Even though they had fallen asleep a little after eight the previous evening, Harry and Sirius rose around seven the following day. Harry momentarily wondered if he was back on summer holidays before realizing, with more than a small bit of disappointment, that it was the middle of October, and he would return to Hogwarts later that day.

Harry felt another pang when he realized that he had only returned to Sirius's home for a little over a day, and likely wouldn't be back for several weeks, judging by the arbitrary way Dumbledore was holding their lessons.

As much as he'd hated Occlumency with Snape, he'd known what to expect every week, and dread it accordingly. Dumbledore's might be far less unpleasant, but if the headmaster really wanted to teach him, Harry thought if they really mattered so much, he should put them in an official timetable, instead of leaving Harry and Sirius guessing as to when the next one would occur.

Sirius said as much when they sat down for breakfast.

"How am I supposed to know when I'm going to see my pup next? Could be Christmas, at this rate," he complained, only a bit half-heartedly, as he handed Harry a bowl of porridge.

"The first Quidditch match will be before then," Harry pointed out. "I hope so, anyway. Also, there's usually another Hogsmeade visit before then. Not that you have to buy us sweets again."

Sirius grinned, almost mischievously. "Try and stop me, pup."

Harry let out a long suffering sigh, but really, it felt nice to be wanted.

"Since you're likely to have your first Quidditch match before your next lesson with Dumbledore, and certainly before the next Hogsmeade visit, have you heard any news of when that will be?" Sirius asked, taking a bite of his porridge.

Harry swallowed, then shrugged. "Soon, I hope. Just hope it warms up a bit. The way the weather was yesterday, we might freeze in our team robes before we even play against Slytherin."

The Hogwarts Quidditch robes were not exactly made of warm material. While this could be a relief when you were playing in the hot spring weather, it was downright dreadful when it was freezing or raining like crazy outside.

"I'll teach you the spell to stay toasty before you leave today," Sirius promised, "and you can teach your team. I suppose that it's Gryffindor against Slytherin for the first match?"

"Yeah, and we've been practicing like crazy for it," Harry answered, with a smile. "Both the regular team, and the reserve. Really, the reserves aren't half bad, either. If anyone from the regular team gets injured, I'd say we still had a shot going with one of the reserves."

Sirius gave a snort. "Don't tempt fate, pup. All the same, I'm glad that you're prepare. Well," he added, contemplatively, "as prepared as you can be, as your first game is with a team that plays dirty. Say, how's Ron holding up against all the pressure?"

Harry frowned a bit, considering his friend's progress during practice. "I'd say he's a bit shaky whenever you hear the words 'Slytherin' and 'Quidditch' in the same sentence, but, otherwise, really good on the field. Maybe he should wear earplugs that block out any words that aren't from the Gryffindor house," Harry suggested, with only a little irony intended.

He didn't think that the match would go as poorly as some of the previous ones, but he knew that Ron would blame himself for any goal that went in, and this would spiral into horrible playing.

The game against Slytherin from the previous year was still on Harry's mind, and more than once, he'd dreamed about it. What difference had it made that they'd won, when he'd been banned for the rest of the year?

Of course, Umbridge wasn't there this time around.

After breakfast, Harry finished up his Herbology homework, surprised when he looked up to see barely an hour had passed. He knew it would have taken at least twice as long without Sirius's help. His godfather, much like Hermione, had a knack for speeding up homework assignments. Hermione once spent twice as long as strictly necessary on assignments, solely for her own pleasure, but after the year with the time-turner, her zest for overwriting and overstudying had diminished, at least a little. Harry knew that his friend still handed in more than the professor required, but it was generally within a foot or so, as opposed to rolls of parchment more than required. Harry rather suspected that her professors were grateful for her brevity-or brevity for Hermione.

With his homework complete, Sirius tentatively asked Harry if they wanted to go into the lab to work on a potion that they hadn't gotten to during the summer. Since Harry had kept Sirius up to date with regards to what they had produced in class, and he was still ahead of the class, he readily agreed.

"Y'know, I never thought I'd want to spend free time working on Potions, of all classes," he mused as they prepared the ingredients for an Enhanced Vision Draught, meant for seeing in the dark.

