11 Chapter 11

"I should go." Remus Lupin said awkwardly.

He'd been about to leave the country when he'd seen the Prophet article that claimed his old friend's innocence. Filled with guilt once again for his lack of faith, he'd decided to stay for a little bit longer to see how things would play out.

Then had come Sirius' letter, asking him to come to Potter Manor and keep an old dog company while he was grounded.

He hadn't been able to refuse.

That had been last night, much of which Sirius and he had spent reminiscing and repairing their friendship. He'd spent the night at his friend's insistence despite feeling like an intruder in Harry's home.

Now it was the morning after and the actual owner of the house was present, but saying nothing and resolutely ignoring the both of them as he ate his breakfast.

"You don't have to." Sirius protested, in a nearly canine sort of whine. "Harry's just being cranky over his failure to seduce my cousin."

Harry shot his godfather a look of contempt, a true teenager look that spoke volumes about how lame what he'd just said was. "Shut up, old man. You haven't been with a woman in over twelve years and you're a product of incest on top of it."

"I'm not old!" Sirius insisted, looking incredibly affronted. "And I'll break my dry spell as soon as I can go out, the birds will love the bad boy ex-con image I'll have going for me and I can't help it if my parents were stupid. You can't go using that argument every time you want to shut me down."

The good natured bickering reminded Remus of James and Sirius during their school days so much that it hurt.

"Hmpf." Was Harry's only reply.

"Is it the creepy pedo mustache that Remus has now that's making you so hostile?" Sirius asked in exasperation. "I'll admit that it bothered me too at first, but you get used to it."

"What?" Remus exclaimed, startled. Then he ran his fingers over his facial hair as if to reassure himself (or perhaps it) that it wasn't a pedo mustache.

"No, it has nothing to do with his pedo mustache." Harry said succintly. "I just don't see any reason why I should like him simply on account of his friendship with my parents." He'd given Sirius a chance and the man had jumped at it. Remus had had all the chances he could've asked for and had spent them feeling sorry for himself. "The only reason he's even here is because you wanted to rehash the good old days with someone."

Remus would have dearly liked to remove himself from this situation, clearly seeing that he was a point of contention between Sirius and Harry, even if it seemed like a mild one. Harry's obvious disapproval of his presence made him want to flee.

He wasn't sure if the fact that Harry didn't care about his werewolf status made that sting more or less.

He was just about to make his excuses and leave when the Potter house elf popped in and handed Harry the day's issue of the Daily Prophet .

"You's newspaper, master Harry sir!" Teeny announced.

"Thank you, Teeny." Harry acknowledged, getting a beaming smile from the small house elf before she popped away.

"What does it say?" Sirius asked curiously, seeing the odd expression on Harry's face.

Harry said nothing, merely continued to read for the next couple of minutes before wordlessly handing the newspaper to Sirius.

The Boy-Who-Killed? Harry Potter avenges the betrayal of his parents by killing their betrayer, Peter Pettigrew.

By Rita Skeeter, journalist.

The large headline was accompanied by an animated picture of Harry walking through the Ministry atrium in the company of Fudge, Dumbledore and the two Aurors. Accompanied by the headline, it could be misconstrued as him being arrested.

After yesterday's surprise article portraying a different version of the events that occurred in the final days of the war against You-Know-Who than what has been commonly accepted as truth until now, Harry Potter, aged 13, arrived in the Ministry of Magic to explain himself to the DMLE.

He spoke to Amelia Bones, the head of the DMLE, in the company of Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge and Albus Dumbledore, giving more detail to the events first hinted at in yesterday's article.

From then on the article went on to describe a mostly truthful series of facts regarding the altercation between Sirius and Pettigrew after Voldemort's downfall, as well as lambasting Barty Crouch for his overzealous imprisonment of Sirius as well as Pettigrew's twelve years spent as the Weasley's pet rat.

Then things veered somewhat away from the facts and went into sensationalist prose.

The Boy-Who-Lived seemed as if he was carved from stone as he emotionlessly recounted taking Pettigrew's life with a blasting curse, only his eyes burning with remembered fury. His choice of spell was perhaps a deliberate bit of irony, as it was with the use of such a spell that Pettigrew faked his death and framed Sirius Black for his crimes.

Madam Bones was obviously displeased by the way that the law had been taken into the hands of a private citizen, but Potter immediately followed up his confession with the wands of Peter Pettigrew and that of You-Know-Who himself. After presenting these tokens, his claims of self-defense were accepted and Potter was allowed to go without further issue.

"What the fuck?" Sirius exclaimed. "This can't be a DMLE sanctioned press release! It makes you out to be some kind of vigilante that only walked free because you gave them the Dark Tosser's wand as a bribe."

