Chương 2256: 11- ||
Sirius was going to find a way to ask Hogwarts' Sorting Hat about this… But it did explain why his hat's voice was so familiar. He just hadn't connected that singing, child-friendly hat at Hogwarts with this foul-mouthed blackmailing hat.
Now that he knew they were one and the same, though… "Can you tell me secrets from the minds of thousands of eleven-year-olds?" he asked hopefully. Having embarrassing childish thoughts to hold over the head of every Hogwarts graduate ever was the holy grail of blackmail.
"There was this one kid, real snot," the hat said, its voice lowering to a gruff whisper. Sirius leaned in to hear better. "Family of Slytherins, nastiest of the lot, a real spoiled prince. He had a secret…"
"Yes?" Sirius said. "Go on."
"He was…" the hat whispered.
"A complete tosser who got himself sorted into Gryffindor!" it thundered. "He wet the bed every night of his Hogwarts career! He turned himself into a dog animagus to lick himself! He got himself tossed in Azkaban for being too stupid to object! What a berk!"
Sirius wiggled a finger in his ear. "You are entirely too much of a bastard," he told it.
"Sic me on your enemies and watch their blood veins throb," the hat offered.
"I want wingman services too," he demanded. "The whole package."
"Get me an anti-bug ward to spend my nights in and we have a deal," the hat suggested.
"Good call." He might need one of those for his bedroom too, come to think of it… He hadn't worked up the courage to put a hole in the wall and see if there really were spiders in there. "But you know why I want wingman services, yeah?" Not for Taylor. Of course not. Never that.
"You know why I want the bug ward!" the hat retorted. "You might want to stick your wand in the black widow, doesn't mean I want her stinger in me."
Sirius raised a finger, a denial on the tip of his tongue.
He paused.
Thought about it.
Thought some more.
"I can smell the smoke from here," the hat remarked. "Don't think too hard, you'll burn out your last two brain cells."
Sirius ignored the hat, still contemplating.
"You know what, fine," he eventually conceded. "We're doing this. I need a new list."
The hat watched – could it watch? – with a tilted brim as he retrieved a quill, ink, and parchment, and sat down to write a new list. "Plan to get Taylor a romantic interest," he narrated. "Wingman, suggestions!"
"It's you, you ninny! Pull your finger out of your–" the hat began.
Sirius slapped down on its top. "Let me stop you there," he said. "I'm awesome. Suave. Sexy. The whole deal. We could probably make it work. I know her better than anyone else in this world save her own kid. But I'm still making up for violating her trust, am bankrolling her recovery, and legally have custody of her kid. Me going after her right now would be skeevy, wrong, and unlikely to get me anything but free bee stingers wherever I want them, so long as I want them impaling me." There was a difference between roguish and rapey, and he prided himself on knowing exactly where that line was so he didn't cross it.
"That's quitter talk," the hat said, its voice inexplicably muffled. Sirius did not for one second believe his hand was actually covering what passed for a mouth. For one thing, the mouth was on the brim, if it was anywhere.
"No." Sirius took his hand off the hat. "Not me." He wouldn't feel right about it. Taylor wouldn't go for it, either. It was probably possible, but if it was going to happen, it would happen after they'd had plenty of time to put all of this behind them. "She does, however, deserve to get some after all of the crap she's been put through. That is where we come in."
Now, who would make a good summer fling for Taylor? It had to be someone he knew and approved of, so he could be sure they wouldn't stomp all over her trust issues the moment she started to let her guard down. Someone awesome, smart, tolerant of some casual eldritch vibes coming off their romantic interest. Probably a guy, unless she was so deeply repressed that not even a Veela could shake any interest loose.
Did he know anyone like that? Nobody was coming to mind.
Someone knocked on the front door. "Damn," he said, his train of thought lost before it could get to the imaginary Hogwarts of epiphany. "Come in!" he yelled, slinging the hat over his head at a jaunty angle. Maybe the answer to his musing had come to him.
"It's locked!" Remus yelled, his voice muffled by the door.
Remus was… definitely not an option. Actually, Remus was someone he should have invited over weeks ago, but not for shoving at Taylor and locking the door behind them. Nobody liked a loose end.
"This is a trial run," Sirius told the hat. "Do your new job."
"Wingman services or irritant?" the hat asked.
"Irritant," Sirius told it, before opening the front door. "Remus, what a surprise!" he said. "The library is still a death trap!"
"And still racist," the hat added. "Try not to pee on any table legs, the house doesn't need its preconceptions confirmed."
"Sirius, why does your hat sound like the Hogwarts Sorting hat?" Remus asked tiredly. The big, dark circles under his eyes were peak Moony in the middle of a research spree, but he also looked… haunted. Not nearly as fun.
"Don't tell me you recognized the voice right away," Sirius complained. "Watch your step, there might still be a drop of acid somewhere in the hallway."
"I did hear the hat singing just last year," Remus reminded him. He stepped carefully in the hallway, eyeing the pit marks all over the walls, floor, and ceiling with thinly-veiled apprehension.
"Was that while you were Professor 'I'll just sneak a peek on the teenage boy behind the dividing wall' Lupin?" the hat jeered.
"It wasn't like that!" Remus objected. "Sirius, what did you do to that hat, and why does it sound like the Sorting Hat?"
"Brought it to life," Sirius said. "Blind man, water, something like that. You look like shit." He led Remus to the kitchen. "Also, you've been a right arse ever since I was exonerated."
"He's mad he can't pity-party himself to sleep anymore," the hat opined. "That'd be my guess, and you know I've been in his head."
"Enough!" Remus slammed his fist on the table that Taylor couldn't figure out how to stop from squeaking. Sirius didn't bother casting a surreptitious squeaking charm, as Taylor wasn't around to be baffled by it. "I didn't come here to be mocked, Sirius. We have an important assignment. Can you be solemn for one second?"
