After the disastrous Gryffindor-Hufflepuff Quidditch game that has led Harry to forcibly keep his girlfriend company in the Hospital Wing for a couple of days, weeks passed incredibly fast.
The two eventless weeks of Easter Break – during which Harry had seemed mysteriously gloomy, though he insisted 'it was nothing' when anyone asked him about the long face – came and gone, ending Mia's maternity leave and, by the time classes were to resume, April was already past its second half. The morning when the first day of classes in Hogwarts's third term was to start dawned with Sirius comfortably dreaming while sleeping in bed.
It was a pretty nice dream though this one didn't involve Mia. How could a dream about Quidditch involve her since she so obviously thought the sport was pointless? He saw himself flying high, surrounded by an enormous Quidditch pitch so full that it might have been the World Cup itself. And his team, well, it was anyone's dream team with, besides himself and James Potter as two of Chasers, the best Quidditch Players in History. Oddly, though, Moony was refereeing, though Sirius didn't remember the Werewolf ever being very interested in the game. Oh, well, it's a dream, he thought since, oddly enough, he seemed to be aware he was dreaming.
Suddenly, he woke up in a shocking and highly unpleasant fashion. He wasn't sure what had caused that. Hurricane? Earthquake? Lightening hitting the house and causing it to fall on him? Maybe the last one was close enough because he could certainly feel something weighing on him and, though that fact might be explained by the fact that his mind was still foggy, it felt like that thing weighed a ton. When he opened his eyes, however, it wasn't rumble that he found all over him but a 27 pound, two-and-something year-old boy instead.
"Geoup, Daddy!" Alex shouted in a giggly tone as he used his beloved stuffed dog to playfully hit his father across the shoulder. "Mowenin!"
Sirius groaned, carefully nudging the little boy off him so he'd stop bouncing on top of his chest and move to the mattress instead. "What did Mommy tell you about jumping on people, mate?" he asked, covering his mouth with his hand to yawn. When the little brat giggled some more, completely unashamed, Sirius mock glared and reached to mess up his hair. "Little monster," he grumbled. Yet, it was just too hard to stay angry at the damn kid despite the rude awakening. It had probably been that little creep Kreacher who'd set the kid loose on purpose so he'd jump on him, anyway.
A glance at Mia's side of the bed let him know she was already up and gone – he groaned. One could call him a cheesy sod but he had a thing for watching her sleep, even if it was for just a couple of minutes. There was something about it – the ease, the purity of it, maybe – that attracted him enough for him to put himself through the effort of waking up earlier than his wife – quite a task since she was a natural early riser – just to watch her for a few minutes, even if he ended up falling back asleep at the end of it. He hadn't been so lucky that time, apparently.
"You wouldn't happen to know where Mummy has gone to, would you?" Sirius asked his son, not expecting any coherent response – there was only so much a two-year-old could say, anyway.
The little boy giggled in reply. "Mama! Kishh Mama mownin, Daddy!"
Sirius couldn't help chuckling. "Wanna give her a good morning kiss? Well, so do I. Tell you what, how about we start a search mission to find Mommy after Daddy's taken a shower?" he asked his son playfully, who nodded surprisingly solemnly – sometimes, this one included, he could swear Alex got a kick out of imitating a small-sized adult. "Alright then," he said, ruffling Alex's hair again before pushing the covers away and getting up, leaving him and the stuffed dog, Snuffles, to play on their own. He headed to the loo just after fetching Kreacher to keep an eye on the toddler while he was in the shower and was done little more than ten minutes later, fully dressed for the day.
The task of going down the stairs took longer than usual since little Alex insisted with a lot of fuss to climb all the way down the stairs to the basement on his own, only holding his father's hand. The little boy, to his father's pride, successfully managed to succeed at it until they reached the first floor and the sweet smell of breakfast downstairs filled his nostrils, causing the young boy to become more interested in his stomach than in showing off, giving in to being carried by his father…
"Now," Sirius told his son before they went down the last flight of stairs leading to the kitchen, "be a pal and let Daddy get a pretty decent kiss from Mummy before you go all cute on her and she forgets about me, okay mate? I'll sneak you an extra cookie as payment."
