Chapter 16: By the Grace of Gods
So my mum told me. And she said you knew.
Those were the words that greeted Harry in the messenger he shared with Dagmar and Draco on Monday morning. Harry stared at the message, written in Dagmar's hand, and tried to read her tone. Was she angry? Probably, but who at? Her mum most likely, but Dagmar might not like that Harry had kept it from her too. Dagmar hadn't seemed to mind so much that her mum had a secret a few weeks ago. She had to realize that for her mum to keep it to herself, it had to be something as big as their true origins.
I heard it from Helka, yeah, Harry wrote back. Your mum confirmed it later. She didn't want Voldemort to know in case it made him even more stubborn about leaving your body. For what it's worth, I wouldn't have told you anyway. I wanted to give your mum the chance to be honest with you, rather than you hear yet another thing about yourself from someone else.
Harry checked in occasionally for a response, but didn't see one by lunch. Hermione didn't send him a message asking if he was going to come down to eat together, like she said she might. That didn't surprise him. She, Harry, and Ron had picked yesterday to be the Sunday they got back into the habit of their twice-monthly dinners, but Hermione ended up calling it off. She had a long day of meetings ahead of her and said she didn't feel adequately prepared.
Tonks sat in her cubicle with one leg over her chair's armrest. While chewing mindlessly on what looked like a tuna toastie, she kept on reading a piece of parchment. Her bored expression cleared when Harry folded his arms atop the wall.
"Hey," she greeted him. "Pull up a seat."
Harry conjured himself a chair in front of her filing cabinet. It wobbled a little underneath him. "Good weekend?"
"Pretty fun, yep."
"Saturday night ended up going well, then?" Harry asked. "I never got an all-points to respond to Malfoy Manor, so the night clearly didn't end in blood."
Tonks laughed. The colour of her hair—green today—was vibrant, which usually meant she'd relaxed well on her days off. "I mean, there was almost blood over a game of boules des goules, but it was all in good spirit."
"Boules de what?"
"Some game that Draco brought down from Bergen." Tonks reached into the open bag of crisps on her desk. "You put these little wickets in the ground, then you have to hit your ball through them in a certain order. But there are enchantments on the balls, so good luck getting them to cooperate."
"Oh, like croquet," Harry said.
"Sure," Tonks breezed with a tone that said she had no idea what croquet was. "Just the men played. One of them would get all lined up, taking all this special care to make sure their ball would get the wicket, and then you'd see the ball kinda quiver. With a loud moan it'd tilt its path juuust enough to miss."
Harry exhaled in place of a laugh as he bit into his own sandwich.
"Watching them get frustrated was funny, but what was really hilarious was watching Lucius try to keep his cool."
Harry snorted, which brought the taste of turkey up into his sinuses. They burned, but he managed not to cough. He cleared his throat instead. "Always gotta be composed, that one."
"Which made it all the funnier when he finally cracked." Tonks swivelled her seat idly back and forth. "Everyone else was yelling and cursing, but he stayed quiet. Then—"
Harry laughed aloud when Tonks threw her hands in the air in mimicked frustration.
"How did he and your dad get along?" Harry asked.
"Pretty good, actually," Tonks brightly replied. "Narcissa put it best when she said that if there's anything Lucius knows how to do, it's host company. Dad was well-fed and well-liquored by the time he and Mum left. I think good news helped break the ice at the offset. The first post-war baby's on the way, eh?"
"Really?" Harry's stomach did a funny drop. "Who?"
"Theo and Daphne."
"Oh yeah." Harry settled. "For half a second, I thought you meant Malfoy and Dagmar. I thought wow, they got on that fast."
Tonks laughed. "That's how it goes after the end of a war. It puts life in perspective, you know? So anyone that's in a position or place to have a baby usually will. I think Dagmar was thinking about it. There sure was something on her mind."
"I mean. . ." Harry pulled his shoulders up into a half-shrug. "She almost lost the chance completely. I wouldn't be surprised at all if she and Malfoy do once Voldemort sods off."
"Me neither." Tonks took another bite of her sandwich. "It's just too bad the trials are looming. That kind of hampered everyone's spirits. At least all the ones under house arrest get to go first."
"Did the schedule come out?"
"Yep."
Tonks handed Harry the piece of parchment she'd been reading when he came in. They started the coming Monday with Dagmar and Mrs Malfoy, then concluded on the twenty-ninth next month. Dagmar and Mrs Malfoy were the only ones due to go two in one day. Harry wondered if that had something to do with Good Friday cutting that week a day shy for an in-session Wizengamot.
Harry hummed when he reached the bottom. "Spectators are invite-only."
"I'd be shocked pink if you didn't get one for all of them." Tonks emphasized this point with a wide grin and shift in hair colour. The bubblegum shade spread down to her eyebrows. "I think that's in place just to keep curious citizens out. It'll be Ministry officials and affected families that get the priority."
"Yeah, wouldn't want some rubbernecker getting a seat before someone that maybe had a loved one die because of one of these."
He looked particularly at Bellatrix's name, scheduled the day after Easter Monday. She would be the first one to take a seat in Courtroom Ten among the Azkaban-bound Death Eaters. Harry wondered if Neville would come, even if Bellatrix had already been sentenced before for what happened to his parents. He hadn't talked to Neville, but Harry couldn't imagine it was anything less than a relief to know Bellatrix was back where she belonged.
