Somehow, despite adding two new chapters, I'm stuck on the exact same scene I was stuck on a year ago. Don't ask how that happened.
As I try to wrangle that stubborn chapter, here is the next chapter for you enjoyment. Read, review, and remember: HP and all related products belong to JKR (not me unfortunately)
"One more thing," Minerva added when Amelia finally stopped laughing. "There seems to be a dearth of former Gryffindors among the staff."
"No," Sirius said flatly.
"It's you or Hagrid," Minerva retorted.
Amelia's eyes widened. "Seriously? That's it? Merlin." She shook her head. "I never thought I'd hear myself say this, Sirius, but I think you are the more responsible one."
"Thank you very much, Amelia," Sirius replied darkly.
Amelia shrugged. "You know it's true," she told him, laughter in her voice.
Sirius had nothing to say to that.
"What are we discussing?" Clarissa asked curiously.
"Sirius was just offered Head of Gryffindor House," Amelia informed her mother in an amused tone. Sirius glared at her. Amelia had an irrational desire to stick her tongue out at him. But as she was well past the age of six, she refrained.
"There are only three members of the staff who hail from Gryffindor," Minerva explained. "As I am Headmistress, I cannot resume my duties as Head of House. And as much as I value Hagrid, I shudder to think of him assuming those responsibilities."
"Would he even get past the Fat Lady?" Amelia asked.
Minerva grimaced. "That could be a problem," she said, with a glance at Sirius. He looked confused for a moment before realization dawned and he had the grace to look chagrined.
"My turn to ask," announced Amelia.
"Uh, I . . . may have had . . . a disagreement . . . with the Fat Lady, while I was . . . hunting Wormtail," Sirius hedged awkwardly.
"Do all your 'disagreements' involve knives?" Minerva wondered aloud.
"Knives?" Amelia repeated. "You attacked a portrait?"
Sirius shrugged. "That was my unreasonable and obsessive stage. She wouldn't let me in without a password; therefore she was hiding him from me."
"The express purpose of the Fat Lady is to not let you in without a password," Amelia stiffly stated. "Not only did you attack a portrait, your former entry portrait, but you did so because she was doing her job."
"Er, yeah. Not my best decision; not my best time."
"I'll say," Amelia said with a scowl.
"Like I said, I was unreasonable and obsessed." It was Sirius' turn to scowl as Amelia nodded enthusiastically.
She gave him a faux innocent smile. "I don't suppose you could apologize to her."
"Apologize?"
"Or is that something that men are incapable of doing?"
Clarissa had a suspicious bout of coughing and absented herself with a barely audible comment about having guests and needing water.
"I'm not incapable of apologizing," Sirius muttered.
"Good. We can stop by Hogwarts tomorrow and you can apologize to the Fat Lady. Would you really rather have Hagrid in charge of discipline and advice?" Amelia added when he opened his mouth to object.
"You'd rather I was in charge of discipline?" Sirius said in disbelief.
"It's not out of your reach when you put your mind to it," she replied tartly.
Minerva caught whatever caused Clarissa to start coughing. She covered her mouth with her hand and refused to meet either of their eyes.
The Fat Lady began hysterically caterwauling the moment she caught sight of Sirius and fled through the other portraits before he even had a chance to open his mouth.
Three hours later, Amelia's patience had unraveled beyond repair. She pinned the Fat Lady to the frame she currently occupied because she really did not want to spend another three hours chasing an unreasonable portrait around. Brushing wayward strands of hair out of her flushed face, Amelia met the Fat Lady glare for glare
The Fat Lady likely only accepted Sirius' apology because she was more annoyed with Amelia at that point. Sirius had no qualms about exploiting that fact.
"If I become Head of Gryffindor House, I'll be able to make sure Amelia never raises her wand against you again."
Amelia transferred her glare to him. The Fat Lady grudgingly accepted.
It was only afterwards that Sirius realized he was stuck as Head of House. Amelia knew she shouldn't laugh at his pained expression, but she couldn't help herself.
"Tell me why we're here again," Sirius whispered urgently.
"You need a wand." The intended snark in the words faltered beneath Amelia's attempt to not draw the attention of the bystanders. A singularly futile attempt to be sure. Even though it had been a fortnight since their return had been published, they still drew nearly every eye in Diagon Alley. Everyone and their mother recognized Sirius Black; and Amelia was recognized as being "with" him. They drew markedly less attention in non-magical populaces, but while Muggle clothes were useful, Sirius still needed robes and, more importantly, a wand.
Amelia had word from Minerva that tomorrow's Prophet would bear their acceptances of teaching positions at Hogwarts. In theory, visiting Diagon Alley today would accrue the least amount of stares. In practice, that was still an awful lot of stares. And of course Ollivanders was at the far end of Diagon Alley, through the masses of curious, suspicious, and piercing eyes.