Remus briefly considered remonstrating Sirius for his use of foul language.

"I don't think it is." Harry agreed. "I've read some of Skeeter's articles before. The bitch is about as toxic as your average League of Legends player and seems to get off on putting the worst possible spin on everything she writes."

Remus realized that it would probably be a bad idea to complain about foul language.

"League of Legends?" Sirius echoed in confusion.

"Nevermind." Harry waved off, having an idle thought of getting his technologically impaired godfather to try video gaming. That would probably be funny to watch.

"You're strangely calm about this." Remus dared to venture.

Harry glanced at him with a frown but decided to answer anyway. "The people whose opinions I care about aren't going to change because of this." That wasn't to say that he was happy about it, but what anger he did feel was contained easily enough by his Occlumency.

"That's a very mature outlook." The werewolf complimented.

Harry's frown deepened, unaccountably irritated at being complimented by someone he disliked.

"But we can't just let this go!" Sirius protested. "We need to prank the hell out of her!"

Harry gave his godfather a flat look. "Pranking? Really? What are you, twelve?" He ignored the minor hypocrisy of his rebuke.

"What else if not pranking?" Sirius near demanded. He knew just as well as Harry that Skeeter wouldn't be facing any legal repercussions because of this. The laws about journalistic integrity in Wizarding Britain had more holes in them than Swiss cheese. The only reliable way of making reporters back off was to do it outside the law.

Harry looked at over at the other Marauder sitting at the table again and this time Remus understood that he had definitely overstayed his welcome. Harry clearly didn't want to talk about this any further in his presence.

"I've got to go." The werewolf said, getting up from the table.

"Remus?" Sirius asked, blinking in surprise at the sudden declaration.

"I'll see you around, Sirius." Remus said, not giving his friend a chance to protest as he left.

"Did you notice anything odd about this article?" Harry asked once the werewolf was gone.

Sirius frowned slightly at his godson, wishing that he wasn't so cold to Remus, but went ahead with the subject change anyway.

"You mean aside from how it insinuates that you're a stone cold killer?"

"Yes, aside from that."

Sirius thought about it and reread it, then it finally dawned on him.

"How could she have known what you were talking about in Bones' office? Fudge doesn't strike me as the type to keep a secret, but this reads as if she was in the room with you."

"I felt strange for that whole meeting." Harry admitted. "I kept getting the nagging feeling that there was another person in the room, but I couldn't pin it down and I had to focus on Bones anyway."

"Invisibility cloak?" Sirius hazarded.

Harry considered it for a moment before shaking his head. "I don't think so. She would've had a hard time not bumping into anyone and I'm pretty sure that my magesight could see a regular invisibility cloak just as well as it can my special one."

Sirius was briefly stumped by that before another idea came to mind, this one even closer to home than the invisibility cloak. "An Animagus form! You could've easily missed it if it was small enough."

They'd already determined that Harry's newly gained sensing ability had more trouble picking out details for Sirius in his dog form and the 'size' of his magic also 'shrunk' to match his body. If Skeeter was small enough in her Animagus form, then detecting her could be problematic even for Harry, especially with Amelia Bones commanding his full attention.

"It's a definite possibility."

"She must not be registered. If she was then she'd never have been able to sneak into the DMLE like that." Sirius said, a slow grin growing on his face.

"And failing to register as an Animagus gets you time in Azkaban." Which Harry's cynical mind identified as more proof of the Ministry's obsession with control. Animagi were notoriously difficult to keep track of in their animal forms. "But we can't be sure if she's really an Animagus."

"What else could it be?" Sirius asked with some exasperation.

"I don't know, but I'd rather not make assumptions only to end up being wrong later." Harry retorted snippily.

Over in the DMLE, Aurors scrambled for cover as their boss stormed through, her nostrils flaring like that of an angry bull.

The second day in a row that the Daily Prophet had posted an inflammatory article. First Potter and Black and then that bitch, Skeeter. Both times kicking dirt on her department as a side-effect.

Amelia Bones wasn't the type to curse out loud, but she was sorely tempted just then. Time and again she had proposed adjustments to the law that would hold reporters to a higher standard, but the decrepit old farts on the Wizengamot shot it down every time.

Well of course they did. It would be hard to use the Daily Prophet as a propaganda tool if they were actually required by law to print only the truth.

Unlike Sirius and Harry, Amelia had been dealing with Skeeter's bullshit for a very long time now and didn't even question how the spiteful reporter had gotten her information. It wouldn't be the first time that she'd conjured up some mixture of fact and fiction that had a vague resemblance to the truth and Fudge couldn't keep a secret to save his life anyway. Half the Ministry had been yammering on about rat Animagi and Voldemort's wand within an hour of him leaving the DMLE.