"Chowat cookie," the little boy said, grinning widely. "Thew yummy."
"Yummy chocolate cookies it is, as long as you keep your side of the deal," he said, offering his hand for the little boy to shake, even though odds were Alex hadn't understood half the 'no cuteness before Daddy gets a French one out of Mummy' deal.
In response, Alex let out a small giggle and mimicked him by muttering the word 'Fwench' while his father placed him back on the floor just outside the kitchen. Then, the little boy ran off to go bother Kreacher.
Looking into the kitchen, he found Mia standing by the table, balancing a fussy Mary in one arm and somehow a cup of tea and a quill in the opposite's hand while seemingly reading something from a pile of parchment rolls that remained on the table. He grinned at how… oddly busy she looked – her hair was clumsily pinned up by a clip, several strands escaping from it (one of which their three-month-old daughter was apparently trying to reach up for), and she seemed to be muttering something to herself, though not in a loony person sort of way, while brushing the feather of her quill against her chin.
"No, no, this won't do. Need a class to review…" she murmured to herself, putting the cup of tea down and using her quill to scratch something on her parchment and write something else. She was deep in teacher mode, probably kind of jittery about going back after maternity leave.
It made a cute messy view, he thought with a grin before knocking on the open door which had Mia turning around to face him, the busy look all over her face at the same the baby fussed and she rocked her.
"Oh, I was just going upstairs to wake you up but then the I guess got distracted finishing the changes in my class-planning…" she huffed and used her hand to brush a dark strand of hair that had been blocking her view. "Merlin, I probably look like a slo…"
She was unable to finish what she was saying as her husband, walked towards her and, in a sudden movement, pulled her closer, pressing a deep kiss to her lips, which caused her to wonder what she'd been rambling about all that time while parting her lips for him…
It wasn't long before the baby, sandwiched between her parents, began to protest against the lack of attention, as did her energetic older brother by pulling Mia's robes from the floor.
The 'busy look' was gone when they broke apart, replaced by a smile. "I guess I'd forgotten the 'Good Morning' part," she said, reaching to place Mary on her father's arms so she could pay Alex some attention instead.
"What an awful way to greet your beloved husband, woman. I'm afraid it has in a bad way changed my feelings for you forever," he said, half grinning while held the little girl, ticking her bell and causing her to let out a small giggle. "Then again, I suppose the kiss wasn't all that bad and we make fairly decent kids, so no need to end this marriage…"
Mia nudged him on the arm. "Hey!"
"What? Can't a bloke just think out loud?" He turned down to Mary while Mia turned her attention to their little son, who greeted his mother with a squeal and a sloppy kiss on the cheek. "You girls just can't take a joke sometimes," he told Mary in a sing-sung tone.
Unable to respond, Mary just stared up at him with huge brown eyes that mimicked her mother's perfectly and waved her arms around trying to grab the air, which made him laugh while leaning against the kitchen counter with that precious baby in his arms.
"I don't suppose you're worried about this new term for the kids at Hogwarts," Mia said, placing Alex in his high chair.
Sirius shrugged, looking up at her. "Can't be much more dramatic than the previous ones can it? Students cursed, love potions, poison, bludgers smashing heads… how worse can it get?"
"Not much, seen from that perspective," she replied, approaching him and leaning against the counter too. Her head rested against Sirius's shoulders. "Is it awful for me to wish Alex and Mary get pretty boring years at school? Maybe not boring boring but hopefully with no dark lords involved."
"I'd say it would be pretty awful not to wish that," Sirius pointed out, looking down at Mary. "Hopefully Quidditch will be your biggest excitement at school, little girl."
"And dating," Mia added playfully, smiling as his eyes narrowed. "You know, you're just adorable sometimes," she said with a laugh.
