Reading Time: 131 Minutes

Title: Eyes in the Darkness
Author: MeyariMcFarland
Fandom: Harry Potter
Genre: Drama, Family, Fantasy, Hurt/Comfort, Mystery, Paranormal/Supernatural, Suspense
Relationship(s): Gen
Content Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Violence – Domestic and/or Against Children , child abuse (canon), illegal imprisonment (canon), Dumbledore bashing, mental health issues (multiple), memory modification (involuntary and voluntary), ritual magic, PTSD, C-PTSD, Harry is so very tired, Sirius is so messed up, dark curses
Beta: Batspit
Word Count: 94,810
Summary: As Aunt Marge floated off into the night, Harry ran out of Privet drive with everything he owned. Heart pounding, he hid in the shrubs next to the old retaining wall that was his closest hiding place. When the starving dog across the way darted into his arms as aurors arrived, what else could Harry do but wrap them both up in his invisibility cloak?
Artist: Izzy Hound

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1. Watching Eyes

My Heart,

It doesn’t matter how often you say it, I will not agree that my duty to my family outweighs my right to live my life freely. Yes, I know. The weight of Magic against my soul distorts my perceptions. Perhaps dramatically, as you claim.

#

Harry’s blood pounded in his ears. He held his wand low, at the ready, while his hand patted around in his open trunk for his invisibility cloak. The crouching… thing… across the way stared at Harry with gleaming eyes that reminded Harry of the time he’d come downstairs early in the morning and Ripper had gone at him. Those gleaming, quicksilver eyes were the only warning he’d gotten.

Well, that plus the rising growl that had started so low that it was like a lorry rumbling by two blocks off before rising to a rattle of doom that still showed up in Harry’s nightmares.

The huge dog-thing across the way next to Number Two’s garage didn’t growl.

It crouched low, its belly against the pavement. Harry thought he heard the shuffle of a tail wagging for a moment, but it stopped as Harry dragged his invisibility cloak out and carefully, without looking, shut his trunk again. It didn’t move at all as Harry carefully tugged his trunk further back towards the hollow between the shrubs and the wall he’d stopped at.

Why didn’t the thing just go away? Uncle Vernon was bellowing like a maniac just a few doors away while Aunt Marge shrieked as she floated up towards the sky. There was a rope around her ankle when Harry dared a quick look her way, but nothing dangled from it, not even Uncle Vernon who’d tried to grab her when she started blowing up after dinner.

Served the old bat right for talking about Harry’s mum that way. He looked back at the huge dog and blinked that it seemed to be laughing. Jaw open just enough that Harry could see wicked long teeth, yeah, but its lips were all loose and happy, not tight and snarling.

“Good boy,” Harry whispered at the dog. “Go home. Go on now. Just… shoo.”

He pulled the cloak around his shoulders, inside out, damn it all. As Harry tugged it off one-handed, several cracks of apparition happened up at Number 4. Harry gasped and scrunched down in his old hiding place between the shrubs and the wall. It’d been a couple years and he really didn’t fit half as well as he had.

The huge dog dashed over, shifted to a scruffy man who grabbed Harry’s wand right out of his hand.

“Shh!” the man hissed.

He tapped Harry’s trunk, shrunk it, and shoved it at Harry.

Harry blinked once, shoved the trunk in his pocket and then slung the cloak over both of them even though the man stank to high heaven and was utterly and completely filthy. Then he grabbed his wand and took it back despite the way the man tried to cling to it.

“Mine,” Harry hissed at him.

“Sharing is caring, Prongslet,” the man hissed right back, but he let go of the wand. “Shh! I want to hear what they say.”

They, it appeared, were aurors. Three of them. One was black and tall and bald, which Harry only saw because he pulled off his purple, embroidered dashiki. He stared up at Aunt Marge with disbelief while the younger of the two women grinned. Her hair cycled from blazing red waves

to fluffy black curls before going back to straight and purple.

The third woman sighed, lowering a monocle to rub her eyes. “Well, get her down. I’ll deal with the Dursleys. You obliviate that horrid woman’s memories. Again.”

“Yes, ma’am, Director Bones, ma’am, ” the younger woman said as flung a sloppy salute at Director Bones.

She got a steady glare from Director Bones that made her cheeks go red along with her hair, but Director Bones strode into Number 4 without commenting on the cheek. The man shook his head, pulling a wand that he pointed at Aunt Marge.

“You’re going to be demoted if you keep that up, Tonks,” the man said. His voice was a bass rumble that Harry barely heard, despite listening as hard as he could.

“Aww, come on, Shacklebolt. You’ve got to wonder why nothing’s ever done about all this,” Tonks huffed as she cast a broad spell up Privet Drive to catch everyone who’d come out on their porches to see what was going on. It looked like she’d caught everyone but Mrs. Figg who hadn’t so much as twitched her curtains aside to see what was going on.

Shacklebolt grunted, eyes on Aunt Marge who drifted down towards them cursing a blue streak. “We’re doing our jobs, that’s all.”

“We’ve been called out to obliviate people here a dozen times in the last four years,” Tonks snapped as she did just that to everyone watching them. “The kid shouldn’t be acting up this way. There’s something wrong. I’ve turned in a dozen reports of abuse myself. I know you’ve turned in twice that. No one seems to give a damn because it keeps happening!”

“This is where he’s safe,” Shackelbolt snapped but he didn’t look terribly convinced of it. In fact, he looked downright sick to his stomach as he restored Aunt Marge and then obliviated her without listening to a single word she bellowed at him.

The switch to a docile, quiet Aunt Marge was more shocking than the conversation somehow. Harry shivered next to the man, trying to control his panting breath. The Aurors knew what he went through. They’d reported it but been ignored which meant that someone powerful was determined to keep him here. They’d made sure that no one on Privet Drive would see how he was abused. If they did notice, well, they’d just be obliviated and forget about it. It was the only thing that made sense.

“Not very safe if he’s blowing up his aunt and running off into the dark of night,” Tonks grumbled. “Right. That’s the lot of them. Can we go find him now?”

Harry clutched the man’s arm. “They’ll find us!”

“Hold onto the cloak,” the man said. “I’ll side-long us.”

“What?” Harry asked a bit more sharply than he intended to.

He had just a moment to see Shacklebolt turn towards them and then the man grabbed Harry who clutched his cloak and they… twisted… somehow. It was distinctly like being sucked down a tube and flung out the other side against a wall that knocked them back a good half-dozen feet.

Harry gulped air as the lump of lead that was his dinner tried to climb up his throat. He wheezed a breath, shook his head, and instantly regretted it as his dinner came right back up and spilled out over the sidewalk. A moment later, the man still supporting Harry, his head cleared.

“Bit hard there, I admit, Prongslet,” the man said, “but it was the best I could do. I don’t particularly want to do this but it’s the safest place I’ve got. With you along, we should be able to get in. I’m pretty sure my mum locked the place up so that I couldn’t get in before she died.”

“Ah, what?”

Harry stared at him, still clinging to his invisibility cloak which barely covered the two of them. Actually, no, their feet showed right on up to their claves because the man was a good bit taller than Harry, if twice as scrawny. Looked like he’d been starved for years on end and smelled like he’d never allowed to bathe at all.

“You’ve… no idea who I am,” the man said with a sag to his shoulders that made Harry wince.

“Sorry, no,” Harry said. “Face seems familiar but that’s all. It’s been a bit of a day. Week. Month. Hell, it’s been a bit of a life. Let’s leave it at that. Who are you? Do I know you? You’re not going to kill me now that you’ve kidnapped me, are you?”

The man opened his mouth to, visibly, say something reassuring that he clearly didn’t believe only to shut it slowly and frown as Harry went on. He shook his head, licked his lips, and then shrugged.

“Considered it more saving you from being obliviated and shoved back in that pit, actually,” the man said. “But no, no violent death. I’m your godfather. Swore a magical oath to keep you safe and take care of you if anything happened to your parents. Kind of fell down on the job on account of being in prison for the last near-dozen years, but, well, I can do better now. Hopefully. I mean, if we can get inside my parent’s hellhole of a house.”

No name but magical oath to protect was good. Harry considered that and nodded.

“Good enough,” Harry said. “Let’s go inside. Number 11 or 13?”

The man grinned and wagged his filthy, shaggy eyebrows. “Twelve, actually. The Black Ancestral Home is at 12 Grimmauld Place.”

He bowed slightly and beamed as the buildings across the street shifted like the bricks to get into Diagon Alley. They rumbled aside, moving to allow a whole new and slightly larger townhouse to appear between them with grimy, unpolished numbers “12” on the door.

“Wow, it’s… a mess,” Harry said, staring up at the grimy windows and trash-covered front step.

“Yeah,” the man said with a tired sigh. “It’s a pit and full of Dark artifacts. Be very careful what you touch. You’re still my godson and my heir, though, so you should be able to open the door even if I can’t. I hadn’t, quite… worked up my nerve to try it. The house elf is batty, racist and horrible, just so you know. Old as the hills, too, which explains the mess. He’s too old to keep things up anymore. But it’s a place to crash that no one can get into, especially if I can borrow your wand for a quick minute to see if anyone left wands behind. Beggars can’t be choosers, you know.”

He led the way across the street, staring at the grungy doorknob like he expected the snakes around it to bite him.

“Go on,” Harry said. “Give it a go. We can’t stand here all night. You know they’re looking for me.”

“And me,” the man said with a hollow laugh.

When he gripped the doorknob, he winced as if he expected to be hexed for it. Nothing happened that Harry could see. After a moment, the man blinked and cautiously opened the door. It creaked like the hinges were rusted solid, but it opened for him.

“Huh, guess you weren’t locked out,” Harry commented as he pushed the man inside.

Once the door was shut, Harry pulled the cloak off, shoved it into his pocket and looked around at the place.

Grimmauld Place was… horrible.

Pit was a very good term for it. The walls were dark and grungy, both with years of grime not cleaned off and dark, ugly wallpaper that was peeling in places to show dark, ugly paint underneath. The carpet puffed dust when Harry scuffed a toe against it. Every painting in the entryway seemed to be magical but they were covered with so much dust that Harry couldn’t really make out what was on them.

“So, now that we’re inside, what’s your name again?” Harry asked. “I’m assuming it’s Black. Did you family have to take their names so seriously that you decorated everything in black? This is a bit ridiculous.”

The man cackled. “Oh, I’m serious all the time, Prongslet, but yeah, it’s a decorating nightmare. I’d love to gut the place and start over. Might have to, if I ever get the trial I have coming.”

Black.

Serious.

No…

No, Sirius Black!

Harry stared at Sirius, jaw open as he tried to make coherent noises come out his mouth. Didn’t work at all. All he managed was garbled noises like someone strangling a goose.

Sirius grinned at him, laughing quietly even though there was a sort of pain in his eyes that Harry didn’t like. He’d been laughed at too much, hunted too hard, and apparently, if Sirius was telling the truth, he didn’t deserve any of it.

They both whirled as a pop echoed in the entryway.

Harry had his wand pointed instantly while Sirius grabbed a walking stick from the troll-leg stand by the door.

“Master Sirius has come back,” the elf said, glaring up at Sirius.

“Yes, I have, Kreacher,” Sirius said still pointing the walking stick at him like he intended to impale the elf any second. “This is my heir and godson, Hadrian James Potter-Black. We’re going to lock down the wards and then have a talk.”

“And baths,” Harry said, staring at Kreacher with horror. “What is it with filthy pillowcases for house elves? I don’t get it. How’s that showing how rich and powerful a Pureblood family is? I’d think you lot would give them spiffy little tuxedos as uniforms, made out of sheets or tea towels or something. This is ridiculous. You’re as filthy as Sirius is and he stinks to high heaven! The whole place is a disaster. What’s up with that?”

Kreacher glowered at Harry, running his filthy hands over his even filthier pillowcase as if offended. “Kreacher has been working hard. Have to finish last request for Master Regulus. Good Master Regulus, not like ungrateful Master Sirius. Should have been Master Regulus who lived.”

He muttered the last bit, looking more than half-mad which kind of fit with Sirius who looked half-mad with grief and rage and exhaustion at the mention of whoever Regulus was.

“Right,” Harry said before either of them could have a go at each other. “Okay. So, what’s that last request? Maybe I can help with it.”

“Cannot,” Kreacher said, drooping like a grimy, wilting flower. “No one can. Kreacher has tried and tried to destroy it. Nothing will kill it.”

“Tried basilisk venom?” Harry asked. Then flinched when Sirius turned to stare at him with his jaw open. Kreacher jerked and stared up at him open-mouthed, too. “What? It worked on Voldemort’s cursed diary. Might work on whatever it is for you, too.”

Kreacher’s ears came up and his eyes went wide.

“Cursed diary?” Sirius squawked. “What cursed diary?”

Kreacher popped away, startling Sirius into whirling and then startling him again a moment later by popping back with a small golden locket. It felt… nasty. Way too much like the diary had when Tom had manifested himself while draining Ginny. It had tiny emeralds picking out a “S” on its cover. Harry’s skin crawled just looking at the thing.

“That’s…”

Harry slapped Sirius’ hand, keeping him for reaching out and taking the creepy thing. Not again. He’d learned that lesson with the stupid diary.

“Put it down,” Harry said while reaching into his pocket for his trunk for the basilisk fang he’d brought home with him wrapped up in a sock. “No, wait. Which room can we use that won’t be too badly damaged?”

“Parlor?” Sirius suggested, rubbing his hand, as he pouted at Harry.

The parlor had the same grimy décor, a portrait of a stern-faced older woman with grey eyes and a nose just like Sirius’, and a nice open place in the middle of the room. Harry put his trunk down, tapped it with his wand to unshrink it, and then rummaged through the mess inside to find the basilisk fang.

“There it is,” Harry said, looking up to find the portrait and Sirius in a sneering match with Kreacher clutching the locket to his chest while glowering at Sirius. “Right, whatever. I don’t care. Bring the locket over, Kreacher. Let’s get that thing destroyed and then everyone, all of us, is getting a bath, clean clothes and food.”

Kreacher didn’t look too hopeful, but he still put the locket down in front of Harry who shrugged, unwrapped his fang, and then swiftly stabbed the tip of the fang right into the locket’s cover.

Harry flinched as the expected wail, black blood and billow of smoke came off the locket. He kept on shoving the fang into the locket’s cover as hard as he could.

“What the bloody hell?” the portrait screeched. “What is that?”

“Bloody buggering fuck, I wish I knew,” Sirius breathed.

The stern-face woman in the portrait stared at Sirius, mouth open just a hair, before she nodded firmly exactly once. Sirius nodded back with his lips all pruned up like Aunt Petunia at her most disapproving.

Which really didn’t matter right that moment but was something that Harry noted as he kept shoving his basilisk fang into the damned locket with what strength he had in his right arm. It was still way too weak after the bite, despite Fawkes saving his life.

They all winced, Harry too, as the scream rose to skull-splitting levels. Harry pressed the fang harder, putting his full weight on the fang, and was rewarded with a popping sensation as it broke through the locket and punctured the floor. The scream stopped as suddenly as it started, and Harry sighed. About two seconds later, the cloud of black, oily smoke dissipated into nothing, and he was left with a destroyed locket sitting in a slowly dissolving hole on the parlor floor.

“Well, that’s that,” Harry said as he used the chain to wiggle the fang free from the twisted, blackened mess of the locket. “All fixed, Kreacher. Now, how about those baths and food, hmm?”

2. Coming Clean

I don’t care. I don’t. The Greater Good, as you call it, does not outweigh my rights as an individual. My sister should bear this burden, this anchor around all of our necks. There’s no reason whatsoever for it to afflict Father, me, or my brother. Mother doesn’t even feel it!

#

Sirius breathed. Just breathed. Shower water flowed down over him, starting out hot and clear and wonderful before turning muddy brown as it sluiced over his body. No reason to start with the rose-scented olive-oil soap Kreacher had put in Sirius’ shower like the little troll he was. Like Sirius was going to use Mother’s soap. He’d smell like a rose vomited all over him if he did.

Giggles tried to bubble up past his clenched teeth.

Merlin’s saggy balls, what the ever-loving hell had been happening to Harry while Sirius was in Azkaban? The boy was far too scrawny. He favorited his right arm as if it’d been stunned and was just coming back to sensation. Those clothes were a disgrace. His hair, of course, was a disaster but that was about the only thing that was right with Harry.

Too small, too skittish, much too dead-eyed calm about truly black magic.

“What the bloody hell?” Sirius whispered.

The water swirling around the drain was only mildly brownish, so Sirius grimaced and soaped up. Rose soap. He was going to yell at Kreacher so hard for the damned rose soap. Cedar and rose would be okay. That was Regulus’ scent. It would’ve set Sirius to sobbing in the shower instead of gritting his teeth and raging, yeah, but it would still be better than this.

Sirius paused.

Huffed.

All right, fine, better that Sirius didn’t break down right this second. Angry was better than wailing and beating against the tiles of his shower.

After all, Harry looked like he was half a second away from breaking before he went into the guest room across of Sirius’ suite.

“Really, what the bloody hell?” Sirius asked. “What’s that kid been through? He just rolls with a Grim who changes into an, admittedly, filthy disgusting stranger dressed in rags who apparated him to a pit like this? I would’ve been screaming my head off until the curiosity got to me.”

Granted, Harry had been properly wary at first. Wand at the ready, nice low stance, didn’t take his eyes off Sirius for a moment. He’d been ready to blast Sirius into oblivion if he had to. Unlike Moody who would’ve nodded approvingly at Harry’s response up until that point, Harry had even given Sirius a chance to go away when Sirius didn’t immediately attack him.

“Changed when Amelia showed up,” Sirius said thoughtfully, tipping his head back to scrub rose soap suds into his hair, not that he expected it to do much with the matted disaster his hair had become. “That’s when he hid. Not when faced with a Grim. When faced with Aurors. What, and I repeat, what the bloody hell?”

Hadn’t been that good of a conversation to overhear, either. Tonks was all right, probably. At least she’d questioned the whole thing. Sirius really needed to know just what Harry had been through with Petunia and her whale of a husband. It didn’t look good at all, even in the short time Sirius had been watching from the shadows.

Too much yelling, too much hitting, too many shouts of “Freak!” to make Sirius happy.

Reminded him of dear old Mum, really.

“Bloody fucking hell,” Sirius grumbled as he rinsed and tried to work the matted knots free from his hair.

Kreacher popped into the bathroom, thrusting a bottle of Skeakeasy’s potion into the shower. “Master needs this.”

“Rose soap?” Sirius complained even though he took the potion and set to work pouring about half of it onto his hair.

“Is all the soap the house has,” Kreacher said with a little sniff of disapproval that didn’t hide his smirk one tiny little bit.

“Uh-huh,” Sirius drawled. “Sure it is, you vicious troll, you. What the hell? Seriously, what the bloody hell?”

“Kreacher does not know, Master,” Kreacher said in a much more subdued tone. “Master Harry Potter is… too young to be that way. Masters is not supposed to be like that until they is much, much older. Much older than Master Sirius is.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” Sirius agreed.

The potion did its miracles, loosening all the matts and soothing his frazzled, horrible hair until he was able to rinse the loose hair out and then shampoo the whole awful mess until it was properly clean. His scalp felt like he’d lost a pound of dandruff and his skin was boiled lobster red by the time he got out of the shower.

“I have got to trim this mess,” Sirius complained as he dried his now waist-length hair. No, hip-length. “I could sit on this. This is ridiculous.”

“Master should braid it and put it in a proper queue,” Kreacher said hopefully enough that Sirius stared at him aghast. “Kreacher can powder it, too.”

“No,” Sirius said, pointing at Kreacher who scowled. “That style’s not used anymore, not even in the Wizengamot, Kreacher. No. Absolutely not. Forget it. It will never, ever, ever happen.”

More muttering not at all under Kreacher’s breath, all about ungrateful Masters, and sad decline of the great and powerful Black family. Which, you know, fair. Sirius was doing the exact same thing right back at Kreacher as he dried off, shaved properly for the first time in nearly twelve years.

He rubbed his smooth cheeks, sighing happily once he was done. So much better.

