This is it.
The last chapter.
Chapter 11: Harry Potter
Mornings in the Great Hall: a bit more than eight hundred students coming in and out, from seven to nine o'clock, before their first classes. Anyone who woke up later could still come and get something to eat until ten, but there would be fewer choices if you did.
It was a thursday morning, anyway. Harry had two hours of transfiguration at eight-thirty, so he had come down to the Great Hall with everyone else. Unlike last year, he started class on the first period – except on wednesdays – the entire week.
The reason why that morning in particular was a bit different from others, the boy mused as he filled his goblet with pumpkin juice, was probably because both the headmaster and Professor Sprout were absent from the staff table.
Dumbledore not being there wasn't, per se, unusual. There was almost a meal every week during which no one knew where the old wizard actually was – some said the Ministry, some said traveling, some said he'd forgot to leave his office for mealtime, and honestly Harry had no idea which was true.
Sprout, on the other hand? House Heads tried to always be there, at least until their own class started, keeping an eye on those few early risers who had too much energy for everyone else. Harry had never seen the Herbology Professor, specifically, miss a meal – at least when he got up early enough for her not to be gone to her own lessons.
That being said, there was probably a reason why Sprout and Dumbledore were absent this morning, and it most likely had nothing to do with Harry himself, so the boy felt no particular need to ponder over their absence to the point of missing breakfast.
Ron certainly didn't feel such a need, if the looks Hermione kept giving their friend from the other side of the table were indicative of anything – she'd often comment on his lack of manners when the red-haired boy would start "stuffing his mouth", and Ron would tell her she sounded like his mother, at what Hermione would huff and go back to her own breakfast.
This year, Harry reflected, was starting weirdly – though he didn't have much to compare it with, considering he'd been seen as a curiosity at the start of his first year, and almost everyone in the castle had been wanting a look at "the famous Potter". Gilderoy Lockhart, the new DADA teacher, was weird enough on his own, and most of the school was starting to suspect that he was either a terrible teacher despite his accomplishments, or a downright fraud, and Harry kept trying to get away from the wizard before he could launch into a discourse about the woes of celebrity or who knew what – but it wasn't only him.
Somewhere in the outside world, there was a wizarding convict on the run – and apparently, that was the first time it happened in the history of Azkaban prison – and here, at Hogwarts, the convict's son was starting his first year. Some people were wary of Altair Black, Harry knew – some said he was the reason his father had broken out of prison, because it had happened mere days after the boy coming to Hogwarts, after the scandal about his mother and how she treated Altair – but the younger boy had ended up in Hufflepuff of all Houses, and that seemed to make everything better for some reason.
From what Harry had gathered, Slytherin might have caused unease, since his – almost – entire paternal family had gone there and the bigger part of Voldemort's supporters had gone there too, and so had his mother; Gryffindor, unexpectedly, would have been a problem too, because apparently Black senior had been the only one in his family to get Sorted there, and only a handful of people from that House had ever joined Voldemort; and Ravenclaw, well. It could have gone well enough, supposedly, there was no history there – no extended family in particular, no father – but Ravenclaws weren't as well-liked as Hufflepuffs, so perhaps it would have been a tentative truce there rather than careful acceptance.
Sometimes, Harry heard students whispering about Altair Black in the corridors, in the gryffindor common room, in the Great Hall – but it had been worse when Harry himself had gotten there last year, and he couldn't pretend he himself hadn't spent some time discussing the subject with Ron and Hermione, if only because he'd wanted to understand what all the fuss had been about.
On the matter of oddities, sometimes Harry noticed Malfoy whispering at his friends, casting glances at Altair Black, then at Harry himself, then again at Black. Ron had told them Malfoy's mother was a Black, like Altair's father, and perhaps that was why, but it didn't explain why he kept looking at Harry too – then again, when wasn't Malfoy glaring at Harry, or scheming against Harry, or telling lies about Harry? Things were weird, Harry had already posited that, hadn't he?
Anyway, in the end the blond boy never went and actually said anything, so for now Harry was just keeping vigilant but mostly ignoring him.
Now, people seemed to have mostly accepted the current state of things – Altair Black was here, in Hufflepuff, and his father was out there, and they didn't know each other, point. Sirius Black, after all, had never come close to the school, from what the students knew, and Harry thought that if he'd really broken out because of his son then he'd have been seen around here by now. Sirius and Altair Black were subjects of gossip, still, but one amongst several others.
