Soaring through clouds on a giant flying horse is definitely one of the most thrilling experiences that could ever happen to a man. While I have been in airplanes before, this is on a completely different level, it's like comparing, going to a Taylor Swift concert with having Taylor Swift as your girlfriend, there could be no comparison between the two.
With the cool wind rushing through my hair and watching the clouds pass by, I felt like I was in another world (which I was, literally). I couldn't stop my mouth from smiling widely or occasionally shouting in excitement. I was high enough that anyone looking straight up would only be able to see a small dot flying over their head.
I brushed my hands through the smooth feathers on buckbeak's back gently while leaning over a little to lie on his neck. All my worries, anxiety, the excitement of being in the magical world faded at that moment and my mind turned completely silent, the only sound I could hear was buckbeak's wings flapping and the only thing that I could feel was the goosebumps across my skin. I felt as if I was lying on a bed made of feathers and flying on top of the world.
I don't know how long I spent just relaxing, enjoying that calmness, and I would have gone on a lot longer without notice, if not for my stomach suddenly growling loudly in protest. I could feel my stomach shrinking inside of me into a small ping-pong ball, my body needed food immediately or I thought I would faint.
I leaned over a little to the right and looked down, I saw that we were going above a large dense forest.
"Hey buckbeak, look around for a place to land. Will you?" I shouted over to my ride and he screeched in response. I didn't know for sure but I think that screech must have been a yes. We flew straight forward for about 10 more minutes before buckbeak suddenly dived down and when I looked down I could see a small clearing filled with rocks in the middle of the forest.
"Hey, slow down buckbeak," I shouted just as we were about to enter the clearing and brushed along buckbeak's feathers in the opposite direction, "Make a couple of rounds and make sure that there are not some kind of predators around,"
Miraculously he understood me and started to circle the clearing slowly. As I didn't have a wand at the moment, I would be completely defenseless if any wild animal approached me, so I wanted to be sure that It was safe to land.
After a couple of more circles, I had buckbeak land in the middle of the clearing. It was a wide clearing with big and small chunks of rocks lying on the outer perimeter while an empty area in the middle had wild grass growing out of the ground.
I climbed down from buckbeak's back while making sure to not pull any of his feathers. I looked around for a moment before I found a flat rock, perfect for a place to sit.
I took a few moments to stretch my legs and my back which were a bit stiff due to lying uncomfortably for too long and started to think up my options for the future.
Two options immediately jumped out to me. Option no 1, I could apparate to a muggle store and buy some food, but unfortunately without a wand, I would not be able to glamour myself and considering that every television in Britain had my photo as a wanted criminal shown on the evening news show that option would be very risky.
Option no 2, I could call for Kreacher and have him bring me some food. The only reason Sirius didn't use Kreacher while on the run from Azkaban was that he had some serious childhood trauma regarding that house elf. According to my memories, Kreacher was essentially the jailor that his loving mother used whenever she wanted to punish him but was feeling a bit lazy, which was frequent.
Now while Sirius may have hated the house elf irrevocably and couldn't even imagine ever asking for something from him. I had no such problem and it would be the safest option for me too.
"Kreacher!" I shouted while staring into the air. There was complete silence and for a few moments I thought that he would not come but a loud pop suddenly echoed in the clearing and startled the hippogriff who was taking a nap on the ground. A house elf had appeared out of thin air right in the middle of the clearing.
It was bald with small puffs of white hair, and wrinkly skin and was completely naked except for the loincloth around his waist. With his big round eyes, and knobbly arms and legs he would be able to give kids nightmares for days. Kreacher looked around the clearing for a while in confusion before he suddenly noticed me.
"Master called for Kreacher!" he said while bowing very low and mumbling under his breath, "Master managed to escape from Azkaban somehow. Maybe Kreacher should alert the Aurors, Mistress will be very happy as Master was a nasty ungrateful swine who broke poor mistress' heart..."
"Shut up Kreacher! and stand up straight," I said in a firm voice, "You will not tell anything about me to anyone unless I order you to. Now, I will ask you some questions and you will only answer me with yes or no. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Master" Kreacher replied very reluctantly while standing up straight, the magic of house elves making him follow the orders to the letter.
