Chapter 19: A Yule Quirk and Some Birthday Fun.

Thanks for all the reviews.

This one's on the short side. I blame my muse.

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Yule was spent at Millie's house, since Christmas was going to be spent at the castle, and they all had a really good time. It was just Sirius, Millie, and Harry. Sirius got leave from St. Mungo's for the day and was able to spend the time with them. He bought Harry of Firebolt, which was kind of unnecessary because both Harry and Millie had bought one too.

"Well, I guess I have a backup room now," Harry said, as he stared at the very expensive broom in his hands. He was really glad that Sirius had bought the broom for him, but he really didn't need the second one. He guessed his godfather was trying to make up for years and years of no presents. He plastered a grin on his face and looked happy to have it, but it didn't quite reach his eyes.

"That's okay, now if one gets destroyed, you'll have another. Or you could let somebody else on the team use one of them, yeah" Millie said, reaching over and putting a reassuring hand on Sirius's arm. She wanted to make sure the man wasn't upset, that Harry wasn't overly overjoyed that he got a broom from him. She felt bad that she hadn't coordinated gifts with him. Maybe she could have avoided this if she had just let him know that they had already purchased a Firebolt.

"I'm sorry, I didn't know you were buying your own," said Sirius, trying to keep a smile on his face. He felt bad too because he was really trying to earn House points with his godson. He had bought the most expensive item he could. He had seen Harry's broom destroyed in that Quidditch match and he was trying to make up for it now by giving presents he had missed for all these years.

While he was on potions for getting his brain functioning, they still hadn't gotten the cocktail quite right yet to get it in perfect working order. They were still working on that.

"That's fine. You're just doing what you thought was your godfatherly duty. And I thank you very much," said Harry, getting up and giving his godfather a huge hug. He felt bad for not reacting the way he should have for getting this first present from his godfather. He should have been jumping up and down in joy over it. The man had gone and put such effort into it. Now he felt really bad for disappointing him. This was not turning out to be the Yule that it should have been. He's going to have to do something to make it up to Sirius.

"I can take it back and get something else," the dogman said, going to grab for the broom and was smacked in the hand for his efforts.

"No, I love it very much and it's one of the first gifts you ever gave me. I wanna keep it and cherish it," said Harry, taking the broom out of the man's reach so he didn't grab for it. He put it over on the wall, by the fireplace and said, "Don't you touch that. It's my broom now. You can't have it back." He even went so far as to stick his tongue out at him.

The adults laughed and everybody had a good time, and Yule went on. Soon enough, Harry had to go back to school and Sirius had to go back to the hospital. But they all remembered that day and learned something very important about communication in a family. It wasn't something they would soon forget. It was a good thing it was something as simple as a gift instead of something where somebody got hurt.

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The rest of the third year went with a bunch of Quidditch games and a lot of fun. Nothing tremendous happened. Buckbeak was free and Hagrid got to keep his job. Everybody had a great time.

Percy got Valedictorian and graduated with great honors on his NEWTs. And everybody was really sad to see that Phil was going to be going. But at least they were going to have Amy next year.

Though for some reason Remus Lupin did resign, they never found out why. Just that he wasn't going to be there next year. He stated that he was going to be living with his best friend to help him recover from his time in prison. But Harry felt that he had a different reason that he was resigning.

For some reason, he thought it had something to do with Snape, but he had no concrete proof. He was sure it was something to do with Remus being a werewolf, like they could keep that a secret. Everyone knew about it. They just didn't talk about it.

The one good thing that came out of the year is that everybody that Harry knew, knew how to do the Patronus Charm. It had taken some time, but they all got it down. And Harry felt accomplished for this fact. Professor Lupin even found out that Neville was using the wrong wand. He was going to talk to Augusta Longbottom about it. Hopefully, Neville would be able to get his own wand.

Harry had to go to the Dursleys for two weeks. Because not even Sirius could figure out how the blood wards worked. All he knew was they had something to do with Lily's sacrifice and they did need to be recharged. And if it wasn't for the fact that they had to do something with Harry's protection too, they wouldn't have bothered.