Then he went to see what, if anything, he had to wear. Pants, thank Merlin, were there in his wardrobe. Socks, too, nice thick warm ones that Sirius beamed at once they were on his feet. It’d been eight years since his other socks rotted away despite everything he’d done to try and preserve them.

No one got new socks or pants in Azkaban. They were lucky to get food on a daily basis.

He had a choice of three pairs of black trousers, two whole shirts both of which were silvery grey, and sixteen jackets. All the colors of the rainbow, all too loose, but Sirius couldn’t exactly complain. Better still, his warmest winter robe hung in the wardrobe, so he got to wrap up in its deep blue gorgeous warmth before pulling on a pair of old dress shoes that weren’t all that poorly fitting even if Sirius had to lace them as tightly as possible to keep them from sliding around on his feet.

Kreacher stood by the door, hands clenched in his pillowcase.

“You know, you can probably talk him out of the whole uniform thing,” Sirius commented as he shut the wardrobe.

“Kreacher tried,” Kreacher admitted. He scowled. “Master Harry Potter will not change his mind. Kreacher must be clean. House must be clean. Must have uniform. Kreacher… does not know what a uniform looks like.”

“Valid point,” Sirius said. “Let’s go get him to explain because I’m as clueless as you are. Must be a muggle thing. Though, you know, I do see his point on being snootier than everyone else by putting uniforms on the house elves. I’m surprised Grandfather Arcturus didn’t do that. Or Mother. She’d have rubbed that in Lady Augusta’s face in a blink of an eye if she could have.”

Kreacher snorted.

Not a sneering snort, not even the “you’re being an uncultured swine of a master” snort. An actual snort of laughter.

Bloody hell, what the fuck had Harry done to them all? Killing that monstrous locket had addled all their brains. Especially Sirius’ if he was actually looking at Kreacher with some sort of approval.

“Right, where’s Harry now?” Sirius asked.

“Master Harry Potter is… cleaning the kitchen,” Kreacher said with such mortal offense that Sirius barked a laugh. “Is not funny! Masters is not supposed to clean!”

“No, but he’s been raised like he is a house elf,” Sirius explained as he headed downstairs with Kreacher stumping along at his heels. “He’s in a new place and he’s nervous as hell. Not surprised at all that he decided to get a bit of control by cleaning. You want him not to cook and clean, you’re going to have to stay ahead of him. Clean it before he can get to it. Cook it before he can realize he needs it.”

Kreacher nodded slowly, obviously taking the advice completely seriously. “Kreacher will do so.”

That sounded like a threat. Sirius pressed his lips together to keep from barking another laugh. Harry was in the basement kitchen, scrubbing away at the stove like he intended to take decades of grime and use off of it in the next hour.

“You’re offending Kreacher,” Sirius warned Harry who jumped, whirled, and lifted his arm to wing the soapy steel wool he’d been using at Sirius.

“I told him I wanted it clean,” Harry replied with a glower at Kreacher who pouted and clenched his hands in his filthy pillowcase. “Told you that you needed a uniform, too.”

“Neither of us knows what that should look like,” Sirius said, plopping down at the kitchen table and staring at Harry. “Got a sketch? Description? Something to work with?”

“Great,” Harry complained.

He set down the steel wool which immediately disappeared. Kreacher didn’t even bother looking guilty for stealing it. Harry rolled his eyes and went to sit at the table with Sirius, rubbing his right forearm like it ached.

“Butler’s uniform,” Harry said, almost bored as he described it. “Generally they’re in dark colors, trousers for men, simple shirt, button-down, cuffed, with a waistcoat and jacket. Can have tails if it’s a formal situation, not otherwise. Tie is usually a bow-tie, very simple, very plain, no bright colors. Most often a butler or servant will have a pocket watch so that they always know what time it is, making sure that they get everything done on time for their masters. I’d assume you’d want one with the Black…” he waved at his chest vaguely, “insignia or something. Shield. Whatever that coat of arms thing might be. Probably make the tie in Black colors. Or the whole thing Black colors though I don’t know what those are. Everyone working as a servant wears one. Girls in skirts. Guys in trousers. Highest ranking has the best waistcoat, tie, and pocket watch. Like that.”

Sirius nodded thoughtfully. “All right. That sounds good actually. Socks and shoes, too?”

“Yes.” Harry rolled his eyes and blew a raspberry at them. “Of course. What? The Black family is so poor that they can’t afford socks and shoes? Really?”

Sirius cackled. “Oh, you’re going to be great at this! Okay, right. Do that, Kreacher. And yes, it all has to be clean. You heard him. It’s snobby, be better than everyone else, time. Clean uniform, clean you, polished until they shine shoes.”

Kreacher sighed as if he was felt utterly put-upon, but his eyes shown with a decidedly worrying gleam. “Kreacher will do so. Kreacher is not sleeping in it, though.”

“Nope, night clothes for that, again as a uniform,” Harry said entirely calmly. “Little dressing gown and all. Slippers, too. That way if someone comes in the middle of the night like a rude berk, you show up in your very nice night clothes and glare them down for being so rude as to show up without warning.”

Yeah, very worrying gleam in Kreacher’s eyes. He popped away, but the instant he left the kitchen stove was a thousand times cleaner than it had been. Counters and floors, too. Huh. Apparently all Kreacher needed to do his job was a reason to one-up everyone else.

“All right,” Sirius said, waving for Harry to follow him. “Upstairs. I know there’re wands in this place. Let me borrow your wand to summon them all then we’ll properly lock down the wards.”

“I thought you did that already,” Harry said, following Sirius upstairs with a little limp that Sirius desperately wanted to check out. He shouldn’t be moving like he was two hundred years old, not when he wasn’t even fourteen yet.

“Not properly,” Sirius said. “Locked the floo and made sure the wards would refuse anyone entrance, but the wards aren’t completely under my control yet. I need a wand of my own to do that. Yours doesn’t much like me. I mean, it’ll work with me, but not for long.”

A quick accio wands had forty-three wands flying in to settle on the second parlor table. All of them were dusty and old, of course, but they looked solid enough. No ratty cores showing at the ends, cracks, or sparks of magic coming off them.

“Accio wand holsters,” Sirius said once he’d got all the wands laid out for a proper testing fest.

Ten soared in, plopping on the table next to Harry who stared at them with a puzzled expression.

“What’re these?” Harry asked.

Sirius’ brain stopped working. Total stop. He stared at Harry, mouth open, trying to connect two consecutive thoughts with anything other than his father’s many, many, many warnings to never store his wand in his pocket lest he shoot his prick off.

“Don’t tell me you keep your wand in your pocket,” Mum said from one of the paintings on the wall. She scowled at Harry. “You’re blast your ah, member off, young man.”

Harry laughed. “Yeah, right.”

“No,” Sirius said, firmly enough that Harry’s eyes went wide, and he leaned back in his seat. “She’s right. It’s stupidly dangerous and your dad actually did wound himself that way. You’re getting one of these, period.”

“But… how?” Harry protested with all the teenage superiority that a thirteen-year-old could muster. It was a lot more than Sirius had realized anyone could pull. “Wands don’t just do magic by themselves.”

Sirius waved Harry’s objection away while sorting through the holsters. “Depends on how upset you are, how stable your magic is at the time and what ambient magic is around. Plus, some really old wands can actually do things on their own. If a wand’s used long enough, it develops a degree of… I wouldn’t call it intelligence, but they can make things happen and influence their wielders in bad ways. Anyway, single holster, single holster, worthless, both of them. I should toss those. Ah, there we go, twenty! That’s the ticket. Now we just need one more for twenty…”

As Sirius sorted through the small mountain of holsters for another one that was in good condition, self-adjusting for size, and which held a minimum of twenty wands, Harry stared at Sirius with his mouth open.

“Got one!” Sirius exclaimed. “Nice and new, too. You take that one. Here’s your wand. Put it in first. That’s your primary. You’ll want to try and find a wand that works with each of your favorite classes and then a dueling wand that you can use whenever you get into a really nasty fight. I won’t suggest that you have a wand specifically for the Unforgivables because you absolutely should never use those. But be aware that there’s a lot of magi who do have wands like that. Moody, my old instructor, had three wands specifically to use in the deadliest battles.”

“You know,” Harry said as he carefully put on the holster, nodding as it fit to his arm, and then inserted his wand backwards first. It didn’t go so he switched it around then nodded when it worked. “I really need an explanation of the blow your dick off thing. Ron’s brothers said the same thing, but they were laughing when they said it.”

“Oh, lovely,” Sirius groaned. “This is so not fair. I swore up, down, left, and right that I was going to run for the high hills when Prongs had to give you the Little Wizards’ lectures. You do know where babies come from, right? I don’t have to explain where not to put your prick?”

He started testing wands, pushing all the ones that didn’t work for him to Harry while keeping a small stack that worked with him despite what a mess he was. A few felt good for the future, once he was healed up a touch, so he kept them, too.

Harry followed suit, testing wands, and stowing the ones that worked for him despite the ferocious blush that covered his face.

“Yes, I know where babies come from,” Harry said so stiffly that Sirius grinned at him. “Aunt Petunia gave me that lecture.”

“Oh, lad, I am so sorry,” Sirius said, shuddering. “She was always a horror. Can’t imagine what a nightmare that would’ve been. Probably as bad as the one I got from my mum up there.”

“At least you never brought home a bastard child,” Mum snapped at him. “It’s quite simple really, young man. Your magic flows first and foremost through the core of your body. While you’re young, or when you’re profoundly upset, the magic can manifest on your skin. Your wands is uniquely tuned to interact with your magic. If you store your wand in a pocket or against the core of your body, it can and will respond when your magic manifests.”

Sirius nodded grimly. “It’s not pretty. Your dad had a scar right across his right thigh, on the inside. Nearly hit the femoral artery. Did clip the tip of his prick. Blood everywhere. Screaming. Not pretty. Remus and I dragged him off to Pomphrey who read the riot act at all of us. The rat, well, he passed out as soon as it happened. Not sure he ever got the proper lecture. No wands in your pocket from now on, understand?”

Harry nodded slowly. He tried to say something and completely failed to make anything other than gibberish come out his mouth. Lots better than how Sirius had reacted with James’ little disaster. Remus had gone green. Peter, well.

Fuck Peter.

Sirius would catch him and kill him soon enough.

“So, you get all of the ones that work for you?” Sirius asked once they’d gone through the stack of wands.

“I think so,” Harry said with a frown. “None of them were quite as good as my wand.”

“That’s normal,” Sirius said, waving for Harry to follow him. “As you hit your magical maturations, you’ll find them easier to use. It’s part of growing up. In the beginning your magic is so unsettled that one wand works best. The more you go through, the more magic you do, the more wands will work for you.”

“Um,” Harry hesitated and frowned at Sirius. “Question for you.”

“Sure,” Sirius said, hand on the doorknob of the tapestry room.

“How do you feel right now?” Harry asked, still frowning intently at Sirius.

“…A bit worried about getting this place locked down safely but more or less okay?” Sirius said, staring right back at Harry.

“Ah, well, you’re not exactly stable,” Harry said. He shrugged his shoulders. “Did you realize that you were weeping a bit ago? Or giggling briefly? I mean, right now, this second, you’re gripping that door handle so tight that it’s creaking.”

Sirius started and stared at his hand. White knuckles. Huh. His hand did ache pretty badly. He sighed.

“Lovely,” Sirius said and shook his head. “Don’t go to Azkaban, Harry. The Dementors will completely mess with your emotions. Doesn’t matter. We still have to claim the wards and then get healing. Come on. The ward stone is hidden in here.”

Sirius pushed open the door and winced as a desperate whine sounded. He cleared his throat, shaking his head at Harry who looked worried about him.

There were so many names blasted off the family tree. So many. He rested his fingers on Regulus’ name, watching his hand shake even though all Sirius consciously felt was sorrow for his lost little brother.

Yeah. They both needed healing. Lots of it and as soon as Sirius could arrange it.

3. Broken Links

That’s the part that bothers me the most. That Mother, she who would have been vassal to the Potter family, feels nothing whatsoever while the rest of us suffer is unconscionable.

#

Harry looked around the room, trying to figure out where the so-called ward stone might be. All he saw were walls covered with a tapestry woven with a family tree. It was pretty. Actual tree done in gold against a rich green background. The branches spread all the way around the room with people’s names and…

“The faces move,” Harry breathed as he realized that the little faces were looking back at him.

“Oh, yeah,” Sirius said. He grimaced something like a smile, only about ten thousand times scarier, and shrugged. “My mum was batshite insane. She blasted off anyone that she didn’t approve of. I should be right here, but I wasn’t good enough for her. My little brother Reggie, Regulus, was the good heir, the one who should’ve inherited according to her.”

“Why didn’t he?” Harry asked cautiously.

The mood swings Sirius showed were pretty alarming. He’d darn close to torn his hair out during the whole killing the locket thing, all while giggling like a lunatic. He’d gone from genial to delighted to dripping tears and then jaw-dropped horrified in a matter of moments while they were choosing extra wands. Well, Harry had fifteen extra wands now, not that he had a clue what to do with them. He just took the ones that seemed to work with his magic, more or less.

Sirius had seemed to have a real purpose as he tested his wands, casting little spells that he paid no attention to and taking mock battle poses as if seeing if they moved right in his hands. He’d chose a solid twenty wands, filling his holster.

Despite his intention of throwing the single-wand holsters away, Sirius hadn’t even noticed when Harry took them. If what Sirius and his mum said was true, Ron and Neville both desperately needed proper wand holsters. They all kept their wands in their pockets, Seamus, and Dean, too. Maybe Hermione had been right that it was a very bad practice, though she’d made it seem like it was more a risk of falling and breaking your wand than blowing portions of your anatomy off.

If that was actually a real thing.

He wasn’t sure, despite Sirius’ mum confirming it.

But if it was real, well. Wand holsters for Ron and Neville. Maybe he could grab some of the other ones later, pass them out to all the Weasleys and Dean and Seamus, too.

Sirius sighed and tugged at his long, wild, wavy hair like he was going to get a knife and saw it all off at the nape of his neck any second now. “He died. No one knows how. I guess… I mean, I always thought that old Voldie killed him, but apparently Reggie betrayed Voldie, stole the locket and somehow died for it. We really need to get that to the goblins, see what they think it was.”

“Wards?” Harry asked, stopping Sirius before he could go haring off to another room.

“Right, yes,” Sirius said, wagging a finger at Harry. “Wards, food, help to get to the goblins. Should be able to fix this thing up once we control the wards. That’ll tell me if there are any relatives we can go to. Or we can just go to your seneschal, Amal.”

“Who?” Harry asked.

He winced and did his best not to back away when Sirius whirled to stare at Harry with wild eyes. Okay, be careful about mentioning the seneschal, whatever that was. The last thing Harry wanted to do was set Sirius off any worse. If that was possible.

“How can you not know Amal?” Sirius asked in a slow, careful voice that didn’t at all match the wild look in his eyes or the keening he made under his breath.

“Never heard of him before,” Harry said with a shrug. “Um, how do you feel right now? I mean, what emotion are you, you know, having?”

Sirius blinked. “Um, nothing much at the moment. Bit horrified that you’ve been kept away from Amal. I mean, he’s your seneschal. He takes care of all the paperwork and stuff for your lordship.”

Lordship.

Harry sucked in a breath and then sighed. “Right. Well. Um. You’re apparently really not aware when you’re acting crazy. Crying and laughing and, right now, shaking like you’re having a panic attack.”

“I’m not…” Sirius paused as he held up his hands which shook so violently that Harry was surprised he could even hang onto the dark oak wand he’d pulled out of his holster. “Oh… Oh! Oh, damn, I thought I was better off than this. I’ve dissociated entirely, all the way instead of just partway like I thought. It’s the Dementors. Long-term exposure to them does terrible things to your mind. Right, well, that makes the whole help from the goblins thing even more urgent. Wards first. Always good to have a clear sequence to follow. Wards, food, then get help.”

“Good,” Harry said, mentally tagging “dementors”, “dissociation” and what the bloody hell bankers could do for healing as things to research as soon as he could slip away from Sirius. “So, where’s the ward stone?”

“Right over here,” Sirius said.

He moved to the center of the room and waved his oak wand. For a moment, during which Harry wondered wildly just how crazy Sirius actually was and if he was safe in Grimmauld Place with him, nothing happened.

Then a panel in the floor abruptly popped up, revealing a trapdoor that led downwards. The first two flights of stairs were wood. Sirius lit his wand with a quiet lumos and headed downwards. Harry followed suit, doing lumos as well because why not? As unstable as Sirius was, extra light was a very good thing. Be better to have his own source of light given that Sirius might randomly decide to put his lumos out.

Huh.

Actually, having all those extra wands might be a good thing. If Harry dropped his normal wand, he’d still have a wand to use. Hm. Have to mention that to Hermione when he got back to school. Maybe there were secondhand stores where you could get wands or something. Hermione would certainly enjoy researching how different wands reacted to different spells and different people.

After the first two flights of stairs, the stairs turned to stone. Big stone blocks formed the walls, ones with chisel marks still showing on their flanks. They went down another two and a half flights worth of stairs, Harry counted, before they came to a big iron-banded door that had no lock at all on it.

“It’s in here,” Sirius said. He muttered something under his breath and then shuddered violently as the door swung inwards without either of them touching it. “Be careful where you step. Try not to step on any of the lines. There’s a path to follow to get to the stone. We have to be careful this time. The next time we visit it’ll be fine. The ward stone will know us, welcome us in. Right now it doesn’t know us except vaguely.”

Not one bit of which made sense until Sirius stepped into the ward room.

It was a fairly large room, about twenty foot by thirty, twelve-foot-high ceilings that arched overhead with heavy beams made of huge one-ton blocks of stone carved to shape. The walls were plain stone, more of the hand-chiseled sort like the stairwell, as was the ceiling between the beams.

The floor was polished obsidian, smooth and sleek as glass and black as night.

When Sirius stepped into the room, that sleek black floor suddenly lit up from within. Lines swooped around the room forming a series of interlocking circles connected by angles and lines and squares. Runes bracketed every single circle, inside and out, and ran along either side of the other lines, too. The room hummed with power, drawing Harry’s eyes inwards and inwards and inwards to a big chunk of stone about six inches shorter than Harry was tall.

That had to be the ward stone.

It was striped, black and white with a few bands of vivid green rock running through it. The stripes folded and twisted like the chocolate bread that Aunt Petunia bought for special tea parties that had been layered and twisted into something exotic despite the perfectly ordinary dough. Those stripes ran through the ward stone, thick and thin, twisting into a pattern that was beautiful, if as inconsistent as Sirius.

“Stay close,” Sirius told Harry quietly. “Once we’re to the stone, I’ll cut my hand. You’ll need to do it, too. Working with the wards requires blood. Not a lot, really, just a few drops.”

“Okay,” Harry said slowly even as he hurried to all but walk on Sirius’ heels. “Why’s that?”

“Why’s what?” Sirius asked absently.

His teeth chattered as he led Harry on a winding, ridiculously switch-backing path through the glowing lines on the floor. Harry stopped looking at the runes and things after a few steps. They gave him a horrible headache that throbbed right between his eyes when he stared for more than a couple of seconds. Felt rather like someone was trying to hammer a bloody iron railroad spike into his forehead.

Or maybe some little man inside his head was trying to hammer his way out.

Hard to tell, either way, when it hurt so much.

“Why’s it take blood?” Harry asked.

“It depends on the sort of ward,” Sirius explained perfectly calmly between his teeth-chattering and shaking fits. “The Black family has old wards, really old wards, that were cast before the Ministry was created. Old wards like those are all blood-based. Hogwarts used to have wards like that, but I think they tore them out and replaced them with newer wards. The goblins are supposed to come in and fix them up every hundred years or so. Blood wards only need the attention of the Patriarch and the heir to keep working properly.”

“Us,” Harry said with a slow nod that nearly knocked him off his feet. Stupid headache.

“Yep,” Sirius agreed. He took one big step over a final glowing white line and held out a hand to Harry to make sure he made it across safely. “Here we go. This is simple really. I’ll do the hard bit, which’ll mostly be hard because I’m a bit mucked in the head right now. You just introduce yourself to the stone, bloody hand anywhere on it, and let it feel your magic out. Should be just fine.”