"Nicely avoided asking him to be serious, you might just be smarter than the average pun-prefacer," the hat said quietly. "Then again, you came here, so…"
"Tell me why you're an arse these days, and we'll talk about me maybe letting up," Sirius bargained. He straddled the good chair, leaving Remus with the creaky one.
"The assignment–" Remus objected.
"Can wait, because the library will scalp you if you touch a book," Sirius lied. He and Taylor had long since disabled that charm. In doing so, he had learned that while the charm would not go off if bugs touched a book, if manually triggered it considered the entire exoskeleton of an ant to be the scalp. He had a clean, separate ant exoskeleton to prove it. Remus might not appreciate that knowledge, though. Or the little model he had made out of the exoskeleton. It was on the desk in the room he set aside for Harry.
He was very bored.
"That could be armor for your todger, it's the right size," the hat remarked.
"Oy, you reading my mind?" Sirius objected.
"You put me on your head," the hat said unrepentantly. "How do you think I know exactly when to speak up?"
"Let's do… this." Sirius set the hat down between them. "Hush, you. Remus, my question?"
"I grew up while you were in Azkaban." Remus said sullenly.
"See, no, I don't think that's it," Sirius said. "Grown-up Moony is just kid Moony with the age to back up his old soul. Grown-up Moony isn't an arse to kids named Harry. Grown-up Moony doesn't stay away from his exonerated friend for months for no reason. Grown-up Moony doesn't sound pleased about the possibility of putting a woman down like a dog with rabies!" Sirius slammed both hands on the table, mirroring Remus' earlier action but with a lot more force. "Man up and tell me where the stick up your arse came from, so I know whether to have it surgically removed or kick it the rest of the way up when I boot you out of my house." Maybe blaming it on him being in Azkaban had hit a sore spot.
Remus growled at him, but he growled right back, and Remus looked away first. "You could have come to me," Remus said. "When you broke out."
"No I couldn't, you thought I'd betrayed our best friends," Sirius argued. "You would try to arrest or kill me."
"You could have convinced me otherwise!" Remus insisted, not even bothering to pretend he wouldn't have attacked. He might be mild-mannered most of the time, but put him in the right frame of mind, and the wolf would come out.
"Over my mangled body with my dying words, maybe, or when I was being hauled away by the Aurors," Sirius said. "I needed proof. You're not the guy who believes every crazy story he hears, and my story was crazy. By the time I got that proof, I was deep in planning how to use it and dealing with other problems. When that was done with, I was a free man and you knew where to find me, but short of going to the front gate of Hogwarts and holding up a Muggle music box or sending an owl, which was redirected, I couldn't get to you. Whereas you could literally apparate to my doorstep at any time. I thought you'd pop in for a reunion bar crawl one night, whenever you had time!"
"I figured you were busy," Remus muttered. "I forgot I had that Owl ward up, dark families were sending me hate mail. And I had a job to do."
"And then?" Sirius pressed. He stared at his once-friend. Remus was slouching down in his chair. "I'm never busy for long. Boredom is my inescapable foe. You know this."
"Dumbledore had something he needed me to do," Remus said. "Out of the country. Owls couldn't reach me there either, I was looking for a specific piece of information deep in the Vatican's secret magical archives. Now I know what he sent me to get, material on Summoning, which it turns out they didn't have anymore. Burn the heresy, all of that. I got back a week before he called you and me together."
"So you're butthurt over something I didn't do because I wanted to prove myself, not get killed by a rightfully murderous Moony," Sirius concluded. Maybe it would have been better if they had stumbled across Remus mid-Pettigrew-capture. They could have hashed it out over Pettigrew's quivering body and mutually-suffered bug bites. But he made it a personal policy to never linger overlong on what-ifs. "Fine. Why does that extend to Harry's mum?"
"His kidnapper," Remus growled.
"Remember what Dumbledore said," Sirius warned.
"I spent years scouring the country on and off, Sirius," Remus continued, totally ignoring his interjection. "I camped outside of dark manors, watching for weeks at a time. I risked my life trawling through Knockturn Alley. I wandered through thousands of Muggle neighborhoods, looking for places where the house numbers didn't match up, hoping to find a Fidelius like this one. All that time, someone was laughing in their hideout somewhere, with Harry alive but captive."
That was not how it happened, but Sirius had no explanation for how he knew.
"We failed to find him, I failed," Remus said bitterly, "When he showed up at Hogwarts, I thought maybe it didn't matter. Maybe he was okay. Once I worked up the courage to see him, when I got a job at Hogwarts, I saw I really had failed. He didn't know who he was. She took that from him, she took even the memory of James and Lily from him. Nobody else cared, beyond Snape, and he was as much of a bastard about it as he was about everything else. Harry didn't like me, wouldn't listen to me, wouldn't even give me the time of day. His damn Boggart was of her! Then, after all of that, Dumbledore finally saw fit to tell me he suspected this Muggle woman who kidnapped Harry might be possessed and was still an active danger? Can you blame me if I wouldn't mind her just… disappearing? She ruined everything!"
Remus clutched the table with both hands, his fingers gripping wood like it was a lifeline to his sanity. "We're here to do a job. To make sure she's not a threat. You give her the benefit of doubt. Me? I don't think I'll care very much if she can't be saved. I'm in this for Harry, and because as shitty as this world can be I live here too."
There were many things Sirius could have said in response to that. He could have picked apart Remus' self-centered view of events, either by claiming Harry had told him things, or by just pointing out that Remus was jumping to a lot of conclusions. He could have ranted right back at his friend, saying that same attitude was why Harry didn't like Remus, that and pushing Lily and James on him like he was supposed to care about them and only them. He could commiserate, and say their lives were both fucked up by the end of the war. He could try to reason with Remus.
But none of that would change the underlying facts upon which Remus was basing his resentment. The oddly convenient underlying facts.
This all came back to Taylor. To her, to Harry's disappearance, to Summoning. To Dumbledore. Searching for Harry, and failing to find him, had made Remus the bitter, more cynical man he was today.
