Disclaimer: I still do not own Harry Potter.

Author's Note: Thank you all so very, very much for the wonderful reviews! I'm really glad you enjoyed the last chapter so much.

Now, this one, I was really looking forward to writing. I hope you guys enjoy this one too.

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Harry and Sirius sat, both nursing their cups of tea in the dark kitchen. Harry's eyes looked dull and haunted, and Sirius would do anything to make them sparkle again. He pondered on what to ask him; there was so much he wanted to know about his godson's life. There was so much he dreaded knowing, too, Harry's time with the Dursleys being a prime example. The guilt of knowing he was the reason the boy had been left there for all those years killed him. But he knew that in order to help Harry heal, he would eventually have to learn everything.

But right now, he had to make Harry comfortable. So he started simple by asking, "Harry, tell me ... what's your favorite subject in school?"

Harry looked up from his tea, genuinely surprised that someone, let alone an adult, was asking him this. "Um," he started, "well, I loved Defense Against the Dark Arts last year when Professor Lupin taught it."

Sirius's interest was piqued at once. He was extremely curious to know what his friend had been like as a teacher. "What did he teach you?" he asked.

Harry launched into a detailed explanation of everything he had learned in his third year, his eyes seeming to lose some of their haunted look as he did so. Sirius started to smile; he had never heard Harry say so much at one time. He couldn't help but burst out laughing when Harry told him about the boggart-Snape wearing Augusta Longbottom's clothes and the hat with the vulture on top. The laughter was contagious, and Harry joined in. Sirius felt a swell of happiness - the sound of Harry's laugh was amazing, and he wanted to make sure that laughter stayed intact. A swell of pride rose up within Sirius for the only friend he had left. He and James had always thought that Remus would be a fine professor, and he had proved that to be true.

Then, Harry spoke of Remus teaching him the Patronus Charm, because he'd been having so much trouble with the Dementors. A wave of overpowering guilt swept over Sirius when he remembered the sight of Harry falling off his broom at that Godforsaken Quidditch match when Dementors had glided onto the field. He'd been in the stands in his dog form that day, and Sirius told Harry as much. "I wanted nothing more than to run to you," he said emotionally. "I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Thank Merlin for the Arresto Momentum spell." Despite his current problems with Albus, this was one thing he owed the man a debt for.

"I know you were there that day. I saw you just before the Dementors came," Harry admitted. "And it's okay. You don't need to feel bad for not being with me. I mean, I got my Firebolt because you saw what happened."

"I had to make it up to you somehow, kiddo," Sirius said softly, reaching across the table and taking Harry's hand. "And I didn't realize you saw me."

"Yeah, I did," said Harry. "And I remember seeing you when I ran away from the Dursleys at the beginning of the year. I didn't understand why I kept seeing this big black dog turn up in strange places."

"I'm sorry I scared you that day," said Sirius, flashing back to the time he had seen Harry dragging his trunk away from Number Four Privet Drive, looking very unhappy. Slowly he asked, "What happened during that incident? Why did you run away?"

Fortunately, Harry opened up about the situation, explaining how Aunt Marge had said those awful things about his parents. Sirius adopted a furious look as he heard the abominable things the woman had said. "What an evil creature," he hissed as Harry finished.

"Yeah," Harry agreed, looking angry as well. "And she wouldn't stop saying that stuff. It all got too much, and I couldn't help myself. My accidental magic started acting up, and I ..." He looked down, embarrassed. "I blew her up like a balloon. The Accidental Magic Reversal Squad had to come and put her right."

"You did WHAT?" said Sirius, doubling over with laughter. "No need to be embarrassed about it, kiddo. Serves her right, she deserved it! Your father and I would have done the same, only we would have done it on purpose." A huge smile lit his face as he continued to laugh. Marge Dursley had certainly gotten what was coming to her. Once again, to his delight, Harry started laughing too.

After they had calmed down, Sirius pondered on what to ask next. Should he ask more about the Dursleys, or more about Harry's life at Hogwarts? Right now, it seemed as though the boy was in a good mood after the laughter that had been shared, so he figured Hogwarts was the way to go. "Tell me more about your school years," he said. "I know about this year, but tell me more about your other years at Hogwarts."