She had intended to release the full details of what she'd learned in a press release the next day, but now she needed to scramble to do damage control. She might not be overly fond of Potter right now, but she wasn't going to let him be painted as a vengeful killer by that sorry excuse for a reporter.

Several hours later, Skeeter's article changed to include important details that she'd previously left out, such as the fact that Pettigrew had tried to draw his wand first and that Harry didn't simply kill him as revenge for his parents, but the damage had already been done and the general public opinion of Harry Potter was no longer of some kind of messianic figure that could do no wrong.

Harry saw the change in the paper and knew that it wasn't going to fix the damage that the original article had done, but was not overly concerned with the consequences. Yes, he'd learned to make use of his reputation instead of being irritated by it and would have preferred for the knowledge of his killing Pettigrew to be kept as quiet as possible, but he hadn't honestly expected to stay on that same saintly pedestal after this anyway. The reputation of the Boy-Who-Lived had become so inflated that it would never have survived a meeting with reality, it was always going to be something of a one-shot. Granted, Skeeter's poisonous slant probably did more damage than would have happened otherwise, but probably not as much as she'd hoped for.

The DMLE dropped by twice more in the following days to talk to both him and Sirius again, then his godfather was declared a free man. It all seemed rather rushed, for which Harry figured he had Fudge to thank. They'd even dug Sirius' wand out of Azkaban's storage and returned it to him.

That took care of the biggest thing he had to do for the summer, which still left him with the two OWLs he had to pass, figuring out the legal details of the business he was helping Bryanna and Tiana start up, talking to the former managers of the Potter business interests that had since been taken over by the Parkinsons and most recently, another date with Tonks.

He was looking forward to the latter most of all. He hadn't expected to find himself liking the Metamorphmagus Auror to this degree considering his general dislike of the Ministry, but he did. Her naturally cheerful disposition was a stark contrast to his more stoic leanings and he couldn't help but find himself interested. He'd had a similar experience with Zoe, but his muggle friend with benefits had made it clear that she wasn't looking for anything serious and her lack of magic honestly made anything more than their casual arrangement more problematic than he was willing to deal with.

Come to think of it, that might be why he'd gotten along with Sirius so easily too. His godfather somehow managed to be in a good mood most of the time despite his life being best described as 'a field of crap with a few flowers breaking through the shit'. He had to respect the man's determination to enjoy life in spite of everything and the fact that he treated Harry like an adult didn't hurt either.

Harry knew himself to be somewhat frustrating as a friend. He could talk to people yes, but he also liked his alone time and he loathed it when someone tried to tell him how he should live. His early childhood was characterized by the Dursleys hatred, bullying by other children and later having his social interactions scripted out by Robert and Katherine, leaving him with little patience for pushy people.

His short lived friendship with Ginny had fallen apart as much because of her silly crush as it had because she couldn't understand that. Unfair perhaps to expect that kind of thing from a preteen girl, especially when she didn't know the circumstances, but life wasn't fair.

Luna understood though, or maybe that was just how she was. Luna never complained about his penchant for keeping things to himself or his disappearances when he wanted to practice his magic in secrecy, never tried to make him talk about it, never tried to tell him that he should be anything other than himself. Harry considered himself fortunate to have a friend like her, as he strongly suspected that he'd have spent his entire time at Hogwarts alone without her and first year had taught him that he wasn't so anti-social that he could be happy living in constant solitude. Enough to push people away though.

The other students were nice enough, but he simply had trouble relating to them. Even Bryanna and Tiana had only stuck around primarily for the gold and later for the sex, once he'd gotten good enough at it. For all that they were on good terms, he had no doubt that they would have drifted away if their plans for the future didn't hinge on a continued association with him. Harry had gotten very good at keeping people at arm's length without even meaning to.

He found himself hoping that Tonks would be another person that he could manage to really connect with. He wouldn't be surprised if not, but he would be disappointed. She was the first witch aside from Luna that he was looking forward to actually getting to know and not just sleeping with.

"One of the hardest parts of becoming an Animagus is finding your animal form." Sirius was saying. "It will almost certainly be an animal that you share characteristics with, but finding out which ones is the problem. You don't have much of a choice in the matter either and some people don't like what it says about them."

"I imagine that Pettigrew wasn't too pleased with his form." Harry guessed.

"You'd be right about that." Sirius laughed harshly, his resentment of his former friend still clear. "It took him the longest out of all of us to first transform. Since you mentioned Wormtail, there's another thing you should know about becoming an Animagus. It will change you, not in a way that would be instantly obvious, but it will change you. A lot of people that could have become Animagi choose not to because of this, aside from the other dangers that is."

"How did it change you and the others?" Harry asked, very interested in that bit and less so in the dangers. He was sure that Sirius would get around to mentioning those soon enough.

