Sirius had thought that his daring escape from Azkaban and knowing that his best friends were killed, that those would be the hardest challenges he would ever face in life, but hearing his godson pour out every detail of near death he experience in a time when he should have been getting into harmless trouble and chasing a couple of skirts. That was breaking his heart.

Once he learned that Harry had somehow managed to land himself into the Tri-Wizard Tournament through the articles in the Prophet, Sirius knew he had to get in contact with Harry. It was not easy to find a floo accessible fireplace that also didn't come with the danger of getting caught but there was one he could use even if he dreaded going to it.

So a letter had been sent off to have Harry come to the Gryffindor Common Room after curfew to prevent anyone from knowing they were in contact. And while originally it had been to offer support for him in another trying time in his life, it was seeing how defeated Harry looked that told him this was not just a problem stemming from the tournament.

"Meet me at the Shrieking Shack. I know, I know it's late. But Pup, do you trust me?" Sirius asked because it would take some effort on his part but he had to know just how close to the edge Harry was.

"You're the only one I do trust," Harry nodded which was a red flag in and of itself, he had three conversations with him after a year of thinking he was a deranged killer coming to finish the job for his dark master and HE was the only person Harry could trust.

The trapdoor creaking open had Sirius tensing because while it was unlikely to be anyone other than Harry, if anyone else did come through it would not be an easy thing to explain if he even had the chance. But seeing the emerald eyes that were his mother's Sirius let out a sigh and smiled as Harry rushed to embrace him.

"Alright pup, tell me what's going on?" Sirius asked as he pulled up a chair.

"It's this, damn… tournament," Harry hissed spitefully. "I didn't put myself in but no one believes me. The Slytherins I get, they'd hate me no matter what, but the Hufflepuffs are turned on me, either Cedric told them to or some of the others did, I don't know what is going through the Claw heads right now and even my own house. They think it's the greatest thing, the twins treat it like a big joke, which is probably why everyone else thinks I'm a liar."

"Ron, RON," Harry stood up to pace, stomping around heavily on the floor. "He's the worst of it, for some reason he thinks I entered myself and am hiding it because I want the glory and money. Which gets Hermione stuck in the middle because she's afraid to lose either of us."

Slamming a fist into the rotted wooden wall Harry rested his head against the grain. "Honestly, it's almost as bad as when they all thought I was the Heir of Slytherin."

"I'm sorry what?" Sirius blinked in confusion. "You- the Heir of Slytherin? But that doesn't make any sense."

"That's what I told everyone but no one wanted to listen," Harry ranted.

Sirius motioned to the chair. "Well Pup, I'll listen, how about you start from the beginning."

Harry sat down and explained his adventure from his second year, starting with his mail not reaching him, to how the ministry threatened him with expulsion for using magic in front of muggles. All of these were red flags to Sirius because he knew from talking with Lily and other muggleborns that when they slipped up and used magic outside of Hogwarts at home, it wasn't a warning about breaking the statute of secrecy, it was underage magic that they were in trouble for. The ministry couldn't know that there were other muggles besides the Dursley's in the home without an auror coming to get statements or if the ministry was monitoring the home.

And a house elf wouldn't trigger the ministry as house elf magic wasn't tracked because they didn't use wands, that is what was tracked. Something like that would all but require the home itself to have monitoring for any magic at all and that it goes straight to the ministry. To do that would require wards set up around the home and he doubted that the Dursley's agreed to have them put up nor did the ministry have ample reason to put them up themselves anytime before Harry's second year.

But as Sirius continued to listen to how Harry and Ron were locked out of the platform, it occurred to him that the red headed boy might have been touched in the head because Harry knew barely anything about this magical world, but Ron had gone to the platform a number of times, there were floo connections for families, namely the purebloods, who didn't want to walk through King's Cross Station and be around muggles or for the families that had to travel from longer distances. So for Molly Weasley to have run all her kids through didn't make sense. So why the bloody hell did they all take the unreliable muggle car, for a FOUR HOUR DRIVE from Devon.

It made no sense that Ron would suggest they take the car when he knows that the floo system exists.

The tale Harry told him just continued to get worse and worse as his godson explained how terrible Lockhart's lessons were, that when the blood was drawn on the walls, and how things in the castle deteriorated and yet nothing was done to actually solve the problem. Professor Flitwick was a brilliant charms master, there were spells that the aurors used to gather evidence that he was certain that the half-goblin knew of better ones. Hell they had blood right there, it wouldn't be pretty but there is so much information that one can gather from blood he could have found where it came from, which being that Harry explained it came from Hagrid's chickens would have been the next crime scene.