That did make the plan to tie up this particular loose end much easier to stomach. It was for Remus' own good.
"Never mind," Sirius said, breathing out and leaning forward against his elbow-rest. "That's enough ranting for today. I thought you were avoiding me, you thought I didn't have time for you, we were both wrong, problem solved. We'll agree to disagree on our hopes for the Summoning problem. There is something we can do about that today, to blatantly change the subject."
"What is it?" Remus asked, a tentative smile on his face.
"Well, to start with I want my turn at those books," Sirius said. "You have them with you?"
Remus lifted a small satchel to the table. He pulled all six tomes from it, revealing that his bag was heavily enchanted… and for that matter, Sirius hadn't seen the bag before this very moment. "Where were you keeping that thing?" he asked.
"I know where," the hat piped up. "Same place I keep my sword."
"You don't have a sword," Sirius claimed, taking the books and sliding them over to his side of the table.
"Sure I do," the hat told him. "Lupin, flip me over and reach inside with your wand. It's two twitches to the right and a revealing charm."
"Why not me?" Sirius demanded.
"I don't let ugly imbeciles stick their hands up me," the hat told him. A corner of its brim folded at him, looking almost like a wink without the eye or the rest of the face…
"Remus, prove the hat to be a big fat liar, please," Sirius said, getting his wand out under the table.
Remus looked extremely dubious, but he took the hat in one hand, his wand in the other, and put his wand inside the hat. "How far?" he asked.
"Look in, you want to cast it right at the tiny ruby sewn into the bottom," the hat instructed.
Remus leaned in further, until his face was covered by the hat and his wand was in a very awkward position. "I don't see–"
"Obliviate!" Sirius cast, focusing on the same thing he had obliviated from Dumbledore. Taylor. Her name, who she was, everything Remus knew about her, and for good measure everything Remus knew about Harry's childhood, too, as well everything he knew about Summoning just on general principle.
Multi-subject obliviation was difficult, especially with the added impetus on the mind filling in the gaps so the loss wasn't noticeable, but Sirius had studied and practiced, because Taylor didn't do obliviations and they were too useful to ignore.
The spell scratched against his friend's mind, slipping on hard will and relying on his own to shove it into place, and he put every ounce of effort he could into it. It was easier last time with Dumbledore's wand, much easier, but the spell slipped in and slammed down eventually, after a few tense moments of battling wills.
Remus dropped the hat and blinked, swaying from side to side. "Wha…"
"Ha!" the hat yelled. "Got you! How do you like the smell of those mothballs!"
"Why you little piece of ragged cloth," Remus growled, shaking off his momentary obliviation-induced confusion. He looked up at Sirius. "I have to admit, this thing is brilliant." He already sounded less frustrated, the weight on his shoulders lifting. Not entirely, but enough to make a difference.
"I know, right?" Sirius agreed. "I charmed it to sound like the Sorting Hat and everything! Everyone trusts that voice, and it's even funnier when it's cursing up a storm." He would shove the cat back in the bag on the hat's actual origin. It was better if people thought he was just a prankster, not that he actually had a copy of the Sorting Hat. McGonagall would get her tail in a knot about that, if nothing else.
"What were we talking about before you decided to prank me with the hat?" Remus asked. "I can't quite remember."
"I said we were both idiots," Sirius told him. "You remember that, right? You explaining why you've been such an arse, and me explaining why I didn't run to you first thing after I squeezed my bony self out between the bars in Azkaban?" If this worked, and Remus changed his attitude, Sirius was willing to forgive his prior behavior as mostly Dumbledore's fault.
"Yeah…" Remus rubbed at his head. "I've… Huh. I don't remember how we got from there to me looking into the hat."
"He's a nasty bastard, don't put him on your head again," Sirius advised, casually slinging the hat back onto his. "We had to come to an agreement."
"Black controls my entertainment," the hat whispered loudly. "His antics are more fun if I'm not stuck in the closet."
"I know the feeling," Remus agreed. "Start over, Sirius?" He stuck his hand out. "I've been… In a rough place lately. I think." Momentary confusion flitted across his face, soothed down by the aftereffects of the obliviation.
"You're going to have to do a lot more apologizing to Harry, but as for me, I'm good." Sirius took his hand and shook it. "All you did to me was not come over. Let's go–"
Someone pushed on the Floo wards, stepping into his fire from elsewhere. It was either Taylor, in which case this must be an emergency major enough for her to break her no-magic regime now and waste several weeks of preparation, or someone else who thought they could just walk into his home. Neither was good.
"Sirius, are you home?"
"Narcissa?" he muttered. What in the world was his cousin doing here?
"Malfoy," Remus growled.
"Hang on, let me see what she wants." Sirius sidled out of the kitchen and into the living room. Narcissa was there, looking around at the windows he still hadn't gotten around to properly replacing. "Long time no see," he said, inwardly cursing his stupid self for not closing the Floo. Anyone could have wandered in! He must have forgotten to close it after the carpet tamer left. "It's been… what, a month? Didn't see you last time I visited Malfoy Manor, though."
"Sirius." Narcissa's lips quirked downward. She held herself carefully, like she expected to need to retreat into the Floo, but wouldn't betray her unease before it became necessary. "I wanted to extend my sincerest apologies for the actions of Barty Crouch Junior and the thing he harbored."
"Right, that was the Malfoy ritual room we ended up in on the end of Barty's portkey, wasn't it?" Sirius mused. That was a sordid little detail the Aurors had followed up on. Percy Weasley had quite the Veritaserum-verified story to tell, and he happily contributed his own observations when asked. "Fancy that. Was it Imperius again, or something else?" he asked sarcastically. "I can never keep the excuses straight."
"Imperius," Narcissa said, her face entirely straight. "Barty was… not sane. He considered Lucius a traitor, rightfully so, and said our manor and our freedom was forfeit. We were kept under control from the start, beyond what was necessary to keep up appearances. Your Weasley friend's child can confirm it."
