Chapter Ten: Fracture

The Weasley Twins help Harry into Hogsmeade, by giving him another family 'heirloom' and he learns of the betrayal the Valerians have struggled to keep from him. Tarana finally has enough.


On Fallen's insistence, Tarana remained in the Hospital Wing for the full length of time that Harry did, that is to say, until Sunday night, which ruined his weekend because he felt perfectly fine by Saturday evening.

"Potter," Fallen had said seriously when Harry had protested his continued stay in the infirmary. "I've been around a long time and I have never seen quite the reaction you and Tarana have shown to have when in contact with dementors. And trust me when I say that Tarana has met them before this year."

Though displeased, Harry and Tarana both had been forced to subside when both Pomfrey and their friends backed the direwolf.

XX

Harry and the Valerians were all the source of plenty of whispers and rumors come Monday.

It was both amusing and frustrating that, for all his apparent openness, Ivory was brilliant at dodging questions about the ability to supposedly kill dementors.

The only time he wasn't bothered by questions, was in the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, when Remus, now returned to teaching, gently, but firmly, put his foot down and insisted that his students focus on the lesson and not on the Valerian.

More good news came to his Third Year class.

Though he looked unexplainably hurt when he was told about Severus' change to his lesson plan, he had likewise told the group that they had no need to complete the essay he'd assigned on werewolves.

Harry and Tarana had remained behind after the rest of the class had been dismissed.

"Ron told me that you cast a spell on the train to drive the dementor away," Harry said when Remus looked up at him, questioningly. "Can you teach me the spell to make sure whatever this thing is that makes me drop like that stops happening?"

Tarana tilted her head, blinking up at her charge. "Harry-"

"Let the boy choose, Tarana," Ivory interrupted. "I think in his case he's got the right."

Harry gave him a thankful smile and Remus put down the book he'd been packing away to give Harry his complete attention.

"Harry, I'm not an expert on battling dementors. There was only one on the train."

"Can you teach me?" Harry repeated.

Remus glanced at Tarana before he nodded.

Harry smiled wide, but Remus raised a hand to forestall his thanks.

"This is a very difficult spell to master, Harry," he warned him. "So much so that there are full wizards and witches that can't do so. I don't want you going into this with expectations to master it under my tutelage in a year."

Harry nodded slowly, enthusiasm dimming only slightly. "I understand."

Remus gave a sharp nod. "We'll also need to begin after the new term," he said. "I have a lot to do before the holidays."

"Thanks, Professor," Harry said.

He paused when after opening the door, turning to look back at the professor.

"Do you…do you have any ideas why the dementors affect me so badly?" he asked, not expecting a real answer given Fallen's own lack of knowledge.

"Fallen and I have discussed it at length," Remus admitted. "The best we can come up with is that you simply have more to fear than most others and-"

"Remus," Ivory said sharply, causing Harry to frown and glance at the leopard.

'That's none of his concern if Tarana hasn't already shared with him why she's having seizures,' Ivory told his partner. 'Especially if there's a reason she hasn't finished knitting that Bond back together.'

Remus frowned before smiling sadly at Harry. "You're going to be late for class, Harry."

Harry glanced between Remus, Ivory, and Tarana, but found no one willing to answer his unspoken question.

Frowning, he turned sharply on his heel and nearly ran into Draco, who was watching Remus with half-lidded, suspicious eyes.

Harry's brow furrowed, frown deepening.

Draco had been watching Remus rather strangely, running his quill feather over his lower lip, during class too.

Obviously, something about the professor had intrigued the blond teen.

"What is it?" Harry whispered to him as they walked toward their next class.

Draco glanced down the hall, where Fallen watched with narrowed and impatient red eyes, then shook his head.

Harry tilted his head and resolved to try again when none of the Valerians were around to hear him.

XX

Harry didn't get a chance to ask Draco about what had bothered him about Remus after their last class, mostly because he was too busy feeling sorry for himself – at least at first.

A few days after the team had lost to Hufflepuff, Oliver had brought them all back together for harder, longer, and colder practices as November edged toward December.

Since his Nimbus had been obliterated - for lack of a better term for what had been done to it by the Willow – Harry had, for the first time since he'd first straddled a broom, been forced to use one of the school's brooms, an old model Cleansweep, that, like the rest of the school's brooms, were notoriously 'spirited' and several years out of service.

Like, decades out of service.

Yoko had commented, the evening after their first practice, that nothing said Dumbledore didn't much care for the safety of his students, like the fact that the brooms he kept for First Years to learn how to fly should have been replaced decades ago.

Draco and Oliver had both frowned at Harry's obvious decrease in skill and maneuverability on the Cleansweep before Oliver had turned to Draco.