"Nope. Not adorable. I'm big, scary and dangerous… or at least that's what I want the guys who dare look at my little Mary to think. No funny business around her."
"Well," she said, "let's hope boys chasing Mary will be the worst of your problems then…"
All good so far, Mia mused as, later that day, just before she was to leave the school and head home after lunch, she dropped by the library to request a couple of books to prepare a class for the following week.
Madam Pince's desk was empty and it wasn't hard to spot her near a table scolding a bunch of students for making a racket in the library, which led Mia to figure she might as well go look for the books on her own instead of asking for them since the librarian's lectures tended to get long. She chuckled, thinking back to one time in their seventh year when, while she was there in the library studying for her NEWTs, Sirius had pointed out after being scowled by Pince for some reason that the librarian and the caretaker, Filch, had to be a match made in heaven for their 'sparkling personalities'. Sometimes, she couldn't help agreeing though there wasn't any sign of a romance between them.
She headed to the History of Magic section of the library, near the studying tables and quickly rummaged through the books on the shelves of the large bookcase. It was while doing that that Mia recognized her godson's voice, as well as Ron and Hermione's, coming from a table on the other side of the bookcase, which made her lips curl. She'd been intending to go look for them later in order to wish Ron and Hermione good luck for their apparition test and them being right there was just fitting. She was about to drop the book-search for a few minutes in order to go talk to them when she noticed an odd sound, sort of like a buzzing, a static-like noise cutting off the trio's voices momentarily as they spoke every few seconds.
"… look, I still can't find anything about… not a word about them in the regular sect…" she could hear Hermione saying.
It didn't take her long to realize it was a Muffliato charm. It couldn't have been correctly cast, though, or else she wouldn't be able to make out anything Harry, Ron or Hermione said instead of hearing the wireless-with-bad-reception-like conversation.
Suddenly, a question came to her mind. Why were they using Muffliato at all? Appart from her and a couple other students that weren't anywhere near the trio's table, the Library was practically empty. Whatever they were talking about had to awfully important. She wondered if it was about why he'd been so… melancholic and secretive lately.
Mia felt tempted to try and remove the Muffliato spell altogether, which shouldn't be hard since it had been miscast, in order to hear whatever Hermione said in the gaps but her conscience wouldn't let her. Truth was she felt bad enough listening to her godson's private talk even though she couldn't bring herself to stop doing it and walk away.
Hermione kept on talking. "… keep looking… might find something."
"What for?" Harry asked. "You s… the entire library months ago when I first heard of th… didn't find out what… until Slughorn gave the memory…"
Hermione spoke again. "I'm trying … Professor Vector into giving me a pass… has to be something in the restrict sect…"
Mia raised her eyebrows. They were talking about something bad enough to possibly be locked inside the restricted section? More and more, she doubted that was about school work and believed they were taking about the mysterious fact that had Harry worried lately… Unable to resist, Mia moved the books opposite her slightly in order to create a small gap between them that would allow her to see the trio's faces without them noticing. Their expressions were sober, incredibly serious to be seen in kids their age. They looked awfully worried.
"…think he'll give it to you?" Ron asked, his expression doubtful.
"I said… an essay on Arithmancy and Death Predictions… should convince him. Then I can say… scrapped the essay… don't like lying but it's necess…"
"… need to find them first! … could be anywhere…" Mia heard Harry saying bitterly. "… can't find where in a book… plus Dumbledore says… not easy to destroy…"
So it was connected to Dumbledore's lesson, another matter Harry had been making a mystery about, Mia mused.
"Of course they're not easy…" Hermione agreed with a nod. "…not to mention against nature…"
"Stabbing it seems simple enough…" Ron stated. "Harry did that… worked, right?"
Hermione shook her head. "… some theory behind destroying them… lucky he could… without knowing it."
"…bledore knows how. He destroyed a Horcrux…" Harry continued. "…ring must be what hurt his…"
"Killed it, more like," Ron mumbled.