It had lasted, what? One month, perhaps, and then people had moved onto something else. Halloween, Harry suddenly realized, was in less than a week. His housemates had started talking about that in the common room, yesterday evening, wondering about what was going to happen for the feast – except Harry, Ron and Hermione wouldn't be going, because they'd been invited to Sir Nicholas' Deathday Party and they hadn't known how to say no.
There, another weird thing. Hermione thought it was a great honor, but Harry would have done without, really. He liked Nearly Headless Nick well enough, but he didn't see what three kids were going to do at a party for dead people.
Ron asked him to pass the bacon, and Harry reached away for the nearest plate – Kelah handed it to him with a smile – when the morning owls arrived.
Harry, of course, didn't expect any mail – who would write to him? The people he really knew were all here, except the Dursleys – and they certainly wouldn't. Mr and Mrs Weasley, perhaps, after all he'd spent part of the summer holidays at their home, and Mrs Weasley had gotten him a christmas present last year. Oh, and Hagrid would use Hedwig to contact Harry when they didn't cross paths in the caste because he was too busy outside.
Sometimes, Hedwig still came, just to see him even if she had no mail for him.
But, no, not today. With a single look, Harry felt confident that he could go back to his breakfast – nothing for him today.
Hermione, herself, paid the Daily Prophet owl and reached for her newspaper. She'd decided to subscribe at the end of September, after an older student had explained to her how the Daily Prophet could sometimes be biased, but you just had to know they didn't always tell the entire truth and then you could start picking real information out of it. That sounded like a lot of grown-up headaches – the kind Uncle Vernon always insisted made someone a respectable adult – to Harry, but if Hermione liked it he wasn't going to complain in her stead.
Mostly Ron and Harry left her alone while she looked through the day's news. She'd read aloud if there was an article about Quidditch, because she knew Ron would want to know and Harry was curious.
Today, however, something caught Harry's attention, and he snatched the newspaper out of Hermione's hands as she was unfolding it.
"Hey!"
There was a big picture of Sirius Black on the front page – and he looked, oh, he looked meager and tired and doubtful, but he was standing calm and his eyes had lost most of the antagonistic glint Harry had noticed on so many of his Azkaban pictures.
Harry knew what it felt like to be the unwilling center of attention at Hogwarts – Altair Black had had too much of that for now, and he felt this might be the straw that would break the camel's back.
Ron glanced up from his plate – "Uh? Did they catch him?" – and started pushing things out of the way so that Harry could put the Daily Prophet down.
Hermione bent over, frowning and having forgotten her stolen property over the allure of new knowledge, as Harry started reading in his head.
A quiet whisper rose over the entire hall. A quick look up told Harry that the other students had started reading their own newspaper. Those who didn't have a subscription were starting to look for the closest acquaintance who did, and the teachers at the staff table kept a sharp eye on the proceedings – only Sinistra was actually reading the papers herself, and Harry guessed she'd tell the others professors as soon as she'd be finished.
Harry's eyes fell back on the article, and bit his lips as he told his friends what he'd read so far:
"It says they don't know much, yet, but Black was seen in Hogsmeade yesterday, and then he went to the Auror Office at the Ministry on his own? And apparently they didn't have to fight or anything, and, and..."
Harry blinked, then, and his head shot up in search of Altair Black. This, this was going to be completely different for the younger boy, if it was true! He wasn't sure it was entirely a good thing, still, but maybe...
Not that it was Harry's business, but... Well. He knew what not having parents meant, and negative relationships with the rest of his family, too.
Altair, he noticed, wasn't at the hufflepuff table yet. Harry had no idea of what the first-year hufflepuff timetable was like, so for all he knew the boy wasn't even up yet. Or he was on his way to the Great Hall, and then Harry thought he might want to get in the way, tell him before everyone got to ask about it as if the boy would know more than them. Yes, Harry would keep an eye on the door, step in before they could all start harassing Altair about his father...
He started when the newspaper was wrenched from under the hand he'd put on the table, and saw Hermione turning it to see better – it was hers to start with, and he'd stopped reading without telling them why, he suddenly realized – huffing.
Hermione skimmed over what Harry had already told them, and ended up on the part that had gotten him to react.
"Apparently they got new evidence to go through. Black might not be guilty... What was he accused of, again? Mass murder, and something else, right?"
Ron helpfully answered her, bread crumbs falling from his mouth as he spoke.
"Death At... Eater. Yu-Know-Fho's faithflu murdrers."