Ollivander looked much frailer than Amelia remembered, but that could only be expected from well over a year in captivity. Amelia clenched her teeth in frustration. Random bits of information she shouldn't possibly know popping up at odd moments was about as enjoyable as a staring crowd of people, and she knew quite well how enjoyable that was. Although she would grudgingly admit that the unrealized information they gained from the mist helped them understand what they otherwise might have missed due to their absence.
That didn't make it any easier when new facts unfurled in her head without warning.
"It's good to see you back in the shop," Amelia said.
Ollivander gave her a piercing stare that made her flush uncomfortably, a reaction she attributed to being as off balance as mist-news generally made her. "Do you need a wand as well, Ms. Zeraff?"
"Er, no. I, ah, still have mine. Right here." She held up the eleven and a half inch stick of larch and did her best to avoid the sharp silver eyes that were as creepily unblinking as ever.
"Very good. Sirius Black! I should have realized I'd be seeing you. You don't have a wand anymore, do you?"
"Ah, no." Sirius didn't explain; it was common knowledge that wands were snapped when their owners were sentenced to Azkaban. It was less common knowledge that his unofficial replacement fell through the Veil, but, really, no one needed to know that.
"I remember when you came in for your wand as a boy. Ebony and dragon heartstring, it was." Mr. Ollivander looked him over critically, but didn't bring out the self-measuring tape. "I imagine you've changed since then. Hmm, let me see." He rummaged through the stacks of boxed wands.
It took fully a dozen different wands before "rowan and phoenix feather, twelve inches, nice and supple" produced a barrage of purple sparks. Ollivander wore a satisfied smile as he sold them the wand.
"Ready to brave the lions' den?" Amelia asked as they headed toward the door.
"I like lions," Sirius said feigning offense.
"Go, go, Gryffindor," Amelia said with patently fake enthusiasm.
"Do I really need robes?"
Amelia raised her eyebrow.
He sighed. "Should've figured. Quick run to Madame Malkin's then, followed by a strategic retreat?"
"Sounds like a plan to me."
Amelia sat among mountains of notes. As much as she appreciated Minerva's old lesson plans, she felt she was going to go cross-eyed from the tiny handwriting. The lesson plans weren't even complete, just notes and ideas that probably made complete sense to Minerva and something less to Amelia.
"Still, it's more than Sirius has." Amelia groaned and closed her eyes. "And that is the sign I've spent too long with these Transfiguration notes: I'm talking to myself. And I'm still doing it." That's it. I need a break. Hmm . . . lunchtime.
Which was how she ended up in the doorway of the most changeable office of the castle watching Sirius look about as excited about Defense Against the Dark Arts as she had felt about Transfiguration just a little while ago. "Having fun?"
His frown was transferred to her.
"Lunch?" she offered.
The frown deepened into a glare and the book went flying onto the shelf with more force than necessary.
"What did that textbook ever do to you?"
Sirius sent the next one in her direction. Amelia caught it out of the air and brandished it at him. "Now I know something's wrong. What's the problem?" When he didn't answer she frowned. "The whole sullen sulking thing doesn't work for anyone past the age of puberty. I can get the house-elves to withhold lunch if necessary."
"I never wanted to be a professor."
"You can't possibly be worse than last year's professor. Or Umbridge. Plus, you know, half of Gryffindor is predisposed to like you, so it can't be that bad. If you need help, you can always ask me," she added. "But the way you are avoiding my eyes implies there is something else bothering you. Spill."
"Or you'll get it out of my head while I'm sleeping?" he returned sharply.
Amelia groaned. "Are you ever going to let that go?"
Sirius shrugged. "Probably not. But since I know you aren't going to drop the subject, I think Harry's avoiding me."
Amelia frowned. "Why would he do that?"
"Beats me, but he has successfully dodged all overtures I've made after the dust cleared on our reappearance."
"If you would like me to talk to your godson, you could just ask you know. It isn't against the rules of the universe for a man to ask for help, although no one would ever guess that from the way you all act."
Amelia got a sheepish grin in response.
"Why do I even bother?" she asked, throwing up her hands. "You're hopeless!"
Neither one mentioned Harry again over lunch, but afterwards Amelia did not particularly want to go over more mind-numbing lesson plans again yet, so she tracked Harry down instead. It was the first time she had been to Number Twelve Grimmauld Place since her return and she was impressed with its transformation. The depressing air of the place was gone. Even with the house-elf heads, it almost looked like a happy place.
When she said as much to Harry, he only shrugged. For someone who had not spent much time with either his father or his godfather, he certainly managed to act an extraordinarily lot like them. Perhaps personality owed as much to heritage as appearance did.
"So you're going to be professors this year?"