Harry nodded, winced at the stab of pain through his skull, and then grunted a yes-sounding sort of noise through his gritted teeth. Putting cuts on their hands was a simple enough thing. Sirius used his wand, different one from the one he’d been carrying on his way in, to make a little cut at the base of their thumbs. Right hand for both of them.

Then Sirius took a deep breath and pressed his hand against the stone.

Magic leaped up all around them, in sheets that rippled like the layers of black and white and green in the ward stone. The sheets of magic danced around the room, zipping along the lines of the glowing circles until the entire room blazed with light.

It hurt like nothing else ever had. Harry panted, shaking, and barely managed to keep himself from groaning when Sirius, eyes still shut, nodded for Harry to put his hand on the ward stone.

The Black family magic went through Harry like he’d been hit with lightning.

Bright, blazing arcs of magic that tore his head right open and dropped Harry to his nerveless knees. He gasped for breath between the waves of pain, unable to do anything other than suffer. The pain was…

It felt like…

He couldn’t…

Distantly, very, very distantly, Harry heard Sirius shout something, but it was so far away from the crackle of the magic and the dark cloud of pain and anger boiling up off his forehead.

Oh.

Not his forehead.

His scar.

Merlin’s bollocks, Harry’s scar was just like the diary and the locket!

Harry snarled and pushed at the darkness trying to cling to him. No. Just no! He wasn’t having that awful mess inside of him. That it’d been there all this time was bad enough. Maybe Professor Dumbledore hadn’t lied when he said his mum’s magic protected him…

…the magic suddenly turned teal and rose and gold.

Harry wheezed and then laughed as the screaming black cloud died just like the diary and the locket had.

Warmth surrounded him. His mum’s warmth. Wetness flowed down Harry’s cheeks. It tasted like tear-salt but felt sticky like blood. Both?

Maybe both.

The Black family magic eased. It shifted from lightning to a warm, thick blanket that cocooned Harry in something that felt amazingly good. Kind of like his mum’s bright rose-gold and teal magic but with a more masculine edge.

There was something fractured in that blanket, sharp-edged and worried. Harry blinked and then blinked again to get his eyes to focus on Sirius who was kneeling right next to Harry, hands out as if he wanted to grab Harry but was afraid to touch.

Harry laughed and let himself topple into Sirius’ embrace. “Really glad I made you bathe before we did this.”

“Prongslet, I have no idea what you just said,” Sirius said with a wet sniffle. He hugged the air right out of Harry’s lungs. “Bloody buggering fuck, what is it with you? Even James wasn’t this dramatic, and he went out of his way to do ridiculous things.”

Harry snickered. It felt… good to be held. The lines of the runes underneath them didn’t feel so intimidating anymore. His head, despite the tears and blood slowly dripping down his face, felt way better, too. That whole throbbing headache was gone, thank Merlin.

“I said,” Harry said with a bit of effort to enunciate the words properly, “that I’m really glad I made you bathe before we did this. You’d’ve been horrible to hug before.”

Sirius barked a laugh, rocking Harry side to side. “Oh, Prongslet, I’m glad you inherited your parents’ senses of humor. Try not to give me more heart attacks like that, okay? At least not until after I’ve seen a proper healer.”

“No promises,” Harry replied. “Upstairs again?”

Sirius sighed and nodded against Harry’s hair. He, stunningly, gave the top of Harry’s head a little kiss as he hugged Harry more tightly for a moment. Then he healed Harry’s hand, mended his own, and then stood on legs that didn’t shake at all. Sirius gave a pass at healing Harry’s forehead, too, though it didn’t feel like the wound closed up all the way. Less blood oozed down his face but that was it.

Sirius’ teeth didn’t chatter, either, despite Sirius looking so damned pale that Harry half expected him to pass out at any moment.

They stopped three times on the stairs up to the tapestry room when Harry ran out of breath and another four times for Sirius who seemed to have all the lung capacity of an asthmatic eighty-year-old man who’d smoked six packs a day his entire life. They were both sweaty once they got back to the tapestry room which, oddly, looked much, much cleaner than before.

Not a single cobweb in the place. The tapestry seemed much brighter, as if someone had given it a good dusting. The wooden floor gleamed suspiciously.

Harry peered at the floor, then at Sirius when Sirius snickered and shook his head.

“What?” Harry asked warily.

“Kreacher did not like you taking his cleaning away from him in the kitchen,” Sirius said with a huge grin and actual merriment in his eyes. “I think he’s decided he has to clean everything before you have a chance to get to it first.”

“God,” Harry groaned, rolling his eyes. “Seriously?”

“I’m always Sirius, Prongslet,” Sirius said. He wagged his eyebrows at Harry and then laughed, a real, true happy laugh when Harry lightly shoved his shoulder. “Right, right. I’ll leave it be for the moment. Let me see if I can get this tapestry fixed up a bit. I really do need to know if there are Black family members who aren’t associated with the Death Eaters that I can try to get on our side.”

The spell Sirius used was a version of repario that Harry had never heard. He was tired enough that he didn’t really get what it was until Sirius said “repario”. Something something familia sanguis repario something funditus was what it sounded like to Harry.

What it did was make the entire tapestry shiver, shake itself off so dramatically that dust billowed in the room, and then reweave itself from the top down. Every single thread twisted like a startled worm before shimmering and reforming exactly as it should have been. The burnt places sent off showers of ash before the neighboring threads lent bits of themselves, filling in the holes. In a matter of thirty seconds or so, the entire tapestry shuddered and squirmed itself into shimmering, beautiful perfection.

Dozens upon dozens of new names appeared on the tapestry. Whole new branches formed up that hadn’t been there before. Branches that had dead-ended suddenly had new twigs and leaves and lines leading off from them.

“Did… did the Black family disown like half their members?” Harry asked once the tapestry settled down into being just, just, a magical tapestry showing the Black family line.

“Something like that,” Sirius said. He went over to his spot, sighing that Regulus’ name was still picked out in silver instead of gold like Sirius’ name.

Harry’s name was there now, too, linked back to Sirius with a thin gold dotted line and with silver lines back to his mum and dad who appeared in silver on the tapestry. Their pictures were so young, so much younger than the man and woman he’d seen in the Mirror of Erised.

“Oh, there you two are,” Sirius whispered, sniffling dramatically. “Bugger, I’d forgotten somehow that we were such close cousins.”

“They’re so young,” Harry whispered, unsure why he whispered but unable to raise his voice when he wanted to break into tears like Sirius, but he couldn’t quite let his guard down so far.

“The pictures stay the age you were when you died,” Sirius confirmed. He brushed his fingers over Harry’s name. “You’re not allowed to die until you’re two hundred and ninety, you hear me? I want your picture to be the oldest on this stupid thing.”

“…How long do magi live?” Harry asked after opening his mouth to say something sarcastic and then thinking before he let the quip come out.

Sirius probably wouldn’t have taken it well if Harry admitted that he didn’t expect to make it to eighteen, what with the way his life had been going. Frankly, Harry didn’t let himself think things like that all that often, but after the day he’d had so far, well, he figured he was justified.

“…At least two hundred years normally,” Sirius said with a ferocious frown. “Most don’t live much past two-fifty but Blacks and especially Potters who don’t get themselves killed in stupidly dramatic ways can live much longer. I think you had an ancestor about eight generations back who lived to nearly three hundred but I’m not sure. The Dementors did a bloody number in my brain.”

Yeah, definitely not good to comment about Harry’s certainty that he wasn’t going to survive to eighteen.

On the other hand, Sirius hadn’t shown the slightest hint of weird mood swings since they left the ward room. His voice and his eyes and his body all seemed to be feeling the same things at the same time. Maybe the ward stone and the Black family magic did him some good, the way they’d done Harry some good.

Maybe a lot of good given that whatever it was in his scar had been driven out and destroyed like the diary and the locket.

“Huh. Right, well, I need to wash my face,” Harry said. “While you do your checking, I think I’m going to do that. Then I’m going to battle Kreacher for the kitchen. I really am hungry. We need sandwiches or something. I’m thinking grilled cheese. With ham. A lot of ham.”

“You do that,” Sirius said, grinning at Harry as if he thought the idea of winning a fight for the kitchen was cute. “Good luck with it. You’ll need it. Just… go easy on your forehead. It’s a mess.”

“Feels way better,” Harry said, gingerly touching the bloody mess that was his scar. “I’ll be gentle. See what you can find and then we’ll meet in the kitchen, right?”

“Right,” Sirius said.

He nodded and went back to studying the tapestry with bright, intense eyes. Not one facial tick or grimace. No tugging at his hair. Huh, the ward stone apparently had done him a lot of good.

When Harry headed back up the stairs, the rug running up the steps was aggressively clean. The paintings on the walls were all brighter. Even the dust in the corners looked to have been vacuumed out somehow. Baseboards were spotless, gleaming with polish that had just a faint hint of lemon to it.

Harry snorted. “I still want to cook, Kreacher.”

He could’ve sworn that the wallpaper got aggressively brighter as Harry passed. Didn’t matter. Harry was still going to keep up his cooking skills. He’d earned them at the end of a swinging frying pan, and he’d be damned if he’d let anyone, Aunt Petunia or Kreacher, take his joy away from him.

4. Tentative Plans

Grandfather’s plot worked very well for her. She’s free as a bird, able to live and cast magic without a dragging weight upon her core.

#

Sirius sat at the table in the kitchen, sipping his tea while watching Harry and Kreacher passive-aggressively argue about what to have for late dinner. Really late dinner. He wasn’t sure exactly what time it was, but it felt like midnight.

What a day.

The kitchen sparkled; it was cleaner than Sirius had ever seen. Every single cabinet was perfectly spotless. The floor hadn’t been this clean since it was installed. Kreacher had cleaned the stove to within an inch of its life. Sirius wouldn’t be surprised if the metal was thinner than it had been from all the scrubbing Harry and then Kreacher had done.

None of which had stopped Harry from marching in, plasters across his bruised forehead, and setting to work making grilled ham and cheese sandwiches.

Kreacher had already made sandwiches, nice thick beef with Swiss on the crusty bread that you got from the best bakeries because only they had the old-style wood-fired brick ovens that would cook a loaf in minutes. He’d made soup, a thick tomato soup. He’d even made a beautiful salad full of wild and domesticated greens, topping it with pansy, lavender, and nasturtium flowers.

“Master Harry, there is sandwiches already,” Kreacher finally said, glaring up at Harry.

“Yeah, I see that,” Harry said. “They look great, really, they do. I’m not knocking them. I’ve just got a craving for ham and cheddar. Beef’s fine. Really. It’s great. Not what I want.”

Kreacher heaved a sigh, muttering under his breath. “Master Harry should be sitting down before he falls down.”

“No,” Harry declared, hands locked on the counter so tightly that not only did his knuckles go white, his wrists did, too.

“Kreacher,” Sirius said, waving for Kreacher to come over. “Go on, make what you want, Prongslet. But you’re eating some soup and having salad, too. No gorging yourself on cheese toasties, got it?”

Harry stared at Sirius for a moment and then breathed a ghost of a laugh. He nodded once. As Kreacher stomped over to Sirius, using those shiny new shoes of his for great, echoing effect, Harry peeled his fingers off the counter edge and set to work making a quite moderate ham and cheddar sandwich with very thinly sliced bread. Barely any ham at all and only enough cheese to stick it all together. He didn’t even put butter or mayonnaise on the bread before he started grilling it.

“He… needs this,” Sirius murmured to Kreacher. He kept his eyes on Harry’s stiff back. “Let him cook things, please. It’s… I think it’s barely keeping him together right now.”

Kreacher frowned and then nodded slowly. “Kreacher is still complaining about it. Is not masters’ place to be cooking.”

“Unless that master is someone who wants to cook,” Sirius said with a little grin into his tea at the way a thundercloud all but formed over Kreacher’s head. “It’s a skill he likes. Good practice for potions, anyway. Let him. That’s an order.”

Sirius did chuckle at Kreacher’s huff as he stomped, loudly, back across the kitchen to bang around in the cabinets while muttering and complaining. It didn’t take very long before Harry’s shoulders shook with laughter from the sheer outrageousness of Kreacher’s complaints. As if Harry was going to ever make a full ten-course meal for a hundred guests, all while tying Kreacher to a chair and making him watch.

Pretty quickly, Harry came over with his very small, very plain ham and cheese sandwich. Sirius served up a salad for him, then pushed one of the bowls of soup to him. Harry grimaced.

“Can’t eat that much or don’t like it?” Sirius asked.

Harry stared at Sirius like a deer caught in the headlights. Very much like James when Lily caught him mid-prank. Oh, Prongslet. He really should never have let Hagrid take Harry. That one mistake had cost them both so much over the last decade.

“Uh…” Harry looked down at his skinny sandwich and shrugged one shoulder.

“I can’t eat a quarter of one of these sandwiches,” Sirius said. He shrugged a shoulder right back at Harry. “They feed you one very meager meal a day in Azkaban. My stomach’s badly shrunken. Pretty sure that Petunia did the same to you. I don’t expect you to eat it all, Prongslet. Do your best. Eat a little of all three. I figure we’ll be having multiple meals a day to try and get back to a healthy weight.”

“I never… get this much,” Harry said as he picked up his sandwich and started eating it slowly. “Beef never has agreed with my stomach. I didn’t want to risk getting sick.”

“It can upset people’s stomachs,” Sirius agreed. “Your dad was that way. He’d take ham and chicken over beef every time. Got it from his mum, from what I could see. She’d never touch beef if she had a choice. If that’s all she had, she’d eat a bite or two and then declare herself too full to touch another morsel.”

Harry stopped staring at his plate as Sirius talked. Merlin, the poor kid was starved for anything about his family. There was no way that Petunia would have said one word of Lily. The bad blood between the two of them had been epic, legendary in their school days. Lily and James’ wedding had almost been ruined by Petunia’s vicious sniping and her oaf of a husband’s insults.

But he should have heard about Lily and James from school, shouldn’t he?

Professor McGonagall and Professor Flitwick both knew Lily. So did Snape, the slimy berk. Hagrid had adored James. Any of them could’ve told Harry stories.

“I didn’t know that,” Harry murmured. He started in on the salad, eyebrows going up in surprise.

“Kreacher makes a mean salad,” Sirius said, grinning as Harry plowed into it. “Make sure that you eat the flowers, especially. They’re good for digestion and stabilizing your magical channels after an injury or a fight. I think we can both use it.”

“You’re not eating,” Harry said, frowning at Sirius.

“I ate already,” Sirius said. He shrugged. “You took a while.”

“Showered,” Harry admitted around a bulging mouthful of salad. “Felt gross.”

He swallowed, tried the soup, and groaned, muttering complementary-uncomplimentary things at Kreacher who marched around the kitchen unnecessarily cleaning things with a smug expression on his face. Sirius had to pour himself more tea to laugh into at the two of them. It was like Harry just got Kreacher on an instinctive level that even Reggie hadn’t.

Of course, Reggie hadn’t ever been made to work like a house elf.

“What’d you find out?” Harry asked as he ate a good third of the soup, than picked away at his sandwich, clearly getting full already.

“Amal is still seneschal of House Potter,” Sirius reported. “He shows on the tapestry if I touch your name. None of your family’s vassals are still there but that’s no surprise. They wouldn’t show when they haven’t sworn to you. Can’t tell if they’re alive or dead or what.”

Harry frowned at Sirius.

“Yeah, I figured you had no idea about vassals,” Sirius said with a sigh that came from his toes. “We’ll talk about it later. Or I’ll let Amal explain it. He’s way better at that stuff than I am. I went out of my way to avoid learning it and frankly, the Black family never had many vassals. We either outright adopted people into the bloodline or we bound them with contracts. Vassals are a Potter thing.”

“Oh-kay,” Harry said, shaking his head. “And the goblins?”

“I’ve got a cousin whose wife works for Gringotts,” Sirius said with his biggest, best, making-mischief grin. “Anthony Black is the son of Marius Black who was disowned for being a squib. With me taking Patriarch, he’ll feel the family magic pulling on him. His wife Lacey will feel it, too. I can send Kreacher to them, arrange for Lacey to meet us at Gringotts and get us to the proper account managers. I still haven’t figured out a way to get to Amal, though. I can’t send Kreacher there.”

“…Why?” Harry asked.

He pushed the meal away, rolling his eyes when Kreacher popped over to take everything away. Knowing Kreacher, he would save the sandwiches to push at Sirius at every opportunity. He might, given how Harry and Kreacher worked together, make a completely different set of sandwiches to push on Harry at odd moments.

Sirius sighed, frowning into his tea. “I should have had a trial. Dumbledore had the right, authority, and the power to give me a trial at any time. No one even questioned me, Prongslet. I was just seized, stunned, and woke up in Azkaban. Had a lot of time to think.”

“…He put you there deliberately,” Harry said, jumping straight to the conclusion that Sirius had ended up with on eight-seven separate occasions over the years. “To gain control of me?”

“And to keep the Black and Potter votes in limbo in the Wizengamot,” Sirius said. He shook his head that Harry just stared at him blankly. “You’re killing me here, Prongslet. The things you don’t know.”

Sirius finished off his tea and waved for Harry to follow him. They made their way up to the second floor to the library. The black double doors were matte, not shiny and polished, but Sirius suspected that not even house elf magic could make these doors gleam. The wood was a dense magical version of teak that had been enchanted with old, powerful blood magic to ensure that every book and paper brought into the library would be preserved and protected against all damage.

The spells had been there for at least six generations. If they’d been redone in the last hundred years or so, Sirius would be astonished. Didn’t matter. The doors and the bookshelves made of the same near-black magical teak made sure that everything inside was safe.

Unlike Hogwarts’ library, the Grimmauld Place library was one story high with narrow windows that let in virtually no sunlight unless the beam hit at just the right angle. As soon as they stepped inside, the lanterns flared to life, working to banish the darkness that always lurked in Grimmauld Place. Despite the lanterns, the library was a shadowy, dark pit of a place. It really was past midnight. Sirius could just see the moon from one of the windows. Its gleam seemed afraid to brush against the heavy bookshelves and their many, many books.

It wasn’t as impressive as Hogwarts’ library was, but it was still perfect for this. When he’d first went through Hogwarts’ library, Sirius had been appalled that none of the books on the Wizengamot, on law, on history and culture and the Ancient and Noble families were there.

Lily had always believed it was deliberate.

Now, looking at Harry as he stared around with a sort of blank surprise that abruptly sharpened into ferocious curiosity when he realized what the titles were versus what he must have expected after spending a couple of years at Hogwarts, Sirius thought she might just have been right.

The center worktable with its hard, wooden chairs stood like an altar to uncompromising blood purity idiocy, waiting for the books to be pulled down so that someone could go be poncy in people’s faces.

“I haven’t seen any of these,” Harry said after wandering about for a moment.

“I know,” Sirius said. He grinned at Harry’s sharp look. “Hogwarts doesn’t have these books. They haven’t had them for, oh, at least the last couple of generations. I’ve asked the portraits and the older ones remember all these books and more being there. The more recent portraits only remember a few. Now? Pretty sure there’s even less than there was when I was at Hogwarts.”

Harry nodded very slowly while running his fingers across the big leather-bound copy of the Laws of the Wizengamot and Duties of the Lords of Magic. “Dumbledore took them out.”

“Lils always thought so.”

The law books were much too detailed for what Harry understood. Sirius went to the shelf with the books his father had given to Regulus (and Sirius after Regulus protested that Sirius was older) when they were just learning to read. A broad overview should help Harry get the idea of what was going on with the Wizengamot. Merlin knew that getting into the details and really understanding all the batshittery laws that had been passed in the last four hundred years was a lifetime’s work.

“This’ll give you a start on the Wizengamot,” Sirius said. “This one is good for figuring out the various families and all the nonsense associated with being you. And with being me. This one here is wonderful for understanding the whole vassal thing I mentioned. Ah, and this one explains the house elf situation.”

Harry stared at the four leather bound books like they might bite his hands off if he took them. “This is all stuff I need to know right away?”