"It's hard to say for sure, but some of the animal instinct carries over. For one thing, I think that both James and I became a bit more vigorous in our pursuit of the ladies after our first transformation."

Harry snorted at the diplomatic phrasing.

Sirius pretended he hadn't heard it. "James also became a good bit more territorial about your mother and went after Snape any time he approached her."

Harry frowned at that, vaguely recalling some information from his non-magical schooling about male deer forming harems instead of mating for life.

"How long did you and my dad go around seducing girls anyway?" He asked.

Sirius looked at him oddly but answered anyway. "James stopped towards the end of sixth year when he started getting a bit desperate to win your mother over. I never stopped."

Ah, so he'd subconsciously been trying to form a harem, but had shaken it off in order to get the one he really wanted. And dogs were of course polygamous, so Sirius' aversion to a dedicated relationship would have only been increased. That fit with a few other distinctly canine characteristics that Harry had noticed about his godfather.

"Alright, how do I find my inner animal?" Harry asked with a smile.

"It should be familiar to you from your Occlumency training and is really the only part of learning how to be an Animagus that is completely safe." Sirius explained. His own Occlumency was crap, only good enough to detect intrusions, but he could see the parallels. "Not the same though. You're not looking to clear your mind and stop thinking this time. You need to sort of sink into your magic and let it show you what your inner animal is. It'll be something that you're familiar with, but don't make any assumptions or you'll throw the whole thing off. Once you manage it, you might get a mental impression or even a vision of being that animal. You'll have to keep doing this until you're absolutely certain which one it is."

A few minutes of instruction later, Sirius left Harry alone to try it.

His Occlumency both helped and hindered him in this, but mostly helped. He was already familiar with meditation and more than aware enough of his own magic to do it, but he had some trouble not blanking out his mind on instinct.

A few hours later, he came back to himself with a gasp, a dazed smile on his face but his mind still on the waking vision he'd just had. Of looking down at the world from the sky and gliding through the air on black feathered wings.

Corvus corax . The common raven. He supposed that his Patronus should have been a hint since he had called the guardian from within himself. He'd already read up on them a bit thanks to that, but he was going to study the species in a lot more detail now.

"Blimey, you know your form already?" Sirius asked with considerable shock when he was told. "Are you sure that you know it? Absolutely sure?"

"Yes." Harry replied, a bit exasperated.

"Don't take that tone with me, young man." Sirius said sternly, but couldn't quite keep a proud grin off his face. "If you rush into this thinking that your animal form is something else than what it really is, you could drive yourself mad or even die. Wouldn't be the first wizard it happened to because they were impatient."

"Like the Marauders?"

"Exactly like us. In retrospect, it's a minor miracle that none of us died or lost our minds."

"I'm still on the fence about your sanity, but I get your point and I'll be careful. I really am sure of my form though."

"That must be some kind of record." Sirius commented, letting the jibe about his sanity go. It wasn't the first time that someone had cast aspersions on it. "It took us months just to get our first success and months more before we could be sure of our forms."

"None of you were Occlumancers." Harry pointed out, not mentioning how his rituals and wandless practice had left uniquely him aware of his own magic. "And you were younger than me when you started, not to mention less amazing. Did you know that ravens are among the most intelligent animals alive?"

"Ha bloody ha." Sirius deadpanned.

"So, what now?"

"You'll need to, for lack of a better term, turn yourself inside out."

"You mean like… become an animal with an inner wizard instead of a wizard with an inner animal?"

"That's it exactly. Your human mind is obviously a lot stronger than an animal's instinct, so you'll retain most of your rationality."

"Most?"

"You might get some odd urges on occassion."

"Sirius, does the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black have canine heirs wandering the world?"

"Piss off, Harry."

"I'm sorry." The younger wizard apologized, not sounding very sorry at all. "What else do I have to do?"

"In the old days, wizards would spend years or even decades observing the animal they were trying to turn into, to become as familiar with them as possible. You'll still need to do that, but thanks to the wonders of the modern age, you can get most of the needed information from a book."

"Who needs books when you have Wikipedia?"

"What's a Wikipedia?"

"I'll show you later." Harry was also wondering if watching YouTube videos of ravens counted as observation. He couldn't see any reasons why it wouldn't, but it might be best to find some wild ravens just to be on the safe side.

"Right." Sirius said with a nod, having no clue whatsoever what his godson was talking about. Probably some muggle thing. He'd considered himself quite knowledgeable on the Muggle World at one point, but he was waking up to the fact that it had become nigh on unrecognizable since the last time he'd ventured into it. The basics were still the same of course, but a lot of the things that Harry sometimes mentioned as if they were common knowledge flew right over his head.