"That's because Snape was a prat who took pleasure in terrifying his students," Sirius reminded him, with a grin. "Potions is a ruddy great class when it's taught by someone who is half decent at teaching it. It was one of my favorite subjects, and tied to Charms with your mum, but Snape would make anyone hate it. Anyone who isn't in Slytherin, that is."

There was no sense in even trying to deny that. Harry had noticed, when he occasionally looked up from his work to glance around at his classmates, that Neville was doing far better in NEWT Potions than he had ever done under Snape. It was a good thing that Slughorn allowed all passing students into his class, even though Harry was sure that far more had passed their Potions OWL than had signed up for it, no doubt expecting a replay of Snape's teaching style within Slughorn.

This time, Harry noted, Sirius had made relatively few alterations with this potion, but the ones he had made were small ones. Not that they were unnecessary for receiving the top notch results he had become used to. Two extra stirs at the beginning and end of adding the beetle eyes, for instance, and using two more beetle eyes than the instructions had called for. Harry also had to ground up the Murtlap root instead of simply mixing it in, and that took an extra five minutes.

"It will get easier with practice," Sirius assured him. "Usually, you'll want to grind up that root, even when the official directions say otherwise. Far more potent and fast acting this way. Any ideas why?"

That was another thing that Harry enjoyed. Sirius let him think for himself, and even if his answers were completely incorrect, he didn't sneer at him.

"It goes directly into the potion easier?" he guessed.

"Technically, it dissolves quicker this way," Sirius corrected, gently, "but in essence, you were correct."

When it was finished, Sirius told Harry the potion was perfect, and they added it to the growing ones he had made since beginning. After washing their hands and faces, which had become oily from the potent ingredients, they ate a quick lunch before Harry had to return to Hogwarts.

"I'll let you know as soon as I hear from Dumbledore about our next lesson," he promised, giving Sirius a fierce hug, "and the Quidditch match, too."

Sirius smiled at him, but even after Harry released him, Sirius held him at arms' length for a moment. "I'll see you soon, pup."

Harry nodded, swallowing hard, and forcing a smile.

He'd be back soon.

Harry's momentarily homesickness was soon replaced by other concerns. No sooner had Harry appeared from the Gryffindor fireplace than Ron and Hermione nearly swarmed him.

"What's wrong?" he asked, cleaning off his robes.

"We missed what had happened, being in Three Broomsticks at the time, but the whole tower was abuzz when we returned!" Hermione explained, sounding breathless. "Katie Bell had been carrying a cursed necklace, and she's been taken to St. Mungos."

"Cursed? By who?" Harry asked, turning from Hermione to Ron.

"Dunno. Her friend Leanne thought that something suspicious was going on, that she was acting rather odd, and suddenly, from what I heard, she just went ballistic. It happened when were were still in Three Broomsticks," Ron explained, "but some of the students had returned, because of the cold. McGongall asked anyone who had any information to let her know, but the only person who had seen anything was Leanne."

Harry's eyebrows shot up. "Blimey! She'll be all right, though, won't she? They can heal the curse there, surely?"

"I hope so. Really, it was just a piece of skin that had touched the necklace. From a hole in her glove," Hermione explained, quickly. "Good thing she didn't touch it with her whole hand, or she'd likely be dead by now."

Harry shuddered. "How could she have got a hold of that? With all of the security checks going on, and our owls being searched?"

But Hermione and Ron just shrugged their shoulders.

"I'm sure Dumbledore will find out how it happened," Hermione assured them, sounding more confident than Harry would have felt. "And see that the appropriate person is punished."

"Handing off a cursed item like that should earn you more than detention," Harry murmured. "Expulsion, definitely. Maybe even time in Azkaban."

"Too bad you can't go to Azkaban if you're underage," Ron pointed out. "You know how many Slytherins have Death Eaters as parents? Reckon it was one of them."

"You can't go sending every Slytherin related to Death Eaters to Azkaban," Hermione reasoned. "Anyway, with the Dementors gone, it's more like a muggle prison than a wizarding one."

Ron looked confused, until Hermione briefly explained how muggle prisons worked, and Ron thought they sounded far more pleasant, if a bit boring.

Then, they were quiet for a few minutes, having said all they wanted to on the topic, and then Ron asked how Harry's overnight at Sirius had gone.

