Disclaimer: Not mine, I only own some of the plot of this fanfic and Carya, some parts might be copied from the book (hopefully not very much. I tried to keep it to a minimum), you might notice that some people got into different houses than in the books by JKR; this has only minor reasons, but I need them to be where they are now
Author's Notes: I found out today that my version of Microsoft Word on my laptop is allowing me to save in HTML-format. So here's the corrected version with bold and italic script!! Another thing, a reviewer just asked why this is POA instead of COS. I put that in my disclaimer but perhaps I should repeat it here. I switched positions of book 2 and 3 because I needed to do that for my plot.
Well, here is the next chapter. I hope you like it. The characters may seem quite AU but it's my twist on the world of Harry Potter, isn't it? I prefer them this way. Don't worry about getting bored. I do think I can manage to make this interesting enough without sticking to the original like the last book.
I'm getting a bit better at writing and hope you see it the same way. Read, enjoy and please review. I know that most people simply forget to do that but I have to say it helps to get a bit of feedback if it's constructive criticism or praise.
Chapter 05 - A Wand and Memories or Disguises and Marauder Tales
Once their godfather came out of the bathroom they just looked at him in awe. He looked completely different now. Still very pale and far too thin but after a bath, dressed in almost fitting, clean clothes and with his hair washed and brushed he looked good.
Especially the girls were beaming now and Harry just groaned when he saw what they were doing. This got him a punch on the arm from Carya and for the first time since Sirius was back to his human form he smiled. It was a shy but honest smile.
They talked for about three hours and at the end of it Sirius knew that these kids were his friends. They wouldn't turn him in. His godson and goddaughter believed him and wanted to help. His most immediate problem was that he had no wand.
And you couldn't just waltz into 'Diagon Alley' and buy a new one. Even in 'Knockturn Alley' it would be difficult to get one because it was dangerous to go in there without one too. They decided to worry about that in the morning and went to bed.
Sirius transformed back to his dog form and now stayed with Harry because he didn't want to 'spy on the girls' as he had phrased it. Ginny and the other two thought that he didn't want to experience the same as the two aurors earlier that day.
The next morning they had a wonderful breakfast but they still had no idea how to get a wand for Sirius. After breakfast they returned to the girls room and discussed their not so really existent plans.
Carya finally had a brilliant idea. Sirius was of course less than pleased with this because it involved Carya, disguising charms and 'Knockturn Alley' but she wouldn't change her mind. She now admitted that she had been there one time already.
At the beginning of the holiday when he had just escaped. She and Harry had been wearing their Slytherin robes and no one had bothered them.
"Well, I could always go to 'Knockturn Alley' and find one for you. It's not that of a big deal, really," Carya began and earned a shocked look from Sirius, Ginny and Hermione.
"Eh, I've been there before, together with Harry earlier this summer. We wore our school robes and since we're Slytherin's no one has bothered us. Oh, come on! It's not a problem, Sirius. Everything will be alright.
I've wanted to try out the disguising charms for a long time now and this is my chance. I won't get hurt, promise!" she continued trying to convince her godfather. But he had already stopped listening when he heard about the twins being in Slytherin.
"You ... you're in Slytherin? But ... how ...?" he asked confused.
"Well, just like everyone else too, you sit on the stool, pull that hat on your head and it yells out your house. Honestly Sirius, you look as if the worlds going down. Ginny's a Slytherin too," Harry said sarcastic.
Now Sirius was really confused. How could Harry and Carya possibly be Slytherin with parents like Lily and James? When he heard that Ginny was a Weasley and was in Slytherin too, he didn't know what to think anymore.
"But Lily ... and James ... how can you NOT be in Gryffindor?" he asked confused.
"Don't know Sirius. Ask the Sorting hat. It thought we would do best in Slytherin. And it's not that bad. Why do people always have that reaction, eh? Is it because old Moldie-Voldie was a Slytherin?" asked Carya with a smirk.
"What?!?" he asked stunned for a moment but then continued, "You ... you ... that ... I can't believe someone would actually make a nickname for that ... that thing. But I have to admit it certainly sounds really funny.
Perhaps people might be less frightened of his name when you use that more often," Sirius said, confused and shocked at first but then gradually dissolving into soft laughter.
He still didn't really understand why they were in Slytherin but he wanted to accept it because they had already shown him that they indeed were their parents children. Shortly after that Carya disguised herself with the help of a newspaper clip about veelas.