“Mmm, not today but the sooner you get the ten thousand foot view the sooner you’ll be able to see when someone’s bullshitting you,” Sirius said. He grinned as Harry grabbed the books right out of his hands. “Short explanation: Magical Britain lives in the Dark Ages, and we’re all inbred idiots who don’t know to come in out of the rain. Your mum’s words there, quoted nearly directly.”

“I see,” Harry squeaked around a giggle fit. “She didn’t think much of magi, I take it?”

Sirius rolled his eyes and strolled over to one of the big leather chairs that his father had insisted the library needed. The whole place was spotlessly clean already. It really was amazing just how inspired Kreacher was by a combination of hoity-toity and passive-aggressive competition.

The chairs were horribly uncomfortable. Stiff seats, arms that were too high for supporting your arms properly and too narrow for you to keep your arms inside, either. The back of the seat was so squashy that you felt like it was about to swallow you. At least they didn’t stink anymore.

When Sirius sat, Harry did, too, though he scowled once he’d perched in the chair.

“Horrible, aren’t they?” Sirius commented with a sigh. “Hate these stupid chairs. Yet another thing I’m going to have to change about this pile.”

“You… should,” Harry said, shaking his head after a moment spent fidgeting and glaring at the chair. “So, about the elves?”

“Right,” Sirius said. “Short version is that if I send Kreacher to Amal, it’s as much as saying that I’m looking to get a marriage contract with you which is about enough to make me throw up what little I managed to get into my belly.”

From the way Harry gaped and then grimaced, he felt the same. Harry skipped through the house elf book, then paused to frown at one page. Rather more intently that Sirius would’ve expected, given that Harry couldn’t have had much to do with house elves before.

“Um, stealing a house elf is cause for a blood feud?” Harry asked in that panicky high-pitched tone James always got when Lily caught him in the midst of a really bad prank.

“Prongslet,” Sirius said warningly, “do not think about going out and… Oh, bugger! You’ve already stolen someone’s house elf?”

“Maybe?” Harry said. His cheeks were far too red as he looked anywhere but at Sirius for the answer to be anything but yes.

Sirius groaned. “All right, as long as you didn’t free the elf, we’re fine. If he’s free, you’re in big trouble.”

“Um.” Zero eye contact, not even to flick a glance up at Sirius to see how much trouble he was in.

“Whose?”

“Ah, Lucius Malfoy’s elf,” Harry groaned. He collapsed back into his chair and then sat right back up again because the chairs really were that uncomfortable. “But he was abusing Dobby and I couldn’t just let it go on. Dobby kind of helped me, you know? Not well, but he helped me. He wanted to save the Great Harry Potter or something.”

That was…

Sirius wasn’t sure exactly what that was, actually. He flopped properly in his chair while staring at Harry who went red, then pale, then slowly twice as red as before. This kid. What the bleeding hell was with this kid? James wasn’t that much trouble when he was thirteen. A prat, certainly, but not this level of… whatever it was when you swooped past trouble on your broom and bombed straight for suicidally ridiculous.

“Let me get this straight,” Sirius said slowly. “You stole Lucius Malfoy’s personal elf, Dobby. The oldest elf the Malfoy family had. The best trained and wiliest and smartest elf of any elves that I’ve ever met.”

“I… guess?” Harry said, now wide-eyed by the description of Dobby. “I mean, I freed Dobby. I thought he was way younger than Kreacher, though.”

“No, apparent ages don’t mean a lot for house elves,” Sirius said. He rubbed his face with both hands and groaned. “I mean, yes, but no, because house elves are complicated. Anyway, you freed him?”

Harry nodded.

“No bond to him?”

Harry shook his head.

“And he’s off doing… what?”

Harry shrugged. “I think he decided to see if he could get a job at Hogwarts, but I don’t know for sure. I mean, it only happened right at the end of the school year. For all I know, he might still be partying.”

A beam of moonlight lanced through the window behind Harry. It lit strange silvery highlights on his mop of rioting curls. Harry didn’t seem to notice it. He was still staring at the blood feud page. Sirius hummed, capturing Harry’s attention again.

“Did you ask him for anything?” Sirius asked. “Anything at all?”

“I,” Harry laughed under his breath, shrugging, “asked him to promise not to save me again. He kind of broke my arm and got me locked out of the 9 ¾ platform and some other stuff. He laughed and agreed. Then he popped away.”

“He did agree,” Sirius said as hope bounced up in his heart. “That’s good! Try calling him.”

“Why?” Harry asked so suspiciously that Sirius had a wild moment of wanting to go tear the Dursleys’ stupid throats out with his teeth before going after Dumbledore so he could go at Dumbledore’s bollocks with a twenty-pound sledge hammer.

“Well, chapter six goes into it,” Sirius said, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees so that the chair would stop destroying his back. “If I send Kreacher to Amal, it’s one thing. If you, the Lord of the Ancient and Noble House of Potter, send your elf, well, that’s just calling on your seneschal. Dobby could go and take care of getting Amal working things and it’s fine. Between Dobby and Amal, honestly, we can probably get everything worked out by noon tomorrow. Well, not my trial and I’m pretty sure the Ministry’s going to be a pain about the Boy Who Lived nonsense, but getting you your Rings and having both of us healed and all that? Amal, Dobby and Lacey together would be stunningly effective. It’s our best chance of getting what we need to heal and be safe from… everything.”

Sirius watched Harry’s face go from confused to surprised to angry for a tiny moment before he settled on the sort of blank-faced nothing expression that had marked his destruction of the locket and Harry calmly ordering both Sirius and Kreacher around.

That blankness made a very nervous hippogriff twitch in Sirius’ stomach. Damn it all, what had Harry gone through to make him lock down his emotions that way?

5. Elf Surprises

Do you realize that Arianna cries herself to sleep every night? That she’s done so since she was born? Not a single day of her life has passed without Arianna struggling under an unfulfillable bond that she neither chose nor wanted.

#

Harry slumped against his brand-new bedroom’s door, exhausted. Flat utter exhausted.

Just when he’d thought things were going to be better, Sirius had insisted, politely and with too much annoyingly unassailable logic, that they needed Dobby. He’d tried to argue the point. Harry’d even explained that Dobby had literally set an out-of-control bludger on Harry with the full expectation that it might cripple him.

Didn’t work.

After giving it a good try, within the limits of arguing with suspiciously stable presumed murders who had escaped from prison and who had, actually, been better by far than Harry’s stupid family, Harry had cringed and called Dobby.

Who’d answered instantly, beaming and delighted, until he saw Harry’s bruised forehead. Then Dobby had almost taken off Sirius’ head in his furious overreaction, which had set off a raging battle between Dobby and Kreacher, who might not necessarily like Sirius from all the things he’d shouted about Terrible Lord Sirius and Disappointment-To-His-Mother Lord Black but damn if he was going to let anyone hurt his Lord Black, that only ended when Harry outright tackled Dobby and sat on him.

The amount of magic that had surged through Dobby’s wiry little sock-covered body had been terrifying.

It wasn’t until Harry begged Dobby to do him a favor, to help him out, that Dobby had started sobbing and beating his head against the floor the way Dobby always seemed to do when he thought he’d done something wrong. So Harry had scrambled to reassure Dobby and get him calmed down, all the while sniping at Kreacher so that he’d be all posh and formal, and giving Sirius the glare of death for getting Harry into that stupid situation in the first place.

When Dobby had finally popped off to go talk to Amal, Harry’s seneschal which he still didn’t know what that was, Harry looked at the clock and couldn’t believe that only ten minutes had passed. It’d felt like a decade. At least. Maybe forty or fifty years.

“Right,” Sirius had said, rubbing the back of his neck and grimacing like he really, truly regretted insisting that Harry call Dobby in. “It’s heading towards one in the morning. I’m exhausted. You’ve got to be exhausted. What say we go collapse in beds and sleep late tomorrow?”

Like Harry would say no to that.

So now, Harry sat on the floor of his bedroom, staring across the semi-formal parlor towards the doorway to where his actual bed was.

“I have a suite,” Harry whispered, staring around the sitting room in confusion. “I have a bloody sitting room that’s nicer than Aunt Petunia’s parlor. What the… bloody hell?”

Despite the dark curtains that might be forest green or maybe navy blue in actual daylight, the room wasn’t bad. It was very, very clean. Very clean. Harry frowned.

“Kreacher?” Harry asked.

“Master Harry is to be sleeping,” Kreacher said when he popped in. He was wearing a very nice set of jammies in deep navy blue or black, hard to tell in the dim light, with a forest green dressing robe overtop. His slippers were fuzzy and bright neon green, though, which made Harry grin.

“I love the slippers,” Harry said. His face hurt with how hard he grinned.

“You is supposed to be in bed,” Kreacher repeated, preening just a little bit despite his scowl.

“I know,” Harry said. “I just… it’s this place. Why is everything so dark? I feel like I’m in a funeral home or something. Was it always like this?”

Kreacher shrugged, putting his hands in the pockets of his dressing gown as if he were Uncle Vernon discussing Harry’s failings and how perfect Dudley was with Aunt Petunia before they headed off to bed, both of them more relaxed for having an alcohol-heavy hot toddy as a nightcap.

“Is this way because Mistress Walburga liked these colors, Master Harry,” Kreacher said. “Kreacher can change it, but Lord Sirius must say so first.”

“I’ll… ask him,” Harry said. Then he sighed and thumped his head against the door. “You’re cleaning everything before I get to it, aren’t you? Why? The place was a disaster when we arrived. I didn’t guilt trip you into it, did I?”

Kreacher snorted at the very idea of Harry managing to inflict a guilt trip on him. “Kreacher did not have enough magic to clean. The locket was too evil, too strong. All of Kreacher’s magic went to fighting it. He did not have enough left to do anything else. Now, with it gone, Kreacher has a link to Master Harry who is very, very strong and to Lord Sirius who is also strong. Kreacher has more than enough magic to do any cleaning that is needed. Is how house elf magic works. Master Harry’s… friend… Dobby is eating his own soul by being free. Will have a very good time running around being a Free Elf but will die in a year or so. Kreacher would not want to be free. Kreacher is looking to live to be very, very old, serving Master Harry’s great-great-great-grandchildren.”

That…

Harry opened his mouth. Then shut it. He blinked around the room, stomach clenching into a knot in his belly.

“I… saved you by destroying that thing?” Harry asked finally.

“Oh yes,” Kreacher confirmed with a confident little nod. “Kreacher would have died in another four or five years from fighting with it. Is better now. Master Harry should be going to bed. His friend will show up in the morning, shockingly early, no doubt. Master Harry should get as much sleep as he can before his friend ruins sleep for him.”

Kreacher started shoving Harry away from the door and then into the bedroom where a set of Gryffindor red pajamas waited for Harry. He kept right on bossing Harry around, getting him changed, his teeth brushed properly and then he outright tucked Harry into the amazingly comfortable bed.

“Master Harry will have warm milk and will sleep,” Kreacher said, snapping his fingers. The glass of warm milk was quite small. A plate with a ham and cheddar sandwich appeared next to it. “Kreacher has put preservation spell over the sandwich. Master Harry will eat it when he wakes up, no matter what time. Kreacher will know if you do not.”

“You’re not the boss of me. I’m the boss of you,” Harry grumbled even though his heart felt like it might just swell right out of his chest at having someone take care of him the way Dudley always got pampered and spoiled.

“Is sweet that Master Harry is thinking this,” Kreacher said, patting Harry’s hand before popping away.

Harry laughed and drank his warm milk. There was a dash of cinnamon in it. Stunningly, it actually did warm him up and relax him. He ran a finger over the sandwich, smiled, and then curled up under the fluffy blankets that were warmer than anything he’d ever had. Not even Hogwarts’ blankets and beds were this nice.

The next thing he knew, it was morning. Beams of sunshine arcing through the windows illuminated lazily drifting dust motes. Harry stared at them, put on his glasses, and then stared harder because wow, he’d slept until mid-morning. It must be eleven or so.

It took him a minute to realize what had woken him up.

Someone was pitching an absolute fit outside of his suite. The walls were thick enough, or someone had cast spells on the walls, to keep sound from carrying, so Harry couldn’t figure out who it was or what they were saying. Probably Sirius. Maybe the mysterious seneschal Amal or Sirius’ cousin Anthony and his wife Lacey?

Harry got up, ate his sandwich, sticking his tongue out at the plate when it disappeared, and then got cleaned up.

The only clothes he had that were halfway decent were his school clothes. That was what he expected to find when he hesitantly checked the wardrobe lurking beside his bed.

Nope.

The wardrobe was full of fancy clothes that Malfoy would’ve been delighted to wear. Greens and silvers mixed with blacks and very muted blues. They all looked about the right size, maybe a little too long and too loose, but so much better than anything Harry had to wear. Even his school clothes were a bit tight. He’d grown over the last year.

Black pants, a silver shirt, and then the red Weasley sweater that Mrs. Weasley had knit him for Christmas worked well enough for Harry to dare a peek out into the hallway. There was a whole clot of people there, all of them looking upset enough that Harry pulled his wand automatically.

Sirius looked like he was about to tear his hair out in fistfuls even though he’d braided it back into a long queue at the back of his neck. He was doing the crazy-eyed, about to start screaming face at a man with skin the same color as Harry’s. That man had moppish black curls similar to Harry’s, and a horrified expression that Harry was more familiar with people on Privet Drive pointing at him. A woman about the same age with black hair and a strict expression that would have made Aunt Petunia sniff disapprovingly despite actually approving stood tapping one perfectly shod foot. They had to be Amal and Lacey, the people that Sirius had wanted to contact.

The one that had Harry hesitating was a goblin with a poof of white hair, very long, very sharp looking claws, and very sharp teeth who was cursing like a gravel crusher that’d been given language skills.

Harry eased the door shut.

Did he really want to go out there?

“No, I totally need to go out there,” Harry sighed. “Right. Great. Okay, fine. Dobby?”

“Master Harry Potter calls for Dobby?” Dobby asked, appearing in a startlingly loud pop with a huge grin.

“Yeah,” Harry said and then hesitated again. “Um. Are they,” he hooked a thumb towards the argument on the other side of the door, “allies? Friends? Can I trust them? I mean, I know I can trust Kreacher, mostly. Sirius, too. But I don’t know them, and Sirius is kind of messed up so I just… want to be sure.”

He winced at how lame that sounded but Dobby just nodded as if it made total sense to ask.

“They is allies,” Dobby declared with so much confidence that the nervous knot in Harry’s stomach slowly loosened. “Seneschal Amal Swashlin is sworn to Master Harry’s family. Is not able to harm you and is sworn to protect, help and support you. Mistress Lacey Black is very, very scary, and very, very good at curse breaking and wards. She is married to Master Anthony Black who is Lord Sirius’ cousin. They is already sworn to Lord Sirius while you is sleeping so they cannot be betraying either Master Harry or Lord Sirius. And then Silverclaw is Master Harry’s Account Manager at Gringotts. He is being trying to contact Master Harry for years and years and years about the account. He is ally, too.”

“Okay then,” Harry said. He frowned. “What are they all yelling about then?”

Because they were still out there yelling about something with really angry tones of voices. The walls were still keeping Harry from hearing anything significant, but there was no way to hide that sort of angry.

“They is angry because Master Harry was treated badly,” Dobby said. He shrugged. “And because Lord Sirius was not given trial. …And because is probably even more of bad Voldieghost’s soul pieces around and no one is knowing where to find them. Is a lot of yelling about that.”

Harry nodded slowly. “That’s fair. I kind of want to yell about that, too.

But it all meant that Harry really didn’t have a reason to stay in his room, hiding. He sighed and put his hand on the doorknob. Then he stopped and turned back to Dobby.

“Hey, Kreacher said something last night before I summoned you that I wanted to confirm,” Harry said, sitting right down on the floor, much to Dobby’s horror. “And, um, I’d really like you to be honest with me, Dobby. I mean, I know that you’re grateful to me and everything, but I… never learned a bunch of stuff I apparently should have, so you’ll be teaching me this for the very first time. I’m only asking because I know nothing about this. Nothing at all. I didn’t even know… anything… about house elves until I met you, not even that house elves existed.”

Dobby stared, mouth dropped open. He sat down, too, tugging at his socks nervously. Now that Harry had the time to just sit and look at Dobby, he did look a bit paler than he had when Harry freed him. Not too bad, just a little bit less color in his already pale cheeks and some slightly darker shadows under his eyes.

“Dobby will answer truthfully, Master Harry Potter,” Dobby promised.

“Okay, so Kreacher said that house elves… die within a year if they’re not bonded?” Harry said. He winced at the way Dobby flinched. “I’m not gonna be mad about it. I mean, you so clearly weren’t upset when I freed you. But. I didn’t know that. I would’ve… tried something different if I’d known.”

“Dobby will not die in a year,” Dobby admitted very reluctant, not meeting Harry’s eyes, or doing anything but tugging at his socks.

“How long?” Harry asked because oh yeah, there was something there.

“Master Harry Potter is noticing too much,” Dobby grumbled under his breath. “Dobby is old and strong. Dobby can live for three, maybe four years without a bond. Possibly much more if Dobby can work at Hogwarts. Is much magic there that Dobby can use.”

Harry opened his mouth and then shut it. He held his hands out to Dobby who teared up before gently putting his hands in Harry’s. He’d doomed Dobby. Sure, he wasn’t Malfoy’s elf anymore, but he was going to die and there wasn’t…

“Do you want another bond?” Harry asked Dobby hopefully. “I mean, it wouldn’t have to be me. I bet Sirius would take you on if I asked. Or the Weasley family. They’re an old family with lots and lots of people you could take care of. Could they take you? I don’t want you to die, Dobby. Really, I don’t. I wanted you to live and do all the fun stuff you want to do.”

Dobby shook his head hard. “Dobby does not want a bond, Master Harry Potter. He is free. He likes being free. It is worth it to die soon if Dobby can be free to do just what he wants when he wants. Dobby is studying to see if he can figure out how to live much, much longer without a bond. But Dobby thanks Master Harry Potter for his kindness. If Dobby did want a Master again, Master Harry Potter would be the best master ever. Dobby would pick Master Harry Potter over any other master.”

Dobby dashed away his hovering tears before they could fall, so Harry cleared his throat awkwardly and did the same. Hermione was not going to like this. She’d gotten all fired up about house elves after Harry freed Dobby. Before they’d parted at the platform, she’d said something about finding all the books she could so that she’d understand more about them when she came back to Hogwarts in the fall.

“All right,” Harry said, clearing his throat again when his voice came out too rough. “Well, if you change your mind, come find me. I don’t have a clue how to claim you as my elf, but if you want it, I’ll figure it out. You can walk me through it.”

Dobby grinned at that, eyes still a little shiny. “Dobby will do that, Master Harry. Dobby could not have a master who was clueless. He would have to train Master Harry up right.”

“Just Harry,” Harry said as he groaned and laughed. “I could probably use that whether you’re mine or not. I mean, not now. I really should head out there.”

“Yes,” Dobby said. He fidgeted and then beamed. “Harry. Yes, they is allies and is wanting to help you. They is all worried about… Harry. Want to make things right for you. Dobby has been listening in, along with Kreacher. Can Dobby ask questions?”

“Oh, sure,” Harry said, waving away Dobby’s worried look. “I mean, we’re friends. I think we’re friends, anyway. Anyone who shares socks slimed by basilisks should totally be friends.”

Dobby cackled over that, ears wiggling with delight. “Dobby likes that! Dobby was wondering about Kreacher’s clothes. He has not seen house elves in clothes since he was very, very tiny. Was different when Dobby was very young, very different rules.”

“That’s interesting,” Harry said, wagging a finger at Dobby because he kind of wanted to write that down so that he’d remember to follow up on it later. “Gonna ask you to tell me baby-Dobby stories later. Um, so, Kreacher has uniforms now. Because I really, really hated the grubby pillowcase thing. I figured that if the Black family was so powerful and old and rich, they’d dress their house elves better than most families dressed their family members, you know? Kreacher really liked the snobbiness of it. And, you know, made me feel way better about the whole situation, too.”

“Is the way it used to be,” Dobby said, bouncing excitedly. “Dobby will be glad to tell… Harry… stories later, but now should be going and talking to Lord Sirius. Is much to do. Dobby will come later for stories.”

