[A/N: Yarr! Here be a new chapter for Hermione's birthday!]

Sirius apparated into the Grangers' backyard and strode into the kitchen through the back door. "Happy Birthday, Hermione!" he shouted. "Guess who has two thumbs, or four paws depending on the day, and a complete exoneration from the Wizengamot!"

There was no response for just enough time to worry Sirius, then Miranda spoke up. "Um…we have a magical guest," she shouted from the sitting room, "and I don't think she was expecting you."

"Well, then," Sirius said as he walked into the sitting room, "I bring you greetings from the newly official Lord Bl—oh, hello, Professor."

Minerva McGonagall sat on an armchair with a teacup in one hand raised almost to her lips, and her wand in her other hand, pointed at Sirius.

"It'll be announced in the Prophet tomorrow," Sirius said. "If you don't believe me, though, feel free to bind me here for a bit and check in with Amelia Bones."

"But…Albus told me he cast the Fidelius himself," McGonagall said.

"And you doubt Lily could have recast it?" Sirius asked.

A black-haired blur shot through the hallway and attached itself to Sirius's side. "You're free!" Harry shouted. "You're free and now nobody can take me away!"

"Harry," Isaac said reproachfully, "we discussed you not coming down while she was here."

"Don't care!" Harry said. "Sirius is free and now nobody can take me away from him or you."

"Darn straight, Prongslet," Sirius said.

McGonagall actually dropped her teacup. "Harry Potter."

Harry nodded. "That's me! I can tell people now because Sirius is free and he can prevent anyone from trying to take me away or make me go back to the people who abused me."

"That's true," Sirius said, "but there are still bad people out there. You'll be safer if nobody knows where you are."

"You…were abused?" McGonagall said. "But…Albus said he was monitoring you constantly! I told him not to leave you there, but he said you'd be safest there because of the blood wards he placed on the house tied to your mother's love."

"You…knew I was there?" Harry's voice cracked a little as he spoke.

"Wait, a teacher put Harry there?" Hermione said simultaneously.

"Dumbledore placed those blood wards?" Sirius asked.

"Professor McGonagall," Isaac said calmly, "I think it would be best if you left. No children of ours will ever attend a school with either you or Professor Dumbledore in it."

"But…they must learn magic or they'll be bound!" McGonagall said.

"Harry and I are both stupidly wealthy," Sirius said. "We'll send them to school in Australia or France."

Harry nodded. "Hermione's my best friend. She can have all of my money if it will keep her safe from whoever left me with the Dursleys."

"Oh, Harry," Hermione said, "I can't take your money."

"If you needed it, I would give you every last penny and, when I finally pass on and meet them, tell my parents it was all well-spent," Harry said.

"Your father would absolutely approve," Sirius said, glaring at McGonagall. "I don't have a doubt in my mind. He'd be incredibly disappointed that you had to do it to get away from his favourite professor, but he'd approve."

"She was his favourite professor?" Harry asked. "But…why would she do that to me, then? I was only one! I couldn't have done anything to make her mad, could I? Was it my fault?"

"Of course not!" Sirius said.

Miranda rose from the chesterfield and went over to Harry. "Listen to me, please," she said. "No one deserves to be treated like you were, no matter what they did. Your aunt and uncle were cruel, awful people, and they deserve to rot in prison like they are right now."

A choking sob caught their attention and they turned around to find tears streaming down McGonagall's face. "I'm sorry, Mr. Potter," she said. "I failed you utterly. I…I need to go now. I owe you something."

She rose shakily to leave, but stopped when Sirius said, "Wait. Professor, I want you out of here as much as they do, but you're going to splinch yourself if you try to apparate in this condition. Can I take you somewhere?"

"Yes, please, Mr. Black," McGonagall said. "I think I'd like to speak to Madam Bones after all."

Albus Dumbledore was finishing a long evening of Chief Warlock-related paperwork at his office attached to the Wizengamot a few days later when Amelia Bones poked her head around the corner. "Albus," she said, "may I have a moment of your time?"

"Can it wait until morning?" he asked. "I'm not as young as I used to be."

"This has waited long enough." She strode into his office and put a muggle file folder on his desk. "Read it now. I'll wait." She didn't mention the half-dozen Aurors silently waiting in the corridor outside in case she needed backup.

The aged wizard frowned and picked up the folder. The frown deepened as he read the evidence it contained from the trial of Vernon and Petunia Dursley. "This…can't be," he said. "Where did you get this?"

"From my counterpart at MI5," she replied.

He kept reading. "Merlin! How could they?" he asked. "She was his blood!"

