Here is chapter four. I'm really impressed by the number of reviews that I got. Happy reading.

Catching a Rat

It was the Christmas holidays and Harry sat in an armchair across from Sirius at #12 Grimmauld Place. Both had mugs of hot mead in their hands. Leaving for Christmas had been easy. He just had told Professor McGonagall that his reasons for leaving the school over Christmas were not her problem. She didn't after all ask the other students why they returned home. After the fiasco with the Quidditch match, Harry still smiled at the article he had sent to Robert Cromberry, one of the more serious journalists working for the Prophet, the teachers had to cope with the criticism of their students and the parents.

It didn't help that they had been warned what might happen by Harry days before the match took place. Having dementors attack students at the school grounds was bad enough, that happening after Harry Potter had warned them in the Great Hall with all students at Hogwarts present and still not preventing it was a disgrace of immense proportion.

The Daily Prophet had printed Harry Potter's letter on the front page and the Minister wasn't happy at all. Parents from all social classes were sending howlers, demanding him to remove the dementors. It was not one of his better weeks at the Ministry. Well, Harry didn't feel any remorse for his actions. It was time that the wizarding world woke up. They just believed all the crap the Ministry sprouted without questioning it. Two weeks after the attack at the Quidditch game the dementors had finally left the school.

"Congratulations on your success, pup." Sirius said.

"Thank you, Sirius. I'm glad that those monsters are gone now. It helps me keeping a low profile. The next match I could have been forced to use a patronus to get rid of them. Being an angry teenager is one thing, being a powerful teenager is something else, which I want to keep a secret as long as possible." Harry replied.

"Well, while your approach would have been too obvious in the muggle world, I know that the Dumbledore cult at Hogwarts had dumbed people down for a long time." Sirius commented.

Harry perked up. This was new information for him.

"Could you elaborate this further?" He asked.

"Sure. You know that your father, Remus, the traitor Pettigrew and I were infamous throughout our Hogwarts days as the marauders. Well, 75 % of the spells, potions, traps and whatever else we used for our pranks were not things the normal Hogwarts student was ever taught. The information is in the books at the library, but only the most ambitious Ravenclaws ever studied the more obscure branches of spells and so on. We were innovative. We combined different branches of magic like nobody had ever thought before us of doing so.

"I have always been interested in History. Not the trash Binns is teaching, but the true history of the wizarding world. You sometimes wouldn't believe the things the old wizards and witches were capable of doing. But with time passing, many things were forgotten. Many were also just taken from the curriculum. The problem is that with the purebloods tending to inbreed and the large number of muggleborns coming to Hogwarts, people in charge of the educational standards thought it would be problematic if the standards young witches and wizards had to meet were too high.

"In the 1950's the standard subjects for first years were vastly different than they are today. Have you ever wondered why Great Britain is lacking so many good potioneers?" Sirius asked.

"I always assumed Snape had something to do with it. Many quit taking the subject after fifth year because they want to get rid of him. Additionally he has the standard of only taking students who got an O in their OWL for the NEWT level course." Harry answered.

"That is only the recent history. Snape has only begun teaching in 1985 when Horace Slughorn retired. The problem already existed before that. While I'll admit Snape's teaching is making the situation more problematic, from my generation I only know perhaps four students that could have become potion masters. Your mother Lily and Snape being two of them and Snape is the only one who reached his mastery. And my age group was more numerous than yours. I think we had three times the number of students your age group has." Sirius told Harry.

"Is this because of the war against Voldemort?" Harry asked.

He had never really thought about the consequences the war had on the wizarding population for the coming generations. But it was obvious now that he thought about it. They were only nine or ten students on average in each house in their year. While there may be some home schooled kids, the majority was attending Hogwarts.

"I wonder, are there more magical schools in Britain besides Hogwarts? I know that in France Beauxbatons is the premier magical school and the other leading school is Durmstrang which is somewhere in Eastern Europe."

"No there aren't. The Ministry refused to support more schools in Britain while Hogwarts had open capacities. The castle can take a hundred and fifty students each year and still not have problems housing them all. The castle is magical. We had three dorms for male students each year in Gryffindor and there still were no problems with space. The house elves just enlarged the rooms magically." Sirius informed Harry.

"So if you were roughly one hundred and twenty students in your year, you want to tell me that out of that large group only four were qualified to become potion masters?" Harry asked disbelievingly.

"Yes. What do you think is the biggest problem for beginners to become good at potions?" Sirius asked. Harry needed to understand the core problem.

