brought one to mind, hopping around and idly scratching its feathery gold antennae not too far from him and Luna. He watched it for a while, his mind idly cataloguing all the ways it definitely wasn't a rabbit.

"You can see Blupees?" a piping voice asked excitedly. Similar to how the rabbit wasn't a rabbit, it was a child's voice and yet not. "That means you can see Koroks!"

Sirius stiffly turned his head to the right. A tiny tree smiled up at him. Its face was a large poplar leaf plastered across the front of its trunk-like body, pinned in place by a pointy twig that stuck out like a nose. "You can see me!" the toddler-sized creature said with delight. The dark, hollow hole representing its mouth stretched upward, but didn't move as it spoke. "And so can your friend! It's been a long time since I've been able to talk to anyone from outside the forest. I'm Poppo! What's your name?"

"Hello, Poppo, I'm Luna," the girl at Sirius's side said.

The tree-child looked expectantly at Sirius.

Giving fairies one's name was a bad idea, even cute ones. Especially cute ones. A lot of wizards from newer families lacked that traditional wariness, made complacent by Defense Against the Dark Arts and Care for Magical Creatures classes. Being able to categorize magical creatures made some people forget why some of those beings were feared and respected. "I'm Padfoot," he told the fairy.

"Oh, because you're a doggy!" Poppo said with an understanding bow that approximated a nod. "Are you the people that fell in here a little while ago? I didn't know so many humans could fit in one little building!"

"We're all trying to find where the rest of that building went," Luna said. Sirius despaired for the fate of the younger generation, if they thought it was all well and good to tell fairies their business. "We didn't mean to scare all of you. An evil wizard sent us into the forest and we've only been trying to find a way out. Do you know where the Deku Scrubs are? We need their help to get our friends back from the Skull Kids."

"But why? Aren't they having fun?" Poppo asked innocently. As if its fellow fae killing children were just another game.

"Maybe, but we have more friends to find—ones that live outside the forest. They'd be sad if some of us were missing," Luna said. "So could you show us to where the Deku Scrubs are, please? Mr. Padfoot is friends with them, you know. He helped them get back home."

Now, instead of staring at the fairy, Sirius stared at Luna. How on earth did she know that?

'Zelda must have been passing news along from Hermione to Luna,' he thought. It was a good thing this girl wasn't a tattling sort.

A hand gripped Sirius's shoulder hard. He winced at the nails digging through his threadbare robes. The pale, harried face of Ravenclaw's Head Girl slid into his field of view. "What the hell are you talking to?" she growled through her teeth.

In response, Sirius took the glasses off his nose and held them out to her. He rolled his eyes when she shied back. "You know what these things are," he said, raising them so she could see through their purple lenses. "I don't have the clearest memory from when I was cursed into my Animagus form, but you must have seen the red Harry Potter going about the castle wearing them. They reveal the truth. And improve your vision, if it's as bad as his."

The girl plucked the glasses from his hand like a wary owl accepting a treat. Then, upon dropping them onto her nose, she clapped her hands over her mouth with a dramatic gasp. "Ohmygod, my grandparents were right," she breathed. "I thought they were just old-fashioned, so I always brushed it off when they said we had to respect the nature spirits." She pulled at her unraveling coif. "There are nature spirits! Here! They're real!"

"You're a witch going to school right next to a forest full of Bowtruckles, unicorns, and centaurs, and you thought nature spirits weren't real?" Sirius asked incredulously. "Next you're going to tell me you're too logical to believe in fairies, aren't you?"

"Of course not. Bowtruckles, unicorns, centaurs, and beings classified as 'fae' are living creatures that people have seen and studied. There's data to back up their existence," she said with a shake of her head. "These are spirits. They represent something alive. They aren't literal living organisms in a biological sense. Only the spiritual and the spirit-touched can see such things, and they don't tend to be scientists. My grandparents told me as such, but I…I didn't think it was anything more than a religious belief until now."

Luna clapped her hands together with delight. "Oh, so you know the difference between spirits and magical creatures!" she proclaimed. "So few people can appreciate the distinction."