Sirius had some words to say to the Dursleys.

"Look here Dursley, you lot better behave yourselves, and be nice to my boy," he said to Vernon. He'd been released from St Mungo's with a clean bill of health and mostly sane bill of health. They said he'll never be completely mentally healthy, but he was well enough to be in public. He sat there in all his aristocratic glory, just glaring at the fat man.

They were sitting in the living room trying to be civil, but it was hard-pressed for the two men to do so.

"Now see here, you can't come into my house and tell me what to do," the fat man blustered. He looked over at Sirius with his beady eyes, trying to be intimidating, but it was hard to be when the man looked like he was from money. And there was one thing that the Dursleys pandered to, and that was rich people.

Even if they were freaks.

"I bloody well can. I'm Harry's godfather and I want to make sure that you understand that I will come in here and turn you into teacups and leave you that way and walk away without a sweat on my brow," Sirius said menacingly, brandishing his wand. He did have no problem taking these people down. It wasn't exactly mugglebaiting to him, it was vengeance. He didn't like the way they treated his godson. He had grown up in an abusive household. Sure, it was twice as abusive as Harry's was, but what his godson grew up with was still abusive.

"That's illegal. That has to be illegal. Petunia, tell him that's illegal," Vernon said, turning to his wife with a pleading tone. She had to know more about these freaks than he did. Her sister was one.

"I don't think they care, Vernon. Those freaks don't really care about us normal people at all. I know Lily would bring that boy over and he would threaten me with things like that all the time. That's why they're freaks," the horse-faced woman said with a sneer on her face. She knew they didn't care anything about them. She knew that they'd come and turn them into teacups and leave them and walk away. That Snape boy said he'd do it all the time.

"Look, all you have to do is be nice to the boy for two weeks and we'll come pick him up," Sirius said, pinching the bridge of his nose. He was getting a headache from talking to these two complete idiots. How hard was it just to be nice to somebody for two weeks?

"We're gonna be over here every day to help with his homework and his self-defense or he'll come over to my place. Either way, you won't be seeing much of him. Just be nice to him when he's here, that's all we're asking of you, yeah" said Millie. She put her hand on Sirius's arm to calm him down. She knew he was having trouble being around people. And she wanted to make sure he didn't snap at anybody, or worse, curse them.

"See, it won't be much different than last summer," said Harry, trying to defuse the situation. He didn't see what the issue was. The Dursleys weren't that difficult to deal with. Especially now that they knew people were watching them. They'd leave him alone.

"Then why is this man threatening us?" demanded Vernon, pointing a finger at Sirius as if the man had threatened him, which he had.

"Because he just got out of prison and he doesn't know better," said the dark-haired teen, feeling a little vindictive because Vernon was a bit of an arse. That and if he knew exactly who Sirius was, then maybe he would be a little bit nicer to Harry.

"I know who you are. You're that mass murderer, Sirius Black," said the whale of a man, leaning back as far as his chair would let him, which wasn't very far because it was a well-worn chair.

"I was exonerated," Sirius snarled. He was getting really tired of having to say that to people. It was in the news for weeks, both non-magical and magical.

"I don't care what you did to get out of your rightful sentence," said Vernon, trying to bluster up some courage. "Uh, yeah, I know what you are. You're a mass murderer and you'll stay away from my family." He was still leaning back in his chair, trying to get as far away from the man he considered a killer. He didn't look very courageous sitting there, but he was trying to sound it.

"Whatever, just leave the boy alone. I'm out of here," said Sirius, getting up from the sofa he was sitting on and storming over to the door. And with that, he popped away.

"You'll have to forgive Sirius. He's still getting used to being around society," said Millie, also getting up from the sofa but not going anywhere yet.

"You just keep him away from my family," said Mr. Dursley, relaxing now that the ex-convict was no longer in his house. He was, however, going to make sure that Harry was treated better this summer than he was last summer because he wasn't going to have that man come back to his house and threaten his family again.

"As long as you treat Harry okay, you'll have no problems with Sirius," said Millie, going over to Harry and giving him a hug.