\/\/\/

Draco had rolled his eyes as Harry landed after practice because it was clear that his friend wasn't fond of his second-third-fourth hand temporary broom, despite it being the one in the best condition in the entire broom shed.

"He can't play like that," Oliver had said, frowning and crossing his arms. "We're already behind and if we have any hope of-"

"Tell us something we don't know," Harry had muttered, dejectedly.

"You need to replace your Nimbus, Harry," Oliver had told him.

"We asked you to tell us something we didn't know, Wood," Draco had countered.

"I wouldn't even know where to start," Harry had said, sighing and had let the Cleansweep drop to the ground beside him to rub his arms and try to regain some warmth after their practice. "Professor McGonagall sent me the Two Thousand."

Draco had frowned at the reminder that Harry hadn't grown up in their world as he should have.

"Cleansweeps aren't a horrible line," Oliver had told him, raising his own, much newer, Cleansweep.

"They're not versatile enough for a seeker," Draco had countered, without thought. "The Nimbus line has speed on its side, and the Two Thousand was definitely better than anything else that flew here until last year, so McGonagall didn't have to spend a fortune on a broom either."

The blond had given Harry a once-over with a twist to his lip that Harry was familiar with.

He often wore it when he looked at Harry, Ron, or Hermione, and it was what Ron called his 'Fabulous Git' face.

It usually meant that he was keeping his mouth shut about whatever clothes they were currently putting over their skin, but he didn't like that they were wearing it, that he had to keep his mouth shut, or that he had to be seen with them wearing it.

Harry knew, from more than one rant about it, that given Harry's mostly untouched fortune, Draco didn't understand why Harry didn't try to exchange his wardrobe for, if nothing else, something that fit.

"I don't want to spend a fortune on a broom, Draco," Harry had said before he could open his mouth. "I can-" he had bit his lip because it had been on the tip of his tongue to say he'd just get another Nimbus Two Thousand, but he just couldn't make himself finish saying it.

Draco had waved his unspoken comment aside. "The Nimbus line is better for chasers anyway," he had told him. "You'll have to do your research before you just buy another broom."

Oliver had shaken his head. "We don't have time for you two to take your time, Malfoy, just get him another broom before our next match." He had grimaced. "Not that it'll matter much if Hufflepuff beats Ravenclaw."

Draco had sneered at him. "Where'd that drive disappear to, Wood?" he had demanded. "I thought you wanted to win the Cup this year."

Oliver had glared at him and gestured to the pitch as though that cleared up everything.

"If it helps," Fallen drawled, not half as bothered by the cold or the rather subpar practice that had recently ended, very few of the Gryffindor players having brought their A-game after the loss a few days earlier. The continued presence of the dementors probably didn't help, despite the distance between the nearest entrance to the grounds and the pitch. "I doubt there will be any further encroachment on the dementors part, at least not for something like another match." The 'wolf's grin was rather feral, and it didn't take a genius to figure out why.

He and Arcana had brought nature's fury down on the dementors, turning the storm into weapons that had driven them off almost as surely as the white explosion of light that Ivory had sent into the sky to obliterate more than one.

"Don't lose faith, Oliver," Tarana had added.

"The season's not over yet," Harry had sworn.

/\/\/\

Their reassurance hadn't meant much until Ravenclaw had flattened Hufflepuff, keeping Gryffindor in the running for the Cup.

Oliver had really gotten his drive back and the practices turned into exactly that, instead of long, cold slogs in the November chill.

Draco had appeared in the common room the day after that first practice with a pile of magazines that he had to have been lying about getting from Severus because Harry just couldn't see the man hoarding back issues of three different quidditch magazines.

After the Ravenclaw-Hufflepuff match, Oliver had inserted himself into the evening 'research' sessions, much to Draco's clear displeasure and Yoko's silent amusement, to give his, in Draco's opinion, unnecessary advice.

XX

Harry was, odd as it sounded, relieved when Draco became distracted by the 'holiday' trip to Hogsmeade, unofficially named as such because it took place the weekend before the Christmas holidays began.

Only for a few days, however.

Tarana and Yoko informed them that he and Blaise would, again, not be going into Hogsmeade.

Blaise didn't seem that displeased with the decision, telling Harry when he'd asked why he was so laid back about being probably the only Third Years that weren't allowed to go to Hogsmeade, "I have some cross-referencing that I can get done instead. Neville and Hermione took on the bulk of the research this week while I was with Healer Silva." The dark-skinned teen had looked up from his homework and eyed his friend, weighing his words. "And I feel safer here, behind the stone walls. Dark never got to me and Yoko while we were here, though he tried. There's less protection out there."