"If Sirius doesn't chuck the textbooks into the lake. At least Dark Arts has the stigma of being, er, interesting. I have to step into the shadow of the well-known, well-respected Professor McGonagall."
Harry grinned at her. "Hogwarts is going to different this year."
"Different in a good way, I hope. It's already experienced the other kind of different. And just because you saved the wizarding world, on purpose this time, doesn't mean you can skate through your classes!" Amelia paused. "Are you ready to go back to ordinary classes after last year?"
Harry shrugged. "It's something normal. It won't be the same as it was before, but, at least eighth-year students are allowed to leave for the weekends."
"Don't want to sit in the common room or the library and have everyone stare at you some more?"
Harry grimaced. "I've had enough of that to last me a lifetime."
"It's only going to get worse. There's a whole extra year's worth of impressionable children to stare at you with hero-worship in their eyes." Amelia bit her lip. And nearly a whole year's worth of people who won't be returning. Many of them in your year, most of them you knew.
Another shrug. "At least I'm not the only one who'll have to deal with the attention. The rest of the DA can enjoy it, too. Everyone fought, and Neville made a name for himself. Standing up to Voldemort and killing his giant snake with a sword he pulled out of the Sorting Hat? Let him deal with hordes of predatory girls for a change."
Amelia tried to stifle her laughter. "I doubt you'll have much of a problem with that this year. Ginny will hex any girl who tries anything."
"That is true," Harry said with a grin.
Conversation drifted next toward young Teddy and his adorable habit of taking on the hair color of whoever was nearest. Eventually, Amelia brought up the reason she had come to visit.
"Sirius thinks you're avoiding him. I imagine he is correct," Amelia continued as Harry suddenly decided to study the wall above her left shoulder. "It makes sense once I really thought about it. You've only known he was your godfather for four years – and he dead for half of that."
"Four and a half years," Harry corrected.
"Hrm?"
"I've known he was my godfather a little over four and a half years now. During the pre-Christmas Hogsmeade trip I, er, overheard McGonagall, Flitwick, Hagrid, and Fudge talking about him with Madame Rosmerta."
"Even better. So that's ten years of the Dursleys are the only family I have, two years of cool, I'm a wizard, half a year of some nutter wants to kill me, half a year of the nutter trying to kill me is a traitor and my godfather, two years of my godfather is a not-so-homicidal fugitive, followed by two years of my godfather is dead. Don't forget to add in the I almost died bit, which closely followed I summoned my dead godfather's not-ghost. And he wonders why you're avoiding him. Clear evidence that his brain only works some of the time."
Harry was gaping by this point. "I . . . don't think I've ever heard it described that way."
"You mean I summarized your life without a single reference to Voldemort? You're right – I didn't think that was possible, either."
Harry didn't catch the snort before it escaped. Amelia shared a grin with him before continuing. "All joking aside, I reckon you came to terms with his being dead. It was two years, after all, not to mention the whole Voldemort thing. You had a lot to deal with; I know from my experience that a full plate generally leaves you looking back and thinking, 'It's been that long already? I've been so busy, that I never even noticed when I stopped thinking about it all the time.' Platitudes aside, time doesn't heal your wounds so much as distract you from them."
And having dealt with several iterations of similar things with Sirius, both in the Veil and before, Amelia was confident in her observation, "You blamed yourself for his death."
Harry looked startled and guilty and horrified. She cut him off before he could say anything. "How you ended up so much like him, I'll never know, but I will tell you the same thing I've repeatedly told Sirius: it wasn't your fault. It took Lily and James to convince your godfather I was right, however. And while I know Sirius never once even thought to blame you, you probably won't really believe that until you talk to him."
Amelia looked him in the eyes. "He's your godfather, and he cares about you. Talk to him. Yes, you are both male and therefore would rather face a dragon than talk about personal things. But hey! You've already faced a couple of dragons! Besides, he is going to be one of your professors – you can't avoid him forever."
Having made her point, Amelia changed the subject. Somehow they ended up discussing Severus. Harry was of the opinion that "I still think he was a git . . . but [shrug] he wasn't evil."
Then he brought out the flask.
He said a great many, generally awkward things that basically translated to I don't know what to do with this so how about I give it to you to deal with instead. Amelia didn't have the faintest idea what to do with Severus' memories either, other than get them out of the three-month-old conjured flask. It was a measure of Hermione's talent that the thing hadn't dissipated already. Probably the main reason she accepted the liquid memories was because she (slightly irrationally) felt the need to preserve them, and if Harry saw nothing wrong with a flask made of magic and therefore only temporarily corporeal, leaving it with him would not guarantee its preservation.
There were some more pleasantries, but eventually Amelia admitted she couldn't avoid those lesson plans forever and had to leave. She stopped off at a Muggle shop and purchased a bottle made of green glass. Somehow it felt appropriate.