With Sirius now being a free man, an opportunity presented itself to do something that Harry had wanted to do for some time.

"Do we really have to do this?" Sirius whined.

"Yes." Harry stated firmly.

"Couldn't we just burn it instead?" Sirius asked hopefully.

"No."

"But-!"

"Sirius, we are going into that house. If you hate it that much, we can sell it after we pilfer everything of worth from it."

"Not burn it?"

"If you want to set it on fire that much, then sell it to Malfoy first. Or Parkinson. Actually no, that's probably a bad idea even if we torch the place right after."

Sirius sighed the sigh of the resigned. "Alright, let's get this over with."

With heavy steps, the dog Animagus walked towards the front door of Nr. 12 Grimmauld Place.

Harry looked around curiously as they entered. The large townhouse was smaller than Potter Manor and the hallways more narrow. In fact, the whole place gave off an oppresive feeling of gloom. According to Dorea, the Blacks had once had a manor house in the country as well, but for reasons unknown, one of the past Lords Black had torn it down and appropriated this place from its previous non-magical residents. And by appropriated, Dorea had meant stolen.

They didn't get far before they were accosted by a portrait of woman that looked as if she had spent her entire life sucking on lemons.

"Ah, so the prodigal son returns." She said, trying to look superior but only managing constipation in Harry's humble opinion. "And who is this you've brought with you? What family is he from?"

"What's with the friendly attitude, mum ?" Sirius asked bluntly, packing a lot of scorn into the last word. "Last time I saw you, you were shrieking at my grandfather to cast me out of the family."

"I heard that you've learned the error of your ways since then, turning your back on that blood traitor Potter and his filthy mudblood wife and leading the Dark Lord to them." Sirius' mother answered, her demeanor darkening slightly at the disrespect.

"I hate to disappoint you," Sirius began sarcastically. "but I was framed. I've just been cleared of all charges and am once again known as a muggle loving blood traitor to the world at large."

Could paintings have aneurysms? Harry felt sure that Sirius mother had just had one.

"YOU FILTH! HOW DARE YOU RETURN TO SULLY THIS HOUSE! KREACHER! KREACHER!"

Ye gods, he'd thought that Sirius had been exaggerating when he'd described his mother. No such luck though. If anything, the man had somehow managed to understate it despite making her out to be the most horrid woman in the world.

"No wonder you wanted to burn the place down." Harry commented as the portrait of Walburga Black went on a shireking diatribe about… something. It wasn't very coherent, but it did involve a lot of screaming about blood traitors and mudbloods.

Sirius' potential reply was cut off when a decrepit looking house elf popped in, glaring at them with a viciousness that Harry had honestly not thought the little creatures capable of.

"Filthy blood traitor master has come back." Kreacher said scornfully, barely heard over the portrait's continued yelling. "Kreacher will throw you out."

"No, you won't" Sirius said flatly. "I own this house now."

"FILTH! SHAME TO THE FAMILY!"

Kreacher's face twisted with fury as the truth of the words sank in. The wards had already transferred to Sirius, so he would now have to obey the master that he hated.

"First, I want you to take that thing 's portrait down and burn it." Sirius went on contemptously, much to the increased rage of his mother.

"Kreacher cannot." The house elf said gleefully. "Mistress is permanently stuck to wall."

"Then take down the wall." Sirius growled.

"GET OUT, GET OUT, GET OUT!"

"If Kreacher did that, the house would collapse. Stupid master." Kreacher sneered.

Harry rolled his eyes in exasperation at the situation, starting to develop a headache from the portrait's screaming.

"Can you brick her up then?" He asked. He wasn't at all convinced that the Sticking Charm couldn't be dismantled, but it would be quite a feat to concentrate on doing that with the painted harpy's constant yelling

Kreacher's mouth snapped shut and he glared at Harry mutinously, refusing to answer.

"Answer him!" Sirius snapped.

"Yeeeees." Kreacher growled unwillingly through clenched teeth.

"Then do it." Sirius ordered, now grinning at having a solution to the problem.

"Kreacher has no bricks." The house elf said sullenly.

"Oh, don't worry. I'll get you all the bricks you'll need."

"DISHONOR! DISHONOR ON THE FAMILY!"

"Lovely woman, your mother." Harry commented as they walked towards the library.

"Isn't she just?" Sirius asked sarcastically. "I'd almost forgotten the pounding headache that her diatribes gave me."

"What's with the house elf though?"

"Kreacher? He's always been a spiteful little bastard, but I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. He's never been allowed to leave Grimmauld Place and had nothing to listen to except my family's rants on blood purity."

"A bigoted house elf, now I've seen everything." Harry said with amusement as they entered the library.