He popped away with a shy little wave. Harry sighed and dragged himself up off the floor. It hurt to think of Dobby fading away in a few years. He seemed so young and energetic. That he would just give up and let go of life so that he could be free was horrifying.

Which probably was why Sirius stopped mid-word when Harry opened his door. Sirius hurried over and carefully put a hand on Harry’s shoulder, but his whole body all but screamed that he wanted to hug Harry until Harry’s spine popped and he squirmed free. So Harry just stepped close and carefully wrapped his arms around Sirius’ waist.

The next moment, Sirius hugged Harry so hard that yeah, his back popped. Lost all the air in his lungs, too, but that was all right. It kept Harry from whimpering.

“Okay, bad dream or something else, Prongslet?” Sirius murmured into Harry’s hair.

“I really don’t like that Dobby’s going to die,” Harry muttered into Sirius’ shoulder. “It sucks. I hate it. But he doesn’t want a bond, not with anyone.”

Sirius sighed, arms gentling around Harry. “I’m so sorry, Prongslet. That does suck.”

There wasn’t anything to do about it, so Harry pulled back, rubbed at his face with the back of his hand even though it had to make him look like a little kid, and turned to face the others. Lacey really was intimidating, in that nothing will make her stop sort of way that Aunt Petunia occasionally got after Dudley got in trouble for something at school. Amal had a cheerful sort of face, so his worried expression looked super-awkward.

“I… think I saw you at the bank on my first trip there,” Harry said to Silverclaw. He frowned. “Maybe? I mean, Hagrid hurried me out pretty quickly so I’m not sure.”

“You did, Lord Potter,” Silverclaw said with a tight-lipped smile that was surprisingly gentle for being as scary as it was. Those claws of his set off sparks as he tapped them against one another. “I attempted to intercept you every time you visited the bank. Unsuccessfully. We should have had a long discussion.”

Harry shrugged. “Well, let’s go down to the library and do that now. There’s certainly enough to discuss.”

All the adults exchanged looks that were darkly grim. Harry’s stomach lurched around his ham and cheese sandwich. Oh great. Something else had happened while he was asleep. Just what he needed.

6. Gathering Allies

Aberforth is much the same, despite the vassal bond only falling on the female side of mother’s line. He claimed that there was a shadow lurking over him when he was just four years old. Four! I thought at the time that he meant a literal shadow as we were playing in the garden behind our old house in Mould-on-Wold, but subsequent discussion showed that he meant one upon his magic.

#

The library rang with silence once they’d all stopped talking. Sirius counted the seconds, knowing that Harry wasn’t going to last long before his shock transformed into fury. Or vicious plotting. Fury if he took more after James and plotting if Lils’ temper matched most closely to his. Or maybe something else if Harry’d found a way to be furious at people that was all his own.

Harry sat in his transfigured chair; mouth open as he stared at them all. “What?”

“I know,” Sirius groaned from his spot lounging in his transfigured chair. Like any of them would be comfortable sitting in the original ones. “It’s ridiculous. The Prophet’s gotten even worse since I went to Azkaban, which I wouldn’t’ve thought was possible.”

While Harry slept, Sirius had decided that the library chairs of doom needed to be made into something comfortable instead of torture devices hiding in plain sight. The stupid things definitely had needed it. Sirus’d always sat on the floor before. The chairs had been that uncomfortable.

Now they were properly squashy, comfortable chairs with a nice suede sort of fabric in a nondescript brownish color because Sirius’ permanent transfigurations always ended up being an odd sort of dappled brownish shade instead of the solid color he’d been going for. They were nothing much to look at but at least his chair held him comfortably.

And Harry. That was good, too. From the look on Harry’s face and his white-knuckled grip on the arms of his chair, Harry wasn’t going to get his legs to support him anytime soon. Couldn’t really blame him for that given the nonsense in the Prophet.

“You’re supposed to have kidnapped me,” Harry said, squint dialed up to about eleven thousand as he peered at Sirius and then at Amal who sat watching the two of them like they were a dueling match that was unexpectedly good. “Not just kidnapped me, but that reporter, what’s her name?”

“Rita Skeeter,” Lacey said with enough venom that Silverclaw nodded approvingly while Amal winced.

“Rita Skeeter is claiming you kidnapped me, raped me, and then ate me for dinner,” Harry said with growing outrage. “And people believe this? With no evidence at all?”

“Yep,” Sirius said, sighing. “They do. Sort of. Everyone knows you’re missing. No one has a clue what happened, though. So they’re making up wild stories and no one is better at wild stories than Rita Skeeter.”

Sunlight glittered through the windows behind Harry. Enough light poured in that Harry’s mop of unruly hair looked more like a sculpted-steel halo than it did like hair. The light also, occasionally, when Harry turned his head just so, transformed his glasses into mirrors that reflected the rest of the room while hiding his eyes.

That happened as Harry sat there, breathing through clenched teeth, nails about to tear the arms right off his transfigured chair. Then he lifted his chin, and the green of his eyes was electric with Harry’s magic. Not to the point where it danced on his skin and made his hair twist like the snakes of Medusa, but close enough that it hummed in his voice when Harry spoke.

Harry glowered at Silverclaw who raised one eyebrow. “Can I sue her? I wanna sue her. Her and those people who wrote the books about me when I was still living with the Dursleys.”

More like Lils, then.

To Sirius’ surprise, Amal beamed like he’d just been given the best present ever. Silverclaw looked pretty damned happy about it, too, but then Silverclaw was the sort of Goblin that loved making magi miserable and taking their money so that wasn’t too surprising.

“I’ll get started on it as soon as I get back to the office,” Amal promised. He rubbed his hands together and chortled. “I’ve wanted to do that for years!”

Sirius grinned at him. “Don’t give us away as you do it. If you say it’s because your Lord said to, you’ll have Dumbledore and the Ministry breathing down your neck before you can blink.”

“I will assist,” Silverclaw said, tapping his luxurious claws together and setting off little sparks. “It’s about time someone took that Skeeter woman down several notches. The Prophet could certainly learn some discretion as well.”

Might not be the best choice ever for their first act, but Sirius couldn’t really blame Harry. From what Amal had said before Harry woke, the Prophet had been ragging on Harry pretty much non-stop since his arrival back in the wizarding world.

None of which mattered all that much right at this moment.

There were bigger issues to be dealt with.

Sirius sighed and slouched a little more in his chair as he ran his tongue along the backs of his teeth, tasting the stout tea Kreacher had made him and the sourness of not enough sleep. Two hours of sleep, another two of tossing while having raging nightmares, hadn’t exactly given Sirius the chance to recuperate that he needed.

Hopefully once the others got going, he could sleep properly.

“You know, the problem I have is that I don’t know how to get a trial and get guardianship of Harry. There’s so much going on behind the scenes and we’re stuck in here. It’s not like we can go out and start asking questions.”

“You could,” Harry said. He flipped a hand at Sirius and continuing to talk even when Sirius glared and waved at him to stop. “You’d just have to do it, you know, in your other shape.”

“Prongslet, I hadn’t actually told them about that yet,” Sirius said with a groan.

“Oh. Um, sorry?” Harry said without looking all that sorry at all. Teenagers, really.

Not that it mattered. Sirius had intended to tell them all but not until Anthony showed up. Telling tales of James and Lily’s death and his escape from Azkaban wasn’t something that Sirius wanted to do twice.

He looked to Lacey who raised one eyebrow, somehow making Sirius feel like she’d just implied that he was as young as Harry and that he had less than a quarter of Harry’s common sense. The Black family really, truly had a type. No wonder Anthony adored her when she could do that with just a look.

“Stop that,” Lacey snapped at Sirius.

“Ah, if only I’d met you before Anthony,” Sirius said with one hand pressed against his chest because of course he wasn’t going to stop it. “I’d have chased you all over Britain and France.”

“I’d have hexed your bollocks off,” Lacey replied with enough ferocity that Harry shrank back against the cushions of his chair. “You’re not my type.”

Sirius snorted a laugh. “I’m a Black. Anthony and I look near enough to twins that we could probably fool people who didn’t know us.”

Lacey rolled her eyes. “No, you don’t. You’re nothing alike.”

“So… what are we waiting for?” Harry asked with the expression of a child desperately wanting to change the subject or escape from his elders flirting. “I mean, not that it isn’t important to know that people think I’ve been eaten alive, but shouldn’t we be doing something?”

Lacey reached over and patted Harry’s knee with a much kinder expression. Did nothing to keep Harry from wincing away from her. Ah well, the Potters always did go more for brains than for vicious and dangerous lovers. Later, once the others had gone off on their missions, Sirius was going to have to ask Harry if he’d met any especially brainy people at Hogwarts.

Pretty much inevitably, one of those brainy people was going to end up being the Lady or Lord Consort Potter. That was just how the Potters worked. If he hadn’t met anyone especially brainy, then Sirius was going to have to watch who Harry met when he went off to university. He was sure to meet some big-brain types there.

“We’re waiting for my husband,” Lacey explained. She shook her head. “He’s a bit of a bird-brain at times, but no one is better than Anthony at getting copies of files and records that he shouldn’t have access to.”

“Sent him off to the Ministry to get copies of whatever they conjured up as trial records for me,” Sirius explained.

“And records of your home visits, medical records, and other Child Welfare stuff,” Amal said.

“…There won’t be any,” Harry said slowly enough, eyeing Amal doubtfully. “No one ever came to visit. I never went to see a doctor. Even my glasses are just a pair that Aunt Petunia picked out of the charity bin for me when one of my teachers realized I couldn’t see the board in class.”

Silverclaw ground his needle-sharp teeth and set off showers of sparks as he cursed in Gobbledygook.

“Lacey, if you could get a healer here sooner rather than later, that would be lovely.” Sirius had to raise his voice to be heard over Silverclaw.

“Done,” Lacey said with an outraged huff. “Really, I don’t know what was wrong with them. Who treats kids that way?”

Harry shrugged one shoulder. “It was the whole neighborhood, actually. But one of the aurors who came to unshrink Aunt Marge said something about having to obliviate everyone multiple times. I think they were given… encouragement… to be that way. Maybe. I mean, Uncle Vernon just is that way? He smacks Dudley around as much as he does me and I know Aunt Petunia is kind of afraid of his temper when he’s been drinking, but. Well. I really wonder if someone didn’t, you know, make sure that I was treated poorly.”

“Someone, Dumbledore, certainly made sure I couldn’t raise you,” Sirius said. “Wouldn’t be too surprised if it was true, though I’ve no idea why he would do that. He’s always on about the Greater Good and sacrificing for everyone else’s welfare.”

Frankly, Sirius wouldn’t be too surprised if Dumbledore was behind it all. It didn’t really make sense. If he was a truly Dark wizard, well, it would show. Fawkes wouldn’t stay with him. There were all kinds of spells on the Wizengamot that were supposed to show if someone had suddenly started doing dark magic. Someone should have seen if Dumbledore did start going down a Dark path.

But then, it was just as likely that Dumbledore honestly believed that he was doing the right, good, just, and Light thing by sending Harry to live with people who abused him. He might honestly believe that Sirius had gone Dark and evil, that he’d killed James and Lily, gone after Peter, betrayed everything he’d ever believed in or done.

And monkeys might fly out Sirius’ arse at any second.

He couldn’t know. Not right now. His mind was too much of a mess after Azkaban for him to have any real faith in his thought processes.

They really needed a healer. A couple of healers, including one specializing in mind healing. Maybe a whole team of them. Merlin’s sagging balls, he should probably bring in a healer who specialized in healing house elves. Who knew what that locket had done to Kreacher after all these years fighting with it?

The floo flared to life downstairs.

Sirius sat up a little straighter, nodding to Lacey who stood and hurried to the door. To Sirius’ surprise, Harry frowned and cocked his head to the door like he’d felt it, too. Kreacher popped into the floo room and told Anthony where to go. Lacey met him on the stairs and in moments Anthony bounded into the room vibrating so hard that the thin little sheaf of papers in his hand rattled.

He really did look a whole lot like Sirius would if his hair was shorter. Granted, Anthony wore his hair considerably shorter than Sirius ever had. His hair was barely long enough to cover his ears, thick, black, and curly in a way that looked studied instead of messy. Anthony had gotten the silver eyes, the Black nose, and the Black cheekbones, which meant that he was stunningly good looking.

“Wow, you really do look a lot alike,” Harry said, staring between Sirius and Anthony.

“Yep,” Sirius agreed. “Prongslet, met my cousin Anthony Black who’s now the official heir after you. Anthony, meet Lord Harry Potter, my godson and heir and the kid who everyone thinks has been raped and eaten.”

Anthony groaned and rolled his eyes. “I cannot with that nonsense. They ought to fire that woman.”

“What’d you find?” Lacey asked like the terrifyingly efficient person she was.

“Not much,” Anthony said. He nodded to Sirius while laying out four sheets of paper. “You apparently confessed to the killings and to betraying the Potters. That’s less than six inches and four of the inches are details of who took the affidavit. There’s one sheet that says you were remanded to Azkaban for life, but there’s no trial and no evidence that anyone did an investigation. The other two sheets are really stunningly short transcripts of the interviews with the Muggles who witnessed everything, all of whom were Obliviated at the scene.”

“That’s… bullshit,” Amal said, glaring at the sheets over Lacey’s shoulder. “I’ve seen six times that on a minor Muggle-baiting charge that was dismissed before it could go to court.”

“Yeah,” Anthony agreed. He put the last sheet of paper down, scowling at it. “Harry, all you’ve got in your file is a note saying that Albus Dumbledore has sealed all your records to keep you safe. There’s nothing else. Anywhere. I even checked with the Department of Records and played brainless idiot with Madame Umbridge which was a horror. Hate that woman. No one has any other files, records, or anything related to you. Even your parents’ wills are missing and that’s ridiculous. They should be on file with the Ministry.”

“Not if they were sealed prior to being read,” Silverclaw said. “Which they were.”

The sheer lack of records said more clearly than a trial that something was wrong. In Sirius’ experience as an auror, the Ministry didn’t breathe without making a record of it. He’d had one memorable and very good-behavior-inducing stint early on of being assigned to the Records Department after he’d pissed Moody off.

Where most of the Ministry was fairly self-contained, other than the Department of Mysteries, the Records Department sat behind a nondescript little door set in a quiet corner of the lower levels between the Game Department and the Child Welfare Department. It looked like nothing, just a door to a file room.

Until you opened the door and discovered a miles-deep maze of bookshelves, filing cabinets, boxes, and racks of records. Scrolls from floor to the ceiling twenty feet overhead. Carefully indexed filing cabinets that bit you if you dared to put something back incorrectly. File clerks who Sirius still swore were some sort of offspring of Elder Gods enslaved and forced into a human shape because they seemed to shift shape every time you glanced away from them. There were records going back well past the formation of the Ministry, past the days of Hogwarts’ foundation, back past the first arrival of magi on the island.

Sirius was pretty sure that if he kept hiking into the dark, terrifying depts of the Records Department, he’d find records of magi in Rome, Ancient Egypt. If he kept going long enough, he thought there might be records from the dawn of time kept on clay tablets and slabs of rock painted with vermillion and charcoal.

“Well, that’s fairly conclusive,” was all Sirius said out loud.

Anthony nodded with a similar sort of grim understanding. “Yep. Someone earnestly wanted you out of the way and for no one to know anything about Harry.”

“Yeah, but are they the same person or a different person?” Harry asked.

Sirius opened his mouth to say “of course they’re the same” because he knew that Dumbledore had to be behind his lack of trial, but the puzzled frown on Harry’s face prompted Sirius to think about it for a second. It wasn’t…

…actually that invalid of a question.

Were they the same?

Sirius turned to Silverclaw who stared at Harry with blatant fasciation as he tapped his graceful claws against the table. The question had gotten Silverclaw thinking because not one of those taps cut gouges out of the wooden tabletop. Across from him, Amal had his head cocked so far to the side that you’d think he had an owl Animagus form. Anthony just hummed while looking at Lacey who frowned and leaned forward to study Harry.

“Why do you say that?” Lacey asked.

Harry shrugged, obviously uncomfortable with all of them staring. “Just, well, it’s not the same thing. Tossing Sirius in prison and throwing away the key is one thing. That’s one and done, effectively. Me? There should be records of accidental magic going way back to when I was a toddler. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon complained about the weird things that happened when I cried after I arrived. There was stuff at school. This all started with Sirius and I overhearing two aurors discussing repeatedly obliviating Privet Drive and filing literal dozens of abused child reports. That’s… not one and done.”

“Yeah,” Sirius said. He waggled a finger at Lacy before bouncing up to pace the length of the library. “Yeah! They are totally different. Dumbledore certainly has a part to play in my not getting a trial, but frankly, most of the Wizengamot would’ve benefited by my being locked up. They all knew I was a radical and determined to change everything about how it worked when I got the Lordship. That’s got nothing to do with Harry, though.”

Silverclaw nodded slowly. “A very good point, Lord Black. We have requested many times to talk with Lord Potter and nothing every came of it.”

“I don’t know how you requested it,” Harry said with a helpless little shrug, “but I never got anything from Gringotts. I mean, never. The only time I had any contact with you guys was when I went to the bank myself.”

“I never got anything,” Amal said with much more horror. “You’ve been requesting things?”

“Monthly,” Silverclaw confirmed.

“What the hell?” Amal squawked. “Did you ever get my reports? I’ve been sending you quarterly reports ever since James married Lily.”

Silverclaw turned and peered at Amal with hard, glittering eyes, so intent that Sirius’ feet stumbled to a stop. At the same time, Anthony eased backwards until he was behind Lacey, who just watched Silverclaw like seeing the goblin radiating fury was nothing to be concerned about.

“Since their wedding,” Silverclaw said very slowly, enunciating every single syllable with careful precision. “Are you quite certain about that timing?”

“Yeah,” Amal said. He huffed. “I went quarterly after the wedding. My predecessor was doing them monthly, but James and I agreed that there was no need for that.”

Silverclaw bolted to his feet, magic crackling around his claws and lifting his floof of white hair until he looked like he’d been struck by and then captured a lightning bolt. Harry shrank back into his chair with enough fear that Sirius moved between him and Silverclaw.

“What do you mean there were monthly reports before that?” Silverclaw snapped. “Gringotts has gotten no reports at all for three generations!”

7. Unexpected Results

You yourself have seen the weight I carry. There are days when it’s a struggle to simply raise myself from bed, to eat and walk and talk. Every single task requires enormous force of will, all because of Grandfather’s selfish actions.

#

The Potter family had a mansion.

Harry wasn’t sure what to make of that. Well, that wasn’t quite true. He wanted to scream and throw things at Dumbledore’s head. Like knives. Maybe a sledgehammer. Possibly Hagrid’s hut. He had a bloody mansion and he’d been forced to live in the cupboard under the stairs, to wear rags and eat table scraps.

It made no bloody sense. None at all. But that wasn’t the worst of it.

Not only did the Potter family, Harry, have a mansion, he also had sixteen houses in various places in Britain, Scotland, and France. With one villa in Rome that was apparently quite lovely and had traditional Roman baths heated and maintained by magic.

There were so many places he could have lived. All of them were warded, and safer than anywhere he’d ever been. Much safer than Privet Drive. Hell, from what Amal said and Lacey confirmed with increasingly incredulous questions, they were all much safer than the house his parents had lived in Godric’s Hollow.

“Why would they move to Godric’s Hollow?” Lacey asked for the sixth time, this time in a voice that could’ve broken glass. Even Aunt Petunia couldn’t screech with that much volume and outrage.

“All I can tell you is that Dumbledore claimed that the Fidelus would settle best over the cottage,” Sirius said with a lazy grin that looked incredibly stupid.

Every time Lacey got louder and angrier, both Sirius and Anthony stared at her like she was the best thing they’d ever seen. Anthony had cause. He was married to Lacey. Of course he thought she was the best thing ever. Sirius was obviously still cracked in the head if he was so delighted by a woman who looked like she was ready to start carving people’s bollocks off at any second.

“He’s a Black,” Amal murmured to Harry. “They’ve got a type and Lacey’s it.”

