It turned out that Orion had been living in the Muggle hotel almost since the moment he had returned home and learned what had happened to Sirius. He had gone first to another Black property (a country home in Wales that had fallen out of use before Orion had been born), but his father had followed him there. His next stop had been to his solicitor—his own, paid for with his own money, who had no association with Arcturus—who had suggested that he stay in the Muggle world and had helped him get set up in the hotel.

There was old magic, not to mention inheritance law, preventing him from doing anything to retaliate against his own father, much less kill the man. And apparently part of Orion and Walburga's magically binding wedding vows had been that they wouldn't deliberately cause each other physical harm or death.

(Sirius had been momentarily surprised to hear that. Then his mind had immediately turned to whether Rodolphus Lestrange had thought far enough ahead to get himself that sort of protection from Bellatrix.)

Sirius greatly enjoyed his weekend alone with his father in the Muggle world. There, they were just attractive, anonymous people with a lot of money to spend. They were able to wile away their time wandering around London, exploring various parks and landmarks and purchasing anything either of them were interested in. There was no pressure to act in a way befitting the heirs of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.

Sirius replaced the fountain pen he had lost in the drawing room of Grimmauld Place. Unfortunately, he was not able to relocate the shop he'd wandered into that day, but he found a replacement at another shop that he liked almost as much. His father was so impressed by the Muggle pens that he bought three for himself, unable to choose which design he liked best. Over the course of the weekend, both Orion and Sirius developed a fondness for Muggle clothing, Orion for bespoke suits and the enormous variety of shoes available, and Sirius for denim jeans and t-shirts with things printed on them. Sirius was still fascinated with cars and motorbikes (although he did not see many of the latter on the cold winter streets), and Orion indulged his son's interest despite not sharing it.

They were both having such a good time together that they mutually agreed not to visit Alphard and Dolohov. In fact, the only blemish on their otherwise blissful weekend was when Orion pointed out that Sirius would see both his uncles in a few weeks, anyway, at Narcissa's wedding. Sirius vehemently disagreed, and they had a terrible row over it.

Sirius insisted that he would not attend the wedding.

Orion insisted that he would take his rightful place in the family and not let them chase him away.

"You are the heir, Sirius. No matter what they may say or do now, my father and your mother—and I, for that matter—will die, and you will be the head of our house," he said, his hands firm on Sirius's shoulders as he leaned down and stared directly into his eyes. He only had to lean down slightly, now that Sirius had grown almost as tall as he was. "Your position will be just as strong as my father's ever was, or mine. I will not have it said that my son is estranged from the family. I will not have you put in a position where you have to fight for respect that is yours by right."

"Well, you certainly aren't living up to that," Sirius responded, not caring at all how cruel he was being. "What with allowing yourself to be chased out of your family home and living with Muggles."

Of course, there was nothing Orion could do to punish his father or his wife except to not grace them with his presence. And there was nowhere he could go where Arcturus, the current head of house, wouldn't know and be able to enter freely, at least not until he bought himself a new place using his own money. But Sirius didn't care for nuance, not when he was being forced to attend the wedding of a woman he hated and be surrounded by yet more people he hated, not least of whom was the lying, backstabbing, sniveling little coward he used to date.

Orion squeezed his shoulders painfully and straightened to his full height, glaring down with stormy eyes and his hands trembling as if he desperately wanted to shake Sirius and was only barely refraining from doing it.

Sirius glared right back, defiant and unafraid.

After a few moments, his father released him and took a step back. "You will attend the wedding," he pronounced, voice flat and cold. "If you try to skive off by staying at school over Yule break, I will personally come to Hogwarts to retrieve you, and I guarantee you will not like that."

"Yes, my lord," Sirius replied, putting every ounce of disdain and cold fury he possessed into it.

They hardly said two words to each other after that.

Sirius was still in a foul mood when he returned to Hogwarts. It made the ancient castle feel even more oppressive and gloomy than it would have just by comparison to his otherwise wonderful weekend in Muggle London.

His friends were desperately curious to know what had happened, despite his seemingly ever-present scowl. Or perhaps because of it. They seemed almost disappointed that all Sirius could report was that he had spent the weekend shopping.

"Oh, sorry. Next time I'll ask my father to Cruciate me," said Sirius, hiding his very real annoyance behind an excessive level of snark. "Just so I'll have something more exciting to tell you."

"Or maybe just ask him to say he hates you or that he's really disappointed," James suggested with a lopsided grin. "You know, just something so it isn't anti-climactic for us when you come back."

Sirius couldn't help it; he rolled his eyes.

"I exist for your entertainment."

"He really wasn't angry, at all? He just took you out of school to go shopping?" asked Remus over the top of his Transfigurations homework.

Sirius shrugged in response.

His friends were not aware that both of his parents had forgiven him right from the start for his attack on that mouthy first year. They may have been frustrated that he had let himself get caught and be suspended from school, but they had never been angry about what he had done. His problems had started days later, when Arcturus and Walburga had found out about Sirius's relationship with Rabastan. Sirius could hardly have explained all that to his friends, much less that what he had actually been worried about was his father's reaction to finding out he liked men. So he had allowed them to assume that Orion had been away on business for his entire suspension, and that Sirius had spent two weeks waiting for his father to return and dole out a punishment for Sirius getting suspended.

Remus's expression made it clear that he could not believe there had been no consequences for Sirius's actions, at least not from his father. His frown and his narrowed eyes and that specific tilt of his chin conveyed just how disgusted he was that Sirius had seemingly been rewarded for his heinous behavior.

Peter seemed envious but completely unsurprised; he may not be a pure-blood himself, but his father had been. He had grown up well aware of the different standards for himself and his pure-blood cousins. And they weren't even Blacks.

James didn't understand the issue in the first place, given that his parents were so enamored of him and spoiled him so much that he had hardly faced a serious consequence in his whole life. Unless one counted him being made to apologize to Sirius after James's mother had been ostracized by the family over her son's behavior early in their first year. Even if James didn't understand anything about being part of the family, wasn't it telling that the only time James had ever been in real trouble in his entire life was because he had crossed the Blacks?