Harry deliberated on the question. What were the most serious problems in potions he knew about? He thought about the accidents that were quite common in Snape's classes.

"I think it's a combination of many things. Potions require precision. In our first lesson Neville managed to melt Seamus' cauldron because he added an ingredient before taking the cauldron of the fire. Then the ingredients have to be prepared in certain ways. The direction of stirring also influences the result."

"You have got the main problem. Beginners don't know the basics of brewing. Most pureblood children are taught about ingredient preparations if their parents want them to excel in this art. They know when to stir clockwise and when counter-clockwise. But not all of them are taught this and the muggleborns know nothing about it when they come to Hogwarts. Your mother was a rare case. The problem is, seventy years ago roughly a fifth of a normal year became potion masters or at least experts. This also meant that professions that needed that knowledge were easier to follow."

"That is an enormous discrepancy. What was done differently back then?" Harry asked.

"There was a class called Potion Basics. It was mandatory for all first years. The only Potions the first years were allowed to brew were really simple and had no risk of getting dangerous. The real subject Potions only started from second year on. By that time all students had a good understanding of the reactions of ingredients and basic safety measures. The Potions classroom is located in the dungeons for a good reason. The low temperatures keep potions from reacting with the surroundings. While it could be improved a lot by getting more light there and being better tempered during winter, it's the best place for brewing potions.

"The preparation course was dropped after Dumbledore became headmaster, some of it being caused by purebloods in the board of education at the Ministry. It was to disadvantage muggleborns and those from less wealthy families who couldn't afford to tutor their children before Hogwarts. But Dumbledore didn't really fight for the course, perhaps because Potions had never been his forte. The man is brilliant at Transfiguration and Charms and one of the most powerful wizards, but he tends to neglect other things that aren't at the focus of his interest."

Harry again hated the prejudice the Ministry allowed to continue.

"But if the purebloods were such big supporters of that change, how comes that most of their kids in my year don't seem to be far above the level of the others? I mean, from all the Slytherins in my year only Draco Malfoy and Daphne Greengrass are really good at Potions. And I know that the Greengrass family is doing business with potions, therefore Daphne had to know a lot about the subject and Draco is Snape's godson, which explains his skills. From the other houses most pureblood children are only marginally better, if at all, than the rest of us." Harry wanted to know.

"What do you know about the concept of inbreeding from your scientific studies with Ralph?" Sirius asked.

"It occurs if two persons, who are closely related, have children. If the genetic material the child inherits from his parents is too similar certain illnesses can appear. Good examples for genetic disease are the nobles of Europe. One of the most well-known diseases was bleeding disorder, which only appeared in males. That was the reason why many people believed for some time that it was related to the Y chromosomes. But studies have confirmed that that disease is based on defect X chromosomes. The reason only males suffered from bleeding disorder is that with females the second X chromosome kept the woman healthy. But her children could inherit the defect chromosome.

"Therefore bleeding disorder is what we call a recessive gender chromosomal illness. As the nobility usually married their children to other members of nobility those diseases spread around and without enlarging the gene pool, genetic defects were never countered as the children could only inherit defect DNA." Harry recited his studies, then looked thoughtful.

"I can see where you're going. The same is true with most pureblood families. Only few of them married muggleborns. Why did nobody ever see this?"

"Because they didn't want to see it and they were trained to not think for themselves. You have to remember: Voldemort killed all those who opposed the extremist pureblood teachings, even if he himself was a halfblood. He is only as powerful as he is, because his father's non magical DNA replaced many of the weak genes his mother's family had bred into their line for generations. The Gaunt line, the last branch of the Slytherin line, has a history of severe inbreeding. They didn't only marry cousins with each other, they married siblings." Sirius stated.

Harry looked disgusted. Having sex with your brother or sister because your family was crazy? Urgh.

"With generations of children only receiving similar or even identical genes, the strength of their magic fell. There are some families who still possessed strong magic, but they were a minority. Many magical talents were lost over time. But after generations those gifts somehow returned in children that had mixed parents, meaning parents that were either muggleborn and pureblood or muggle and pureblood. A good example is my cousin Andromeda who married a muggleborn wizard. Her daughter Nymphadora inherited the metamorphmagus ability, which had been though lost to the Blacks.

"Of the strong remaining families most were Voldemort's inner circle. Which were Voldemort's most dangerous followers?"

Time to quiz Harry on his studies. Knowledge was power after all.

"Bellatrix Lestrange nee Black. Ruthless, insane and a master of the cruciatus curse. She was by far the most dangerous Death Eater, even if she is female and therefore she would normally have been lower in hierarchy following pureblood customs.

