A/N:

Hi! Thank you to everyone who has favourited/followed/commented so far. Please continue to do those things, if you'd like.

This, and subsequent chapters will be a little longer from here on out. I hope you enjoy the story.

A big thanks once again to BingBong for his help editing this chapter. All of his suggestions improve the quality dramatically.

"Harry!" Hermione shouted. "Where were you?"

Hermione was not pleased with Harry. Together with Ron they had agreed to meet up at The Three Broomsticks earlier that day but Harry hadn't shown up. After an hour of running around scared out of her wits looking for him, he showed up nonchalantly apologizing for his tardiness.

"I'm sorry Hermione, I really am," He started, holding up his hands as he attempted to pacify her. "I lost track of time."

"You lost track of time? Harry, with everything that happened this summer, your visions, and the attack at the Quidditch World Cup, you can't disappear on us for an hour because you 'lost track of time!'" She continued irately.

"Listen Hermione," Harry replied, lowering his voice and looking around conspicuously. "Padfoot was here, in Hogsmeade. He came here to see me, and asked me if I wanted to meet him regularly."

Hermione's eyes softened at the mention of Harry's godfather as she knew how much the man meant to him.

"That's great news Harry!" Ron said. He had stayed silent while Hermione went on her rampage but deemed now would be a safe time for him to make an input.

They were quiet for a moment as the three of them climbed into an empty carriage headed back to the school. Once they were seated, Hermione spoke up again hesitantly. "Isn't that dangerous?"

While she wanted to be purely happy for her friend, she couldn't help the pragmatic part of her brain that told her this was a bad idea.

"Definitely a little. But I really need this Hermione, and I think he needs it too." He shifted awkwardly. "We had a great time, and now that I've got a little taste of what family should be like I'm not sure if I can live without it again." Harry admitted.

This last statement took all the wind out of Hermione's sails. How could she possibly argue against that?

With the heavy emotional stuff out of the way, Ron decided it was his time to shine. "So what did you do with him? Did he tell you what it was like in Azkaban? Or show you any advanced magic? Oh, oh! Did he teach you how to become an Animagus?" While Ron still held a slight grudge against Sirius for biting his arm, he couldn't help but feel that it was a little bit cool that he knew a convict.

"Honestly," Harry replied, shrugging. "We mostly just talked."

Ron's shoulders slumped. That was pretty boring. But still! He knew a convict.

Hermione rolled her eyes at Ron's reaction. "Well, what did you talk about then?" She asked.

"A bit of everything really, it was quite nice. Though at the end he was getting on my case about not speaking to enough girls."

Ron and Hermione looked at each other, and then at Harry.

"What?" He asked a little defensively.

"Well mate," shrugged Ron apologetically. "He's not wrong."

Harry turned to Hermione. Surely she wouldn't stand for this fallacious slander of his social abilities!

Hermione smiled at him weakly.

"It's not like I can't talk to girls. I just don't." Harry said, a little more defensively this time.

Ron and Hermione shared another look.

Harry was appalled at the lack of faith his friends had in him. "Fine!" He threw up his hands in an exasperated manner. "If you guys are so convinced I can't talk to girls, I'll just have to prove you wrong." As they left the carriage and stepped back into Hogwarts, Harry's eyes wandered the hallways looking for a target.

There! He spotted the back of Katie Bell, a chaser on the Gryffindor house quidditch team with him. He was sure he had spoken to her before, and he could do it again.

"Hey Katie!" Harry said confidently, striding up to her.

Katie turned around as she heard her name. "Hi there Harry! How are you holding up without quidditch this year?" she asked, smiling at him.

Katie is sort of cute when she smiles, isn't she? No! Where did that thought come from? Don't psych yourself out. Just reply casually.

"Ah."

Katie looked at him quizzically. "Not good then, I take it?" She laughed.

"Haha."

"Anyway Harry, don't forget to keep training. You wouldn't want some young upstart to take your spot on the team now would you?" She said as she slapped him on the shoulder companionably.

"Yep."

Katie backed away from him. "I need to get going now. I'll see you around!" She said as she ran off.

"For sure."

Eventually Harry realized she was gone and he turned back to face his friends.

"See? No problem at all."

His friends looked at each other with matching, horrified expressions on their faces. The situation was even worse than they thought.

