Who the actual fuck was or is Sirius Black?

It had been a trio of days since Harry learned the name, yet there was seemingly nothing about the man that he could find. Everything was kept all hush hush and articles about his trial were nowhere to be found. It was as if they simply threw the man in prison and locked away the key. His parents' will had been sealed and the man who was responsible for it was thrown in prison never to be seen from again.

Or so they had wished, because Sirius Black had escaped their 'unescapable' prison and was roaming the country freely. Was there anyone in this entire country who knew what they were doing? Dumbledore couldn't keep the supposedly 'safest place in the world' safe and now people were breaking out of the 'unescapable' prison on the minister's watch?

As far as Harry was concerned, it meant that things like usual were far out of his control and would come back around to probably bite him in the arse. But that was future Harry's problem, current Harry had a lot of money and a lot of free time to enjoy. Another thing that Harry didn't account for was not having to do his homework under the blankets by flashlight anymore. With his newfound freedom, he could sit in the bright sunshine outside Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor, finishing all his essays with occasional help from Florean Fortescue himself, who, apart from knowing a great deal about medieval witch burnings, gave Harry free sundaes every half an hour.

It was there that he spotted the beautiful blonde tanned teenage girl again, where he waved her over. She looked surprised to see him sitting there eating ice cream but nevertheless walked over to him.

"Fleur, right?" asked Harry with a hint of timidness, he knew how angry women could get if you got their name wrong.

"Yes" replied Fleur, "I don't know your name"

"My name is Harry" provided Harry, "Do you want to take a seat?"

Fleur looked at the seat that was across from Harry that he gestured to, his homework in front of him but the tome of advanced runes made her slightly more interested in the boy, however tiny the amount.

Fleur slid across from Harry as he waved his hand and all of the parchment from his homework rolled itself up, stopping in front of Harry, allowing him to grab the rolls and put them away in his bookbag for safekeeping. All that remained on the table was his tome of Runes and the notes that he was taking from the book.

Fleur smirked at Harry, her magic reaching out to feel the soft hum of magic from the runes that covered each roll of parchment.

"That's a cute party trick, you chained together a self-rolling rune with a motion sensor rune, then a positioning rune. All three of them are tied to your magical signature to boot, a solid quad rune array" analyzed Fleur

Harry smiled brightly at her, a lopsided display of teeth and genuine joy from the young boy across from her that made her smile in return.

"Yeah, you're good at this" noted Harry, "I've been trying to get into some of the more advance stuff"

"I see that" commented Fleur as she pointed at the book: 10,000 Runes from the Ancient World by A.N. Longbottom

"This book is a bit boring, but I am learning a lot, I want to try to make something of my own soon" admitted Harry

"Like what?" asked Fleur, humoring Harry.

"Well, I've read about how they made time turners, but I wanted to look into something that would help predict the future" said Harry

"You would need a lot of magic to power the runes, probability are something that change all the time. You wouldn't be able to factor in the choices that other people would make either. It's not to say that it's impossible, but the runes you would need to right would be nearly impossible without a team of masters" countered Fleur

"What about using Arthur's Theory of magical variation with Merlin's Principles of Magic?" asked Harry

Fleur shook her head, "Arthur's Theory only applies to magical variation in your own actions based on the condition of your body and magic, nothing more and nothing less. It is a personal application only. Merlin's Principles of Magic could work, letting magic guide the intent and decisions of the world, but again Arthur's Theory would keep it from expanding past what you know and understand"

"You know a lot about this, given it some thought?" questioned Harry

Fleur nodded and said "Yup" with a popping sound on the end of her 'p'.

"You'll find that most OWL students look into this kind of thing, but ultimately without an array that could absorb information from everyone in the world, it's a dead end" continued Fleur

"I guess I am ahead of the curve then" frowned Harry as he closed the book in front of him, "Glad to get it out of the way now rather than in 2 years"

Fleur hummed in appreciation as she grew curious how a fourth year was this advanced in runes, while Harry was wondering whether impressed that he was only a third year or that he was this far along.

"You need to refine the concept of runes" muttered Fleur, "Magic is so heavily influenced by intent. The broader and less details in your intent, the worse the magic will work. That's why accidental magic when you're a kid is so powerful. The intent and emotion behind the magic is some of the purest forms of spell casting"

"Noted" said Harry as he pulled out his small personal notebook and scribbled down Intent before closing the book and slipping it into his bookbag once more.