Harry had flinched at the reminder that Blaise probably would have preferred that Harry shut up and just keep him company in his self-imposed exile from the world, but Harry just wanted to know why and Tarana refused to tell him.

He had, more than once, wondered if it was because they weren't Bonded, but Tarana had assured him that it wasn't the case.

Though she hadn't said anything worthwhile either.

\/\/\/

"You won't even tell me why?!" Harry cried; fists clenched at his sides.

Tarana, sitting across from him in the frost of morning, was unmoved and simply stared at him.

"Ron and Draco are Bonded to Valerians too, so it can't be Dark," Harry had told her angrily. "So why is Sirius Black such a threat? Why is it just me?!"

"Lower your voice," Tarana warned him evenly but said nothing more.

Harry had screamed through his grit teeth, spinning away from her and storming back into the castle, his early rise to try and talk to Tarana having been for nothing.

/\/\/\

Harry had made no secret of the disagreement between himself and Tarana, and Tarana, in turn, didn't press him with the presence he obviously didn't want to have.

So, in the two days between his argument with Tarana on the front lawn, before the sun had even risen, and the trip into Hogsmeade, Harry didn't see the Queen, not even during classes.

If he wasn't so angry with her, it would have been eerily similar to going to class the year before, with the whispers of his classmates following him on all sides as he went from place to place without the panther at his side.

After seeing his friends, except for Blaise, off to Hogsmeade, Harry started back into the castle in search of Remus or Severus, still not quite ready to find Tarana and apologize, even though he knew that he was acting like a child.

He screamed, startled, when he was grabbed by the arm and pulled into an empty classroom off the third floor.

He glared at Fred and George as they stood there grinning with their hands folded before them, waiting for him to regain his footing.

"Morning, Harry," George said in a would-be solemn tone if he wasn't so busy grinning at him.

"What are you doing?" Harry asked. "Aren't you going to Hogsmeade?"

"Oh, we will be," Fred assured him.

"Got an early Christmas present for you," George added.

Fred pulled what appeared to be a square, folded stack of parchment from the inside of his cloak and spread it out on the desk with a reverence Harry had never seen either of the twins use before.

Harry narrowed his gaze on it before glancing suspiciously up at the twins. "What is it?"

"This," Fred said, putting a hand on the parchment, "is the secret to our success."

"But," George added, "before we hand it off to the next need-driven student of Hogwarts, we need a promise from you."

Harry's brow furrowed in confusion, not sure how a bit of old parchment could help him.

"What could I possibly need a bit of old parchment for?"

Fred wheezed, exaggeratedly, as though Harry had hit him in the gut and he put a hand over his chest. "Old parchment," he said with faux weakness.

George waved a hand in his brother's direction, not taking his eyes off Harry, though he was grinning. "Your promise, Harry, that you'll be careful if we help sneak you out to Hogsmeade."

Harry's eyes lit up. "Of course," he said. "I don't plan to get into trouble. I just want to hang out with my friends."

It was clearly good enough for the twins because the older Gryffindors relaxed and their normal, easy-going demeanors returned.

"How is this thing going to help me get into Hogsmeade, though?" Harry asked, eying the stack with subdued excitement.

"This," George said, waving his hands theatrically over the parchment, "has taught us more than all the teachers in this school."

Harry snorted, but his disbelief lasted only as long as it took George to put the tip of his wand to the parchment and say, "I solemnly swear I am up to no good."

Unconsciously, Harry took a step toward the desk, because ink was scrawling out from the point where George's wand touched the parchment, twisting and weaving until they joined and became words.

Words that brought tears to Harry's eyes.

XX

The twins showed Harry how to work the gift they couldn't possibly realize they'd given him and then left after extracting his promise to them one more time.

"Promise us, Harry," Fred said firmly.

"We don't know why Tarana won't let you into Hogsmeade," George added.

"But we want you to enjoy yourself." Fred continued. "Still."

"We won't forgive ourselves if anything happened to you."

Harry hadn't been able to take his eyes off the Map, but he'd, again, sworn to be careful.

With a last, worried look at Harry, which the teen supposed he deserved, given that he was acting really oddly, the twins had left him in the classroom.

With the Marauder's Map.

His fingers traced over the words on the 'title' page:

Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs

Purveyors of Aid to Magical Mischief-Makers

Are proud to present

The Marauder's Map

If the stories of Tarana and Ivory and Remus were true, his father had helped to make this map.

He had a magical piece of his dad in his hands.

Harry sniffed wetly before flipping the map back to the secret passage that he'd been shown led to Hogsmeade.