"I don't see what the big deal is," James announced in a tone that suggested Remus should drop it. "Everyone knows Sirius's family is crazy. I bet you his father wasn't even mad about him cursing Robards, just that Sirius got caught."

Well, then again, maybe James understood more than he let on most of the time.

Sirius had used that awful week when he had been a prisoner at Grimmauld Place to read so far ahead in his textbooks, out of sheer boredom, that he seamlessly slipped back into class on Monday morning despite having spent all weekend gallivanting around London instead of doing his homework. And his friends were by then so used to his perpetual broodiness that they all fell back into their usual patterns despite the odd circumstances of the last several weeks.

The only hiccup was Janice. Just like the prior week, Sirius didn't have a chance to talk to his girlfriend until Tuesday afternoon after Arithmancy. She still seemed subdued, although she was obviously trying to seem like her usual upbeat, energetic self around Sirius. This time, it was his turn to pull her into an alcove outside the classroom.

"Janice, are we okay?"

Her crystal blue eyes went wide before she broke eye contact with him. She seemed at once startled and embarrassed by the question and unable to answer immediately.

"I'm sorry that I've been so distant," Sirius continued when it became clear that she wasn't going to speak, although he usually made it a point not to apologize to anyone for anything. "It had nothing to do with you. With us. I was just so stuck in my own head worrying about my family."

"Are you sure?" she directed at his chest, eyes still downcast.

He bit back his irritation enough to say, in a reasonably pleasant voice, "Of course, love."

"It's only…" she began timidly. "Well… It's just that my sisters warned me that once we slept together, you would probably lose interest."

Sirius's mouth fell open. That was… ridiculous. He barely managed not to say that out loud.

"Why would I do that?"

She shrugged miserably.

"Well, the sex was great," he told her bluntly, losing his patience. "I want to do it again. With you. I wouldn't call that losing interest."

So long as she wasn't all droopy and whiny when they were doing it.

Janice blushed to the roots of her hair, which was a better reaction than he had expected, to be honest. She seemed to perk up a bit, at least enough to lift her head and meet his eyes to smile shyly up at him.

"Really?"

"Yes."

She was suddenly pressed up against him, chest to knee, stretching her arms up to wrap around his neck. Sirius obliged, leaning down to press his mouth to hers. Her lips tasted like her lip gloss—honey and something floral, this time—and when he pressed beyond her lips to sweep his tongue inside, she tasted sweet and faintly like the minty aftertaste of a mouth-freshening spell.

Sirius had every intention of making out until the bell rang for next period, until Janice's small fingers started working on the button of his trousers.

"What—?" he gasped out as her hand slipped inside to caress his bare skin. "What are you doing?"

"Shhh," she shushed him as she used her other hand on his chest to push him backwards.

He was so surprised that he went without protest, allowing her to back him into the floor-to-ceiling window, then down so that he was perched precariously on the narrow stone windowsill. She knelt between his knees and put her hands on his thighs as she smiled nervously up at him.

"Merlin's balls, Jan. We're in a hallway."

"Do you want me to stop?"

"Of course not!" he denied quickly. "Merlin, hold on."

His wand fell into his hand with a practiced twist of his wrist, and he cast the most powerful Notice-Me-Not Charm he could manage under the circumstances. It wouldn't keep anyone from seeing them if they stumbled inside the alcove or from hearing them if they were loud, but it would keep any passersby from noticing them unless they were really looking.

The noise might be a problem, Sirius decided as Janice pulled out his cock and stroked him firmly, the way he had shown her. He leaned his head back against the cold glass and threw his arm over his mouth to muffle his moan when she hesitantly took him into her mouth. It was not the best he had ever had, by far, but that hardly mattered—she was there, and warm, and sweet, and increasingly confident in what she was doing as she took in more and more of him. Condensation from the window dripped down his neck and into the collar of his robes, and the stone was cold underneath his ass even through his thick winter trousers, but all of Sirius's attention focused on the sensation of Janice's mouth around him.

Afterward, Sirius barely made it to History of Magic, rushing through the door just after the bell had rung to indicate the start of class. Not that Binns even noticed; he carried right on droning on about the giant wars as if he had never stopped talking since their last lesson the prior morning. Everyone else noticed, though. Vance and Evans both turned to see what the commotion was and offered him withering looks and rolled eyes as he took his seat in the back of the room. The Hufflepuffs turned to look, most of the girls looking at him as if they'd rather he were dead, Iris Hornby included.

"Where were you?" James whispered, and it seemed like every student within three tables of them turned to listen.

"Nowhere," Sirius hissed back.

"Uh huh," replied his friend. He reached up to tap the side of Sirius's mouth. "You've got lipstick, just there."

Sirius reflexively brought his hand up to wipe his mouth and shot an exasperated glare at his snickering friends.

Once everyone's attention had moved on to something else (James and Peter were playing tic tac toe, and on their other side Remus was trying to listen to Binns but seemed to be failing miserably), all Sirius could think about was what had just happened. He pictured it over and over in his mind. The way it had felt, the way Janice's riotous curls had cascaded around them both as she had knelt between his legs, the cute little gasp she had made when he came.

He was lucky that he had History instead of some other class, because if he'd had to withstand the scrutiny of almost any other professor, he probably would have made a fool of himself.

As the calendar rolled into December, all of their professors seemed determined to cram as much extra information into their classes as was physically possible before Yule break. Sirius found that, once again, he was seemingly the only student in his year who was not on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Remus nearly took his head off for laughing too loudly at one of James's jokes while the other boy was trying to revise for Charms. He and Janice were talking less and fucking more, as their time together grew shorter the more study groups she joined. If she wanted to use his body to relieve her stress, he was not complaining. Peter was convinced he was going to flunk out (which he always thought, but which he never had). Even James had permitted the team to reduce Quidditch practice from three times a week to twice a week.

