It's the best I could do, Harry, I'm sorry I couldn't do more.

I love you,

Hermione.

A noise from the second bedroom told Harry that Sirius was awake.

Harry watched silently as Sirius stumbled from the bedroom, across the main room and fell onto the sofa beside Harry.

"Awake?" Harry asked, as his godfather looked far more asleep than awake.

"Mphm…" Sirius mumbled unintelligibly.

"Hmm…" Harry nodded, got to his feet and disappeared into the kitchen, seconds later he reappeared with soup in an oversized mug and a slice of buttered crusty bread. "Here, eat."

Sirius said nothing, or really, he didn't try to say anything, just accepted the mug and the bread and began to eat and drink.

Laying down the empty mug he sighed.

"Go bad to bed, Siri." Harry ordered and watched in amusement as his godfather climbed to his feet, kissed Harry on the top of the head and wandered off to bed.

Harry, however, climbed to his feet and wandered off to sort out a few more wizard space frames. An hour later he'd sorted and added tags to another dozen frames and decided to have something to eat and call it quits for the day.

He went to the kitchen and got himself a ready-made meal of shepherd's pie, took it to the table and returned to the kitchen for a pot of hot chocolate, but when he returned, Sirius was seated at the table and steadily munching his way through Harry's dinner. The bit that amused Harry, was that Sirius was still more asleep than awake. Harry poured out two mugs of chocolate and placed one in front of Sirius and the sleepy Animagus just reached out and picked it up, sipping at it in between mouthfuls of pie. Like earlier, when he finished eating, he lay down his fork and sighed.

"Bed, Siri." Harry ordered again, and again the older man climbed to his feet and wandered off to bed.

Harry shook his head and went to fetch himself another plate of pie. This time, his meal was undisturbed and by the time he headed for his own bed, there was still no further sign of Sirius moving.

Breakfast the morning was a simple meal, Harry made scrambled eggs, with a side of bacon, for both he and Sirius, but the older man was still sleeping when Harry had sat down to eat. He wondered how long it would take the Animagus to follow the scent of food?

Not long, it appeared. Within minutes of Harry sitting down, a still three-quarters asleep Sirius stumbled out to the table and clumsily folded himself onto the bench beside Harry.

"M'ng, pp." He grunted and Harry knew that was the equivalent of 'morning, pup', for those that didn't speak Sirius-garble.

"Morning, Siri. Hungry?" Harry replied.

"Hnn…"

Harry tilted his head, that was not the usual agreement, but… it was close.

"Half a mo." Harry fetched in the second plate of eggs and while Sirius made a slow but methodical effort to empty the plate, Harry made a fresh pot of tea.

By the time Sirius had finished the eggs and two mugs of tea, he was beginning to be capable of conscious thought, but he was still a bit fuzzy around the edges.

"Back to bed? Or are you staying awake, this time?" Harry asked.

Sirius just looked at him, something was nagging the Animagus but he couldn't quite figure out what it was.

"Bed." He grunted.

"Well, off you go, then." Harry jerked a thumb in the appropriate direction and Sirius nodded and headed back to heaven in navy blue, otherwise known as the second bed.

Harry shook his head and headed for the trunk room.

Ten minutes later, there was a screech that had Harry spinning and sprinting for the second bedroom.

"Harry James Potter! What in the name of Merlin's saggy ball sack is going on?" Sirius screamed.

Harry just leant against the doorframe and laughed at the look of indignation on his godfather's face.

"A bit slow this morning are we, Siri?" He managed to ask between bouts of laughter.

"I'll give you slow, you bloody little horror." Sirius half snarled, half groaned. A few moments later he frowned. "Have you been taking one of the twins prank potions? You look a bit younger than I remember…"

"Yeah… about that…" Harry grimaced.

"What did you do?"

"Erm… Why don't we have another cuppa and I'll catch you up?" Harry didn't answer, he just went to fetch the tea. "Out here, Siri."