"I'm sure Percy saw exactly what you wanted him to see," Sirius scoffed. He really ought to be more pissed off at how Lucius was getting away with the same Imperius defense, but, well… It wasn't all said and done just yet. He had to do something to use up his copious free time. Putting some dirt in Lucius' eye would be a worthy endeavor.
"Percival Weasley saw that we were no more willing participants than he was, and that is nothing but the truth," Narcissa said primly. "Think, cousin. Lucius has the ear of the Minister. We have money. We have power. All of that we stood to lose, not gain."
"Old-fashioned bigotry and inbreeding addling the mind would be the driving motivation, I suspect," Sirius retorted. "Why are you here? You know I'm not going to fall for any of that."
"I am here to save your life, you foolish manchild," Narcissa snapped. "Did you even think to wonder how the Dark Lord possessed you so easily, and was so powerful while doing so? Or are you so far removed from your upbringing that you think such a thing is normal? Why would he ever bother with anything else if he could simply hop from body to body, taking over his foes and laying waste to them without being in any real danger himself?"
Sirius had chalked that incident up to 'Voldemort probably breaks rules of magic for fun when he wants to', but he wasn't going to admit that to his snooty cousin. He felt exactly how damaging Harry's spell was in dragging Voldemort out of his mind. Damaging to Voldemort, that was. It was over and done with… or so he thought. The healers at Saint Mungo's thought so too, based on their preliminary tests. He did have that follow-up appointment coming up. "Enlighten me, then," he drawled.
"The ritual," Narcissa said, pacing forward. Her hands were empty, but Sirius remained wary of her, and backed up to keep a healthy amount of distance between them. "Lucius told the Aurors that it was one of resurrection. Bone of the father, flesh of the servant, blood of the enemy."
And of course, him having the ear of the Minister, he was allowed to say as much without being drugged to the gills with Veritaserum. Yes, Sirius was definitely going to devote some time to screwing the Malfoys over. The balance of the world demanded it.
"This was an option," Narcissa continued, "but not the only one. We were not privy to which Barty and the Dark Lord decided to use, but the absence of any bones and what happened to you are telling. They used an equally dark body takeover ritual, instead. One meant for Potter, though why him… The potion in the cauldron was designed to weaken the hold of a spirit on the body it currently inhabits. Permanently. Do you understand the danger you are still in now? The ritual was not completed, but the potion and the possession, however it was ended, will have done damage. Damage that can be exploited."
Much as he hated to admit his cousin might have any sort of point, he did have a pretty good idea of how bad that was, what with all of the different possession incidents and scares going on in the last year or so. Especially as, while he got most of the potion in the splashback, he wasn't the only one. "I might have an idea," he said. "And you're telling me this out of the goodness of your heart?"
"Do you want me to lay it out plainly, so that your simple mind can comprehend it?" Narcissa demanded. "I refuse. Figure it out yourself. You are a Black. And in case you cannot, know that if you speak of this to anyone, it will all be for nothing."
"I'll keep your secret," mostly, "but I want more. Did this plan spring from the head of the moldy baby fully formed, or did it come from your Manor's library? All the old Malfoy tomes and dark treatises?"
Narcissa didn't answer, which was an answer in itself, but a much more deniable one.
"If you happen to have relevant references," he said slowly, leaving no doubt as to how likely he thought that would be, "I'll take those. And I do mean take, not borrow."
"I want assurances," Narcissa insisted. "If the Dark Lord returns again, if we are caught out as supporting both sides, I want your word that you'll shelter us. Me, Draco, and Lucius."
Sirius had to think about that one. He had no love for his cousin, and less for her husband or son. He highly doubted they were on his side for any reason other than hedging their bets. Lucius probably liked his cushy, high-profile lifestyle too much to want to go back to being a subordinate of anyone. The only thing about Voldemort that they disliked was not being him. This was not a family he was willing to shelter out of the goodness of his heart, technically his relative though Narcissa was.
But it didn't have to be done out of pity or any belief that they were better than they really were. "Protection from Voldemort, on the condition that I will only shelter you if you publicly renounce him to such an extent that it can't possibly be a lie, before you come to me to be hidden away," he specified. "I'll check, and I will throw you to the wolves if it's a trick. In exchange, along with all the relevant books, I expect at least four favors from Lucius, to be called in whenever I want. I'll make them reasonable or excusable, so they don't ruin his cover," he said sarcastically. His cover as a bigoted, murderous git with too much money. As if that was the cover, and there was a reasonable man beneath. Fat chance.
"Deal," Narcissa agreed. There was no magic enforcement behind it, of course, and she wouldn't insist on any. It would be dangerous to her health if she made a magically-binding deal and then obliviated herself of its existence, after all. As it was, she and Lucius would have to do some clever planning to hold to their side of all of this without remembering the deal itself, so Voldemort couldn't pull the details from their minds. No need to add possible loss of magic or death to the consequences for an unintended mistake.
Narcissa might think he was a childish clown, and maybe he was, but he knew what he was doing. Sometimes.
Sirius shook her hand. "I would say it was a pleasure doing business with you, but I think I need to take a long bath to get the slime of shady deals off," he said. "So that would be a lie."
"I feel much the same," she said, scowling at him even as she went to the Floo. "Lock your Floo. Anyone could have come in and ambushed you."
"Wouldn't want your safety net to get stabbed before you can use him," Sirius said as she left.
"Obviously not," were her parting words.
Remus came into the living room the moment after she left. "Why did you do that?" he asked, though his tone was genuinely curious, not disapproving.
"He put enough loopholes in that agreement to throw a Death Eater or three through," the hat piped up.
"Exactly." He had only promised to protect them from Voldemort, not the Ministry. A specially warded cell in Azkaban would probably fulfill the wording, if not the spirit, of their agreement. He also had at no point said or implied he would stop considering them enemies in the meantime, and he fully intended to ruin the cushy lifestyle and influence Lucius and Narcissa currently enjoyed. Ideally Voldemort would never return, in which case he lost nothing and gained several advantages from this. If Voldemort did come back, it was better for everyone that the Malfoys had the option to run like cowards, instead of being forced to give their all to the cause.