The only person Sirius regularly hung around with who seemed a little less stressed than the rest was Evan. Sirius presumed that was because he had experienced at least some of the same education Sirius had before Hogwarts. Perhaps he had not had the full attention of a devoted tutor like Sirius had in his grandfather, given that his parents both had jobs at the Ministry, but he had certainly received a solid foundation in magical theory and had already known how to cast many of the first-year spells and some of the second-year ones.

They finished their Ancient Runes project in the first week of December, which left them with an entire free block after lunch on Mondays. Rather than go their separate ways, as Sirius expected they would have only a few weeks prior, they both kept showing up at the appointed time to the empty classroom where they had worked.

"How do you put up with Potter?" Evans asked him one Monday a couple of weeks before Yule.

Sirius glanced up from his Herbology essay, glad for the distraction.

"How do you mean?"

Evan sighed and turned in his chair to face him, planting his elbow on the table and propping his head up on his hand. "I get that he's not mean to you personally anymore, but how do you keep a straight face when he goes on about Dark wizards and such?"

"He's not that bad," defended Sirius, even though he knew it was a blatant lie.

"He practically insulted you just the other day!" cried Evan. "When you were standing right next to him!"

Sirius could not deny that. Mulciber or Avery (Sirius didn't know which one) had hexed Lily Evans on their way out of Defense the previous Friday. It was nothing serious, just a little Stickfast Hex that made her shoes suddenly stick to the ground mid-step. She had thrown out her arms to catch herself when she fell forward and ended up breaking her wrist, but Madam Pomfrey had probably fixed her up in less than thirty seconds after she got to the hospital wing, so Sirius didn't know what the big deal was.

James, though, could never be trusted to be rational when it came to Lily Evans. He had started slinging around hexes and insults as if Evans would actually thank him for defending her. Most of the things he'd said had followed a familiar pattern. Dark families, Dark wizards, bad seeds, shouldn't be allowed in Hogwarts, Azkaban, blah, blah, blah. It had gone on until a the Defense professor had come along to break it up and hand out detentions.

"I hardly notice it anymore," Sirius assured his friend.

"Well, you ought to," declared the Slytherin boy, a frown marring his handsome features. "Doesn't he realize his best friend is a Dark wizard?"

The idea startled a laugh out of Sirius.

"Fuck, no. Of course not. He thinks I despise the Dark Arts."

Evan snorted derisively. Sirius couldn't blame him. It did sound ridiculous. He had long accepted James's delusion that the hexes and curses Sirius showed him weren't really the same thing as practicing Dark magic. So long as James could think of ways to use them in pranks that he deemed funny or harmless enough, he accepted them without issue. Even if he blew up over a little Stickfast Hex used on the girl he liked. But it was understandable that didn't make sense to an outsider.

After a long silence, just when Sirius was about to return to the tedium of Herbology, Evan asked, "Does he even know you're gay?"

"I'm not gay," Sirius corrected automatically. "And no."

Evan flapped his hand dismissively, as if swatting away Sirius's correction.

"Why not? I would've thought a bastion of Light and goodness like Potter would leap at the chance to defend your freedoms or civil rights or whatever. Don't they love taking on lost causes?"

"James grew up in the same society we did, Evan," Sirius reminded his friend. "And his mother's a Black."

"That doesn't mean he shares the same views."

"I mean, we've never discussed it, but I can hardly throw that into conversation and hope he doesn't think it's strange that I'm asking," Sirius pointed out wryly. "'Oh, by the way, James, what do you think about sodomy? You know, like hypothetically if you found out someone you know wants to bugger other blokes…' I'd rather not risk bringing it up just to confirm what I already know. That he'd be disgusted by me."

Evan had hummed in acknowledgment, and Sirius had thought that was the end of it. Until later that week when the Gryffindors and Slytherins had all congregated in front of the Potions classroom to wait for Professor Slughorn

"Hey, Black!" Evan called down the corridor, and everyone from both houses seemed to stop all conversation to watch him approach the Gryffindor boys with a confident swagger and a nasty smirk plastered across his face.

For his part, Sirius only noticed the gleam in the other boy's eyes that spelled trouble. He watched his friend's approach with growing dread, not knowing exactly how he should respond to the situation.

James had no such problem.

"What do you want, Rosier?" he demanded, spitting out Evan's name like it tasted rotten in his mouth.

Evan made a show of rolling his hazel-gold eyes. "Fuck off, Potter. Or are you not allowing your boyfriend to speak for himself these days?"

The result was instantaneous. James's mouth fell open and his eyes went wide with shock behind his glasses, which was immediately followed by his cheeks turning red with what Sirius assumed was a mixture of embarrassment and anger.

The Slytherins all started laughing, Snape loudest of all. Though Avery and Mulciber did both take a few steps closer as if they were preparing to have Evan's back in a fight. The Slytherin girls seemed almost as scandalized as James to hear such a taboo subject spoken of aloud. Vance, Macdonald, and Evans weren't laughing, at least, but they were watching with rapt attention. Remus looked ill, and Peter looked just as offended as the Slytherin girls.

"What? How… how dare you! He's not, we're not…" spluttered James.

Sirius couldn't have said whether his friend was more furious, humiliated, or shocked. He had rarely ever seen the other boy so tongue-tied.

As the uncomfortable scene dragged on, Sirius's first instinct was to lob something equally as incendiary back at Evan. Maybe to imply that Evan himself was gay? The words were right on the tip of Sirius's tongue. "Rosier, this obsession with me is getting out of hand. Just because you want me to fuck you doesn't mean every other guy does." But something stopped him, some half-forgotten and newly rekindled sense of loyalty for Evan, maybe, or just the fear of accidentally exposing himself in the process.

Fortunately, Professor Slughorn chose that moment to waddle around the corner. Evan graced them with another wicked smirk and trailed after the man into the classroom. James managed to close his mouth, but he seethed during the entire lesson. Sirius could hear him muttering even from the row in front of him, where Sirius sat with Peter. He had still not gotten over it by dinner, or later that night when they all tried to relax in the common room.