His fingers trailed over Ivory and Tarana's pawprints, where the two Valerians were moving, quickly it seemed, toward the Forbidden Forest.

With Yoko still at Hagrid's, he likely wasn't going to get a much better shot at sneaking out of the castle.

Taking a deep breath, he shoved the map into his pocket and headed for the Tower.

There was something else he'd need to grab first, and it wasn't his winter cloak.

XX

At the bottom of his trunk, Harry kept the two gifts, until now, he had from his parents.

The first, a large photo album that Hagrid had given him as an apology gift for nearly getting him second-hand killed in his First Year, consisted of every photo of his parents that Hagrid had managed to get his hands on in the short time between the children going after the Philosopher's Stone with their Valerian guardians and Harry's stint in the infirmary that followed it.

Originally, Harry had planned to put it on the bed and move on to the other gift, but before he could finish taking his hands off the cover, he had a second thought and pulled it back into his lap.

Back when he and Tarana had been properly Bonded, they had been able to pass strong emotions back and forth over the Bond.

He'd almost forgotten the there-and-gone flash of paingrieflove that had overwhelmed the Queen the day he'd gotten the album, and he vaguely remembered there being a picture where Ivory was front and center in it.

Flipping through the pages, it didn't take him long to find the one he thought was the one that might have caused that emotional upheaval from his guardian.

In it, were four men, one of whom he knew from the mirror every day, was his father.

On the far left was a teen with the same lanky build and reddish-brown hair as Remus, so he assumed that was the younger form of his Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher.

On the far right, beside his father, was a short, heavyset teen with slicked-back hair and an oddly shaped jaw.

Ivory was sprawled half on his back and clearly in hysterics on the ground behind Remus and was being glared, rather balefully, by an identical black leopard, who was peering Ivory through the legs of the man who, if he had a bit more weight on him and less madness in his eyes, was obviously a younger form of the Sirius Black he saw on the wanted posters and Daily Prophet articles that detailed the ongoing manhunt for the convict.

Black had an arm wrapped around James Potter's shoulder and was hunched over, laughing as the rest of the people in the photo were.

They were happy.

Harry frowned and slammed the album closed, tossing it onto the bed to reach for what the album kept hidden from anyone else that might get into his trunk.

The Invisibility Cloak that his father had, at some point, entrusted to Dumbledore, who had returned it to him in his First Year.

Tarana, Yoko, and Fallen had, from the beginning, impressed upon Harry and the others the need to make them fully aware when he planned on using it, because the cloak, in addition to making anything within its folds invisible, as the name suggested, also muffled scent and sound to the senses of the Valerians.

The first time he and Draco had taken it out, Christmas two years earlier, they had nearly been killed by Dark, who at the time had been prowling the halls while he and a then Thralled Arcana were working their way through the protections on the Stone.

Yoko hadn't even known that they were there, despite having darted right past their hiding spot to pursue Dark and the rage that had been leveled against them had nearly equaled their guilt when Fallen had told them that he and Tarana had left Yoko to pursue Dark alone because they were worried about their charges.

Harry pulled the silver silk out of his trunk and ran his fingers over the fabric, frowning at a crusty patch near the bottom that was likely drool from Fang, as he, Ron, and Draco had left it at Hagrid's the only time they'd used it the year before.

Wrapping himself in his winter cloak and shoving the Invisibility Cloak underneath it, keeping it out of immediate view from anyone he was walking by on his way to the one-eyed witch the twins had shown him, he pulled the Map back out of his pocket and trailed his eyes over the path, making sure no teachers were nearby or that any of the Valerians were back on their way up to the castle.

With a deep breath, Harry slipped back out of the dorm.

XX

The Map, while pointed out which secret passages of the school went where, couldn't tell him where anyone was past those boundaries, and as such he was lucky to find Draco and Ron still in Honeydukes, where the passage ejected him, otherwise he would have needed to search out his friends in the vast wizarding town beyond its walls and hope for the best.

He was likewise lucky that Honeydukes was the best candy store in the area, and as such was seriously packed, which prevented any of the Valerians from being by the sides of their charges, though Fallen was skulking near the entrance, clearly waiting for any idiot to decide they wanted to try their luck with laying hands on Draco.

"-said he liked these!" Ron was protesting as Harry came up behind them.

"No," Draco countered coolly, "you like them, and I actually doubt that either of them even got around to trying it."

Harry peeked around his two friends to see them arguing over some sort of caramel-covered candy and he made a face.

"Blaise doesn't like it," he whispered, startling them both. "Says it gets stuck in his teeth."

"Bloody-"

"What the-Harry!"