"Never back the rats into a corner with no escape, when you can let them run into a cage and shut the door behind them," he said loftily. "Also, I kind of want to live." He did want to know exactly how loose his soul currently was, and how to fix or otherwise defend it. One barely-remembered possession was more than enough for a lifetime.
"I can help you with that," Remus offered. "Research isn't your strong point."
"Nah, that's pranking, deviousness, and improvisation, as well as tutoring practical-minded adults," Sirius remarked. "Come back tonight, we can do that pub crawl I was hoping for."
"Tutoring." Remus shook his head. "I have no idea whether you're serious–" He stopped and groaned.
"I totally am," Sirius said smugly.
"Walked into that," the hat mocked.
Remus laughed, and Sirius reminded himself that obliviation wasn't the solution to every problem. Remus wasn't suddenly the person he knew going on twelve years ago. His obliviation had been intended to tie up a loose end, not to turn him back into a friend, and it wouldn't have changed Remus. Just sanded off the rough edges and unpleasant reminders related to chasing after Taylor.
But Sirius had plenty of time to remind an old, bitter werewolf of the good old days and how they weren't necessarily gone, now that Remus wasn't a walking threat to Taylor's life. Plenty of time later.
He checked the clock.
Ten minutes after one.
"Say, Remus," he began, "what do you know about time magic? Specifically, is it possible to go forward in time?"
It wouldn't be nearly the end of the school year without a meeting in Dumbledore's office. This time, though, Harry had absolutely no idea what was going to happen. Sirius officially had guardianship of him, though nobody from the Ministry had thought to tell him. It was more than a little vexing how that could be decided without any input from him at any part of the process, especially as all of the paperwork was about Harry Potter, but he supposed that was par for the course with the wizarding world. It worked in his favor this time around, so for once he wouldn't fight the implications.
This meeting could just be about that. He hoped so. Taylor was still laid up in Saint Mungo's, awaiting the end of her treatment and the delivery of her arms, so he wouldn't have her as backup. It would be him, Dumbledore… and Ginny under the Potter invisibility cloak, sneaking in behind him. He was too close to the end of all of this to risk being obliviated or something else just before the summer.
"Harry, come in," Dumbledore said as he raised his hand to knock on the door. Harry resolutely did not look at where Ginny would be, right on his heels, and entered the Headmaster's office. Dumbledore was at his desk, his eyes fixed on Harry as Harry tried his best to ignore the many distracting objects lining the walls on shelves and pedestals and in heaps on the floor, but a glowing purple orb that rolled in idle circles caught his eye.
"What is that?" he asked, unable to stop himself.
"That is a custom Remembrall," Dumbledore remarked. "Whoever it is tuned to has forgotten many, many things."
"Not you, though?" Harry asked nervously, wondering if Dumbledore was testing him.
"Oh, no, it belongs to my friend Nicolas Flamel," Dumbledore said with a smile as Harry sat down in the chair opposite his desk. Ginny's hand brushed against the back of his neck, reminding him that she was there. "Do you recognize the name? Binns may have gone over them…"
"Were they goblins?" Harry asked. He had just come from a goblin history session with Hermione, as they did need to revise the one year's worth of material Binns taught, so as to pass the exam. If it was goblin-related there was a fair chance Binns had at least touched the topic, but he didn't recognize the names.
"No… No matter," Dumbledore said. "This has been a very eventful year, much more so than I thought it would be. Voldemort was dealt a near-fatal blow. I have been looking for his remaining anchors, to confirm his demise, but I have had little luck so far. Next year, I would like to give you some personal lessons, to prepare you in case Voldemort is not truly gone."
"In fighting? Combat spells? Mental defenses?" Harry guessed. He had very mixed feelings about spending time with Dumbledore, but if he could get something genuinely useful out of it, maybe it would be worth his time.
"Something just as useful," Dumbledore said vaguely. "In the meantime, are you aware that Sirius Black has been granted custody?"
"Yes, he told me," Harry said.
"You may go with him, but…" Dumbledore trailed off, his eyes unfocusing. "Ah, what was it?" he murmured. "The Dursleys? I think so… yes."
Harry had no idea who the Dursleys were, or why they were coming up now. He could guess, though, and he could play along. "Yes, well, I don't think I'll miss them much," he said vaguely.
"I suppose not," Dumbledore agreed. "Their home is a safe place… It should be safe… it was safe…" He trailed off again, looking down at his desk for a worryingly long time.
Harry wondered about possible debilitating effects of complicated, far-reaching obliviations. Then he thought about how Dumbledore had subjected his mum to one, and decided he didn't care if there were deleterious side-effects. Not for Dumbledore, not so long as the obliviation held.
"I'll be safe with Sirius," Harry prompted.
Dumbledore startled, as if waking up, and blinked heavily. "Yes, you will," he agreed. "Why, it may be that there is little left to be safe from, if Voldemort is truly gone. I will see if I can find proof one way or the other over the summer. In the meantime, you enjoy yourself. Sirius has told me he will be waiting for the Hogwarts Express."
"Are you… okay, sir?" Harry asked. Surely other people would be asking Dumbledore the same thing, what if someone noticed?
"Oh, yes, I simply have had a lot on my mind," Dumbledore told him. "It is nothing to worry about. Perhaps I am just getting old."
"Right. Good." Harry stood. "See you this fall, Headmaster."
"And you, Harry," Dumbledore said vaguely. "Remember, you do not need to use the Floo this time, though why I… I am sure there was a reason…"
Harry waited long enough for Dumbledore to visibly dismiss his confusion – a full two minutes, by his nervous count – and then decided he wasn't helping anything by staying in the office.
"He's going to end up in a care center for old wizards at this rate," Ginny whispered as they descended the spiral staircase. "I hope that confusion is localized to him thinking of Taylor. And that it can't be reversed."
