Chapter 57: The way to greatness

Grimmauld was, Sirius found, much easier to bear now that he wasn't confined to the house for weeks and months on end. There were bad memories, sure – but it wasn't all there was to it. A couple of good ones, too, and perhaps more nostalgy for something that could have been than actual moments of the past.

...Of course, his brand new body and the lack of constant nightmares and aches – though his latest dreams involving the sister he'd never had weren't quite helping – was probably a big step up, too.

Searching through Regulus' room for his brother's notes on horcruxes was, on the other hand, not the most pleasant experience. Sirius would have told him to do it himself, except that would involve Regulus being brought into the Fidelius, and for now...

It wasn't that he couldn't trust his brother – not anymore – but more that these headquarters, while belonging to the House of Black, were also a safe space for more than just Sirius. Regulus' standing with the Order of the Phoenix wasn't yet that good, and as his brother hadn't asked, there was no point in forcing it one way or another.

"Well that's... a lot of compulsive documenting?"

Sirius looked up from the stack of books by the side of Regulus' desk with a frown.

Bellatrix was, arguably, a worse choice to help him around the Order's headquarters – she'd slept in one of the guest rooms back when they were both younger, but that was hardly the point – but Sirius could order her around, unlike Regulus, and she could see the house anyway, most likely because of their link. If anyone had reservations, arguing about it would be terribly easy.

Also, Sirius had questions about Voldepants' habits, and if there was a Death Eater who might, possibly, have answers about that...

Bella, for now, was tilting her head at the newspaper clippings on a wall, next to the family crest.

"Oh, the Dark Bastard's Fanboy Behavior?"

Regulus had cringed, back at the manor, when Sirius had used those words to qualify his teenaged years, so of course his older brother had decided to keep going: it was, after all, absolutely truthful.

The knowledge of such a reality had, however, sent Sirius' brother on his way to his house visiting endeavor without giving more details as to where exactly in his old bedroom Sirius should look.

Bella shook her head and wandered over.

"What are you looking for, exactly?"

...Horcruxes weren't a subject Sirius had talked about with his dead cousin, and he wasn't entirely sold on sharing, no matter that he did trust her – and could force her to be worth that trust, should it come to that.

He could, however, tell her just enough to push her into being useful anyway.

"Regulus found something out, not too long before he almost died, something about your darling bastard, and that's what first got him to change his mind. We already recovered the object, and I knew about it too, from Dumbledore and Harry, and on another level from Dad and Grandfather Arcturus, there's even a couple of books back at the manor on the subject, but I want to have a look at what Regulus thought of it all, back then. What he guessed on his own."

A dusty tome appeared under Runic Systems and Foreign Variations, with several pieces of paper sticking out between the thick pages. It had no title, only a dark embossing of a vertical eye without eyelashes – exactly the kind of book that was too old and obscure to have ever been widely spread.

Possibly a grimoire, or maybe a personal chronicle.

It could be something else entirely, but potentially... Sirius gingerly took the tome – then reconsidered, put it back on the desk, and put on his safety gloves. Just in case.

Bellatrix hummed by his side, amused despite herself.

"What?"

"Oh, nothing. Just, the spiderweb pattern, Nebula Spinera's hairclip..."

Sirius rolled his eyes and opened the book – for real, this time.

The spine seemed to shiver for a moment, but nothing more happened.

He'd still keep the gloves on.

"I'm going to buy a spidersilk cloak from the Fawleys, if you think that's so damn hilarious..."

"I mean, it's not a bad idea? You have the money, and starspiders' silk is fireproof. Also, what kind of object were you talking about exactly?"

Sirius hummed in the way someone who wasn't really listening would: this was, actually, a written account from the twelfth century – and also in Russian.

Sirius and Regulus had had Russian lessons from one of their tutors, a middle-aged witch "who had made the mistake of trusting a muggle man once and would never do so again" – Sirius' understanding of her personal history was that her engagement to a muggle had turned sour, a few unwise hexes had flown, and the USSR's distrust of anything "deviant" had done the rest, forcing her to leave the country – but that had been a long time ago.

He might manage a simple conversation, perhaps – and he could still read the Cyrillic alphabet, but a whole book was asking for a lot.

