A/N: It's one of those days and I'm on a roll. Plus, I'm not sure when I'm going to have time to write another chapter in the next week, so here's two for today.
The Christmas holidays came to a quick end, and soon all of the students that hadn't stayed for the Yule Ball had returned to Hogwarts. Classes were back underway, and the Second Task was quickly approaching. Hermione was constantly nagging Harry to figure out his golden egg's clue, and Sirius and Remus weren't much better.
Despite the stress that the task was bringing him, Harry was having one of the most joyful years Hogwarts had ever given him. The second Hogsmeade weekend was fast approaching, which meant that Harry would get to go on a date with his possible girlfriend, Cho, and the fourth year classes were much more interesting. Harry found that charms was quickly becoming his favorite subject behind Defense, particularly because it allowed him to spend even more time with Sirius.
However, one of the best experiences with Sirius as a professor didn't even occur in his class; in fact, Harry didn't even see it happen.
"I can't believe he did that!" Fred exclaimed, practically rolling in mirth when George and him arrived at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall.
"It was absolutely brilliant!" George agreed, turning to their friend Lee. "I would have never even thought about it!"
"Harry!" Fred exclaimed once he noticed the three looking at them curiously. "Did you know Sirius was an animagus? He's never shown us in class!"
Harry nodded, "Of course I did, but why would he bother showing people? He's not a transfiguration professor."
"Well, everyone in the school knows now, mate." Lee said, sniggering.
"Why? What happened?" Hermione asked, concerned.
"The most genius prank to ever hit Hogwarts happened, Hermione." Fred said, beginning to laugh again at the memory of it. "McGonagall was going to show our class her animagus ability, so she changed into a cat and-"
Before Fred could finish his explanation, a giant black dog came barreling through the Great Hall, dodging students on its way to the head table. "SIRIUS BLACK," Minerva McGonagall's voice raged, echoing through the hall as she ran behind him.
"Blimey, I've never seen McGonagall that angry, even at you two," Ron mumbled, staring at Padfoot in awe.
The black dog dived under the Ravenclaw table and the students jumped up, laughing as he ran past their feet.
"GET BACK HERE YOU-" McGonagall said, still chasing the dog. Sirius managed to get to the head table and go out the side door that led to the champion's quarters for the tournament.
Either realizing that chasing Sirius was a lost cause, since he knew the castle's hiding places so well, or that she probably looked ridiculous to the students, McGonagall turned around to face all the tables. Students attempted to regain their composure, but faint giggling remained as McGonagall looked desperately for someone to take her anger out on. Even the professors were smirking at her, and Dumbledore looked as if his favorite soap opera had just aired.
"HARRY POTTER, REMUS LUPIN." She yelled, looking back and forth between the two. Harry immediately tried to put on an innocent expression, but knew it was in vain. He stood up and wearily approached her, as did Remus from the staff table. "HOW LONG HAS HE BEEN AN ANIMAGUS?"
Harry shrugged; he knew it happened in their fifth year, but it was before he was born, so he could successfully feign innocence in this situation. Remus however, was trying to control his mirth while simultaneously cowering under her gaze.
"OH - FORGET IT." McGonagall exclaimed after failing to get any information out of Remus. "What was Albus thinking?" She said, walking out towards the Entrance Hall. "Two Marauders as professors. Potter-" she said, turning back to face Remus and Harry, who had returned to laughing. "Tell your father I need to speak with him when he's finished hiding like a little child."
This only made Harry laugh harder, and soon the entire Great Hall was caught in fits of laughter. Once McGonagall was safely out of the hall, Remus turned and walked back to the front of the room. "Sirius, you can come out now." He yelled towards the side door.
The huge black dog walked out of the room, almost pridefully, and turned back into Sirius. He immediately walked towards his seat at the head table to eat his meal, when the hall erupted into applause. Harry joined in with his classmates and even Professor Dumbledore gave him an approving wink.
"Oi, quit the racket," Sirius said almost immediately, a fake stern glance playing on his features. "Do you want her to come back in here and kill me?"
"Her face!" One first year exclaimed that evening in the Great Hall.
"I've never seen her so angry!" Another contributed, looking to the older students for confirmation.
"You should have seen her in the actual class then," Fred said, moving to the center of the group.
"She was off her rocker," George agreed, moving beside his brother.