"That's why you made a great teacher, Albus," Amelia said. "You always found the good in people and drew it out. It's also why you'd have been a shite Auror…and why you were a shite Child Services professional. The Ministry has a department for this because of people like that, but you ignored them, didn't you?"

"Harry had to be kept safe!" Albus said. "I couldn't allow him to fall into just anyone's hands. The Malfoys would have killed him if he was lucky."

"Safe, was he?" Amelia asked. "Keep reading."

Albus did as she bid him and grew gradually more pale until he began to turn green.

When he finished, Amelia said, "Minerva told us everything. She didn't even do it to get out of a prison sentence; this is the first time anyone has ever tried to turn down a plea bargain I offered them because they thought they deserved more punishment."

"No…" Albus's response came out as a hoarse whisper. "Not her. She was right the whole time about this. I was so busy and trusted in my monitoring devices. This is my fault, not hers."

"If this goes public," Amelia said, "it's going to tear our society apart. To his credit, Harry doesn't want your blood…at least, not anymore. The G–some responsible adults talked him down. But I can't leave you in charge of children any more, Albus. You know that."

"I…don't deserve to be," he said. "What do you want, Amelia?"

"Resign everything," she said. "Saul will take you on as an Unspeakable with the proviso that you will never more be responsible for the care or well-being of a child. Minerva will remain at Hogwarts as a professor, but will be stripped of her duties as Head of Gryffindor House. She will remain as Deputy Headmistress temporarily in order to ease Professor Flitwick's transition to your position, but I would expect her to resign that role in a few years."

The old man nodded in resignation. "I can accept that, with one proviso." He leaned forward. "I need your word to tell no one of what I am about to reveal to you. If it were to get out, all of us would be in great danger, especially you, me, and Harry."

She cocked her eyebrows. "Very well. I give you my word. What is it?"

"Voldemort is not truly dead," Albus said. "I don't know how or why yet, but I believe it relates to a piece of dark magic trapped in Harry's scar."

"Oh, I knew that already," Amelia said.

Albus blinked. "Wait, what?"

She smiled, relishing the opportunity to truly flummox the man. "Once you are an Unspeakable, I can explain to you and Saul. I can probably even get the memory from Sirius. Harry is safe, though, don't worry. His scar is gone, and I think whatever it was may have even been holding him back. He's shockingly powerful for his age."

Albus sighed in relief. "That's a huge weight off of my mind, then. I have no further concerns about your course of action."

"Good. Now, will you do one more thing for me to help make this right?" Amelia asked. "Harry's had Sirius sleeping at the foot of his bed in Grim form for the last several days because he's concerned you're going to try to take him back to the Dursleys. Will you write him a letter apologising and promising never to do so?"

The old man nodded as tears began to stream down his face. "I only wanted to protect him and the rest of the country. How did I become the boogeyman, Amelia?"

"By half-arsing it," she said without pity. "It's one thing to do that as Chief Warlock; Merlin knows your half-efforts are better than anyone else's full efforts. But when you arrogated the burden of his guardianship to yourself, you took on something much too important to half-arse. Now write the fucking letter so I can get home to my own ward."

"I will," Albus said, and began the process of signing away his life.

Sirius's freedom and formal guardianship of Harry changed little from Harry's perspective, mostly because Sirius had them use all of the letters begging for money, favours, or friendship as target practice for the Fire-Making Charm. Both children had been chomping at the bit to learn real magic, and Miranda and Isaac had caved once they learnt that Pureblood families used the same "family wands" method to get around the Trace and give their children a bit of a head start.

Since neither had matured magically yet, Sirius hadn't had much in the way of hopes for them, but they were both full of surprises. Hermione could manage three uses of the Charm in a row, or five if she traded off with Harry. The Prongslet was a little powerhouse, though, and could do a full dozen if he traded off with his friend for the first few. Hermione was a little grumpy about that, but seemed to take solace in the fact that she generally understood a spell more quickly than he did.

One day about a week after Sirius was exonerated, Ted Tonks set up an appointment with them during the evening after the Grangers were off of work. He came by after supper with a briefcase and a broad smile on his face.

"Now that Sirius is free, I've been focusing on the engagement issue," Ted told them all once they were comfortable in the sitting room. "I think I've worked out a way to undo it and accomplish several other things at once."

"That's great news!" Isaac said.

Harry and Hermione looked at each other and shrugged.

"Before I tell you the plan," Ted said, "I need you to promise to hear me out. This is going to sound insane. Also, do any of you like gardening?"

"I do," Isaac said. "I'm very proud of the shrubberies out front."

"Perfect!" Ted said.

"I'm suddenly nervous about this plan," Miranda said.

"It's perfectly safe, don't worry," Ted said. "The first step is to give Sirius your house."

"What."