"I don't have any clothes, pup." Sirius warned.

"Didn't stop you from coming out and stealing my dinner last night. Come on. Let me explain and I'll find you some clothes." Harry wasn't above ribbing or bribing the older man.

Sirius huffed and shuffled out in the Gryffindor red pyjamas that had gold snitches flying about on them. He flopped down onto the sofa and glared at Harry.

"Explain. Now." He demanded.

"Long version? Short version?"

"Short... to start with."

"Right, the good and the bad. The DoM? You died, but Fudge saw Voldersnort, so he couldn't deny it, anymore. Dumbledore finally told me about the prophecy and I still had to go back to Durzkaban, but hey, at least I got to destroy the Headmaster's office, first. Sixth year? Dumbledore started giving me 'private' lessons, mostly pensieve lessons on the life and times of old Voldy. Kinda gross, really. He told me that the diary I destroyed, to save Ginny, was a Horcruxe and that Voldy made a heap of them, but he didn't have an exact number. Then Dumbledore found one of Voldy's horcruxes and got cursed because he forgot to think. A few months later, he took me with him to get another one. Turns out it was a fake, your brother found it first and swapped it out. Got back to the school just in time for Draco to channel his father and let Greyback, Bella, Rodolphus and Rabastan into the school. Snape killed Dumbledore, because Draco started to grow a brain of his own, Snape takes Draco and runs away. Bill and Fleur got married and in the middle of the reception, Kingsley sent a patronus, Voldy had the Ministry. Hermione, Ron and I apparated away. We went to Grimmauld and found out about Regulus and the horcruxe he'd stolen. Kreacher and Dobby tracked Dung down, he'd taken it from Grimmauld, along with a shitload of other Black Family Heirlooms, we made him give back what he hadn't sold. We impersonated some Ministry workers, attacked Umbitch again, destroyed part of the Ministry and stole a Founder's Heirloom. I'm declared an undesirable class one. And that was the beginning of the Great Horcruxe Hunting Camping trip. October comes, Ron throws a tantrum and runs home to mummy, leaving Hermione and I to fend for ourselves. Visit Godric's Hollow on Christmas eve. Get attacked by Nagini hiding as Bathilda Bagshot, get my wand broken getting away." Harry paused and poured himself a mug of tea.

"Someone knew where we were and sent a patronus to lead me to the sword of Gryffindor. Ron turns up, between us we kill the Horcruxe. I screw up and say Voldy's name, but he'd put a taboo on it, and we got caught. Taken to Malfoy manor. Killed Wormtail or rather called in the life debt to free us and his nice shiny silver hand that Voldy gave him, killed him for betraying his master. Draco bought us enough time for Dobby to rescue us and for Bella to throw a knife at him, at least Dobby died a free elf. Work out there's a Horcruxe in Gringotts, bust in, get the Horcruxe, steal a dragon and bust out. Voldy loses control and inadvertently shows me that the last Horcruxe is at Hogwarts. Hogwarts and Hogsmeade is on lockdown and we're nearly caught, again. Dumbledore's brother at the Hog's Head, has been helping the students with food and gets us into the school. I confront Snape about Dumbledore and he does a runner. Sort of. Students are sent out to the Hog's Head and those of us left, get ready to fight. But we still had to find and destroy the Horcruxe. Manage to do that and track Voldy to the boat house. He attacks Snape and sets Nagini on him and leaves. Snape gives me his memories, tells me to go to a pensieve. I head back to the headmaster's office and use his pensieve. Dumbledore was cursed the summer after fifth year, he was dying. Made Snape promise to kill him. Mercy killing. Snape was never Voldy's, his true loyalty was to mum. Even as late as last year his patronus was for her. He was always on our side. I had a Horcruxe in my scar and the only way to destroy it is to kill me. I give myself up to Voldy and he hits me with an AK. Meet Dumbledore in a ghostly version of King's Cross and he says that now the Horcruxe is gone I have a choice. I can go 'on' and join my family or 'back' and finish off Voldy."

