Here's the newest chapter for the "Harry Potter: the Serpent Lord", enjoy!
I'm really sorry for this delay, but I had some quite more important things to do - namely, my scientific adviser wanted my work published, so I was stuck editing it (which is tiresome and kills any inspiration I might have had). That, and I finally got my hands on Diablo 3, which isn't really helping with writing fanfiction stories either.
Also, as I really need to catch up with my "Naruto" stories, this one will be put on hold for about one month.

* Review response:
Naginator, there's Amelia Bones there. She'll resolve this.
Impstar, Lord Xantos A. Fowl, ChaosTheVoid, Slytherin Studios, alichi, The Swordslinger, Nanashi113, PenNam, Penny is wise, Zarosian Chaos, ElementalMaster16, coopjk, animeman12, nopparitari, thank you for your reviews, folks!
Zorobak, McCabeRz, Joe Lawyer, ... what can I say? Author needed it like this.
Awsomeness7, as far as I remember, it was never mentioned that apparation requires wand. Even wikia says nothing about that. The book (6th one) doesn't clear this up as well. From my perspective, it's a wandless magic.

Also, everyone, thanks for 1000 reviews you've given me for this story!

* Poll: so far 86% want to see Harry/Violet spin-off lemon oneshot. But the poll will be active for another week, so...

* Disclaimer: I DO NOT own "Harry Potter" and its characters in any shape or form.

"human speech"
"wraith speech"
'human thoughts'
"powered speech / true prophecies by the seer"
"spells / parseltongue"

This chapter is not beta-read yet.

chapter 51: One's own life

As it was expected, madam Bones was far from happy when she finally saw that some of the spells intended for Black had connected with Harry instead. But as no one was brave enough to step forward and take the blame, nor there was time to conduct an investigation to find out who was at fault, the director of the DMLE had to assume that it was her subordinates, and so she'll have to use the department's funds to pay a compensation to Potter for this incident...

At the moment, though, Amelia Bones had more important thing to worry about. Namely, she needed to organize a trial for Sirius Black and do it quietly – she was quite sure that there were people with strong connections in the Ministry that would rather permanently silence the Azkaban escapee than suffer from anything that can be uncovered during his trial.

And while the aurors she had with her were the ones who knew to keep their mouth shut when she told them to, Amelia couldn't really prevent the Hogwarts professors from spreading the news about Black being captured. And to make it all worse, Severus Snape was a known associate of one of the 'imperiosed' Death Eaters. So the chances were Lucius Malfoy will know about what had happened today at Hogwarts before dinner... Madam Bones shook her head. No, even if it meant that she will have to stand guard there herself, she would not let the blond man – or any other Death Eater that managed to bribe his way out of Azkaban – anywhere near the holding cell where Black will be awaiting his trial.

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Since madam Pomfrey decided that it would be better if Harry wakes up from the spells he had been hit with on his own, the green-eyed teen was allowed to sleep for the rest of the evening and through the night in the hospital wing. Meanwhile, Albus Dumbledore informed the student body that Sirius Black made another attempt to infiltrate the castle, this time using one of the students as a 'hostage', but, despite this, he was stopped before he could reach the doors.

So, when the young Potter woke up early in the next morning, he once again found himself in the center of everyone's attention. Something that was far from happy with, especially with the amount of quite outrageous rumors, created by the gossipers yesterday evening, running around the castle. But as there was little that the green-eyed wizard could do to stop these rumors, he did his best to ignore them, while trying to concentrate on his studies as he needed to catch up with his homework – after all, yesterday he didn't complete any he had planned to do...

Still, thinking back on what had happened yesterday in the Shrieking Shack and the secret tunnel that connected it with the Hogwarts grounds, Harry wasn't sure, whether it was good that didn't use his implanted eye on Pettigrew or not. On one hand, his hesitation allowed the man who had betrayed his parents and framed his godfather escape the justice once again, but on the other... Harry wasn't sure he wanted to answer questions about how Wormtail became petrified – no student at all, and definitely not a third year, was supposed to know such 'dark magics'. And who knows, what those Ministry dogs would do, once his implanted eye was uncovered. The young Potter sure as hell didn't want to lose his right eye for the second time...

And thinking about his eye even further, the dark-haired teen got an inspiration for another approach to his research into the ways to seal Voldemort's soul away. So far he was only looking into spells or rituals that could do this, but none of those were what he wanted as their 'price' was too high – he either needed months of preparations or he needed to sacrifice a soul, often his own, in the process... But his basilisk eye made him realize that he completely forgot that there might exist some tools that could seal souls. Sure, most likely those would be some heroic weapons or something, which he will never be allowed to touch, much less use, but who knows...

Unfortunately, with the end of the school year exams so close, professors were giving so much homework that Harry had to postpone looking into soul-sealing artifacts in favor of writing those boring and not really useful essays he had been assigned. And getting sidetracked by some other interesting magics he found in the old tomes wasn't exactly helping him with this research either.