Harry headed back to his cubicle at the end of lunch, and hadn't made it very far back into his work before digging through his inbox for his own copy of the schedule. He chewed on his lip anew, for Peter's trial came the day after Bellatrix's.
The man had had such a detrimental effect on his life that Harry owed him absolutely no free space in his head. It was still enough to slow Harry down on his work, not that it had been very exciting in the first place. He was quickly running out of things to do as part of tying everything up with the Death Eaters. Kingsley had mentioned that once he did, Tonks would take over where Parasca had left off. Voldemort and the Death Eaters had demanded the full attention of Magical Enforcement while the war went on, but there was plenty else to attend to. Especially now, Voldemort's removal from the playing field had opened a vacuum fit to fill. Dark magic users no longer had to worry about drawing Voldemort's attention, whether out of interest to recruit or to level any potential competition.
Some sort of flow drew Harry's quill back to full speed in how it moved across the forms and reports he worked on. He nearly jumped out of his skin when he spotted movement out the peripheral of his vision while cross-referencing something.
"Kingsley," Harry greeted him after recovering, lifting his glasses slightly as he rubbed an eye. "All right?"
Kingsley's tight expression was strange enough to cause Harry pause. His instincts toward something having hit the fan were honed enough that Harry grew instantly nervous. A furor hadn't erupted in the rest of the office though, so there wasn't some sort of emergency necessary to attend to.
"I need you to come with me," Kingsley said, his voice just as stiff as his body. "Just leave whatever you're doing. Bring your coat."
"Er. . .okay."
Harry slipped his pile of work into the same drawer he kept his messengers in, then locked it with a tap of his wand. He felt too warm all of a sudden to properly wear his coat, so he just folded it over his arm. Kingsley led him toward the Auror office exit. Rather than turn right toward the Enforcement apparation points or floos, they went left toward the lifts.
Kingsley tapped the call button with his wand rather than just use his finger. The moments started to stretch long while they waited.
"Is something going on?" Harry asked. "Someone that I know hurt?"
"No one's hurt."
Harry nodded. So something was happening then, or had happened. "Breakout from Azkaban?"
"No." Kingsley glanced at him. "Just hold on."
A lift arrived. It opened empty. A woman had stood waiting beside them, but she stilted in her step toward it when Kingsley turned to face her.
"Sorry, this is a private lift," he told her.
She frowned. "Go on, then."
Inside the lift, Kingsley used his wand again to get them moving. Harry looked at the panel to see which floor they'd be going to, but nothing indicated it. The voice that usually announced levels had gone silent as well.
Harry started to grow uneasy. "Kingsley?"
Kingsley drew a deep breath as he shifted his weight from one hip to the other. He pressed his lips, then wet them with a glance at Harry. He cleared his throat. "I wish I could've told you this in a place where you'd have the option to sit down. The Department of Mysteries performed an extraction today."
"An—" Harry blinked. "What do you mean, an extraction?"
"Sirius."
Harry's brain halted functioning. The only thing that seemed to work was his heart. Its beat picked up while Harry's diaphragm and lungs ceased moving. Harry couldn't even blink as he stared at Kingsley.
"What do you mean?" Harry asked again, his voice lacking force. "He's. . .here?"
Kingsley nodded.
"You've seen him?"
"Yes."
"You've talked to him?"
"Yes," Kingsley said again. "He's aware of how much time's passed, although he didn't experience it for himself in a substantial manner. The hǫrgr exists outside of time and space. A couple of Unspeakables that had been in there with him were also extracted. Nasty shock for the one fellow who went in before Hogwarts was built. He's learned some modern English and heard about what the world is like now, but it's apparently still something else to see it."
"'Hǫrgr'?" Harry repeated. "What—Kingsley, how?"
"When Amelia interviewed Hildegard for the first time, Hildegard told her about who she was and where she was from," Kingsley replied. "She arrived on this plane with Dagmar, Helka, Idhunna, and Heimdall through a gateway that had since been lost. The Department of Mysteries suspected it may have been the archway. Hildegard said that wherever they were in the world, they could always feel the pull toward it. It stopped one day, which the DOM suspects is when the wards and runes used to contain the archway were constructed. That was in the early-mid six-hundreds, around the same time the one Unspeakable went through.
"Without a god, the veil was a one-way ride. Helka was able to activate the runes on the archway, so the DOM borrowed Hildegard to send through for a potential retrieval. She hadn't seen a reason why anyone that went through would have moved beyond the hǫrgr she described was on the other side. It's a median room that connects all the realms of her pantheon. If Sirius or the others actually died, someone else would've arrived to collect them. They were there, though. Little bored, little restless, but otherwise all right. Sirius didn't even need a toilet in all the time he was there."
Harry wanted to laugh. He'd spent almost three years reminding himself at every turn that Sirius was gone. Sure, yeah. He was gone, just for now. Just for then, he reminded himself. Everyone that had ever told him Sirius was dead should've just listened to Harry.
At the same time, anxiety froze Harry. Had he fallen asleep at his desk? He ought to punch himself in the face to find out. Sirius was dead. He couldn't be back. He couldn't come back because the veil was a one-way trip, like Kingsley said. There was no way Harry had been sitting up in the Auror office, buried in paperwork, while Hildegard went spelunking seven Ministry levels below and came back with the people she'd found patiently waiting on the other side. It couldn't be that simple, not that finding someone capable of the job was supposed to be.