It came as a surprise to exactly nobody when Evan Rosier took a nasty tumble down the enormous marble staircase in the central hall, bouncing and cartwheeling from the second floor almost all the way to the fountain on the ground floor as if he had been propelled by magic. Everyone knew it had been James, but nobody could prove it. James was even called into Professor Dumbledore's office, although he had apparently been convincing enough in his lies that even the venerable old headmaster hadn't felt he had enough evidence to punish him for it.

Or, Sirius thought cynically, the headmaster just hadn't cared enough about a Slytherin falling nearly to his death to put much effort into proving an upstanding Gryffindor was the culprit.

Sirius was not nearly so convincing in his lie that he was fine with what James had done.

"Why do you care?" James demanded, after he had grown tired of Sirius all but ignoring him. "I thought you'd be happy—avenge our honor, stick it to that Slytherin scum, hooray."

"It was a joke, James," snapped Sirius. "He almost died."

"He's fine! After Madam Pomfrey fixed him. And it wasn't a very funny joke…. Is this some weird hangover from when you used to be friends, like, six years ago?" James asked suspiciously, eyeing Sirius as if that would be almost as bad as people thinking he was a faggot.

Sirius barely managed to clench his teeth together long enough to escape the common room before he said something he would regret.

The following Monday when Sirius stalked into the unused classroom, he immediately hissed, "Why did you do that?"

Evan looked up from whatever he was working on. The still-fading black eye and the evidence of a still-healing cut down his cheek and across his lip made his wary expression look even more pathetic than it otherwise would have.

"Now you know," Evan told him simply, and Sirius was so completely floored that he didn't know how to respond.

A week and a half before the term ended, Sirius had an epiphany that he thought might finally unlock the Animagus transformation for him. Unfortunately, it came by way of an off-hand remark by Professor McGonagall about what they would be learning once they returned from Yule break, and Sirius had sworn to hold a grudge against the woman until the end of eternity. Fortunately, Sirius was pragmatic enough to put aside his anger long enough to get what he needed, even if he loathed every second of it.

He was able to wave off his friends at the end of class, claiming he needed to discuss something that would be on the exam the following week. It was a true testament to how stressed Remus was about end-of-term exams that he went along with that story without questioning it, even though no one had ever known Sirius to need any help whatsoever with Transfiguration. Peter did glance at him oddly, but Sirius's whispered words about his special project and rather pointed look made the other boy's expression clear almost immediately.

Professor McGonagall seemed as surprised as anyone to see him appear at her office door. She raised her thin eyebrows and pursed her lips even as she invited him in and told him to take a seat.

"Professor, I'm wondering about something you said," he began without preamble, wanting to get the conversation over and done with as quickly as possible.

"Oh? What's that?" she inquired, sounding as though she were actually curious.

"You said that we would be covering advanced animal transfiguration—'even into magical creatures', you said. Surely we can't manufacture magical abilities any more than we can transfigure life from non-life."

She nodded sharply, once. "That is correct, Black."

The tone of her voice and the expectant look on her face showed that she knew that wasn't what he really wanted to ask. A student as talented in Transfiguration as Sirius was would not need his professor to confirm something as basic as that. He would have already been able to deduce it from his prior knowledge and, if confirmation were required, to look it up in his textbooks himself.

"Well…" Sirius began hesitantly, glancing down briefly and worrying his toe into the carpet to give the appearance he was nervous. "Does that carry over to all transfigurations?"

Her eyebrows rose even higher on her forehead. "All transfigurations?"

"I mean—hypothetically, of course—does that mean Animagi can't transform into magical creatures?"

"Animagi?" she repeated, expression turning severe. "Does this have anything to do with the animal-to-human transfigurations you and Potter were attempting earlier this term?"

"No, Professor!" Sirius denied at once. He allowed his pretty gray eyes to go wide and set off on what he hoped was a convincing ramble. "I mean, it did give me the idea for the prank, initially, because naturally thinking about becoming an Animagus leads to thinking about human-to-animal transfiguration in general. But I swear we haven't done any other transfigurations since what happened to James. I wouldn't let James get hurt or, or other people, just for a joke, Professor."

McGonagall watched his performance with a stern, foreboding look on her face, so that Sirius couldn't tell whether she believed him or had figured out he was full of shit. He forced himself to stop talking, electing instead to draw in an enormous breath to emphasize that he hadn't paused to take one throughout his entire spiel.

After an uncomfortable silence that lasted far longer than Sirius would have liked, she asked, "You are thinking about becoming an Animagus?"

He sagged in relief that was only half fake.

"I was. I did the potion to find out what I'd become." Under her sharp glare, he was quick to add, "Only the potion, Professor! I didn't think that was dangerous! I was planning to get a hundred percent in my class marks and exams all year and an O on my OWLs, then ask if you would start teaching me next year. I just wanted to know whether it was even a good idea before I got my hopes up. You know, whether I'd transform into something useful and… appropriate. To make sure I wouldn't turn into a, a… a snake or something…"

Finally, McGonagall's face softened with understanding and, to Sirius's carefully concealed annoyance, a bit of pity. He had wanted her pity, of course, so he would get what he wanted. That didn't mean he had to like it.

"Can I conclude that you were pleased with what you found, but my comment about magical creatures has caused you some concern?" she asked carefully, the previously thick Scottish brogue of her anger receding as she calmed.

"Yes, Professor McGonagall. I thought at first that I would become a dog. That was fine, obviously," he explained with a wave of his hand. "Who doesn't like dogs? Even really big ones."

"And now?" she prodded.

Sirius deliberately broke eye contact and focused his gaze on a random spot on her desk.

"Well… It occurred to me immediately after I took the potion, but I dismissed the possibility because I thought Animagi can't become magical creatures. But if they can, then, well… maybe I am one, but even if I'm not, if it were possible that I were, I think people would assume I was, even if I wasn't…"

"Mr. Black," the professor interrupted him gently. "Sirius. Whatever you tell me will be held in the strictest confidence, I promise you."