Harry immediately began hissing and shushing them both, eyes frantically searching out Fallen by the door.

The direwolf's head had, sure enough, turned to seek out Draco and Ron, though the shelves kept him from getting any sort of view of them.

Harry didn't know what Draco said to his guardian, but Fallen, reluctantly, subsided and didn't immediately start making his way toward them, though he was eyeing the aisle they were in suspiciously.

"What are you doing here?" Ron hissed, glancing at the door.

"It'll be fine," Harry said, bypassing the question entirely. "There's been no sign of Black or Ebony since Halloween and I'm only going to be out for a couple of hours, Tarana won't even notice I'm missing."

"Do you realize how badly Fallen and Arcana are going to maim us if they find out we let you stay down here?" Draco asked, but it was clearly not really bothering him, because he had already turned back to the rack of candy and was moving beyond the caramel whatevers, pulling a couple of something else off the shelf and into the basket.

It took a matter of minutes for the trio to get over the oddity of having Harry under his Invisibility Cloak and the other two teens were leading him around Honeydukes and pointing out the variety of candies and chocolates and Harry was picking out his favorites from the stash from their first trip as though they didn't already have the information – though judging by the fact that Harry had walked up to them arguing, it appeared that a lot of what he and Blaise had mentioned they'd liked had been forgotten.

"We're meeting Hermione and Blaise at the Three Broomsticks," Draco murmured as they headed up to the registers.

"How are we supposed to keep this quiet with Arcana and Fallen around?" Ron asked quietly, looking worriedly over his shoulder, only to find the wolf watching him and Draco.

"You can start by not looking around like a nervous cat," Harry replied drily, hoping that whatever magic kept him hidden from the Valerians was working, and the General couldn't hear him.

He'd honestly thought, of the four friends he had in Hogsmeade right now, it would be Hermione and Neville that would freak out about him breaking Tarana's – and Hogwarts' – rules.

"He's already here," Draco added, dropping the basket on the counter and ignoring the sales-wizard behind the counter. "What else should we do? Madam Rosmerta barely let the two of them in the bar last time we were here, maybe it'll be the same this time."

Honestly, Draco wasn't all that worked up about Harry being in Hogsmeade, he was, however, wishing that the brunette had given the rest of them a heads up that he was planning to try because they could have come up with a plan or something to lose the Valerians for a couple of hours so Harry would be less likely to get caught.

XX

It was clear from the moment that they left Honeydukes that Fallen and Arcana weren't convinced that something hadn't happened in the shop.

By the time the trio had gotten to the Three Broomsticks, the two Valerians were even more suspicious.

Draco felt for the cloak and tugged gently, drawing the teen beneath it with him to the counter, where he slipped one of the mugs of butterbeer between the folds, hopefully out of sight of Arcana and Fallen, before taking the tray and leading the other teen between the tables to one in the back, where Ron had joined Hermione and Neville at the table.

Hermione inhaled sharply as Harry slid into the booth between her and Ron, having felt the silky cloak brush her skin when he moved.

"You-"

Harry jabbed her sharply in the side and she quickly subsided.

Neville glanced curiously at the space between them, but, to Harry's knowledge, the other brunette didn't know about the Invisibility Cloak and he couldn't know that Harry or Blaise was beneath it and sitting between their two friends.

Arcana eyed the table for a moment, but he and Fallen were quickly distracted by the arrival of a large group of professors and a familiar face – Cornelius Fudge.

All eyes turned to the group as they settled around a nearby table, but it was Hermione who reacted fastest, drawing her wand and levitating a nearby plant to half block the table.

Fallen glanced at it, but dismissed it, as Arcana was moving across the floor.

XX

"Morning, Minister," the tiger greeted, barely glancing at Rosmerta as she returned to the table with a platter, balanced with practice, with the drinks ordered by the group.

Fudge shifted, clearly a little nervous in the presence of the King. "Your Majesty. I imagine you're out with your charge?"

Arcana waved a paw. "They're taking a lunch break, I'm sure they'll be out making mischief again soon enough. I assume you're down here for an update on the investigation into the attack on Halloween."

Rosmerta paused, the tray folded beneath her arms as she looked worriedly between the group, hesitating only briefly on Arcana. "You don't think he's still in the area, do you?" she asked.

"I'm sure of it," Fudge said before Arcana could even formulate a reply.

Fallen tilted his head.

He agreed that Black and Ebony weren't likely to go far, given that his target was here at Hogwarts, but what possessed the man to tell a civilian that?

Rosmerta's grip tightened on her tray. "But dementors have searched the whole village twice!" Despite the fear in her grip, there's an edge to her voice. "Scared all my customers away. It's very bad for business, Minister."

