Good morning, all! It's been a long time, I know, and I apologize for that. Trying to keep this project going on a weekly basis, atop all the schoolwork I had to finish as the semester wound out its end, was beginning to wear on me. I was growing to dread this project. Instead of forcing out something that had no feeling, I decided it would be best to prioritize.

Thanks to this decision, I was able to ace my three classes this semester. A 4.0 has brought my GPA for the year up to a 3.53. Now the semester's over, and I'm enjoying a slight lull in things before things get hectic as I prepare to move into my new apartment in a couple weeks.

I will admit that I took a bit of a shortcut with this chapter, and it may not appeal to some of you. I would like to stress that each scene of this chapter came to me quite strongly, and I didn't want to go against my instincts. They may not always steer me the right way, but so far they've got a pretty good track record.

Oh. And one more thing. I'm on Facebook! I know, I know. Took me long enough, didn't it? I'm up there as "Iced Blood," because I can't escape that pen-name anymore, so I may as well embrace it fully. Look for the guy from Lodi, CA with the picture of Hitsugaya on it. That's me. I'll be posting updates and other such things on there from now on, instead of using the ill-fated blog that died after a month. It's simpler that way.

Now, with that said, let's begin, shall we?

One.

"Just admit it. You went searching for this place, didn't you?"

"I admit nothing." Or so Sirius said, but there was a glint in his eye, and the grin on his face was almost manic; he was clearly pleased. Remus supposed he didn't have anything against trespassing on a national park to hide out in a castle—it wasn't as though he had a reputation to uphold—but he wasn't sure that he shared his friend's glee at the prospect. Perhaps he just wasn't romantic enough for it.

Harry seemed more than a little frightened of the place, but his godfather's exuberance did a fair bit in curbing that. He was currently perched on Remus's shoulders, looking round at the dark, haunted stones.

"Do you even know what this place is called?" Remus asked. "Is there a name to our most recent felony?"

Sirius shrugged and waved away the question as though it were entirely unimportant. "Thornfield? Rosewood? Some such thing. I doubt the walls care what you call them. And there haven't been any residents here for about six decades."

"Really?" Remus raised a sardonic eyebrow. "There are surprisingly few cobwebs for that, don't you think? I don't even see any dust. Surely sixty years would have found a number of eight-legged tenants?"

"Wha'sa tenant?" Harry asked.

"We are," Sirius said.

"I got two legs." He waggled them around as if to illustrate the point. Remus took hold of the boy's ankles and held him in place. "Two," Harry repeated, quietly, musingly, then took to studying his hands. "Two legs. Two hands. Not eight."

"Never mind." Sirius went back to scouring the hallway. He peered into a room, grinned. "This should work." He gestured. "Plenty of room to settle in, far enough into the hall that we won't be noticed. Perfect."

The room was wide, low-roofed, and Remus felt claustrophobic as he entered into it. A shattered table and splintered set of chairs sat against one wall, rotted and pathetic. Aside from that, there was nothing marking any particular use for the room; nor, Remus noted with growing apprehension, dust or cobwebs. He hadn't heard skittering, squeaking, crying, nothing. No pests had entered here, no dirt. Yet clearly decay had vented its anger on this place. The walls and floors, the towers and ceilings and balconies, were strong and stout; but furniture, tapestry, and artistry of all kinds had been decimated.

Time passed in silence for a while.

"I'm going to look around," Sirius said, setting his pack down in one corner. "See if I can't find anything useful." The look on Remus's face said that he knew his friend just wanted to explore, but figured there wasn't much use in arguing. The last Black gestured. "I'll take the growth for a while, if you like."

Remus raised an eyebrow with some amount of surprise, but nodded and set Harry down onto the stone floor. "What do you say, Harry?" he asked, gently. "Would you like to help me make this place presentable, or go exploring with Uncle Sirius?"

Harry thought on this, long and hard. Eventually, his distaste for chores won out over fear of the unknown, and he shuffled over to Sirius and took hold of his hand. "What we going for?" he asked. "Lookin' for stuff?"

"Stuff, ghosts, dragons," Sirius said, and Harry suddenly looked unsure of his decision. He glanced at Remus. "I'm not picky. Come on, then. Let's get started. Not every day you get to explore a castle."

"He'll get to explore a castle every day of his education," Remus noted.

"That's different." Sirius sneered.

"Edu…ca…"

"Never mind." Sirius all but pulled Harry along, and for a moment the toddler looked like he was skipping. "Let's go see what we can see."

"No…scary stuff. Right?"

"Don't worry. Besides, you want a good story to tell Neville next time you see him, right? Nothing ventured, nothing gained."

"Ven…tu…?"

They were off.