"I think I'm a Grim," he stated flatly.

"A… a Grim?"

Her tone made Sirius glance up at her face, which had paled slightly. She was staring at him with her mouth slightly open. If Sirius really had been concerned about what people would think of him if his soul animal was a Grim, he would have been utterly discouraged by her reaction. As it was, he thought it was kind of cool. And special. A Black would be a Grim instead of just a normal dog. He just needed her to confirm whether it was possible. If it was, then that must be the missing piece, the reason why he hadn't been able to complete the transformation yet, because he had been trying to transform into an ordinary dog.

Sirius ran his hand through his shoulder-length hair to push it back from where it had fallen into his face.

"Yes," he confirmed dully, in a near whisper. "I'm a black dog, but not any breed I've ever heard of, and really big. Enormous. Larger than any real dog I've ever seen."

To her credit, McGonagall regained control of herself rather quickly. No doubt she realized how hurtful her reaction had been to a student who was already worried how people would react. Sirius could still detect the strain around her eyes and the slightest downturn at the corner of her mouth, but she had arranged her expression into a remarkably ordinary-looking one.

"I can understand why you are concerned what people will think," she said. Sirius just bet she could, given how often she had held his family heritage against him herself. "And it is possible for an Animagus to turn into a magical creature, though it is extremely rare. Of course, like with all transfigurations, wizards and witches who transform into magical creatures only inhabit the physical traits of the animals, not their magical abilities. At least not any known so far, although there is some speculation that if the creature's magical gifts were the sort of magic a wizard could do himself, then he might still be able to perform that magic while in his Animagus form, even though generally speaking wizards can't cast spells while transformed. But rest assured you will not be a specter able to walk outside the material plane, and nobody will die if they see you."

"I don't know that I would want anybody to know that I could turn into a Grim. They already think I'm a Dark wizard as it is."

She pursed her lips tightly together into a frown. "I understand your reluctance, Black. Still, if you decide next year that you want to become an Animagus, I will teach you. And if you don't, we can find another special project for you. It would be a shame to squander your talent just because of what other people might think."

"Thank you, Professor," Sirius acknowledged tightly, quite cross with himself for being pleased at her praise despite how much he disliked her.

That conversation had more far-reaching consequences than Sirius had imagined it would. Professor McGonagall seemed softer with him, somehow. Or at least fractionally less stern with him than she was with other students. And it seemed that she had made it her mission to foster his skills in Transfiguration and to do her part to rehabilitate his reputation as a budding Dark wizard, whether he wanted her help with either of those things or not.

The following Monday afternoon, Lily Evans, of all people, stopped Sirius just outside the Great Hall as he was making his way from lunch to his weekly meeting with Evan during the Ancient Runes block that had been set aside for OWLs students to work on their projects. Remus and Peter had headed for the library while Sirius lingered over his pudding (They hadn't completed their project yet and it was due in two days, so there was some urgency on their part.), and James had left even earlier to make the much longer trek up to the Divination Tower. Janice and a few other students who were not taking either Ancient Runes or Divination had formed a study group that met during their two free blocks after lunch on Mondays, so Evans had managed to find Sirius alone.

That was probably her plan all along, he reflected as she pulled him by the wrist down the corridor away from the door, furtively looking over her shoulder all the time.

"James isn't going to pop out of the woodwork," Sirius informed her sardonically, "and I doubt Janice sees you as a threat."

"I'm not worried about Potter," she insisted as she dragged him into an alcove and then nearly threw his arm away from her. She ignored his remark about his girlfriend's jealousy.

"Then who—Oh. Snivellus."

"Severus," she emphasized, brilliant green eyes flashing with anger, "thinks this is a stupid idea. He told me not to do it."

Sirius crossed his arms over his broad chest and tilted his head curiously. "What idea is that? I'm all aquiver."

A number of things passed over Evans's pretty face, most notably what Sirius thought he could identify as embarrassment, dislike, and determination. She spoke with only the latter evident in her voice.

"Professor McGonagall suggested that I ask you to help me with Transfiguration."

"Help you?" Sirius echoed, baffled. "You're near the top of the class."

So, this was one of McGonagall's schemes then. He was almost tempted to turn on his heel and walk away just because of that. Almost. The opportunity to make his head of house less suspicious of him was one he could not easily pass up.

"Maybe, but you're at the top of the class," Evans said with some exasperation, twisting her hands together in front of her. "I will probably end up fourth or fifth, if the exam goes well tomorrow. I know it might seem silly that I'm not happy with that, but I had to work very, very hard for that much. I'm afraid that my grades will continue to slip if we move onto other areas when I haven't fully mastered what we've already learned. If things continue on next term as they have during this one, I might even end up with an E on my OWL instead of an O."

It seemed like she expected Sirius to make fun of her for being so worried about that, if the wary look on her face was anything to go by. However, Sirius completely understood. He had accepted that he was an Exceeds Expectations student in Potions, but otherwise he was in the top three of all his classes (first in Transfiguration, Ancient Runes, and Defense, though he was tied with Snape in the latter), at least if nobody counted the zeroes he had taken during his suspension. He even expected to get an O in History of Magic, because anything less was utterly unacceptable.

And he was a Black; he didn't even need the grades to do virtually anything he wanted in life, other than perhaps obtaining a mastery in a given subject.

"I get it," he told her truthfully, with no hint of mockery in his words. "Plus, you're Muggle-born. Even if someone else could skate by with an E, you can't."

A frown, dark and indignant, overtook her entire face.

Sirius rolled his eyes. "I don't mean it as an insult. It's just a fact."

"I know it is!" she exclaimed shrilly. "That's the only reason I didn't ignore it when Professor McGonagall suggested I ask you. It's the only reason I didn't listen to Severus when he said that you would only laugh in my face and we should just keep trying to suss it out together. And Emmeline and Mary both told me that you were a great tutor back in first year. Remus said that you sometimes explain things to him in a way he understands better than when the textbooks say it, and that the only reason Peter hasn't completely flunked out of Transfigurations and Charms is that you help him."