Hermione gave him a look of disgust, that had probably more to do with the bread crumbs and his pronunciation than the contents of what he'd tried to say.
Ron gulped down, and tried again:
"He was sent to Azkaban because he'd given intel to You-Know-Who about some of his victims, and he betrayed people and all that. And, of course, he was one of those fanatics who stood right behind and murdered innocents for fun and power."
Harry frowned at the word Ron had used – Death Eater, right? He wasn't sure of what he'd heard through Ron's munching. He'd never heard it before, but he could kind of guess what it meant anyway. It had to mean people like Malfoy's father.
Hermione continued:
"Well, they think he might be innocent."
At that, Ron snorted.
"Yeah, sure. A lot of people were found to be 'innocent' after new evidence had been 'discovered', during the Death Eaters trials, even if everyone knows they did it."
Unsurprisingly, Ron glared at Malfoy at that. There was Lucius Malfoy, who Mr Weasley said had been a big supporter of Voldemort, but the Ministry hadn't had enough hard evidence and the wizard had had great excuses for the few incriminating things the Auror Office had found... and a lot of friends who'd said "no, he couldn't have done it", too.
It had Harry wonder, how many of those Death Eaters had gone to jail, how many were out there, how many no one knew about. How many had family sitting on Hogwart's benches, right now?
Ron looked back at the article, and deflated a bit.
"I mean, maybe Black is innocent. I don't know. But after eleven years, it sounds a bit darned surprising that no one noticed sooner."
Hermione didn't say anything at that, staying silent for a moment, as she reread the article, as if there were lines she'd missed the first time around.
Finally, she asked:
"Do you think they'll let Altair go with him? Now... Now that his mother is dead?"
Ron made a face, then.
"The Blacks are worse than the Malfoys. They have more gold, more power. Purer blood, if you believe in that. If there's enough doubt, he'll be out, and he'll get his son back. So yeah, they'll let him. The big question, I guess, is whether he's really innocent or not."
Harry, him, hesitated. He knew, of course, that he'd want his father back, if he could – his mother, too, but Altair Black certainly didn't want Esta Goldhorn back, of that Harry was certain.
He... didn't know if he was for or against it. He didn't know Altair, not really, and he didn't know if Sirius Black was really innocent. If all this was a good thing for the man's son, or if Altair was just trading a terrible mother for a worse father.
Harry had no idea how to think of that – he'd give anything to go and leave the Dursleys, that was true, but if it was to end up with a family like the Malfoys...? He's not sure he'd still take the deal. Especially if it was a family of Voldemort sup... of Death Eaters, Ron had called them. Considering who he was, who they would be... He might not make it out alive.
So no, Harry didn't know. Maybe Ron didn't know, either.
A late owl came into the Great Hall, then, and everyone looked up, surprised.
It landed at the staff table, next to McGonagall. Harry and his friends watched as she read the note the owl had brought, as she let go of her fork which tinted when it fell in her plate. Her eyes seemed to take in the whole hall, and finally landed on Harry himself.
The boy shared an uneasy look with Ron and Hermione, especially as the teacher got up and started walking towards them.
His head of House, indeed, stopped right next to him, and Harry gulped.
Why would she come for him, right now? If there was someone who needed to be talked to, it wasn't Harry, but Altair Black – and the boy still wasn't there, and Harry in particular had no reason to know where he was, so why him?
McGonagall looked at him for a moment – scrutinizing, but Harry had no idea of what she was looking for. Then:
"Mr Potter. We're going to the Headmaster's office."
Before he could tell his brain not to, Harry blurted out:
"I didn't do anything!"
The transfiguration teacher closed her eyes for a second, then answered back at him, a long-suffering look on her face – as if she'd heard that sentence too many times.
"Of course you didn't. We are still going. Come on."
So Harry followed her long strides out the Great Hall, much more hesitant than the professor. A last glance at his friends, and he caught Crabbe pointing at him and Malfoy looking suspicious at the Slytherin table.
Harry had other things to worry about than Malfoy, though.
"What am I going to see the Headmaster for?"
McGonagall apparently noticed he was almost running to keep up, and she slowed down a bit.
She had a pinched face on, like she didn't want to answer him because she didn't know how to explain any of it – like it made sense for her, but barely, and it wouldn't for him, because there was too much he didn't know yet, too much he had to understand before they could get there.
He hoped Dumbledore would know how to explain, him.
"You'll know soon enough, Mr Potter."
