Disclaimer: We all know how these work, I acknowledge that J.K. Rowlings, Warner Bros. and Scholastic own Harry Potter and all other characters and settings from cannon, and I get to write whatever I please and even add in characters of my own as long as I don't get any money. The no money sucks but there you go, at least I don't get lawyers knocking on my door. Addendum: If you recognize a name of a character from elsewhere it isn't mine.
Sirius' Savior
Chapter 62 Christmas Surprises
Harry stayed very busy with school the summer and fall following the attack but he frequently found himself using the time that he fenced with George to process the emotions the attack had generated.
"So how was this week Harry?"
"Pretty good, had really bad nightmares twice. Drank my "tea" both times. It's strange really. I mean intellectually I've known for years that I had enemies, but I... It just really drove the point home."
"Well you did everything right. You reacted and used your training."
"Any word on the extradition?"
"They finally arrive tomorrow."
"Any word on Sirius' trial?"
"You'd think with all the information they now have it would be easy, but..." George paused, "Get your arm up and parry correctly. You know how, so do it.
"The Wizengamot in England isn't like the Wizarding Congress here. The Wizengamot is made up solely of inherited seats not dually elected representatives. The Minister is an elected position but since the Ministerial candidates are chosen by the Wizengamot-"
"It makes for a very closed system. Sirius has complained about that he and Grandpa both think by adding a second house like the house of Commons that is made up of only elected representatives should help, and introduce new "blood". The only way the Wizengamot gets new blood is by new Order of Merlins and those families kissing up to the ancient and noble houses. What's really scary are the dark families, cousins marrying cousins. I half wonder how many of my fellow students at Hogwarts are going to be showing signs of insanity or retardation due to inbreeding. When Sirius talks about cousin Bellatrix, I get the feeling that that line is way closer than Sirius is comfortable with. He figures between her husband being less than kind, the torture Moldy put his follower's through, and Azkaban her mind is probably long since cracked and fried like an egg on the sidewalk in August." He stopped talking as George engaged his saber in a furious combination of attacks and he was trying his darnedest not to get touched.
A short time later George looked at the clock. "Good job, we're done." he pulled of his mask as Harry did the same.
Sheba who had been watching them jumped to Harry's shoulder as soon as he had removed his safety padding. He reached up and stroked her ears as he made his way to his room for a shower. As they came out of the shower and Harry was toweling Sheba dry, he saw James was sitting on his bed. "Hey kiddo what's up?"
Harry nearly laughed when James said disgustedly "Girls."
"Elizabeth and Lila driving you nuts huh?"
"They want to play dress up. Princesses."
Harry fought back a smirk. Princess dress up was the girls' favorite pastime, and thanks to Sirius' habit of spoiling his children they had a far better than average dress up wardrobe. Which was fine right up until they tried to dress him or James in their outfits. Harry had three very amusing pictures of when the two girls had dragged Sirius into their favorite game. He looked at the clock he had forty five minutes until his lesson with Walter. "Let me get dressed and I'll take you for a fly on my broom."
The little boy lit up instantly. "Thanks Harry!"
That afternoon after his potions lesson, Harry sat down to deal with mail from his numerous pen pals and former teachers. At dinner he was somber.
"What's wrong Harry?" Beth asked. She had seen him when he and James had come in from their flight grinning and glowing with happiness. She was surprised that Harry's mood had changed so dramatically.
"Got a note from Yiska, his wife was just diagnosed with stage four breast cancer."
"I'll check on them this week Harry." Sirius said.
"What's cancer Mommy?" Lila asked, curious at what had caused the change of mood at the table.
"It's a disease sweetie. When it's caught early they can cure it, but when they don't find it early it can kill. Let them know we'll do anything we can, Sirius. Any other news in that pile of mail?"
"I've got a new pen pal, Neville Longbottom."
"That's good, that will be two people you'll know at Hogwarts." Sirius said.
"Longbottom? Any relation to Augusta Longbottom?" Beth asked.
"Grandson, She's had the raising of him as well. His parents were attacked by Moldy's followers shortly after we departed England." Sirius replied. "The Potters and the Longbottoms have centuries of being allies. Had we been able to stay in England you and Neville would practically have been raised almost as brothers, his mum was your godmother."
"Interesting. Oh I got news where next trimester's trip is going."
"Really? Where?"
"Greece, I forgot the flyer at school though."
"Well we were glad that you opted to stay home this Christmas."
"Me too, Harry! if you weren't staying home I'd have to play with the girls!" James piped up.
Elizabeth and Lila frowned at their younger brother, they were only minutes older but they held it over him.
Beth fought back a smirk at their expressions, but decided to change the topic. "Are you ready for next week's finals?"
"Yes. Speaking of classes Sirius did you have any luck getting a hold of Jarrod Moran?" Harry asked.
"Sorry, not yet apparently he moves around a lot. Paige and Charlie are trying now though."
"Had to call in a few favors huh?"
"Yes, more than a few actually."
Two and a half weeks later, as the Blacks hosted Christmas. There was a surprise as the President's entourage arrived. Remus Lupin, Andromeda, Ted and Nymphadora Tonks, Amelia and Susan Bones, and Augusta and Neville Longbottom, and Minerva McGonagall arrived with him. They were already hosting Michael, Dominic, Steve and Cassidy, in addition to their security force and Beth's family. Chaos ensued, the boys opted to bunk down in the hayloft of the barn and let the girls have Harry's room. Taylor and James were delighted when the older boys included them in the experience. Gifts were found for the unexpected guests and extra supplies were brought from the Magic Castle but a very good time was had by all. And Sirius got what he considered the best gift of all, a trial date of February 17th in England under the auspices of the ICW.
