The next afternoon Sirius joined Harry, Ron and Hermione when they came down to the beach for a walk. They still were discussing the strange and rather scary events of the day before and the things Dumbledore had told them. There was hardly any student who wasn't dicussing it all, and the camp seemed to buzz with excitement.
The Duellists had obviously been having a bath and now sat together under a few palm trees shading the edge of the sandy beach. Harry guessed they might be discussing just the same thing.
Ron wanted to go to another place when he saw them, owing to the fact that one of them was not only Harry's least favourite teacher, but Srius had seen them, got up and walked towards them to greet them.
Harry was happy to get the chance to talk to him again; he hadn't seen him very often during the last two weeks. "Did you have that training again?" he wanted to know.
"As you can guess", Sirius replied. He was dressed in his dark blue swimming shorts, and he was still dripping and covered in sand all over - he'd had a good time, as it seemed -, yet he looked somehow tired. "We had boggarts today."
You must've been having good fun", Ron supposed. Somehow, he envied Sirius a bit for being a real hero in the eyes of everyone now, and he would have loved to come along with him; Harry could tell it easlily from his expression.
"That's what you think", Sirius said. "They were more than twenty, and we were only three, and Voldemort with Nagini - his pet snake, you know - somewhere around, but only watching." He smiled grimly. "The best way to lose your nerves. You hardly ever find many boggarts together, but when you do, they're really scary. They don't assume all the same shape, they vary. At once you find yourself surrounded by a collection of your greatest fears. You'd never believe there are so many."
"I can't believe it", Ron said, shuddering. Harry guessed he was thinking about twenty different spiders approaching him, clicking their pincers in wild greed. Also for him, this was far from pleasant.
"But you could do it, could you?" Hermione asked awkwardly.
"We could, yes. The Heavens be thanked for Remus. But it was hard." With his thumb Sirius pointed over his shoulder, where his comrades seemed to have a rather heated discussion. "You'd never dream of what's in that fellow. They were rounding up on us, Dementors, Banshees, full moons, vampires, some figures representing Voldemort and stuff like that. We got worn out pretty soon, and we were running out of ideas for the Riddikulus Charm. And there came that great spider, covered in black, slimy fur, with eyes like dinner plates and loads of pincers like the matching forks and knifes. Disgusting, Ron, you're right. But that wasn't all. It opened up a maw like an abyss, dunno what else you might compare it with, and out of it slipped a bloody, slimy corpse, halfway through decay, completely unrecognizeable, but still it stretched out a rotten hand as if asking for help while feebly struggling against the grip of the monster's jaws. I still see those skeletal fingers reaching out to touch me, a piece of torn flesh dangling from it uselessly..." He violently shook his head, as if trying to shake off the memory. "I couldn't stand it any longer, especially when one of the disfigured body's yellowish, swollen eyeballs rolled out and stopped right in front of my feet." Ron uttered a sound of disgust while Harry and Hermione just stared at Sirius in horror. "I backed away, and I believe I even screamed, but Remus, that brave little chap, guess what he did? He performed the charm and let the monster choke on its own prey." He threw back his head, laughing, but it was a mirthless kind of laughter. "He gave us back our courage, just like that."
"So that's your training?" Ron asked with a faint voice. "But that's terrible!"
Sirius simply shrugged. "I never denied it. We must be prepared for everything. Must we, pals?" he shouted back over his shoulder.
"What?" Remus called back.
"Forget it!" Sirius answered. Nonetheless, what the three friends had dreaded happened: Remus got up, stretched and sauntered over to them, followed by a rather sceptical-looking Severus. Harry could see that Severus wore a bandage around his naked left forearm, and he had a pretty good idea of what he was hiding. "What was that?" Remus wanted to know after nodding towards Harry, Ron and Hermione with a smile.
"Just said we must be prepared for everything."
"You're not giving away anything, are you?" Severus wanted to know, his dark eyes fixed upon Harry.
But Sirius only laughed. "C'mon off it, Sev, what should I be telling them? Nothing concerning you, at least."
"Would you like to play Quidditch with us, Sirius?" Harry quickly asked.
"Of course", Sirius said. "Minerva told me you're going to. Mind if I take my buddies along? Both in the teachers' team - should have been a bit of a surprise, though."
"So you are giving away stuff", Severus commented, frowning.
"They'd have found out anyway", Sirius meant.