Black on Black

An Interview with Lord Sirius Black
by Xenophilius Lovegood

XL- Sirius, you've changed. You look different than the younger man I knew, and different than the older man I met. Has it only been a month and a half ago? Please tell our readers what happened to you.

LB- We first met in school. I knew you and your wife. We haven't seen each other because I was the victim of a political plot a dozen years ago. I am the heir of the Black family. People wanted to take that from me. I am the godfather of Lord Harry Potter. At least one person wanted to replace me in that role. They succeeded, at least for a while. I was taken to Azkaban. I never was charged with a crime. The Aurors never collected evidence of my guilt or of my innocence. The evidence was never presented to a prosecutor and a judge. I was neither charged nor tried nor sentenced. That felt extraordinary, and I hope it truly is extraordinary. I hope it has never happened before. I hope it never happens to anyone again, but that is up to us.

XL- Why do you say that?

LB- We will see what happens to the people who did this to me. If my attackers escape punishment, then this will probably happen again to someone else. It is less likely to happen again if the guilty parties face justice. That is not up to me. It is up to the judges and the prosecutors in the ministry.

XL- How does that feel? The people who imprisoned you were in the ministry. Now you're asking the ministry to dispense justice. Is that a lost cause?

LB- You're right. I could despair, but I don't. I was in the ministry. I made mistakes as an Auror, but I tried to do the best that I could. Most people in the Ministry of Magic are trying to do their jobs the best they can. I think my attackers thought that the system would fail so they felt they had to go around it. They thought that they were little kings and above our laws and even above our deeper rules of civilization. I've thought about that.

Our parents were supposed to teach us good behavior so we could fall back on habits that would serve us when we were surprised or shocked. As an Auror, I had to know when I could use my authority to diffuse a situation, and when that would fail and I had no choice but to use my wand. My perception today.. is that we need those rules even more when our society is upset and threatened than when everything is stable and running smoothly. We want to get rid of corruption so that we can trust our system during difficult times.

I learned more than that. You don't put people into Azkaban with Dementors in the hope that they will reform. 10 seconds with a Dementor is an eternity. A minute is torture. We left people in Azkaban for years. That isn't wise.

We put anti-social wizards in Azkaban. The few that survived became disassociated sociopaths. They will be a nightmare if they are released from Azkaban. I don't know if we could obliviate them to remove the psychological scars. That isn't my expertise. What we did to them is torture. I'm asking us to stop doing it because of what it will do to you if you see what we've done. You don't want those nightmares. I thought about putting my experience in Azkaban into a pensive so that others can see it.

ZL- Lord Black, I'm confused. You're claiming that the experience in Azkaban was a horror. I'm missing the connection because I've spoken to you before. How did you survive something that you now say is almost un-survivable?

LB- You are right. That is confusing to me, and I was there. I'm not sure how I survived. This isn't the sort of situation where we get to try other approaches and see if they would kill people or not. We shouldn't do that even if we could conduct those tests. We don't want to torture people that way.

I do know a few things. I know that I should have died. I know I wanted to die. It would have been easier for me to stop living. I survived because I'd taken an oath. You could call it an oath of love, but when I say that I don't mean a promise of affection. It was a vow of obligation, a vow of dedication and loyalty. I could not let myself die and still fulfill the Godfather Oath.

I don't know if that saved my life or dragged me through hell. Give me another twenty years and I'll have an answer for you.

ZL- It became publicly known that you were an unregistered Animagus. You can shift into an Irish Wolfhound. You survived in the wild for two years in that form. What was that like?

LB- I don't recommend it. It was a coping mechanism. It kept me alive so that I could live without a wand. It let me survive my despair, but it didn't remove the problems that tormented me. It was only when I again became a man that I was able to face those problems. That was when I could ask for help and then address those events as best I could. Let me be clear; I received help when I asked for it. I owe those witches and wizards my life.

If I had to describe the feelings, it was a combination of being drunk and being on the worst camping trip you can imagine that never ended.

ZL- What are you doing with yourself now?

LB- I'm re-learning how to live. I have to do the same things that everyone else has to do. I have to relearn how to take care of myself. I need practice at taking care of the friends I have and the new friends I'm making. I have some ideas for new businesses and services. I'm not ready to talk about them yet.

ZL- If you had to share one thing with our readers about what you learned, what would that be?