Sirius sat in the chair and put the dusty tome before him, looking for a translation quill or whatever Regulus had used, back in 1979, to get through this book. Translation quills were... approximative at best, with no nuance of intent and a hazardous grasp of polysemy, though they had gotten better with grammar since their invention a few centuries back, and if you had a few notions of the language beforehand, they could be enough to understand a complex text... eventually.

While rummaging through the desk's drawer, Sirius vaguely answered Bella's question:

"An old artefact that Voldemort had... modified... and hidden away. We're still trying to destroy it, and my historical enthusiast ass is just that much pissed at the asshole, even if I don't really find the artefact itself that engaging."

Maybe Regulus had done the translation all by himself. What did Sirius know? They hadn't spoken for several years, and even before that... His brother might have had a pen pal from Koldovstoretz at some point, or any other reason for him to keep working on his written Russian.

"Pretty sure Regulus is even more pissed than me, actually. I care about history, he cares about tradition, and that's even worse there..."

What was that? Something round and hard, deep inside the drawer. It rolled away when Sirius' fingers brushed against it – but the drawer wasn't infinite, and the wizard got it with his second try.

It was a small potion bottle, with perhaps three sips left in it, a purple wax seal over the cork, and a tag with "Russian" scribbled upon it in Cyrillic.

Sirius' eyebrows rose high.

"Look at that... A tongue-sharing elixir! Wonder where he got that one..."

"Show me?"

He held it up for Bella to get a better look at the tag – she clicked her tongue and nodded to herself:

"Karkaroff. That's his handwriting, and if we're talking tongue-sharing, it's always better to have a native speaker with a good vocabulary and a large field of knowledge make the elixir. Karkaroff was not my favorite person, but he was Russian and well-read."

Sirius considered his cousin for a moment.

"...You had good grades in Potions, that's true. It paled compared to your dueling skills, but..."

The ghost shrugged, uncomfortable.

"I wasn't interested in locking myself away in a lab, but I did consider working with potions in other ways. Giving advice, managing a shop, something..."

They both knew what had become of those considerations: Bellatrix Black had never actually needed a job, and Bellatrix Lestrange had had other considerations in mind, other ambitions.

"I guess it was too mundane and quiet a life for you, uh?"

Before the ghost could decide if she wanted to answer that – her face seemed distinctly hesitant – Sirius shifted the conversation back to its original topic:

"So Regulus and Karkaroff knew each other, then? I mean, enough for the man to give him a potion that utilizes the deeper, instinctive knowledge of his native language to temporarily pour it into someone else's brain?"

Bellatrix squinted at him.

"...I don't know if they were ever aware of the other as a fellow Death Eater, if that's what you're asking, but Karkaroff came to London around the time you left this house, and the social circles he frequented both led him straight to the dark lord and happened to overlap with Regulus'. I think he might have been invited to the Slug Club at some point, too."

"...Eh."

Sirius stared at the bottle some more.

"You aren't thinking of drinking it, are you?"

"There's a wax seal over the cork, it's not like it's been exposed to the ambient air and dust..."

The ghost, her hands twitching, looked like she wanted to grab the elixir out of his hands – or possibly vanish it before he could do anything else – except her hands would only pass through the bottle and she couldn't use magic anymore.

"It's what, seventeen years old?! It could poison you, or, or, I don't know! Completely erase English from your mind and make you a Russian-speaking asshat for the rest of your life!"

Sirius turned away slightly as he twisted off the wax sealing – magical, of course, it could reform in the blink of an eye if you put the cork back on the bottle.

"Tongue-sharing elixirs aren't likely to turn bad with time, as long as they've been properly stored. I had good grades in Potions too, if you remember. As long as Karkaroff was a decent potioner, I've got almost nothing to worry about."

Bella's face twisted unpleasantly.

"If you fall down and start convulsing, I'll go fetch your buddies in the kitchen and tell them you need help to cure your absolute lack of self-preservation."

Frank, Alice and Dedalus were all at Grimmauld right now – or at least they'd been there about half an hour ago, when Sirius had flooed in with his personal ghost – so yeah, Sirius wasn't that worried: even if this didn't go well, help wasn't far.

He noted, however, that Bellatrix hadn't even thought about letting him choke in his own blood, no matter how unlikely that was to happen.

To him, that definitely looked like moral and personal progress.

Sirius chuckled and rose the potion bottle in mock cheer.

"You're one to talk, Bella."