And so, Harry began to talk, telling him everything starting from when his letters had begun arriving. As Sirius listened, he began to get more and more disturbed by what he heard. He was expecting to hear about what Harry thought of the subjects he had taken, and what his professors had been like, but instead he heard tales of a boy who had constantly been in danger.

By the time Harry reached the end of his first year, Sirius's face was a fearsome thing to behold. He'd had an extremely hard time not interrupting as Harry told the entire story. After Harry explained how his mother's sacrifice had burned Quirrell, it took everything in him for Sirius not to cry out. It was easy to see how Harry still struggled with feeling responsible for Quirrell's death, even though it had been entirely in self-defense. When Sirius said this to him gently, Harry replied, "I know," in a monotone voice which told Sirius clearly, "I don't believe you." Harry then rushed to move on with the story, and Sirius told himself firmly that this subject would be revisited at another time.

But after he'd heard that Harry had lain in the infirmary, unconscious and close to death for three days after saving the stone, he was beyond livid. "You mean to tell me," he said, his mind on a detail Harry had given earlier, "that you told McGonagall you thought the stone was in danger and she did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING?" he growled, his heart pumping so fast he thought it would burst. Was that what her apology to Harry had been about when she'd come to see him in the hospital wing? If so, she needed to do a lot more than that to make it up to him. "And Dumbledore didn't figure out that one of his teachers had LORD VOLDEMORT sticking out of the back of his head, just like he didn't figure out that another of his staff members was not the friend and ally he'd known for decades and instead a Death Eater in disguise! And he didn't realize that the summons to the Ministry was a way to lure him away from the school so you could go riding to the rescue? He didn't show up to "save" you until it was all over? Oh, when I get my hands on that man ..."

Sirius had an awful feeling he knew exactly what was going on. He'd had an inkling before that Dumbledore needed Harry to fulfill the prophecy, but now it looked like the boy had been put through tests. The information Harry had received, and the way he had received it, was just too convenient. The way he'd received the Invisibility Cloak (James's cloak, Sirius thought, his heart aching), the way in which he'd stumbled across the Mirror of Erised (Oh God, what a dangerous thing to have in a school full of children, some who had been through hell, Harry included. How dare Dumbledore allow Harry to come near that thing!) ... the pieces of a puzzle Sirius truly hated were clicking into place.

"I was okay, though, Sirius," Harry tried to reassure him. "Professor Dumbledore explained that the stone had been destroyed after that."

"Oh, that's great," said Sirius sarcastically, his face full of fury. "Waiting till after you'd almost bloody DIED to destroy the thing. What a fantastic job those adults did, taking care of you. Like I did any better," Sirius mumbled under his breath, the guilt crashing over him again.

"Sirius, please," Harry pleaded. "You're here now, and that's what matters. And it was my choice to go and save the stone. Mine, Ron's, and Hermione's. Professor Dumbledore didn't make us do it."

"That's the point," Sirius said desperately. "He was testing you, Harry. Trying to see if you could do it on your own."

"I did think it rather strange at the time," Harry said slowly, thinking again about what had happened three years ago. It seemed like a lifetime ago to him. "It was weird that he didn't try to stop us."

"It was criminal. You. Are. A. Child," Sirius snarled, and Harry's face paled. Sirius's voice immediately softened as he said, "Kiddo, I'm not angry with you. You did what you thought you had to do to keep the school and your friends safe. But it shouldn't have been up to you. Why Dumbledore decided to hide the stone in a school full of children, I'll never understand. But why he allowed three first-year students to go after it ... Merlin, I am so bloody angry at all the so-called adults tasked with your care. Did it get any better your second year?"

Harry seemed more hesitant to talk now, and Sirius felt terrible. Once again, he had let his temper get the better of him. He tried to stay calm as Harry described the events of his second year, starting with the arrival of Dobby. It was obvious that Harry did not want to tell the man about the house-elf and how he'd been horribly abused and mistreated by the Malfoys; the expression on his face said all too clearly that he was not trying to compare Sirius's treatment of Kreacher with Lucius's treatment of Dobby, but Sirius now understood Harry's reaction yesterday, and once more, he vowed he wouldn't lose his temper at the elf again.