"Didn't even need a toilet," Harry just repeated, for lack of knowing what else to say. "He's—you're sure he's here?"
"Believe me, I wouldn't be dragging you down to the Department of Mysteries if I hadn't seen him for myself. Hugged him, talked to him, all that." Kingsley rubbed his mouth before his hand settled on his chin. "He was just in a meeting when I left to get you. They had to come up with a story to explain his absence the last three years that doesn't have anything to do with the veil. I caught something about very secretive work abroad for the DOM."
The lift came to a stop, but didn't open. Harry grew antsy as he felt it moving again, this time sideways. The torch in the lift flickered.
"Nearly there," Kingsley said. "Anyway, they're not going to hold Sirius here long enough to fully brief him on all he missed for the last three years. Seeing as I was the Auror in control of his case back when he was still Wanted, they called me down to see if I would be interested in taking on that role. I figured there's a better choice available."
Smiling, Kingsley nudged Harry with his elbow. "That said, I'll redirect your paperwork to someone else. You can take as much time as you need to get Sirius resituated."
Harry nodded. The lift fell quiet between them, and Harry just about flinched when he bit down on his lip too hard while he chewed it. This wait was excruciating. Harry almost wished that Kingsley hadn't said a thing on the way down, although he could appreciate being excited rather than scared about what waited for him.
Finally, the lift stopped. They'd reached a proper floor, fit with desks and cubicles not completely unlike the Auror office. Harry looked around everywhere, trying to get a glimpse of Sirius, but he didn't see that head of dark wavy hair. He didn't hear Sirius' voice or his laugh. Kingsley had to give Harry a tug on to get him going.
Harry was so busy scanning about that he failed to notice the people standing right in front of him, until one of them said his name. He only saw a flash of brown before he was being squeezed. Harry pat the person on the back awkwardly, his recognition of Hermione coming a beat later when she sniffled beside his ear.
"I wasn't sure if we'd cross paths or not." The rims of Hermione's eyes were red when she pulled away, but she glowed anyway with a grin. "I'm sure you'll want some time and all, but let me know when or if we should all meet up. I can't tell anyone, and that even includes Ron. Just so you know. Maybe don't give him a heart attack, or let Sirius? You know what he's like—Sirius, I mean—he'll want to get as many people going as he can."
"You've seen him?" Harry asked.
She nodded jerkily. "They let me be in the archway room for the whole thing. I guess he didn't believe Hildegard about how much time passed until he saw me. I mean. . .we're not kids anymore, are we?"
Harry blinked. "No, we're not."
"He looks the same, of course," Hermione said as if that was the most obvious thing in the world. She studied Harry after. "Are you all right? I wasn't sure what to expect when Kingsley said he was going to fetch you."
"Yeah." Harry shifted. "I just want to see him."
"He wants to see you too."
Hermione moved to the side so she could gesture in the general direction that Kingsley had been leading Harry in. When she did, Harry registered that the people standing behind Hermione were Hildegard and Helka. Both smiled at him, Helka more naturally and Hildegard in a nervous manner.
"I'm going to take Hildegard and Helka back to Malfoy Manor," Hermione said. "Good luck."
"Thanks," Harry replied. He stood in place as Hildegard and Helka passed him by. The will to voice the same sentiment to them hung there on the tip of his tongue, but Harry started to edge into the realm of speechlessness. Helka touched Harry on the shoulder, but Hildegard averted her gaze in a respectful manner.
"Come on, Harry," Kingsley said. "Sirius should be ready to leave."
Harry's heart started to pound again as they headed for a slew of conference rooms at the back of the floor. As they neared one, an Unspeakable lifted his chin toward Kingsley in greeting. He then dipped it at Harry. "You'll be escorting Mr Black out, as I understand it?"
Harry just nodded. The surreal feeling returned.
"Come on then. He's waiting for you."
It felt like Harry's lungs filled with concrete as the Unspeakable led him toward one of the closed doors. Inside was a table. On one side of it—face long with mingled boredom and irritation, arms crossed, and heel tapping against the floor—was Sirius. Some sort of life returned to his eyes when he looked up. They widened when his gaze met Harry's. Harry felt like he just looked in on a very lifelike portrait. That couldn't really be him, just. . .there like that. Just sitting there! Like it was the most normal thing in the world for someone that had essentially been dead for three years to show back up out of the blue.
Sirius' back straightened. "Harry, about time."
"About—?" Harry gaped at him like a fish as he floated into the room. "What do you—what're you. . .?"
Nothing he wanted to say seemed willing to exit his mouth. It didn't matter. Sirius had stood up with a scrape of his chair against the floor. He put his hands on Harry's upper arms, and suddenly it was very real. Sirius smelled the dusty way Grimmauld Place used to, with a touch of sweat and leather.
"You got taller," Sirius said. "Bloody hell. Was it really almost three years? It didn't feel like it at all. Hardly minutes, honestly. Or, as long as it took to tell Sige and Giff what all's happened since they got stuck there. They didn't know anything from after 1879. Can you believe that? And they expected me to catch them up to speed, like mates, I was always bollocks for history."