The two of them had moved off by the windows at the far end of the room, as far away from Lacey and Silverclaw’s outrage. It was way safer on the far side of the room. Lacey wasn’t likely to spill her outrage all over them if they weren’t right there, but Harry wasn’t all that certain that Silverclaw wouldn’t outright murder Amal.

“I don’t understand what happened to the records,” Harry murmured to Amal because no, he was not ever going to get into what the Black “type” was, thank you very much. “I know Silverclaw thinks that it was a deliberate thing, but who? How? Why?”

“I really don’t know,” Amal said with a tired sigh while rubbing his forehead and running his hands through his hair. “I seriously don’t. I mean, it’s got to be some sort of mail ward. Except not just mail. There’re records generated all the time in the magical world. You can find pretty much anything out if you know where and how to look. Until Silverclaw and I can compare notes, there’s no way to know when the whatever it was hit. Knowing when will tell us who, probably. And the way it’s happening should come from that.”

Harry nodded thoughtfully. He frowned out the window, staring at the perfectly normal street outside. Grimmauld Place felt like it should be out in the countryside, set off on one of those grand estates with acres and acres of land carefully groomed around it.

Or, more accurately, it felt like it should have acres and acres of land that’d fallen into ruin around it while it slowly dissolved back to its component parts.

You know, until Kreacher got his nose out of joint and set to work fixing and cleaning everything.

Harry shook his head. “Right, we need more information. Dobby!”

“Friend Harry Potter is calling Dobby!” Dobby exclaimed, grinning up at Harry.

His pop echoed in the library, shutting off Lacey’s latest round of protests and Silverclaw’s continuing gravel-crusher cursing. Harry grinned at him and offered Dobby a hand which Dobby took with a shy smile. Harry thought about pushing some magic to Dobby, did a little bit, but Dobby shook his head no and smiled gently at Harry. So no, that wasn’t going to happen, darn it.

“Okay, so, we just discovered a thing that you might be old enough to remember clearly,” Harry explained. “Apparently there’s some sort of mail ward or something making any records of me disappear. Silverclaw and Amal have been sending reports and stuff to each other, but they don’t arrive.”

“Yes,” Dobby agreed like it was perfectly obvious. “Is not a ward, Friend Harry. Is a curse. Potter family was cursed to be famous at very start of Grindelwald’s war. Part of curse is making records disappear. Makes it easier for curse to make things up about yous family. And about you.”

“…And no one knows about it because the curse disappeared the records of that,” Harry said, feeling somewhat like he’d been hit by the bludger again. “Great. Okay. Fine. That’s… a thing we’ll have to deal with. Any idea of who did it?”

Dobby shook his head. “Dobby does not know. Dobby was a Malfoy elf. The Masters did not do it. They thought it was a very stupid curse when they hears of it, but only for first ten years or so. Then Potters is dying, and people is making up horrible, amazing, ridiculous stories about the Potters and is being believed. Then the Masters is thinking was very sneaky, very mean curse. But they is never knowing who cast it.”

“My records say that your ancestors tended to live to a ripe old age,” Amal said thoughtfully even though he’d gone grey with horror and shock. His knuckles were white where he gripped the windowsill. “Up until the turn of the century, Potter men lived to two-fifty, two-seventy-five years. Then, somewhere between 1900 and, oh, around 1915 or 1916 my predecessor realized that a third of his clients were dead. Mostly accidents. Duels. Stuff that just… happened. He didn’t say anything about a curse, not seriously, anyway.”

“Agreed,” Silverclaw said from the far side of the room where he was tapping his claws together and setting off a spray of blazing sparks that looked like they were going to scorch the table and the floor. “I would place the probable start of the curse in the winter of 1899, personally. That was when the Potter fame began to grow. And when records began to occasionally be difficult to find.”

“Okay, so that means it’s… not Dumbledore?” Harry said with a frown.

Dobby shrugged. “Dobby does not know. Does not feel like Dumbles. His magic is very different. Dumbles did cast many spells on Friend Harry. Not all is doing good things to Friend Harry’s magic. Should be getting the blocks off of yous magic, Friend Harry. And soon. But no, do not think that Troubled Fame curse is Dumbles doing.”

Harry sighed. Blocks on his magic. Lovely. Another thing to worry about.

He did his best not to flinch as Amal, Sirius and Lacey all pulled their wands and started casting diagnostic spells on him. Amal’s and Sirius’ were pretty much identical to what Madame Pomphrey always cast at him when he ended up in the infirmary. Oddly, he did feel the diagnostic spells sweeping over him a good bit more clearly than he had before, but that might be related to the whole whatever it was that’d been in his scar.

Lacey’s diagnostic, though, was approximately like having Dudley’s friends hold him while Dudley practiced his boxing on Harry.

You know, with less bruises, black eyes, and bloody noses.

It still pounded into him, poking and prodding, dragging everything out of Harry until he was shaking and barely standing. Didn’t help that Lacey looked furious by the time the diagnostic was done, snarling right at Harry instead of away from him the way she had before.

“I didn’t do it,” Harry protested automatically.

“No, but you will,” Lacey snapped as she pointed Harry at the closest squashy chair. “Sit yourself down, young man. You’re not moving a muscle until we get a healer in here. Dobby, I need Healer Smethwyck. Tell him that the request is confidential, that it’s coming straight from me, and that I have a child affected severely by dark magic. Go!”

Dobby’s eyes went wide, and he popped away.

Lacey put her wand away into her wrist holster with a snap of her wrist, eyes still sparking and flaring with her magic. It wasn’t quite dancing on her skin, but Harry could actually see it moving over the core of her body. Just like Sirius and the portrait downstairs had claimed.

Huh.

Harry turned to Sirius who was as pale as Amal. “You know, I think I’m going to claim all of the wand holsters, Sirius. I’ve got a bunch of friends who need them.”

“You…” Sirius blinked at him several times, glanced at Lacey whose magic was still shifting on her skin, and then grinned. “You got it, Prongslet. Let me know and we’ll get even more. Don’t want any accidents like your dad had.”

Amal squeaked and started snickering. The color rushed back to his face in a ferocious blush. Horrifyingly, Lacey rolled her eyes and Anthony snickered while Silverclaw smirked.

Did everyone know about his dad nearly blowing his prick off?

Harry shook his head. So not going there. Not now, not ever.

“What did you mean by dark magic?” Harry asked because changing the subject was definitely in order right that second. Who knew what sort of jokes Sirius and Anthony would start tossing out? They were sure to egg each other on, too.

Lacey sighed and sat in the squashy chair closest to Harry. She wasn’t quite within easy patting-Harry’s-knee range, but she still leaned over and did just that despite Harry kind of sort of maybe a little bit cringing away from her because of the temper she’d shown.

“Harry, you’ve been exposed to death magic,” Lacey said. “There’s also some sort of curse, residue from a traumatic unicorn death, a ridiculous amount of basilisk venom battling phoenix tears in your bloodstream, and you clearly have multiple blocks on your magic that are keeping you from being able to use your magic properly. That’s just the big stuff. My diagnostic showed more, a lot more. Beatings, starvation, sleep deprivation, stress fractures from working physical labor too long and too young… the list goes on and on. You’re a mess. I’m stunned you’re half as functional as you are.”

“I wonder if the, what’d you call it?” Harry said, more to Sirius than to Lacey. “The death magic? I wonder if that was what was in my scar?”

Lacey snorted. “That scar is the most magically clean part of you right now. There’s a tiny bit of residue of some of the darkest magics around, but it’s been purged beautifully.”

“The family magic did something when I took control over the wards and claimed Harry as my heir,” Sirius said, more to Lacey than to Harry, though he never took his eyes off Harry. “That’s why his forehead is all bruised up.”

“Healer Smethwyck is good,” Amal said, patting Harry’s shoulder reassuringly and smiling hesitantly when Harry started and stared up at him. “Really good. Trust me. He can be a bit abrupt but he’s terribly good with kids.”

“Part of why I chose him,” Lacey confirmed, not that their reassurances did a dang thing for making Harry calm down. “Now, normally I’d insist that you eat before he got here, but with everything that’s going in your body, he might just purge all the food from your system anyway.”

“Oh great,” Harry sighed. “Another hungry day. Fine. I’ll deal with that. I really need to know more about my estate and that whole vassal thing you mentioned Sirius.”

Amal promptly perked up and beamed, especially after Sirius gestured grandly right at Amal. “Well, I’m the one to answer that. There aren’t many Ancient and Noble families that take vassals anymore. The Longbottoms still do. The Bones family used to, but I don’t think they have in the last couple of generations. Your father planned on taking both Remus and Peter as vassals, personal ones, because of the um, bond between the four of you.”

Sirius muttered something while pouting. His pout wasn’t half as impressive when he wasn’t raging and tugging at his hair. Probably thought it was more like a glare, but really, it was a spoiled brat sort of pout. The kind of thing that Dudley pulled when he knew he wasn’t going to get what he wanted but still wanted everyone around him to know that he wasn’t happy.

Amal glanced over at Sirius and then rolled his eyes.

“Now, your family also has hereditary vassals,” Amal continued as if Sirius wasn’t a pouting pouty thing at them all. “Your father never had a chance to swear any of them to his service. Went into hiding too soon and then, you know, died. But they’re still around. Your grandfather did swear a couple in but his father, your great-grandfather, forbade two families from serving ever again.”

“What’d they do?” Harry asked.

Had to be something serious if they were forbidden and this was some big deal responsibility and honor and all that, which is what it seemed to be to Harry.

“One of the families had reached a level where they were old enough to qualify as Ancient,” Amal said. “The Shafiq family. They’re in the list of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, by one generation. Your great-grandfather was perfectly happy to see them off on their own and the severing of the vassal relationship was amicable. There’s not many of them left in Britain, sadly. They mostly moved to other countries after Grindelwald’s war was over. The other family was forbidden to serve outright. Ever. That was recent. Very recent, actually.”

His face went all serious and pale as he pulled in a long breath and then let it out even more slowly. Harry frowned at him because that wasn’t good. Didn’t even need to hear what Amal had to say to know that he needed to brace himself for it.

“The other family was the Nott family,” Amal continued. He glowered at Sirius who squawked and straightened up to stare at Amal with horror. “Yes, exactly.”

“I… have no idea why that’s a problem,” Harry said. “I mean, there’s a Theodore Nott at school. He’s a prat. Skinny and very smart, but definitely a prat. Though, now that I think about it, he isn’t part of Malfoy’s little pack of bullies. I seem to remember Hermione saying something about how Nott said he wasn’t interested in joining anyone’s gangs, mine or Malfoy’s. Or anyone’s.”

Amal nodded slowly. “That tracks. The magic of the vassal bond carries over, you know. Since his family, his father in particular, was cast out for joining You-Know-Who back when he was just starting out, Theodore probably instinctively resists joining anyone. The Vassal Magic won’t let him.”

“That’s not horrifying at all,” Harry muttered. “What is it with magi and slave-bonds?”

He shook his head when Amal frowned at him. Also when Lacey raised an eyebrow. It would’ve been really nice to have had the energy and time to read over those books Sirius gave him. Right now Harry knew absolutely nothing about vassals and that put him at a huge disadvantage.

“Okay, so,” Harry said while frowning because this might make things more complicated. Or not. Who knew at this point? “A vassal is like… sworn to me? Can’t betray me? Something like that?”

“Mostly yes,” Amal said. He paused and wobbled a hand. “The betrayal can happen but there’s some really bad consequences for it. That’s what happened with the Nott family apparently. I have seen the records of what happened, but I can’t read them. They’re sealed in the Department of Records. The only person who could unseal them would be you. What I do know is that your grandfather tossed Thomas Nott out for taking the Dark Mark.”

“That’s not Theodore’s fault,” Harry protested.

“Agreed,” Amal said. He shrugged. “We might be able to sneak into the Ministry and see those records if you want. There might be something there that can help you.”

“Please,” Harry said. “What about the others? There are others, right?”

“Yep,” Amal said, grinning. “I’m one. My family’s served your family for, oh, donkey’s years. Back since the Crusades of Saint Louis, actually. Swore the oath in 1273. There were two other families who were Potter vassals, one of which appears to have died out a couple of generations back. There might be descendants somewhere. Possibly. Not likely, but you never know. The only surviving vassal besides me that you’ve got left is Alastor Moody.”

Sirius’ jaw dropped open.

“What,” Lacey asked so flatly that it made Harry wince along with Amal.

“The Moody family were vassals for the Potters,” Amal said. He bit his lip as Lacey started cursing. “It wasn’t something that they put out there. It was considered an official secret of the Potter family. The Moodys always worked as aurors, really good ones, and protected the Potters on the side. Alastor Moody took his vows to your grandfather, but never got the chance to swear to your father.”

“Prongslet,” Sirius groaned, rubbing his face with both hands while slouching down in his chair so far that he almost slipped right out of it, “what is it with you? Mad-Eye Moody is your vassal. Bloody fucking hell! The drama never stops.”

Harry shrugged. What else could he do? It wasn’t like he had any idea who Moody was. And what kind of name was “Mad-Eye” anyway? He was going to have to ask so many questions. And get a chance to read those books Sirius had given him.

Soon. Maybe.

No, wait. Dobby would be back soon with the healer Lacey had sent for. Harry turned to Amal who straightened up as Harry focused on him. Weirdly, Lacey and Anthony did the same thing. Silverclaw didn’t straighten at all. He smiled a close-lipped smile, a scary one that felt like someone was going to get gutted, so Harry ignored him in favor of nodding to Amal.

“Tell me everything about vassal bonds,” Harry said. “I need to understand it before I can do it, and I doubt we have much time before things go pear-shaped again. I mean, even without the healing coming up, we’ve got stupid reporters spreading ridiculous lies. We gotta be as ready as we can before something goes really wrong.”

8. Loosened Bonds

If only he and Father had cursed the Potters properly! Given that we cannot be together as we wish, I do understand Grandfather’s motivation. Would that he carried it out before Mother was born, of course. Perhaps then, none of us would carry the misery we do. But no, Grandfather didn’t think about the consequences that compound with every generation.

#

“He’s going to be just fine.”

Anthony’s soothingly impatient words slowed Sirius’ pacing for a half a step. Or so. Maybe.

Well, not at all, really, but Sirius wanted to think that it helped. He appreciated Anthony’s willingness to stand by him after everyone else buggered off because Sirius was in such a snit over Harry’s healing. He’d snapped Amal’s head off, snarled at Silverclaw and nearly gotten his bollocks cursed off by Lacey who really, truly knew how to get through to a Black man.

“There’s so much wrong,” Sirius complained as he strode up the hallway outside Harry’s suite. “What the bloody hell did those Muggles do to him?”

“Not as much as they wanted,” Anthony grumbled, glaring at Harry’s closed door. “But more than they should’ve gotten away with. That bloodline curse of his must be a doozy. I can’t imagine who would’ve put it on the Potters.”

Sirius sighed and stopped at the other end of the hallway, staring out the narrow window at the back garden. It was already improving despite Kreacher’s lack of experience with gardening. They’d had a completely different house elf who took care of the garden, but she’d been even older than Dobby and tired. He thought she’d died sometime when he was twelve or so. Mother hadn’t mentioned it. He’d had to find out by coming home for the holidays and finding her head on the wall.

Bloody Mother and her bloody fucking horribleness.

“James always claimed that the Potters were long-lived,” Sirius said. He looked over his shoulder at Anthony, snorting a laugh that Anthony was staring at Harry’s door like he wanted to take an ax and chop it down. “He’s going to be fine, you know.”

“Don’t you start,” Anthony countered with a rising grin that had that edge.

The edge that was so much like Regulus’ smile when he was about to pick a fight sheerly for the fun of it.

Sirius’ breath caught. He flailed out a hand and caught the windowsill before his legs gave out underneath him. This was the hallway where he and Regulus had fought the most. Their suites were opposite to each other and, frankly, Mother’s suite was a floor up while Father had always had his suite warded so tightly that no noise got into it.

It’d been a safe place to play, as much as Grimmauld Place had anywhere safe. As they got older, it’d been the place where their shifting relationship drifted and warped until they’d gone from best friends united against the elves and their parents into enemies who could barely stand to be in the same room with each other.

But Reggie hadn’t been totally gone. The Reggie that Sirius knew before Hogwarts had still been there, hadn’t he? He’d stolen that locket, brought it home and hid it away so that Kreacher could destroy it.

Sirius didn’t doubt for one moment that the locket had been Voldemort’s. Who else could have created a monstrosity like that?

Harry’s scar. The locket. Harry had said something about a diary.

“Oh,” Sirius said as the family magic abruptly pushed down Sirius’ grief enough that he could catch the thread of images the family magic kept shoving at him. “Oh…”

“What?” Anthony asked with commendable wariness.

“It’s…” Sirius sighed and tugged at his braid. “I’ve got to cut this mess. But no, not that. The family magic keeps pushing my mind back to Reggie. My little brother.”

“Regulus, died back before the end of the war but no one knows how or why,” Anthony confirmed with a curious look as he crossed his arms over his chest again and leaned against the door opposite Harry’s suite. “What about him?”

Sirius snorted. “He really is going to be okay.”

Anthony groaned. “I’m never living that down, am I?”

“Probably not,” Sirius agreed. He laughed a little and then tossed the braid back over his shoulder. “Reggie stole a locket from You-Know-Who. It had some… spectacularly evil magic on it. The same sort of magic was on Harry’s scar and, apparently, a diary that Harry killed with a fang from the basilisk he killed in the Chamber of Secrets before the end of school.”

They both froze as Healer Smethwyck opened the door and came out to lean against the wall with a tired sigh. He didn’t look exhausted. No sweating, no shaking, nothing but a drawn expression and a frown that made Sirius feel like he was a schoolboy again and in trouble for yet another prank that went wrong.

“Is he all right?” Sirius asked.

“Oh, yes,” Healer Smethwyck said. He opened his eyes and sighed. “The boy will be just fine. His magic is free, properly, and already working with the healing spells and potions I gave him. The elves are keeping an eye on him during the current phase. By morning, he should be as good as gold. Or as good as can be expected short of Goblin healing rituals.”

“Thank goodness,” Anthony sighed, rubbing his face with his hands. “Okay, great. What about Sirius? He’s a bloody disaster.”

Healer Smethwyck snorted and smiled at Sirius who puffed up with offense even though Anthony was absolutely right. He was a disaster and had been practically from the moment he was born into this bloody family.

“Right,” Healer Smethwyck said. “Into your suite, young man. I’ve a great many scans to do and then we’ll see just what you need to have done.”

“Fine,” Sirius said.

He led them both to the other end of the hallway where his father’s suite, the master suite, lay waiting. Sirius hadn’t wanted the bloody thing but between Kreacher puffing up like an outraged pigeon and the family magic all but shoving him into the room, it’d turned into his immediately after he claimed the wards and sent Harry off to bed.

At least Kreacher had cleaned the suite up to the point it didn’t feel like he was about to walk in for a round of “punishment” at the tip of his father’s wand. The dark wallpaper was now light cream. Father’s heavy forest green drapes, upholstery and carpets had been replaced with shades of red and gold, accented with some nice royal blue. It looked much better, even if Sirius did say so himself.

Neither Anthony nor Healer Smethwyck commented on the room’s renovation, sadly. Sirius pouted a little but let himself be prodded into his bedroom, into his night clothes, and then into the great four-poster bed.

“So, while he’s scanning,” Anthony said quietly out of respect for Healer Smethwyck’s ability to make them both utterly fucking miserable if they didn’t stay still and quiet for the scanning, “what were you saying about Regulus?”

Sirius sighed and didn’t turn his head to frown at Anthony because absolutely no way was he getting Healer Smethwyck angry at him. “The family magic keeps bringing him back to my mind. There’s a link there. The locket that Kreacher had that Harry destroyed feels like the gunk that came from his scar. Harry swears it was just like the diary he destroyed, too. And, well, if You-Know-Who made three of these evil bloody things, what’s to say that he didn’t make more of them, you know?”

“Good point,” Anthony said with a careful nod of his head that Sirius could just see from the corner of his eye. “Question is, what were they? Why’d he create them? And how many more might there be?”

“Horcruxes,” Healer Smethwyck announced and then immediately glowered when Sirius sat bolt-upright to stare at him in horror. “The boy had an imperfectly made horcrux in his scar. It’s been fully purged, and his magic is now free to restore him to proper balance. The locket and diaries left marks on his magic as well. They were clearly properly made horcruxes.”

