Harry had been extremely unwilling to leave for Hogwarts so soon after Edric was born, but he didn't have much choice. Alduin left Wynn in Litty's care and dropped Harry at King's Cross at half past ten, with apologies on his lips as he helped him get settled in the compartment. "I'm sorry I can't wait for the train to leave," he said, "but I really don't want to leave Alexandra at home alone with two children so soon after-"

"Of course," Harry interrupted him. "If I could, I'd have gone on my own. It's fine. Go back to the Manor."

Alduin gave him a quick, grateful smile and Disapparated, and Harry stared out of the window, thinking about how much bigger Edric would be when he'd see him during Easter break.

Hermione was the first of his friends to arrive, as usual, and she talked about their skiing trip to France with some excitement. "The skiing was as frustrating as usual," she said, "but there are some really interesting wizarding traditions to be found in the Alps! After what I saw in Provence in the summer, I have a completely different approach to travel, and it's really so interesting from the wizarding point of view..."

Harry quite agreed, and they discussed Paris, since it was the only place in France they'd both visited.

Abdulaziz showed up next, and then people were coming more closely one after the next as eleven approached. Harry was slowly regaining his good humour, feeling less sorry about abandoning Edric as he talked to his friends.

That was, until he spotted Draco.

If he had been surprised to see Theo and Daphne together before Christmas, it was nothing to his shock when he saw Draco with Pansy now.

He dragged Draco away the first chance he got.

"You can't be actually serious," he said.

Draco scoffed. "What? Like I'm gonna get beaten by Theo?"

"Beaten by Theo? What are you talking about?" Harry asked incredulously.

Draco rolled his eyes at how slow Harry was being. "He was the first of us to get a girlfriend, I can't change anything about it, but at least I don't have to give him that much of a head start."

That was possibly the stupidest thing Harry had ever heard. "Seriously? That's why you're dating Pansy? She's not even pretty!"

Draco frowned at him.

"No, sorry, that was stupid," Harry immediately backtracked, "and it's not like that's my problem. But how can you stand her?"

Draco gave him a look. "I never had as much of the same problems with her as you did, and she did apologize to you."

"Yeah, but...I thought you agreed with me! You said all that stuff about her never apologizing in her life..."

Draco shrugged. "It's not such a big deal, and I mean, it's not like I'm planning on marrying her. She's okay to date."

Harry shook his head. He could not agree.

It was especially troubling because Pansy now seemed to be glued to Draco's side, refusing to leave it if only for a moment, peppering Draco with endearments and kissing him every other while.

Daphne saw Harry's expression, and exchanged a commiserating look with him. A moment later, she followed him out to the corridor.

"How long have they been together?" Harry asked.

"Since Boxing Day. And I'm already getting fed up."

Harry apparently missed a lot once again, this time by being wrapped in fussing about Edric. Not that he regretted it, especially if it was stuff like this he missed. "I can imagine," he said in sympathy.

"The worst thing is," Daphne confided, "Pansy now insists we have double dates. Neither me nor Theo can imagine many worse things than having to spend an evening watching her crawl over Draco. But at least there's nowhere much to go on dates at Hogwarts, so it won't come up often...hopefully they'll be broken up by the next Hogsmeade weekend."

Harry thought of Seamus and Lavender, and how they'd only lasted from one Hogsmeade trip to the next. "Yeah, they might be," he conceded. "Or the one after that at least." Surely no one could stand Pansy longer than Lavender could tolerate Seamus?

Then his curiosity got the better of him. "How did you get together with Theo?" He asked.

Daphne giggled, which was maybe the first time ever Harry has heard her make a sound like that. "I'd kept trying to get his attention for ages," she said then, "but it wasn't going anywhere, so at the last Hogsmeade trip, I just grabbed him, dragged him behind a shop and kissed him. I've never seen him blush so much in my life!"

Harry tried to smile, but he was privately horrified. He knew that if this was what it required, he'd never start dating anyone in his life.

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The trial for Sirius was arranged, Edric and Alexandra both seemed to be doing fine, and so in the second week of January, Alduin finally managed to spare some time for Horcruxes again.