Kajiwara knelt down beside Luna. "I'm sorry for thinking you were loony, Lovegood. You were right, at least about this," she said, putting a hand on the younger girl's shoulder. Then she turned to the unseen Korok. "Hello, I'm Tomoko. We're sorry for walking through your forest without bringing you any offerings. You and your friends can take whatever's interesting from the building that fell in the forest if you like. But in exchange, could you please…"

A while of talking to the air later, Kajiwara started leading the group through the narrowest, most confusing path it seemed she could find. "Pick up your things and hustle, or leave them behind and replace them later!" she barked when a few too many people complained. "If we don't get out of this forest, we'll die and leave our ghosts here! Unless you like the sound of that, find a way to keep up!"

Sirius trotted in dog-form at the back of the group with Luna, having earned enough of Kajiwara's trust to be put on child-herding duty. If anyone started drifting from the pack, he'd run over to drag them back to safety, then return to Luna before the forest could eat her, too. The farther along the difficult path they went, the harder the woods attempted to pull their group apart. With his senses boosted, he could hear the trumpet, ocarina, and harp getting closer and louder, their melodies becoming more complex and lilting. Brilliant flowers appeared from the gloom with greater frequency, accompanied by scents that would have smelled tantalizingly sweet to Sirius as a human, but just made him sneeze as a dog. He even saw a couple of Blupees hopping around in the distance, just close enough to serve as false guiding lights for a few curious students.

After a while, his neck ached from resisting the urge to turn his head toward the music. The scent of flowers, once overwhelming, was mellowing to the point of becoming ambrosia for his sensitive nose. He almost strayed from the group after saving a cluster of students from the song of a harp, making the mistake of turning his head in the direction of the musician. His eyes locked onto the graceful movements of the harpist's hands and the silver glow of the instrument's strings. An audience of Koroks danced and played around the harpist. Why was Sirius all the way over here, following around this pack of kids who hated him, when there were so many friends to be made over there? He wanted to howl along with the song and accept the children's adoring pets…

No, wait, he didn't have time to play. That was his dog-brain talking. Sirius had to protect someone. Luna. The strange girl who was now one of his pups. She couldn't be left on her own!

Sirius ran back to Luna just in time to drag her away from the tantalizing glow of a Blupee. He kept his mental guards raised even higher after that, leaning on his experiences in Azkaban to defend against the magical lures. If he could endure the negative effects of creatures like Dementors, he could weather the positive effects of these forest spirits. It was all mind-magic, after all.

A golden light came into view up ahead, its warm glow in harsh contrast against the bluish tones of the magical woods. He hoped it wasn't yet another trick. They were following a fairy, after all. There was no telling whether it was actually being helpful or leading them to their deaths as a bit of "harmless" fun.

He got their answer when they spilled out of the woods and into a village. Little wooden people of a very different type than the Koroks stopped what they were doing to stare at them in surprise with their big yellow eyes. The Ravenclaws, too, stopped to stare, causing a pile-up as the people behind them continued to flee the forest. Sirius and Luna stepped around the mess of groaning children as they cleared the trees. Freedom! No more fae or spirits, just very confused magical creatures. They could turn out to be hostile, but that was better than the fatal friendliness of the Skull Kids.

Sirius was feeling downright optimistic until soldiers started pouring out of the village's (literal) woodwork. They surrounded the outsiders with a ring of swords.

"Dori vi arias?" the fanciest-dressed soldier demanded. That particular Deku Scrub held a wooden spear rather than a sword. His puff-leg trousers were made out of giant flower petals forming pink and gold stripes, as opposed to the other guards' buttercream yellow. "Quori arias-vi di nos villa?"

Sirius whined and laid down. Of course there was a language barrier. The spirits had probably been able to bypass it because they were like Shadow Harry—something beyond a magical creature. Deku Scrubs were real. They were just as grounded in the laws of reality as any human being.