"You have a very solid foundation here Harry, between school and parents you should be able to polish off this and create some truly great rune arrays in the future" said Fleur as she finished reviewing all of Harry's notes on runes.

"I haven't got any parents" mumbled Harry but Fleur heard him all the same, her chest tightening at those words.

"Well, then I must say that your professors are truly amazing to get you this advanced in such a short period of time" said Fleur

"Oh, I haven't gotten around to taking that class yet, I will be starting this year" said Harry with a blushing face and a sloppy smile

"Then by all means, you're really smart then Harry" admitted Fleur, "Once you get some guidance in the subject, you might be stealing jobs from us at Gringotts"

"I think that is something I want to do" said Harry, "I haven't really given all that much thought on what I want to do after finishing school"

"This would be a good time for that" said Fleur as she stood up, "I got to go Harry, but I'll see you around"

Harry watched her leave, What a nice girl

The fluttering of wings caught his ears and Harry looked up to see an unfamiliar brown owl circling around him.

The owl landed and presented it's leg, allowing Harry to take the letter from it before flying off.

The long looping handwriting was very similar to the handwriting that had been on the note of his invisibility cloak: To Harry Potter

Harry opened it and found a short letter:

While I hope that this letter finds you great health, my boy, I must say that I am disappointed. Based on our last conversation, I was led to believe that you would do as you were told. Yet here we are during the summer break with you not at your relatives' house. I have the best intentions for you, Harry. I know what is best for you Harry I need you to listen to things that I tell you to do. It is not safe for you to venture outside of the house. You are to return home immediately upon reading this letter. If I have to come and get you, I will be most displeased. When you return to Hogwarts, we will have to discuss this type of behavior and how it will not be tolerated in the future.

Sincerely,
Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore

Harry read the letter once, twice, and then a third time. He was confused, Professor Dumbledore was not his legal guardian or was he? Who was he to tell him what to do?

Harry's shoved the letter into his backpack, slinging it over his shoulders, before grabbing his tome and notes in his arms and walking back to the apartment. Before Harry could get inside the building, he felt a hand on his shoulder. Harry looked up at the owner of the hand on his shoulder and felt a bucketful of ice churn inside of his stomach. He had walked right into Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic himself. Harry recognized him from the newspapers that he saw in the Alley.

Fudge steered Harry through the apartment building, stopping at the door of the apartment owned by his godfather before tapping his wand, opening the door.

"Sit down, Harry," said Fudge, indicating a chair by the fire.

Harry sat down, feeling goose bumps rising up his arms despite the glow of the fire. Fudge took off his pinstriped cloak and tossed it aside, then hitched up the trousers of his bottle-green suit and sat down opposite Harry.

"I am Cornelius Fudge, Harry. The Minister of Magic."

Harry already knew this, of course; he had seen Fudge once before, but as he had been wearing his father's Invisibility Cloak at the time, Fudge wasn't to know that.

"I recognize you from the newspapers" said Harry before he softly added "Sir"

Fudge smiled as he waved his wand to summon a tray of tea and crumpets on a small table between the two of them

"Well, Harry," said Fudge, pouring out tea, "you've had us all in a right flap, I don't mind telling you. Running away from your aunt and uncle's house like that! I'd started to think... but you're safe, and that's what matters."

Fudge buttered himself a crumpet and pushed the plate toward Harry.

"I was unaware my summer location was a government matter, surely you have more important things to worry about than a twelve-year-old" questioned Harry

Fudge smiled at Harry over the rim of his teacup, rather like an uncle surveying a favorite nephew. Harry, who couldn't believe his ears, opened his mouth to speak, couldn't think of anything to say, and closed it again.

"Who is more important than The Boy Who Lived?" said Fudge. "I won't deny that there are always going to be more pressing matters around the office. But to the public at large, there is nothing more important than making sure that you are safe and sound. Plus Dumbledore reach out to me and told me that you had run away from home"

Harry felt his stomach boil with fear and took a sip of tea, trying to drown the flames of anger and fear inside.

"I always stay at Hogwarts for the Christmas and Easter holidays," he said, "and I don't ever want to go back to Privet Drive."

"Now, now, I'm sure you'll feel differently once you've calmed down," said Fudge in a worried tone. "They are your family, after all, and I'm sure you are fond of each other - er - very deep down."

"They hate me" muttered Harry without thinking

"Excuse me?" hissed Fudge, the polite uncle like behavior fading away almost instantly as his sharp ears had managed to pick up on Harry's softly spoken words, "Repeat yourself at once"

"My family isn't very fond of me" whispered Harry. "They hate everything to do with magic, including me"

Fudge's eyes narrowed and his face turned emotionless as he took several deep breaths as Fudge seem to be trying to regain control of his emotions.