The ghost didn't have an answer to that, so Sirius took a slow sip of the elixir – and didn't die on the spot, though it did taste a bit... spicy.

His tongue tingling, he smacked his lips a couple of times and glanced at the first page of the tome.

1147, Yuriev Monastery

Zosimas Likhud, monk

I did not choose this retreat into muggle faith, but I feel it is a better alternative to the war my father wished to rain upon our neighbors. A show of good faith, that we are not so different after all, may save us all.

Besides, I can say relief is strong in my heart as I am now allowed solitude.

This retreat will also allow me, I hope, to look into the matter of souls: some magic, oftentimes dangerous and volatile, deal in their manipulation, but we of magic cannot define more of their nature. The muggle church, however, believes in their sanctity, and perhaps, under its guidance, I will be able to gain more knowledge.

If nothing else, a different perspective can only help.

Sirius looked back up at Bella with a frown.

"Well, it sure does work. Some of the phrasing seems a bit weird, but that's likely because of the eight-centuries time difference. And, look: not dead!"

It was also, possibly, the right book: no "Of Horcruxes" in the title, but the monk's focus seemed to be on souls, and if Sirius went and took a look at the various bookmarks Regulus had left towards the middle of the tome, he might find more pointed mentions.

Bellatrix stared at him for a moment – then rubbed the bridge of her nose, exasperated:

"You're talking in Russian, asshat."

"What, no! I... Oh, wait. No, you're right. Maybe the elixir was a bit out of date."

He could still understand English, and even speak it – but he needed to think about it and focus, which wasn't how a tongue-sharing elixir usually worked.

Eh. He'd worry about it if it didn't wear off. For now, though...

Sirius turned the page to the first bookmark:

I've heard rumors about a breath thief further North, a man who comes into isolated houses and kills the inhabitants, taking their lives for his own. Muggles whisper about a monster, an inhuman-looking cadaver haunting the wilderness; they do not seem to blame wizarding folks yet, but I think it is a dark wizard clinging to life despite old age, perhaps fueling it with the souls of innocents.

There isn't much I can do about those rumors, but I do not like the tales I hear.

...Yeah, Sirius wouldn't have liked hearing about those, either. Especially as this was before the Statute of Secrecy, and such actions could easily lead muggles to fear witches and wizards, sparking unrest and violence – on top of that, even knowing about magic wouldn't have protected the locals from whoever was going around killing people.

All the drawbacks of the magical world not being hidden, and none of the advantages, in this case.

The next bookmark was a dozen pages further into the book:

Hedeon told me Father ran afoul of the wandering dark wizard: he might survive, but he will never see again. Father should have killed the criminal, too, but he seemingly survived an axe thrown into his chest and ran away in an explosion of ashes and wind.

Sirius bit his lower lip and wondered if that was what had happened with Voldemort, back when...

When James and Lily had died, when Harry had been protected by Lily's sacrifice. Part of the house had been gutted by a violent explosion, as the killing curse had somehow rebounded back towards the caster – but killing curses didn't cause explosions, usually.

The next few bookmarks were about several theories, leading down several uses of the Dark Arts – until Sirius' eyes fell on a rough sketch of Slytherin's locket, tucked between the pages.

It wasn't a very good representation: several of the details were slightly wrong, and there were no colors to indicate either the gold or the emeralds. That was probably what Regulus meant when he'd said he'd made a rough copy of the locket from Kreacher's description.

Bella leaned over his shoulder and asked:

"...Is that Slytherin's?"

Sirius almost dragged the sketch well over whatever was written on the page under it – then he realized it was still written in Russian and there was no point hiding it from Bellatrix.

The wizard licked his lips contemplatively.

"...Yes, yes, it is. I told you Voldepants was using historical artefacts for his bullshit. That's the one Regulus stole, and don't you dare, I mean it Bellatrix, don't you breathe a word of this to anyone. I'd rather not have him die on me again."

Regulus was in enough danger without Voldemort knowing that he had purposefully betrayed him.

The ghost winced as if in pain before floating away, an odd look on her face.

"I wouldn't have even if you hadn't ordered me to keep quiet."

Sirius scoffed and went back to Zosimas Likhud's witness account with a scowl.

"Better safe than sorry, in this..."