The next two weeks were relatively quiet for Harry. The new Defense Against The Dark Arts classes with ex-auror Alastor Moody had proven interesting due to the professor's…barbaric teaching methods, but were also informative and useful. There was something strange about the man beyond just his presumed paranoia, but Harry had found no reason to distrust him as of yet. Regardless, seeing as how the last three DADA teachers had tried to kill him, he was remaining vigilant.

The cancellation of quidditch that year had been a huge bummer for Harry, and he found himself with much more free time than he knew what to do with. He took up flying around the school for sport, trying to do broom tricks and quidditch maneuvers by himself for fun. He also started reading more, much to Hermione's delight.

All in all, it was actually a very peaceful time for Harry, and in no time at all the next Hogsmeade weekend was upon them.

Sirius Black spotted his quarry. Bacon Girl was surrounded by a group of friends, same as the last time he saw her two weeks ago. They made eye contact, and he turned away, running a few steps. He then turned back to look at her, raised a canine eyebrow, and chuffed.

Astoria's eyes narrowed. Was this dog challenging her? She took a single step towards the dog, and the dog replied with his own single step back. She took another step forward, and again, he took another step back.

Oh, it's on.

Astoria slipped away from her friends without them noticing with an ease that only she could manage - her childhood years spent at the Greengrass family manor dodging private lessons in favor of climbing trees and chasing butterflies had not gone to waste. She then proceeded to run after the dog once again.

Sirius had not spent the past two weeks sitting around plotting his godson's love life and watching muggle soaps on the television. Rather, he had only spent the majority of the past two weeks doing those things. He did take a bit of time to stop by Hogsmeade one morning to get familiar with the streets and alleys such that he would be able to outmaneuver anyone who chased him, should the situation arise. In the end, being captured by Bacon Girl had been a bit of a wakeup call for Sirius. He had much more dangerous enemies than her and if he was going to be spending more time in the village to see Harry he needed to be better prepared.

So naturally, he was putting that information to good use for the first time today by interfering with his godson's love life to recreate a scene from his favorite soap.

As Astoria chased Sirius through the streets, Sirius skillfully led her to what was written in his plans as the 'Harry Impact Point'. The HIP was really an estimation of sorts from him, founded on a complex series of calculations he had done beforehand based on geographical coordination and psychological manipulation.

In other words, he had mentioned to Harry in a letter last week that he had a particular craving for sugar quills, and was therefore expecting Harry to walk from the carriages to Honeydukes in order to pick some up for him before they met.

As Sirius rounded a corner into a deserted street with Astoria hot on his trail, he spotted Harry. Before his godson could notice him, Sirius slipped into a narrow gap between two buildings he knew was just barely wide enough for him to squeeze through and came out on the other side. He stuck around just long enough to hear the sounds of the collision he had spent all week planning before darting off again, his work done.

"Oof!"

"Whoa!"

In a scene that couldn't have been played better by the best actors on the muggle soap circuit, Astoria ran into Harry's chest at full tilt, causing them both to bounce off the other and send Harry's glasses flying.

"Oh my gosh I'm so sorry!" Astoria cried out from the ground, rubbing her nose which had gotten hit in the collision.

"Umm, that's alright. But can you help me find my glasses? I don't see very well without them…" Harry replied, sitting upright and gathering his wits about him. As the smaller girl had run into his chest, he hadn't been hurt very much but still felt disoriented from the abruptness of it all.

Astoria looked around for a second before she spotted a rather mangled looking pair of glasses on the streets. She picked them up sheepishly and handed them to Harry.

"They're a bit bent, and the glass is cracked in a couple of places," she started timidly. "But I suppose they have a sort of rugged charm now?"

Even Astoria realized this sounded pathetic, and what made it worse was that it was entirely her fault. She had been the one chasing the dog and not paying attention to her surroundings, and the meager allowance she got from her parents wouldn't cover the cost to buy him new ones.

"Oh! Don't worry about that actually, I know just the spell for this. Hermione taught it to me this summer when she had to repair my glasses for the seventh time." He pulled his wand out of his pocket and pointed it at the deformed spectacles in his other hand. "Oculus Reparo!" He said with a small flourish, and with a little sparkle, they were as good as new.