By the time Harry finished the recitation of his second year, Sirius was literally about to explode. He took a few deep, shuddering breaths before he said anything to Harry, afraid he would shout the house down and scare the living daylights out of the poor child.

It was Harry, though, who spoke first. "Sirius?" he said timidly, putting a hand on his godfather's shoulder. He grew deeply concerned when he realized the man was shaking. "Sirius, what's wrong?" he called to him; Sirius seemed to have lost himself, immersed within his own world.

Slowly, Sirius looked at Harry, his gray eyes holding a well of so much emotion that it caused a lump to develop in Harry's throat. "Oh, God," he choked out, his face white. "What the hell has happened to this world since I've been gone? A mere twelve-year-old boy has to face a full-grown basilisk, and the memory of a sixteen-year-old Dark Lord? A boy is bullied by most of the school for being a Parselmouth, and has to deal with it mostly on his own with no help from the professors? My godson had to put up with sneers and taunts from all and sundry, thinking he was responsible for petrifying people?" Not being able to help himself, he stood up from his chair so fast that it toppled over, causing Harry to jump. "WHAT IS THIS?" he snarled, looking just as enraged as the night he and Remus had faced Peter in the Shrieking Shack. "I have a right mind to take you out of that bloody school for good!"

"Sirius, calm down!" Harry pleaded, standing up as well and resting his hand on the man's shoulder again.

Harry's voice seemed to bring Sirius back to himself. He took another deep breath, and all the anger flew out of him as he pulled the boy into a hug. "I'm so sorry, Harry," he said hoarsely, his eyes welling up with tears. "I truly have been a horrible guardian. There I was, wallowing in my own self-pity in prison while you ..." He shuddered again. "While you were in such terrible danger. You have almost died three times while you've been at school. This is unacceptable. I'm telling you one thing: I am not letting you out of my sight for a good, long while. If I could, I'd NEVER let you go anywhere again."

Harry had never had the experience of an adult sounding so fiercely protective; it was very new for him. Sirius's eyes contained a bottomless well of emotions, causing Harry's heart to flip within his chest. "Sirius," he croaked, "stop saying you've been a horrible guardian, because you haven't. You were sent to prison for something you didn't do, and those Dementors are so, so awful. And ..." he added softly, "when all this stuff with the Ministry and the Aurors gets sorted out, you have to let me go back to Hogwarts sometime."

Sirius's heart softened, because he knew what Hogwarts and his friends had meant to him growing up, and he could recognize that Harry felt the same way. But he also knew there was absolutely no way he was letting Harry step foot in that building until there were some major changes made. This, he told Harry in no uncertain terms, keeping his voice gentle so the boy knew the anger Sirius felt was not directed at him. "And although you may disagree, I know I have been a terrible guardian," he said while still holding Harry close. "But I am always going to be here by your side now."

At these words, Harry felt a burst of affection for his godfather. Never had his safety been the most important thing on anyone's mind before. He smiled at the man, and let out a wide yawn.

"Sleepy?" Sirius asked, ruffling Harry's hair. "Would you like to come with me into the drawing room?" He did not want to let the boy go, even though he knew he would only be going to his room. He hoped Harry would agree, just this once.

"Sure," said Harry, sensing the other man's need to have him nearby and quietly appreciating it.

So the two made themselves comfortable in the drawing room. Harry lay down on the couch, and Sirius curled up there, too, turning into the bearlike black dog. He performed his ritual of barking gently while Harry stroked his fur, letting his eyes close on their own.

Once Harry had fallen asleep, Sirius stopped barking and settled down himself. He sighed softly, his heart aching for the boy beside him. Anger still pumped fiercely within his body - the four years Harry had experienced at Hogwarts were worse than he ever could have imagined. Dumbledore was testing his hero, seeing how he was performing, and Sirius wouldn't have it anymore. Harry was a child who deserved the best of care, and his needs weren't being seen to. Sirius still couldn't believe everything he had heard.

And as Harry slept, he began to plan. Albus Dumbledore had truly underestimated Sirius Black, and it would be to his detriment. Sirius would make sure of that.