"It was really great," he answered, with more enthusiasm. "He taught me this potion that we'll be using soon. For night vision. You can see my notes, if you want, but he didn't add anything to them."

"He'd make a good teacher. Slughorn's not bad, even if he has that Slug club going on, but it's a real shame we have Snape for Defense," Ron said, sadly. "Git."

"Yeah, but don't forget that Snape won't last more than a year, what with the curse. Sirius could take it after him, but I rather fancy my godfather alive," Harry pointed out, with a grin. "Anyway, who knows? Maybe, after Voldemort's defeated, the curse will be lifted, and he can teach. You know that Snape won't be teaching Defense next year, whatever happens to him. Probably going back to Potions," he added, rather morosely, "and back to handing out zeros on all of our potions in class."

It had happened enough to Harry, and he still hadn't forgotten the one time he thought he would have managed an E, Snape had wrecked it on purpose.

"Supposing Snape does go back to teaching Potions. Think he'll kick out everyone who didn't get Outstanding in their OWL?" Ron wondered. "I'd hate to put in all that work this year for nothing."

"He accepted E students for Defense, didn't he?" Hermione said. "Mind you, it was probably only Harry that got an O."

Harry shrugged. He didn't know who else, if anyone else, had gotten an O. Only that Ron and Hermione and a couple of others had received E's. Of course, they also hadn't been given the opportunity to produce a Patronus during their exam, which had been rather unfair, since many of the DA members had been able to do so...

"Are you going to spend a night at his place every weekend?" Ron asked Harry.

"Not every weekend. Just when there's a Hogsmeade visit or he's here for a Quidditch match or a lesson from Dumbledore," Harry answered, with a shrug. "Since he'll have already been here, you know, and it will be a weekend."

"He's not making you go back with him, is he?" Ron wondered, looking a bit alarmed, earning a shove from Hermione.

"Ron! Show some tact, would you?"

Harry shook his head at his friends, rather vigorously. "No, Sirius isn't making me go back with him. I just-well, you know that my relatives are awful, and Sirius and I didn't exactly get to spend much time together until the past summer. We know that the other isn't going anywhere, of course, but..."

"You miss each other," Hermione put in, now sounding rather sympathetic. "And I expect that you feel a bit homesick."

"Homesick? For Grimmauld Place?" Ron asked, sounding repulsed.

"For Sirius, silly!" Hermione shot back, rolling her eyes at him. "He's as good as a father to Harry, and as Harry said, it's not like he's had a chance to have him in his life for most of it."

"It doesn't matter where we live," Harry added. "I'd be happy even if we were in a shack. Or the cave in Hogsmeade."

Hermione gave Harry a kind smile. "I know you would. I missed my parents something awful during my first year. It does get easier after you've been away for awhile. I sometimes wished that Hogwarts had a visiting day for muggle parents..."

"What's that?" Ron wanted to know.

"That's when there's a day or weekend when your parents come to your school, perhaps attend classes with you, and see where you live and what it's like to be a student," Hermione explained. "The problem is, muggles don't see things the way we do, so if they attended something like Potions or Herbology, it wouldn't look anything like how we see it. Besides, there would be a lot of enchantments to work around, and it's not like most of the students don't have at least one magical parent. It would be a lot of work, too much to justify it, I suppose."

"Plus the Draco Malfoys who would try to hex them," Ron noted, and Hermione shuddered.

"Yes, that would certainly complicate matters," she agreed, grimly. "It's better they don't, I suppose. Anyway," she added, rather briskly, "I'm glad that you don't need to wait until the holidays to see Sirius, Harry."

Ron nodded, and Harry grinned back.

Katie Bell still hadn't been released from St. Mungos by the following Friday, when Dumbledore had scheduled to meet with him and Sirius again, and there were rumors that the first game of the season would take place before the month was up. If this were true, Harry barely had two weeks. Preparing for the worst, at the conclusion of classes that day, he selected the best reserve Chaser, a third year named Roger Owens, from the secondary team to begin practicing with the regular team. Just in case she wouldn't be back in time for the first match of the season. Seeing Owens with some of his friends in the Gryffindor common room, he took him aside to tell him his decision.