"Can you get me some food?" I asked while trying to hide my eagerness, as getting some food in my stomach came before everything else.
"Yes,"
"Go and bring me something to eat," I ordered him and he immediately disappeared with a pop.
Buckbeak went back to sleep after realizing that it was a false alarm, I was sitting on the rock while shaking my leg up and down while waiting for the food to arrive. About fifteen minutes must have passed before Kreacher came back with a pop, floating a plate and a bowl behind him, the plate had some kind of steak in it while the bowl had some kind of soup. I eagerly took them into my hands, before placing the plate with steak down on the rock I eagerly bought the bowl of warm soup toward my mouth.
Just as I was about to drink the soup, Kreacher's face came into my periphery and the smile on his face immediately made me stop. I looked at the soup for a while before glaring at Kreacher and asking.
"Is it poisoned?" I asked him suspiciously.
"No," he replied, and I sighed in relief but that creepy smile on his face still bothered me. After racking my brain for a while, I asked a different question.
"Will it give me a stomach ache?"
"Yes," he forced the words out of his mouth while losing his smile.
I looked down at the very appetizing soup, my stomach growled again and for a moment I considered drinking it anyway before my senses caught up to me and I put the bowl down with a sigh.
I glared down at Kreacher while rubbing my temples in frustration, suddenly understanding Sirius's perspective a lot more. I closed my eyes and took some deep breaths before opening them and looking at the blasted elf with cool eyes.
"Can you go into a muggle shop,"
"Yes, Master,"
"Go get me 5 apples and 5 packets of noodles from the nearest muggle store," I asked after thinking for a while.
He immediately disappeared and came back a minute later with the apples and noodles packets floating behind him. I immediately took an apple from the air and after making sure that it was not spoiled, I bit into it ravenously.
I was on my third apple and the hunger pain in my stomach had been satisfied for the moment before I suddenly realized something and asked Kreacher.
"Did you pay for these?"
"No," he replied while smiling maliciously.
I was conflicted for a moment while looking at the half-eaten apple. After thinking for a while, I closed my eyes and said sorry to the store owner in my heart, and went back to eating my apple.
After I had finished all the apples, I put the packets of noodles beside me on the rock and turned toward Kreacher, and asked.
"Do we have a magical tent in the family,"
"Yes,"
"Where is it?" I asked eagerly.
Kreacher made a face as if he was struggling to get the words out of his mouth. I was confused for a moment before I suddenly realized what had happened.
"You can answer me with more than Yes or No," I said retracting my previous order before asking again, "Now where is the tent,"
"It is inside the black vault," he said.
"Can you get it?" I asked in anticipation.
"Yes, as long as Master asks me to," he said while bowing low and mumbling, "Now that mistress had passed away, Kreacher is left alone with the disappointment as his master ..." I ignored the rest of his mumble as background noise.
"And are there any wands inside the vault,"
"Yes,"
"And can you get me some muggle money from the goblins,"
"Yes,"
"Alright, Go and bring me the best tent you can find, all the wands you can find inside, and convert about 10,000 euros worth of galleons from the black vault,"
He was gone for a while this time and only returned after about half an hour. His hands were filled with a stack of notes while floating behind him were about 20 wand boxes and a briefcase which I assumed had the tent in it.
"Put the wand boxes here," I said while pointing beside my legs and taking the stack of money from his hand and putting it inside my pocket, "and open the tent over there," pointing toward the middle of the clearing.
Kreacher went away with the briefcase while I sat down in the middle of the boxes full of wands. One by one I tried every single wand, some were unreactive while others were way too reactive, some burned my hand while others were cold to touch.
After trying out every single one of them I finally found a wand that was compatible with me. It didn't give me the same feeling as Sirius's wand gave him in his memories but it would do. It was like wearing the hand-me-down pajamas of your older brother, while they would not be the best fit, they got the job done.
While I was trying on the wands, Kreacher had set up the tent. I took the packets of noodles and went toward the tent.
"Kreacher good job with the tent, Now please put the rest of the wands back where you got them," I said to him before going inside the tent.