"Speaking of seeing everything, are you sure you should be looking at some of these books?" Sirius asked nervously. He was not at all sanguine about his godson reading up on some of the stuff he knew was in there.

"You worry too much, Sirius." Harry waved off. "I've got no interest in sacrificing virgins or performing divination from someone's spilled intestines. I'm much more interested in the theory than the practical applications."

"You know, by all rights I should be forbidding you from coming anywhere near these books until I've had a chance to throw out the worst of them." Sirius commented wryly.

"But you won't because you're the best godfather ever."

"And you'd be pissy about it if I did."

"Knowledge is neither good nor evil, so yes, I would indeed be pissy if you discarded it."

"Fine." Sirius said, tossing his hands skyward. "I'll go find Kreacher some bricks, thanks for that idea by the way, and you can browse the books. Just avoid the cursed ones."

"Who curses their own books anyway?" Harry suddenly asked. "That sounds like a spectacularly bad idea."

"I told you that my family was nuts." Sirius shrugged.

Harry was left alone after that, Sirius trusting that Harry's magesight and caution would keep him from running afoul the cursed books. He simply browsed the titles for a while, waiting for something to catch his eye.

Not all of the tomes were filled with morally(and no doubt legally) dubious magic, quite a few of them he'd actually already encountered in either Hogwarts or Potter Manor. He wasn't interested in those though. He would never have a proper understanding of magic if he confined himself only to comfortable topics.

Ten minutes of browsing later, he'd found a tome that detailed the process of using the ritualistic sacrifice of other wizards, witches or powerful magical creatures to power large scale spells, wards or other magics. It was grim and sometimes downright ghastly reading, but it was also very interesting.

"This is the best side of my mother that I've ever seen." Sirius said proudly, looking at the brand new brick wall sitting incongruously in the hallway. From behind it, only blessed silence could be heard, which was only natural since it was enchanted to block sound from going in either direction.

"You're a real son of a bitch, Sirius." Harry noted, book on morally reprehensible magic in hand.

"I know, I've even got the right initals. Sirius Orion Black, also known as Son Of a Bitch."

"Bad master insulting mistress." Kreacher complained, much subdued due to the moral quandary of being forced to brick up his beloved mistress.

"You think that's bad, just wait until we start looting the place." Harry replied blandly. He generally did his best to be polite to house elves, but Kreacher was quite simply a pain in the ass.

"NO! Kreacher will not let you!" The house elf shrieked, getting ready to fight in defense of House Black.

"Yes you will." Sirius countermanded, more than happy to allow his godson to ransack the family home if he wanted to. He was already intending to designate him the Heir to House Black, so it would all be his eventually anyway. "Now go away."

Kreacher stalked off as ordered, bemoaning the ill fortune that had befallen House Black now that it had a blood traitor as its Lord.

"Hello, what's this?" Harry said softly, staring at a heavy looking golden locket inlaid with emeralds in a serpentine pattern.

The locket felt very similar to how he remembered the soul shard in his head feeling, and there was a seductive whisper of a powerful and subtle compulsion reaching out from it as well.

This was, to put it bluntly, Bad. Capitalized. Not so much the item itself as the implications of it.

"Strange, I don't remember seeing that one before." Sirius said, also staring at the locket. The compulsion was trying to grab hold of him just as much as it tried for Harry, but Sirius knew perfectly well how dangerous it was to touch unknown objects in Grimmauld Place.

"I think it belonged to Voldemort." Harry said, grabbing his wand and transfiguring a nearby item into a long metal pole with a hook on one end.

Sirius started in surprise, staring at his godson. "You're sure?"

"Pretty sure. It has the same feel to it as the thing I pushed out during my last ritual." Harry confirmed and gave the pole to Sirius.

"What are you thinking, Harry?" Sirius asked warily.

"I'm thinking that if Voldie is going to be handing out pieces of his soul like candy, then who am I to refuse such a gift?" Harry said wryly.

"This isn't something you should be playing with." Sirius said sharply.

"Don't get your panties in a wad, I know that it's dangerous." Harry retorted. "But you're missing the point. That thing is some kind of phylactery, which means that the Dark Moron is still not fully dead. I thought that the thing inside me was some kind of fluke, but this is the third one I've come across and I'm starting to suspect that it isn't going to be the last."

"So how do we destroy it?" Sirius asked, eager to get rid of it.

"Basilisk venom did the trick last time and I do have some in stock, but we're not going to destroy it."

"What do you mean 'we're not going to destroy it'?" Sirius demanded. "What possible use could you have for a piece of Voldemort's soul?"

"At the moment? None. But I find it hard to believe that I won't be able to do anything at all with it, there is just no way that having a piece of your soul in enemy hands could be a good idea. Now use that pole I gave you and let's drop that thing into my Bag of Holding."