They arrived in a corridor of the third floor where a gargoyle stood in a nook – it was weird, hadn't Fred and George said they'd gotten to the Headmaster's office by the sixth floor when the astronomy teacher had dragged them there last week? – and Professor McGonagall stopped right before it. Harry blinked, about to say something...
"Bertie botts."
The gargoyle pivoted, then, and revealed a pivoting staircase. Harry followed his Head of House up the stairs, apprehension growing in his stomach like a bad case of pepper imps. He truly had no idea what would warrant the headmaster wanting to see him, especially on a day when Dumbledore should be busy dealing with Altair Black – but there had to be something.
What could it...
McGonagall passed a door, and Harry couldn't see past her silhouette, but he thought it might be Dumbledore's office. There was no reason for several corridors even after they'd passed a gargoyle with a password, was there?
His Head of House moved further into the room, and Harry walked in too.
It was, indeed, Albus Dumbledore's office, only Dumbledore – and McGonagall, and Harry – wasn't the only person in it. Sitting in one of the chairs in front of the headmaster's desk, Altair Black was looking at him, a guarded but uncertain look under his black bangs. His blue eyes were a weird shade, Harry mused as he didn't really know what to think of it all – he'd never seen that vivid color before, except in the pictures of Esta Goldhorn following the scandal with...
Anyway, Altair didn't look much like his father, Harry thought. There had been pictures of Sirius Black at all ages in the Prophet, during the last two months, including around when the then-child had joined Hogwarts. Harry had thought he'd looked mean, back then, but now he can't help but wonder how much of it was because of what he'd thought he knew of the man.
Well. At least Altair Black wasn't a perfect copy of his mother either – that would have hurt, certainly, and Harry wouldn't like to look like Aunt Petunia. Or worse, Uncle Vernon, but fortunately the man wasn't family in that way.
McGonagall's voice brought Harry back to the present:
"Mr Potter, sit down, please."
Harry blinked as he finally realized that Professor Sprout was there, too, standing next to Professor McGonagall, a bit to the left of Dumbledore's desk. He hesitantly went to sit.
Altair Black was giving him an unsure look – what was it all about, really? – and Harry returned it.
There was no reason for Harry to be here... Was there?
Dumbledore tilted his head at him, a small smile on his lips.
"Harry. I was telling Altair about his father's affairs, actually. I thought it would be better for him to hear it from a teacher than from the Prophet."
Harry agreed, of course – he'd thought the same thing, roughly – but he still didn't know why he, Harry Potter, was here, when the headmaster was talking to Altair Black about Sirius Black.
"I... Why am I here, Professor?"
The headmaster looked at McGonagall, then back at Harry. The boy remembered the way she'd acted on the way here – like she knew, but didn't know how to say it.
"You see, Harry. Sirius Black may be Altair's father, but he's also your godfather."
What.
Harry blinked. The old wizard continued on, despite Harry's surprise.
"For obvious reasons, he could not be in your life all these years, nor would it have seemed wise to let him. However, it has come to the Ministry's attention that Lord Black is in fact innocent of the crimes he had been jailed for. In a few weeks, he should be a free man, able to care for his family."
Still, what.
Okay, wait. There was another person here, who apparently hadn't known about that either.
So Harry exchanged a look with Altair, and both of them looked like neither could quite believe it.
The headmaster, of course, wasn't finished, and continued on even as the two boys tried to find inexistent answers in the other's – entire lack of – composure.
"As it is, I have spoken with Sirius, and we are arranging a meeting in a few days, if everything goes well with the Ministry. By the end of the school year, you should be living with your father, Altair, and you, Harry, it should be possible to arrange something with your muggle relatives, so that you'd spend most of the holidays with your godfather even if you would have to go back to Little Whinging for a few days at least."
Harry jumped out of his seat at this piece of news – all thoughts about Sirius Black's still possible guilt having disappeared from his mind, if Dumbledore believed in the man's innocence, then surely he was innocent, wasn't he? His head was already filling up with the wonders that could come from a mostly Dursley-free summer.
"Really?!"
He'd startled Altair, Harry noticed then, and the younger boy was sitting on the edge of his chair now. The gryffindor student felt a bit embarrassed by that, and possibly a little guilty too – he wasn't sure, it kind of looked like unease, this look on Altair's face, didn't it?
That calmed Harry down a bit, then, and Ron's doubts made themselves heard in his mind – "A lot of people were found to be 'innocent' after new evidence had been 'discovered', during the Death Eaters trials, even if everyone knows they did it."