"Sirius was sure it was a strong obliviation," Harry whispered back. "Very strong." The way Dumbledore was now, he just seemed… old. Tired. Confused, but naturally so. It was kind of creepy, the way he explained his behavior so reasonably.
Harry in no way pitied the Headmaster, though. He was reaping what he had sown, good intentions or not. If he ever threw off the obliviation, highly unlikely though that might be with how thoroughly Sirius said it had stuck, Harry would be the first in line to either re-obliviate him or fight him off some other way.
Nobody was hurting his mum again. Ever.
The Hogwarts Express was set to leave Hogwarts in an hour, and all of Harry's friends were late. He himself had packed the night before, come down to the Great Hall for an early breakfast, and said goodbye to all of his Hufflepuff yearmates in case he didn't see them on the train. An hour was spent puzzling out the correct shrinking charms to make his luggage fit into his pocket, a luxury few lower-year students could manage. Then he went back to the Great Hall, wondering if anyone else was packed and ready yet, and upon not seeing Neville, Ginny, Luna, or Hermione there, went up to the Gryffindor common room.
He found Neville there. Specifically, he found a frantic Neville lugging a trunk out of the portrait hole, sweating hard. "Harry, thank Merlin," Neville cried out. "Help me get this down to the greenhouse! We don't have time!"
"Sure," Harry agreed, hoisting Neville and then his trunk out of the hole and setting them upright in the corridor, "but what–"
"No time!" Neville repeated, running down the corridor. Harry followed, and as they ran, Neville panted out what he probably thought was a complete explanation, but which was turned into a cryptic puzzle by his panting interrupting most of the words. "I," his next few words were too fast and panted to understand, "fourteen days," they turned down a long side-passage and Neville had to dodge a suit of armor, "kept it after," Mr. Filch waved a broom at them as they ran by, "Snape is harvesting–"
Neville reached a set of stairs, whipped his trunk out in front of him, and dove down headfirst. Harry stopped at the top of the stairs to goggle at his friend, his wand forgotten in his hand as Neville tobogganed down the stairs on his trunk. Two first-year Ravenclaws had to leap to the sides to avoid being run over at the bottom of the stairs, and Neville slid to a stop halfway down the following hallway, miraculously unharmed.
Harry felt that he had lost the plot somewhere along the way, but he ran down the stairs as fast as he could anyway. Questions could come after he helped Neville with whatever crazy emergency this was.
He was a ways behind Neville for the rest of their frantic trip through Hogwarts, but he managed to keep up, and Neville's ultimate destination was easily predicted. He ran into the greenhouse furthest from the castle, and Harry followed.
Inside, many small fronds of green and red waved gaily at them, dripping with condensation in the artificial sweltering humidity. In one corner of the greenhouse a great forest of head-high stalks sprang up from the planter beds. Neville beelined for that specific patch of greenery, throwing his trunk open just shy of the plants. Inside, there were four sets of pruning shears, a thick pamphlet, and what looked like a magical contract.
"Contract's expired, I can talk about it now, help me cut it down!" Neville blurted out, tossing Harry a pair of shears. "It was in the third task, a rare Grasping Gadfrond, none of the champions encountered it in the maze so it was still intact after. They left it here, I told Professor Sprout they gave it to me but I think they just forgot."
"Are we cutting it down or something?" Harry asked. "Also, is this thing dangerous?" He didn't recognize the name of the plant.
"We're checking the digestive tract," Neville said ominously, jabbing his shears into the nearest person-sized piece of foliage. It shuddered back, curling away, and he strode in, jabbing left and right.
"Nothing like a safari to start the day," Harry said as he followed, "but Professor Sprout could do this?"
"She said it was my responsibility to prune it!" Neville said. The lights of the greenhouse faded as they ventured deeper into the Gadfrond's territory. Harry could have sworn the greenhouse didn't go this far back. "I didn't know Snape was coming down here this morning, I was going to have my Gran come tomorrow with the hired cursebreakers to help me transplant it to our garden, so I didn't think I needed to prune it yesterday."
"Hired cursebreakers?" Harry repeated.
"Yeah, you need them to break natural rune root formation," Neville said. "It's very interesting, really, nothing complex but very strong because they grow that way, that's actually what makes them magical plants instead of terrifying Muggle plants – there's the holding pod." He poked forward and down, into the soil, and the ground beneath his feet shuddered.
Harry watched as dirt shifted off a bulging convex surface just below the surface, revealing a fat pod the size of a person.
"I'm going to be scrubbing cauldrons in detention until I'm dead," Neville moaned, taking his shears and dragging them down the side of the pod. Green sticky fluid burst out from the cut, and the entire thing crumpled, revealing a sodden, huddled figure.
Snape didn't look any worse for wear, aside from the unnaturally peaceful expression on his face and his sodden robes. He snored contentedly. All around them, the Gadfrond's tendrils shuddered and retreated into the soil, turning a head-high jungle into a barren patch of dirt in seconds.
Outside the dirt, Harry's own head of house was gearing up for war, dragonhide gloves on her hands and a fearsome look on her face. "Neville?" she demanded.
"I got him!" Neville said, rushing over to Professor Sprout. "But I need to get to the train soon, so could you handle the rest?"
"You did get him," Professor Sprout said approvingly. "No harm done. It could happen to anyone. Hello, Harry!"
"How much trouble are we in?" Harry asked.
"None, Neville did wonderfully," she assured him. "The Gadfrond isn't dangerous, it takes two years to meaningfully digest anything, which is why it secretes a weak, natural Draught of Living Death. You should run along before Professor Snape wakes up, though. I won't get to tell him it was all his own fault if he has students around to blame."
"How did it catch him?" Harry thought to ask. Snape was a terrible teacher and possibly a terrible person in general, but he wasn't incompetent.
"Those tendrils are stronger than they look," Pomona informed him.