The gist of it was that the wandering dark mage's horcrux was, surprisingly, an enormous piece of rock in the middle of nowhere, with no obvious tell except for the muggle-repellent charms around the area and the winding path that did not lead to it unless you picked up the right pebble about halfway through.

At some point, the monk had managed to trap the dark wizard inside a blackened mirror, buying himself some time – but not enough, probably – to get rid of the horcrux.

Horcruxes are incredibly difficult to destroy, needing either potent dark spells or very destructive poisons and acids. I suspect the passage of time itself may eventually wear them out until they are so degraded they will not count as the unit they were at the time of creation, but we do not have the luxury of waiting for the rain to wash this rock away.

Fortunately, there seem to be no more protections added around the horcrux itself, only the misdirecting scenery. Enchantments could have been written into the rock before its turning into a dark artefact, making it even more difficult to destroy.

I will attempt, in the following weeks, to plant a seeping oak tree within the rock and accelerate its growth with a vitality potion, in the hope it will split it open as it grows. If this does not suffice, I do not know what else could be done. Abelyar Alexeyev will not remain forever within the mirror.

...Trapping the dark bastard inside an enchantment didn't sound like a bad idea, even if it would only bring the world a short respite: Voldemort wasn't stupid, and on top of that, he had lackeys to break him out in no time – such traps were well protected from within, rarely so from without.

Unless Sirius – or anyone, he wasn't picky and didn't particularly mind someone else getting the main role – could do that in secret, without anyone knowing why the dark bastard was nowhere to be seen anymore, and then find a way to keep it so, this would be a lot of risks for little rewards.

It'd be nice, though: imagine another ten years or so without Voldemort hovering, kind of like when he almost died last time... And this time, they'd know to look for his horcruxes, destroy them before he could come back so that he'd be fully mortal once again by the end of it.

Well, maybe not an entire decade: at full strength, a trap might last a month or two before the asshole broke out even without help. Not a great solution, but Sirius would keep the option in mind.

For now, though...

Sirius flipped through the next few pages, looking for mentions of success – or failure. He had no rock to break open, but even so, learning about alternatives to fiendfyre and basilisk venom would indicate that specific cases had unique solutions, depending on the nature of the horcrux and the protections woven into it.

"Sirius."

The wizard blinked away, letting the retelling of how the seeping oak tree had, indeed, parted the horcrux in two – also causing significant damage to the roots and dragging the dark mage out of his trap, but it had worked and there might still be a large poisonous oak standing in Novgorod's countryside. The monk had gotten injured, targetted by the criminal – until the sheer amount of magical forces called upon had dislodged one of the rock's halves, causing it to fall right on the dark wizard's head and crushing him instantly.

Bella still had that weird look on her face.

"What?"

"You said there were several such artefacts, right?"

Sirius paused for a moment, replaying the last conversation. He'd slipped up, yeah... Better not to make a big deal of it, Bellatrix still didn't know what kind of dark objects they were talking about.

"...Possibly, yes."

The ghost's eyes slipped far away, her mind obviously onto something.

Sirius wasn't ready for her to know such information – yet, and maybe ever – so he derailed her train of thought with a question he, in fact, had been meaning to ask:

"Speaking of the Dark Arts, Bellatrix. What's your expertise on the matter of inferi?"

His cousin didn't answer right away – but she'd heard him nonetheless, and after a moment, she did move on from her musings.

She looked mildly disgusted, too.

"Filthy. Occasionally useful, but honestly not worth the hassle. Duncan Selwyn has always been the one mass-preparing the dark... Voldemort's inferi, at least since he joined in 1975."

Sirius frowned, nodding carefully.

"That's around when the number of inferi sky-rocketed, right... I suppose others use them too, but Selwyn is the one who makes them best?"

Bellatrix let out a cold, unamused laugh:

"More like he's the only one who doesn't mind playing with cadavers days in and days out. When the dark lord wanted a great number of inferi for a public attack, or, I don't know, to lay a trap for trespassers, the unmarked guys would have to go and find dead bodies for him to convert. Some raided funeral homes, others went out and just... killed random people. Occasionally we'd bring him a specific victim, too, it all depended on the goal. I know the... I know Voldemort tasked him with sending several inferi to an unknown location through a displacement ritual for an entire year, at some point, but even Selwyn has no idea of where they ended up."

Sirius didn't bother forcing English out of his mouth as he mumbled:

"Yeah, pretty sure I know exactly where that is."