But the aurors were never called in, at that point it could be excused as a prank gone too far, Sirius would admit some of his own were like that, the one where he nearly got Snivelus killed was one such example. But once a student was attacked, the aurors would have been all over the place. That the thing doing this had moved its body along the floor would have been enough to track it down, even using bloodhounds would have served the purpose.

"And then Ron and Hermione told me what a Parselmouth was, I didn't know that it was a bad thing," Harry hung his head because he was blaming himself as if he knew that talking to snakes was seen as a negative he wouldn't have done it.

"Harry, it's not a bad thing, it's just a thing," Sirius explained. "Peter is a piece of shit and an animagus, but that doesn't make animagi bad. And you're brilliant, so even if all the other parselmouths were bad, then you're the exception."

"Just wish others in the castle thought that way," Harry responded flatly. He picked up where the castle was viewing him as the culprit and how none of the professors seemed to do anything about curbing the other student's nasty behavior.

Sirius was shocked to learn that there was a colony of acromantula that large and that close to the school, it explained why the Forbidden Forest was considered so dangerous in his time at Hogwarts since this Aragog had fled after Hagrid's first arrest back in when he was a student. He would have said the Minister throwing Hagrid into Azkaban without a trial was unheard of, but that would be a lie. Instead he focused on how Dumbledore seemed to know so much but never said a thing.

Harry told how Lockhart had been a fraud, nearly turning Harry and Ron's brains into mush just for his own fame and likely dooming the school in the process. "He's not a pureblood?" Sirius blinked.

"How do you know that?" Harry asked because that seemed like such an odd thing to know.

"Harry, I'm a Black, we are taught all the pureblood families, mostly who to marry and who to scorn, Riddle, is not either of those. There was no Riddle family at any gatherings, there isn't a Riddle seat on the Wizengamot, nothing. It is muggle, Voldemort is either a muggleborn or a half-blood."

"What does that mean though?" Harry inquired for further details.

Sirius cackled madly. "It means so much but don't dwell on it for now, tell me more. I mean, you had to fight a basilisk?"

"And then Dobby saved me from Lucius Malfoy, he tried to cast the killing curse on me in the hallways," Harry finished the story of his second year.

"Son of a bitch," Sirius exhaled heavily, if he despised Lucius from all the time he knew him in school and that he'd been a death eater, none of that compared to the hatred he had for hearing the man was going to murder Harry. "Your second year was a nightmare."

"It was worse than my first year, but honestly that had a lot of problems too," Harry shrugged.

"You got time to tell me?" Sirius firmed his features, because in just this story alone he learned that for Harry, a bit rough was nearly dying multiple times. So when he explained everything that happened in his first year, Sirius knew there was something else going on. Details simply didn't match. From all the letters being sent, which would have been a violation of the statute of secrecy, to only Hagrid being sent to collect him on his birthday rather than a professor, hell he would have even accepted Snape being the one to get him since the man was still a Head of House. He wouldn't have liked it but it would still have been within the bounds of the school's procedures for situations like this.

But not only was Hagrid sent out but seemingly no one else was told about this so Hagrid had gone to get him a second time to take him to the train station but conveniently failed to take him to the train. No more than that, the philosopher's stone, why was Hagrid, someone who couldn't use magic, who hadn't finished his education, the one to get it. If Dumbledore suspected someone was trying to steal it unless they tried to physically take it from Hagrid's hands, anyone else would have been better suited for transport. He could have at least explained a little more of how to get onto the train. That Molly Weasley was conveniently there when there should have been other magical families, it didn't make sense to him. But to learn that Albus had to go to an emergency Wizengamot meeting, which wasn't impossible. But that he announced it to the school and that he also took a broom, which would have been hours when the man can floo, portkey, apparate or just use his damn phoenix to get there. He had to have known that would get Voldemort to move.

A detention in the Forbidden Forest, the one place that was explicitly forbidden for students to enter, and it was left for first years to find whatever was murdering unicorns. Hell, Mooney couldn't even guarantee to bring one down on a full moon night, so the headmaster had to know that whatever was doing this was more dangerous than a werewolf, so why in the seven blazing hells did he put first years in proximity of whatever hat could have been, unless he already knew who and what it was and hoped for a certain outcome.

And that he allowed Harry to find all these details from Hagrid slipping up about secret information that should have been known to only himself, to Harry finding the Mirror of Erised. Hell the puzzles that Harry explained, it lined up too well to be a coincidence. The chess match was something Ron excelled at, the fact that there was a room with flying keys for Harry's skill, the logic puzzle, a troll that Voldemort had already taken care of, but was integral to their friendship. The only detail that was missing was the devil's snare, but then he remembered that Neville had been awake.