LB- Oh, wow. I'm not through learning from this so I don't have a final answer. At first, I would have said that my obligations saved me. Now I would say don't lie. I say that because I've seen how lying steals your strength and gives your strength to the people who uncover the truth. That is what I'd say today, but I'm not sure what I'll learn tomorrow.

ZL- If people wanted to wish you well, how should they reach you?

LB- Please wave if you see me on the street. Send an owl to the ministry and they will copy the messages for me. I'll read them for fun for the next few months. After that, I hope to assume my seat in the Wizengamot so you can write me and tell me about all the mistakes we're making. Then it becomes my job to read them.

ZL- How is your personal life?

LB- It is growing. I'm reaching out to old friends like I reached out to you. It is called personal for a reason, but thank you for asking.

ZL- May we talk again, say in a few months?

LB- You and I are sure to talk again. Hopefully it will be under better circumstances and without so much history to cover. Thank you for the chance to talk to you and your readers today.

HPHPHP

Meeting the Kids

Harry opened the door for Hermione and then followed her inside. Both of them saw Sirius sitting in a booth along the back wall. "The Flying Horse" in Hogsmeade was almost empty on a weekday afternoon. It was more upscale than the usual haunts of teenage students, particularly now that school was out for the summer. Harry pulled back a chair for Hermione and she gave him one of her brilliant smiles in return.

Harry was speaking as he pulled out his own chair and sat down. "You must be Hayley. It's nice to see more of you than a brief glimpse in the mirror that Sirius keeps trying to hide from us."

Harry was smiling at the strange witch as he said it, then he turned and glared at Sirius. Hayley and Hermione both laughed. Sirius had been comically inept at hiding his new girlfriend.

Harry added, "I'm a bit jealous. You've spent more time with Sirius than I have."

"And I'm Hermione Granger. I'm not jealous at all. It's a pleasure to meet you." The women reached across the table and shook hands.

Hayley said, "Sirius and I have only been together for a few months. Sirius talks about you so much that I feel as if I know you both. And now we get to meet face to face. I know Sirius has plans for the summer, but that isn't my story to tell. We met when Sirius needed help selling a house."

"You're an estate agent?" Hermione asked.

Sirius snorted.

Hayley elbowed Sirius who was sitting next to her in the padded booth. "Be nice. That is how we met!" Hayley insisted.

Sirius slipped his arms over her shoulders.

Sirius said, "Oh, I definitely needed some help. Hayley is closer to a hired wand than an estate agent." Sirius gave Hayley a hug and a smile.

"I wanted to sell Grimmauld Place, but we had to clean up a lot of dark magic first. She is a curse-breaker. I was going to burn the place down.. maybe a few times.. then with petrol and again with Fiendfyre. The goblins convinced me to try a curse-breaker and then sell it. It was worth it."

There was still a part of Sirius that would have loved to roast bits of meat and tell campfire stories over the dying coals of Grimmauld Place. Sirius did not tell Harry and Hermione about the curses that Hayley had to break or the horcrux she had removed. That was a story for the Unspeakables and the goblins to tell. Sirius thought Hayley and her elf had earned every single Knut she charged him. The more he learned, the more he thought he'd received a bargain.

The two teens couldn't tell if Sirius was pleased with cleaning out his old home or if he was pleased because he met his new girlfriend.

"How is the housing market?" Hermione asked. Her parents talked about friends who moved around the London suburbs. She'd been too focused on her studies to follow events in the outside world.

"I swear that house fought us. Hermione, we had to destroy a few of the books in the library, but we kept the rest of them for you to look through." Hayley said. It had taken her about ten days to clear the house. It took her almost a full day to take down the Fidelius Charm. It was hard to sell a house that the buyers couldn't find. Once the house was clear, the elves had helped donate and store the rest. Sirius's elf Kreacher had strong opinions about which elves were allowed to help. Harry's elf was welcomed as family. Hayley's elf was considered provisional family.

Sirius added, "It took a few weeks for contractors to bring the place up to code. It went on the market last week and we're getting good offers."

"What do you have planned for the summer?" Harry asked. Harry was impatient and Sirius kept evading the subject when they talked over the mirror.

"I have an idea for a trip next year. It was supposed to be a reward, something for me to work toward as I healed. Hermione, I need to talk with your parents and see what works for them. I wanted to go east along the Mediterranean coast starting from Gibraltar. That would be for late May and early June. When the coast heats up, we'd go up into the mountains for July and early August. That is the idea anyway. I hope the two of you and the Grangers will join us."