"Tell us what happened again!" Colin Creevy said, the other younger students nodding their heads in agreement.
"Okay okay," Fred said, raising his hands in the air. "So, good old Minnie was explaining to us about the animagus process-"
"And decided she wanted to impress us with her transformation-" George continued.
"So she turned into a cat and Professor Black jumped out from her desk-"
"Except he was in his dog animagus form-"
"And he chased her around the entire classroom before she had enough composure to change back to her human form-"
"That's when Professor Black ran for it-"
"And none of us knew who it was until McGonagall started yelling down the hallway 'who does that dog belong to?'"
"And I guess someone spilled his secret, because once she found out she started chasing him as if her life depended on it-"
"That's when we all ran to the Great Hall… we figured she would catch him and we wanted to be the first people to tell everyone-"
"But luckily the show got even better and Professor Black came running into the Great Hall." George finished, a smug look on his face.
The common room filled with laughter for the millionth time that evening. Even Harry smiled, despite hearing this story at least twenty times. He wanted to see Sirius and ask him what inspired him to pull such a prank, but figured he was probably being chewed out by McGonagall at that very moment. The thought of his hardened, ex-convict father cowering in front of Minerva McGonagall made Harry go back into a fit of laughter and he couldn't wait to see Remus and him again.
"What on earth were you thinking, Sirius?" Remus asked, chuckling as they sat in the teacher's lounge.
"He wasn't thinking," McGonagall said irritably, walking inside and closing the door on the three.
Sirius looked at her with a slightly amused, slightly guilty expression.
"Making a fool out of all of us, I swear Black, have you grown up at all?" McGonagall said, pacing in front of them.
Sirius sat back in his chair and shrugged. "Guess not," he mumbled, still sporting an amused expression.
McGonagall looked at him with shock before sighing and sitting across from him. She looked as if she was having an inner battle of wills before she finally laughed a little herself. This time Sirius and Remus looked confused - McGonagall was laughing? It was a bit unnerving, and Sirius almost wished she was still angry with him so he would know the world had righted itself again.
"Thank you…" She mumbled once she had regained her composure.
"For traumatizing you? I mean, you're welcome, I can do it again tomorrow if you want…" Sirius said, bewildered. Remus himself had started chuckling.
"I'd rather you didn't, Black, but I'm thanking you because I think you reminded everyone here today that it's okay to laugh. Times are getting darker… but it's nice to have the reminder. It makes me think of when you two were boys, when James and you would pull those ridiculous pranks on everyone at the start of the first war… you brought Hogwarts laughter when no one wanted to laugh."
Sirius and Remus shared a knowing smile, then turned back to her. "So what you're saying is, I'm a genius and you appreciate my pranking skills?" Sirius said with a smug smile.
"Not quite, Black. But I suppose I am saying I'm glad you're here, because you're giving everyone, especially Harry, hope and laughter. And both of those things can be hard to come by. Keep up the good work." She made to walk out of the room, but then turned back around. "I take back what I said earlier… you have grown up a lot. You're a good man."
After that, McGonagall took her leave and Remus looked at Sirius incredulously. "I guess it helps that she can't give you detention anymore, huh?"
"That was my motivating factor, dear Moony. Well that, and she was right. I mostly did it for Harry. He's so stressed about this second task… he needs to have a bit of fun. Speaking of which, I'm sure he's just dying to see his hero of a father." Sirius said with a sly grin, walking out of the teacher's lounge, Remus at his heels.
Remus chuckled as they walked towards the Gryffindor common room. "Don't let it get to your head, Sirius, I'm sure McGonagall will find a way to get you back."
A few weeks after classes started back, Moody himself had returned to lessons. "CONSTANT VIGILANCE," he yelled as he walked into his fourth year class. Normally this declaration would frighten the students, but most were so used to it by now that they didn't even turn in the direction of the shout.
"Today," Moody started, clunking to the front of the classroom, "we'll be continuing our study of the Unforgivable Curses that I started at the beginning of the year. I was told that I shouldn't show you them if I wasn't going to teach you to defend yourself, so I figured I should get on that part. POTTER."
Harry jumped, surprised that Moody wanted him to help out after he told Remus about his last lesson that involved the Unforgivables. "Sir?"
"Come up front, please. You will be demonstrating the imperius curse and how to resist it." Moody said smugly, sitting at his desk in the front.