"Hear me out, please," Ted said. "So now Sirius owns your house. Remember, though, he's a Lord. And what can lords have?"

"Horses?" Harry asked.

"Well…yes…I think he might have some, actually," Ted said.

"Wait, what?" Sirius said.

"Would he let us ride them?" Hermione asked.

"Of course!" Sirius said. "In fact, if I don't own any, I can go buy some."

Miranda shook her head. "I feel like that might be teaching Harry poor money management skills."

"I'd get Hermione a horse if she wanted one, too," Harry said.

"Oh, Harry, I don't want one that badly," Hermione said.

Harry and Sirius shared a look.

"Both of you!" Miranda said. "Listen to me: no buying horses until you're over eighteen and can afford to take care of them."

"Fine," Harry grumbled.

"Moving on," Ted said in a valiant attempt to regain control of the conversation, "the important thing is that Lords can have vassals. So the Grangers give Sirius their domicile in repayment for the life debt–and it has to be their domicile, not just a random property they own—thus freeing the burden from their daughter. Then Sirius makes them his vassal and gives them a Life Estate in the same house so they can live in it as long as they want. For their duties to him, they'll be required to farm the land as is tradition and give him something from their garden every year."

"Oooh, fresh tomatoes?" Sirius asked.

"Fresh tomatoes, then," Isaac said.

"Meanwhile, because it would be within Sirius's rights to ensure his vassals are appropriately outfitted, he can give them a sum of money equal to the current value of the house."

"Oh, so we'd get a Life Estate in the house plus its cash value?" Isaac asked. "That seems unfair to Sirius."

"Not at all," Sirius said. "I have the money and this seems like a wonderful thing to do with it."

"And it gets better," Ted said. "Because the house will be technically part of Sirius's estate at that point because he'll have the final Remainder, there won't be any legal reasons he can't ward the absolute daylights out of it. The end result is that the Grangers get a reasonable value for their house and get to keep living in it for the rest of their lives, Hermione gets out of the engagement, and Sirius can ward this place and keep you all safe."

"That's an amazing plan, Ted," Sirius said. "Thank you."

The Grangers agreed, so Ted pulled the necessary paperwork out of his briefcase and they got to it. They all had to sign with a painful quill that wrote their names in blood, but at least fewer signatures were required than on the comparable muggle documentation. About forty-five minutes later they were finally done, at which point Ted turned to the children.

"Harry and Hermione, it's your turn now. Harry, all you have to do is say, 'Your parents' gift of their domicile has obviated the Life Debt your house owes to mine, so I release you from our betrothal.'"

He shrugged. "That's fine, I guess. Hermione, what do you want?"

She also shrugged. "I really don't mind marrying you, but I suppose we should put some more thought into it when we're older. I guess we should cancel the betrothal."

"OK." Harry held out his hand to her and, though it took him a couple of tries because of the difficult words he had to say, he eventually worked through it.

"There you go," Ted said. "Problem solved."

"Thank you for cooperating," Miranda told the children. "I know it doesn't seem important now, but it will be later."

"This calls for a celebration!" Sirius said. "That was some great lawyering, Ted! Isaac, do you have any of the good stuff lying around? I'll buy you more of whatever it is."

"This one's on me," Isaac said. "That's a load off my mind. Come on, children. It's too late for you to have caffeine, but I think some celebratory hot chocolate is warranted."

As Sirius, Ted, Isaac and Miranda headed toward the kitchen, none of them noticed the subtle look that passed between Harry and Hermione.

As soon as the adults left the room, Harry said, "I don't think that really did anything, do you?"

She shook her head. "I don't think so, either."

"Do you think I did it wrong?"

"No, you said it right that last time," Hermione said. "And I think I felt something…almost like the magic weakened, but it's still there." She put her hand on her chin and looked down for a moment, lost in thought. Harry knew enough to let her think quietly when she was in this sort of mood. She didn't like being interrupted and the results when she was done were always worth the wait.

"Magic is all about intent," she said after a moment. "Did you really intend to release me?"

"Probably not enough." Harry blushed. "Your mother once said we should marry someone who'd be our best friend, and I still can't imagine having another best friend I'd want to marry instead."

"I don't think I really wanted to be released, either," Hermione said. "I do think we could snap the betrothal magic now if we really intended to, but I just don't."

"Me neither," Harry said. "Is that OK?"

"It's definitely OK." Hermione leaned over and gave him a peck on the cheek, causing him to blush as red as one of the tomatoes Sirius wanted.

"Kids!" Miranda shouted. "Don't you want hot chocolate?"

"We do!" Harry shouted back, and they hopped off the chesterfield and hurried into the kitchen.

Betrothals could wait. It wasn't every day they got hot chocolate.