Harry took a few more sips of his tea.

"I went back, duelled Voldy, he lost. But the deaths were high. Fred, Tonks, Remus, Mad-eye, Snape, to name just a few. Then Kingsley came. Thickness was minister and he was killed at Hogwarts, he'd been under the imperius for the better part of a year. But when a minister dies in battle, the Ministry falls under Mordred's Law. Kingsley explained, that until the warrant for me was resolved, the ministry couldn't name a new minster. Plus, Mordred's Law means that I had to be given a fair trial and to force that, the judges are placed under memory suppression charms. They would't remember ever having heard my name before and had to judge me based solely on the evidence. I loose. I expected that, but still…"

Harry laid his mug down.

"I was given the choice of three sentences, under Mordred's Law they only had three options. Life Imprisonment. Life in Exile. Death. I chose the veil. And here I am." Harry sighed.

Sirius looked at him. "Bollocks." Sirius breathed loudly.

"Yeah… pretty much say it all." Harry shrugged.

"I think I need the longer version, pup.

"Really?" Harry whined.

"Yeah, I'm thinking you left a lot out, didn't you?"

"Urgh. I don't want to."

"Suck it up, pup, and start talking." Sirius said sternly.

"Hnn… You went into the veil and Remus held me back…" Harry started.

It took six and a half hours before Harry got to how Sirius ended up in a tent in the Forest of Dean.

"Oh, hell, Harry. That's…" Sirius whined.

"Yeah…" Harry nodded.

"So, you came out of platform 9¾, huh? I came out of the Ministry phone-box." Sirius said.

"Weird. Now, it's your turn to spill. What happened to you?"

"You may not believe it, but the very first person I saw was Arthur Weasley." Sirius snorted as Harry's jaw fell, slightly. "I was going to call out to him, but he was carrying a very young Ginny. It spooked me. I apparated to the Cauldron, put up a glamour and bought a Prophet, saw the date and apparated away, blind. Word of warning? Try not to do that too often, your subconscious controls where you go. I ended up in Godric's Hollow and the vicar found me, before I realised where I was. He knew who I was, or rather... he thought he knew, he figured I was Sirius' brother, not actually Sirius. He told me what happened that night. Apparently, James and I were on dishes duty, due to some prank, we had to do them by hand, no magic. That was true, but we finished, and I left before Lily could come up with some other cruel and unusual punishment. Not so the Sirius from here. Voldy caught them without their wands, they were having a towel-snapping fight, their wands on the table, nearly six feet away. Both died." Harry sidled over and leant against Sirius, offering as much comfort as his ten-year-old body could, Sirius slung an arm around his shoulders and kept going. "The wards must have alerted Dumbledore, he entered the cottage to hear You-Know-Who cast the Killing curse, twice. Then saw him enter the hall from your room. They duelled on the stairs and somehow Dumbledore got the upper wand. The vicar only saw the end result. Dumbledore floating a dead and decapitated dark lord down the stairs."

"Whoa…"

"Yeah. That started this intensive period of investigation, it was all over the prophet, he said. Everyone accused of being a Death-Eater or a dark sympathiser was questioned under veritaserum, everyone, regardless of their blood status. Caused an uproar at first, but only until the first of the Pureblood Death-Eaters were questioned and admitted they did it willingly, then suddenly everyone was all 'veritaserum is good'. Idiots."

"Hermione calls the wizarding world 'sheeple'. It's kind of apt." Harry said. "So, me seeing Malfoy wandering the alley? He was cleared?"