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The 'Daily Prophet' that came out on the Monday morning had quite an effect on everyone who read it: inside there was a transcript of Sirius Black's trial, which was held during the extraordinary Wizengamot session the day before. According to what was revealed during this trial, Mr. Black was innocent of both crimes – betraying Potters to the Dark Lord and killing Peter Pettigrew – he was accused of. This already was quite enough to cause a major uproar in the magical Britain, but it was a mere half of what was revealed during this trial.

Even greater effect had Black's revelations about Pettigrew. Apparently, the man was still alive. And he also was the Death Eater that sold Potters to Voldemort. Of course, the 'Daily Prophet' correspondent, like many others, questioned, whether Sirius Black could be trusted at all, seeing that he likely was insane after spending a good dozen of years in Azkaban, but since the man bore no Dark Lord's mark himself, and was under the effects of veritaserum, it just might have been truth...

Still, the correspondent continued, as Sirius Black turned out to be innocent of the crimes he was accused of, the Ministry now had to pay him one hell of a compensation for the years he had spent in prison that was often called 'Hell on Earth', as well as for the slander of his good name. The exact amount of this compensation remained unannounced at the moment, though. Also, the Ministry had to do its best to smoothly re-integrate Mr. Black into the society, and this process, according to what the 'Daily Prophet's correspondent learned, would start with three-weeks-long mandatory stay in St. Mungo's hospital's mental ward, where the best medi-wizards will make sure that Sirius Black was as sane as it was possible.

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The next couple of weeks flew by without anything really noteworthy happening in the castle. Even the exams that the young Potter and the other third-years were facing were actually anything really outrageously-difficult, at least for Harry and his friends. But that might have been because Hermione insisted that they revised the subjects at any free time they had...

Still, despite his bushy-haired friend bossing over him, the green-eyed wizard managed to do some more research into the ways to finally defeat Voldemort. Unfortunately for him, so far he still had no luck as while artifacts capable of sealing souls away really did exist in the past, all of them seemed to be lost in the sands of time. Or, their effect was easily reversible. Harry, though, wasn't about to give up on this idea just yet and continued his searches.

Also, while he did spend most of his time researching the aforementioned artifacts, he did try to continue with his medical studies as well, and the Room of Requirement helped him greatly there by providing him with several huge tomes of magic that were written hundreds of years ago and by some of the greatest wizards and witches of that era.

As was expected, the 'Daily Prophet' made a huge article about Sirius Black being released from st. Mungo's hospital, which was quite surprising, considering that neither the man himself nor the ministry officials that accompanied him gave any interviews. Oh well, magic can do stranger things that turning an event that would take a single line to describe into a whole slew of text...

And since there was no interview given, everybody was making wild guesses about what Mr. Black was going to do now. Even the infamous Hogwarts rumor mill, which was normally detached from anything happening outside the castle walls, was running several ideas about what the innocent Azkaban ex-prisoner was about to do. And because now pretty much everyone knew that Harry was Mr. Black's godson, many believed that the man will show up at Hogwarts sooner or later.

And this theory was proven correct to the young Potter a couple of days later when, about half an hour before dinner a nervous first year from Hufflepuff informed him that someone wanted to talk to him in one of the classrooms on the first floor. Sighing, the dark-haired wizard closed the book he was reading for his potions assignment and told his friends that were with him that he will be alright, before leaving the library.

Indeed, in that normally-unused classroom one Sirius Black, now clean, shaved and appearing to be much saner than before, was waiting for him, along with professor McGonnagal. And once Harry was sitting in the chair that was brought there for him, the Scot witch nodded to Sirius and left the classroom to give them some privacy... For the next some twenty seconds there was an uneasy silence in the room as neither of the two men in it knew what to say. Eventually, Mr. Black spoke:

"Um... Harry, nice to finally meet you... without anything ...troublesome hanging over our heads." The young Potter eyed the man in front of him for a couple of seconds, before nodding in agreement.

"Yeah." And there again was silence. And it was broken by Sirius this time as well

"Say, Harry,.. I know that I was a terrible godfather and did really nothing for your upbringing, but..." The younger wizard nodded – whether intentionally or not, the man in front of him had completely failed at being a good godfather. "Can you tell me how you grew up? Dumbledore said that he would place you with Lily's family and that you would be safe there... But from what I remember they ...weren't the best people to raise you." Harry nodded, complying with this request.

"Yes, Dumbledore had placed me with the Dursley family. And you're right, they are far too 'normal' to raise a magical child up properly. But, all in all, it could have been worse, and let's leave it at this." The green-eyed teen replied, making the older man sigh and once again chastise himself in his mind for going after Peter that night.

"Hm... Now that I'm free, do you want to live with me instead? With the money the Ministry gave me, I can buy us a really nice house in some place with nice beaches with pretty girls there..." Sirius said with somewhat dreamy expression on his face... Maybe he should spent some more time around mental healers. Or was this 'normal' for him? God help his children if he ever will have any, if it was the later... The young Potter shook his head.

"Thank you, but I'm emancipated already and so can and do live at Potter properties." He said. "And I really like it there, so, you don't have to do anything like that." Hopefully, this was gentle enough not to offend Sirius... And apparently it was as the man nodded after a couple of seconds.