Luna stepped forward and spoke. "Nonne arios…di yon villa por…por fordar yon tass…taskal," she said. Then she bowed deeply. "Por favori, nonne besora…besorios macchi yon taskal." The words were halting and shaky, but definitely in the same language as the Deku Scrub had spoken. Sirius looked up at her incredulously. Had she been learning Hylian from Zelda, too? What else had her Ravenclaw sponge-mind absorbed? Culture lessons? New forms of magic? Forget what Sirius had picked from his trips to Hylian temples and listening to Draco's complaining; this girl knew far more about Hyrule than he did.

The soldiers boxed them in, more of them spilling out from between the cute, slightly miniature wooden buildings to enclose the whole group of thirty-three. Then, after a lot of repeated phrases and fervent pointing, they steered all the clueless humans toward the grandest structure in town. With his eyes limited to dog-vision, Sirius couldn't see much sharp detail, but he could tell the building looked grown together from a small forest, the tree trunks flattened to create walls and their branches weaving together tightly to form a peaked roof over each wing of the palace. Their leaves interlocked like clay tiles, forming a slick, scaly-looking surface for rain to slide off of.

A big and surly Deku Scrub received them at the grand, ornately carved palace doors. The man-sized creature looked like an odd mix of narcissus flower and gladiator, with a skirt and plume made from the distinctive cream-colored petals. A scent like jasmine floated around him. He grunted and thumped the back end of his hammer on the ground when they walked up.

"Qual Hylians aran-vi? Quori vi e kumat al kora baschon?" he barked in a voice deeper than those of the smaller guards.

Sirius analyzed the important-seeming bloke while Luna bravely stepped up to speak with him—both to judge whether he was likely to attack the kids and to take advantage of the fact that no one was paying attention to the dog. This gladiator must have been some kind of guard, and he seemed higher-ranked than the swarming, Three-Musketeers-looking soldiers looking to him for directions. Therefore, either there was a whole fleet of blokes like this one protecting the palace or he was the one in charge of all these minions.

After some convincing, the gladiator traded posts with one of the smaller soldiers and accompanied the group of humans into the palace. He had a sharp, militaristic walk that matched his posture and appearance. His wooden feet thunked against the polished wooden floor in a steady tempo.

Sirius took in the scents, then the sights. The palace smelled strongly of flowers and wood, as one would expect of a place full of both. It was a mature perfume despite the living plant life, though—refined and a tad bitter, rather than sneeze-inducing and green. The internal layout consisted of a big central room with three sets of large double-doors leading to the wings of the palace. Lamps of luminous mushrooms lit everything with yellow-green light and flowering vines with glowing blooms cast notes of other colors across the walls. They kept moving straight forward through the largest, fanciest set of doors, which were carved with a plethora of leaves and flowers that brought to mind fanciful paintings of English gardens.

The floor became a complicated geometric pattern of light and dark wood underfoot as they walked across a cavernous room toward two thrones on a raised, leafy pedestal that rose up to surround them like a nest. Both thrones, composed of woven wooden vines with fringes of upraised leaves, currently sat empty.

"Yi, Jonquil, vara ferren yon reine," the big Deku Scrub commanded the pink-striped sub-commander of the guards. "Sa av hoshat lokar ton salle Hylians immanad."

The soldier bowed. "Hai, Generala." He scurried off and disappeared through a side door in the big, fancy room.

Luna gravitated toward Sirius in the ensuing tense silence, entwining her hand in his thick fur for comfort like Draco often did. "I think we're going to talk to the Queen," she said anxiously. "I hope she's nice."

"More importantly, I hope she's willing to help us," Kajiwara said, her face set with grim determination. "We have classmates missing and in need of rescue, and nowhere safe to stay other than this place. It's absolutely paramount that we convince their ruler to help, otherwise…It won't be good, is all I'll say."

Sirius appreciated her willingness to understate things while there were little ears around. The girl wasn't wrong; if Queen Primrose didn't want to help for whatever reason, they were as good as dead. Sure, Sirius and some of the seventh-ears might be able to get out of the forest instead of being swallowed, but where did that leave all the poor little first and second years? Their options were to die of exposure or to die in the hypnotic clutches of an obliviously dangerous fairy.