Maybe they'd make it as far as Genoa before they headed up into the alps. Maybe not. Hayley wanted to see the magical enclaves around San Marino, but that could wait until the kids were back in school.

"Depending on everyone's schedule, we could have a shorter trip at the end of this summer or over the winter break," Sirius offered.

Hermione caught the way Hayley looked at Sirius. A gold-digger might look forward to a long and expenses-paid vacation. Hayley looked proud of Sirius as if the trip were his graduation present. That reminded Hermione that she was only 15 and had a number of years to go before she graduated from Hogwarts.

"Are you sorry that you couldn't participate in the Triwizard Tournament?" Sirius asked Harry.

Harry put down his butterbeer. "Never missed it. McGonagall restarted the Quidditch season once the Tournament was cancelled and the Dementors were gone. Ron is talking about a handicap fantasy league."

"Hmm. How would that work?" Hayley asked.

Hermione Granger wasn't a party-girl, but she thought that getting rid of the Dementors deserved a weeks-long celebration of its own. Too bad they didn't get one.

Harry explained the league. "This replaces the house Quidditch competition. Some of our players are almost professional while some are beginners. Also, the brooms we use have a wide range of performance. Too wide, really, to have competitive teams. Ron, Oliver Wood, Cedric Diggory, and Lee Jordan have ranked the players and the brooms. Each team would get so many points allotted for players and equipment. We'd put up teams with the same points each weekend, but it would never be the same teams for the next game.

"The guys came up with the handicap idea after Slytherin blew out Ravenclaw. The player's rank goes up each time they fly so that everyone gets a chance to play by the end of the season. They will keep adjusting the weighting points until the games are evenly split."

Hayley thought that sounded interesting even to someone who was lukewarm about Quidditch. It combined aspects of fantasy leagues with handicapped horse racing.

"And you, Hermione, what are your interests?" she asked the young witch.

Hermione poured herself some tea. "My parents are in the medical profession. I thought about becoming a healer or a doctor. I'm good at spells. I wondered about being a curse-breaker so I could have a life before I'm as old as Sirius." Hermione looked innocently over the cup, first at Hayley and then pointedly as Sirius.

Lord Black coughed and grabbed his chest as if he'd been hexed. "The witch did it. It was her," he hissed as he fell sideways into Hayley's lap.

Harry waved at their waiter. "Bring him the check before he dies."

When they stopped laughing, Hayley touched Hermione's hand. "I became a curse-breaker for some of the same reasons. Would you like to apprentice with me for the rest of the summer? There is a ton of work for curse-breakers right now with so many of the dark families disappearing last month. We can see how easy it is for you to see and feel magic."

Hermione bumped the table with her fists. "That is the part they barely teach us in class," Hermione complained.

Sirius remembered how Lilly worried about James being an Auror. He worried about Hayley, and now about Hermione becoming a curse-breaker. He always told Lilly that James would be fine, and that he, Sirius, would take care of him. Now those words felt strangely hollow. Sirius wondered who would take care of Hayley and Hermione if they encountered a seriously dark object. He was placing a lot of trust in Hayley's house elf.

"Have you been a curse-breaker very long?" Hermione asked.

"Yes and no. My first husband had expectations that were much like Sirius's family. I am good at dark magic. I didn't like working with dark magic in a family business. My ex-husband wanted to join Voldemort. I didn't. I struck out on my own. That was about three years ago. I helped the goblins with some work so they refer some customers to me in return."

Somehow, Hayley had impressed her account manager when she filed for a divorce from one of the Sacred 28 families. It was hard to remove their family magics, hence the visit with the goblins at Gringotts.

Hayley gave Hermione a suggestion, "Think about it and let me know early next week. Send me an owl if you're interested, then talk to your parents about curse-breaking. The more you tell them the less I'll surprise them. I already know that both Harry and Sirius think you're brilliant. We'll talk about pay when I meet your parents."

"Is there anything I'd need to study?" Hermione asked.

Sirius and Hayley gave each other a high five. Sirius did the same with Harry. "Told ya," Harry said.

"Were you leading me on?" Hermione asked. Would they fake a job offer just to play a joke on her? That was cruel.