Fallen sneered when Fudge shifted uncomfortably. He'd never been all that fond of Fudge, though he was perfect for what Lucius usually needed him for, which was to be idiotically incompetent, for a politician responsible for an entire community.

"I don't like them any more than you do," the Minister said uncomfortably. "Necessary precaution…unfortunate, but there you are…."

Rosmerta narrowed her eyes on the man and he rushed to move forward.

"I've just met with some of them," he said, glancing at the professors sitting at the table with him. "They're in a fury, you know, as Dumbledore won't let them onto the castle grounds."

Arcana glanced at Fallen. 'How common is it, that a wizard is capable of communication with the dementors?' he asked the 'wolf.

'Depends on the dementor,' Fallen replied. 'They don't mesh with us, but I've heard that there are certain wizards that…lack the part that dementors feed on, allowing a type of communication. I suppose in theory if a dementor turned off their ability, they could speak, if one will, with others.'

Arcana frowned. 'What do you suppose the odds are that Fudge is among them?'

'Nonexistent,' Fallen said without hesitation. 'These types would never have the charisma to make it as far in the Ministry as Fudge has, not even with the help of every pureblood in England.'

"-know what Black's capable of," Fudge was saying when the tiger tuned back into the conversation before him. "The guards claim he's immune to the effects of the dementors."

Rosmerta sighed, dropping into a chair and shaking her head. "I still have trouble believing it. Of all the people to go over to the dark side, Sirius Black was the last I'd have thought…. I mean, I remember him when he was a boy at Hogwarts. If you'd told me then what he was going to become, I'd have told you you'd had too much mead."

"And the worst he'd done wasn't widely known," Fudge said.

"Minister," Arcana said warningly, but the man didn't seem to notice, when Rosmerta leaned forward and asked, "Worse than murdering all those poor people?"

McGonagall glanced at Fudge with a frown, before leaning forward and whispering, "You say you remember Black from school, Rosmerta, I assume you remember who his best friend was?"

Arcana glanced at Fallen, both Valerians frowning.

Fallen got to his paws and headed toward the back of the pub, where the small kitchen was churning out food at an unbelievable rate.

It likely wouldn't be fast enough to get the food to the children, the teens to eat it, and get them out before too many secrets were revealed by adults that, while they were trying, certainly didn't seem to care how many students could possibly overhear.

When he returned, he shook his head, and Arcana growled quietly.

Fudge was in the process of telling far too many people about the plan to hide the Potters beneath the Fidelius Charm, with some help from Flitwick, who was looking a little rosy in the cheeks and had likely had a touch too much to drink over the course of the day already.

Either that or he was a serious lightweight, despite his goblin heritage.

"It's an immensely complex spell," Flitwick squeaked in response to Rosmerta's question about what the Fidelius Charm was. "It involves the magical concealment of a secret inside a single, living soul. The information is hidden inside the chosen person, the Secret Keeper, and is henceforth impossible to find, unless, of course, the Secret-Keeper chooses to divulge it. As long as the Secret-Keeper refused to speak, You-Know-Who could search the village for years and years for where Lily and James were staying and never find them, even if he had his nose pressed against their sitting room window!"

Fallen turned his head when the teens at his back exchanged glances.

Without dragging them out of the pub, there was nothing he could do to prevent them from listening and it rather pissed him off that they were hearing this story from who they were, as opposed to Tarana, who should have told it to them.

He could only hope that when Harry found out about it, it was from Tarana and not the professors or a member of the Ministry.

XX

Hermione blindly reached under the table in search of Harry's leg, gripping it tightly as McGonagall, Flitwick, and Fudge revealed just how Black had been responsible for the death of his parents, and not simply because he had been trusted by his parents, but because he had sold them out.

Ron leaned a little more to the side and Draco stretched out as casually as he could, pressing his legs against Harry's when he found them beneath the cloak.

Harry barely felt it, he was too focused on hearing the rest of the story through the fog that was overtaking his mind.

He listened as Hagrid beat himself up because Black had arrived at the house after the Potters had died, and had taken Harry to the Dursleys, despite Black's attempts to take Harry for himself, but had comforted him before he'd left.

Even Fallen and Arcana were silent after he'd finished.

Harry knew that Arcana knew most of this, as he'd been responsible for keeping Tarana occupied that night, keeping her away from the house.

He imagined that Tarana had arrived after this part, otherwise she wouldn't have let Hagrid take him and he would have ended up with Ebony and Sirius.

"When a wizard goes over ter the Dark Side, there's nothin' and no one that matters to 'em anymore-"

Draco grit his teeth and it took every ounce of his self-control to say nothing. His guardian's clear anger at the comment helped.