The younger kids were huddling close to the older ones, looking around with wide, spooked eyes. Sirius didn't consider himself a parental person, or even a properly boring and responsible adult, but his heart went out for all these kids. Once upon a time, he'd been described as charming; hopefully what charm he could remember how to use would work on the Queen.

The guard who'd been sent to the side room returned with a tall, stately Deku Scrub with "hair" composed of bright violet Scottish Primrose petals. The petals and leaves of her clothing formed the shape of slim robes with puffed sleeves and a ruff collar. In lieu of a crown, she wore big, horn-shaped golden "earrings" that hung from large buds on her head. She carried with her a golden staff topped by green metal leaves and a violet flower bud that she set into a stand by the larger of the two thrones before gracefully sitting down.

The hammer-wielding commander of the guards walked up to the throne podium and stood before the queen. Turning around, he banged the heel of his hammer on the ground. "Reine Primmrost loki et vi av kikat!" he boomed. After speaking, he sat down in the smaller throne beside the queen's, his posture perfectly straight and stiff like he was standing at attention. Sirius regarded him curiously. Was he the king as well as a general?

The queen sat tall. "Mi veire sor desiche hitosche aran di besorant," she said, her ululating voice ringing through the room. "Favori, reisannes, lokan al mi duu vi e ankumat arar kora et duu nonne povios vi taskar."

"It sounds like she wants to help," Luna said as she, Kajiwara, and Sirius stepped forward. "I think all we have to do is explain what happened so she knows how."

While Luna dug in her bag for the Hylian Bestiary, Kajiwara shot Sirius a glare. "What are you doing?" she furiously whispered down at him. "Like hell I'm going to let a criminal speak for me!"

Sirius ignored her and put on a doggish smile for the Deku Queen.

The woman's lamp-like yellow eyes flickered in recognition. "Ah, s'ari yi da sor keimuccha! Mi yi rakonna."

"She recognizes Mr. Black," Luna said happily. "I thought she would!"

Sirius nodded, then transformed. The Deku Scrubs collectively flinched, some of the guards going for their weapons. Sirius just bowed to the queen like he couldn't sense the number of fearful looks aimed at him. "I'm Sirius Black. When we met, I was cursed into the form of a dog," he told the queen. He sent an uncertain sideways glance at Luna, who was staring intently at the Hylian Bestiary. Could she translate, or was he about to start playing a match of Charades?

Luna gave him a thumbs-up before reading aloud, "Sa ari 'Sirius Black'. Dann vi auffes eschal, sa e arat mallat dil katache da hund."

Sirius breathed out in relief. Oh, good. Having someone to translate would save him a lot of gesturing.

"We were cast into the Lost Woods by the same evil mage who kidnapped and brainwashed your people," Sirius told the queen. He paused to let Zelda and Luna catch up. "The children I was adventuring with broke his hold on our castle and, enraged, he decided to punish us by sending us across worlds. I can only assume that the section of the castle that fell into the forest broke away from the rest during transit. As a result, I and these thirty-two children have been separated from our home, and we have no idea where the castle landed." Though his tone didn't exactly translate through Luna, he tuned his voice to inspire sympathy without being pushy or needy. He knew a lot of voices for dealing with a wide variety of people, and this queen seemed like someone who would respond well to "mildly pathetic". "We wandered around lost in the forest until we came across a Korok who was willing to lead us here. Unfortunately, we lost several of our number before we were able to reach your haven." While Luna translated, he turned to the children and did a quick headcount. They'd taken roll-call before leaving the tower, which gave him a definite number to subtract from. Dread tingled at the back of his neck. Eight kids missing.

"We've lost eight of our number to the Lost Woods," he told the queen. A chorus of soft, horrified gasps arose from the students behind him.

"Who did we lose?" a little voice whispered. "I didn't even…Where's Mira? Mira, are you—?"

"Oh hell, I totally missed Penelope walking off," an older voice cursed.

"We're definitely doing another roll-call ASAP," another seventh-year declared. "I can't believe I needed Black to save me from wandering into the woods."