Remus sighed, chuckled, and crouched down to sift through their supplies. He might have used his wand, but had grown used to ignoring it. It was difficult to justify the flash and flare of it, in light of everything else. Not to mention, he happened to agree with Sirius on one point of Harry's formative education, if none other:

"I'd rather he grow up like a Muggle, and really appreciate what magic can do for him, than end up tripping over himself the first time a spell doesn't work for him. He'll get enough magic to choke himself with it at school, taught by people far more qualified than I am. I'm going to teach him something I understand better than they do: manual labor."

Two.

Harry Potter was a brave boy. He walked along, taking in his surroundings quietly. He was frowning, and jumped at every little noise, but he didn't balk; he didn't run, and he didn't beg Sirius to go back. Every once in a while, he would give a slightly reproachful look to his godfather, which Sirius seemed to find amusing.

"Long while ago, people used to live in places like this," Sirius said. "Lords and ladies and kings and queens. And all their servants and knights. Remember King Arthur? He probably lived in a castle like this one. Only cleaner."

"How come we don't live in castles now?"

"We got boring."

"Are we gonna live in castle?"

"For a while," Sirius said. "And then, when you're older, and you go to school, you'll get to see a real castle. That's where you'll learn magic. You'll learn how to make things float in the air, and go invisible, change them into animals. You'll get to learn how to fly."

"Fly? In sky?"

"Mm-hm. Not like your little toy broom. All the way up, past the trees."

"All way up there? C'I learn how do that now?"

"Not yet."

Harry seemed entirely too enamored of the idea of flight to be fully healthy. He hardly went anywhere without his little broomstick, and any time he saw a bird he would stop, mesmerized, until it was too far away to see anymore. Sirius wondered if he would play Quidditch, like his father.

Sirius hoped so, and intended to encourage it, for James's sake.

They entered a staircase tower that spiraled upward for what felt like an infinitude of steps; Sirius eventually picked up his godson and settled him on his shoulders as Remus had done. He began to hum a tuneless little melody to himself; he'd tried to count the steps, but Sirius Black was not a man known for his infinite patience.

By the time he reached the tiny, rounded room atop the final stair, both Sirius and Harry were tired, sweating, and irritated.

Someone was sitting there, waiting for them.

Three.

The figure was up against the wall, one knee bent and the other leg splayed out in front. Hands reached up out of frayed, dirty robes and removed the hood from the figure's face; that face was pale, pointed, and would have been noble if it weren't somehow…ethereal. His shoulder-length brown hair was slicked back on his head, and a white streak ran through it.

"Long days and pleasant nights, Master Black. Master Potter." The pale figure, who was wearing frayed robes and ancient-styled boots, chuckled at some joke that Sirius didn't understand. "I am called Kafell. Won't you sit?"

"Seems we weren't the only people with the bright idea to take up camp here," Sirius muttered sardonically, picking up his godson and setting him onto the floor. He removed his wand from a pocket and held it at his side. "Kafell, was it?"

"It was," Kafell said, rising slowly to his feet, "and do not get the wrong idea. I am here specifically so that I might speak with you." The man cleared his throat. "You will realize, at some point after this discussion is finished, that I look familiar to you."

"…If you say so."

Though there was a jovial quality to his tone of voice, Kafell's voice—and most particularly, his eyes—bespoke something that was creeping slowly (so slowly) toward dread. "I can do very little here," the man who was almost a ghost told Sirius. "Until these two existences intermingle, and the world picks itself up, I am…split."

Sirius quirked an eyebrow. "What?"

"What would you say to me," said Kafell, "if I were to tell you that everything that you have experienced in the past smattering of years, from your travels to your freedom, was little more than an illusion?"

"I'd say cram it. Magic might be able to bend our perception of reality, but not that far. I'd have seen it by now, if you were working some spell on me. Stay behind me, Harry. I don't trust this clown."

The boy had been inching up to stand at his godfather's side, looking strangely interested. Sirius pushed him back a step.

"There are things to which you must…attend," Kafell said, as though Sirius hadn't spoken at all. "Perhaps it would be best if you see what I mean. Understand what has been done, and what is at stake." The smirk came back. "I will leave you, then. I had hoped that you would recognize me, as it would have simplified things, and rid us of…certain risks. But it seems the paradox must be visited. I shall let…someone else speak to you."

"What the holy hell—"

With a flourish, Kafell's robes swirled up around him, and when they settled a moment later, with dust settling about his shoulders like the mantle of a king…

Sirius Black was staring at himself.

Four.

"You realize, I hope, that you're dreaming. Right?"

Sirius stared openly at the vision of himself, and blinked dumbly. "I hope so," he murmured. "Otherwise, I think I'll have to take up a room in St. Mungo's."

The apparition smirked.

"Unca Sirius!" Harry whispered urgently. "He look like Unca Sirius!"

