Disclaimer: Hehe, this thing is really getting old... I DON'T OWN ANYTHING!! Accept Anna.... Heh, I own Anna! She is mine!! Mine!! Back!! Back you fiends!!

Chapter Thirty-Seven: In the Hog's Head

Let the world stop turning,
Let the sun stop burning.
Let them tell me love's not worth going through.
If it all falls apart, I will know deep in my heart
the only dream that matters has come true;
in this life, I was loved by you.

-Colin Raye

The next three weeks passed relatively easily for Sirius, mainly spent cleaning the Black mansion and lounging around with Remus and Anna. Since their slight disagreement with Sirius about Harry, Anna and Remus had resumed their normal behaviour around Sirius, although he knew they were keeping a close eye on him wherever Harry was concerned.

Harry. Sirius felt a slight twinge of guilt shoot through his stomach. He squirmed unpleasantly in his seat. Ever since he had brushed him off in the fireplace, Sirius hadn't sent word to the boy, although he knew he should've. It wasn't as if he was angry with Harry, nothing of the sort. Anna and Remus had helped him, or rather forced him to accept the fact the Harry most definitely was not James. It was more fear that kept him from writing the youth. Yes, fear. The Great Sirius Black was afraid of writing to a fifteen-year old boy. Sort of ironic, if you thought about it.

While Remus and Anna hadn't actually said anything to Sirius about writing to Harry, Sirius had the feeling they both knew but were reluctant to push the matter further, knowing that it would all happen when Sirius was ready.

Almost as if one of the higher powers had been listening in on Sirius's thoughts, there was a loud crack! that came from outside the house before the front door burst open and Sirius was assaulted with his mothers blood-curdling screams.

"Shit!" came the muffled voice of Mundungus Fletcher as he apparently tried in vain to close the moth-eaten curtains.

"Need a hand?" Sirius drawled as he rounded the corner into the entrance hall.

He promptly froze at the sight that met his eyes.

Struggling with the covers of his mother's curtains was Mundungus Fletcher. In a dress. Wearing a veil. Painting, the cross-dressed wizard finally got the curtains closed.

"Er, Dung?" Sirius asked uncertainly. "Why are you wearing a dress?"

Mundungus grunted. "'ad to trail yah godson. Sturgis had the buggery Cloak on 'im when he damn well got 'rrested to I 'ad to dress up in this flamin' thing," he muttered as he made his way into the kitchen, Sirius following close behind.

"Harry? You saw Harry? How is he?"

"Calm down, calm down, the boy's fine. Well, apart from tha fact that tha first thing 'e does in 'ogsmeade is organise a Defence Against tha Dark Arts club which is most probably not allowed. And in tha 'ogs 'ead! I ask you!"

"The Hogs Head?" Sirius repeated, taking a seat across from Mundungus. "That's a pretty stupid thing to do."

"That is exactly what I thought. Proud of 'im?"

"Undeniably."

...&&&...

"WHAT!" exploded Molly Weasley at dinner that night. "How could they – so stupid – under no account whatsoever!"

"Really, Molly, is it that bad of a thing?" Remus questioned neutrally.

"That bad of a thing!" she burst out angrily. "Honestly, Remus, I would of though you of all people would have some sense. They'll be expelled!"

"But, Molly," Anna spoke tentatively, "wouldn't it be better for them to be expelled and know how to defend themselves than be utterly defenceless at Hogwarts, plodding around like sitting ducks for Voldemort to come and kill them all? We know that that horrible Umbridge cow isn't teaching going to teach them anything."

"Yes – but – " the older woman spluttered, "they're to young to be worrying about that now. They don't need to worry about that kind of thing."

"But they do," Anna replied quietly. "Lord Voldemort isn't going to care that they're only fifteen."

"Cedric Diggory was only a child," Remus interposed softly. Voldemort had no qualms about killing him."

"Look, Molly," Sirius said calmly. "Merlin knows that Harry has to learn to defend himself. When it comes down to it, in the end it's going to be between Harry and Voldemort, no matter how much we don't like it. Voldemort will go to no ends to get what he wants, and who knows? Being so close to Harry, Ron and Hermione will most likely get drawn into this along with him. It's something that we can't stop. And if they're going to go about learning how to defend themselves on their own, I'm not going to try and stop them."

"Well, you are all entitled to your own opinion," Molly retorted bluntly. "And so am I. And seeing as though I have duty at the Ministry tomorrow night, I would like you to tell Ron for me that under no account whatsoever is he allowed to take part in that group. He'll be expelled for sure and his future will be ruined. Tell him that there will be plenty of time to learn how to defend himself out of school and that he needn't be worrying about that now anyway. And please ask Hermione and Harry to consider my advice, as I have their best interests at heart."

Sirius nodded. "Okay, I'll pass the message on. But I won't say that I agree with you."

"You don't have to."

...&&&...

Sirius hastily extracted his head from the fireplace, his ragged breathing alerting the other two occupants of the room. Sirius had a sneaking suspicion that Anna and Remus had only insisted on staying in the kitchen that night to keep an eye on Sirius's conversation with Harry.

But now Remus was looking up at him, an expression of perplexity on his face. "What? What's wrong, Padfoot?"

"Umbridge," Sirius answered shortly, plonking down in his seat. "She must have known I was there." He raked a hand through his already dishevelled hair. "The cow almost caught me."

Remus let out an exasperated sigh. "I knew it wasn't a good idea to write Harry."

"Oh well," Anna said calmly. "What's done is done. Can't go back now."

"You won't be able to risk Flooing Harry again, Sirius. How is he, anyway?" While the question was harmless, Remus' face betrayed his true meaning.

"Fine. He looked a little tired but that could've been due to the large amounts of homework that littered the table behind them."

"Ah," Anna said reminiscently. "OWL year. I remember it well. Merlin, we had homework coming out of our ears. I don't envy them."

Remus chuckled softly. "Poor buggers."

A/N: UGH! I really don't like this chapter. I've had a massive dose of bloody writers block which ABSOLUTELY SUCKS not to mention the fact that it's that time of the month (I have no misgivings mentioning this, as I'm sure all my readers are female, but if you are a male, speak up, and I'll stop with the talk about the female anatomy.) But anyway, I hate this chapter but can't be bothered doing anything about it. Hehe, there you go, that's laziness for you.

I just thought I'd let you know that for this part of the story I've been following OotP timeline that's at the Harry Potter Lexicon, if anyone is interested. So yeah, while some of it might be a few days off, I hope it all makes sense to everyone. I'm also trying to speed it up a bit, seeing as though little impatient me really, really wants to kill Sirius, just so I can bring him back to life again. Hehe, call me a sadist.

OMG!!! Excitement!! Not only are holidays finally here, but I was just going over all my quotes and I had the biggest burst of inspiration!!!! YAYY!!!!!! Happy, happy, joy joy... Oh, speaking of quotes, look ahead in the next few chappies for some... er... prophetic quotes, you might say, as to what's coming up in the future.

Anyway, lastly I'll just mention that I've noticed a lot of writers reply to their reviewers in their stories. I haven't done this, a) because I didn't think of it, and b) because I was sure it would just get waaay to confusing. But now, I sorta regret not doing it from the beginning cos I'm sure it would take forever for me to do it now and it probably wouldn't make any sense anyway. So, I thought that maybe if you actually wanted to speak to me about something, and you have msn, ADD ME!! My email is in my biography so please feel free to email or add me or anything cos I would simply lurve to talk to all my wonderful, beautiful readers.

So yeah, that's it for now.

Signing off, Kate.