"I still don't understand why you insist on calling your Mokeskin Pouch by that silly name."

"And I still haven't learned what the bloody hell a moke is. At least 'Bag of Holding' is a descriptive name."

"Don't try to distract me with your logic, it doesn't work on wizards. I still say we should destroy it right away."

"Damnit, Sirius, I have no desire whatsoever to end up being a prophesized Chosen One destined to beat Voldemort because some cracked Seer made a prophecy fourteen years ago. I might be able to use this thing to track down any others before the Dark Moron manages to crawl his way back to life and starts causing problems again. He's going to be in one hell of a snit over having his world domination scheme threatened and then fouled up by a baby and I'd really rather not deal with that."

"Well, when you put it that way…"

By the time that Kreacher returned to Grimmauld Place, the locket that Regulus had entrusted him with was long since gone. There was much house elven wailing and gnashing of teeth as a result.

Staring at the locket that had so abruptly made his life an order of magnitude more complicated, Harry scowled.

He'd thought that Voldemort was dead and gone in second year when his diary was destroyed, because he'd asumed that it had been like a D&D phylactery and held the entire soul. Then he'd learned that a soul could break and found another piece of Voldemort inside of him, but he'd still thought that it must have been some kind of freak occurence as a result of his mother's sacrifice.

Now he had a third and was no longer willing to assume it was the last. That fucking prophecy was really trying to turn his life into some kind of big dramatic struggle against the forces of evil. He just wanted to learn magic and see what things were like outside of Europe, maybe with some particular female company along for the ride. Was that too much to ask?

Apparently so, because Dumbledore's interest in him and his subtly manipulative actions were finally making some sense in light of the fact that Voldemort was still out there somewhere. The old man was trying to play the Secretive-As-Fuck-But-Trust-Me-Because-I'm-The-Wise-Mentor angle to his Chosen Champion. He'd probably get himself dramatically killed halfway through it too, leaving the half-prepared protagonist, in this case Harry himself, to clean up his mess. That seemed to be the norm in these situations anyway.

Dumbledore was seriously trying to pull an Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Well bugger that. No way was Harry letting some old fart that thought he knew best dictate his life.

This locket might be the key to finding what other soul anchors Voldemort had and destroying them before he could come back. He certainly didn't want to deal with a fully restored and probably very pissed off Dark Lord.

Of course, the problem here was that Harry's knowledge about souls was very limited. Judging by his own experiences, souls became damaged by sufficiently traumatic events and healed over time. His rage driven murder of Pettigrew had damaged him and that damage had repaired itself to a degree as time passed, but never back to the unblemished state it had been in before.

How that translated to creating a phylactery, he had no idea. Harry suspected that he would need that knowledge before he achieved anything. He would still see what he could find out without it, but like the diary, the locket seemed to have some kind of sentience, which made it dangerous to be around. He was not interested in being possessed.

He wouldn't be getting anything more done today in any case. His much anticipated second date with Tonks was approaching and he wasn't going to reschedule it simply because he'd just found out that Voldemort was still not-dead. The locket could wait a little longer.

This time it was Harry who found himself arriving to the designated meeting spot early. He'd gotten impatient and apparated out of the manor almost half an hour too soon, much to Sirius' poorly concealed amusement.

There was no helping it though, he'd simply been too eager and too nervous. The first date that he'd badgered the shapeshifting Auror into had no real expectations attached to it, but he'd developed a genuine liking for Tonks that had nothing to do with her good looks and the potential sex games that her special talent would allow.

All of his forays into intimacy with females so far had involved very little in the way of an actual emotional connection(aside from lust), which made this nerve wracking in a whole new way. He was acutely aware of the age discrepancy between him and Tonks and didn't want her to back off because of it, which meant that he couldn't give her any reason to think that she should. The Wizarding World might have a strange 'if-I-don't-think-about-it-then-it's-not-a-problem' mentality in regards to quite a few things, including age, but that would only go so far. This was even more of an issue with Tonks because she was not only part of the DMLE's elite law enforcement corps and had a reputation to maintain, but also because her father was a muggleborn and likely had some pretty strong opinions about certain wizarding practices. He knew that she'd enjoyed their first date, but she would probably break it off if it gave her issues at work or in her family.

Harry was not really the sort to develop silly crushes for no reason and his early forays into sexuality had only made it more unlikely, but he was just as vulnerable to falling prey to his own interests as anyone else. Thus, he had plotted out a plan of attack for getting Tonks to return that interest as quickly and as surely as possible, all the while avoiding any pitfalls that might cause her to decide that he was more trouble than he was worth. This had all happened without him really intending to be so calculating about it… it had just sort of happened while he was laying in bed.