All Harry could do was stare at Sirius. He'd always known time could function strangely in the Department of Mysteries, but this was completely new. Given he hadn't seen Sirius since June eighteenth of 1996, it almost felt like the last three years hadn't happened. Harry was fifteen again, and he'd made it safely from Hogwarts on the back of a thestral. When he, Ron, Hermione, Neville, Ginny, and Luna arrived at the Department of Mysteries, they'd just come here to this office. Sirius had already been tended to, and nobody had been hurt. The three years leading up to today, when Auror Harry Potter sat twiddling his thumbs on Level Two of the Ministry, was all a vision similar to the one that brought Harry to the Hall of Prophecy in the first place. Harry could see now how all the pieces fit together on how he would bring Voldemort to his knees. He only needed to rally the Malfoys and the Ramstads. He needed to go to Durmstrang and find Luca. Erik Ramstad didn't need to die. Neither did Parasca. Dumbledore too could be saved.
Except, that wasn't true. It really was March twenty-second of 1999. The ambiguity of Sirius' supposed death did not share that characteristic with the others. Erik was already cremated. Parasca's body had been returned home to her family tomb. Dumbledore too had joined his sister and parents in Godric's Hollow.
Sirius shifted, his gaze darting slightly. "Are you gonna say something, or just keep gawking like that? It's the only look I've been getting today."
Harry shook his head sharply. "Sorry. I just—I had like five minutes' warning. This is not at all what I expected today. I never expected it, even though I didn't really accept you were gone."
"Shock is okay. I'm just glad you're not all weepy about it." A wry grin overcame Sirius. "Had enough of that too, just from Hermione. It was good to see her. I'm glad you got out of that fiasco all right with Bellatrix and Lucius Malfoy and whoever else showed up for Voldemort. I didn't have a lot of hope I'd ever see you again. Sige had been in there since 632. 632! Giff had to teach him modern English—or as modern as it got, a hundred and twenty years ago."
"I mean, I'm not feeling anything but shock right now," Harry said. "Ask anyone really, and they'd tell you that strong emotions haven't much been my thing for—well, since you left. I was really angry for a while. That came easy. Then I needed to focus."
Sirius looked Harry over in his suit. "You're a Ministry stiff. Hermione says an Auror."
A chuckle came forcefully from Harry's diaphragm, although only resulted in a spurted exhale through his nose. "Training, but yeah. Kingsley took the Head position after Scrimgeour became Minister. But he's dead now, Scrimgeour is—assassinated. Amelia Bones took office last month."
Sirius jarred a little, his head jolting back as he blinked. His eyebrows went up. "Did she? Good choice. I'm not sure how to feel about Scrimgeour, honestly. Definitely had no soft feelings for the man after how hard he tried to find me so he could throw me back into Azkaban. Is Amelia going to do the same, then? Or does she not know about this? The Department of Mysteries always sort of worked on its own. . ."
The excitement that had glowed in Sirius diminished. With it, the circles under his eyes darkened. He bunched his lips and sighed. "I guess you're taking me back to Grimmauld Place now, aren't you?"
"Er, no." Harry squeezed Sirius' elbow to remind himself that this conversation was really happening, as well as to drag Sirius out of what he believed to be the reality of his situation. "Your name was cleared."
Sirius studied Harry's face, his gauntness remaining but changed. "You're taking the piss."
Harry shook his head. He wouldn't have been able to suppress the smile that came up if he even tried.
"I. . .so—" Sirius' mouth opened and closed, and Harry knew now what he must have looked like when he first came into the room. "I'm free?"
"Yeah, didn't they tell you? They corrected the record after what happened in—well, here. Peter was named as the one that turned Mum and Dad over. He's in Azkaban, hey?"
"He is?" Sirius' voice grew raspy.
"Put him there myself. His trial's in two weeks."
Sirius' hand fixed on Harry's arm, nearly enough to hurt. That pressure constricted Harry's lungs instead as Sirius pulled him into a hug. Harry returned it, although wasn't sure he could legitimately mirror its tightness.
"Fucking hell," Sirius said near his ear. "What a man you turned out to be. I know exactly what your mum and dad would've said about you."
"What about you?" Harry said with a nudge.
"Well of course I'm proud. Although all of what yet, I'm not sure. Nobody's told me anything other than what your day job is," Sirius said with a chuckle, then stopped. "So what's going on then? With Voldemort?"
"It's over."
Sirius stiffened again, pulling away to assess Harry anew. Harry could feel Sirius' fingernails through his shirt.
"Voldemort's not dead. I didn't kill him," Harry added. "The prophecy is. . .well, moot or irrelevant are both too strong of terms. Dumbledore started thinking that maybe Voldemort is going to end up fulfilling it himself. We captured him."
"You captured Voldemort," Sirius repeated. "Is he in Azkaban too, then?"
"Nah, that's a bit more complicated." Now Harry started to feel the weight of the three years Sirius was missing. "Nobody told you anything at all about what's happened?"
Sirius shook his head. He pulled his bottom lip back between his teeth and heaved a stiff sigh. "Guess we should start with you telling me who's all dead."