Astoria's eyes widened at the magic she had just witnessed. "Wow! That's really cool! Do they teach you that in-"

Her words cut off as the boy in front of her placed the glasses back on his head and she got a good look at him. In the confusion, she hadn't processed just who it was she had run into until this very moment.

Harry Potter. Astoria immediately went rigid. Harry had a reputation for breaking the rules at school, and was always in the middle of trouble. While her Gryffindor friend Colin Creevey never had a bad thing to say about Harry, her other Gryffindor friend Romilda Vane told her that everyone should stay away from him as he liked to transfigure pretty girls into garden gnomes.

Her sister Daphne was in Harry's year and rather disliked the boy, but then again, Daphne rather disliked all boys. The other Slytherins said he was arrogant and short-tempered, and there were more than enough rumors about his wrongdoings to go around. She had heard that he had befriended a homicidal Hippogriff in his third year, commanded a snake to attack Justin Finch-Fletchley in his second year, and even killed an innocent teacher in his first year. Though she wasn't sure if she believed that last one.

This was all, of course, putting aside the fact that this was the boy famous all around the world for having defeated he-who-must-not-be-named when he was just one year old.

Ultimately, Astoria realized that she could not have chosen a worse person to have run into and broken (however temporarily) the glasses of.

And she was terrified.

As for Harry, the second he put on his glasses and got a look at the girl who had run into him he froze.

She had light blonde hair that fell just past her shoulders and bright blue eyes the color of the sky on a summer day. She appeared (from his spot on the ground) to be a few inches shorter than him, and had a face that looked like it belonged on the cover of the teen section in Witch Weekly.

She was, to put it mildly, absolutely gorgeous.

And he was terrified.

When he faced down the Basilisk at the end of his second year, he was scared. Scared in part for his own life, but also for the lives of those who would suffer if he failed to kill the monster and allowed Tom Riddle's return.

At that moment, he felt like he would have preferred to face down two Basilisks than speak a single word to the witch standing in front of him.

So instead, he just stared at her blankly.

Oh my gosh he's glaring at me what do I do I don't know the counterspell to the garden gnome hex-

Harry slowly got to his feet.

Oh my gosh he's standing up maybe he needs to be standing to turn me into a garden gnome-

He brushed the dirt off his robes.

Oh my gosh he's checking his pockets, probably for a garden gnome so he can switch our souls and-

He turned around and started walking away.

What?

As Harry left, Astoria's frenetic brain ran through all of the possibilities of what this could mean for her. After a second of processing, she decided that most likely he was heading off to go perform a dark ritual that would cast another blood curse on her family.

I can't let that happen! She thought in a panic. Maybe if I apologize he'll take pity on me and let my family live…

"Wait, Mr. Potter!"

Harry stopped walking.

"I'm really, really, sorry for bumping into you," Astoria got out in a rush. "I was chasing after this dog you see and I wasn't watching where I was going and please don't curse my family!"

Harry turned around to face her, eyes wide in surprise. A dog? She can't possibly mean Sirius could she? Harry thought, so fixated on the girl's mention of a dog that he didn't hear the last part of her apology.

"What did the dog look like?" Harry asked seriously. While he was scared of speaking to her, and would readily admit now that he had problems talking to girls, Harry was no coward. And if by some miniscule chance she knew something about Sirius, he needed to know so he could warn his godfather that he was no longer safe in Hogsmeade.

Astoria gulped audibly as she felt Harry's cold green eyes on her. She had no choice but to tell the truth and hope that the demon in front of her would find some benevolence deep within his frigid heart and spare the lives of her family, and now also the life of the innocent dog she had implicated.

"Um! He's big, has dark fur and gray eyes!"

That's definitely Sirius! But does she know his secret?

"And why were you chasing him?" Harry asked, eyes narrowing.

Eep! Astoria squeaked in her head. "I'm sorry! I wanted to play with him, I really like dogs, you see…"

Harry visibly relaxed. He believed the girl, and had assumed as much. Sirius may be a touch irresponsible, but Harry had faith that the wily man would not have his real identity revealed by a teenage witch so easily.

Still, he was going to have to warn Sirius to be more careful.

Can I leave now? Astoria thought hopefully. I need to go warn that dog that his life is in danger! And then I need a big hug from Daphne and two scoops of ice cream…

"Sorry again Mr. Potter." Astoria bowed respectfully. "If that's all, I need to go find that dog now!"