"Yep, Bellatrix really did imperius him and Narcissa, way back before they even left school, she planned to have him marry Narcissa and get control of the Black estate and hand it and Lucy over to You-Know-Who. Unfortunately, it didn't quite happen that way. Grandfather survived whatever she had planned for him and cut her from the Family, deliberately attacking the Lord of your House, it's grounds for disownment. But at least she was caught before she got to the Longbottoms' place. Frank and Alice are fine and not in St. Mungo's."

"Neville has a family." Harry whispered. "That's great."

"Yeah, sure." Sirius nodded. "Great for him. Once the vicar had finished with me, I tried to get into the cottage, but the place was locked down, so I spent the next few nights in camped out in the garden, until I was almost caught by the Aurors. I shifted into padfoot and snuck away before they started scanning for intruders. After that, I stayed as Padfoot and where possible I kept to the muggle areas. I got picked up by the muggle dog catchers a few times, but I'd just wait until I was out of sight and shift back and apparate away. I've no idea how long it's been since I arrived, it's kind of hard to judge as Padfoot. Padfoot loves kids and every so often, I'd find myself in a park, like… when you found me. When did you find me?"

"Yesterday, Siri. Just yesterday." Harry answered.

"Oh… Okay…" Sirius sat on the sofa and stared into space for some minutes, before he spoke again. "Harry?"

"Yes, Sirius…" Harry sighed.

"What's next on your list?"

"I only had four things on my list. A wand. An ID. Money. And Somewhere to live."

"And what have you sorted?" Sirius tilted his head.

"I haven't got anything about ID yet."

"And your resources?"

"I had roughly ʛ24,000… until last night when I read Hermione's letter. Somehow she worked out a way to send some Gringotts' draughts with me. ʛ11,600's worth. And a bag of gems and jewellery, I have no idea of the value, but mum and dad's wedding rings and mum's engagement ring is in there, somewhere. I haven't sorted them out, yet." Harry pointed at what velvet jewellery bag. "The tent, of course. And the pick of the bunch… eleven thousand one hundred and thirty-two second-hand wizard-space doorframes."

"Excuse me?" Sirius blinked. "Where did you get them?" He frowned. "For that matter where did you get ʛ24,000?"

"Oh, didn't I show you that? Hang on." Harry grabbed his satchel and pulled out the notebook, opened it to the rear and pulled out a Gringotts' document. "Here." He handed it to Sirius.

"A Gringotts Exchange pouch application? Ah, identity not confirmed. Ooh… Is this…? Harry? This spell-chain is… Wow, pup, this is pretty impressive." Sirius was very impressed, he just wasn't going to admit it.

"Thanks, Siri." Harry grinned. "And the frames came from Diagon. I bought an expanded trunk and… well the wizard thought I was older and being kicked out by my muggle Uncle, he sent me to his brother and Albert sold me the box of frames, minus the box, for a κnut."

"Oh, Add a Room?"

"Yep, that's them." It was Harry's turn to frown. "Siri? Why didn't you go to Dumbledore? When you arrived here, I mean."

"Uh… Yeah…" Sirius grimaced. "That's slightly complicated."

"How?"

"Alright, way back when Prongs, Moony and I were at school, I had a falling out with my family, I told you about that, I ran away… to your dad's place. About a week after I arrived, Monty, your grandad, came home one night, fuming mad, and Prongs and I snuck downstairs to listen in, we thought it might be something to do with the Blacks. It wasn't. Monty told Mia about-"

"Who's Mia?"

"Mia? Mia was your grandmother, Euphemia. Anyways, Monty told Mia that he and his partner, Moody had found a young girl, about six he said, she claimed that her father was mad at her because she'd been sick and when she got better the healers had told her father she was a squib. He took her to the Ministry and shoved her through a creepy old archway. Sound familiar? Monty and Moody took her to Dumbledore, and he used Legilimency on her, he said she was a dimension jumper and sent her straight to the Department of Mysteries. He cut Monty off every time Monty tried to find out what had happened to her. Oh, Monty was an Auror, by the way. Eventually Dumbledore got annoyed and told him that the problem had been dealt with. When Monty pushed, Dumbledore said that she died during testing with the Unspeakables. Monty was ordered to not ask again."