After a moment, Fudge smiled at Harry, this time much more softly than before. This was a real smile, not the politician version he had seen earlier.

"That is something I will look into" said Fudge, now buttering himself a second crumpet, "But what I want to do is enjoy your time here"

Upon seeing Harry's surprised face, Fudge continued to say, "You're going to spend the last of your vacation here in the Alley. I will station an additional squad of Aurors here to patrol but you can remain here until it's time for school"

"Hang on," blurted Harry. "What about what Dumbledore said?"

Fudge blinked. "Dumbledore?"

"He sent me this letter" said Harry as he produced the letter and handed it to Fudge.

Fudge read it and crumpled it before blasting it with a small burst of flames from the tip of his wand, "Do not worry my dear child, Dumbledore cannot tell you what to do while you are on your summer vacation. He is your headmaster, it's time he remembers that is his only title"

Harry nodded with a small bubble of excitement in his chest, a small flutter of hope building inside of him.

"What of my parent's will?" asked Harry

"Oh yes, that" said Fudge, the man shifting in his seat uncomfortably, "It was sealed during the war because we had bigger things to worry about. We had to rebuild most of the wizarding world"

"Can we unseal it?" asked Harry

"I honestly don't see why not" admitted Fudge, "I will send in the paperwork, and it should take a couple days. Even the Minister of Magic still has to deal with administrative process"

Harry forced a laugh when Fudge laughed at his own joke. Fudge polished off his snack before checking his watch and gasping.

"I must be going Harry" said Fudge as he stood up, "One last thing. I don't want you wandering off into Muggle London, all right? Keep to Diagon Alley. And you're to be back here before dark each night. Sure you'll understand. My Aurors will be keeping an eye on you for me."

"Okay," said Harry slowly, "but why?"

"Don't want to lose you again, do we?" said Fudge with a hearty laugh. "No, no... best we know where you are... I mean..."

Fudge cleared his throat loudly and picked up his pinstriped cloak. "Well, I'll be off, plenty to do, you know..."

"Have you had any luck with Black yet?" Harry asked.

Fudge's finger slipped on the silver fastenings of his cloak.

"What's that? Oh, you've heard - well, no, not yet, but it's only a matter of time. The Azkaban guards have never yet failed... and they are angrier than I've ever seen them."

And with that Harry was alone in the apartment as Fudge walked out the door, the man seemed a little fearful as he left. Sirius Black must have been one extremely dangerous man. And if that was the case, then Harry needed to be better prepared for the man.

But how was the real question, Harry knew that he learned best by actually practicing magic as his last two years at Hogwarts had shown him. His understanding of magic and magical theory had always been solid, but his ability to actually cast spells had always been his better half.

And as much as he wished that he could just start practicing spells, he also knew that the Ministry of Magic had the ability to track his casting of spells and that was the last thing he wanted to get in trouble for.

How exactly do they do that?

Harry would spend the next couple of days taking a deep dive into that, trying and failing to understand how the Ministry was able to tell that underage witches and wizards were casting magic.

He was sitting on the bench outside the apartments when a large black dog came sprinting by with something in it's mouth. Harry looked at the dog as it dropped the thing in it's mouth with a soft plop!

Harry stood up and looked at the item, finding a book titled Magically Suppressed: A history of the Ministry's power grab over our lives by Bathilda Bagshot

Harry looked around for something maybe chasing the dog that had clearly ran off with this book, but he found nobody coming after it. So, he just picked up the book and held it in his hands, skimming the table of contents for anything that would give him some idea of what the book contained.

The book was a lot about history of the Ministry and it's impact on the magical world, but it was a little less boring than the crap that Binn put them through in his class. Harry was near the end of the book when he found what he was looking for.

The Trace is a charm which allowed the Ministry to know of magic cast in the vicinity of wizards and witches who were under seventeen years of age. When any magical activity was performed in the vicinity of the underage individual, the runes inscribed all throughout the handle of the wand are tracked by the charm and reported to the Improper Use of Magic Office within the Ministry of Magic.

The Ministry will always be alerted to the spell that was used and to the location of the caster and the time it was cast. The charm and runes allow the Ministry to track underage magic, which was banned under the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery. The Trace automatically broke upon a wizard or witch's seventeenth birthday, as the young witch or wizard's magic power the runes on the wand.