As Astoria turned around to scamper off, she felt her blood run cold as she heard the voice from behind her that she was so dearly hoping she wouldn't.

"Please wait. Why don't you come with me instead?"

Was that really the best I could come up with? Harry chastised himself, reflecting on his poorly thought out attempt at preventing the young witch from going after Sirius.

Sure, it had worked. The girl was now walking a couple of paces back from him down the sparsely populated backstreets of Hogsmeade instead of chasing Sirius.

On the other hand, he had impulsively invited a girl he had just met to follow him to an unspecified destination and he was absolutely mortified.

Astoria, for her part, was debating if her chances of survival were better if she followed him, or just chose a direction and ran.

This is the boy who defeated you-know-who as a toddler! Who am I to think I have a chance at getting away from him? Besides, I don't exactly know where I am or how to get back to my friends even if I did escape…

Accepting her fate, Astoria marched behind the boy to what she was sure would be her grave.

Mom, Dad. I'm sorry for not trying harder in my lessons. I'm also sorry for running away from home when I was ten. Also breaking the heirloom vase in the living room. Come to think of it, I'm sorry for a lot of things. When I'm gone I hope you always remember me as your darling little Tori.

Astoria tried to think of everyone she needed to apologize to before her inevitable and untimely demise.

Daffy, I'm sorry Mom and Dad always put pressure on you to watch over me at school. I'm sorry for never knocking when I come into your room. I'm sorry for stealing your favorite shirt and then accidentally ripping it and then burying it in the garden before you noticed. Oh, you didn't know that was me? Anyway, I know I wasn't the perfect sister to you, but you were the perfect sister to me.

Flopsy, I'm sor-

Astoria's depressing train of thought came to a halt as she noticed where Harry was headed.

What's with that shady looking alleyway?! Wait, he's totally going to leave me there so no one can find the body! Wait wait wait I still have so many people to apologize to!

Astoria closed her eyes as she walked and braced herself for whatever curse she was about to be hit with.

She let out a little yelp as she tripped over a rock.

Harry turned around when he heard the noise and rushed over to the girl to help her up.

"Are you alright?" He asked worriedly, too concerned for the girl's safety to be nervous about talking to her.

"Oh, yeah, sorry, I wasn't watching where I was going…" Astoria mumbled, looking at the ground as Harry helped her up.

Relieved that she was okay, Harry let go of her hands and continued walking. This time, he walked in stride with her, in case she fell again.

Wait? Wouldn't that have been the perfect opportunity for him to kill me?

Astoria was starting to feel a bit confused. Harry had ample opportunity to curse her ever since they met, and yet here she still stood, alive and well (with the exception of the knee she had just bruised tripping over a rock).

But if he isn't going to curse me, why did he ask me to follow him and where is he leading me?

Eventually, Astoria's curiosity won out over her sense of self-preservation.

"Mr. Potter, may I ask you a question?"

Harry didn't look at the girl as he replied. "Please, just call me Harry. And yes, you may."

Harry discovered that if he didn't look at the girl while they spoke, he could almost manage a conversation without stuttering.

"Where are we going?"

Fortunately, Harry had anticipated this question would come up at some point and had formulated a reasonable answer in his head as they walked.

"Back to the High Street," he replied. "I'm headed there anyway, and I thought it might be dangerous to leave you alone. Hogsmeade has some dicey areas, and if you chased after that dog and ended up lost somewhere unsavory, I'd have to live with that on my conscience."

That made sense to Astoria. If Harry wasn't planning on hurting her or turning her into a garden gnome, and she was starting to admit that it was a possibility, then it was sensible to assume that he wouldn't want to leave a younger student alone on a deserted street.

And sure enough, a short while later they emerged from the alleyway and back to the main streets of Hogsmeade where many other Hogwarts students could be found.

Harry stopped and turned to face her.

"Well, that's it I guess." Harry declared, clapping his hands together. "Remember to stick with your friends from now on, and don't go chasing random dogs. Really. Don't chase dogs. It's dangerous."

As Harry walked away, he mentally applauded himself for speaking to the girl face-to-face. He was getting better already!