Nothing much could be done about Narcissa's clue until Sirius was out of prison. In the meanwhile, he had to consider the possibility that it was a false one, and finally follow the idea he had all those months ago in Dumbledore's office.

There was a ring on Riddle's finger in Slughorn's memory, a ring he didn't remember from the diary memories. Besides, where would a poor orphan like Riddle get it? No, he likely came to it by dishonest means, and there was a chance – just a chance – that it could be a Horcrux as well.

Alduin pulled out the memory of the ring into his pensieve and carefully studied it. Unfortunately, it gave him no hints about its nature. It didn't remind him of anything he knew. It was time to pool resources once again.

In fact, it seemed like this was just the right time to pull Daniel Goldstein in. Having something a bit less sensitive than the Horcrux in Harry – though only a small bit – to give him to solve first would calm Alduin's nerves, allow him to come to trust the man a bit more gradually. He'd even been almost pleasant to Alduin during the last transcendental meeting, which also marked the first time he'd shown up twice in a row. Surely these were all good signs?

Alduin had also privately asked Mercurius if it was safe to trust the man with sensitive information and learned that yes, absolutely. A look into his family didn't reveal anything that would put him on his guard either.

It was time to take the plunge.

So Alduin called another meeting of his small, Horcrux-solving group, and had Mercurius explain to his boyfriend that it was crucial he came, and kept it secret. It was a little unfair to Mercurius, really, since he himself didn't know what was going on, but Alduin preferred to keep it that way for now. Not that he doubted Mercurius' loyalty in the slightest, but the less people knew, the safer it was, and he quite enjoyed having a friend not involved in all of...that.

Daniel came a little before the others, in fact, and Alduin gave him a run-down of the most important facts.

Except, that was, the Horcrux in Harry.

That was ultimately why he needed Daniel's expertise the most, of course, but that would require some more time to earn the trust needed. For now, he had warned the others that Daniel was not to know.

He was horrified enough by the idea that Riddle had multiple Horcruxes, anyway.

"We have already destroyed two," Alduin was saying just as the other transcendentals started to arrive. "But there are sill quite a few to go."

"Do you know what they are?" Daniel wondered.

"We have some suspicions," Alduin explained. "The diadem of Ravenclaw and the sword of Gryffindor are a possibility, and the locket of Slytherin is almost a certainty."

"And the last one?" Daniel asked, doing a quick count in his head.

"The last one is why I called this meeting," Alduin replied. "If you would all please take a look at this memory and tell me if the ring reminds you of something..."

They did. "It's a memory of a memory, isn't it?" Daniel asked.

Alduin nodded. He'd been unwilling to show them Slughorn's memory directly. It had been given in confidence, after all, so he just extracted the image of the ring from his own mind and presented it to them.

"It lost some of its clarity, but if you'd allow me, there are ways..."

"How long would it take?" If it was too time-consuming, Alduin might be forced to share Slughorn's after all.

"Proper restoration would take days, but I should be able to make it temporarily a little more clear in just a moment," Daniel assured him.

At Alduin's nod, he tapped the pensive with his wand, but the magic he was using was non-verbal, so Alduin had no idea what he did. But in a few minutes, he handed him the pensieve back, and the image inside was a good degree clearer – clearer, in fact, than Alduin felt the original memory from Slughorn had been, which hinted at some truly arcane magic. However, he was rather distracted from those thoughts by what he saw.

"Is that…?" He asked incredulously, staring.

"It is," Mrs. Gerard agreed. "It's the mark of the Deathly Hallows."

There was a short, astonished silence, then Sarabeth voiced what they were all thinking: "Is that the Resurrection Stone?"

"It certainly matches known descriptions," Mrs. Gerard replied, clearly trying hard to compose herself. "It very well could be."

Alduin's mind raced. "The Gaunts."

"What?" Muhammad blinked at him at the seeming non-sequitur.

"The Gaunts were one of the families descended from the Peverells, and they were speculated to have the Ring," Alduin explained. "Riddle must have got it from them."

"He killed them, didn't he?" Mrs. Gerard asked drily.

Alduin nodded. "I believe so, yes. Now we know why."

"He likely had more reasons than one," Muhammad pointed out.

"True. But still, if he was looking for artefacts for Horcruxes, the stone would have been invaluable to him."