The old ghost looked down at the toddler, and a heartbroken smile rose on his cracked lips. Haunted grey eyes rose to meet Sirius's own. "I'm you. About twelve years from now, give or take."

"I have no business questioning whether that's possible," Sirius replied, "because I was never much for magic theory, and anyway, apparently I'm not conscious right now. I'm not sure I believe you, but we'll go with it for now. What do you want with me?"

"I wish I knew. He just threw me here. I guess he figured I'd take the opportunity to tell you whatever the fu—oh." His eyes were on Harry again. The boy was listening raptly, staring up at him. The man cleared his throat. "Anyway."

"You'll forgive me if I don't understand what's happening right now. And you'll forgive me if I wake up tomorrow morning thinking this is any other dream, and ignoring anything I hear from you."

"Probably for the best," the older Sirius said, waving a dismissive hand. "Kafell, or whatever his real name is, has a nasty habit of doing things without preamble, and expecting his pawns to figure things out for themselves. I have a question to ask you. Clearly you've managed to stay clear of prison, so you're already better off than I was. So what happened? With James, and Lily? With Peter?"

Sirius's eyes narrowed. "I'd rather not talk about this around Harry."

"Grow up. He's not really here. We don't have enough time. What happened?"

Sirius growled low in his throat, but the other's face was stone-set. "…I woke up one night, in Godric's Hollow. I found them. I found Harry. Hagrid took me to see Dumbledore, and I convinced him to let me take Harry under my wing. We didn't find Peter until later. Their location was tortured out of him." Sirius couldn't rid himself of the suspicion that this wasn't the whole truth.

The elder took note of this, and the dark smirk returned. "Is that what he told you…?"

"Didn't tell me anything. Showed up at Hogwarts half-dead and babbling."

The grey eyes with the sparks of madness widened. "Is thatwhat…? Well, no matter. Listen to me: pay close attention to him. Trust no one when the subject is Peter, or Voldemort, or any of the scum-sucking bastards. Trust your gut, you hear me? You don't think the torture story is true, do you? I can see it in you. It probably isn't."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I don't think Kafell changed the past. I think he just threw you into Godric's Hollow and watched things go from there. Good on you, looking after Harry. I didn't do that. I forgot what I was supposed to be, and got myself locked away for it. Whatever. Just know this: Voldemort isn't dead. He's searching for a body. A way to pull himself back up from the brink. He'll go after Harry. It'll be a long while yet, probably, before he has the power to do anything. But he'll show up eventually. That much I'm sure of."

"Volly-mort!" Harry called out. "Volly-mort!"

"Hush."

"Do everything you can bloody well think of to prepare for it. If you think you're being paranoid, step up your game because it's not enough. Run yourself ragged if you have to. Dumbledore will want to keep Harry protected, and preserve his innocence or some such drivel. Don't. It didn't work for my Harry, and it won't work for yours. Keep him informed, keep him prepared, and keep him alive. You get me?"

Sirius frowned, but nodded.

"Good. You're probably going to wake up now."

The elder Sirius stepped forward, knelt down, and put a hand on Harry's head, tousling the messy black hair. The smile on his face held no happiness, only grief. He stood up, and looked directly into the eyes of his younger self. He tapped Sirius's forehead. "I'm in there, somewhere. Those sparks of intuition you've been having? Me. Keep digging, Padfoot. If you manage to unravel whatever memories of mine are trapped in that skull of yours, you might just make it out alive."

Sirius blinked, and his vision was suddenly blurry.

Take care of him.

The world went black.

Five.

When Sirius opened his eyes again, he was looking up at Remus; worried, as usual.

"I need a drink," the last Black muttered as he rose to a sitting position.

"What possessed you to come all the way up here?" Remus asked, and Sirius realized that he was sitting at the top of the spiral tower. "One moment, I'm laying out bedrolls with Harry, the next you're just…gone. No word, no sharp remark. Nothing."

Sirius looked around, stood up and dusted off his pants. "Sleep-walking," he muttered.

"Uh-huh."

They began the trek down the tower's winding stairs, Sirius brooding while Remus shot worried, suspicious glances at him every so often. They didn't speak until they reached the room where their supplies had been laid out. Sirius immediately dropped down onto his bedroll and leaned back against the cold stone wall, looking wistfully up at the ceiling.

He closed his eyes.

"…This is getting complicated."

I know that the dream sequence might be convoluted, and I apologize if it didn't come out quite like I pictured it would. But I felt like this was the way that Kafell would reach Sirius, and it felt like a natural progression for the story. Perhaps it just muddied up the waters. I'm not sure.

But all in all, I think this worked out pretty well.

I hope you enjoyed this installment.

I'll be updating weekly again, but it will probably be on Wednesdays from now on.

For now, it's the best option for me.

So, see you next time.