"Who spread that bullshit?" Fallen asked, clearly disgusted. "Dark wizards are no less human than the rest of you. They have things and people they care about, the same as you and I do. They simply go about protecting them with different methods than you lot."

Fudge shifted uncomfortably and didn't look at all pleased with the turn the conversation had taken – likely because Fallen's view of dark wizards (which included the likes of the Malfoys and Severus) didn't fall in line with the views of the Minister or the majority of the rest of Wizarding Britain.

"I've always wondered," Rosmerta said, obviously eager for gossip since everyone was suddenly so willing to share it. "How did they catch Sirius? I mean, I remember him and James, surely, but that Ebony, he was something else."

"Well, after the death of the Potters, Black tried to run," Fudge told her. "But was cornered by another of James' friends, Peter Pettigrew."

Rosmerta frowned, clearly thinking back and remembering that boy as she did the others of the Marauders. "That fat little boy who was always tagging around after them at Hogwarts?"

"Mm," McGonagall hummed, her expression distant. "He was never quite in their league, talent-wise, and I was always rather sharp with him."

Harry's hands tightened on the tankard in his grip wondering why Tarana or Remus or Ivory had never mentioned this when they were telling tales about the Marauders when they were at school.

"He died a hero's death," Flitwick assured her, patting her hand. "Cornered Black and kept him there until the Ministry arrived."

"Black blew him to smithereens, of course," Fudge sighed, shaking his head. "One of our best."

Arcana snorted, drawing the table's attention. "That doesn't sound odd to anyone else?" he asked, skeptically. "What could possibly have possessed Pettigrew to go after Black, given the vast difference in power, training, and skill?"

McGonagall frowned at the tiger. "We can only surmise that he was so angry at the betrayal, that he made a brave, but foolish-"

"And fatal," Fallen sneered derisively. "A seriously fatal decision. Lucius never faced Black in a duel, staged or otherwise, but it was one of the few things that he found admirable about the Black Heir – his skill in a duel. I can't see Pettigrew facing off against him, no matter how angry, and expecting to come out of that with vengeance."

"Not to mention the reputation he had among the followers of the Dark Lord," Arcana pointed out, causing Fudge to frown.

Draco and the teens had remained as silent as possible to avoid drawing attention to themselves, hoping that if they weren't seen the adults would continue to talk.

At this point, however, Draco leaned forward, folding his hands together as they stretched across it. "Fallen."

Fallen tilted his head enough to look up at the blond.

"I'm not saying I know what you're all talking about, but can I just point out that given my mother's feelings on Cousin Sirius, I doubt he's a loyalist."

Fallen sighed.

Narcissa Malfoy was a die-hard loyalist of the Dark Lord, more so than her husband, and she was a Black by birth, cousin to Sirius.

She hated her cousin with the fire of a thousand suns and it wasn't because Sirius had abandoned the beliefs of his family when he turned sixteen.

'There are things in that relationship that you aren't aware of,' Fallen told his charge.

"Things?"

'Nothing yet that you need to be aware of,' Fallen told him firmly. 'Though I'm sure there will be a day where your father will tell you.'

Draco frowned, confused.

Why would his father need to the one to share his mother's reasons for hating her cousin?

"Fallen-"

'Not now, Draco.'

Draco grit his teeth, but he couldn't press his case because the door was flung open with such force that it cracked down the center.

XX

More than one wand was trained on the door and Arcana and Fallen had both leapt to their feet, only to freeze, startled, at the sight of the enraged black panther that stood there.

"HARRY JAMES POTTER!" The Queen roared, stalking past the dozens of wands pointed at her as though they weren't there, making a beeline for the table where the Gryffindor teens were scrambling to their feet.

Harry pulled the cloak off with one hand and marched forward to meet her, his own rage matching hers.

"How could you?" he hissed at her, startling the rage out of her. "How could you not tell me?!"

"Bugger," Hagrid muttered, putting his face in his hands.

"Harry-" Arcana started, stepping toward the confrontation between his hicari and her charge.

"Shut up!" Harry snapped, before turning his attention back to Tarana. "Is this why you wouldn't let me come to Hogsmeade? Because you're afraid Black will finish the job?"

"We are not having this conversation here," Tarana said sharply, any surprise she'd felt melted away by the serious disrespect her charge was giving, and the dozens of witnesses in the Three Broomsticks. "All of you, back to the castle."

Cold blue eyes trailed over Fudge and the professors, who had the grace to look chagrinned and not a little ashamed for openly gossiping about James Potter and his death, with students known to be friends of Harry's sitting barely a couple of meters away.