"Just get up to your room, boy," the fat man said, as if he had any say in what Harry was to do.

"You're a right treat, yeah" said Millie, wrinkling her nose in Vernon's direction. "Harry, I'll see you at 2pm for your lessons." She turned and kissed him on the cheek, and then she too popped away.

Harry just took his trunk and went up the stairs to his room and started on his summer homework. He only had to be here for two weeks, and he was just going to bide his time to get done what he had to do. As long as he did his homework, kept his head down, he would have no problems. Vernon and Petunia were terrified of the wizards, so they would leave him alone. Dudley could care less about what was going on around him, so that was okay too.

The two weeks passed without issue. He just kept his head down, did his homework, spent a couple hours at Hogsmeade every day, and the time flew by.

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Harry made sure to write to his friends every day, or call those that had a phone. They had a newfangled item on the market that he made sure to buy and it was called the cellular phone. Sirius had given him the money to purchase one. And he barely got service out there in Hogsmeade. But he did have some, so he did call who he could, when he could. And therefore, he was able to keep in touch with his non-magical friends. Those like Dean and Hermione.

For his magical friends, he was able to keep in touch with owls. Neville and he wrote every single day. Neville was very lonely and wasn't able to come visit him very often because his gran was a very strict person. She didn't like him to leave the house for anything, so she kept him very close. It had taken a lot of convincing to get her to let him come visit the one time that he came to the Leaky Cauldron. Right now, they were trying to butter her up to get him to come with them to the Quidditch World Cup.

At least the boy got his new wand, so there was that. Neville was over the moon over that.

Sirius had gotten tickets and it was a great event that they were really looking forward to going to. And Harry didn't wanna go alone, and Hermione wasn't interested in going to see the quidditch game. Neville was his best friend, besides Hermione, and he was still trying to convince her. Sirius said that he could take more than one person.

So between the phone and the owls, he was in constant communication with two families. Between Harry, Millie, and Sirius they were slowly wearing them down. Millie was working on the Grangers and Sirius was working on the Longbottoms. Harry was working on Hermione. This was going to be quite an event and he didn't want his friends to miss it if they could help it.

His birthday came, and he was having a grand old time. He and Neville had decided to rent out the Leaky Cauldron for the day and have a joint birthday bash. So, all of their friends were able to show up, including the Weasleys. Everyone was partying heartily. They had the adults there, so Millie, Amy, Phil, Sirius, and even Remus Lupin were there. They were making sure that all the kids weren't going to mess up the joint. Amy wasn't quite an adult, but she was older than the other teenagers, bar the twins.

"I don't think I've ever seen so many kids in one place at one time," said Sirius, watching all the teenagers having fun with the abject horror. They were almost as loud as the prisoners at Azkaban with their yelling and shouting. But these teens were having fun, and the inmates definitely had not been. And that made a lot of difference to Sirius's psyche.

"I just got through teaching, so I've seen them all in one place at one time," said Remus, clapping his friend on the back in commiseration. He knew what his friend was thinking. He just felt bad for him. Sirius still wasn't used to a lot of loud noises. That's why he was still happy in Hogsmeade. It was a nice quiet village.

"I see them in self-defense classes all the time," said Millie, she smiled as she watched Harry and Neville joke around with Susan. She could see Harry was now getting to the age where he could see that Susan was a girl. She and Sirius were going to have to sit him down and have the Talk soon. First, she was going to have to sit Sirius down and discuss what kind of talk they were going to have. She didn't want to have a miscommunication again.

"I'm still in school, so…" said Amy, trailing off. This was kind of tame for her. Even the Weasley twins were acting normally for her. The Hufflepuff common room was rather rambunctious when they wanted it to be. Especially, after a big Quidditch victory.

"I just got out of school," said Phil with a casual shrug of his shoulder. He too was used to lively teenagers and kids.

"You're just out of touch, Padfoot," said Remus, giving his friend's shoulder a squeeze.