"Wow, it's really working. You look ... different. Nice, ... but definitely different ..." commented Harry.
"Why, thank you, my dear brother!" Carya told him smirking. She had, of course, changed her voice a bit, too and the others were now openly gaping at her. The girls and Harry were surprised that this had worked at all and Sirius was stunned that a twelve year old could do this.
She took two other photos with her so that she could change if need be. One showed an old almost ugly looking hag. And the other showed an old woman who seemed to be really crazy. And that wasn't because of her clothes. She looked like a raving lunatic.
The girl decided that this would be her very last option. Carya had learned these spells from a book Harry had bought in 'Diagon Alley' a few weeks ago, the one about difficult transfigurations. It had taken her quite some time to learn them but now she was really proud of herself.
Not too many people were that good at her age. After a bit of search, bribery and threatening, which was quite good if one thought about the fact that she was only twelve, she found a wand that was satisfactory.
It was a ten inch mahogany wand with a core of unicorn hair and it was still in a good condition.
"I want this one here!" the veela told the man behind the counter.
"I see, that would be twenty galleons ..." he began.
"Twenty?!? You're sure you don't belong in St. Mungo's Insanity Ward? I'll give you ten for this, nothing more." Carya answered slightly irritated.
"Are you mad woman? This wand is in pristine condition. It's three times worth what you want to pay." He answered. The veela suddenly started smirking.
"Well, I believe you don't want the ministry to know about your little business here, would you? You should be happy that I'm actually helping you to get rid of that ... wand. Tell you what, I'll give you a few galleons extra if you tell me where the closest Enchantment Breaker has his shop," the 'veela' Carya told the shopkeeper in a threatening tone.
"Well, there's one about three blocks down to Diagon. But he's expensive. I want five galleons for this information!" he told her with a quivering voice.
"You'll get them but you better not've lied to me," she left the actual threat unspoken and the old man imagined his own punishment as she paid him the price they'd finally agreed on - fifteen galleons. Ten for the wand and five for his little piece of information.
Carya knew that many of those wands sold in Knockturn Alley were stolen ones or that they had belonged to criminals earlier. Because of that she hid in a dark and narrow passage, change to another disguise - the old hag - and went to a shop that would remove any tracing or monitoring charms on objects, even on wands.
This cost as much as the wand itself but it turned out to be a good decision because there had been quite a few charms and spells on the wand. In the end she had paid twenty-five galleons for the wand but she was sure that it was worth the efforts. After that the 'hag'-like looking girl walked back into 'Diagon Alley' and straight to the 'Leaky Cauldron'.
After making sure no one was watching her she changed to her true self in the pubs toilet and finally went upstairs. The twins and their friends were as surprised and amazed as Sirius was when he saw the wand. It was his, his wand that the aurors had taken away from him eleven years ago.
"Here Sirius, I've found a wand and it seems to be a good one too. No scratches or something like that, perfect condition," the girl said and handed her godfather the new wand. He gasped and looked at both, the wand and his goddaughter in sheer disbelief.
"How? ... where ... where did you find it? ... This is a dream, isn't it? It just cannot be true. ... No, no one has so much luck," Sirius stuttered and the children just looked at him confused be his behaviour.
"What do you mean with 'Where did you get it?' In 'Knockturn Alley' of course. That's where she went. And what's with one never being able to be so lucky? Hey Sirius, did you even hear what I asked?" Harry questioned.
"Yeah, heard you. This ... wand ... this ... it's MY wand. The one I bought when I was eleven. It's absolutely unbelievable," Sirius said voice thick with emotion. In an afterthought he added "I thought they'd snapped it when I was imprisoned ... ."
Sirius suddenly pulled his goddaughter into a hug. Carya was happy. She had been right about that wand being a good choice. When they again asked her how she had found it she just shrugged and mumbled something that sounded like.
"Must've been instinct, I guess. It felt so powerful and horribly familiar. I somehow knew it would be a good choice, so I bought it. After that I had all tracing charms and such being removed at another shop. It's perfectly safe for you to use it, Sirius. I'm happy for you" she mumbled and then smiled at him.
The other three were smiling too. The day had been perfect. Everything was alright and no one had found them out. Life was definitely wonderful right now. Only one thing was left - to help their godfather to prove his innocence. This would be the biggest problem from now on.