"Not many, actually." Harry glanced back at the door. The Unspeakable that let him in had closed it to give them some privacy. As much as Harry wanted to get out of here, it probably didn't hurt to give Sirius some sort of warning as to what he should expect. "Scrimgeour, like I said. That was only recent, just a little over two months ago. Oh—quite a bit of Order Aurors, actually. Copeland, Durham, and Shipley, if you remember them. They died back in December. Er—Dumbledore, just a few weeks ago. Voldemort killed him. Moody, a few years ago now. He took Fenrir Greyback with him. Things actually went quite cold after we broke into the—into here." Harry looked around again, half-expecting an Unspeakable to pop up and berate him for that. "Fudge showed up at the end and saw Dumbledore duelling Voldemort. There was no denying he was back after that. But then Voldemort went quiet, focusing elsewhere. That all came to a head at the beginning of the month. Feels like an age ago already."
"Damn, that's a shame, though." Sirius resumed his chair with a sigh. "Dumbledore and Moody. Damn. Those were two I didn't think even had it in them to die. It's some kind of comfort that they took Voldemort and Greyback off the board, though. I bet Moony was happy about that piece of—he's still around, right? Moony?"
"He got busy with the werewolves after Greyback died, but yeah." Harry sat down beside him. "He's coming back sometime soon. He's got a desk waiting for him down the hall from Hermione on Level Four."
Sirius scoffed. "Great. Another Ministry stiff in my life. Just what I need. Think he'll be happy to see me? To know I'm alive?"
"Of course." Harry furrowed his brow. "Why wouldn't he be?"
With a shrug, Sirius tapped a couple of his fingers on the tabletop. "Things were never really the same after I got out of Azkaban."
"You don't have me to argue about with him anymore. That should help."
Sirius' eyes widened. "Harry—"
Harry raised a hand. "Don't worry about it. I know it's not personal. I've always had a weird relationship with any sort of guardian figure in my life. They all tended to go a certain way. Other than Mr and Mrs Weasley, you're the only one that ended up surviving. Dumbledore's gone now, and I lost my Auror mentor back in December. She taught Defence for our seventh year, then came out of retirement to help with the war. I think you would've liked her."
"Damn." Sirius rubbed his eyes with one hand, leaning heavy on the table with the elbow opposite. "That's still not as many deaths as I expected to come back to, if I came back at all. I could've easily been like Sige and Giff. Neither of them have any living immediate family. Sige, who the hell even knows since he lived so long ago, although Giff hoped he'd have some niblings or something running around. I didn't want to come back and it be a century or two later, all of you gone. Everyone but me. I got very, very lucky. How the hell did you track down not one but two gods? Bloody hell, Harry."
"What can I say?" was all Harry really could say. "It was mostly on accident. Hildegard—Freja, whatever she told you her name is—was on our radar for a while. She even spent some time in Azkaban. We thought she was just a regular witch—a Death Eater actually, since she was working with Voldemort. Then we figured she was a druid. Then a lich. Then we settled on doppelgänger. Then—nope, turns out she's a god."
Sirius' head popped back up. "She was working with Voldemort?"
"It's complicated. Voldemort was holding her daughter hostage. Getting him what he wanted would've spelled his death, but we didn't realize that. There were some other Death Eaters sort of working with her. The trials all start next week, but you'll see what I mean. Those Death Eaters are on house arrest instead, and they'll get some leniency. Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy, Hildegard herself, and then Wesley Nott."
A sneer accompanied Sirius deflating. "Lucius Malfoy's gonna slip off again, isn't he?"
"He doesn't seem to think so, but he does deserve some credit. All the Malfoys do, honestly." Harry realized with Sirius' reaction that he would never have said such a thing three years ago. "Mr Malfoy and Mr Nott have to answer to the Wizengamot for lying about being under the Imperius Curse in 1981, as well as being present when Voldemort tried to get the prophecy. Thing is, Voldemort was also to a degree using Draco against Lucius. I can explain that later. It's all to do with those old pureblood arranged marriages. The day Dumbledore died, Voldemort had tried to take Hogwarts. He succeeded, actually. If it wasn't for Snape, Hildegard, the Malfoys, and Mr Nott, he would've kept it. Draco's getting an Order of Merlin for his role in all of it. I'd be dead if it wasn't for him. It isn't just that he saved my life, he nearly died in my place when Voldemort cornered us."
Sirius hummed, and Harry didn't quite know what to take from that as far as his opinion of things. There were no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Harry would not be here right now if it wasn't for Draco Malfoy.
"I guess I can't argue with you," Sirius eventually settled to say. "You know all the intricacies better than I would."
"Too bad you didn't come back two days ago," Harry replied. "You missed the first Black family dinner in what had to be an age."
Sirius laughed, and Harry's chest ached slightly to hear that barking bite to it. "Is that so?"
"There's just the four—well, five—of you left," Harry said. "Tonks, Andromeda, Narcissa, Draco, then you. They got together Saturday at Malfoy Manor, along with their partners and kids. You could've handed Mr Malfoy his arse at croquet."
Harry broke into a right grin as Sirius' head tilted back with the force of his laughter. In the moments when he missed Sirius most, Harry would experience something akin to panic as he tried to perfectly recall the sound of it. It unsettled Harry that it might eventually slip away completely one day. Even in his dreams, an oddly muted quality had started muffling it. Harry hadn't had enough opportunity to hear it before Sirius fell through the archway.
"I'd have certainly handed Lucius something, especially if I had a couple drinks in me." Sirius flashed a wry grin again. "What do you mean by partners and kids? Did Tonks get married while I was gone?"