"Oh well... And... I can't help but notice your eye-patch. Can you tell me how this had happened to you? It's such a shame – Lily had so beautiful eyes, and you definitely had inherited them." Harry sighed: Sirius was asking him questions about the things he was not really comfortable with giving out. But the man was his godfather, no matter how terrible he had been at this so far, so...

"Ah, this,.. You might have heard about the Chamber of Secrets being opened last year... Well, I ended up in the middle of the mess and ran into the beast. It was put down, of course, and I got my compensation for my loss." This was all that Harry was willing to divulge at the moment.

"Well, at least this makes you a bad boy and birdies just love those, don't they?" Sirius asked, making the green-eyed teen sigh. Either they released him from the mental ward too soon, this was Mr. Black's natural level of (in)sanity. "Speaking of the birdies, Harry." The grimm animagus continued. "While I'm happy to see that you're enjoying the company of your Gryffindor ladies, I can't help but be concerned that you also seem to be quite close with those slimy Death Eaters' spawns form Slytherin." The young Potter sent the man in front of him a glare that would make lesser men run away screaming – no one dared to badmouth his friends in front of him. "They will only betray you and..." This was where he got interrupted.

"They are my friends, so do not badmouth them." Harry, doing his best not to lash out at the man, said in an icy tone, while oppressing his godfather with a glare that could only be compared to professor McGonnagal's when the Scot witch was extremely angry with someone... Somehow, though, this wasn't affecting Sirius too much as he tried back-talking:

"But..."

"As I said, Mr. Black, I'm emancipated. I'm the current lord Potter and a legal adult. Even if you are my godfather, you have no legal power over me, so do not try to push your views of the world onto me. This is my life and my choices. And if you are not comfortable with them, then it might be better if we go separate ways from there." The green-eyed teen said standing up. "Have a nice evening, Mr. Black. Our meeting ends there." And without another word Harry left the room, heading to the kitchens for some dinner as he didn't feel like going to the Great hall right now...

The next morning for Harry passed quietly, and while Hermione and Neville could see that he still was in a bad mood, they pretty much left him alone, as they did not want to take a risk of asking what was bothering him so much and making it all even worse.

But as the trio, along with the other Gryffindor and Ravenclaw students were on their way to the Great hall for some lunch, the young Potter noticed Draconica waiting for him near one of the 'hidden' passages that were thick as black berries in Hogwarts. Deciding that the blond girl had something important that she wanted to tell him, he told his friends to continue to the Great hall without him and split form them, going to where his Slytherin friend was waiting for him. Draconica gave him the lightest of smiles, before nodding him to follow deeper into the 'secret' passage, where they were less likely to be overheard...

"So?.." Harry asked, once they were definitely alone. The blond girl in front of him didn't reply right away and, actually, lowered her eyes while acting shier than normal. Finally, she replied:

"Yesterday, when you had that meeting with Sirius Black... You got quite loud and... I couldn't help but overhear you a bit and... Thank you for defending me. And..." Draconica said quietly. And then, completely unexpectedly for the dark-haired wizard, she kissed him. On his lips. Leaving him quite stunned with the seeming suddenness of their first kiss, so that he didn't even respond to it right away. But when he finally did...

If he was to compare this with the kisses he had shared with Katie, Draconica's was gentler and even more loving; he could almost physically feel what the blonde witch felt towards him, and it spread so much warmth throughout his being that he was sure that now he will be able to cast a corporeal patronus even if the midst of dementor swarm.
But before long they had to break their kiss, and for a couple of seconds the two of them just stood there looking into each others eyes. Then their minds finally caught up with what had just happened and they looked away, both blushing madly...

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This encounter with Draconica gave Harry new strength for his researches and before long he finally succeeded in finding pretty much what he was looking for. An artifact that will help him solve the Voldemort problem, and the scroll where he read about it even had an approximate location in which the said artifact could be found. And the simple fact that it as on the other end of the Earth didn't really seem to be much of a problem for the young Potter, so he owled to Violet asking her to get the paperwork he will need for this, as well as to book the international portkey for him. This summer, Harry thought, he will have what he needed to finally end Voldemort.
Aside from this quite huge, but still very private, success of his, the dark-haired wizard passed his end of the school year examinations will all 'Exceeds expectations' and 'Outstanding', something that he, to be honest, did not really care about that much. Which seemed to irritate Hermione to no end, but with everything he needed to plan for this summer, Harry didn't care about this as well...

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As the Hogwarts students were making their way back to their homes, one Bertha Jorkins, being on her holiday in Albania, entered a pub in some remote village. She wasn't actually sure why she was in this village, but it was dinner time and she was hungry... The pub was quite packed with people, so Bertha ended up sitting next to a rat-like man she should have recognized, had her memory being like it used to be... And after a couple of pints of some local beverage, Bertha revealed it to this man that she was the Department of Magical Sports and Games and that she was among those who organized the revived Triwizard tournament...

This was the last time anyone on the right side of the law saw the bubbly witch.

That's all, folks!
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