Harry stomped out of the Three Broomsticks, Invisibility Cloak clenched in his fist, taking the feeling of heat and power with him.

XX

Above the streets of Hogsmeade, grey eyes watched as the group of Gryffindors and Valerians headed up the path to Hogwarts.

He soaked up the image of his godson, the personification of teenage rage, as he led the charge up to Hogwarts, and wondered if it was because he'd been caught in Hogsmeade when his source had told him he wasn't allowed in the village.

He smiled thinly at the sight of the Invisibility Cloak, a familiar tool, in one hand.

"Does he look as you expected him to?"

"Better," the spy murmured.

Turning, he searched out his shadow in the darkness of the house they'd broken into, kept that way by the closed curtains, which also hid his presence within it.

"I need a favor from you," he said when he found it, ice blue eyes glowing in the minimal light of the curtain held open by his charge.

XX

Harry didn't wait until they were more than a handful of steps beyond the gates of Hogwarts before he rounded on Tarana again.

"Well?" he snapped. "Did you ever plan on telling me that Sirius Black betrayed my parents? That he's the reason I'm an orphan? That Voldemort found them and murdered them? A man they were supposed to trust?"

"At what point should I have told a child the circumstances surrounded his parent's murder? Particularly when his introduction into his parents' world has been one traumatic event after another?" Tarana asked evenly.

"I'm not a kid anymore!" Harry yelled.

"Yes," Tarana retorted sharply. "You are. Have you seen more than you should have at your age? Yes. That doesn't change the fact that you are a thirteen-year-old boy."

"He's free, Tarana!" Harry yelled, pointing toward the gate they'd just passed through. "He's out there somewhere and he's after me! I had a right to know!"

"To what end?" Tarana asked him. "Would me telling you that Sirius Black was rumored to have killed Lily and James Potter by proxy, have prevented you from doing exactly what you did this morning?"

Harry grit his teeth. "I would have been more careful, I would have-"

"Done nothing," Fallen countered. "Sirius Black is a threat beyond any of you. A war-duelist bound to a member of the Collective and he has good reason to want you dead, Harry."

"Stay out of this," Tarana snapped at him, rage kindling in her eyes again. "Or perhaps one of you would like to explain how you missed the signs of him beneath that bloody cloak, which, by the way, you will not be keeping."

Harry sneered at her. "I'm certainly not going to give it up," he told her. "It belonged to my father."

"And you've used it to sneak out of bed with the Traitor within the castle and out of the castle with a man who you have been told is trying to kill you," Arcana pointed out, ignoring Tarana's warning. "Harry, you could have been killed."

"No one asked you," Harry hissed at him.

"Enough," Tarana growled, her tone far more dangerous even than the roar of his name in the Three Broomsticks twenty minutes earlier. "I am done."

Harry tightened his grip on his Invisibility Cloak, but there was no way a thirteen-year-old could keep his grip when a Valerian's telekinesis was on the other end of it, and it draped itself over Tarana's flank.

"I have had it. You will not be keeping the Cloak, Harry Potter, because I obviously can't trust you with it. This has nothing to do with the threat of Sirius Black and everything to do with you expressly disobeying me when I told you that you were not to go into Hogsmeade.

"As far as I am concerned, and I am the only opinion that should fucking matter, given my history with Sirius, I will not be considering the man guilty of anything, especially not the murder of the only person who stood beside him when his own family tried to break him. You, boy, have no right to feel betrayed by a man you never met because while it may have been your parents that were murdered, it is my family that has been broken by it!" Tarana waved a paw at the gathered Valerians, somehow managing to encompass the missing Yoko and Ivory without saying a word.

"I know it has not escaped your notice that my people are being torn down the fucking middle, divided over the possibility of danger to them and their charges, because the meetings in Severus' office between Yoko, Fallen, and their collaborator hasn't escaped mine. It's something I find fucking hilarious," she turned angry and hurting blue eyes on Fallen, "that they've made that decision despite two of them having never even fucking met the man!"

Fallen ducked his head, averting his gaze.

Tarana shook her head, stepping back. "I am done. This is an order from your Queen. Stop making assumptions about a man you don't know the first thing about and stop giving me orders like you have the fucking standing to do so. And you," Harry flinched as she rounded back on him. "Get your ass back up to that castle and I swear to all that is good in this world, boy, if you step back outside of it before Monday, I will peel your flesh apart. Consider yourself grounded until I say otherwise and don't any of you forget who and what I am!"

The panther turned sharply on her tail and stalked toward the Forbidden Forest; Harry's Cloak still draped over her back.