She couldn't listen or look anymore. What on Earth was going on? Trips to the restricted section (not that that part shocked her all that much), rings that 'killed'… a Horcrux? She'd never even heard of that word before… It had clearly been the main theme of the conversation, though. And how important and dangerous it sounded…
Harry was hiding things from her and Sirius, that was a fact. She'd known it already but she'd hoped he'd just get over it and tell them whatever was going on. Judging by the tone of his conversation with Ron and Hermione, it didn't seem like he intended to do it at all. What was happening in that boy's head? Part of her wanted to just corner Harry and not let him leave until he'd spilled every little detail of what he was hiding but she knew that wasn't a smart thing to do. At least not now… She was angry and far from thinking straight because her head boiled with frustration. Cornering Harry now would only lead to a fight and Merlin knew she didn't have the patience for a fight!
Teenagers, she thought with a groan. They always thought they knew everything. And there she'd thought that, despite the fact that trouble always clouded Harry's life, he was rather easy to handle in a teenager sort of way… Not bloody likely if he started hiding stuff from them – stuff that didn't sound trivial at all.
Still standing near the bookcase, she looked through the gap between the books again and saw as the trio abandoned their table and got up, walking towards the library's exit. That part of her that wanted to make Harry spill it all had to fight awfully hard to remain where she was instead of following him.
First thing, she told herself, is finding out what's going on. And that involved finding out what the Horcrux thing they'd been so nervously discussing was. Merlin helped her if she didn't find it on her own, she'd go straight to Dumbledore and somehow make him tell her. That was her son, after all. He'd been hers ever since the headmaster had handed him to her that Halloween 1981 and she could only back off from his life so much…
With that thought in her mind and her earlier task of finding the History of Magic books forgotten, Mia headed to Madam Pince's desk in order to get the key to the restricted section – she'd start looking right then. There was no time to waste.
Sirius arrived home later than he'd planned, after having been requested by McGonagall to help out during the apparition tests that afternoon by keeping an eye on the students that were to be tested. Many of them had been showing signs of deep anxiety and that anxiety caused them to act oddly. For instance, he's witnessed his godson's ex… crush, Cho Chang, burst into hysterical tears when she was called in, sobbing and shouting that she couldn't do it – according to Hermione, who'd also seemed quite nervous at the moment, that reaction was due to the fact that it was the third time young Miss Chang took her apparition test, having failed the two previous times. It was more amusing, though, (as well as slightly disgusting) watching Malfoy's crony, Gregory Goyle, successfully apparating from one spot to another with the small problem of having left every single piece of his clothing behind him…
In the end, it had been an interesting afternoon that had brought his mind back to the day when he and the guys had taken their test, passing with no fuss. That was, except from the traitorous bastard Wormtail who'd had three tests before being able to get through it without splinching major body parts and other four before being able to pass at all.
But as soon as Sirius walked out of the floo fire around half past seven in the evening, he knew something had to be wrong for Kreacher to be diplomatically standing by the fireplace, seemingly waiting for him. There were no accusations or whispered insults from either side.
"What?" Sirius asked him.
"Mistress arrive late today. She be upset."
Sirius narrowed his eyes, concerned. "What do you mean by 'upset'?"
"Nervous. Mistress's mother take young masters home with her for rest of day so Mistress wouldn't be disturbed," the house-elf said. "Mistress be in library."
He nodded and walked there without another word. Reaching the ground floor, Sirius didn't even need to enter the library to realize just how upset she was. Through its half open door, he could hear and series of 'damn its' and 'hells', words that she scolded him for saying under normal circumstances. When he finally walked in, his eyes widened. It looked like a hurricane had passed there. There were books everywhere on the floor, piled on chairs, spread all over the tables… If that morning he'd thought her state of disarrange in the kitchen, meddling with rolls of parchment all over the table, had been a 'cute mess', now, looking at his wife sitting cross-legged on the floor furiously flipping the pages of a book, made that notion shift into a 'scary mess'. For a moment, he wondered if she was having some sort of mental breakdown.