"The Longbottom boy, what would you say is his best class?" Sirius probed for more information. Because he was looking at the obstacles, that the door could be opened by a first year, that Hagrid had given him a musical instrument, something that could put the Cerberus to sleep. If he was right and he had a strong belief that he was.

"Well he's good at Herbology, that's probably his best subject, Neville actually struggles a lot in class, Professor Snape always gets on his case in potions and that makes him so nervous he messes up and he has a hard time getting spells to work," Harry answered, confirming for Sirius what he suspected.

The devil's snare was supposed to be overcome by Neville, not Hermione. All of the tasks had been made around Harry and his friends and their skillset. A real obstacle would have been draining for whoever went through it and the potions shouldn't have had one that worked, it should have been one that slowly sapped the strength of the one who drank it or it could have been a draught of living death anything other than a real solution.

"Was there anything about last year you didn't tell me?" Sirius inquired because he might as well get through that now. And as Harry told what he knew Sirius' anger grew towards Moony. There's no way that Remus was genuinely asleep when the Dementors boarded the train, and that he allowed them to be around Harry for so long as to even begin the kiss, that was so Harry would suffer. There would be no way to know if Harry had those memories of his mother, so Remus let Harry nearly die either on someone else's orders or because he didn't care. Remus pretending to be asleep wouldn't have mattered if he had been after Harry, what if he had just set Fiendfyre on the train or started blowing up compartments. As far as they all knew or cared he was a deranged follower of the Dark Wanker who already had a history of mass casualties. He should have been up and at the ready the moment the train slowed down. Those actions made no sense unless protecting Harry hadn't been the primary goal.

That he didn't even have the potion on him when coming to the Shrieking Shack, he could have had it any time of day and it would have been fine, Remus always knew the lunar cycle. He either chose to not take it or someone instructed him not to.

And Dumbledore allowing Harry to be attacked by the dementors on the train and then at the Quidditch match, yet not having them removed after, it spoke untold volumes of behavior that he would allow the demons a continued presence on school grounds. Him knowing about the Time Turner and what Harry had gone to do, meant that at some point the headmaster became aware of his innocence and had done nothing about it. He could have gone to the DMLE and circumvented Fudge.

Hell, the fact that there were witnesses to his "kidnapping" should have resulted in statements being taken and then further checked over for any lingering magical effects, they had no reason to believe he hadn't done anything to the children. And that he escaped should have caused a lockdown of the school, for all the ministry knew he was still hiding in the castle till this very moment. Harry being in a tournament that had a historic death tally when as far as the ministry was concerned still had a wanted mass murderer after him should have been a red flag for anyone who thought for even a second on it.

Nothing in Harry's life was organic, he doubted very much now that even meeting his friends had been of his own choosing. Looking up solemnly. "Harry, do you trust me? I mean, do you trust me that even if what I do sounds absolutely barmy, that I am doing this to protect you?"

Harry nodded. "Of course Sirius, you're pretty much the only real family I have."

Sirius felt a tightness in his chest because of how unfair Harry's life had been that he was the only one who Harry could turn to. "I'm going to leave, but I assure you that I will do what I promised your parents."

"Alright, I'll… see you later I guess," Harry said while standing up, he managed to take a step before Sirius pulled him into a tight hug and stroked his hair.

"Your mother and father, they would be so furious with how things had gone, but I will make it right," he whispered before releasing Harry. He couldn't wait, he needed to go and get started on things.

Turning into Padfoot he bounded out of the Shrieking Shack and headed for The Hog's Head. Aberforth wouldn't care if someone was just in to use the floo long enough to recognize him, and he had to go find the one person who might listen to him.

Pounding his fist on the door, he waited with some measure of uncertainty because the person who answered might not even let him speak. The moment the door opened Sirius had his hands up. "I have come to parley, I wish to speak to you as Lord Black about official family matters, do you accept?" He blurted out almost too fast to comprehend.

Andromeda Tonks stood in the doorway blinking. "This is an odd way to visit."

"Do you accept?" Sirius repeated sternly. He had to let Andy know that this was not a threat, that this was the most serious he'd ever been in his life.

Andromeda stood to the side and motioned. "I accept the visit in the manner it was presented, please enter my home Lord Black."

Ted Tonks was quite confused to see a mass murderer sitting in the living room across from his wife who looked very nonplussed to be in this situation. "Go ahead, speak."

Sirius took a deep breath. "I have come here because I need help. You are the only one I can trust to do what needs to be done."