“Not a term I’m used to?” Anthony said quite hesitantly.

“Bloody fucking hell, what is with that boy?” Sirius whined as he flung his arms out across the bed like the drama queen that Remus always accused him of being. “How? Just how? This is insane! Every time I think we’ve gotten to the end of the drama, there’s another level of him being, being, being twice as ridiculous as me!”

Anthony burst out laughing, the ass. Sadly for Sirius’ pride, Healer Smethwyck grinned at him, pale blue eyes sparkling with amusement in a way they just hadn’t before. There were some serious brains behind that bland, stern mask, and possibly, a very considerable sense of humor.

The humor in Healer Smethwyck’s eyes faded after a moment. “He is a Potter. They’re known of late for their deadly situations.”

“Yeah, we know,” Sirius said with a tired sigh. “So, horcruxes. How many can a person make?”

“I believe it depends on the amount of magical power available to the magi in the first place,” Healer Smethwyck said as he continued scanning Sirius. His stance was rock-solid, shoulders low and firm, belly tight, legs spread so that you could hit him with a whole set of bludgers and not make him sway. Said a lot about the amount of power Healer Smethwyck had going for him.

And the amount of damage Sirius had going for him because why else would Healer Smethwyck use scans that required that much power?

“Great, then he could’ve made a whole raft of the damned things,” Sirius grumbled. He glanced over at Anthony who was pale-faced and staring at the scans Healer Smethwyck was doing. “Anthony, I need you to get with Amal and Lacey. Do some Arithmancy and whatever detection spells you can to figure out how many we’re looking for. We’re gonna have to find them all and destroy them.”

“Will do,” Anthony said with a ready nod despite the tragic expression growing on his face. “Think we should get the goblins involved?”

“Mmm, probably?” Sirius said slowly. He thought about it and then nodded. “Yeah, we should. Make sure to get Silverclaw in on that. Who knows? The goblins might have a way to find them. Or curse breakers who can deal with the stupid things better than Harry’s brute force method. I mean, seriously, he just out and stabbed the things with a basilisk fang. That boy.”

Healer Smethwyck’s lips twitched. “Your father did say at some point that he hoped that you’d have a child just like you, did he not?”

Sirius stared at him; mouth dropped open in outright horror. It set Anthony to snickering into his hand, turned away as if that made his laughter less obvious. Healer Smethwyck grinned and suddenly looked fifty years younger despite his close-cropped white hair and many, many wrinkles.

“I’m officially too sick to be teased this way,” Sirius complained.

“You are, actually,” Healer Smethwyck agreed. “I’m going to have to bring in a whole set of potions for you. Some identical to young Mr. Potter, some very different. The effects of Azkaban will likely be with you your entire life, but we can mitigate the worst of it. However, none of that can happen until we unblock your memories and magic.”

“How bad?” Sirius asked.

“Ah, worse than Harry,” Anthony said, no longer laughing. He’d gone back to too-pale and too-worried as Healer Smethwyck talked. “Someone—”

“Dumbledore,” Sirius interrupted.

“—Wanted you to be very unstable and very weak,” Anthony continued as if he hadn’t been interrupted. He did nod to concede Sirius’ point, though. “This is… probably going to hurt.”

“Oh, there’s no probably about it,” Healer Smethwyck said. “This is going to be agonizing, so you’ll take the potions I give you with no complaints, understood?”

He shifted stance and recorded all his scans on a scroll and also into a small notebook that had to be his patient logbook. A whole series of potion bottles flew up out of his carpet bag, gleaming in the dim golden mage lights of the bedroom as they settled on the bedside table. Sirius sat up on his elbows and studied them. The only one he recognized was a surgery-level pain potion that would knock him so flat he’d be lucky to be able to get to the toilet to piss by himself late tomorrow night.

“That bad, huh?” Sirius said.

“Yes.”

“Lovely.”

Sirius grumbled at Healer Smethwyck’s implacably stern and very bland blue eyes. He had ever bit of his magic locked down so tight that his eyes almost appeared Muggle in the lack of gleam in them. There was no point to complaining as it wouldn’t make a bit of difference to what had to happen, but Sirius still complained as he took his nine potions, grimacing at the taste of each of them even though they weren’t all that bad.

Didn’t taste like utter shite. The last one was even lightly flavored of apple and cinnamon which left an almost-pleasant taste in his mouth as Anthony and Healer Smethwyck helped Sirius settle back onto his pillows.

“Now… none of that…” Sirius mumbled around his growing lethargy as Healer Smethwyck opened his pajama top, exposing Sirius’ bony ribs. “I’m… not into… that kind of… thing. That. Thing. You know.”

Healer Smethwyck snorted. “Young man, your grandfather tried that line with me far too many times for it to be effective, especially since he most certainly was into that sort of thing.”

Sirius’ jaw dropped open. He stared at Healer Smethwyck who raised one eyebrow and smirked. Behind him, Anthony’s jaw was just as wide open as Sirius’ so that wasn’t actually something he’d imagined. Which it should’ve been. That was…

Wow. Um. Yeah. No? Yeah, Sirius was going with no. So much no.

He got another amused snort out of Healer Smethwyck and then there was magic in his face. Bright blue and gentle up until it surged into his head and his chest and his fingertips. Sirius gasped, jerking against the magic wrenching his innards into knots.

The agony in his belly was nothing compared to the fire ripping through his mind. Sirius heard sounds, grunts, short screams, whimpers. He didn’t recognize the voice, but they went so well with the memories tearing free inside his head.

“You can’t just… choose,” Regulus whispered the night before Sirius went to Hogwarts for the first time. “You can’t, can you?”

“Don’t know,” Sirius admitted in an even quieter whisper so his parents and the elves wouldn’t come separate them on the last night he had to defend Regulus from Mother’s insanity. “But Grandpa Arcturus claimed that if I really wanted to go somewhere else, I could.”

Regulus nodded—

–and pursed his lips as Regulus meticulously folded his own clothes to put them in his own trunk for his first trip to Hogwarts. The last year had not been kind to Regulus. The shy boy that Sirius had known and loved had disappeared into a stuffy formal little bastard who would barely even look Sirius in the eye.

He’d meet Mother’s eye, though. Hell, he’d look right at her and smile—

–like the sun had come up and bathed him in warmth. Then Regulus spotted Sirius watching from the end of the hallway. He froze and snapped the book he’d been reading shut. Every bit of that laughter, that joy, disappeared as if he loathed letting Sirius see any emotion other than pure—

–hatred.

“You’re a complete failure!” Mother bellowed as she cast cruciatus on Sirius for the second time in the last hour. “Why was I cursed with such a failure as an heir?”

Behind her, Regulus stood prim and proper with his hands loosely clasped behind his back. His expression was so distant that Sirius would’ve thought that Regulus was watching a firstie’s failing piano recital instead of his older brother being tortured day after day after day by their mother.

“You will do better, damn you!” Mother hissed as she let the cruciatus go again.

Sirius panted, his whole body twitching and aching from the torture. He gulped for air and curled up one lip to snarl. “No—

–It’s not like that!” Regulus hissed, glancing over his shoulder to watch for James, Remus and Peter coming up from behind him. “You don’t understand, Siri. She’s getting worse. You didn’t come home, and she was… so mad. So mad. Can’t you just… try?”

“Well, I’m sorry that I didn’t want to be tortured to death by my own damned mother!” Sirius snapped at him. “I don’t want to die, Reggie. She will literally kill me if I don’t do what she wants.”

“Yes,” Regulus said with a sort of intensity that caught Sirius’ attention even in with panic hammering his heart against his breastbone and terror making his hands shake too hard for him to pull his wand out. “Yes, exactly, Siri. I have to obey her or—

–Regulus pulled his sleeve back down, hiding the Dark Mark tainting his wand arm. His expression was perfectly blank as he turned to Sirius—

–Dumbledore sighed as he slowly, creakily passed a piece of parchment across his desk to Sirius. His office was silent, painfully silent. All the little clicking, ringing, spinning gadgets he loved so much were still as death.

“I am so very sorry, my dear boy,” Dumbledore said. His eyes had gone dark with magic. And grief. “So very sorry that you felt we had to do this.”

Sirius took the piece of parchment and lifted it to read it.

Regulus Black is presumed dead. It is assumed that the Dark Lord Voldemort killed him. I do not care because he was a prat and I never cared about him.

Something shifted in Sirius’ head as he read the words so carefully inscribed on the parchment. A spell. A memory charm. Why would… Dumbledore… memory charm him?

Or…

Had Sirius asked Dumbledore to charm him? Why in Merlin’s name would he do that?

—“I really don’t know about this, Padfoot,” James said, gnawing on his thumbnail and twitching like the nervous stag that he was.

“Look, someone has to be the bait,” Sirius said reasonably. “I’m the wild one. You’re the Golden Boy, destined for greatness with the beautiful girlfriend. Remus? We couldn’t have Remus do it. His furry little secret will get in the way. And you know Peter flat couldn’t. He’s not cut out to be a spy. I’ll make great bait.”

“Yeah, but what about Regulus?” James asked.—

Sixth year.

That had been the very end of sixth year. The ripping pain in Sirius’ head slowly ebbed away. The memories that Dumbledore had locked away inside of his head were free again. Not quite connected to the rest of his memories. They felt like bloody-edged pieces of glass falling endlessly though his mind.

But they were free again.

Sixth year; the year that Voldemort started really recruiting students. He’d marked so many of the older ones over the summer. More got marked over Yule. By the end sixth year, Sirius, James, and Remus had all been afraid that they were going to be killed in the hallways.

Not Peter, though.

A memory ripped free, slicing his mind as it wiggled out of the hole it’d been hidden in.

—“I don’t much want to do it,” Peter had murmured as he and Sirius trudged back from the greenhouses side by side, “but I’ve got Death Eater relatives. Close ones. Dumbledore thinks I… could get some info from them. He’s got some charms that’ll protect my mind. Some other tricks I can use, too.”

“That’s bullshite, Pete,” Sirius complained. “You’ve spent your whole bloody life distancing yourself from them. What’ll your mum say? How’s Dumbledore gonna protect her?”

Peter’s eyes gleamed in a strangely disturbing way as he shrugged and smiled wryly. “It’s taken care of. Mum’ll be just fine, promise. Look, I’ll see you later. I gotta go, you know, talk with Dumbledore about the details.”

“Pete,” Sirius said, not that it slowed Peter down. “Wormy!”

Peter waved one hand without looking over his shoulder—

Sirius’ head throbbed. His entire spine felt like he’d just spent a week under Mother’s wand. Worse, his stomach was so queasy that Sirius nearly threw up when he managed to lever one eye open.

“Hey, stay still,” Anthony said as he gently put a hand on Sirius’ shoulder. “Healer Smethwyck’s stepped out to get more pain potions. You burned through the lot of them and then passed out.”

“Yeah,” Sirius said in a croak that made him cough and then curl into an agonized ball.

With Anthony’s help, Sirius managed to drink a small glass of water. Stunningly, it stayed down. He flopped back on the pillows, panting, and trembling from the pain. When Anthony tried to stand up and move away, Sirius grabbed his wrist and didn’t let go.

“Sirius?”

“Do not let Dumbledore find out where we are,” Sirius ordered. He stared up into Anthony’s eyes as they went wider and wider. “Do whatever you have to but keep Dumbledore away from both me and Harry. Make sure Amal, Lacey, Silverclaw and Healer Smethwyck know. Dumbledore is an enemy of the House of Black. I just don’t know how much of a threat. Yet.”

Anthony sucked in a long breath, staring at Sirius with wide, shocked eyes. “As in… magical vow of enmity for all time?”

Sirius nodded even though every single hair on his head hurt, along with everything else. He couldn’t have taken the vow if he wanted to, not right now, but he would as soon as he could.

Well, as soon as he was sure his memories weren’t playing tricks on him.

“Right,” Anthony replied grimly, eyes dark and determined. “I’ll get Lacey on it. Now stop being stubborn and go back to sleep, you idiot. There’s gonna be more memories breaking free. If you sleep, they’ll slot into place less painfully.”

Yeah, right. Sirius let Anthony tuck him in because it was too much effort not to.

Only after Anthony left the bedroom did Sirius open his eyes to stare up at the curtains draped over his bed. In the darkness of his bedroom, the warm crimson looked nearly black with just a hint of red like blood gone almost congealed.

Should’ve thought of that. Huh, might need some gold to lighten that up. Sirius snorted and then glared at the curtains some more.

Dumbledore had played them against one another. He’d trapped James and Lily, denied Remus the support he needed as a werewolf, failed utterly to support Severus and Regulus and the other Slytherins.

And he’d set Peter up to be a spy before wiping that memory out of Sirius’ head.

What else had he done? What memories had he taken? From who?

And why?

9. Study Break

A simple blood-wasting curse, a Karma curse, something that ensured that we’d be freed quickly from this suffering. But no, Grandfather and Father had to craft the most ridiculous curse ever designed to kill the Potters one by one over decades.

#

“This is…” Harry paused and stared at the book on the so-called Sacred Twenty-Eight. “Messed up.”

Dobby snickered at the end of the bed where he was lounging. He’d shown up around the time Harry woke up and explained that Sirius’ healing had been even worse than Harry’s. That honestly seemed impossible. Harry had screamed until his voice broke, dislocated his own shoulder and then gone into convulsions at one point.

The thought that Sirius had gone through even worse getting his blocks removed was kind of horrifying. Well, a lot horrifying. Totally and completely horrifying.

Sort of like this pretentious and ridiculous book.

“They really think that in-breeding somehow makes them better?” Harry asked Dobby.

“They does,” Dobby said. He was sprawled out on the bed, hands over his belly as he slowly wiggled his feet and did absolutely nothing whatsoever. “Has never made sense to Dobby, Friend Harry. We house elves is very, very careful not to cross lines too closely. Makes for sick babies who cannot learns what they needs to learns.”

“Yeah, I’d think so,” Harry said, shaking his head. “How’m I supposed to take Ron and Malfoy seriously when they mouth off about being Pure-Blood this and Pure-Blood that? I mean, now that I know it means literally marrying their own cousins.”

“Sometimes siblings,” Dobby said with a grimace that Harry copied because ugh!

Ugh!

“Right,” Harry said, setting that book aside. “I’ll… come back to that one. Let’s see, which one’s the one that talks about what etiquette I have to follow? And where’s the one that has all the charts about the current and past laws.”

Dobby levered himself up on his elbows and peered at Harry’s books. “They is under your pillows, Friend Harry. Yous puts them aside so yous don’t lose them.”

“Safe spot.” Harry snorted as he fished the books out and shook his head. “You gotta watch out for those safe spots, Dobby. You can lose something permanently in a too-safe spot.”

“Dobby knows,” Dobby said. “Hogwarts has special room for all things lost and forgotten. Come and Go room. Friend Harry should go check there. Dobby thinks there might being things like the diary there but Come and Go room is hiding whatever Dobby thinks he feels from him. Or it is hiding. Dobby is not sure.”

Harry’s eyebrows went up. He grabbed the little blank book he’d chosen for keeping To Do lists, adding “Check Come and Go Room at Hogwarts” to his list of Urgent Things To Get Done ASAP”. Then he went back to studying all the ways he’d offended Malfoy without even knowing it.

No wonder Malfoy had decided that Harry was his sworn enemy. Harry counted at least six ways Harry had offended him before the first day of class was over, on top of the train and Madame Malkin’s shop. It wasn’t just Malfoy, though. He’d one hundred percent certain offended Hannah Abbot at least twice in the last two years, probably a lot more than that. Avery, Bulstrode and Flint probably, if they hadn’t rolled their eyes at him and Ron and Hermione, had cause to declare a blood feud what with all the insults he and Ron had leveled on them during Potions and DADA.

Crabbe and Goyle, well, Harry wasn’t sure that they noticed anything other than threats to Malfoy. Harry had definitely insulted them on a couple of occasions, but Malfoy said way worse right to their faces so they might consider it no big deal. Maybe.

Ernie MacMillion didn’t have cause for a feud, but Harry certainly owed him a formal, written apology for the whole thing where he’d knocked Ernie over after getting in a screaming match with Malfoy back in May. Not that Harry especially wanted to give him one, but he owed it.

“There are so many people I offended without even knowing it,” Harry sighed. He dragged over the blank book he was using to keep track of who he owed things to and started noting down people’s names and then listing what he’d done to piss them off as per the etiquette book. “Fixing that’s going to take forever.”

“Friend Harry is going to try?” Dobby asked with idle curiosity.

He was sprawled back out on the foot of the bed, but on his belly now instead of on his back. His toes still twitched like it was driving Dobby nuts not to be working continuously. Harry studied him, mulling both Dobby’s strange-for-a-House-Elf behavior and the implications of his question.

“Well, it seems like I probably should,” Harry said slowly. He looked at the book and then back at Dobby who perked one ear up without looking at Harry. “I mean, it’s something that’s kind of important according to, oh, eight of these books now. Making allies and not offending people, I mean.”

“Maybe,” Dobby said. He rolled onto his side so that he could meet Harry’s eyes without having to turn his head. “But Dobby thinks Friend Harry should consider what message that would send. Friend Harry was not knowing any of this. Everyone at Hogwarts is knowing this, even if some like Little Brat Malfoy—”

“Oh, I love that name!” Harry gasped and grinned at Dobby who grinned right back and wiggled his ears proudly.

“Is never admitting it,” Dobby said as if Harry hadn’t interrupted. “All the professors is telling other students that you is not learning what you should have been learning.”

“…And not telling me that I should have been learning it,” Harry said once he managed to pick his jaw up off the bedspread. “Why…? I mean, seriously, why wouldn’t someone, anyone, take me aside and say, you know, go read some damned etiquette books before you get yourself into a blood feud?”

Dobby shrugged one shoulder. “Friend Harry is already in a blood feud. Mouldyshorts is killing Friend Harry’s parents and trying to kill Friend Harry two years in a row now.”

This time Harry slouched back against his pillows; arms crossed over his chest. He didn’t say anything because the only thing that was likely to come out was swearing that would remind him of Uncle Vernon in a rage. Harry absolutely refused to be anything like Uncle Vernon, so he had to sit there, stewing, and biting his tongue until he could edit all the curse words and fury out of his words.

“They all expect me to die before I grow up, don’t they?” Harry said.

Dobby nodded sadly. “Friend Harry is probably going to live about as long as Dobby will. Maybe a little more, maybe a little less. Mouldyshorts is still trying to kill Friend Harry, after all. He is old and smart and powerful, and Friend Harry is young and untrained and unprepared.”

Harry scrubbed his hands over his face as he fought down another round of vicious cursing. If people would just teach him things, then he wouldn’t be untrained and unprepared. Though maybe that had something to do with the supposed bloodline curse the Potters had going.

Honestly, being cursed to be forgotten, misunderstood, and gossiped about made so much sense of Harry’s entire life that he had no problems at all accepting that it was a real thing. What made him wonder was who’d done it and why? The book he’d skimmed over before starting in on the etiquette books had implied that you needed to know who and why and what before you could remove a curse.

It wasn’t, not really, a thing that Harry had to fix himself. Lacey was a curse breaker, after all. He absolutely was going to throw the whole problem right at her once he was allowed out of bed. Someday. Maybe tomorrow.

“I really want to know what happened to all those records,” Harry commented. “How does a curse make them disappear?”

“Dobby does not know,” Dobby said, flopping back over onto his back.

He sighed so gustily when Harry picked up another book that Harry raised an eyebrow at him. Dobby didn’t respond. Harry leaned over and carefully poked Dobby’s bony shoulder. Dobby’s lips twitched but he ignored the poke.

So Harry laughed and shook his head, going back to his books.

“Friend Harry is not asking?” Dobby asked, peeking from the corner of his eyes at Harry.

“Nope,” Harry said as obnoxiously cheerfully as he could. “None of my business. If my friend wants to talk, he’ll talk. If not, none of my business. You don’t have to tell me a single thing if you don’t want to.”

Dobby giggled and sighed just as gustily as before, but he grinned as he did it. Then he wiggled his shoulders and shut his eyes like he was going to take a nap.