It was a whole apartment inside the tent just as it was described in the Harry Potter novels, It had everything from a fully stocked kitchen to a couple of beds, a fireplace with a comfy chair before it, and a door that lead to a shower or a toilet depending on the direction you turn the doorknob in.
After looking around the tent for a while, I came to the kitchen, there was a stove placed just beside the sink that ran on some kind of runes. After powering the runes up with my wand, I put a pan on top of it and filled it with water. When the water had started to boil I dunked 2 packets of noodles in along with the seasoning and then waited for it to cook.
After the noodles had been cooked, I poured them into a big bowl that was lying on the shelf above the sink. I took the bowl of noodles along with a spoon and went to sit on the chair in front of the fireplace.
"Incendio!" I said while waving my wand instinctively toward the wood in the fireplace and a small fire lit up radiating warmth inside the whole tent. I slouched back into the comfortable chair while putting my foot up on a stool and slowly ate the noodles while thinking about the next step.
I was about halfway through my noodles when three options came to me,
Option 1 I stay where I am and recuperate from the stint in Azkaban,
Option 2 I go to Grimmauld place and settle in there,
Option 3 I get out of the UK.
Now the problem with an option no 1 is that the ministry registers the magical signature of everyone who gets sent into Azkaban, so if I stay in one place for more than a day then they will be able to triangulate my rough position by using arithmancy and the ward placed over Magical Britain. That was one of the primary reasons that Sirius was always on the move and never stayed in one place for more than a day.
Option no 2 solves that problem, the ministry can't locate someone who's in a place with some heavy wards, so places like Hogwarts and Grimmauld Place were safe, but if I move into the black family home then I would not be able to go out of the ward for a longer period of time because If I move around the area frequently then my magical signature will seep into the area and they will be able to get my rough location. So if I go with option 2 then I would basically be confined inside Grimmauld place just like Sirius was in book 5.
Option no 3 was the safest option as the ministry's search for me does not extend beyond the borders of Magical Britain except for issuing wanted posters and those could be dealt with easily, with the help of makeup or glamour.
After ruminating over the options for a while, I decided on option no 3 as it would be the least risky and most comfortable for me to recuperate. Sometimes during which I was slurping my noodles Kreacher had arrived in the tent and was moving around cleaning while mumbling under his breath. I think finally having some work to do must have made him a little happy or else he wouldn't have come back without being called. Watching him move around suddenly got him a brilliant idea,
"Hey Kreacher, come here," I said and Kreacher slowly arrived in front of me and bowed.
"Yes Master"
"Do you know where all the Black properties are located?" I asked while looking at him in anticipation.
"No, Master. That Knowledge is only available to the Head of the house or the heir when he passes it on to him," he said before slouching and mumbling under his breath, "Bad master ran away to blood traitors so he never got that information, oh my mistress will be so happy to know that bad master would not be able to get his hand on the black's property..."
The blasted elf was right, Sirius had run away from home when he was 16, so he was never made the heir officially and the only reason he is the head of the house right now is that everyone else from the main line is dead.
"Is the location of all the black properties written anywhere like a book or something," I asked without much hope because I didn't think a paranoid family like black kept information like that in writing.
"Yes," Kreacher said reluctantly with a grimace.
"It is!" I exclaimed while sitting up in my chair before ordering Kreacher, "go and bring it to me immediately,"
Kreacher immediately vanished and I stood up from my chair and went to the sink with the empty bowl. I started washing the dishes by hand while waiting for Kreacher to arrive. He arrived about 10 minutes later while carrying a huge book.
I immediately went in front of him and took the book from him. The book was very heavy and was covered in black glossy color with silver-colored runes running along the edges and on its spine. On the front of the book was a cover, with a silver-colored three-legged raven drawn on a dead tree, with 'Toujours Pur' written underneath it.
"What is this?" I asked while examining it.
"It is the Black Family Grimoire. Only the head of the house can open it," Kreacher said while looking at the book reverently.
I immediately tried to open the book but no matter how much force I applied, it would not budge.
