Chapter 2: That's what Family is For

"Wotcher Harry!" blurted out the hot pink haired woman before barging into the hallway followed by several men and women who Harry couldn't identify.

"Evening Potter" said a gruff voice from the door, Harry turned to see Alastor Moody taking up the entire door frame with his stocky build and staff, eye twirling about in his head checking for threats at every angle.

"Good evening Professor, glad to see you're no longer at the bottom of a trunk" he replied cheekily, happy that help was finally here.

"And I'm not so glad to see your vigilance hasn't increased, we could be death eaters boy, ask us questions only we would know the answer to next time. And I'm not your professor Potter, never have been" he growled.

"Sorry then" Harry said slightly chastised.

As soon as everyone was inside Alastor stood tall and cleared his throat to get everyone's attention before speaking in a commanding voice.

"Right, so Potter this is your advance guard, we're here to get you to headquarters alive. You've got Kingsley Shacklebolt the big bloke next to Lupin who you already know"

"Pleasure to meet you Harry"

"Nymphadora Tonks who practically tackled you two minutes ago"

"Mad-eye what did I tell you about my na-"

"Hestia Jones, the black haired woman near the kitchen draws" he said interrupting Tonks. Pointing to a woman captivated by a potato peeler.

"And going around the room from left to right you've got Emmeline Vance, Sturgis Podmore and Dedalus Diggle. Now that introductions are done we can get to the plan. The ministry is monitoring this area for magic therefore it's not a good idea to travel by portkey or apparation as they will pick it up on their sensors. So, we will be flying to central London under the cover of darkness. I hear you're quite handy on a broom Potter so should we die-"

"No one is going to die Alastor" Tonks cut in

"Should we die" he continued glaring at Tonks "You hightail it out of there, Dumbledore seems to think you're important enough for an extraction, so you keep yourself alive y'hear?"

"Yes sir"

"Good, the address is on this paper" he said handing it to Harry

'The Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix is at 12 Grimmauld Place, that sounds slightly ominous if I'm honest. I wonder why he wouldn't just tell me that, paranoia perhaps?'

"Alright we've got the all clear let's get a move on" Moody shouted as everyone went outside and mounted their brooms.

"No funny business, this isn't a quidditch match, I want a tight formation the entire trip. If we're ambushed, Lupin you keep eyes on Potter whilst the rest of us run diversionary tactics. See you all at HQ" commanded Moody and with that everyone kicked off their brooms flying into the sky above Surrey.

—

Thankfully Tonks was right and no one died. The flight went smoothly for the most part and it was a slightly adrenaline-pumped Harry Potter who arrived on the doorstep of 12 Grimmauld place. Harry now understood why he needed to read the address; the house was under a fidelius charm.

'The fact that Moody couldn't just tell him meant that he wasn't the secret keeper, it's likely Dumbledore' He thought

"Now Harry when you get inside be as quiet as possible as we do not want to wake her" said Lupin gravely.

"Wake who?" he replied

"Sirius' mother" Tonks said equally serious.

'Sirius' mother is alive, I thought he hated his family anyway. Didn't he say he lived with my dad for a while. I'm so confused' Harry thought. However, these questions were soon answered as he walked through the front door and was met with banshee-like screaming and a man's voice coming from down the hall.

"How dare you defile the ancient house of Black! If I were alive I would cast you out onto the street like the dirty mongrel that yo-"

"Shut up woman you destroyed your oh so noble house when you became pals with death eaters"

"At least they were a part of our society, but what are you? Delinquent then prisoner then fugitive perhaps you'd be better off de-"

"Alright I've had enough of you, PRAUDE!" The male finally declared and then the screaming became muffled. Harry made it to a staircase and found the source of all the ruckus.

"Sirius!" He cried smiling and rushed over to give the man a hug. He was almost unrecognisable from when he last saw him in Azkaban rags. His face was clean and tamed, he was wearing expensive clothes and had a light in his eyes that wasn't present before.

"Harry, I see you've met my mother, charming woman. Always knew how to hit the high notes." He said jokingly as he returned the hug gladly.

"You should figure out how to remove her Sirius, it's becoming increasingly more annoying as time goes on" implored Remus as he watched the show of affection with a small smile of his own.

"The great Remus Lupin can't do it by himself?" Sirius teased

"The great Remus Lupin is tired of your antics, come on, there's an order meeting in 10 minutes and you don't want to sit next to Snape." Remus tiredly replied.

"Too right old chap, I'd have grease dripping on me the whole time. Why don't you go on up Harry, third floor on the right the room opposite mine is all yours. Figured you'd appreciate some privacy being a teenage boy and all" he said winking at him

"Get out of here you mutt, come talk to me after the meeting" Harry said, already appreciating how at ease Sirius makes him feel.

Harry turned to go upstairs, drowning out Sirius' ramblings of being the 'finest purebred in all the world' and focused on finding his room in this maze disguised as a house. Reaching the third floor, Harry discovered the room opposite Sirius'. The name plate above the door started with an 'R' but the rest was badly damaged and so the full name wasn't discernible. Opening the door, Harry was met with a rather bland room despite the few pieces of Slytherin memorabilia.

Harry wandered around his new room before sitting down on the bed and started to unpack. 'The order of the phoenix, most likely Dumbledore's band of followers. Using Sirius' house as a base, I guess he can't do much else anyway, hard to be of use as a notorious murderer. If the order is in the fight against Voldemort, then I'll need some way to gain access to their information, information will help keep me alive. Maybe Sirius would be willing to tell me something, it's not like anyone else has.'