"You're speaking Russian again."

He waved the ghost off and closed the old tome, having found what he'd been looking for.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. You reckon Selwyn is still on inferius-duty?"

Bella eyed him suspiciously for a time, but eventually let it go and snorted.

"Kind of difficult to find someone willing to constantly dig into human flesh and viscera, so yeah, definitely. Part of the reason Duncan wasn't even a suspect before I ratted him out is that he was almost never out in Death Eater garb, he'd rather stay in the shadows and cut up muggle corpses."

Sirius got up from his – well, Regulus' – chair and rolled his eyes.

"That's one interesting fellow you've got there. Let me guess, a bit cruel around the edge, maybe slightly paranoid, and I'd wager he's also not very social, if he only interacts with cadavers?"

The ghost crossed her arms and gave her cousin a long, drawn-out look of agreement:

"Duncan's got a daughter, actually. A ghostly one. No idea who the mother is, but the girl died very young and I'm almost certain her father tried to resurrect her or something of the kind, leading him right into necromancy. Never left it, either, and he's only been getting worse over the years."

That was more than Sirius needed to know, probably, but he'd take the knowledge nonetheless: he'd freely admit that he had a bit of a problem when it came to figuring out why people were assholes based on their family history.

Bella added, almost as an afterthought:

"Even back in school, Duncan was a bit of a creep, so I'm not entirely surprised he went down that road, but the Death Eaters really made him... worse."

"It's when you say shit like that that I wonder how you ever thought joining was such a great opportunity, Bellatrix. Everyone there seems to be absolutely out of their mind, even those who mask it well. Take Snape, he's halfblooded and probably still in love with a muggleborn, and somehow that didn't stop him from buying into the dark bastard's bullshit... Or Malfoy, Narcissa's piece of shit. Ambition is good and all, but Nymphadora saw him around Arundells and apparently he's so damn addicted to dark magic rushes that he can't even notice his wife's reluctance. Everyone's a murderer or close enough, and most of them would sell their friends out if it meant..."

Sirius bit down on his lower lip and decided to close the discussion there, heading for the door before Bella could try and answer him – or worse, before the ghost turned the tables on him by asking about Peter.

She might even do it out of concern, not even from a need to rub his face in his own mistakes.

He'd barely closed the door behind him – Bellatrix was a ghost, she could pass through the wall if needs be – that one of his mirrors chirped inside his breast pocket.

Sirius stopped in his tracks, right hand fishing clumsily inside – should have gotten robes with pockets on the right side – as he shushed Bellatrix, who'd just followed him out of Regulus' old bedroom, before she could try and say anything.

It wasn't his Order mirror, as the compact little thing usually reacted with three long notes – so this was Harry calling him.

The older, simpler round mirror – a bit larger than the newer one, but also less easy to hold – that James and him had enchanted once upon a time was, indeed, showing a reflection that wasn't Sirius'.

Harry didn't look hurt, which was... probably not the first thing his godfather should notice, but.

He felt he had ample reason to start with that.

"Uh, Sirius?"

"I'm here, yeah. Everything's alright at school?"

The boy – teenager, almost an adult now – made a face, probably thinking of a few different things – daily school life, nothing to worry about in the long term.

"Sure... Snape's an ass, Slughorn's a bit weird but nice enough, I suppose. I have..."

Harry seemed to struggle with whatever he'd wanted to say.

Instead, he mumbled something else:

"...Hagrid's disappointed because we didn't keep Care of Magical Creatures, I guess. But, after what Malfoy did... I mean, I'm sure Hagrid's lessons could have been better, but the year you were... there... There was that mess with Buckbeak because Malfoy couldn't follow simple instructions and had to be a smartass, and after that Hagrid just kind of... lost all confidence? Almost all the classes were boring and barely useful, so..."

Sirius winced for his godson and shook his head:

"Did you tell Hagrid that?"

"What, that we hated his lessons? Of course not!"

"No, that he's been too careful and perhaps running in circles with his classes, so you felt this wasn't really leading anywhere. You don't have to be mean, just make him understand that there are steps a student can take between flobberworms and hippogriffs. Maybe hint that he should level up the difficulty through the years, only looking at the more dangerous creatures and animals once he knows the students have learned to follow instructions and can be trusted."

Harry made a complicated face, looking left and right as if someone was going to judge him for his next words.