"Seems like you've asked everyone about me except for me."

It was Evans's turn to roll her eyes, which she did with a little huff. "Can you blame me?"

Sirius shrugged; he couldn't really.

"What do I get out of helping you?" he asked instead.

"I'll help you with Potions," she suggested immediately, no doubt having planned for just such a question. "You're only scraping by E's on the strength of your written work. Maybe I can help you improve your brewing."

"Peter helps me with Potions," he informed her. And Peter would be very hurt indeed if he found out that Sirius had gone to anyone else, especially Evans, who was one of Slughorn's favorites.

Evans bit her lip, considering for several seconds, before she carefully said, "Pettigrew is only third in the class, behind Severus and me. He's a great brewer. But maybe I look at things in a different way that would make more sense to you, or maybe I know some tips and tricks that he hasn't thought of yet. It can't hurt to find out."

Sirius snorted. "Oh, it could very much hurt to find out, if Peter finds out. Not to mention James."

"You don't want your friends to know about our arrangement, and I don't want Severus to know about it either," Evans summarized with a shake of her head. "I don't think we'll have any problems keeping it a secret, since we're on the same page."

She wasn't entirely wrong, thought Sirius. It would be easy enough to keep it from his friends, at least on his part. He had hidden much bigger things from them than this. He didn't know about Evans's ability to hide things from Snape, but surely it couldn't be that difficult given they were in separate houses and had different class schedules. And maybe she really could help him in Potions. Even if she couldn't, McGonagall could hardly keep thinking he was a bigoted pure-blood supremacist or a Dark wizard if he willingly helped a Mudblood.

"Fine," he agreed. "Obviously there's no time to help you before the exam tomorrow."

Evans appeared visibly relieved. She allowed herself a small smile even as she said, "I know. I've accepted where things stand for right now. But I would like to get a head start before next term, if you're willing. We both have our last exam on Thursday morning, so there's time to meet before the train leaves on Saturday morning."

"One or two meetings is hardly going to help either of us," Sirius pointed out, "especially not followed by a long break."

She worried her full lower lip between her teeth again, before releasing it with a sigh. "You're right, of course. If you want to wait until January to begin, it won't make much difference."

Sirius didn't know what, exactly, possessed him to do it, but he found himself offering, "Unless we meet over break."

After the initial shock had worn off that such a thing had come out of his very own mouth, he had to admit that it did have its advantages. Ones beyond just having a head start on revising for the following term. It would be completely secret from their friends, for one. It would be an opportunity to get away from his family, for another. And he would have something to focus on beyond the same things he usually did.

"Oh!" replied Evans, clearly taken aback. Then she seemed to seriously consider it, as he had done. "Well, we would have to work out the travel arrangements," she began practically. "I live in the Midlands, about two hours north of London by car or four by bus and train. But my sister recently got a clerical job in London, and maybe I could stay overnight with her a few times over break. I mean, assuming you live near London?"

"I live in London, in fact," he confirmed. "But if you come there, it's only fair that I travel to you as well. We can switch off."

"Oh, no," she said, far too quickly not to make Sirius's ears perk up. "I wouldn't ask you to come. I live in the middle of nowhere. My mum plans to drive down to London at least once before Christmas, and of course my sister will come up to our parents' house for the holiday and then will need to drive back down. So I'll have plenty of opportunities to make the trip."

No doubt she was just ashamed of her little Muggle hovel, he decided. Her clothes had always been serviceable and well-fitting, but they had never been new, and Sirius had noticed that many of her schoolbooks were used and that she didn't keep an owl. If he had to guess, her family was not as poor as Remus's, whose father had quit his job in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures out of fear that his colleagues would discover his son's secret, but didn't have as much money as Peter's, whose father had died and left his mother enough money to live comfortably, if frugally.

But Remus and Peter's parents had magic to make their homes and their existences in general more comfortable despite not having a lot of money. Lily's parents were both Muggles.

"Yeah, alright," Sirius conceded without pushing further. "How about we meet after lunch on Friday, and if we don't kill each other we can talk about the break? But I don't know why you'd need anyone to drive you-why don't you just take the Knight Bus?"

James, Peter, and Remus had their Muggle Studies exam after lunch on Friday, so Sirius would have no trouble slipping away.

"The Knight Bus? What's that?"

When Sirius finally showed up in the classroom where Evan was waiting for him, after spending several more minutes explaining the Knight Bus to Lily Evans and then listening to her rant about the injustices of being a Muggle-born just thrown willy-nilly into the magical world without so much as a pamphlet to help, he had spent the entire walk concocting a story for why he was late. He needn't have bothered. Evan had worked himself into such a tizzy over their Defense exam later that afternoon that he immediately started quizzing Sirius about that without bothering to ask where he'd been.

It was silly, of course. Evan was amazing in Defense, probably more naturally talented at practical dueling than Sirius was, even though he wasn't as experienced yet. He wasn't as good at the written aspect of classes, but he knew his stuff and his practical performance would make up for any deficiency on his written exam. Sirius told him so without reservation.

The rest of the week went by as expected. The Charms and Transfiguration exams on Tuesday morning were as easy as Sirius had expected. Arithmancy that afternoon and Ancient Runes the following morning were more difficult, as Sirius couldn't depend on his intuitive understanding of magic and magical theory in those classes, but Sirius thought he'd gotten nearly full marks in both. The written portion of the Herbology exam went as well as it could have, and then on Thursday morning Sirius had his last exam in Astronomy. Blacks learned about Astronomy before they even learned about magic.

His friends still had Muggle Studies on Friday afternoon, so none of them were ready to celebrate the end of exams with Sirius on Thursday morning. He left them to their ruminations about how poorly they thought they'd done in their prior exams and their studying for Muggle Studies in order to meet with Janice, who had also finished for the term.