"Oh, no, she's still committed single," Harry repeated how Tonks described her relationship status with a look at his watch. "I think now we're getting into stuff that I could tell you anywhere else. Thoughts on getting out of here?"
"All for it."
They left the conference room. The Department of Mysteries' main office had gone on with its day as if they brought people back from the apparent dead all the time. Hardly any of them so much as glanced at Harry and Sirius as they headed through.
Sirius shifted, restless, as Harry called for a lift. "Are we going out through the Atrium?"
"We can. I guess it all depends where you want to go." Harry made a noise in his throat. "I suppose you and I will need to sort out your money situation. I inherited everything from you. That'll all be yours again. I never spent so much as a knut out of your Gringotts vault. Ron and I live at Grimmauld Place."
"Turned it into a bachelor pad, did you? Nice."
"Ron sort of has," Harry said with a snort. "I float back and forth between there and my girlfriend's place. Now that Grimmauld Place's Fidelius Charm was diluted, it's not such a hassle to have guests. I told Ron I didn't care if he brought anyone over."
"Who's that, then? Who're you with?" Sirius had a glint in his eye as they stepped into the lift. "I take it's not someone I've met before."
"Pansy Parkinson. She was a Slytherin in my year at school." Harry set them on their way to the Atrium. "I'm not sure who all Ron's shagging right now. There're a few."
Sirius' barking laughter echoed almost painfully in the restricted space. "Brilliant. I hope it's completely put my mother's portrait around the bend."
"She actually doesn't wake up much anymore. Not that I've noticed, anyway." Harry shrugged.
"Parkinson, that name rings a bell." Sirius squinted an eye as he appraised Harry.
"Her dad used to take house points off you and Dad all the time." Harry nudged him. "He was a prefect. Cassius."
"Oh, right. Do I get to meet Pansy, then?"
"Course you do. We'll make our way toward Diagon Alley. Ron's there too. He works with the twins at their joke shop."
"Should I go as Snuffles until we're out of the Ministry?" Sirius asked. "Might be easier than explaining why I'm suddenly here and alive. Or, you know, causing pandemonium if people still look at me like a criminal."
"I wouldn't worry so much about the criminal part," Harry said. "Your exoneration was a big thing after you died—er, disappeared. But you're still an unregistered Animagus."
"Ergh." Sirius rolled his eyes. "Right. The last thing I want to do right now is deal with being busted on that."
Harry braced for the Atrium, and Sirius similarly stiffened beside him. They halted conversation following an unspoken agreement. Out the corner of Harry's eye, he noticed a couple people give him and Sirius funny looks. Most people paid no mind, for maybe they preferred to think their eyes played tricks on them or they'd missed some news about him being back. Sirius was the third person in the last month, after Voldemort and Dagmar, to be declared alive and well.
They headed for the visitor's entrance since it didn't have a line. Given that nobody up in Whitehall reacted either to Sirius, magical folk had apparently made themselves scarce for the afternoon.
"So what exactly is the cover story the Unspeakables came up with to explain you being gone?" Harry asked.
"Since my name was cleared, the Department of Mysteries made use of me," Sirius replied, slipping his hands into the pockets of his worn leather jacket. "I've been abroad working for them in Chile. Now the war's over, it's safe for me to come home."
"Why Chile?"
"Honestly, I think they were hungry." Sirius snorted. "Then they scrapped the Chile part anyway, since the DOM would never tell anyone where I actually was. Wanna know the wildest part?"
"What's that?"
"They offered me a job."
Harry's eyebrows snapped up on his forehead. "Are you going to take it?"
"Yeah, because that's what I spent three years sitting outside of time and space to do. Come back and take a nine-to-five." Sirius bumped their shoulders together. His tongue was pinched between his teeth as he grinned. It disappeared back into his mouth like a darting cat. "If I get bored enough, maybe. I'd rather spend some time with you. I'd rather enjoy being free for the first time in. . ." The gauntness in Sirius' face sharpened as his expression lengthened. "Well, ever, really."
"Kingsley said I could have as much time as I wanted to get you caught up and situated," Harry said. "So you don't have to worry about rushing. I honestly don't mind having a break. Being an Auror lately has just consisted of a lot of paperwork. The bureaucratic side of finishing a war is kind of stupid. Plus, all the trials are coming soon. I didn't want to miss any of them."
"Me neither," Sirius replied. "That's if I could go."
"I'll see if I could get you an invite or whatever." Harry slowed his step so he could put his coat on. The wind had picked up today, taking away some of the sun's tentative warmth. "I don't see it not happening. They don't want anyone in there unless they were involved with the cases or were affected by the crimes. I'd say you're the perfect example for the second one."
"Unfortunately. Who's all left of the Death Eaters to go on trial?"
"Plenty. All of them, actually. It's going to be an entire month of the Wizengamot seeing one case a day," Harry said. "I have the schedule back at my desk. I didn't think to grab it, but I remember how it starts. Next week, all the cases Kingsley is advocating go first. Bellatrix is the first one after Easter, then Peter. Then it goes on from there."
"I would be happy just to get in on those two." A scowl turned Sirius' mouth down at the corners. "What all are they getting Bellatrix on?"
"I guess there'll be one less charge now, since you're not actually dead," Harry mused. "She's done plenty else. She's the one that murdered my mentor back in December."
"What about Voldemort?" Sirius asked. "When's his trial?"