"Love…" he said softly. "Please tell me this whole mess isn't over a few classes being behind on the program or something…"
She looked up, her eyes tired. "What?"
"Is this about work, Mia? Because if it is, love, I'd say you're taking it too heavily…"
"It has nothing to do with it," she said, huffing and closing the book with a thump before rubbing her face with her hands. "It's Harry."
"What about him?" Sirius asked, interested, walking towards her and sitting on the floor opposite her.
"He's been hiding stuff from us. Of the serious sort, I mean…" She took a breath before telling him about her run into their godson and his friends in the library and what she'd heard them whispering about.
"So, they're worried about something and researching for a way to destroy these Horcross thingies," he concluded.
"It's Horcrux," she corrected him. "The last part is written as 'cross' in latin. Crux."
"Right. But, well, it could be nothing… You know from experience those three can make a drama out of anything. They're usually right but… sometimes a drama is just, well, a drama."
She sighed. "I considered that but then I went to the Restricted Section of the library to make some research on Horcruxes." Mia reached for a pocket on a side of her robes and removed a folded piece of parchment and handed it to Sirius.
It looked… it looked like it had been ripped from a book. Not just looked – it even had the name of the book printed on the header of it: Magick Moste Evile. Sirius looked at his wife in disbelief. "You realize that if Pince finds out you took this from one of her beloved books she'll skin you alive, teacher or not…"
Mia shrugged. "That's very low on my list of priorities. Read this," she said, pointing at a specific sentence.
He did as she said. 'Of the Horcrux, wickedest of magical inventions, we shall not speak nor give direction…' he silently read in his head. Well, that would explain why she was freaking out. "What's the kid doing messing with dark magic items? Dumbledore destroyed one of these, you said?"
Mia nodded. "That's what I heard them saying. And Ron mentioned something about Harry destroying one too by stabbing it… As if it's not bad enough he's messing with dark items… it just won't add up! If he's already destroyed one, how come he doesn't know how to do it again? Not that I want him to."
"Could have done it by accident the first time," Sirius suggested. "But did you find anything else?"
She shook her head. "Hermione mentioned there wasn't anything in the regular section and nobody does research like her. I even consulted the main inventory book of the library, remissive indexes… nothing. The only mention was in that sentence. Then I figured there might be more here in this library but I found nothing either…"
"Wait but hadn't you moved the darkest stuff my parents owned somewhere else when you moved here?" Sirius asked, recalling a conversation they'd shared shortly after he'd regained his freedom.
"I…" I'm dumb, she thought, I'm so dumb. She'd been too busy freaking out to remember that little fact. "The attic. I had Kreacher taking them to the attic. I mean, only the books that weren't cursed or that didn't attack people who approached them – the ones who did it went to Dumbledore so he'd handle them in his own way…"
"Well, let's check out those we have, then," Sirius said, motioning to get up and stretching an arm towards his wife to help her up too. "If there's any book in this house where you might find something about the darkest types of magic, it has to be there…"
With a sigh, Mia accepted the help and allowed her husband to pull her up to her feet before they walked out of the library together and up the stairs after talking Kreacher into going with them to show where the books were.
Though Grimmauld Place was their own, they used the two upper floors of their house, not to mention the attic, very rarely. In Mia's case, or the kids' for that matter, it wasn't for any special reason, only because there were so many stairs to climb – Sirius, however, avoided the last floor especially because there had been his and his brother's old rooms and, in Sirius's mind, Regulus was still a sore wound that was to be very rarely touched… When they reached said floor, his eyes averted the dark wooden door that led into his brother's room, a cranky note to stay out written in his handwriting still pined against the door.
