Ok so i'm fed up with making chapter titles sooooo see if you know this quote:
Nothing is free, not even revenge.
Sirius Black sat in the dirty crap hole of 12 grimmauld place in a daze, less than a week ago he had been locked up in the hell that was Azkaban, he was then released apologised to and sent on his way, he was still getting used to not feeling the dementors creeping cold, warm food, soft bed ect.
kreacher was confused, the disgrace had returned and was now his master, oh how his mistress would be unhappy that the failure was the only Black left and yet... the disgrace had done something that confused him, he had shown him affection and even thanked him? this was strange to kreacher and yet it felt so right, like he was supposed to be treated like this, but his family had never... he was confused.
When Sirius was being brought back one of the Aurors mentioned he looked almost like a house elf, this had sent him into his memory of meeting the Potters, James's family, the manor was huge and clean and bright, although they did have dark objects they were locked away or studied to undo their effects, a large shock was seeing the Potter family elves, he expected them to look like the ones he had seen from his family's and their friends, skinny almost skeletal, dirty, smelly, brused, and waring old soiled pillowcases or even bin liners, the only ones who looked even remotely healthy were the one or two who would appear to guests, and those ones were so abused they were as sick and twisted as their masters, but here at the Potters the elves were well fed with uniforms and very happy and eager to serve, and they were thanked and praised for their service, it was only minutes later when he arrived 'home' and as soon as he stepped in Kreacher popped in to see who had entered and before the elf could say anything Siris bent down and hugged him,
"Thankyou for taking care of the place Kreacher," he pulled the stunned elf back and looked him in the face, "You are a good elf, please return to your duties," the now bewildered elf popped away without a word,
Sirius was reading through a backlog of Daily Prophets to catch up on what he had missed when Kreacher appeared and announced his master had a visitor, one Albus Dumbledore,
"Thankyou Kreacher, after you show him in can you go buy some food for us, and when he has gone please make up something for us to eat?" Sirius asked,
"us master?" Kreacher asked suspicious,
"yes, you and me, I want to make sure your eating enough,"
Kreacher showed in the guest before dazedly taking care of his orders, us?, his master was worried Kreacher was not eating enough?
his thoughts whirled as he purchased the food from the suib shop and he didn't even notice he no longer thought of the shop as 'dirty', he ignored other customers rather than growl at them he was so distracted, he then returned to his kitchen and after cleaning it made some spag bol for his master and a small plate for himself, he stared at his portion and something felt different, he felt lighter and he could feel something different with the bond to his master, before it had felt restricting and suffocating but that was normal, but now it felt light and seemed to make him feel better, but the food was ready and the visitor was gone.
Sirius kept reading through the papers, it seemed bad what had happened to Harry but Dumbledore was doing what he thought was right, the blood bond wards his mother had set up needed a blood relative to maintain, it was unfortunate but necessary, a plate appeared before him and Kreacher was putting his own down and looked as Sirius and suddenly his face looked enraged.
Kreacher knew his master would be angry reading the past, he knew well the friendship between the blood... the Potters and his master, he expected violence screaming and rage, when he looked at his master to see if her would face punishment for his master's anger he saw something else, his master was calm and didn't even seem to care about the fate of his godson, yes Kreacher had heard his mistress lamenting about that too, it was then he could see it, the slight shimmer of magic around his master that was not there before and was not his master's own magic, the visitor had done something to his master?! UNFORGIVABLE Kreacher reacted instinctively and snapped his fingers removing the bad magic from his master,
"No no no, no bad magic on master NO!"
Sirius didn't have time to react before Kreacher used magic and a memory returned of Albus Dumbledore pointing his wand at him and "Confundus" with a smile on his face, and his eyes focused as the magic was broken and he saw Kreacher with a horrified look on his face,
"Kreacher used magic on master without permission Kreacher is bad elf!" and he began to headbutt the floor, hard.
Sirius grabbed the elf and tried to stop him hurting himself, he then began biting himself,
"Kreacher I order you to stop! you are not to punish yourself for doing your duty and protecting your master!" the elf stopped tears in his eyes,
"B-but Kreacher did-" Sirius cut him off,
"What you had to, I was compromised by someone I thought i could trust, because of you I am not compromised anymore and I now know I can never trust that man again, you are a good elf and have done well in protecting your family,"
it took Kreacher a few minutes to calm down but he understood that he had done nothing wrong, they sat down and ate and Sirius complemented his cooking, having a nice master was going to take some getting used to but Kreacher thinks he could handle it.
Fleur was not happy, of their group only she hadn't found that feeling, Harry was a rather regal looking falcon, Brice was a parrot in a gorgeous shade of dark blue who could still speak in animal form, and Mina was a large powerful looking cat, their studies had gone well and Harry was researching something to do with runes, she was more interested in the healing arts and so potions was her main focus at the moment, it was quite a surprise when she was having trouble to have Harry walk over and explain what she was missing, upon further questioning she discovered that he was much further ahead in the subject but she reasoned that someone capable of brewing animagus potions as easily as he could would probably have some talent in it.
It was early March and the weather was surprisingly warm for the time of year, Harry led them to a small lake he and Brice had spotted on one of their flights it was hidden by a small band of trees but far enough away from the main body of the forest to be safe, while they were sat there chatting and enjoying some cold drinks Mina noticed before the boys, Fleur had an unfocussed look on her face, like she was a million miles away, after being made aware Harry quietly placed an opened vial in her hand which she absentmindedly drank.
Harry, Mina, and Brice watched as a white swan floated across the lake, occasionally ducking it's head down before coming up and swallowing, it fluffed it's feathers and just carried on doing what it was doing.
The sky began to get dark as evening set in, still they waited and watched as the swan moved towards them and walked out of the water changing elegantly into Fleur, her eyes wide and she began babbling, Mina and Brice had been the same, it was an incredible feeling, after she calmed down they all changed and headed back to the academy in animal form as it would be faster.
Harry had enjoyed his breakfast and was now waiting for the owl post while pondering the usefulness of shrinking and engorging charms if he could enlarge something perhaps he could inscribe runes on it and shrink it? he'd have to run some experiments when term was over but with the capabilities of the laser engraver he could produce some really *hoot!* he was broken from his train of thought by an impatient owl who had seemed to have been waiting, he removed the letter and offered a large rasher of bacon as an apology.
The letter was from his grandparents, they told him the story of Sirius Black, and asked if he wanted to meet him, Harry replied that he would like to write to him before meeting maybe they could meet in the summer?
Sirius was finally happy, he had paid for the goblins to clean out no. 12, it was too big a job for him and for a fee they had altered the fidelius to exclude certain old manipulative assholes. Kreature was happier than he could ever remember, he looked after his master who appreciated him, he wasn't punished for no reason anymore, and now didn't have to clean the painting of his nasty old mistress as it was gone, he collected the post for his master checking it for anything nasty.
Kreatcher handed over the post to his master and was given a slice of jam on toast for his trouble and went off munching happily on it, Sirius looked through the small stack, a letter from Dumbledore (good he needed more toilet paper), ministry stuff (boring), the daily prophet (not good enough to wrap chips in), the quibbler (insane in a good way), and a very striking letter bearing the name Flamel.