It wouldn't be that difficult to hide their knowing each other from the world. Sirius had already a solution for that. When they were little he and James had used some kind of code to write each other letters no one but them could read. He just altered it a bit and taught the four children.
This way they could safely write notes to Sirius and receive some from him without being found out. They agreed to use random owls and birds for safety reasons. The twins ravens could be used more often because they were quite common in Great Britain and wouldn't draw too much attention.
After a good dinner and some talk about pranks they happily retired for the night. The girls stayed in the current room while Harry and 'Snuffles' went over to their room. But not everyone had such a good day. Someone else was really, really unhappy just now.
The caster of the removed monitoring and tracing charms wasn't exactly pleased as one can think. It was the Ministry of Magic itself, or better the 'Department of Magical Law Enforcement' (MLE for short). They went to 'Knockturn Alley' to investigate as soon as they noticed the removal.
The one that had sold the wand told them about the customer because he wasn't keen on loosing his shop and probably ending up in Azkaban. He hadn't known that the damned wand was that important or else he would've never tried to sell it.
"It was a tall, beautiful woman with long, silvery hair and deep steel gray eyes. She was outright scary, possibly a veela. I don't know who she was, really. I didn't even know how important the wand was, sir.
I found it someday lying in the streets, didn't think any further. Not really my fault, sir. She asked for a shop like Malcom's though." The shopkeeper ranted and desperately hoped he wouldn't be punished.
They did not disappoint him. The aurors were far too busy as to even think about a punishment right now. The worst that could really happen to him was a small fee for selling a restricted item to an unknown customer.
Malcom wasn't exactly thrilled when ministry aurors waltzed right into his shop. They threatened him to immediately close his little store if he didn't tell what had happened to a certain wand that afternoon. They showed Malcom a photo of it and he remembered.
"Ah, yes, I remember. It was a strange old hag. Her eyes were the deepest black you can imagine. Almost unnatural if you ask me. She had dirty reddish hair and many warts and scars on her face.
But I don't know who she was, she wouldn't tell me. Was walking towards 'Diagon Alley' after she left my shop. Please, sir, that's all I know," Malcom said pleading.
The aurors quickly noticed that they wouldn't find out. The one who bought the wand had obviously used disguising charms or it had been two different persons. Though the second option was very unlikely to be true.
No one had seen the two women together and although the hag had left 'Diagon Alley' through the 'Leaky Cauldron', she hadn't entered it that way. And neither had the veela. In fact not one in the pub had even seen the latter.
They really had a hard day. Not only was the wand of Sirius Black gone, they couldn't even find the one who bought it. Their superiors wouldn't be happy about this. Quite the opposite, they'd be seriously pissed off about that. They'd so hoped to catch Black when he tried to get a wand, preferably his own but they'd failed miserably.
The kids stayed at the 'Leaky Cauldron' for the rest of the holidays. Snuffles stayed with them. They had loads of fun. The door was always locked now and there were silencing and anti-eavesdropping spells everywhere. Carya told Sirius about their animagus plans and how their progress was. He was proud of them and gave the kids some very useful tips how to speed up their transformation.
He told the twins about their parents. What they had been like and who had been their friends. He also told them about Remus Lupin - Remus was a werewolf. That had been his parents and Sirius reason to become animagi.
"I doubt we would've tried to become animagi if it hadn't been for Remus, you know? Remus was a werewolf. He was our friend and once we found out he was scared that we would abandon him. We didn't though, we stayed his friends but thought that wasn't enough.
We wanted to do something to make him feel better. It was James who had the idea. As you probably know, James was always on top of class in transfiguration. He knew that the werewolf was only dangerous for humans but not for animals. So we decided to do one of the most forbidden things - we became animagi," Sirius told them.
"While in our animal form we could keep him company during the full moon. We even went so far to travel outside of the Shrieking Shack and explore the Hogwarts grounds. I doubt anyone ever found out so much about Hogwarts as we did during those years, " he continued.
"But wasn't that really dangerous? I mean, to go outside with a werewolf?" asked Hermione, always worried about dangers and one for the rules but not that strict anymore.
"You see Hermione, we were hardly sixteen. We thought we could restrain him if necessary with me being the large dog I am and James being a stag. We were young and didn't really think about consequences," the animagus answered.
"After a few month we came up with the idea of creating a map of Hogwarts - the 'Marauders Map'. Do you know about that?" he asked when the kids immediately started grinning.