The attic was reached through a narrow spiral staircase connected to a trapdoor on the ceiling of the fifth floor and climbing it was a highly uncomfortable task – a task Kreacher avoided by popping straight into the attic. Past the trapdoor the room was dark and dusty enough for the few thin rays of light coming in through a narrow window to illuminate the various particles of dust floating around.
Kreacher led them to what seemed to be a large chest, which he opened with a simple finger-snap. It was completely full. There had to be hundreds of books in there – we'll never be done with this, Sirius thought grimly.
"Well…" he started mumbling. "Where do we start?"
Mia didn't respond – instead, she pointed her wand to the chest. Thankfully, her practical sense didn't seem to be dumbed down by her frustration as her memory did… "Accio Horcrux books," she said, causing around a couple dozen books to fly out of the large chest, landing on her feet.
Sirius looked at her, impressed. "I suppose that narrows it down."
"Not so much," Mia told him. "This pretty much summons every single volume with the word 'Horcrux' on it. There's still plenty that won't interest us."
"Well, at least we don't have to go through all of them…"
Yet, it took them only a few minutes to realize that though the summoning might have narrowed the search down, it didn't make it any more pleasant. The books were simply awful, teaching the most cruel curses and potions any of them had ever seen and then detailing every gruesome effect they would cause. Plus, as dark and horrible as they might be, practically every one of them seemed to shy whenever the matter of Horcruxes was mentioned and simply stating how dark and evil they were without explaining why. That only increased their worries…
For every minute that passed, they lost more and more hope of finding any explanation for the apparently tabu word. Asking Dumbledore would be the next step, Mia thought. And if he was reluctant to help them, well, she'd have to convince him one way or the other. Deep down, she felt a slight resentment towards him over the fact that he hadn't told her or Sirius about Horcruxes, whatever they were…
"I found it!" Sirius announced suddenly, gripping a wide, blood-red-covered book in his hands. "This one has the word all over the index. It has to be about it."
"What does it say?" she asked, joining her husband in a quick movement.
"Wait, I'm getting there," he said as he flipped the pages back to the earlier ones. Sirius stopped at the introductory note and gave it a superficial read, looking for anything that said what a Horcrux was. "Here it is. Listen." He cleared his throat and read out loud. "'Among the darkest and most captivating types of magic that exist in the Wizarding World, the Horcrux is one of the absolute rulers. A Horcrux consists of an object in which a wizard hides piece of his soul, which shall be fragmented by the commitment of the act of murder on another human being, wizard or Muggle. The success of the soul-fragmenting will increase with the rate of malice of such murder either in terms of violence or of intent'." He paused for a moment, staring wide eyes at the book – part of him wanted to throw it into the fire just as he was done reading. Then, taking a deep breath, he continued. "'Among the benefits of the creation of a Horcrux are the decrease of weak feelings such as compassion and sense of conscience and…'" Sirius stopped reading again and looked Mia in the eyes. "I think I know what this is about. Who this is about."
"Finish it, Sirius," Mia whispered.
He cleared his throat and looked down at the book again. "'… and, as the most important benefit of all, the concession of absolute immortality to its creator unless the object containing the soul fragment is destroyed beyond repair. As long as a Horcrux subsists, its creator will always have the chance to return to the world of the living…'"
"It's You-Know-Who," Mia mumbled. "He's done this. He's split his soul and made himself immortal…"
Sirius closed the book and placed it on the floor before they spent several minutes silent. There were just no words to describe how they felt. And not just about the revelation but also about the fact that Harry clearly knew it and hadn't muttered a word about it to them. Never mind that, several times, they'd made him promise to be honest with the… omission was still a form of lying. With a sigh Sirius turned his face to Mia, who seemed to be staring at the wooden floor. "I think we really need to have a talk with Harry."
"Yeah," she mumbled, looking up. "I think we do."
A/N: Sort of sulking here because my internship interview last week kind of tanked but never mind that... I hope you liked the chapter. It will continue next chapter with their talk to Harry... I really should be studying for my exam tomorrow... Feedback is welcome, as always. Review!