Chapter 2: Marauding in the Alley

Harry's birthday was a rather quiet affair. The overall mood was a quiet and brooding one, but it wasn't only because of the prison break; Neville's parents had taken a sudden turn for the worse, and Madame Longbottom was in the middle of discussions with the goblins to see if they would consent to providing healing for Frank and Alice. It wasn't easy, since discussions with the Goblins almost never went your way unless you had something they wanted, and even then you had to prove that what you wanted was worth the goblins' time. The only reason Harry and his godfathers had had such an easy time with them was because they saw Horcruxes as absolute abominations of life and magic, and they had taken it as a personal attack that they'd discovered one in their vaults. Hufflepuff's Cup was currently on its way to Hogwarts, fully cleansed of the soul fraction and the small number of curses which had been placed on it. They had decided to allow Professor Sprout to keep a hold of it, but only until the first time it was damaged—after that, it would remain inside Gringotts for the foreseeable future, unless the Heir to the Most Ancient and Most Noble House of Hufflepuff arrived, and that didn't seem very likely.

Narcissa and Severus had come back from their honeymoon early, and Draco was now living in Prince Manor full-time. The few times he saw Narcissa, she looked shaken and pale. One good thing that had happened was that she now had the confidence to reach out to her older sister, Andromeda, who, in turn, introduced everyone to her daughter, Nymphadora, or Tonks, as she wanted to be called. A few days were spent simply getting to know the small family of three. Sirius had previously allowed them back into the Black family, and had had a few lunches getting to know his beloved older cousin all over again, so he bowed out of the get-togethers in favour of doing his job as an Auror and attempting to track Bellatrix down.

Eventually, however, the horribly stressful week came to an end, bringing with it the Hogwarts letters. Harry was happily pleased to see the Defence book—Remus had admitted a week ago that he'd been offered the Defence Professor position, and even though they knew Dumbledore had only given him the job to try to get friendly with Harry, they'd decided unanimously that he'd take the job. He might even be able to twist it against the old coot, by becoming 'friendly' with him and pretending to agree with him. It was a dangerous thing to do, though, and Sirius had suggested that they go over what the man wanted from them extensively before committing to anything.

When the twins sent another letter, telling them the days they'd be in Diagon Alley, and that Fred had already made sure that Hermione would be there for one of those days, they made plans to visit the Alley to get their school things. On that day, Narcissa, Severus, and Draco Flooed over to Grimmauld Place for breakfast, closely followed by Augusta and Neville, then Sirius, Harry, Draco, Neville, and Narcissa Flooed to the Leaky Cauldron, leaving Remus and Severus behind because they had a staff meeting at Hogwarts in half an hour which would likely take up the rest of the day, and Augusta had a morning tea scheduled with her allies on the Wizengamot to go over a bill they were backing.

The first thing that happened when Harry arrived was his vision being reduced to seeing nothing but the bunch of bushy brown hair which belonged to none other than his favourite know-it-all. The screeching in his ear helped to identify her too. Then, suddenly, she was gone, off to screech a greeting at Draco and hug him just as fiercely, and repeated it again with Neville. Harry simply smiled. Hermione had come a long way from the bossy girl on the Hogwarts Express; having three best friends and a large circle of other friends had mellowed her out, and now that she'd played several pranks and even had a genius prankster for a boyfriend, she was positively cheeky when she knew no one other than the Marauders' Recruits were around. She was a brilliant researcher, and she was the brain behind most of their prank ideas. Having friends had changed her for the better, and she held them all close to her heart whenever she remembered her lonely past in primary school.

Soon, all of the greetings were over, and they all set out to buy their things for the next school year. The first stop was Flourish and Blotts, where they met up with Blaise and his mother, and Harry discovered an Animagus book on a dusty bookshelf in the back. However, when Harry made to put it in the pile of books he wanted to buy, Sirius raised an eyebrow at him and frowned at the book. "Er… I just thought, well, you and dad managed it, and I think it'd be a cool thing to do, you know?"