"I don't really know. The Weasley twins at Hogwarts always seem to know shortcuts and secret passages. And they never get caught when they're snaking around. Ginny told us they had some kind of parchment that they always carried around since their first year," Harry said.
"Why don't you tell us how you created the 'Marauders Map'. I'd really like to know that!" Carya interrupted and Harry gave her a grateful smile as Sirius started to explain everything.
"We used ordinary parchment but added quite a few spells to it. Each of us has given the map a bit of our personality but the most difficult part was to show the people. As you surely don't know, they appear as a small dot with the name attached to it.
The best thing is that even if you use animagus transformation, disguising charms or polyjuice potion the map always shows your true identity," he explained further.
"How did you accomplish that?" asked Carya. She already had a good guess but didn't say anything.
"Simple," her godfather said grinning, "We used Veritaserum when we created the map."
"Cool, that was really clever of you. But isn't Veritaserum quite difficult to make and even restricted by the ministry?," remarked Ginny.
"It is but that didn't stop us though. We, eh, stole a bit from our Potions Professors private stores. Not much, just enough for the map and the woman didn't even notice. We were quite lucky back then if I think about it," Sirius mused and told them everything about the map.
There had once been four maps. One for Sirius, Remus, James and Lily each. He didn't mention Peter though and the children didn't dare to ask.
Harry suddenly remembered a blank parchment that had been lying in his Gringotts Vault and told them about it. They noticed that it was already very late and went to bed. But they'd continue this the next day as none of the kids had any homework left they'd quite some free time.
The next morning Harry went to retrieve the parchment from his vault. When he returned Sirius immediately checked it and it proved to be James Map. When Ginny saw it, she looked thoughtful. She told them that her twin brothers really had such a map too, but it was less detailed.
"You know, it's really true. My brothers have one of those. But it it's in a real bad shape and much less detailed. I think they stole it from Filch's office one day during their first year," she said.
Sirius explained that it must be Remus' map because his had been confiscated by Filch before they were even finished with making them. Harry's was the only complete one because a Slytherin had set Sirius map on fire for revenge.
To their surprise said Slytherin turned out to be Severus Snape. Sirius made some rude comments under his breath which made the children laugh really hard and they dropped the topic for now.
Sirius also told them about the pranks they'd played as 'The Marauders'. Especially those on the Slytherin's because he just wanted to tease the three young Slytherin's around him. But he also admitted that they sometimes had good comeback-pranks.
When he told them about turning Severus Snape's hair Gryffindor red for a week they laughed their heads off. Of course Sirius didn't understand at first but he too laughed when he heard that Severus was currently teaching Potions at Hogwarts.
They didn't tell him that the same Snape was currently their Head of House because they just knew he would start to worry about them. Sirius seemed to hate Snape pretty much for reasons unknown to them and they didn't ask. Suddenly Carya spoke up.
"Hey, I know a good use for that prank. It involves certain Weasleys and the colour green. And I want to modify it. I know of a potion and a spell to make colours everlasting. You can't wash them out or hide them with any charm.
It would've to grow out, unless I create a counter-charm," she told them with an evil grin.
At this everyone laughed, especially Ginny. She was really glad to have such a friend when her family abandoned her like that and didn't even bother to talk to her most of the time. A friend that stood beside her regardless what happened.
Their last two weeks passed in a blur with them practising some charms (The twins had managed to get around the problem of being detected when you were underage.), talks about past or soon-to-be pranks or read in their new course books which brought them a remark from their godfather.
"You're sure that you're not supposed to be in Ravenclaw, are you?" he said smirking like a true Slytherin.
This time the twins didn't take the bait. Not really though. They asked him a question instead.
"Don't know Sirius but are you sure that you really were a Gryffindor? I mean with all those pranks and considering how devious you seem to be sometimes I'd bet you would have done better in Slytherin!" the Potter girl answered him with a devious glint in her eyes and a smirk that rivalled Snape's best ones.
Of course this was something he couldn't take without retaliation. As an answer he growled playfully pulled her onto the floor and started tickling the girl. He only stopped when she could hardly breathe from laughing so much and once he stopped all of the rooms occupants were laughing happily.
Please Read AND Review.
Thx ,
Carya
Review responses in Author's Note in moving Chapter! But not this time as I only replaced this chapter!