"Also, the Gadfrond likes me." Neville smiled at the bare patch of dirt. "It's a lot more effective at snaring people it doesn't like or doesn't know," he continued. "It's good enough to be a challenging obstacle in the Triwizard Tournament, remember?"
Harry hurried off the Gadfrond's territory, breathing much more easily once he was back on solid, non-treacherous ground. "This is cool, but the train," he reminded Neville.
Neville's pleased expression shifted to one of panic. "I didn't miss it?" he asked, taking Harry's shears and putting them in his trunk.
"Not yet, but I can't find Luna, Hermione, or Ginny," Harry explained. "We have less than an hour."
"I'll check by the Ravenclaw common room, you check the library?" Neville suggested. "I need to go up that way to release my Puffball spores out of a high window. Ginny wasn't in the common room, so I can't think of where else she could be but the library."
"Sure," Harry agreed, holding his questions about Puffball spores until they were safely on the train. He split off from Neville once they reached Hogwarts, headed for the library at a pace just short of running. Once he actually reached the library he slowed to a respectful walk for Madam Pince's benefit.
Checking over the mostly-empty expanse of tables, he didn't see any of his friends. Ernie waved at him, and Harry waved back before tapping his wrist where a watch would be if he was wearing one. Ernie nodded and packed up his belongings.
Harry took a moment to meet Ernie outside the library, just on the off chance he had seen anyone. "Hermione, Ginny, or Luna?" he asked.
"Have I seen them, you mean?" Ernie asked. "Yeah. Ginny and Hermione went into that empty classroom on the second floor. First door on the right of the fish painting."
"Thanks!" He was really feeling the time pressure now, so he abandoned all pretense of dignity and sprinted down the hallways. Second floor, fish painting– Yes, he knew that room. He stopped just outside the door, pushed it open, and walked in.
Hermione had her back to him. Ginny was facing him. Neither noticed his entrance, as they were both seemingly oblivious to their surroundings.
Being lip-locked in a passionate kiss would do that to a person.
Harry stood there for a long moment, mentally weighing the pros and cons of announcing his presence. On the one hand, the train and the rapidly depleting time between now and when it was set to leave. On the other, the possibility of painful hexes from a surprised and vengeful couple finally having figured things out, only to be interrupted. It was a tough decision.
"Two more minutes," Ginny said, breaking the kiss to look over Hermione's shoulder. Right at him.
"Train leaves soon!" he blurted out, his words punctuated by a surprised squeak from Hermione. He was out of the room before she could turn around, satisfied that two of his remaining three friends knew they were on the clock.
Neville was looking for Luna, and it would take time to get a carriage out to the Hogsmeade station, so Harry decided to hope Luna was already at the carriages and made his way there. Much to his relief, she and Neville were waiting along with a whole collection of other students who wanted to make the journey with their friends.
"I've been waiting for you," Luna told him. "Neville found me first. He says you were running all over the castle."
"I didn't want to leave anyone behind," Harry admitted. Maybe it would only be a minor inconvenience, or maybe the Professors would make sure nobody missed the train, but this was technically his first train trip back to London, and he wanted it to go well.
Hermione and Ginny walked up, their luggage levitating behind them. As a group, the five of them got into one of the carriages. They had been waiting around the back, but as they got in, Harry noticed something.
"Were those always there?" he asked, pointing to the bony horses.
"Yes, those are Thestrals," Luna said.
"Ah, right." It was nice to finally see one of Luna's more mysterious creatures.
"Were you invited to Professor Moody's funeral?" Luna asked as the carriage set into motion, randomly changing the subject. "My father says he hasn't heard where it will be, or when."
"There wasn't a funeral," Harry relayed. "There was a will reading, but I wasn't there for that." Sirius stood in for him and Taylor, as he was stuck in school and Taylor in Saint Mungo's at the time. "Did you know Moody added to his will weekly? It's over a thousand sheets of parchment long. Sirius said most of it was just Moody recounting exactly what he did, and with who, so that if his murder was a mystery the killer wouldn't stand a chance of getting away with it. There's talk of editing it and publishing it as a memoir."
"That's kind of impressive but also kind of barmy," Ginny remarked. "Did it have Hissy in it?"
"It named Sirius and 'his animagus mercenary babysitter', yeah. Also, what they told him Hissy was doing in Hogwarts." Harry felt bad about Moody's death, but he felt worse about the relief that it was only Moody. It could easily have been Sirius or Taylor, or himself. "So Sirius says he and mum are going to have to follow through with the presentation to the Hogwarts board of governors. No more Animagus sneaking around."
"I'll miss her," Luna said.
"Me too," Ginny agreed. "But she's not dead or gone, just not sneaking around."
"Speaking of sneaking around…" Harry might have been wary of provoking the new couple in the heat of the moment without backup, but he felt much safer here in the carriage with Luna and Neville as backup. "Did I walk in on a well-hidden secret, or an unexpected event?"
"A long-awaited event," Ginny answered.
"I would say unexpected," Hermione added, not meeting anyone's eyes, "but it was sort of building up all term." She smiled shyly.
"I think it's great," Luna said loudly. "Now Ginny can write you love poems and actually send them, not burn them after!"
"Luna!" Ginny shrieked. "That was one time!"
The carriage rolled to a stop, and Ginny pushed Luna on the shoulder as they all disembarked. Harry caught his thin-framed girlfriend as she stumbled into him, turned to admonish Ginny, and almost tripped as Luna turned the dramatic fall into a dancing spin, making him wonder if Ginny had actually shoved her hard at all.
They joined the general last-minute scrum of students boarding the train, and as a group claimed the first mostly-empty compartment they came across, sitting with the infamous Weasley twins and Lee Jordan. All together, the eight of them took up enough space that Lee cast something to enlarge the compartment, but they fit in the end.
The train left the station not ten minutes after they were seated, proving Harry right in his frantic cross-Hogwarts sprint. The twins handed out candy, which everyone pocketed, as it was much better used on others than eaten personally.