"I guess," said Sirius, slumping down in his chair. He didn't like feeling out of touch with everybody. Everybody else was so used to all this noise and all these people and he felt just so closed off and jumpy and it was not good for him to feel this way. He wondered if he was ever going to feel normal like everybody else.

"Oops, I'd better go stop the twins from doing what they're about to do," said Millie and with that, she took off to go stop the Weasley twins from whatever they were about to do to Harry.

"She really is good to them, isn't she?" said Sirius. The more he got to know Millie, the more he liked her. She was really good to Harry, and she was actually pretty good for his mind as well. She had a calming effect on him.

"She takes really good care of Harry," said Phil. "She got him out of a bad situation, and she was there for them from the beginning of Hogwarts."

"How did you get roped into this?" asked Remus. It had been something he wondered from the first time he'd seen the boy enter the compartment on the train.

"I was part of her self-defense class and we've been friends and Hogwarts since, I don't know, third year. My third year, anyway," Phil said, getting reminiscent. "We ran together. She's the one who got me into it. And when we were running one day, I noticed that she brought the firsties, and that she was paying special attention to Harry. I asked her about it one day and she said that he just seemed to be a special kid and that she knew he was abused at home, and she wanted to help him. And then when she told me she was graduating and she needed somebody to keep an eye on him at school, I just kind of volunteered," he said, all the while looking at Millie as if she was a special kind of person.

"Oh, that was really nice of you. And how did that go for you?" said Sirius, he did notice the admiration in Phil's eyes and wondered if there was any kind of romantic inclination there.

"Actually, I'm pretty good, I thought," Phil said, turning his attention to the people talking to him. "I didn't think I would be a really good mentor, but the last two years have been really nice. I helped out Harry a lot. He helped me a lot too, by giving me a sense of purpose." He smiled broadly at them, feeling proud of himself for what he had done and accomplished in the last two years.

"Oh," was all the other three said.

"Yeah. I didn't think I'd be, uh, a responsible adult until I had something to be responsible about," the now adult continued. "Now I think I'm gonna be a really good father, and that was something that made me feel good about myself." There was nothing like patting oneself on the back for a job well done.

"Huh," Sirius said, thinking that over.

"All we ever did in school was play jokes and pranks," said Remus. Then again, it had been his responsibility to take care of the Marauders while they were in school. He had been the one to keep them out of trouble and make sure that their homework was done and everything, but they had been the same age and they didn't listen to him all the time, so it wasn't exactly the same thing. Would he be a good father?

"Well, not everybody can be a mentor," said Amy, giving both the older men a winning smile. It was almost as if she was placating them.

"And how did you get roped into it?" Sirius asked her in an almost condescending manner.

"I just followed Phil into the compartment, and boom, there Hermione was acting all high and mighty, and I just kind of had to help talk her down. I'm more a mentor towards her than I am towards Harry, but I'll be there for him too," she said, making wide hand gestures as if to explain what she's doing was very important. Which to her it was, cause Hermione needed a lot of guidance in her opinion.

"Yeah, she does need a woman figure, doesn't she? Doesn't say much for her mother, does it?" queried Remus, watching Hermione who is surrounded by boys and not many of the girls. She didn't seem to get along with the young ladies at all. She did seem to hang around with Harry and Neville a lot though. And not in a girly, 'I wanna be your girlfriend' type of way.

"Oh, I wouldn't say that. I just think she needs a younger hand than her mother. I think they had her late in life," Amy said in a chastising manner.

"Oh?" Remus said questioningly.

"Yeah, I've met her mother. She's a very sweet lady, but she's a little on the older side," she said.

"Huh."

"Yeah," the younger lady said, hoping that the older man learned better than just to jump judgment like that. You would think a man of his age would know better especially for a teacher.

And with that, the party went on and everybody had a great time. The birthday presents were handed out, mostly books and broom service and repair kits. Some clothes from the adults. Sweets from the other kids. And after a while, the Leaky Cauldron was handed back to Tom, and everybody went home having had a good time.

Harry finally got the confirmation that both Neville and Hermione would be joining him for the Quidditch World Cup. He was ecstatic that both of them would be coming and went home a very happy young man. It was a great birthday.