His hands were tight over his belly and his toes didn’t stop twitching.

It was odd.

Very odd. And very unusual behavior as far as Harry could tell. Not that he knew much about house elves, but he’d never seen Dobby so still, so passive and quiet. It was the exact opposite of what he’d come to expect from Dobby.

None of his business, though.

If he couldn’t apologize to everyone that he’d offended in a zillion different ways, and he couldn’t break the curse, then the next most logical thing to work on was the whole vassal issue with Theo and seeing if he could find out who’d locked Sirius up and thrown away the key.

“All right,” Harry said after skimming over the vassal bonds book and finding nothing that made him think he should do something else. “I need to get hold of Mad-Eye Moody and take his vassal bond, you know, if he wants to give it to me. I need to figure out what’s in the records of the Nott family’s being cast out. Then maybe I can get Theodore to stop being such a prat and he could be another ally. And then, after all of that, we need to work on getting Sirius a trial. Which he totally deserves after all the stupidity got him locked up.”

“Those is good plans,” Dobby commented, eyes still shut. His fingers clenched over his belly.

“Thank you,” Harry said. “Any suggestions?”

Dobby shrugged a shoulder and then shuddered as if moving was horrifically uncomfortable for some reason. “Dobby does not know. But Goblins is very good at plotty-plots. Silverclaw is best for it. Friend Harry should be asking Silverclaw.”

“Good idea,” Harry said.

He wrote it down. Studied the vassal bond book more carefully. Took notes on it. Studied the one about the Sacred Twenty-Eight, cross-referencing it against all the etiquette failures he’d had so far.

All the while Dobby lounged tensely on the end of Harry’s bed. His toes twitched harder and harder, faster and faster. His fingers started flexing over his belly. Once that started up, Dobby’s breathing sped up, too. He frowned and then snarled and then started panting as if he was in pain.

“Um…”

“No!” Dobby snapped. He wheezed, hands spread out in the air, fingers trembling. “Dobby is all right. Dobby is just fine. It is fine. No problems. Dobby is not needing anything.”

“Okay…” Harry said slowly. “You look like you’re detoxing. I mean, when a Muggle gets hooked on drugs, they have to either wean themselves off them or they go through withdrawals. That’s kind of what you look like.”

Dobby laughed so mirthlessly that Harry’s jaw dropped. “Dobby was not knowing that other peoples had the same thing. Is very not good. Not nice at all.”

“You’re…” Harry shook his head and stared at Dobby. “You’re trying to go cold turkey and not touch wizarding magic.”

“Yes,” Dobby agreed. His teeth chattered for a moment. “I-is very h-hard. Dobby is old. He is strong. He does not need wizard magic. He is wild. Wild! He can live with w-wild magic. He can.”

Harry stacked up his books and notes. He set them on the bedside table. Then he pulled Dobby up so that he could lie on the pillows and curl up under the top blanket instead of twitching on the end of the bed. Dobby spluttered about being moved, not that Harry let that stop him.

“I’m recovering,” Harry said as he took one of the more sleep-inducing political books that Sirius had picked out for him. “You’re recovering. Recovery is done in beds, with covers and pillows. So you get to be in bed, too.”

Dobby narrowed his eyes like he was trying to glare but his grin slowly snuck out. He curled up in a ball under the covers and sighed just like he had before. But this time, after the sigh, Dobby’s twitching feet slowly stopped moving. His eyes drooped shut and then stayed shut. Even his fingers clenched on the top blanket slowly, slowly, slowly relaxed.

Harry kept reading, going back over paragraphs until he thought he might have figured out more or less what the author was trying to say. Three pages in, Dobby started quietly snoring. Four pages in, Harry yawned so widely that his jaw cracked.

Nope. Not that book. Harry set it aside and picked a different one that wasn’t one paragraph of dense text spread across three pages. How could anyone read a book like that? Hadn’t the author ever met an editor? Weren’t people supposed to make their books readable?

The other books were just as dense, just as confusing, just as worrying in all the stuff that Harry hadn’t learned, hadn’t done, or should have done which meant that he’d messed everything up before even meeting Sirius. Heck, some of the stuff in the etiquette book was stuff he’d messed up before he started primary.

When Dobby rolled over, mutter in his sleep about spinach and cheese, Harry gave up reading as a lost cause. He worked on his lists instead.

The list of people he’d offended and how he’d offended them turned into three lists: Who to Earnestly Apologize To and Why, Who to Explain To and Offer to Apologize, and Who Cares It Makes No Difference With them Anyway?

Somehow, Draco made it onto all three lists. Harry studied Draco’s name and then made a list for Very Annoying People Who Need To Be Addressed Separately. It was a list of one for the moment but hey, that was all right. Harry would figure out the whole Draco question later.

Much, much later.

That prat set aside; Harry started rooting through the etiquette books for formats for Proper Apologies. He shook his head when he realized that all the etiquette books had nearly identical apologies. The only things they differed on was what apology gift you’d send along and why. He got eight apology letters carefully written while listening to Dobby snore softly and then stopped because his hand was cramping.

That didn’t stop him from writing up a very short list for what needed to be done when he was allowed out of bed again:

Go to the Bank for any and all records of his life, money, and the curse.

Go to the Department of Records for anything they could find on where the curse came from.

Contact Mad-Eye Moody and offer him a vassal bond.

Contact Theodore Nott about a vassal bond (but don’t let his dad know about it).

Harry shook his head. If he managed to get one of those done properly, he’d be surprised. Given Harry’s luck and all the people hunting for Sirius, they’d be lucky to get just one step started before everything blew up in their faces.

10. Risky Choice

Decades! I’ve never understood their stupidity.

I never will.

#

Sirius blew out a shaky breath as Silverclaw sealed up the little bottle with the copy of his memories of Lily and James’ deaths. There were three bottles. One for Lils and Prongs, one for Hagrid taking Harry, and one for Wormtail betraying Sirius and blowing up the street. After telling Silverclaw about the horcruxes, and waiting out his furious cursing, Sirius had dug through his still-healing memory to find what was needed for him to get a proper trial.

Silverclaw took the bottles and nodded quite respectfully as he meticulously documented each of them.

Weird how Silverclaw’s bare stone office seemed so welcoming this time, especially compared to all the previous times he’d been to the bank. Before, when he visited with his father, he’d been chilled to the bone and outright terrified of the Goblins. The one time he’d gone with Mother, it’d been so horribly uncomfortable and downright embarrassing to be seen in public with the racist old biddy that he’d sworn to blast his own prick of rather than go with her to Gringotts again.

Now? Now the stone walls seem like… walls. Silverclaw’s wide obsidian desk was just a shiny black desk. The chairs were still horribly uncomfortable but that was nothing that a discreet wandless cushioning charm couldn’t fix.

The next table over, Harry and Amal were so busy with the records problem that Sirius suspected that neither of them had noticed the chairs. Or anything else. They looked almost as frustrated as Silverclaw’s assistants who were half a second and one more misplaced parchment away from tearing all their hair out while cursing until they passed out.

He’d spent two hours giving depositions to the Goblins who’d gone full-formal with all the legal scribes and specially enchanted quills and parchment formalities. Between the depositions and the memories, Silverclaw was pretty sure he could get Sirius a trial with the ICW. Even if the Ministry tried to hide everything, the ICW could stomp all over them.

If the Potter curse didn’t mess them up.

Harry’d spent the last two hours on the other side of the room with his head together with Amal and Silverclaw’s assistants, trying to figure out just where and when the curse was leveled on the Potters.

It’d been a total bust.

Files went missing. On the damned desk. In plain sight.

Amal had taken to keeping his hands directly on records he wanted to come back to because otherwise they disappeared entirely, like they’d been port keyed somewhere else. It was the damnedest thing that Sirius had ever seen, and he’d seen James’ disaster area of a desk with stacks and stacks of unrelated paperwork mingling in with books and half-empty teacups that James always claimed had been empty, washed and put away.

“Oh,” Sirius breathed.

“Problem, Lord Black?” Silverclaw asked, eyes as sharp as his claws as he studied Sirius.

“No, I just realized,” Sirius sad. “I mean, James’ desk at school and his home was always a disaster area. He claimed a million times that he didn’t leave it that way. We all swore that he had his own personal gremlin messing up his desk. I guess we weren’t wrong about that, after all.”

Silverclaw looked over to Harry and Amal who showed no signs of having heard Sirius’ revelation. “I would wager that he did. My assistants have always complained of files going missing. I never realized that it was an actual effect.”

“We’re going have to go to the Department of Records,” Sirius complained quietly as he rubbed his hands over his face and then tugged at his ponytail of too-long hair. “That’s… not ideal. Especially with Harry in tow.”

“I’ve sent for the strongest glamours and charms we have,” Silverclaw announced as if he’d just said that he was wrapping Harry in the finest goblin armor complete with war wards spelled into the breastplate. “If it is possible to disguise and protect him, we will do it.”

Harry looked up and smiled wryly. “I’ve disguised myself before, you know. It doesn’t last very long, but I can usually get people to think I’m someone else for an hour or so. Depends on whether or not my hair and scar are visible. Those always seem to give me away.”

“Which gives you away where?” Sirius asked, turning in his chair so that he could really study Harry.

It made Harry’s cheeks go red, but he stared back at Sirius with a completely blankly calm face. Without the blush, you’d have never known that Harry was uncomfortable with the scrutiny. Did he use that face at school? To deal with all the whispers and pointing that had to go along with being the Boy-Who-Lived?

Sirius would bet that he did. How many of them took the time to really study Harry? Had any of them noticed that he was wearing a mask ninety-eight percent of the time?

He would ask later, after they made it back to Grimmauld Place. Those kids, if there were any who had looked past Harry’s calmly confident mask, were the ones that Harry could trust. The rest of them were varying degrees of useless, much like the majority of the kids Sirius had gone to school with. How many of them had ever realized that Sirius’ wildness was a mask to hide just how terrified he was of dying at his mother’s wand?

“The hair in the Muggle world,” Harry said, brushing a hand over his messy mop. “The scar and glasses in the Magical world. I’m pretty sure that with a different pair of glasses in a different shape and a glamor to cover the scar, I could walk right down Diagon, and no one would recognize me.”

“Better clothes, too,” Amal said without looking up at any of them. “Damn it all, even with my hands on them, I’ve lost six separate reports. We have to go to the Department of Records. Those files have to be going somewhere and I’ll bet my eyeteeth that they’re all going there.”

“Are eyeteeth worth anything magically?” Harry asked while staring at Amal with enough fascination that Sirius grinned.

“Depends on whether or not you’re going to do a blood rite to bind the person’s bones to your building’s foundation stone,” Sirius said when Amal just grinned at Harry.

Harry’s jaw dropped open. “…What.”

“You asked, Prongslet,” Sirius replied. He waggled his eyebrows as Harry stared and spluttered and then turned to Amal who shrugged and nodded.

“Ew,” Harry said. “Right. Never betting my eyeteeth for anything then. Okay, so charms and stuff to make me unnoticeable? Or just unremarkable?”

“Unremarkable,” Silverclaw said. “If you’re quite finished with the file battle, we’d best hurry. There is no saying how long we goblins will be able to quiet the gossip surrounding your visit.”

The idea of just how much chaos would be unleashed if anyone knew that Sirius was here, especially in Harry’s company, got the three of them moving really fast. The Black vaults had some mildly old-fashioned robes that were still in good enough shape that they would work as disguises. The robes for Sirius and Harry were just shabby enough to look like they were honestly old and worn instead of shoved off in a vault and forgotten about.

Sirius’ hair was charmed Malfoy white-blond. All of his hair. Everywhere. Harry snickered when Sirius checked in his pants and grimaced.

Harry ended up with a masking burn scar that covered half his face, piebald hair as if the burn went up over his scalp, and hair so curly that it looked like a halo. His new glasses were in fact quite old with tortoiseshell rims in a wildly unbecoming cat’s-eye shape, but Harry stared around through them as if they were amazing and wonderful.

“How long has it been since you had your glasses charmed to match your eyes?” Sirius asked as they pulled on the robes over their clothes.

Harry hummed as he settled his battered old messenger bag with the bottomless charm over his shoulder. “I ah, wasn’t aware that you could do that. I don’t think I’ve ever had glasses that matched my eyes before.”

“Bloody fucking hell, Prongslet,” Sirius complained. “Every time. Every time I think I’ve gotten to the bottom of the awful shite in your life, another layer of terrible gets revealed. If I wasn’t being hunted by the entire Ministry, I’d go give your Aunt and Uncle a visit to teach them about being decent human beings.”

“Eh, wouldn’t work,” Harry said. He shrugged. “They wouldn’t have been memory charmed a million times if they could learn, you know.”

“Fair point,” Sirius sighed.

Stepping out onto Diagon Alley was, perhaps, scarier than facing down Voldemort and dueling him. No one looked twice at Sirius. From the little nods in his direction, he’d guess that most of them saw the hair and assumed he was a Malfoy relative from the continent come to visit. Harry got even less notice, probably because he trailed along behind Sirius fussing with his messenger bag as if he was making sure that all his files, as if he actually had any, were properly settled inside it.

Amal walked at Sirius’ side, doing much the same thing with his bag, though Amal muttered and complained the whole way about Ministry this and records that, to the point where when they passed two very junior Aurors that Sirius didn’t recognize, Amal got some wry smiles and snickers once they’d passed.

The Ministry itself hadn’t changed at all. Same stupid statues in the entry, same apathetic junior Aurors checking wands and giving out badges. Same ridiculously accurate and completely unbelievable badges generated for them all.

Sirius’ said Lord Black – Facing His Fear of Records. Amal’s said Seneschal Potter – Going to Battle With Records. Harry’s said Heir Potter-Black – Risking His Life for Records.

Thankfully, the Auror on duty didn’t look at a single one of the badges or they’d have been doomed on the spot. There were, bless their souls, a handful of lovely young witches giggling together behind them that the Auror was all-in to check in. With every bit of flirting he had in him, not that Sirius though the witches were going to notice the junior auror, but hope sprang eternal apparently.

The lifts took them down to the proper level, letting them out just up the hall from the nondescript little door to the Department of Records. As always, the hallway was quiet. No one going to or from, though Sirius could hear people chatting behind the doors to the Department of Child Services.

No shouts or growls so it must be a good day today for them.

Hopefully it would remain that way until long after they all got the bloody hell out of the Ministry.

“Right, so, stay close,” Amal told Harry. “The Records Department can be a bit confusing. And um, the staff are a touch odd.”

“A touch?” Sirius said, clearing his throat because it came out in an entirely too high-pitched squeak.

“I’m a clerk,” Amal drawled, eyes dancing with amusement that didn’t make it to his mostly calm face. “I think my standards are a bit different from yours.”

Harry looked between the two of them with that perfectly blank face that seemed to go along with him being ready to do anything necessary. Not… necessarily bad, but not exactly a good thing. Sirius still wanted to know just exactly what had happened to the kid that he was that hard-core at thirteen. It was ridiculous.

And pointless to think about once Amal opened the door to the Department of Records and led them inside.

It looked like, well, an office. There was a perfectly ordinary counter where you had to sign in. The clerk behind the counter seemed normal at first but every time Sirius looked away, he had the distinct impression that the clerk looked different when he turned back. Slightly different hair, the skin a bit lighter or darker. Had the clerk’s nametag said “Joseph” or “Joseff”?

Sirius couldn’t remember. He never could. It was part of what always made him want to get the hell out of there as fast as possible. And it was what made him stay back as Amal signed them in and chatted quite companionably with Joseph/Joseff. Harry stayed at Sirius’ elbow like the personal attendant he was supposed to pretend to be.

“Uh, does he have claws?” Harry murmured, tugging at Sirius’ sleeve.

“Maybe,” Sirius replied without looking at Joseph/Joseff’s fingers. “Don’t know. Won’t check. Can’t make me.”

Harry snorted a little laugh that was higher pitched than it should be. “Is the ceiling higher than normal or lower? I can’t tell.”

“Nope, don’t see anything at all,” Sirius said.

He clenched his hands around the lion head on his cane because otherwise he was going to run like hell and that was just ridiculous. They needed to do this. Sirius’ existential dread at the thought of dealing with the records and the staff here was just going to have to go away.

Not that it would.

“Right,” Amal said with a bright smile. “Come on. We should be able to find what we need back in the older file blocks. Adam claimed that all Potter-related documents automatically go there. No idea why, but apparently it’s been that way for longer than anyone can remember.”

“Adam,” Sirius said. “The clerk’s name is Adam. Right. Well. Lead on.”

Not turning his head to look at the nametag which hadn’t said anything close to Adam took so much effort that Sirius got an instant tension headache radiating up the back of his head from his shoulders. Which felt like they’d been transmuted to red-hot braided steel cables that someone was hammering on.

Harry did look. He gripped Sirius’ sleeve so hard that he nearly pulled Sirius off his feet. Sirius still didn’t look. Nope, not going to, no way, no how.

“You’re muttering,” Amal murmured.

He was all amusement as he looked over his shoulder while walking straight through the end of a block of record books stored on huge bookshelves that soared up towards the ceiling. Here, with that bookshelf, the ceiling looked like it was six miles overhead. The other bookshelf across the aisle looked to be no more than six feet tall. Either way, Sirius couldn’t reach an arm up to touch the ceiling, not that he would have dared to.

“I think I’m justified,” Sirius protested. He and Harry flinched their way through the gate at the end of the bookshelves. “This place always gives me the collywobbles.”

“Oh!” Harry gasped once they came out the other side of the gate. “It’s like the platform at Nine and Three Quarters.”

“Oh, sure,” Amal said far too casually when this “room” in the records department was a whole series of floating platforms connected by vaguely drifting stone slabs. Stars filled the space between the platforms, providing a uniformly gentle blue-white light to read by. “There’s a lot of places like that in the Ministry. Apparently, the Department of Mysteries is even more stunning than this.”

“No,” Sirius said firmly enough that both Harry and Amal stared at him. “Not even close. This is. It’s much worse. Much more impressive. Much more terrifying.”

Amal rolled his eyes. “Sure it is. Anyway, we’ve got one more gate and we’ll be at the spot where the Potter records are kept.”

That one more gate felt like walking through a volcano. Harry and Sirius emerged gasping, smoking, and smelling scorched. Amal passed through the gate without a single issue. He didn’t even look like he’d gotten mildly warm.

The Potter files apparently had their own “room”, one that was shaped like an unbroken egg, if you could see one from the inside. A pearly white dome arched over their heads. The records, most of which were scrolls though there were stacks and stacks of books on the table in the center of the room and a set of open file cabinet trays for loose parchments, spiraled in from the arrival point to a huge egg-shaped marble table in the center of the room.

“Huh, someone’s been here,” Amal said once they made their way to the marble table. “This is… worrisome. It’s all records on you, Harry. Oh, for fuck’s sake! Here’s the records we were working on in the bank. How did they—?”

Amal subsided into spluttered complaints that drew Harry in. The two of them started going over all the records that had been pulled out and left on the table. Sirius frowned, tapping his cane against the dark grey marble floor.

Who’d pulled the records? Where were they? Were they coming back?

He took up post just a bit away from Amal and Harry, watching not just the spiral path back to the gate into the “room” but also the bookshelves which looked only two feet tall until you got close to them. Then they soared up to eighteen and twenty feet tall, full of records upon records upon records of the Potter family.

Someone could be in here, hidden by the shelves, and none of them would know it. Sound certainly didn’t carry. As soon as Sirius stepped more than a yard away from the table, he couldn’t hear Harry and Amal’s animated discussion about the records lying there waiting.

His heart lurched to a spot as a too-familiar mop of curly brown hair appeared on the far side of the table.

Sirius darted over and grabbed Harry and Amal. “Run. Run now.”

“What?” Amal gasped.

Remus’ head came up. His eyes went gold as he sniffed the air. Harry was already turning as Remus’ lips curled back in a snarl that exposed canine teeth beginning to grow.

“Run!” Sirius shouted, shoving Amal ahead of him even though he didn’t think that it would do any good.

No one could outrun a werewolf on the hunt, especially not Remus now that he’d caught Harry and Sirius’ scents.

 

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