They celebrated exactly how anyone would expect two horny teenagers to celebrate.

They had gotten a lot better at it since their first somewhat awkward experience on Sirius's birthday a month prior. Janice had become more confident and, rather than being ashamed of her nudity, had grown to enjoy the effect the sight of her body had on her boyfriend. Sirius had built up a lot more stamina than he originally had, and a great deal more skill at navigating her body.

That morning, in the dappled light filtering in through the clock tower windows and with only their warming charms to shield them from the freezing December air, Janice moaned into his ear in a way she never had before when he was fucking her. She had only ever made that noise before when he was going down on her.

"There, there!" she encouraged him and dug her heels into the globes of his ass as she clutched desperately at his back. "Oh god, Sirius, don't stop!"

Sirius was barely hanging on by a thread, and every muscle in his body trembled, but he kept going. He thrust into the same spot again and again, gritting his teeth with the effort, until she let out a little shriek and he felt the familiar spasming of her muscles around him. Only this time around his cock, not his fingers or his tongue. It barely took another half a movement before he came himself and fell against her, his face buried in her neck.

Eventually, Janice started laughing. Not the girlish giggles he was used to hearing when she was flirting with him, but a genuine, delighted peal of laughter from deep within her belly.

"I'm sorry, nothing is funny," she rushed to reassure him as she ran the fingers of one hand through his damp hair and the other down his back, slick with sweat. "I'm just so happy."

Sirius rolled himself off her and opened his eyes to meet hers.

"I know." He leaned over for a brief kiss. "Me too."

One of the things Sirius appreciated about Janice now, which definitely had not been true when they'd been younger, was that she could just let them exist in peaceful silence together without needing to fill the space with chatter. They relaxed there, wrapped around each other, until Sirius was dozing in that floaty space between being asleep and awake. He may have even fallen asleep, or at least been right on the verge of it, when the bell rang to announce the end of the last morning block and the beginning of the lunch hour.

"I told my friends I'd meet them," she murmured into his neck. "Fourth year still has Defense after lunch, and I told the girls I'd go through their flash cards with them."

Janice was friends with girls from third year up to seventh, unlike Sirius and his friends who mostly stuck to their own year. Well, they mostly stuck to themselves in general, except for Sirius's relationships with some of the Slytherins. Sirius didn't know if all the study groups with people from different years was a girl thing or just a Ravenclaw thing. Or maybe just a Ravenclaw girl thing.

It was never fun to venture outside the warming charms, even once they were bundled back up in their sweaters and overcoats. They were both shivering by the time they crossed the bridge from the clock tower back to the main castle and the castle's warming charms, as inadequate as they were, enveloped them. They stopped at the intersection where one corridor led to Gryffindor Tower and the other towards the grand staircase leading to the rest of the school.

"I've been meaning to ask you something." Janice was not looking at his face but rather was focusing on the heavy brass buttons of his coat, unnecessarily straightening them one by one. "I'm worried you'll think it's too… weird."

"Weird?"

That certainly did not sound promising, but Sirius didn't say so aloud.

She made a humming noise. "Yes. I want you to be my date to my sister's wedding."

"The one who's dating a Muggle-born?" The question fell out of his mouth before he'd thought it through. It sounded many times more bigoted than he'd meant it to.

"Jessica," she reminded him, which was entirely necessary because she had too many sisters and he didn't remember any of their names. "And the wedding will be mostly Muggle, you understand, on account of her fiancé's extended family being Muggles. The ceremony will be at a Muggle church, and the reception will be in my parents' backyard, but they've removed anything magical."

"I don't think it'd be that weird. It's just a few hours, right?"

Sirius might not have thought so even as recently as a few months ago, but he had spent a lot of time in the Muggle world recently. They were still vermin, of course, but they were intelligent enough, and they invented some amazing things, and some of them were quite cultured.

Janice beamed up at him a moment before she threw her arms around his neck, standing on her very tip toes and leaning her weight into him. He was much better equipped now to deal with this than he had been when they were kids and she'd nearly bowled him over several times. Now he had a good eight inches of height and at least three stone on her. He embraced her, enjoying the warmth and the press of their bodies together even through their multiple layers of thick clothing.

"Thank you!" she exclaimed as she pulled back, still grinning. "It's on the twenty-seventh. That's a Saturday. I know you have your cousin's wedding this Sunday, but I hope you don't have anything planned the next weekend. I'll understand if you do, if your family has some sort of Yule tradition. But I hope you can come. I want to introduce you to my parents."

Somehow, Sirius had gone five years without meeting her parents. They rarely sat together on the Hogwarts Express or met up on the platform, and he understood that often one of her elder sisters picked her up anyway. He was honestly surprised that she thought he would have a problem with attending a Muggle wedding but, apparently, it hadn't crossed her mind that he would be a bit more worried about meeting her parents.

It was supposed to be a big step, wasn't it?

Sirius had grown up in the world of formal courtships and betrothals, where meeting the parents was never an issue, because they already knew his parents, even if they didn't know him personally. And, in fact, because they had prearranged the contract tying their children together.

Was Janice introducing him to her parents because she thought they were more serious than they actually were? That they were long-term? Marriage material? Surely she had never considered herself suitable to be a Black bride, had she? Not that Sirius had deluded himself into thinking she wasn't in love with him. She obviously was. But surely she knew—she must know—that he wasn't going to marry her. That this was a Hogwarts romance with a definite expiration date, be it when they left school or later on when it was time for him to marry a proper pure-blood. The Black heir with a wife whose father was a mid-level employee in the Department of Magical Games and Sports, whose siblings worked as shop keepers and accountants and receptionists? A Muggle-born brother-in-law? If he even suggested it, it would be a flat no from his family.

In fact, Janice would be lucky if they didn't ruin her publicly or even kill her, just to make sure she wasn't a problem.

She bounced upwards to press one more kiss to his slack lips and then all but skipped down the corridor, before he could arrange his thoughts enough to know what to say. If anything.