"Now all we have to do is find out where he hid it," Sarabeth muttered.

Alduin nodded. He was hoping that Narcissa's clue would prove right, and he would have one less thing to worry about.

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It was on Sunday morning that Harry got a letter in unknown, messy writing. He looked at it a little suspiciously and poked it with his wand. Ron, however, shook his head. "The bird that delivered it was a Ministry owl," he said. "It's fine."

Harry nodded, and curious, opened it.

Dear Harry, it read,

the Ministry finally allowed me to write (though they read my letters), so here I am. We didn't have much time to talk before the esteemed Aurors dragged me away to lock me up once again. I wanted to introduce myself properly.

I am Sirius Black, your godfather.

I am sorry I wasn't there for you for the last twelve years, and that you had to live with Petunia and then Alduin instead. I am more sorry than I can say about the mistake I made, that led to your parents dying. I will do everything in my power to make it up to you.

I am to have a trial, as I'm sure you know, but if they free me – they should, since I am innocent, but I lost the little faith in the Ministry I had years ago – I gladly offer you my house to come and live in, and all I have is at your disposal. It is the least I can do.

In the meantime, I would be glad if you were willing to write to me at least, so that we can get to know each other a little better. Though you look very much like your father – only with your mother's eyes – and I have no doubt that inside, you're going to be just as great as James was, too.

Take care,

Sirius

Harry stared at the letter in astonishment for a very long moment.

"What is it?" Neville asked, troubled.

"Sirius Black wants me to move in with him."

"...what?" Ron asked, incredulous.

"Yeah. I think that Azkaban might have messed with his brain." Even had he still lived at the Dursleys, Harry had some doubts he would be willing to go live with a recently freed prisoner whom he'd only seen once in his life.

Then he thought back to Alduin, whom he'd seen for the first time when he went to live with him. Okay then. Maybe from the Dursleys, he would have gone. But now the situation was completely different. How did Black not see it?

Ginny, who sat nearby with Sophie, Harriet and their other friend, Mahnoor, turned her head at Harry's remark and asked with a sort of mild curiosity: "Is he insane, then?"

"I would be, in his place," Harriet muttered.

"He doesn't seem to be," Harry admitted, "despite the offer. I mean, the rest of the letter seems sane enough."

"May I see?" Ginny asked, and Harry wordlessly handed it to her.

She read it and passed it on to the other girls – Mahnoor shaking her head, which made Harry glad, because he barely knew her and didn't feel comfortable with her reading his letters. "You're right," she admitted, "he sounds surprisingly normal. Why do you think he thinks you'll want to live with him?"

Harry grimaced. "He doesn't like my cousin, they hated each other when at Hogwarts," he admitted. "Not that that seems like good enough reason."

Sophie snorted. "Please. If a godson of yours lived with Pansy, don't tell me you wouldn't have tried to save him."

Harry grimaced at the idea. It was, he had to admit, a frustratingly fair point.

He gave it a few days' consideration, and resisted the urge to consult Alduin – he had a very good idea what his cousin would say, anyway – before he wrote:

Dear Mr. Black,

Thank you for writing to me. I would certainly appreciate getting to know you better. As for your other offer, however, I'd like to make it plain that I am very happy living with my cousin Alduin, and have no intention of moving anywhere unless he casts me out of his house – which he repeatedly assured me he has no intention of doing.

How are you? Are you, at least, somewhat more comfortable in the Ministry holding cells than you were in Azkaban? The absence of Dementors must be a relief, at any rate. I only passed them a few times and it was bad enough. So many years in their company must have been terrible.

I personally am well, spending much of my time with training for our Quidditch match against Ravenclaw next month. They have an entirely new team this year, so I'm curious to see how we do against them. They used to be the worst, but the match in December showed they have markedly improved since Roger Davies took over.

I think you saw my match against Slytherin in November. I noticed you in the stands.

Yours sincerely,

Harry Potter

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AN: If you're a bit uncomfortable with how Daphne handled getting together with Theo, you are meant be. Unfortunately, magical children get as little education on consent as Muggle children do. I'll talk about this particular instance further on in the story, but much more further, so I wanted to make this clear directly here.