"Just remember," Harry warned, at the boy's jubilation, "it's a precaution in case Katie Bell can't play. If she returns and is feeling all right, she's in." Harry gave Owens a stern look. "You understand?"

"Yeah, sure," Owens answered, with a grin.

Harry couldn't blame him for his excitement, but he still hoped that Katie would be back in time. It would be a real morale booster for the team if, like in his father's case so many years ago, they lost the game by a margin of ten points-due to a Chaser, essentially. Owns was hard-working, though, and he scored more often than he hadn't in practices. Also, Harry noticed, he was easygoing. Not full of himself, and able to take correction. Still, he was only a third year, and while good, was hardly at the level of his other Chasers. All the same, Harry knew Katie would be leaving Hogwarts for good at the end of the year, and Harry would likely as not fill her space with one of the reserves. Everyone had to start somewhere, he knew.

Sirius arrived at 7:00 once more in the Gryffindor fireplace, and handed out hugs to Harry and his friends as easily as though he'd been doing this for years.

"How'd everything going with your search?" Hermione asked, once they had sat down away from the others, and she'd performed a charm she'd learned to make their conversation impossible to overhear. "Did you manage to destroy-it?"

Even under charms, no one wanted to discuss horcruxes in public. Not without coded language, anyway.

"I was right about, as you say, it," he told them, quietly, yet triumphantly. "And it's not a, well, a you-know-what, anymore."

All three teenagers beamed.

"So that just leaves the snake," Hermione said, with some awe in her voice.

"I reckon that outside of him, that will be the hardest to track down and kill. Remus and I are talking about it, but we haven't figured anything out yet," Sirius said, with a sigh. "All the same, one to destroy is a lot better than six."

There was no denying the logic of that.

"How are classes going?" Sirius asked, changing the subject. "Are my notes helping any?"

"Harry and I are at the top of the class, and Ron's gotten loads better from the start of term," said Hermione, with pride. "Draco Malfoy looks absolutely furious when we turn in a potion and get full marks, and he hardly passes the assignment."

"Partly because he doesn't pay enough attention to his own potion," Harry explained, noting Sirius's look of confusion. "Keeps trying to copy us."

Sirius chortled. "Worth it just to see that, eh?"

"Yes. Oh, and in case Harry didn't tell you, he's not a prefect anymore, and I overheard McGonagall say that he's received three detentions from her in the last month alone," Ron put in. "He keeps not turning in his work."

"Think he'll fail out altogether?" Harry wondered.

"He might, if he keeps it up in all of his classes," Sirius mused, learning back in his chair. "His father being a known Death Eater meant he lacks the influence over the school he once had. Now, NEWTs aren't until next year, but there's still the end of year exams to pass in order to qualify for the NEWTs."

Ron groaned. "Feels like all we do is homework and study. And I thought the OWL exams were bad."

Sirius gave him a sympathetic smile. "The days of blissful free periods are mostly over, I'm sorry to say. The good news is that you'll have two summers off before Auror training, if you get into the program." Turning to Hermione, he asked, "Have you thought at all about what you want to do after Hogwarts?"

"Something regarding law in the Ministry, but not working for the Ministry, exactly," Hermione said, seriously. "There's so much that's outright unfair that needs changing. I've given up on freeing house elves, since most of them don't want to be free, but I do believe that better treatment for them should be a right. Just look at how poorly the Malfoy family treated Dobby! And I'm sure he's not the only one. I've also read a lot about the mistreatment of goblins. They might be able to use magic without wands, but that's no reason that they should be denied them altogether." She sighed. "I think that magical law would be where I could do the most good."

"You'll be an asset wherever you go," Sirius told her, and Harry could tell that he meant it.

They left the common room at ten to eight, and Harry had already packed an overnight bag to take with him to Sirius. He had planned to remain until Sunday afternoon, and was looking forward to that even more than to whatever the headmaster had in store. Sirius placed an arm on his shoulder as they walked, and Harry felt it like an anchor, keeping him steady, whatever came.

Author's note:

Next up...Harry and Sirius take some time to process Dumbledore and Voldemort's first meeting...homework continues to take over Harry's life, and Sirius learns a bit more about Harry's mishaps during Quidditch games. Should Sirius start a "people to kill who have hurt my pup?" list?

As always, constructive feedback is MOST welcome!