"Lucius Malfoy. Equally ruthless, sly and backstabbing. One of the Death Eaters who helped stall the counter measures by the Ministry. He was one of the main financers of the war. He is of veela heritage five generations back, which is the reason for the strength of his bloodline. But the Malfoys deny any creature heritage vehemently.

"Antonin Dolohov, a classical powerhouse. While being a halfblood his family would become pureblood again with the next generation. He was the leader of brutal assaults on muggleborns and their families. His attacks were a main reason for the fear the Death Eaters caused.

"Rastaban and Rodolphus Lestrange. Together they were responsible for mass torturing of opponents of Voldemort. The only Death Eater more accomplished with the cruciatus curse was Bellatrix." Harry listed.

"Very good, Harry. Those were the most dangerous, most powerful and most skilled of them. And they all only had average marks in their NEWTs at Hogwarts."

Sirius enjoyed the surprised look on Harry's face. History was an important part of the knowledge a secret agent had to have. And Harry would operate in both worlds. So he needed to know the history of both worlds.

"I can see your confusion. The reason they were such a problem was Voldemort. He personally saw to it that each of his new recruits went through a six month training regimen outside of Great Britain. We found out after his fall, that all his top Death Eaters went through camps in Algeria. When they returned, they unleashed spells most wizards and witches were overwhelmed with. To make the problem more severe, they hadn't learned to properly defend themselves at Hogwarts because there hadn't been a constant DADA teacher for decades. Most weren't even capable to cast a basic shield charm. You see the pattern." Sirius said.

Harry nodded. He had never thought that the problems in the wizarding world went so far back.

"So basically Voldemort adapted the concept of the terrorist camps for his Death Eaters. With the general population being lacking in their education, they had it easy to sew terror. Normally governments only have a chance of winning against terrorists with a no tolerance policy. Damn. The Ministry of Magic did the complete opposite. From what I remember from my studies only the ass Barty Crouch really propagated using harsher means to get the Death Eaters. And it only was at the end of the war. Far too late to make a difference." Harry cursed.

"That's the problem if military commanders are also politicians. During war times you need a different kind of leader than during peacetimes. Winston Churchill would never have been a good Prime Minister in peace times. But during World War II he was the best choice. While he had a second period in office from 1951, he still had to deal with the after effects of the war. The bombs on Great Britain did a lot of damage and rebuilding was a time consuming process.

"Neither Millicent Bagnold nor Cornelius Fudge really wanted to do house cleaning, to use the muggle term. They were perfectly content with imprisoning the known Death Eaters. Anybody else who paid enough gold and declared being imperiused got away with a slap on the hand." Sirius explained.

Harry understood. A government stood and fell with its leader. And the wizarding world had only had weak leaders which was a real problem against a strong leader like Voldemort who professionally organized his troops. No wonder it had taken a fluke like him surviving the Avada Kedavra to end the war. Harry didn't believe in destiny or fate. People made their own destiny. Nothing was absolute. A single decision could change things. And going a certain way because a prophecy told it would happen was just stupid. The only mistake Voldemort had made. Going into a situation without having complete information.

"Were there other subjects that were dropped from the curriculum?" Harry asked.

"Yes, for one there was an introductory course for muggleborns which was two hours a week, mandatory for all muggleborns. They learned about wizarding customs, magical law, the basics of our economy and meditation techniques. Another class was languages. There are methods to accelerate learning a language. Barty Crouch has used it intensively. That's the reason he speaks so many foreign and magical languages fluently.

"The MI6 adopted the method for all magical agents and converted it to be used for non-magical agents as well. For non-magicals the limit of languages they can learn that way is six. But you get a lot of countries covered with being fluent in six languages. The most common are Russian, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Swahili, Chinese, Japanese and Swedish. Each agent knows at least four of them and three others. The 00 agents are required to know ten languages fluently."

"How many languages do you speak Sirius?" Harry wanted to know.

"Twenty four. You have to remember that I'm a wizard. As I don't work a lot in the wizarding world with being a wanted criminal there, my repertoire of magical languages is limited to Gobbledygook and Elvin. The other languages are human ones. As you know, I'm regularly operating in Germany, getting rid of remnants of the former GDR. A lot of hints the research specialists, which the new German government has ordered to work through all the files the secret police tried to destroy, has found were results of my investigations there."

Sirius never went into detail of his missions. Harry didn't have the security clearance yet. But rough descriptions were alright. If they would still be fighting the cold war, things would be different. Sirius had been operating in East Berlin for some years; Harry knew the job had been really dangerous. If anybody had suspected him being a British agent his life would have been on the line. With the Eastern Bloc falling apart in 1989, things had got slightly easier. But remains of the old communistic regime were still in positions of power.