"But Professor, you can't use it on Harry… that's… that's illegal!" Hermione squealed. Most of the class looked equally horrified at the idea, but Harry stood and walked to the front of the room regardless.
"Atta boy. Now, I'm not going to make him actually do anything drastic, and if I do I give any of you permission to run out and get the closest teacher. I'm just teaching you to resist it. Imperio…" Moody mumbled, pointing his wand at Harry.
Harry felt a watery calmness run across his nerves; he felt relaxed entirely. Then he had a strange urge to jump on top of Ron's desk. That would be a stupid thing to do, a voice in the back of his head said. He didn't move, simply stared at the desk. The desire to jump on top of the desk grew, but he remained still, allowing the other voice in his head to grow louder.
Finally the relaxed feeling left him and he turned back to Moody; the class looked confused, seeing as Harry didn't do anything but stand there. "Good job, Potter." Moody said, walking towards him. "You resisted. What made you resist?"
"A-a voice in my head pointed out what a stupid idea it would be for me to jump on Ron's desk." Harry said.
For a second, Moody looked angry. Then he gave a gruff laugh and pushed Harry back towards his seat. "Good job. Constant vigilance, Potter."
"Are you going to tell Remus?" Hermione asked Harry frantically after class.
"I… I don't think so. I mean, no harm done, right? Who knows, it might be helpful. He taught me how to resist it." Harry said with a shrug.
"He shouldn't be using it in the first place," Hermione said, her voice growing to a higher pitch. "They're illegal. Besides, remember how upset he made Neville in the last Unforgivable class? And you?"
"Come off it, Hermione," Ron said, rolling his eyes. "He made it up to Neville, didn't he? Gave him that book about water plants or something. It's all Neville talked about for days."
"I still think you should at least tell Sirius, Harry. He's your father now, he'd want to know-" Hermione started, before the three realized they were being followed.
"I would want to know what?" Sirius said, looking down at the three with an amused, but concerned expression.
Hermione gave Harry a pointed look before she grabbed Ron's arm and pulled him towards the Great Hall for dinner.
Harry gulped and met Sirius's kind grey eyes. "Well… I mean, I guess it might be perceived as a big deal, but it didn't bother me, really."
Sirius no longer looked amused, and he pulled Harry away from the students to the west, first floor corridor. "What happened?"
"Moody gave us another… interesting lesson about the Unforgivables… but this time he had a purpose behind it. He used imperio on me and showed me how to defend myself."
Sirius's expression was torn between disgust and being intrigued. "I… I don't know if that was a good idea or not, Harry. I'll explain my suspicions tonight, this isn't the time," Sirius said, gesturing back towards the Great Hall. Harry nodded and walked with his father back towards his classmates.
"Okay, well, it's complicated, Harry." Sirius started when they returned back to his quarters after dinner. "Moony and I don't exactly share the same views on who's trying to hurt you, but we both believe it has to do with Voldemort getting stronger. The Death Eaters have been far too active lately. I… I don't know what to believe in some cases. It's odd to me that Moody disappeared the same time Pettigrew escaped, but Moody was my old mentor when I was an auror. It goes against my nature to believe he would be a death eater. It's also odd that he… well, you heard he was attacked by Death Eaters the night before he came to Hogwarts? It just doesn't add up to me. And why would he teach you to protect yourself from the imperius curse if he wanted you dead?" Sirius paced the room for a moment before realizing that he was babbling. "But I digress - my main suspicion is Igor Karkaroff, the headmaster of Durmstrang. He's a coward, but he was also a fairly dangerous death eater at the time. Wormed his way out of Azkaban, supposedly gave the Ministry some important names of previous death eaters. It worries me that he's here now, with the tournament going on… it's awfully convenient."
Sirius finished his explanation with a sigh before turning back to face Harry. He sat on the couch beside him in his quarters and pulled him close to him. He kissed the top of Harry's head, then mumbled against his hair. "Just be smart and be safe, okay kiddo? I can't lose you."
Harry nodded against his godfather's shoulder. Things were getting darker, Harry could tell, and with the second task approaching and him still having no idea how to complete it, he was feeling lost. Sirius started rubbing circles on his back and Harry closed his eyes, comforted, at least for the moment, that things would be okay as long as he had his Siri.