Astoria watched Harry's back as he walked along the street and headed into the open door of Honeydukes. As she reflected on the events of the past ten minutes she realized at no point did Harry give her any reason to believe he was going to hurt her, and he had even made sure she got back to the High Street without getting lost. Was it possible that the rumors she had heard about him were false? Could it possibly be that Harry Potter was just a normal fourth year Hogwarts student, and not a demon disguised as a boy in ratty clothing? Astoria wouldn't be able to sleep at night if she didn't get to the bottom of this, so she bravely headed off towards the sweet shop she had just seen him disappear into.

Harry was looking through the rows of sweets inside the shop and deciding what to purchase.

Some sugar quills for Sirius, some chocolate frogs for Ron, and then for Hermione I'll get-

A little blonde head popped out from behind the rack of pastries he was looking at and he jumped back in surprise.

"Hi! I realized I forgot to introduce myself. I'm Astoria Greengrass. Third Year, Slytherin."

Her again?

"Is it true you're friends with a homicidal Hippogriff?"

After getting over his initial shock, he thought about the first part of what the girl had said.

Greengrass…So she's Daphne's sister? Harry could see the resemblance now that he looked for it. She had the same eyes and hair color as her older sister, and had some similar facial features too. Having said that, Astoria was a bit shorter than her sister, and her features were generally softer in contrast to Daphne's sharper ones.

He had already known she was a third year and a Slytherin thanks to the emblems on her robes, but it just now sunk in for him that hers was possibly the first non-hostile interaction he had had with the house since starting at the school.

"Uh, no." Harry answered her question slowly. "If you mean Buckbeak, he's not homicidal at all. He's proud, and he gave Draco a mean scratch last year when he felt he was being slighted, but he's never seriously injured anyone and he's a reliable friend."

Harry realized he may have revealed a bit too much and he quickly tried to cover his bases. "Which is to say, I haven't seen him since he escaped, and I had no part in helping him escape, but he's probably doing fine now, and I still consider him my friend." He said in a rush.

Astoria looked at Harry suspiciously. Harry just gave a weak smile in return, hoping that she wouldn't press him for any more information regarding the innocent beast. Thankfully, she seemed to have other questions on her mind.

"And is it true that you set a snake on Justin in your second year?" Astoria asked.

"Wait, how is that rumor still going around? We cleared this up over a year ago and he even apologized for suspecting me!"

Huh. That wasn't what the older Slytherins had told her.

"Okay, one last question. Is it true you killed a teacher in your first year?"

At this, Harry shifted uncomfortably. Astoria's mouth dropped open when she noticed his reaction. She had been sure this one was made up!

"Technically he was already dead, possessed by a shadow of Voldemort," Harry started uneasily. "But I did, uh, finish the job, so to speak."

Astoria gaped. This Harry has some incredible stories!

At her silence, Harry continued to walk around the sweet shop picking up gifts for his friends. He tried to ignore the pretty blonde girl who was following him around with a profoundly thoughtful expression on her face.

Was everyone lying about Harry? Astoria considered silently as they walked around the store. She had spent the last three years hearing the students in her house tell stories that made Harry Potter look like a demon, but her own brief interaction with him seemed to indicate the opposite. Astoria felt as though she had a good instinct to know when someone was lying to her, and she believed the answers he gave to her questions. But if his account of the stories were truthful, then didn't that mean she had been lied to when she first heard them?

Astoria shook her head to clear away this complicated string of logic. Thinking wasn't her strong suit. Rather, Astoria's strong suit had always been making friends, so that was what she was going to do.

If I can't trust anyone, I think I'd prefer to make up my own mind about Harry Potter, the girl decided. There's just one more thing I have to confirm first.

Harry was at the cash paying for his sweets when the young witch finally spoke up again over his shoulder.

"Is it true that you transfigure pretty girls into garden gnomes?" She asked innocently.

The older woman working the register at Honeydukes failed to suppress a chuckle at this. Harry flushed in embarrassment. "No! Of course not." Harry said, turning to face the girl. He was getting a little frustrated now. "Who's telling you these things anyway-"

"Do you want to be my friend?"

"..."

That caught him off guard. He looked into her eyes, expecting her declaration to have been some sort of joke. The eyes that looked back at him were clear and honest, without a hint of deceit in them.

What a strange girl, Harry thought as he considered her question. I guess it wouldn't hurt? Maybe it'll even help get everyone off my case about not talking to girls…

"Okay I guess." He replied.

At this Astoria beamed up at him, and Harry blushed, averting his gaze.