"If you think I will help you finish your master's plan, then you can leave right now," Andromeda pointed to the door.

"No, I'm innocent, it was Peter. We made Peter the Secret Keeper, we thought that the Death Eaters would assume it was me and even if I was captured then I'd never be able to give them up. But we didn't know Peter was already a Death Eater. I'd never betray James or Lily. But that's not why I'm here," sighing Sirius ran his hands through his hair. "Everything I am going to tell you is what Harry told me himself, tonight. And whatever you might think about me, he's not a liar."

And so Sirius spilled everything that Harry told him, from first year to details up to him breaking him out of ministry custody. "I believe that someone is trying to get Harry killed, so all I'm asking is that we protect him."

Andromeda set down her teacup and used her other hand to still the tremors in it. Everything Sirius had just told her was horrifying, the Dark Lord is still alive, he almost returned alive with immortality and a basilisk at his command and that seemingly everyone was conspiring against Harry because like Sirius, she could see that things didn't add up to anything other than a manipulation of a child for an unknown end.

"Very well, what can we do to help him?" Andromeda asked.

"We have no say in his life, I can't get the ministry to give me a trial, they'd kill me first. You're too distantly related and you've been disowned and if we tried to bring it up then Lucius could make a similar claim and with his money he'd get custody of Harry and hand him over to Voldemort that very night," Sirius explained. "He needs someone who can make a claim that no one can interfere with."

"What do you have in mind?" Andromeda raised an eyebrow.

"He needs to get married, his wife would have a lot of authority to protect him," Sirius answered.

"But who could he marry that we can trust? Surely no one in Hogwarts," Andromeda shook her head. At best everyone else was a pawn in Albus' game against the Dark Lord.

"Nymphadora, I know it's asking a lot, but she's your daughter, no one would be able to control her," Sirius chuckled. "Hell, I doubt we could control her."

"You think my daughter will go along with this?" Andromeda laughed uproariously at the notion they could convince Nymphadora to marry someone underaged. "Even if we could convince my daughter of your innocence, Harry is not old enough."

Sirius clenched his eyes and struggled to get his brain to work as it had before his time at Azkaban. "As of the start of the tournament, the ministry has declared Harry of age, they didn't intend to, but only Of Age witches and wizards could take part, which is more dangerous because he doesn't know how to protect himself and I can't be there to explain it all. They can use him during this time and then screw him by declaring he was never of age. And I hate to do this but if you can't convince Nymphadora then I'll break out the contracts."

Andromeda's features firmed into a glare. "What contracts?" her voice like venom.

"I can make Harry my heir, I'm going to anyway because I refuse to let Lucius' brat have the reins of the family, but when I do, this goes into effect," Sirius explained as he pulled out a parchment. "Walburga wrote it up. It was meant for you, but now it might be the only thing that stops someone from taking advantage of Harry."

Andromeda snatched the parchment and began to rapidly read it. "Cancel it, now."

The details were written as a means to allow Andromeda to return to the family by marrying her way back in, so if she had left Ted and married the current heir, which would have been Sirius at the time, now though, it seemed that it would force her daughter to marry the next of age heir which was going to be Harry. "No," Sirius leaned back in the chair. "I don't care how mad you get, or what you threaten me with, you can call the aurors right now and have me executed. I don't care. I will protect Harry no matter what."

As Lord Black he could end the contract as there are no participants who met the qualifications, it would just take him to destroy it, but only willingly. Now Andy had her wand in Sirius' face. "I said, cancel it."

"I will not allow James and Lily's son to come to any more harm or manipulation. I will protect him and if that means forcing other people to do that for me, then I will. You have heard what I said, he is innocent even now!" Sirius bellowed back, standing up from the chair, in defiance of the threat to his person. "I will not allow anyone the chance to learn of Harry's vulnerability until I have secured it and if that means you strike me down, then know I have already petitioned to make him the heir, at the stroke of midnight it will be final."

Andromeda whipped her head to the clock and saw that clock just struck and the bell tolled. "You animal," Andromeda screeched and slapped Sirius across the face.

"Hit me all you want, I refuse to fail him again," Sirius spat out the blood in his mouth from the strike.

Far away a beautiful sleeping woman lay stretched out on her mattress that lay on the floor, her loose shirt rode up to expose a large breast while the shorts were barely hanging onto her hips. She let out a heavy snore before a flash of light settled around her hand and a ring appeared. Snapping up Nymphadora looked around her bedroom and through hazy eyes saw nothing. The metamorph flopped back onto the pillow asleep again and not even noticing the new jewelry she had on.

Likewise, the same happened to a sleeping young man in a castle.