Remus had brought quite a lot of work with him concerning both the Potter properties and the Black properties. Sirius listened as he gave the rundown on the Black properties and gave the necessary instructions. But when he started on the Potter properties, Sirius stopped him. "Sorry Moony old pal, that's Harry's purview. You'll need to run it past him, not me."
"But I thought.."
"Potter properties have been Harry's to command for the last nine months, three years ago we went over them together a year ago I started letting him make the calls and only corrected him when he was making major errors but he only made a couple at first so I turned it over to him. They are showing a profit right?"
"Well, yes. But.."
"Corral him after dinner, it won't take him long."
Minerva McGonagall was amazed at how Sirius had matured, back when she had been his Head of House she had frequently despaired about him ever amounting to much. But as she watched him interact with everyone, she could see how he had finally gotten past his previous sense of entitlement and had developed a sense of compassion and responsibility. And Harry, well Harry was the embodiment of all of James and Lily's best qualities. She was surprised to note that he moved very comfortably between both the magical world and the mundane. She would have expected him to only know the magical.
On their last day before returning to England Minerva cornered Sirius, "So Sirius, what sort of mayhem can I expect when Harry comes to Hogwarts? I am assuming he's coming, as all Potters have since the founding."
"I... I doubt you'll have much to worry about Min. Harry isn't as big on pranking as you might expect. That's not to say he never does, but he prefers to wait for it to be earned and it is always appropriate and horribly embarrassing. Or if it's a rare occasion general prank, he doesn't have a specific target and it is in good fun for all. Not like a lot of the pranks James and I pulled on Snape. I mean I never liked the guy but in retrospect we went too far more than once, me more so than James. It was mostly James out of jealousy, but a lot of what we did... Well it was wrong.
"I should warn you you'll probably have to put Harry ahead in his classes, he's been studying magic for coming up on two years and he is as smart or smarter than Lily. IF you don't want pranks well, don't let him be bored. I was planning on him continuing his muggle education to help keep him busy. But he'll be a challenging student, and probably top of his class."
"When you say he's been getting training what do you mean?"
"He's been getting lessons in defense since he was three. He's a trained metamorphamagus. He's had occulemency training. He's received a grounding in arithmancy which he excels at by the way, a grounding in charms, transfiguration, and potions. He loves theory, he's very like Lily in that respect. He's gotten some training in creatures and Herbology courtesy of one of our investments. And he's had exposure to alchemy and what I call technomancy oh and he also has learned a bit about Runes. Our latest ripple is we think he's an elemental mage. I'm in process of tracking down a teacher for that one.
"So where would you say he is in the Hogwarts syllabus?"
"By the time he gets there probably third year or maybe even fourth."
"That far?"
"Yeah he's that quick."
"How stable is his core if he's learning all that magic now?"
"Can I get an oath to keep this next bit secret Minerva?"
"Why?"
"Because what we know, we don't want bandied about."
"Very well, I Minerva McGonagall will keep the knowledge imparted to me by Sirius Black regarding Harry Potter to myself sharing it with no one so mote it be."
"Thanks." Sirius blew out a big breath before speaking. "Voldy made Horcruxes so the bastard isn't dead at least not yet. Harry was, until shortly before his ninth birthday, a horcrux. Lily did a very iffy spell to protect Harry as a baby. That's why we survived the attack in Chicago. Harry has all of Moldy's memories right up to his attack on Godric's Hollow. He's used Occulumency to process the memories. So he had learned the counter spell to Sectumsempra; he also knows what and where the rest of Moldy's cruxes are. He also knows about a basalisk that currently lives somewhere under Hogwarts and how to get there. There were a couple side affects to Harry's being a crux. He had a magical allergy for lack of a better description, which is why he's so good at the muggle side of things. All those years of fighting it, gave him a supercharged core. We started his training so that he could use the energy his core was making rather than creating an incident because he didn't."
"So you're sure he's a mage?"
"My guess is he's an arch mage possibly a grand arch mage."
"Oh my..."
"Yeah. Food for thought Minerva."
"I wonder if Albus knows?"
"I don't know, and frankly I'd rather he didn't."
"If he does or if he suspects that would explain a few things, like why he wants to get his hands on Harry so desperately."
"Be that as it may it'll be a very cold day in a very hot place before I or Harry trust that old coot."
"Could Harry stand up to him? Magically speaking of course."
" I don't know and that Minerva is the question I wish I knew the answer to. I miss England, it's home. But I swore to James I would take Harry, get away from Albus, and not come back until Harry was ready. James didn't want him to be a pawn in a prophecy war between Albus and Moldyshorts."
"Well from what I've seen, you've done an outstanding job. Seven hundred points to Gryffindor."
"I'll take that in the spirit it which it was intended. And thank you."
"Sirius I have to ask what happened at Alastor's trial? We were friends once."
"Williamson, Dawlish and Keeler were given fifteen years same as Trent. Moody got thirty five for organizing it. Fudge, well Fudge, got the death penalty for ordering the attack and for sending the two death eaters."
"Oh."
"Min, the prisons here aren't like Azkaban. Magical prisons have magic suppression fields the guards were special bracelets that allow them to work magic. The prisoners work eight hours at a job in the prison be it growing food, doing laundry, cleaning the prison, they're designed to be self sufficient They have an hour outside in a yard in their off hours they can watch TV or read books. They get three meals a day, and while their lives are boring as hell, the are far from being abused the way prisoners in Azkaban are. Thirty five years while a harsh sentence is not as bad a a ten year stint in Azkaban. I've spoken to Moody and he was mostly okay with the outcome once I gave him an oath that I wasn't the one to betray James and Lily and that I was doing my upmost for Harry."