A moment later a group of students, presumably Astoria's friends, came through the door.

"Astoria! Where have you been? we've been looking everywhere for you!"

"Hi guys!" she replied cheerfully. "I was just making a new friend!"

The group rolled their eyes at this, as it was a line they had heard many variations of before. They did a double take however, when they noticed Harry Potter standing in front of her and made the connection.

A girl at the front of the pack spoke up then. "Come on, Astoria." She began, eyeing Harry warily. "We made reservations at The Three Broomsticks for your birthday and we'll be late if we don't head there now."

It's Astoria's birthday today? Harry thought, surprised. If she was born in September as a third year, that means she's only two months younger than me! The thought made Harry a bit happy, but he had no intention of digging into his psyche to figure out why that may have been. Then, realizing how much time he had taken up of the girl's birthday, he began to feel rather guilty. So as the girl waved goodbye to him and turned to leave, he tried to make amends the only way he could think of with the resources currently in his possession.

"Astoria!" He called out. As she turned around, he handed her a single sugar quill from his recently purchased stash. "Happy Birthday!"

Sirius was literally rolling on the floor of the shrieking shack laughing.

"So you're telling me," he gasped between wheezes. "That you gave the prettiest girl you've ever seen a single sugar quill for her birthday?"

Several minutes earlier…

Harry walked into the shrieking shack, finding Sirius laying on a couch he didn't remember from his last visit, flipping through a magazine.

When he noticed his godson enter, Sirius threw the magazine aside carelessly and sat up on the couch.

"I took the opportunity to do a bit of refurnishing, seeing as how we'll be spending a bit more time here and all." Sirius started, gesturing to a large upholstered armchair set up directly across the couch.

After a brief hug with his last remaining family member Harry sat down on the chair, noting that despite its worn-down appearance it was rather comfortable.

"Now Harry, how have you been-" Sirius began to ask before he was cut off.

"Sirius, before we begin I have something important to tell you."

Sirius tensed. He couldn't possibly have caught on to my plan, right? He thought, thinking back to his involvement in Harry's 'meeting' from earlier.

"I ran into a girl earlier today who was chasing a dog that matched your description exactly, and she would've followed you further if I hadn't distracted her." Harry said apprehensively. "You may want to be a little more careful from now on, I'd hate it if we had to stop meeting like this because you got exposed accidentally while walking around Hogsmeade…"

Phew! Sirius relaxed. He was just worried about my safety.

"Don't worry, Harry." Sirius assured him. "I knew she was following me, and the great Sirius Black would never get caught by someone so young!"

Sirius shot Harry a confident smile, completely ignoring the fact that the very same witch had caught him just two weeks earlier.

Harry still looked slightly concerned, so Sirius continued, dropping the joking tone from his voice.

"Really, Harry. I'm being careful, I promise you. Running away from children is part of my cover as a dog, it helps me blend in if anyone recognizes me from week to week in Hogsmeade. I keep my ears up for any rumors around town, and I'll be the first to know if my cover is compromised."

Harry's worries were mostly assuaged by this, and it was evident as he released the deep breath he was holding and relaxed further into the armchair.

"More importantly," Sirius began after a moment, leaning towards Harry with a teasing grin on his face, "tell me more about this girl you ran into, and how exactly you 'distracted' her from following me!"

And so for the next few minutes Harry detailed his encounter with Astoria from earlier in the day. While Sirius obviously knew how it started, seeing as how he was the one to set it up in the first place, he listened rapturously to the rest of the tale, laughing when Harry recounted the absurd questions the girl had asked him.

Harry finished the story, blushing as he told Sirius how he had impulsively given Astoria a single sugar quill worth about one sickle when he had discovered that it was her birthday.

And such was how Harry found himself looking down upon his godfather as he rolled on the floor, laughing so loud Harry was afraid the privacy wards set up around the shrieking shack wouldn't be able to contain it.

When Sirius finally settled down, he got back up and looked at Harry, who was wearing an expression that mixed embarrassment and annoyance in an artful way.

"Don't worry about it kid," Sirius comforted him, putting one hand on the boy's shoulder and using the other to wipe tears from the corners of his own eyes. "Girls find clumsy stuff like that endearing. Trust me."

Harry wasn't so sure, but he would take whatever solace he could get at this point. Eager to divert the attention away from himself, Harry turned the implied suggestion back around to Sirius.