"We can't really give him one." Harry sighed. "The only reason he's still around is because he's possessing somebody. After all the Death Eater trials, I'm sure there'll be some sort of account taken of Voldemort's crimes. Maybe he'll see the inside of Courtroom Ten, but the possession means he can't actually be punished."
"I take it he's not possessing one of his underlings, then."
Harry shook his head. "Hildegard's daughter. The two of them are sharing, essentially. Voldemort sleeps most of the time because he's furious about what happened. He came about for a little bit about a week ago, and he understands that pretty much his only chance to escape is to agree to be removed from Dagmar. Thing is, it's going to result in his death. He's also aware that he's inhabiting the body of a god, so who knows how that'll factor in."
"Yeah, I can't really say I see him giving that up so easily. It might not matter if he can't do anything with it."
"It's also an easy way to spite Hildegard. They had a son together, hey? Her and Voldemort?"
"What?"
"Really nice kid, actually." Harry couldn't help but grin in amusement at the gobsmacked expression on Sirius' face. "He's at Hogwarts. Seventh-year, Slytherin. Spitting image of Tom Riddle."
"Nice kid," Sirius repeated in a faraway tone with a shake of his head.
Harry didn't have the energy quite yet to explain how all of that came about. "So what was it like, where you were? Kingsley called it something, but I can't remember what he said now."
"The hǫrgr?" Sirius asked, then shrugged. "Nothing special. It looked pretty much the same as the room does here in this plane, or however you want to describe that. Drab, almost like a waiting room at St Mungo's. There were three statues. Giff had figured out that they were Odin, Freja, and Hel. He figured it meant we were in a limbo or purgatory, maybe waiting for one of the three to come collect us. You ever hear those Muggle jokes about how one of the religious ones will go to Heaven or whatever and find out they've been following the wrong god? It kinda felt like that. I didn't expect the Norse pantheon to be what greeted me."
"I kinda have a feeling that if one exists, they all do." Harry paused, remembering something from visiting Hildegard in Azkaban. "I don't think these gods are like what Muggles worship. At least, not the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-creating parts of it. I interviewed Hildegard a few times when she was in prison, and we talked about gods. At the time I just thought she'd lived with one. Their magical prowess just tends more toward life and death in nature. They can live for a very long time. They can travel quite willingly between planes, I guess. They can bring people back from the dead, turns out, so long as the conditions are right."
Harry nudged Sirius again in the ribs, although Sirius just shook his head with a smile at him. "Can't believe my little godson has dealings with gods. That's gonna take a while to wrap my head around."
"I wouldn't if Voldemort hadn't tricked one into falling in love with him." Harry paused. "Unless Voldemort ended up coming out on top, I guess. He very well might have, were it not for Magnus Norheim."
"Who's that?"
Harry waved a hand. He still didn't really feel like getting into all that. "So there were statues, you said?"
"Quite lifelike ones," Sirius said. "There wasn't really anything else to say about the place. No toilets. No food. Sige hadn't even slept. No exit, obviously. The archway was there, but the veil was gone. We could walk back and forth through it like nothing. Then a bunch of runes lit up on the archway and the veil came back. Then Hildegard came through. Well, she told us to call her that, but we already knew who she was because of the statues."
"Right."
"So Giff figured that we'd finally been picked to go to Vanaheim." Sirius kicked a pebble on the Mall crosswalk, glancing apathetically down toward Buckingham Palace. "He'd said that Odin, Freja, and Hel oversaw each of the places the dead wind up in Norse mythology. Odin and Freja, if you die in battle. Hel, the rest. I was the only one of us that died during a battle, so we figured someone finally noticed we were there. Freja always picks who's going with her before Odin takes the rest. Giff figured she'd chosen me, but then she said we weren't actually dead and it was time to go home."
Harry hummed as they turned the corner that would put the Leaky Cauldron into their view. He brought them to a stop. Sirius had already slowed, looking on anxiously as a couple witches and wizards passed in and out of the pub's door.
"I think for now you should go as Snuffles in public," Harry voiced what Sirius was probably debating himself in favour of. "Not that I think people are going to run screaming or anything, but I'd hate for Ron or the twins to hear you're back before I have a chance to tell them."
"How're you planning on doing that, exactly?"
Harry pictured Ron, Fred, and George going about their business as usual, completely unaware that the entire world had just changed. "Maybe the same way Kingsley did me would be best. I could get you to wait outside the shop."
"Sounds good."
Sirius ambled into the doorway they stood next to and bent down as if he needed to tie his boot laces. Harry leaned against the wall beside him and gave him an all-clear once all the nearby Muggles had their backs turned or their gazes focused elsewhere. They carried on again, Snuffles at Harry's heel. Harry willfully ignored a policeman on the other side of the street. He hoped he wasn't about to get called out for having an unleashed dog.
It might be the least of his problems as he prepared to bring a dog through the pub. Harry had passed through the Leaky Cauldron with Hedwig before, but he had a feeling this might be less tolerated. He also had no idea if someone would recognize Snuffles. Who would expect him, though?
Harry got a couple looks, but that was all. He let himself and Snuffles into Diagon Alley, laughing as Snuffles jumped up on his back legs with a bark. Unless Sirius had come here somehow on his own before everything happened at the Department of Mysteries, this had to be his first time visiting it since before he went to Azkaban. Snuffles' tail came to a frequent halt whenever he'd sniff the air. He licked his chops, then put his nose to the ground.