Principles of democracy were only slowly taking foothold. And Russia was downright corrupt. Assassinations were the norm. Only the weakened economic had allowed opposing parties to have a chance for change to happen. Germany had been lucky as it was farthest away from Russia. The same was true for Poland and Hungary. Especially as those countries had other historical roots. Hungary had long-time been part of Austria, Poland part of imperial Germany.

"Okay, I think I had enough of a history lesson. My training will recommence after the Christmas days and as far as I was informed you also are on holiday until then, what are we going to do besides basic training to keep in shape?" Harry asked. They had one and a half weeks for holidays.

"Well, how far have you got with getting closer to girls at Hogwarts?" Sirius asked grinning.

"Uhm, well I haven't actually tried to get a girlfriend. You told me that I won't be able to have a steady girlfriend in our line of work. So I thought it better to not get too close to any of them. But I know that most girls like me and my fan club is still going strong. I'm always polite and helpful and many of them wouldn't mind doing me a favour. Why do you ask?" Harry asked back.

Harry got a weird feeling in his stomach looking at Sirius face.

"Because, my dear godson, we'll travel to Egypt, spend our time at the beach and you'll start trying to woo girls. You're now thirteen, an age where you begin being interested in girls. It can happen that you're ordered to be support on a mission. Acting naturally in different environments is our bread and butter. And we can't have one of our agents being uncomfortable because a beautiful female is around. I know it will be strange in the beginning. But you know how James gets most of his missions done. His records with women are legendary." Sirius said.

Yes, every member of MI6 knew how James Bond acted around women. The man was better at seduction than Stacy. And as Harry had found out, she was promoted to 003 a year ago, the only female spot in the 00 ranks, and specialized in the area.

"Alright. I can live with that kind of vacation." Harry said.

Trying to impress girls in a country where nobody knew him was easier than doing it in England. Somebody could recognize him. And he couldn't have the press.

"I assume I'll get one of those language learning crash courses." He said.

"Yes. Q's assistant R has already arranged everything for you. The whole transfer of knowledge will take six hours. You'll be put to sleep for it. It's easier that way for your brain to process the information. When you wake up you'll be fluent in Egyptian, German, French and Bulgarian. That should take care of most home countries the tourist girls there might have. Your goal is getting dates, perhaps a little kissing but you're not to go farther. Egypt is an Islamic country. We don't want to get problems with local law enforcers." Sirius warned. "While Egypt is moderate in its views we have to be careful. So no sex even if the girl is willing. You'll probably only attract girls around your age. So they are minors. And sex with minors has severe punishments in Islamic countries. Understood?"

"Yes." Harry answered blushing heavily.

He knew he would have to sleep with women in his job when he was older but hell, at the moment he was a teenager going through puberty. The concept of sex was still embarrassing for him. Which was probably the reason for this combination of a vacation and training. Well, he liked this kind of training.

Albus Dumbledore sat in his office frowning while thinking how much things had spiralled out of his control at school. The problem was there was no easy way to repair the damage done. Harry Potter had lost his trust in him. He wouldn't listen to his advice anymore. He had thought the boy would be easy to lead on the path of his destiny. But now the only teacher who had some connection with Harry was Remus Lupin. And despite the respect and gratitude the man felt for him for allowing him to come to Hogwarts as a child, Harry was family to Remus and family trumped all other allegations the man had.

Things had not gone well the last two and a half years. Objectively he could see where Harry came from. Perhaps it had been a mistake to send him to Petunia, but he didn't think she would actively mistreat her nephew. That wasn't how family was supposed to behave. And he had lost his chance to have a positive role in Harry's life with constantly denying the boy basic happiness. He had been the one to send him back after first and second year. The blood wards were protecting Harry. But the boy didn't know that. But it would destroy his childhood if he was aware of the dark cloud the prophecy was in his life.

A small voice in his head was telling him different, that Harry had never been able to be a child. A child could trust in the adults in his life to protect him. Harry never had such a person in his life. In his first year he had tried to do the right thing and Minerva had ignored his concerns. He could understand her; eleven year olds could come up with the most fantastic stories. But that decision had cost them dearly. Three first years had gone after the stone. And two of them had been badly hurt.