Just as he finished thinking there was a knock on the door. Getting up and opening the door he saw a wide smiling Sirius on the other side.

"Hey kiddo, heard you kicked some dementor ass. Sorry about your cousin though" he tagged on sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck.

"Hey Sirius, I don't think I've fully processed that part yet, I'd like to talk about something else though if you don't mind" Harry replied

"Of course, bud, whatever you want to talk about, girls, pranks, boys?" He said cheekily

"No no not that, I'm… worried" he admitted "I'm worried that I'm not strong enough or experienced enough to make it through this war. Every year I feel like I'm stumbling towards danger and I have no control over it. It gets me and my friends in trouble more often than not and I'm just tired of it all"

"Ah so serious matters, pardon the pun. Harry when I offered this house to Dumbledore I did so on the condition that he tell me everything I missed out on in the 12 years that I was locked up, most of that consisted of your… adventures shall we call them. You have demonstrated a strength that few ever are able to even witness let alone experience. Sure you don't know many fancy spells but driving away 100 dementors? Besting a Basilisk? Out flying a dragon? Duelling Voldemort to a standstill? These are not the feats of a weak boy, but an unusually strong young man and I am so very proud of you." He said with a hand on Harry's shoulder, looking at him earnestly.

Not so used to praise like that Harry was slightly stunned at Sirius' words. "I was lucky" he said "But I don't want to be just lucky anymore. I want to be better so that I can protect my friends and myself from those who would harm us. Can you help me?" He asked

Motioning for Harry to follow him out the door into the hall, Sirius got up and walked out of the room. "You know the first thing I did when I escaped was sneak into Gringotts, the goblins don't much care for wizard laws so long as they don't affect their control over our money. I went to make you my sole heir and heir to the Black lordship. I wanted to make sure that should I fail in my quest to kill Pettigrew that you would be well looked after so as not to repeat my failure 12 years ago." He said with a sad look in his eyes as we came to a stop in front of a door at the end of the hallway. "As such you now have access to the Black family assets including the lord's study, Black grimoire, ratty old house elf and a downright filthy amount of money. When I die you will also get all the houses and properties that I own should they still belong to me"

"But Sirius what if you have children, I wouldn't want to steal anything from family"

Sirius once again had a sad look on his face, but it was overlapped with acceptance. "Azkaban has made it so I can no longer consider the option of a conventional family. The wand fires but it shoots blanks." He admitted sadly. "So that means the next addition to our little family will either be Remus pulling his head out of his arse and getting with Dora or you discovering the birds and the bees" he said going back to his usual joking self.

The very thought of long-term effects hadn't even crossed Harry's mind when he thought about Azkaban, the implications of that made it hard to appreciate Sirius' joke. But still, being the Black heir was a great start in getting access to the information he needed to survive. First things first however "What's a grimoire Sirius?" He asked.

"They don't tell you that at school? Hmm weird. A grimoire in a magical family is a book which details every spell developed by and for the family. The Black's grimoire will be full of curses and illusionary magic which is quite difficult to grasp I will admit. The advantage of familial magic in combat is that some curses and hexes will be unidentifiable to your opponent"

Harry was ecstatic. This is a game changer. Secret magic only he and Sirius had access to was extremely valuable. Only problem is he can't practice till Hogwarts starts up again. He said as much to Sirius who smiled a prankster's smile.

"What?"

"What? What?"

"What aren't you telling me Sirius?"

"Oh, you know this house is under fidelius right?"

"Yeah, I figured that part out earlier"

"Which means…"

"That the ministry can't find us."

"Therefore…."

"Therefore… they won't be able to see who's doing magic! Sirius, that's brilliant!"

"About that, I do want to share something with you about the order meeting. When you cast the patronus charm that should've meant the ministry would send you an owl, but you didn't get one did you?"

"Come to think of it, no, that's odd isn't it?"

"Yes, it is. It's the opinion of the order that you have a benefactor in the ministry that we don't know about. It's unlikely the trace failed, especially considering the plan was likely to get you expelled from Hogwarts."

"What for a simple underage magic charge?

"Harry, Fudge has been dragging your name through the dirt this summer and any excuse to get you out of the wizarding world is good enough for him. You must tread carefully, even as the Black heir you don't have enough political acumen to stand against Fudge." Sirius said gravely.

"Why does he want me gone? What have I done to him?" Harry almost yelled, a serious anger rising in his chest.

"He wants to believe that Voldemort is dead and gone and thinks you're spreading chaos by saying he's back so that Dumbledore can take his job as minister"

'That's completely bonkers' he thought 'I've got severe incompetence on one side and a staggering amount of malicious intent on the other. I best start getting better quick otherwise I'm going to be crushed in between the two'

"Alright Sirius, that's nuts, I'm going to have to sleep on it. I'm happy I'm here though, you've done more for me today than many claiming to be in my corner have done for me in years" he said gratefully

"That's what family's for kiddo, we can crack open that grimoire tomorrow and start practicing some of the lesser dark curses" Sirius replied sincerely

"That would be great, G'night"

"Night pup see you tomorrow"

As they parted ways Harry laid down on his bed, grimoire I'm hand. Opening it to the contents page Harry wanted to take a quick peek at what this book had in store for him. Running his thumb down the different chapters Harry could see what Sirius meant by dark curses. One of them would boil blood whilst another would empty out your intestines and make them strangle you, hell there was a whole chapter about magic that would kill your opponent slowly. But what really caught his eye was the final chapter.

'Sirius you have no idea what this means to me' he thought excitedly.

It read 'Parselmagic: Observe, Ensnare and Eliminate.'