George – or possibly Fred – noticed Hermione and Ginny holding hands a short while into the trip. "Well," he drawled, poking his brother and pointing the duo out, "that is going to throw mum for a loop, isn't it?"
Ginny flushed red and drew her wand, but Fred waved his hands wildly. "No, no, we approve," he added. "Merlin knows it was blindingly obvious all term. But mum told us 'you watch my Ginny this year, make sure Harry treats her right.' We should have made a bet with her, but, you know, it's mum."
"Were you watching?" Harry asked curiously, hoping to avoid any further discussion of Molly Weasley. He did not regret turning down their offer to have him stay over for another summer. Once was an experience, and more than enough for him.
"You must know, Harry," Lee said cryptically, "Fred and George are always watching. Right pair of big brothers, they are."
"Maybe next year we'll pass our secrets on to you, if Harry Potter never shows up," George said.
"I'm not him," Harry objected, more out of habit than anything else. One could never be sure whether the twins were being serious.
"Oh, we know," George said. "Harry Hebert you are, and you have been since the first day. Everyone else will believe it sooner or later."
Luna, who was looking out the window, nodded agreeably. "Yes, and your name is so much more fitting that way. Your first and last names start with the same letter, like a superhero from a comic."
"How do you know about comics?" Hermione asked.
"Daddy has a collection," Luna explained. "Up in the attic, next to his Muggle conspiracy theory books. He's always looking to expand his mind."
"Superheroes are fictional, though," Hermione argued. "They don't exist, and nobody is claiming they do."
"Not like magic," Luna agreed. "We all know the Muggles do not write fiction about that, or believe it really doesn't exist. Totally different."
Neville laughed, and Harry had to laugh too at the affronted expression on Hermione's face. "It is different," she insisted.
"You'd make a good superhero, though," Harry suggested. "Lightning from your hands, that's a superpower."
"We would all make for good superheroes," Lee Jordan agreed. "Not them, though." He pointed at the twins. "They're obviously supervillains."
"I feel we have been complimented," George said, "but alas, father's obsession with Muggles has not led to us knowing what comic books are. Even though they are by far the best Muggle literature."
"Yes, we certainly do not have a whole stash hidden under the bed, on top of the miniature potions set," Fred agreed with an exaggerated wink. "Ginny, now that I'm thinking about it, you might like some of them."
"The costumes," George elaborated. "You will not believe how much skin Muggles show."
"That's enough," Hermione interjected. "Who wants to play a game of Exploding Snap?"
Harry would have said yes, but he noticed the anticipatory look Hermione was trying to hide, and decided it was probably best he enjoy this show from the sidelines. The twins soon learned, much to their chagrin, that playing with Hermione involved a lot more static shock than normal.
Meanwhile, Neville had cornered Lee into talking about plants, and Luna was pulling out a quill and parchment. Harry leaned against her to look out the window, then glanced down at what she was drawing.
It was not a drawing of the countryside, like he had expected. Neither was it a sketch of some mysterious creature. Rather, she was drawing… them. All of them, in the carriage. She started with basic flowing outlines; an oval for a face here, a pair of perpendicular lines for a shoulder there.
"Ow!" Fred yelped. "Neville, I'm tagging you in until my hands regain feeling."
As the kilometers sped by outside, Luna's picture took shape, building off the outlines to create recognizable figures. Hermione and Ginny were on the left of the drawing with Ginny up against the window, still wearing their Hogwarts robes. Hermione's hair was fully puffed out in Luna's illustration, with a few stylized lightning bolts shooting off it, and Ginny was patting it down with one hand while giving her brothers the evil eye. Fred and George were on Hermione's left, depicted dealing out a hand of Exploding Snap to Neville and Lee, who were on the edge of the row of seats, leaning forward to take their cards. Neville had a small potted plant on his thigh in the picture, though no such thing was present in the carriage.
Harry and Luna didn't appear in the picture, or so he thought. Luna put more detail into the robes, the faces, the pattern of the compartment wall behind them, but even once it looked mostly done there was a big empty space in the bottom right of the parchment. She sketched a big blocky thing there, one that developed a mass of tendrils and remained unidentifiable, even when she put the quill down.
"What is that?" he asked.
"Your head on my shoulder," Luna said absently.
So it was. He felt vaguely amused that his hair resembled an unknown creature from the depths of the ocean, but it was so perfectly Luna to include even that. This picture truly was from her perspective.
The Exploding Snap game died off once all of the players save Hermione had numb hands. Eventually, conversation turned to summer plans.
"Gran and I are going to spend the summer replanting the Grasping Gadfrond," Neville said. "Also, something about the Wizengamot… The one is my reward for putting up with the other. You're all welcome to come over anytime."
"I'll be home, of course," Ginny said. "No World Cup or visit to Egypt this year, so it'll be a normal, boring summer. Mostly."
"Same for me," Hermione said. She held Ginny's hand with one hand, and flicked sparks from finger to finger with the other. The sparks increased in intensity as she continued, "Ginny is coming over for a week, I know that. Harry, my parents want to have you and your mum over for dinner."
"I will be drawing," Luna said absently. "Whatever I see… Some things I do not, too. Daddy says he will be printing some of my drawings in the Quibbler starting this summer!"
And then there was Harry, who for once had absolutely no reservations about how he would be spending the summer.
When the train pulled into platform nine and three-quarters, he disembarked with everyone else and looked around. For a moment he worried that something had gone wrong.
Then he saw them, both of them. Sirius with that weird hat of his from Diagon Alley, and Taylor wearing a sleeveless robe to display her new rune-covered but otherwise normal-looking arms. They were waiting for him, out in the open, without fear of a Dumbledore interruption or other complication.
Finally, he was home.
Author's Note: Up next is the final chapter, a time-skip epilogue. This one is meant to serve fairly well as a short-term ending, but there are a lot of loose threads that would be ominous if left unattended long-term (Voldemort, the status of Dumbledore's obliviation, etc).
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