"Please, could you help us find the lost children and lead us out of this forest?" Sirius asked beseechingly. "We'll gladly help around town to earn our keep in return for your graciousness. I wouldn't want us to be an imposition."

Comments trickled in from the peanut section.

"Not so sure about him volunteering us. Why isn't Kajiwara talking?"

"Because she's got all the charm of a turnip. Ravenclaw isn't the House of the charismatic."

"Where did a bloke like him learn to speak so well? I thought he was just crazy."

'What on earth have the newspapers been saying about me?' Sirius wondered. He didn't always put on his "Black heir voice", but it was what he'd been raised with. Didn't they know how purebloods from official family Houses spoke? Perhaps he was a touch mad—his memory and emotional control had certainly taken a few hits—but that didn't change his upbringing.

The Deku Queen looked stricken. Through Luna's translation, she said, "My goodness, it's terrible what happened to you! And those poor children, lost to the woods…" She shook her head. "We will help you. Of course we will! There isn't much space in town for a group as large as yours, but if you'd like to stay all together, we maintain a lodge for lost travelers to recuperate in. We always grow a surplus in our fields for the spirits and forest creatures to pick from, too, so we have enough supplies to keep your students from starving. You will be cared for as long as you need to stay here."

Beside her, the scowling general leaned forward. "If we are to house you strangers, however, we must first know what manner of being we're dealing with," he said. Sirius was surprised by his formal phrasing. The man just had a brutish, muscular look to him despite also resembling a wooden doll. "How many among you are mages?" he demanded of Sirius. "Is shifting to and from animal form the extent of your magical ability? What creed of magic do you and these children practice? Whence do you hail?"

The queen gave him a scandalized look. "Narcissus, there are children's lives at risk!"

"I'm not contesting your decision, dear, only asking for specifics," the general countered. He glowered at Sirius. "Now answer me, human."

Sirius raised an eyebrow. Ah, he could see the relationship here. The queen was the bleeding heart, while her general/consort was the sharp and suspicious one. Sirius shifted gears from pathetic to smooth; this wasn't a man with sympathy to spare. "Well, that's a rather complicated story, but it's one I'll gladly tell," he began. "You see, we were sent here from a place called 'Scotland', which exists in world apart from this one…"

A half-hour of deliberations later, Sirius and the kids shuffled into a two-story cabin with charming green window shutters and a living rainbow garland of flowering vines circling the roof. The Deku soldiers ushering them in halted at the door and then closed it behind them.

Sirius found himself an adult in a sea of young, tired, and frightened faces lit by sickly yellow-green mushroom light. Some regarded him with fear, others with a silent plea for direction. Only a few looked at Kajiwara, who seemed too exhausted to be miffed about not being the assumed authority figure here.

What was an adult thing he could say? How had James and Lily managed Harry? He remembered a lot of naptimes happening.

"Alright, so we should probably figure out rooming arrangements before we all drop off to sleep," he said, looking to Kajiwara. In all honesty, the Head Girl had more leadership experience than he did. He'd left a lot of that stuff to James, since his friend had been better at considering things like logistics and consequences. "Should we check out the number of rooms and linens and work from there?" he suggested.

She rubbed at her eyes and stood straighter. "Yes, we ought to scope out the rooms and figure out how many people we can stuff into each. If there aren't enough linens, maybe we can multiply some. Our wands still work a little, so transfiguration and charms are somewhat at our disposal." She laid down some commands to set her fellow students to arranging the house for their needs. Sirius, whose orders were to sit in a corner and not kill anyone, found a perch on a bench by one of the windows and just observed.

"Erm, Mr. Black?"

He looked up. A lower-year kid other than Luna had worked up the courage to speak to him? The boy fidgeted nervously, unable to make eye contact.

"Yes?" Sirius said.

"Th-Thank you for not letting me wander off," the boy said. "I could have died, so, er, yeah. Thanks." With his words delivered, he gave a nervous nod of confirmation and then scurried off to this furiously whispering cluster of friends.