Harry frowned as he looked at his wand, the trace was something that he would probably not be broken until he was 17 years, almost 4 years and a couple months away. So maybe there was nothing that he could do.

"You look overly lost in thought" said a teasing familiar voice, drawing Harry's attention as he looked up from his found book to see Fleur looking at him.

"I am" admitted Harry

"About what?" asked Fleur

"I want to practice magic over the summer, but I can't because of the Trace unfortunately" said Harry

"Ah, the Trace is something I would love study, it is a rather unique set of runes" said Fleur as she glanced down to Harry's wand, "Do you want me to see if I can break yours?"

Harry's eyes bounced between his wand and Fleur, struggling to find an answer in his mind, this was his wand.

"How can I trust you?" asked Harry, his voice coming out soft and scared

"I can make a magical vow to you" said Fleur

Harry looked at Fleur, his green eyes meeting her blue ones and he felt a warmth fill his body, his magic racing like a river as he maintained eye contact.

"Break my wand and magic wouldn't save you" whispered Harry and Fleur nodded as she felt her entire body get wrapped in ice and the threat hung over her like an anchor in one of those muggle cartoons, "I want it back by the end of the day"

Harry extended his wand to her as she nodded her understanding and Harry watched her walk away before making his way back to his apartment. He was slightly distracted, so he missed that the door was already unlocked. But he did not miss the large black dog sitting on the couch in the living room, nor the fact that it morphed into a dirty man.

"Sirius Black" whispered Harry

The man nodded and he stood up, Harry's eyes trained on the wand in his right hand. It was pointed downwards, but Harry was still on edge as he watched the man approach him before pulling him into a tight hug.

"Harry" whispered Sirius near Harry's ear as he planted kiss on top of Harry's unruly hair, his left hand softly rubbing up and down Harry's back, "I am so sorry for not being there before, but I escaped as soon as I could. I noticed the new wards over the apartment and figured you must have been here"

"Oh" said Harry as Sirius released the hug and took a step back, "I'm confused"

"You look just like James did when he was your age, except for the eyes. That's all Lily" noted Sirius

"What's going on here?" asked Harry, his confusion continuing

"I'm your Godfather" said Sirius with a confused look on his face himself now, "Surely Dumbledore would have told you. He oversaw the ceremony himself and was even the witness for the will signing declaring it for the entire world"

Harry felt his chest fill with burning shards of ice, "Dumbledore?"

"Yeah, the old wanker, where is he?" asked Sirius as he looked around, "He's supposed to help me capture the man who helped You-Know-Who kill your parents"

Harry shivered before he collapsed, his ears hearing Sirius scream his name as he blacked out from overload of the information that Sirius was providing him.

With Fleur:

Putting Harry's wand into the magical scanner was on the funniest moments of her life. Wands were not something wizards or witches parted with freely, let along something that they let people run experiments on. The results of said scanning was a 22-page list of runes and enchantments on the wand. Her eyes were wide with excitement, this was very much different from the simple heating enchantments placed on objects that owners put to prevent people from stealing their property. This was layers upon layers on magic weaved together.

Fleur had let her eyes scan the pages, failing to understand the first 10 pages that made the wand work like a wand. She was able to put that together as she noticed that there was line after line that symbolized the channeling of power, but she couldn't make out more than that. The runes were probably coded or tied to a family blood line so that this exact thing couldn't happen to allow their secrets to be revealed to an outsider.

After that, she was able to easily pick apart the remaining runes. And what she found was simpler than she had thought. The first set of runes were a personalized age line, keyed to the owner of the wand's magic specifically to track them until they came of age.

The answer was so simply that Fleur almost wanted to slap herself in the face, the ward was tied to the wand and the registered owner of the wand that was made official at the purchasing of the wand.

By linking the wand and magic of the owner of the wand, they were able to create a second set of runes that was used to identify the length, core, and owner of the wand. Fleur had been to the ministry, this was why they scanned the wands upon entering the building, this set of runes allowed them to do so, allowing them to have record who and what wand entered the government building.

It was what came after those basic runes that made Fleur pause. Her magic was soft and fine, like a single thread of fabric that was pushed through the eye of a sowing needle. It was meant to be used to feel out other people's magic as well as allow her to weave her magic through other sets of magic. It was what allowed her to be so good at runes and enchanting, her magic was like a needle in the haystack, effortlessly sliding into the rougher broader magic of others.

She had felt this magical signature before, it was one that she felt when she had chosen to apply for her working papers to do this internship here in England. He had been there with the Minister who had spoken with her own headmaster to get the approval. She would never forget meeting someone that famous before.