"You know Hagrid, Sirius... He doesn't have any common sense regarding the average creature's danger level. I don't think he'd be able to, uh... make a reasonable scale of dangerosity even if Dumbledore asked him to."

That wasn't entirely untrue, and obviously Harry and his friends didn't feel they could convey that without upsetting Hagrid.

Good thing Sirius had such a gift with animals, and a few anecdotes of creature encounters through the years, both alone and with Hagrid back when he was still a student.

"I'll try to talk about it with him next time I see him, if you want. I can probably offer a more... nuanced view on the whole situation, as I'm definitely friendly with most animals but also not a half-giant who can endure much more than anyone else without even realizing it's supposed to hurt. Besides, I want to check on Buckbeak."

Harry perked up a bit at that:

"Oh, he's back with Hagrid, true! Gets called Witherwings, now, but that's just because... Well, you know. I'm sure he'd love to see you."

"They all love me because I love them all."

Harry raised his eyebrows at that, and Sirius didn't ccomment that he'd have to schedule a visit – because, you know: Draco Malfoy, threats on a teenager's life, Phineas Nigellus tattling on him – with McGonagall for that to happen.

Harry didn't need to know about the threatening-Draco-Malfoy incident – and besides, most parents and other guardians didn't just pop at school without further notice, so technically he'd just been reminded of the proper procedure for this kind of things.

The teenager had other things on his mind, though:

"I had a lesson with Dumbledore, the other week, and..."

"Wait a moment, I've got Bellatrix over my shoulder, and anyway we should talk about that in person. I thought... Maybe on the week-end after Halloween, What do you say? I'd get you out of school for two days, and maybe we could..."

Halloween was not a happy day for Sirius – hadn't been since 1981 – but his godson didn't seem to have the same instinctive reaction. He'd been too young, certainly, to remember much of his parents' death, least of all the actual day and even if he had to know... Well. Harry had never been told, again and again, that Halloween was the day James and Lily Potter had been killed, that it was the date he'd become an orphan.

"...There's a couple of places I'd want to show you, about your family. We'll talk about it then?"

Harry looked at him uncertainly before he nodded.

"Alright, if you'd rather... I'll tell you about Snape's lessons then too?"

Sirius' face must have looked a bit like Harry's, because they both let out a resonant "ugh" at the same time.

Bella didn't comment, but Sirius felt judged nonetheless. He didn't care: he, at least, had never purposefully hung out with creepy necromancers and decided that was the way to greatness.

The wizard rolled his eyes at his ghostly cousin, who huffed in response.

The teen on the other side of the mirror glanced behind Sirius – but of course, the reflection was small enough that he most likely only saw a grey shimmer where the ghost hovered.

"Oh, there's also something I wanted to ask you... Something more... Something about school."

"Do tell?"

His godson pushed at his new glasses – they'd changed them during the summer break, and the boy still wasn't quite used to the thinner bridge, apparently – apparently stuck between defensiveness and embarrassment.

"It's just... I wasn't planning on taking Potions this year, right? But I hadn't realized, and you, uh, didn't tell me that Slughorn wasn't the DADA professor."

Sirius snorted, trying to imagine the old wizard – he'd turned ninety earlier in the year, if Sirius remembered right – trying to move his bulk around a Defense class.

"Don't laugh, it was the logical assumption!"

"...Sure, if you want. So, what's the problem? You're taking Potions, but what about it?"

Harry worried at his lips for a moment, looking for the right words.

"It's... Until I got the textbook ordered, Slughorn let me have one of the old books that had been left behind. Apparently the edition barely changed between now and twenty years ago? Anyway, that textbook had lot of personal notes, and pieces of advice, and, and..."

Sirius raised an eyebrow, waiting for what had to come next: he had no idea where this was going.

Harry sighed and checked one more time to see if he was well and truly alone.

"I don't know. Following the advice is working a lot more than following the base instructions, and I'm getting really good grades, but Hermione is pissed at me because, I guess she reckons I'm cheating?"

Ouch. Sirius didn't know Hermione quite as well as he did Harry – and yet, the difference wasn't that big, as he'd been absent from the boy's life for so long – but he could somewhat guess what was going on here.

...Maybe. Mostly it depended on Harry's attitude in this situation, and the teenager hadn't yet said much on the matter.