Last year they had let the school torment Harry, had said nothing against the students shunning him for the suspicion of being the heir of Slytherin. None of the teachers had done what would have been right. While he had told Harry that he believed him about not attacking the students, he hadn't helped him either. And it hurt to admit that if they had helped Harry he would have come to one of them and would have told them about the voices he could hear in the walls. That Hermione Granger had figured out that a basilisk was roaming around the school made it worse. The teachers were supposed to protect the students. Not the other way round as it had been like in the end. Again.

Harry had slain the basilisk with Fawkes help. The boy could have died. Again. It happened too often. And the only adult they had tried to tell what the monster was, where the entrance to the chamber was and how to get into it, had been more concerned about getting away. Of course it had to be the DADA teacher of the year. The only positive thing about the situation was that he was 100 % sure that Remus Lupin didn't mean harm to Harry.

But they had to change things for him to have the tiniest chance to lead Harry through the sure upcoming fight against Voldemort. But it was risky to tell the boy too many things.

Fawkes just shook his head sadly. His old friend didn't see that he had no say in the way Harry Potter would confront Voldemort. Albus meant well, but his habit of keeping necessary information a secret could very well lead to the downfall of the wizarding world. He was a scholar not a fighter. Thankfully the phoenix knew more about the things that happened in the castle than Albus did himself. Fawkes was connected to the castle through ancient magic. And he knew that out of the sight from everybody else Harry Potter was already training for the inevitable confrontation with the man that had taken his parents and therefore his childhood from him.

Harry Potter was a warrior. He knew about duty and he knew about sacrifice. But he knew the young man would fight to prevent becoming a sacrifice in the coming conflict. Albus was wrong that only Harry alone would be able to defeat Voldemort. He needed help. He needed support, but Albus had lost his chance to stand at Harry's side. The boy would accept information and training but he would never allow anybody else to make decisions for him about his life. He had had enough of other people ruining his life.

Harry was pretending to sleep. He had to wait until all of his dorm-mates were sleeping before he could perform the spell to deepen the sleep of all the ones being in the dormitory. He and Sirius had agreed to just dispose of Peter Pettigrew without anybody finding out. Sirius didn't need to be cleared in the wizarding world. If it would become necessary, the MI6 would take care of providing the evidence. They would imprison the traitor in a magic resistant cell and interrogate him for all useful information on Voldemort and the Death Eaters.

With Hermione's cat Crookshanks trying to get Wormtail, Harry knew he had to strike before the coward ran away. Harry could read the signs of distress in the rat. He thought the only reason he hadn't run yet was that Sirius hadn't been seen since his escape. Finally, at three in the morning Harry was sure that everybody was fast asleep even the rat. Seamus, Dean, Ron and Neville had fallen asleep hours ago but the rat, obviously nervous, had moved around a lot. Harry didn't waste any time and whispered the incantation for the spell.

He waited two minutes to be sure that it had worked, then he climbed out of his bed and went to Ron's bed. He silently took the sleeping rat, carried it over to his bed, where he had a container, which was inscribed with runes that suppressed magic, ready to place the rat in. He closed the container, put his invisibility cloak on, cast a silencing spell on his feet and sneaked down the staircase. He silently opened the portrait hole and walked towards the Room of Requirement.

Sirius had come to the room early in the morning and was staying there until the end of curfew tomorrow morning when the doors of the castle would be opened to slip out undetected. Harry walked past the wall three times thinking of the meeting place with Sirius. The door appeared and Harry went inside. He carefully closed the door silently and then took off his invisibility cloak.

"You're late, Harry." Sirius commented. "Did you have problems?"

"Not really, but the rat took forever to fall asleep. But once he was asleep I got everything done in a few minutes. Here is the container." He said yawning and gave Sirius the rat prison.

"Good work, Harry. How are you going to treat Ron about this? He will notice his pet is missing." Sirius asked.

"No, he won't. Transfiguring a stone to look like Scabbers, who died in his sleep, is easy. Easier than the rooster last year. It helps that he has been getting worse the whole year. Nothing will look strange. I'll be sympathetic but he will get over it. The only thing I'll have to do is stopping Hermione from being insensitive. The two were pretty stressed about their respective pets. Also, Ron's birthday is in March. I'll get him an owl as a present, then he will soon forget Scabbers." Harry answered.

"That will work. Well, you better get back to your dorm and get some sleep in. And be careful to avoid Filch, Snape and Mrs Norris." Sirius warned.

"Will do, goodnight, Sirius."

"Goodnight, Pup."

And that takes care of Pettigrew. Sorry if some of you hoped that I would expose him, but I don't want Sirius to return to the magical communty as it would go against the role I have built for him in this story. Till next time.