Albus Dumbledore had a very strange magical signature, it was cold and angry like the icy wind in winter blizzard. It also felt old, like it was much older than the man himself, like as old as Death itself. His magical signature did not match the personality of the old great wizard, but Fleur had chalked it up to the wand of the wizard. He was over 100 years old and had fought in a world war as well as England's own civil war, he might have caused his fair amount of death in his defense of the Light side.

Nevertheless, his magic was something that Fleur would be able to recognize no matter where she felt it, it was so different from anyone else that she had ever felt in her lifetime. So, imagine her surprise when she felt it wrapped inside Harry's wand and upon looking at the runes, found out why she felt the magic of the old headmaster in Harry's wand.

The old man was using his magic and runes to create a written list of every spell that Harry cast with his wand. The headmaster was clearly spying on Harry, who obviously didn't know it.

Looking further into the runes of Harry's wand allowed Fleur to notice that Harry's trace ward had been altered by Dumbledore. Instead of just triggering the ward in areas where clearly there should be no magic, such as his summer housing with his muggle family. The ward had been made to activate basically everywhere but his time at Hogwarts, as there was a location-based set of runes added to the trace ward. Fleur whistled as she couldn't lie, despite being a creepy stalker of a headmaster, the old man knew exactly what he was doing with his runes being layered almost perfectly not to be noticeable effecting the performance of Harry.

The keep word was almost, the runes that Dumbledore and added were originally crafted by the bearded wizard and thus bared his magical signature. However, since the old man wasn't able to just take Harry's wand from him and recharge the wards with his own magic every couple of weeks, that led Fleur to the last rune.

This rune placed directly onto the bottom of the wand, the circular round end of the handle, the part of the wand that faced the owner of the wand when the wand tip was pointed at anything away from the owner. This rune was put there to drain Harry of his magic every time he placed his hand on his wand. The drain on Harry wasn't some massive life changing drain, but Harry had been using about 85 percent of his entire magical strength.

Every spell, every counter curse, every time Harry raised his wand in defense of his life which from what Fleur had learned was fairly often, Harry had been unable to give it his 100 percent. And it was through no fault of his own, but rather the efforts of his weird headmaster, Fleur had lost all respect for the supposedly great bearded wizard.

With all of the knowledge on what was put on the wand, Fleur got to work. She started scripting runes together to create the opposite effect for each of Dumbledore's placed runes as well as the personalized trace ward on Harry's wand. She worked through her lunch period and despite one 15-minute break to do her actual job and break the ruins on a music box, she continued to plot out her masterpiece.

It was nearing the end of her workday when she finished, the runes that she had created to fix Harry's wand had taken up a lot of her available runes paper. She could ignore that for the moment, as she placed Harry's wand in the middle of the runes before she channeled her magic into her carved work and watched as it glowed a bright green before her magic crackled through the runes and she was forced to close her eyes as the light grew too bright to keep her eyes open.

As the green light disappeared, she ran the wand through the scanner once more just to get the 10 pages that made the wand work like a wand again. Fleur smiled brightly as she had cracked a code that was would not be easily figured out by just anyone. Dumbledore for all his inexcusable behavior, was still nothing short of being a genius who was generally unmatched by anyone.

'What did I just uncover?' thought Fleur as she packed up all of her belongs and headed home.

A/N: The story progresses and anyone who says different is obviously just a conspiracy theorist. This is not a bashing fanfic, this is more of a vote of no confidence fanfic where Harry is very untrusting, because he's already been exposed to things that make him feel like he can't trust certain individuals such as Dumbledore or Snape. But that doesn't mean he doesn't trust anybody, right obviously you still have Ron and Hermione and you're gonna have Sirius Black and you're gonna have Fleur in the mix as well.

I am trying to write something quality based rather than fast or short because I could pump out 2k chapter just about every day, but that's now how chunks of the story are meant to be told.

Also Harry is still very young in this story, he's closing in on 13, but Fleur thinks he's already 14 because her school takes the OWLs at 16 not 15 like Hogwarts. I want you to keep in mind this because when POV's change, Fleur is much smarter, skilled, and abled than Harry. Harry is not naïve, but he's still new to this and you'll see his thinking evolve and grow as he does.

Lastly, please join my amazing discord with invite code: 2WN5erfD

I am planning a christman giveaway of shorts and would love to have you guys in there to be potentially selected.

Until Next Time: HighKey_Mars out