But no. If Albus Dumbledore himself seemed convinced – it wasn't that everyone knew Black had done it but there wasn't enough proof – then it had to be true. His godfather – his godfather! Harry hadn't even known he had one! – would be free to take care of him and Altair, and he'd get away from the Dursleys – who would surely be enchanted by the news, too – and they'd get to know each other, and they'd spent a great summer and maybe Harry could invite Ron and Hermione and Altair would invite his own friends – he'd seen the boy speak with two girls in his year, uh, Manon something and Rashida... Anyway! They'd do...
Maybe Harry was getting ahead of himself. The point was, the headmaster seemed sure of Black's innocence, and that was enough for Harry.
It would be Harry, his godfather, and his godfather's son, and it would be better than the Dursleys'.
Harry realized then that he hadn't seen much of Altair's own reaction to the news. He'd... he'd seen the younger boy recoil a bit at Harry's enthusiasm, but that was it.
With a frown, Harry looked – really looked, this time – at Altair Black.
He couldn't help but notice that the boy was much less taken with the idea of his new family – his father, back from a decade of lies and suffering, and Harry couldn't help but think that it was true on both sides, apparently, and yet Altair Black still looked guarded.
The younger boy was biting his lower lip when he finally addressed the headmaster.
"Professor..."
"Yes, Altair?"
"If he's really innocent... Why didn't he break out sooner? Why didn't he prove it?"
Uh. Harry hadn't thought of that, but Altair was right. If Sirius Black had broken out of Azkaban – an unprecedented feat, the older students had been saying – after eleven years, with no particular event to allow it through special circumstances, then it had to mean that Black could have done it before, sooner. Also, true, what had happened when the wizard had been accused of being a Death Eater that he hadn't been able to defend himself? Lucius Malfoy had done it and gotten off scott free, and he'd been guilty, him.
Dumbledore sighed, and a sadly understanding veil fell over his half-moon glasses, as if the light reflecting off them was feeling particularly saddened by what the old wizard was going to answer.
"When Sirius Black was thrown into jail... It was the end of the war, and your father... He never had a proper trial. At the time, no one really cared, they were all too angry, us included, and we knew a lot of purebloods got away on technicalities. Some didn't want to risk it, others... didn't care. Then, when we calmed down, we'd forgotten he'd never had a trial, and he himself never said anything."
Altair still didn't look like he understood, and Harry got it.
"...Why didn't... Why didn't he say anything?"
"You might want to ask him yourself."
At that non-answer, Altair looked disappointed, but Dumbledore saw it and added:
"But if I were to hazard a guess... I believe your father thought you were better off without him, the both of you. At the time, he had lost so much, he had suffered a terrible betrayal, and, more importantly, Azkaban doesn't lend itself to rational thought."
The old wizard stopped there, but after a second he finished with this:
"Obviously, when the news about your mother got out, he realized it wasn't true."
Harry looked at the boy sitting next to him, and an idea... – he patted Altair's shoulder.
"We'll ask him together, okay?"
Altair Black looked back at him. For the first time, he had a smile on his face – hesitant, but still.
"Okay."
As you can see, the story isn't finished - and by that, I mean there is a lot to go on. Harry and Altair and Sirius, Remus, Voldemort, the whole canon plot. This is only the second year, and Lucius still did his bullshit, which means the basilisk will soon start making a mess.
A lot could change, now - and some things won't. But that's not the story I wanted to write here.
I'm ending it here: the hunts have ended.
That being said, I might, maybe, but I'm not promising anything, write a one-shot with little moments from various future POVs, various moments which would follow this story. Sirius picking up the kids at King Cross from Narcissa's POV, Remus and Sirius going to see Enid Pettigrew, Lord Bones asking Lord Black why the hell he tried his hardest to make him shit his pants when he wasn't a damned Death Eater, Altair's grandparents on Esta's side finally getting in touch after having been out of the country, etc
If I write it, it'll as a twelfth "chapter", a sort of epilogue, so you'll be able to find it easily. It will be separate (but linked) on AO3, but since it's not possible here...
I finally got around to writing this story (it's been mostly planned out since 2016 or 2017, I'm not sure) because I really liked the idea and I thought it might be a good way for me to ease back into writing Sirius-centric stories... because I plan to pick up "Unclaimed Darkness" again. So, good news if you've read it too?
I think I've said everything I wanted to.
I'll ask you to review if you can, especially if you never did before, as this is the last chapter of "Hunters and Hunted".
Thanks for reading!