"How do I open it," I asked Kreacher after a while, who didn't bother hiding his snickering while watching me struggle.
"Master has to pour a drop of blood on the front of the Grimoire for it to recognize you,"
"Why didn't you say so before?" I said to him in annoyance before cutting my finger with a knife summoned from the kitchen and dropping my blood on Grimoire.
The Grimoire floated in the air and shined for a few moments before falling back into my hands. And suddenly information on how to use the Grimoire came into my mind. There was a lot more than just the location of properties inside that book.
It had the black family's financial situation as well as the amount of money that was available for me to use. The thing is that every member of the black family including the head gets a fixed amount of money that they could use in their lifetime based on hierarchy.
While I would still get a very substantial amount of money, even as the head of the family I can't completely empty the vaults, it was a stipulation that one of the founders put so that even if one of the family heads along the line in the future was a spendthrift and a fool they still wouldn't be able to make the Black family destitute.
Another important feature of the book is that you could get access to all kinds of rituals, potions, and ancient spells from it. Almost all the information placed in the black family library could be accessed through it. The only limitation was based on your position in the family and for some of the more powerful stuff, you can only access them if you've made enough contribution to the Black family, for example, running a successful business and substantially increasing the family wealth. It was added to make sure that the future generation didn't only take but give back to the family too.
While there were many more features, I was not ready to completely explore them at that time as my body was completely sore while my mind was demanding sleep so I stopped my curiosity and quickly opened the book while thinking about wanting to know about the black family properties.
A page filled with all kinds of addresses along with information about who it belonged to when they were alive appeared on a blank page. I quickly skimmed through the list, glossing over everything inside Britain and any place that was too far away. I found a perfect place for me after going through half of the list, It was a manor on a lightly populated island located just off the coast of Scotland. It used to belong to Sirius's great-great aunt who mainly used it as a holiday home. She died while fighting against Grindelwald so it had been left empty for about half a century.
I put my finger on the address of the holiday home and I instantly knew the direction it was located in. Relief filled my body after having finally put together a plan for tomorrow. I gently closed the grimoire and thought about returning it to its proper location and it immediately vanished. I could summon the grimoire from anywhere and anytime so it was very convenient.
The events of the whole day caught up to me and it became harder and harder to keep my open. I stood up and started walking toward the very welcoming bed. I put my wand on the bedside table and immediately fell on the bed while pulling the blanket over me. Just before falling asleep, I opened my eyes a little and looked blearily toward Kreacher.
"Wake me up just before sunrise tomorrow Kreacher," I mumbled and immediately lost consciousness.
...
The next morning I was suddenly pulled out of my sweet sleep by a loud banging sound. Kreacher had taken my order to wake me up as an opportunity to irritate me. Feeling just a bit better after a full night's rest, I quickly finished my morning chore before eating a light breakfast consisting of noodles. I need to get some real food fast or I will turn into naruto.
After taking a long shower and wearing some clothes that I had Kreacher get from my old room at the Grimmauld place, I was ready for the day. I went out of the tent and was immediately pleased to find that Buckbeak was still there and had not abandoned me during the night.
"Hey buckbeak," I said to the hippogriff while caressing his neck. I could see some kind of animal bones littered beside him so he must have been hunting during the night, "Are you ready for a long flight buddy,"
Buckbeak screeched while bumping me gently with his head. Kreacher had already packed the tent while I was mounting buckbeak.
"Kreacher go ahead to the villa and get it ready for me," I ordered him. He nodded and disappeared.
"Come on, Buckbeak! Let's fly," I shouted while squeezing my legs. He took a running start and took off with a flap of his wings.
It took about 8 hours with two breaks in between for buckbeak to rest, before I was able to see the island in the distance. When we got close enough I had buckbeak fly a little low so that we stayed out of people's view. The manor was located in an isolated part of the island with a dense canopy of trees surrounding it on one side and with the other part facing the beach in an open style like in the iron man movie.
I had buckbeak land on the front of the manor and got down after patting him in gratitude. While opening the front gate of the huge manor that was a little worn down with some weeds growing here and there, the only thing I could think was, "HOME SWEET HOME"
/
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