Harry said nothing, he just frowned.

"Yeah. Then when you were about six months old, James and I found another girl, this one was about fifteen and heavily pregnant. We approached Dumbledore about her and before we could tell him more than how we'd found her and what she claimed, she was raped by Death-Eaters, taken to the Ministry and thrown through the veil, she was gone. The DoM took her. A week later James asked how she was doing and Dumbledore brushed him off. That pissed James off and he started asking questions at the Ministry. We got a visit from an Unspeakable who told us to drop our questions or we'd end up in the same condition as her. When James asked what that condition was, he was told 'dead'."

"Whoa… Cold."

"We didn't ask again. When you add that to Dumbledore being the Chief Warlock and making no attempt to get me a trial, when the likes of Bella get one…? No, I wasn't going to him. What about you? Why didn't you go to him?" Sirius wanted to know.

"Sirius, you know next to nothing about the crap that's happened to me. And Dumbledore's been involved in it all. Don't get me wrong, he's a good man, wizard, whatever, but he's not a good headmaster. First year, I was sent into the forbidden forest at night, to hunt something that was killing unicorns. Hello? First year. I couldn't even cast a basic shield. Second year, a basilisk was slithering around the school. Did he shut the school? No? Did he call the Aurors? No. He left it to two second years to deal with. Third year? I love Moony, but he was a werewolf, in a school full of children. Not to mention the bloody dementors. Dumbledore was still Chief Warlock, he could have fronted the Wizengamot and challenged Fudge. Did he? No. Fourth year? The tri-wizard tournament. My name was entered. Did he try to find out who had done it? No. Did he try to get me out of it? No. Did they amend the challenges? No. I was told 'you're on your own, I can't help you', even though he knew that the other champions were getting help. Fifth year. Umbitch. He's still Chief Warlock. Did he do anything? No. He's the ICW's Supreme Mugwump. Did he do anything? No. You go into the veil and we're all injured, do we get medical attention? The others, yeah, sure. Me? No? What do I get? I get told that the alcoholic fraud up in the tower sprouted a prophecy, during a job interview no less, that states that I'm the only one that can kill Voldy. How long has he known? Since before I was born? Has he done anything about it? Other than let my parents die? No. Have I had any training? No. Has he got any plans, for me to get any training? No. Sixth year. He's killed by his spy. Has he told anyone that he ordered Snape to do it? No. Has he told anyone why he believed Snape was his and not Voldy's? No. Did he know when it was going to happen? Probably. Did he know I was watching? Yes. Did he know that I would think Snape murdered him? Probably. Did he expect that I would still trust Snape, just because he did? Yes. Did he know how Voldy was still alive? Yes. Did he tell anyone other than his spy? No." Harry panted. "You see what I'm saying. The codger… I loved him as the closest I had to a grandfather, but to him I was just a weapon to point and release. Or at least that was the impression we ended up with. He never explained anything, and no one was allowed to question his decisions. Ever."

"Oh, pup."

"I died fighting Voldy, Sirius. I thought about going to Hogwarts, but I was scared that if I went to Dumbledore or if he knew that I'd already killed Voldy once, he'd expect me to do it again. Either that or he'd send me to Azkaban for murdering the bastard."

"I'd like to say, 'no, he wouldn't do that', but I'm not certain, I kind of think he might." Sirius sighed.

"So how do we get IDs? It's not like we can apparate into the Ministry and place forged papers. Gringotts demands blood tests before you can open a vault and I bought some of their tests. It says I'm Harry Potter and Harry Potter is dead. The two don't match." Harry ranted.

"…ooh…" Sirius gasped silently. "There's one person that might be able to help… I mean he can, he has the ability, but whether he will or not is the question."

"Who?"

"Mad-Eye Moody."