He was still in somewhat of a daze when he met Evan in the classroom they had claimed as their own.

"What's wrong?" his friend asked immediately upon seeing him.

"Nothing. Janice asked me to attend her sister's wedding. She wants me to meet her parents." Sirius gesticulated helplessly, unable to convey everything he wanted to in words alone. "I think she expects me to marry her."

Evan let out an uncontrolled snort of laughter and pressed his hand over his mouth.

"See!" cried Sirius. "So it isn't just me. She's delusional!"

"Siri, sweetheart, she's no more delusional about you than anyone else."

Sirius's mind registered the pet name and found it odd, but it seemed unimportant in the moment. "What do you mean?" he asked, focusing on the relevant part of the statement instead. "Who else?"

"There's Lestrange, for one, who was delusional enough to think that he could hold you at arm's length, for your own good or however he justified it to himself, and never give you what you wanted, and then you'd just wait for him forever if he wanted to break up for his own good."

Evan held up first one finger, then another.

"Second there's Bella and Cissa and whoever else was insane enough, for some reason, to think they could try to arrange your life however they wanted with no consequences. Like you'd just accept it and forgive them. Like you won't still be holding a grudge one day when you're the head of the Black family and have all the power."

As he talked, Evan walked closer, until he was right in front of Sirius, barely a foot away. They were nearly the same height, although Sirius was broader of shoulder and gangly enough to indicate he still had quite a bit more growing to do. There was an intensity to Evan's hazel eyes that captivated Sirius and held him in place, even when he felt like he should take a step back as the Slytherin ticked off more examples on his fingers.

"There's your grandfather and mother, for another, thinking they could control you with threats or curses now, after they've let you do pretty much whatever the fuck you want your entire life. You get Sorted into Gryffindor and the entire family—and everyone else too—has to accept it without protest because you're Sirius Black. You murder a famous dueling champion right there in front of them, in your house, for no other reason than you were mad you didn't get your way, and they cover it up and never mention it again. You nearly get yourself expelled from Hogwarts and they're proud of you for cursing that upstart little Mudblood. But they find out you're gay and think a few rounds of torture will suddenly make you submit to their will? No. They're delusional."

"I'm not gay," Sirius muttered, for all the effect he knew it would have.

The way Evan painted him made him sound just awful. Like a spoiled, petulant, bratty child who went through life throwing tantrums and destroying things if he didn't get his way. It was enough to make him wonder why Evan had even wanted to rekindle their friendship.

But he wasn't done.

"Then there's Potter," he added, holding up another finger, "who thinks you hung the moon and that you're a good person, despite all evidence to the contrary. I think Lupin sees you more clearly, but he's too afraid of offending Potter to say anything about it. That lump who follows you around, Pettigrew, might know you best of any of them, but he's got his own agenda."

"And then Edgecombe, of course, who has apparently deluded herself into thinking that because you're fighting with your family and because she let you between her legs, that she's landed herself a whale. As if you aren't who you are. As if you'd ever lower yourself to her level, other than to fuck her."

"Morgana's tits, Evan!" exclaimed Sirius when he could take no more. "You make me sound like a monster."

Evan blinked, surprised. "What? No."

"And what about you?" Sirius continued, talking right over him as if he hadn't said anything at all. "I suppose you're deluded in some way about me as well?"

"Most likely," he admitted quietly.

Sirius took half a step back, but Evan's hands shot out to grab his shoulders before he could go further and yanked him back towards the other boy. Their mouths crashed together violently, spectacularly, and Sirius felt like he had wandered into an upside-down world. Then Evan pulled back just as suddenly, leaving scant inches between them, and scowled up at Sirius with a very real fire behind his eyes.

"You taste like her," he announced sullenly. "I don't want you to taste like anybody but me."

Sirius was legitimately afraid for Janice's life. He couldn't even tell himself that he was being crazy to think Evan would do something to her, because, well, it was Evan. Sirius had never heard about him killing someone, but he was, evidently, turned on by the fact that Sirius had. And the look in his eyes was as dangerous as Sirius had ever seen in his own or in Rabastan's or even in Dolohov's.

How was it that Sirius ended up attracting insane homicidal maniacs, anyway?

He had apparently asked this question out loud without realizing it, because Evan laughed.

"It's probably because you hang out with insane homicidal maniacs. And you're a pretty, conniving, insane, homicidal, magnificent thing yourself. All that power. All that cunning. All that fierce independence. All wrapped up in such a pretty package."

"Merlin, you are the worst at flirting."

But Sirius didn't really mean that. He was preening inside, glad to know that there was someone besides Rabastan who had seen who he really was, what he was really like, and still wanted him anyway. All of him. Not in spite of how selfish, spoiled, callous, or even monstrous he was, but because of it.

"Evan… I can't," he found himself saying, despite how flattered he was. "I… I still…"

He still loved Rabastan. It had only been a few months. He had been boyfriends (or whatever they were) with the man for nearly two years, and they'd been great friends for a couple of years before that. No matter that he'd never told Rabastan he loved him. No matter that he hadn't even thought about their relationship that deeply until he'd lost it. No matter that it was over. No matter that he wouldn't take Rabastan back even if the man crawled over broken glass just to have the chance to beg him for it. He still wasn't over it.

And Evan was not just a random guy he could use to work out his feelings or his (admittedly raging) hormones.

"I know," whispered Evan. He reached up to caress the side of Sirius's neck before letting his hand drop back down to his side and offering a sad, resigned smile. "I told you: I'm delusional, too."

Author's Notes: I started writing/planning this story a long time before more information was released by JKR about how one becomes an Animagus. And, frankly, I don't think what she ended up explaining about the process makes a lick of sense, given that it doesn't seem to take any actual skill or knowledge in the field of Transfiguration. Rather it seems to be just a series of steps that are difficult to follow but that anyone could technically do if they wanted to, even if they couldn't otherwise transfigure a match into a needle. So just a head's up that I have ignored 95% of it and stuck with what I envisioned.