Hayley Shafiq set the young witch at ease, "Not at all. Harry and Sirius knew you'd want to be prepared. I'm more interested in how magic feels to you. It is like having an ear for music or an eye for design. I can describe it, but you have to feel it for yourself."

Hermione was both excited and frightened. She knew she excelled in studying and research. She didn't know if it was worth putting time and energy into something that didn't reward her academic strengths.

"Sirius, what do you think?" Hermione asked.

Harry reached around behind her and squeezed Hermione's shoulders until Sirius was ready to answer.

Sirius said, "Hmm," and then tilted his head to the side. A moment later he tilted the other way and said 'hmm' again. The two kids parroted the gesture and mocked him. Hayley simply giggled at kids being kids.

"I think it comes down to talent and interest. Have you worked outside the home before? Sirius asked.

"I babysat for a neighbor and a family friend a few weeks last summer." Her parents thought that 14-year-olds were mature enough to babysit. By next year she could drive the family car.

Sirius said, "So now you have to show up on time, properly dressed, and be ready to perform for money. You are still young enough that you don't know what you like. I'd take the job for a few weeks or a few months and find out if it suits you. Think of it as getting paid while you're dating your job.

"Everyone gets paid to solve other people's problems. You want to work on problems that are easy for you and hard for someone else." Sirius stopped to make sure he had Hermione's attention. Both the teenagers were listening. Even Hayley was following along.

"Your talents are the things you're naturally good at. Your interests are what you enjoy doing. And your skills are the useful habits you've developed through practice. Curse-breaking is both applied and experimental magic. Part of it is a science problem, and part is being an investigator and putting together a puzzle. Even if you were fantastic at it, you might not like it. Go play with it and find out."

Sirius thought curse breaking was also part improvisation like playing jazz. He kept that to himself since he didn't know how much exposure Harry and Hermione had to lesser-known forms of music.

"I think Hayley is a pretty fair boss, but I'll give you the name of Hayley's elf so you can find out what she is like to work with."

Harry had not thought about a job from that point of view. He was also surprised at how clearly Sirius had explained it. Maybe Sirius had a future in teaching or counseling.

Sirius was joking about the elf, but it brought up an important point for Hermione. "Do you make your elf work with dark magic?" Hermione asked. She was ready to end the association right here and now.

Hayley had an easy answer. "Corky is my partner. She gets a vote on which jobs we bid, and she gets 10 percent of the profits in her Gringotts account. She'll also get a vote on if we offer you a job."

Hermione was both relieved and concerned again. She wanted elves to be empowered, but now an elf could vote her off the team. Hermione leaned against Harry and breathed. What else could she do. She wondered what her mom and dad would think of all this.

Hayley saw the emotions play across Hermione's face. "What are your concerns?" Hayley asked the younger witch.

"People would be counting on me, and I might make a mistake," Hermione said.

"Good. You have to be conscientious to be a successful curse-breaker. We plan ahead so that we're safe if something goes wrong. We expect to make mistakes and recover from them. We have backup plans and equipment. Adults do that all the time.

"I'll bet you a butterbeer that your parents do the same sort of thing in their medical practice."

"Now that I'm 15, I get to have a glass of wine at home," Hermione corrected. The answer about the wine felt bold, but Hermione looked skeptical. Her parents talked about their patients but not about the mistakes they had made or the things that had gone wrong during the day.

"Then I'll bet you a glass of wine," Hayley replied. She hoped that she had helped the young witch move into a larger world that existed outside the school library.

"So tell us about this new place of yours?" Harry asked.

Sirius looked out the window while Hayley beamed. "He thought he could keep it a secret," she said.

Hayley tapped Sirius's shoulder. "You talk about it all the time. Share it with them," she said.

"I wanted a place that fit me. We needed room for family and for elves. We needed a place for Hayley to work without putting the neighbors at risk or violating the Statute of Secrecy.

"I didn't want her to be isolated like what happened to Pandora Lovegood, so we still needed to be close enough that we could get help if something went sideways. Grimwald Place had too much emotional baggage, so it was easier to sell it and start over."

Hermione and Harry knew that Luna's mom had died when a spell backfired. The two students did not know the details. In contrast, Sirius had lunch with Xeno Lovegood only a few weeks ago.

Sirius spoke up. "Harry, I want you to see the house and the construction drawings. I hope you'll live with me when you're not in school. I don't expect an answer right now, but if you want to live with us, or even visit very often, then I'd like your ideas about the house and the grounds. I hope you feel that the house is your home until you get a place of your own."