Sirius sat and continued watching the seventh and second-years rush around to multiply and ferry linens, thinking on that short exchange. In the span of a few hours, he'd gone from Public Enemy Number One to "scary, but probably not going to kill anyone in front of witnesses". At this rate, he might even convince them of his innocence by the end of the month! While the initial goal he'd had upon escaping from prison had only been to kill Peter, he found the idea of being liked…appealing. Surrounded by all these people, Sirius suddenly realized he wanted to be spoken to again. Not as a dog, or as a prisoner being taunted, but as a fellow human being. He was struck by the impulse to win these kids over—prove that he was worthy of being talked to, and maybe even respected a little.

Could he just be a normal member of society, though? After killing Peter, would he be able to live and be liked and spoken to? Was it selfish to think about himself when James and Lily were still waiting to be avenged? He wished he knew. Had there been Dementors around, he would have had his answer immediately; his well-being didn't matter, only his mission. There was nothing after his mission. Now, though, with the freedom to think in more directions without his grip on reality fading, he found himself uncertain for the first time in twelve years. There was a possibility of him having a life now. What a terrifying idea.

Translations:

1. Dori vi arias? Quori arias-vi di nos villa? ⇒ Who are you? Why are you in our village?

2. Nonne arios...di yon villa por...por fordar yon tass...taskal. Por favori, nonne besora...besorios macchi yon taskal. ⇒ We are...in your village for...to ask for your hel...help. Please, we need [wrong conjugation]...really need your help.

3. Qual Hylians aran-vi? Quori vi e kumat al kora baschon? ⇒ What Hylians are you? Why have you come to this place? [archaic phrasing]

4. Yi, Jonquil, vara ferren yon reine. Sa av hoshat lokar ton salle Hylians immanad. ⇒ You, Jonquil, go and fetch your Queen. She will want to speak with these Hylians immediately. [archaic phrasing]

5. Hai, Generala. ⇒ Yes, General.

6. Reine Primmrost loki et vi av kikat! ⇒ Queen Primrose speaks and you will listen!

7. Mi veire sor desiche hitosche aran di besorant. Favori, reisannes, lokan al mi duu vi e ankumat arar kora et duu nonne povios vi taskar. ⇒ I see that many people are in need. Please, travelers, tell me how you have come to be here and how we may help you.

8. Ah, s'ari yi da sor keimuccha! Mi yi rakonna. ⇒ Ah, it's you from that dungeon! I remember you.

Notes:

-None of the Ravenclaws in this chapter or future ones are OCs; I scoured the HP wiki to find canon background characters who could be first, second, or seventh-years in 1993. Also, Tomoko Kajiwara's grandparents are Shinto Buddhist for the purposes of this fic.

-The Lost Woods as portrayed here come from a mix of different inspirations, mainly the Twilight Princess and Ocarina of Time versions, as well as the Fairies' Woods from Oracle of Ages and some influences from Celtic folklore. Skull Kids and Koroks are not evil in this fic, just children who have lost (or never had) a connection with mortality, and thus don't understand that humans can't play for days on end without breaking. Blupees are good bun-buns, but they look like distant guiding lights if you don't have spirit-sight and possess a kind of magic that draws people toward them.

-Deku Scrubs are one of the races of Hyrule like Zoras and Gorons, not magical creatures like Sirius mistook them for. Most of them live in Kokiri Court on Kokiri Isle, which sits in the middle of a freshwater inland sea called Kokiri Lake. The residents of Kokiri Court tend to have names related to their design inspirations, which are all flowers found in Scotland. Examples include Narcissus (Hylian: Narcisse) the narcissus, Primrose (Primmrost) the Scottish primrose, Jonquil the fancy daffodil, and Belle (Kanna) the Scottish bluebell. I'm bad at naming things, so naming themes are both helpful and fun~

-I've tweaked my concept of Narcissus, so now he's the commander of Kokiri Court's military instead of its champion. He was initially going to be a sweet, dopey gentle giant, which shows in his design, but then I was like "what if the cute man wasn't cute?" and continued from there.

-*Sirius voice* I can be...liked? A-And live? As a human being? (The answer is yes, mon pauvre *pats head*). We've gotta get this guy some people on his side, stat!