"Okay, wait. You are following alternative instructions and doing better than everyone else, correct? And did you offer to share?"

"Well, yes! But Hermione doesn't want to follow the half-blood prince's advice, that's the nickname written in the book, so it's not like I'm keeping her from doing better too..."

Sirius' free hand reached for the back of his head, digging in his hair under the spider hairclip.

"Right. I guess the problem is that Slughorn's all fawning over you, saying stuff about Lily's talent perhaps? Except this isn't about your talent, it's about having access to shortcuts you didn't earn, and knowing Hermione..."

Slughorn, overall, wasn't a bad sort. He had a bit of a tendency to look for the obviously extraordinary instead of nurturing those who might do better if they were ever given a chance – but he would also notice and encourage you if you proved that you had the will to try and get better.

Sirius and Lily had never needed to try and get Slughorn's attention – Snape neither, of course – and most of the time James was right behind them in Potions, not as interested in the theory as Lily but very enthusiastic about practical lessons, in the "fuck around and find out" way. Remus had done his best to scrap by with his limited talent for potion-making, and for all that Slughorn had been more intrigued by their friend's secret, he'd also been exceptionally invested in seeing if a properly educated werewolf could, in fact, do something with their life.

Peter... had been much too clumsy for the class, ruining most of his preparations even when he managed to test well on written exams by studying with Remus. By the time he'd grown out of the physical awkwardness that had plagued most of his potion-making, he'd already ruined his chances at getting into the sixth-year class with a P on his Potions OWL.

The real problem with Slughorn, however, was that he gave out so many compliments to a student who impressed him that the others often felt overlooked and didn't dare try to command his attention and show him they were worth it, too.

"Your friend is muggleborn and a perfectionist, Harry. I wouldn't be surprised if she felt the need to prove that she can do as well as anyone else, with the same set of instructions as anyone else. She wants the playing field to be as even as possible, and if you don't follow the general rules and take credit for the ideas, even if you don't do it on purpose... To her, the comparison is unfair."

Harry looked frustrated, his hair pointing out at even odder angles.

Watching James' hair when the guy got bored or flustered had always been a fascinating experience: Harry, like his father, seemed to move his head just a tiny bit, every now and then, and the black mess over his head followed along more often than not.

"I did say she could use the book's instructions! Ron does, and his grades got better too. I don't get why Hermione's getting all uppity about this."

Sirius' smile at that was a little bit pursed, as he tried not to laugh.

"Alright, calm down. Maybe Hermione isn't being completely objective, but her point, I think, is that to make it truly fair, you should actually tell Slughorn, ask him what he thinks of the different pieces of advice, and then you'd share it with the whole class so that everyone gets a chance at getting better grades and it doesn't look like you somehow manage to make miracles out of a fairly standard set of instructions."

Bella mouthed "Hufflepuff" by his side, and Sirius swatted her away once more.

"Don't you think that'd be the right thing to do? Besides, Slughorn would just find a way to say you're such a shining example of integrity! Also, you might not be as brilliant as your mother, but you're good still. You managed an Exceed Expectations on your OWL, did you not?"

"I..."

Harry looked conflicted – Sirius almost didn't say anything, but.

He could understand why getting positive attention from a potion teacher – after Snape of all people – might feel good for Harry, and the teenager had a bit of an oblivious side when things benefitted him, fairly or nor. Not used to it, definitely, so he either couldn't see it or didn't know how to react.

Except Hermione was Harry's friend, and none of this really warranted straining, however lightly, their relationship.

Not paying more attention to Peter had cost them all so much... Sirius didn't think anything of the kind could happen with the muggleborn witch – except he also hadn't expected it from Peter.

"Ask yourself why exactly you're keeping quiet, Harry, that's all you need to do. If getting better grades is really worth the rest of it, then... You'll have your answer, I suppose."

"Thanks, Sirius. I'll see you on Halloween?"

"You're allowed to call earlier than that, you know?"

Harry gave him a small, crooked smile before the reflection flickered off.

Sirius pocketed the mirror back and pressed a hand along his nape. As Bellatrix was the only one around, he could only ask her:

"Think I handled that right?"

The ghost's eyes widened.

"Are you asking me about parenting?"

Sirius paused, looked the ghost over, then shook his head.

"Yeah, obviously not... I'll go ask Alice and Frank downstairs."