Harry noticed that Hayley smiled at the thought of him moving in with them. Both of the teenagers were intrigued. They had never been included in the decisions that made a house into a home. Harry thought that having a room that wasn't deadbolted from the outside was a definite improvement compared to his living arrangements with the Dursleys. As far as decorations went, Harry had seen enough Chudley Cannons posters to last a lifetime. If Harry was going to visit for more than a few days, then he should ask Dobby what he thought of the place and about his adopted family.

Sirius wondered if he had recovered enough to have Harry live with them full time. He still had bad days every now and again. Hayley had helped him find a rhythm to life that suited him. The thought of traveling and exploring with Hermione and the Grangers made him smile. There was no use having his wealth if he couldn't make some wonderful memories with it.

Sirius's face lit up. "Hermione, we can show you most of the Black library now that Hayley cleared it. I'd love it if we put your favorite chair and table into our library." He felt a warmth in his chest at the thought of the young witch studying in his family library.

"Harry, I have a few thousand Galleons for you when I sold your snake," he said.

Now Harry looked confused. "The basilisk? What? How did you get into the Chamber of Secrets without a Parselmouth?" Harry asked.

Sirius sat back and looked smug. He took a sip of his beer. It was a Marauder type solution. "There is often more than one answer to a problem. I asked Minerva if I could have access to the chamber. The goblins and I searched the grounds. The snake was obviously getting out of the chamber to hunt. That meant there had to be a second exit. It was also easier to portkey the snake away since the tunnel under the Quidditch pitch is outside the Hogwarts wards."

"I gave the money to your account manager." Sirius said.

Harry put up his hands to stop Sirius. "I don't want it." Harry said.

Hermione nodded along with Harry's decision, but Hayley looked concerned. "Harry, can we talk about that?" Hayley asked.

"Ah, maybe?" Harry said. He wanted to like Sirius's new girlfriend but he also wanted the whole sorry episode of the basilisk to go away. He squeezed Hermione's hand and enjoyed how warm it felt. Harry remembered how cold her hands were when she had been petrified by the snake.

Hayley wanted Harry's attention. "Sirius was hurt by the ministry. It hurts him to think about it. Do you think he should ignore it, or should he press charges and try to seek justice so it doesn't happen to anyone else?"

This time it was Hermione's turn to hug Harry. He said, "I.. I don't want something like that to happen to Sirius or to anyone else."

Hayley pressed him, "But it hurts him to relive it. There will come a time when it won't hurt any longer, but right now it does. What do you want Sirius to do?" she asked.

The two men looked at each other. These were real lives and real hurts they were talking about.

Harry said, "Will you be as brave as you can? I guess, do your best and ask for help." When he was done talking to Sirius, Harry looked over at Hayley to see what she would say.

"That is good advice, Harry. Don't be angry if Hermione reminds you of it from time to time. She is trying to help all of you. Not only the you that is here today, but the you of tomorrow and the day after," Hayley said.

"There are some lessons to learn about money. Lucius Malfoy wasn't a bad man because he was rich, nor a rich man because he was bad. Money is a tool, and your relative Charlus Potter used it to start many of the businesses in Diagon Alley. He did good by putting his money to work rather than giving it away."

The two teens were not children any longer. The youngsters had also seen some horrors that no one should have to see. They had to make their own decisions and begin to navigate their way through life.

For a moment, the two couples drank in silence and listened to their own thoughts.

HPHPHP

A few days later, it was after dinner when Hayley received an owl from young Hermione Granger. Hayley was surprised by the timing, but not by the message. The message was simple.

"White or red?" Hermione asked.

Hayley smiled. She and the young witch had bet a glass of wine. We all make mistakes. Some of us admit them rather than waste time trying to cover them up.

HPHPHP

Author's Notes- Feedback is appreciated. Feedback is essential if you want more stories like this. I used the Flying Horse magical restaurant from one of old-crow's stories. I like and recommend his work. Hayley Shafiq is my character, though I have read other stories with Sirius's girlfriend named Hestia which I loved too.

It is a little shallow to say that Hermione only cares if the new house has a big library. Would Harry like to cook or would he rather eat takeout after a decade of being the Dursley's house elf?

I get to write about goblins in the next chapter.