Then, Sirius winked. "Oh, I have nothing against you guys doing this, it's just that this book is horribly out of date. It's actually the same one we studied from, but it wasn't until seventh year that Remus came across a much better book. See, the reason why so many people think that Animagi are so rare is because the technique in that particular book doesn't work for everyone. There are three different ways to become an Animagus that I know of, and only one of them involves the whole mandrake-leaf-in-mouth thing. That one actually works for the smallest percentage of people, but it's the fastest way. Mandrake leaves have transformative properties, but they're quite expensive, and so big that when you're using one for this, it's almost always obvious that you've got something in your mouth. The second method involves being good at Occlumency and chewing on Chameleon rockweed, which allows you to mentally view what it would look like if you transformed into your form. The rockweed is actually quite rare, and is actually closer to lichen than anything, but a round trip to some rocky islands off the coast of Britain and a plant revealing spell, and you'll find some.

"The last method is the one that works the most often, but is the most dangerous, since instead of Chameleon rockweed, you drink a diluted infusion of wormwood. The wormwood turns the mind inwards, and it can cause hallucinations in strong doses, but with a diluted dose, and your Occlumency to control the hallucinogenic properties, you can focus the effects to find out what your form is."

By the time Sirius' lecture was over, all of Harry's friends were listening to him in wonder. When he finally realised that he was being listened to so carefully by all of them, he cleared his throat awkwardly and asked, "What?"

"I think we're all just surprised that you know so much about potion ingredient properties," said Harry.

"Well, I am an Auror, kids. I had to get my N.E.W.T. in Potions, and Lily joined our little Potions study group halfway through sixth year because Slughorn thought it might prevent us from slacking off so much. She was a lot like you, Hermione, always pushing us to do our best, and once we realised we could do well in school and still have fun and prank people, well, our marks got better really quickly, and I even beat Lily in a Charms test once. Anyway, I've got the good Animagus book at home, so don't bother with buying that outdated drivel."

They all digested this information as they paid for their books and made their way to Madam Malkins'. Most of them had had a growth spurt over the summer, and Sirius had convinced Mrs Weasley to let him buy Ron, Ginny, and the Twins some new school robes in return for her baking him lots of cookies, cakes, and fudge. Harry knew that Grimmauld Place was going to be filled to the brim with the stuff by the end of next week at the latest, and he couldn't wait for the awesome care packages he'd get from home when he was at Hogwarts.

They made their way through the Alley, stopping at most shops just to window shop… especially when they saw the new broom, the Firebolt, displayed so wonderfully in the window of Quality Quidditch Supplies. Their last stop was in the Magical Menagerie, because Harry was out of snake and owl treats, and Hermione had managed to convince her parents to let her get a pet. However, she had no idea how to go about finding the right pet for her, so they waited for her while she walked through all of the sections. Finally, she got to the cats section, and stopped. The reason for stopping was because a kitten had thought it was a good idea to start climbing up the leg of her jeans. It was a tiny little thing, grey all over, and with an odd lighter grey band all around its neck. You could see Hermione melt from the other side of the shop as she carefully plucked the kitten from her pants and held it to her chest.

Whenever Hermione had visited Harry, she'd spent most of her time fussing over Crookshanks, confessing that she'd wanted a cat ever since the first time she'd seen one, but her parents wouldn't let her get one because Mrs Granger was allergic. However, this being the Wizarding world, you could have your cat charmed to be hypoallergenic, and you could also go to St Mungo's to have your allergy neutralised. One potion, taken once every two months for six months, was all it took for almost every common allergy to disappear completely, and it was perfectly safe for Muggles to go through. Hermione had discovered all this in her miscellaneous research, or light reading, as she called it, last year, and had been working on her parents ever since to let her get a cat. The reason why she had left the cat section till last was because she knew it was possible to form an involuntary Familiar Bond if an animal was particularly compatible with her, and she didn't want to discount the possibility that she might not actually be as much of a cat person as she'd always thought she was.

The kitten turned out to be a male Norwegian Forest Cat, and was fondly thought of as an escape artist by the shopkeeper. Hermione could already feel the little cat's wonder with the world in the back of her mind, so she knew he was her Familiar, and bought all the supplies and snacks for the kitten, whom she laughingly decided to call Pants.

With their exit from the Menagerie, their shopping trip was over, and they all made their way back to the Leaky Cauldron, where they had lunch, then each family Flooed back to their homes, except for Neville and Draco, who were staying the night at Harry's place, so they followed Sirius through the Floo back to Grimmauld. There were two and a half more weeks until they left for Hogwarts again, and Sirius had decided to have a prank week to ease the tension everyone was still feeling about the break out. Anyone who was interested could stay the week, and the only safe places were the bedrooms. The trio was looking forward to it, and they were ecstatic that Severus had consented to be there. Draco couldn't wait to prank the hell out of his new dad.