"Hey." Harry got his attention with a hand on his neck. "Are you hungry? The fish and chips are as good as they smell."
With a bark as response, Harry got them in queue at the vendor. Snuffles sat patiently beside him with his tail swishing back and forth against the street cobbles. Harry was still good from lunch, so he just got one order. As he and Snuffles carried on toward the joke shop, Harry tossed him chips to catch. They slowed to a stop so that Harry could pass over one of the cooled fillets.
When Snuffles ate all the fish (Harry kept throwing him chips), they moved on. They came around the corner leading to the joke shop, and Harry's stomach flipped a little. Ron was in their line of sight, carrying a drink tray on his way back to work. Snuffles stood completely still, his tail straight in the air and one of his front paws raised.
And then he was off.
"Siri—Snuff—" Harry tried quietly, but it was no use. He broke into a run after Snuffles, but Snuffles practically floated from the speed of him. He paid no mind to the people between him and Ron. A couple let out screams of surprise as they dodged out of the way. Snuffles' focus was tight, and Ron hadn't even noticed him.
Ron reached the joke shop door. Snuffles started to slow, but then rethought it. He galloped past Ron into the shop, who looked down dumbly at what the hell that black streak was that had just passed him. Harry heard a crash from where he was, about fifty feet away yet. Ron rushed inside. A couple customers ran out, looking behind them in panic.
The door opened again when Harry reached it, almost clocking him in the face. He apologized more as a reaction than anything else at the woman and her son scurrying away. They didn't even notice, and it was no wonder.
A display of Wildfire Wiz-Bangs had been knocked over. A couple had been set off, adding sparks and an ear-shattering screech to the pandemonium inside. Harry stepped aside to let another string of people, one holding their arms over their head, rush through the exit.
"Why did you let a ruddy dog in here?" George yelled over the chaos.
"I didn't, he ran past me!" came Ron's voice from somewhere.
A black mass flashed through one of the aisles. Harry caught the tail-end of a pant. Great, he thought. Snuffles with the zoomies. One of the Weasleys took chase, but Harry couldn't tell which one. They too moved too fast.
Harry pulled out his wand and touched it to his throat. "BAD DOG!"
His voice overshadowed even the fireworks. As the sound of him faded away after echoing off every possible surface, only the whistling and crackling remained. Harry pointed his wand at one of the Wiz-Bangs and got it to stop with a finite incantatem. The other one disappeared somewhere into the back, its bangs muffled.
"Harry?" came Ron's voice. "That you?"
Ron, Fred, and George appeared from different directions. All three held their wands at their sides. Their hair was blown asunder and their cheeks tinged red.
"Well, you got the thing to stop," Fred said. "Where did it even go? Did it run out? Maybe it reacted like it was thunder."
Harry found his voice again. "No, he didn't run out. Fucker. Heads up, that was—"
Ron pointed his wand down an aisle. "There's the ruddy thing."
Nails clacked against the floor and Snuffles panted. Before Harry could say anything, Ron's brow unfurled and his hand gave a shake. Harry leaned close enough to Ron to see down the aisle just in time for Sirius to reappear in human form at the mouth. His lips were a thin line and his eyebrows up. Although clearly pleased with himself, he didn't look very impressed.
Fred and George stared as well, slack-jawed. Sirius shifted a bit where he rested an elbow on a product display.
"What, never seen a ghost before?" He broke briefly into a grin before it disappeared. He turned a sharp gaze on Harry. "That was a low blow."
"Harry?" Ron managed.
"It's really him," Harry replied.
"You—he. . ." Fred was just as lost for words.
"Nice shop. Shame it looks like a tornado ran through." Met with further silence, Sirius shifted again. "All right, honestly, stop staring at me like that. Yes, I'm back. No, I never died. Yes, it's good to see you all again."
"Holy fuck," George said.
Ron broke free of the group first. His footsteps were heavy as he strode across the expanse of floor separating him from Sirius. Although Sirius seemed prepared for a hug, he still stumbled a little bit with Ron's enthusiasm.
He pat Ron on the back. "Please don't get weepy."
"Fuck you." Ron was muffled enough that Harry couldn't tell if the request came too late.
"Does your mother know about the mouth on you?" Sirius asked.
Ron laughed as he pulled away. Fred and George had made it over there, and Harry followed. With hugs and heavy claps on the shoulder out of the way, none of them seemed to know what to say. The twins kept their arms around Sirius' shoulders, standing on either side. The two of them and Ron all turned to Harry.
Arms folded, Harry shrugged. "The Department of Mysteries performed an extraction today."
"Bloody well took them long enough!" Ron practically snapped. He looked back at Sirius. "Are you all right? You were really behind that veil all this time?"
"Yeah, but it didn't feel as long as it's been." Sirius grinned. "Apparently I was outside time and space. A bloke from the seventh century came back with me. You think it's incredible I could return after three years, well. . .there you go."
"Dinner tonight," Fred said absently, his idle nod becoming more sure as he straightened up. "A party. The hugest fucking party. The shop's going to be closed tomorrow."
"And for the rest of the day," George added. "No way I'm going back to inventory."
"You want some help cleaning up first?" Sirius asked.
"No," the twins replied in tandem before Fred added, "Don't worry about it, mate. It's been an honour for you to trash our shop."