"Oh yeah? I take it you were popular with the girls during your time at Hogwarts?" He asked.

Sirius guffawed. "Me? Popular doesn't even begin to cut it! There was this one time on Valentine's day in my sixth year…"

Over the next couple hours Sirius told Harry stories about his own time as a student, including several about James, as he noticed that Harry always paid extra attention when his father was mentioned. He kept the stories mild, as he was pretty sure Harry wasn't ready for the more…steamy ones, but he had to admit it was a lot of fun to reminisce about those peaceful days he had spent with his best friends.

When it was time for Harry to leave, they both got up regretfully, wishing the time they could spend together wasn't limited to just a few hours every two weeks.

"I'll see you next time Sirius," Harry said dejectedly as he broke away from a hug.

"I'll see you soon Harry. And don't forget to write me a few letters!"

As Sirius watched Harry walk back down the path into the village, he thought back to the sorrowful expression on his godson's face as he left.

I really need to find a way to get exonerated, he thought sadly.

Later that night, Astoria sat on her bed in the Slytherin girl's dormitory thinking over the events of the day. She had an excellent birthday, all things considered, and got to spend most of it with her friends and sister. Her parents had sent her the guitar that she had begged for over the summer (she didn't have the heart to tell them she wasn't interested in the guitar anymore and now wanted to learn the harp), and her sister had come to her room earlier to wish her a happy birthday and give her a matching pajama set with little ducks on it. Her friends had paid for her lunch in Hogsmeade, and presented her with many other small gifts as they went shopping around the village.

Eventually her eyes drifted towards the first birthday present she had gotten that day, and the most unexpected one as well. She looked at the sugar quill where it lay on her bedside table, still wrapped in the plastic packaging it had come in.

Her unexpected encounter with Harry Potter that morning had been running through her mind all day, and she didn't tell anyone about it, even at the urging of her friends who had seen her with the boy in Honeydukes.

Ultimately, she just wasn't sure what to think of him quite yet. While she had applied her 'friends first, ask questions later' policy to him, and he even accepted her offer, she wasn't totally convinced of his innocence yet. After all, where there's smoke there's usually fire, and she had heard a lot of rumors about him.

However, she had already decided that she would no longer put absolute faith in those rumors, and it would take some investigation of her own to determine if he truly was someone she could be friends with.

I really hope he is though, Astoria thought as she got into bed. I'd love to hear more of his stories…

And as that last thought floated away, the girl drifted off to sleep.

"I'm a genius!" Sirius shouted to himself gleefully as he paced around the living room in 12 Grimmauld Place.

The Black family house elf, Kreacher, silently picked up the empty bottles that Sirius had left on the floor. While Kreacher never held much love for the blood traitor Sirius, his recent mannerisms had been scaring him. The man would laugh and mutter to himself all day, writing notes in a little book that he carried around everywhere.

"Not only did they meet each other, but they even talked for a while afterwards! She asked to be his friend!"

Kreacher tried to extricate himself from the room without drawing the attention of his clearly deranged master.

"Kreacher!" Sirius yelled.

Kreacher froze, realizing his stealth mission had failed.

"She asked to be his friend, Kreacher!" The man looked into the eyes of the old house elf with a big smile on his face.

Kreacher wrung his hands uncomfortably. He had been a house elf for many years, but even he didn't have the experience to know what to do in this situation.

"Is there something Kreacher can do for the Master?" Kreacher eventually inquired nervously.

"Yes. Here. Take this galleon, and go buy yourself something nice. Don't spend it all in one place, and make sure to be back in time for breakfast tomorrow morning. I'll be making pancakes!"

That was it, his master had clearly lost his mind. He bowed to Sirius, and with a snap Kreacher apparated to France to visit his estranged daughter. After all, he wasn't sure how much time he had left on this planet considering he served a madman and this might be his last chance to make reparations.

"It's a good start, it's a good start for sure," Sirius monologued, alone in the house once more. "But I need more. Something to get them to start seeing each other in a different light."

Suddenly, something on the muggle television set Sirius had been only partially watching caught his attention.

"YES! That's it! That's exactly it!" Sirius jumped excitedly, clapping his hands together as an idea came to him.

And just like that, Sirius took out his little book and started writing notes, laughing like a maniac all the while.