A smile came to his face when Tonks eventually arrived. She was dressed similarly to the last time, the only notable differences being that this time she had a purple tank top and pink hair. And a bra. She hadn't worn one the last time. That probably meant that she wasn't going to poke him with her extendable nipples again. Too bad.

"Wotcher." She greeted with her usual good cheer. "Been waiting long?"

"Not at all, I just got here." Harry lied courteously. There was literally no benefit to telling her that he'd been standing here for half an hour already. "So, where are we going? You were pretty vague about that." It had been decided that she would pick the venue this time.

"You'll see." She said vaguely. "Just take my hand, grasshopper, and I'll show you."

"That was a horrible misquote." Harry complained, but took her hand anyway.

"Ah shut up, you haven't seen the movie it came from any more than I have." Tonks retorted.

"That's not the point. The point is that you mangled a perfectly good quote." Harry insisted.

Neither one was aware that the original quote was not actually from a movie.

Tonks didn't deign to respond and simply apparated them to the destination.

Harry stared in bemusement at what he presumed was their destination, the apparition having deposited them in a secluded spot some ways of. "An amusement park? We're going to an amusement park?"

"Yes." Tonks said firmly. "And if you don't like amusement parks, then tough, because we're still going."

"I have no strong feelings one way or the other in regards to amusement parks." Harry droned blandly. "I've never been to one."

"What do you mean you've never been to one?" She demanded, scandalized. "Didn't you say that your foster parents are muggle and rich? What kind of people are they that they wouldn't take you to an amusement park at least once?"

"I can already imagine their response to the idea." Harry replied wryly and then adopted a snobbish air. "Why would you want to go to one of these… things ? Amusement parks are the pastime of the unwashed masses."

Tonks laughed at the impression, but inwardly felt a bit sorry for him. That sounded kind of similar to the stories that her mother had told her about growing up in the Black family, minus the rants on mudbloods and blood purity.

"Well then I guess it's up to me to show you the ropes." She said decisively, grabbing his hand and dragging him towards the noisy and brightly lit area.

"I place myself in your capable hands." It wasn't something that he would have chosen to do by himself, nor did he think that he'd like the crowds and the noise, but the overall experience should be fun as long as she was there.

While Tonks was showing Harry the proper way to experience an amusement park, Sirius and Remus were having a more somber get-together in the Hog's Head. Sirius had wanted to go to the Three Broomsticks and maybe flirt with Rosmerta for old time's sake, but Remus had been reluctant to go there so quickly after having his werewolf status made known to the general public. Sirius had agreed after seeing the looks aimed not only at his friend but also at him. Apparently getting cleared by the DMLE wasn't enough to fully erase twelve years of everyone thinking that he was a notorious mass murderer.

"Don't worry about it, Remus, I'm sure Harry will warm up to you soon enough." The dog Animagus was saying.

Remus sighed at his friend's unwarranted optimism. "No, Sirius, I don't think he will. I don't blame him for it either. I certainly wouldn't be too fond of me if I was in his shoes."

"You're being too hard on yourself." Sirius chided. Remus had always been prone to brooding.

Remus withheld a grimace. If only that were true, but he knew that Harry was fully justified to dislike him. He'd acted like nothing more than a distant acquaintance of James and Lily and now he was being treated like one. No more than he deserved really, but Sirius was clearly having trouble understanding it, mired as he was in nostalgia.

"So what is Harry up to now?" He asked. He had no more hope of establishing a close relationship with the son of his dead friends, but he could still ask about him.

"He's on a date with Andromeda's girl." Sirius chuckled. "Precocious little scamp is better than James or I ever were at getting a girl to agree to a date. We were on Madam Bones' shit list but he goes right up to one of her Aurors and asks her out."

Remus didn't really know Andromeda Tonks, having only mer her once and rather briefly at that. She had been sympathetic to the Order during the war with Voldemort, but not a member. He did remember a cute Metamorphmagus daughter that had scowled when she'd been introduced by her given name though.

"Isn't she in her twenties?" He inquired carefully. That meeting had been quite some time before Harry's birth.

"So?" Sirius shrugged.

Remus let it go. He didn't think it was very appropriate for a full grown woman to be going on dates with a boy Harry's age, but he knew that his opinion wouldn't be welcome. James and Sirius had gleefully taken advantage of the Wizarding World's laxity about age appropriate relationships.

"I was more interested in how his studies are going." He said instead.

"Good, great even. He's a smart kid and loves learning magic." Sirius made no mention of Harry's extra-curricular study. He felt that Remus could be trusted with the information, but Harry didn't and there was no denying that it would be bad if it got out that the Boy-Who-Lived was looking into dark magic. Sirius trusted Harry not to go off the deep end, but the rest of the sheep or the Ministry wouldn't be so reasonable.

His godson's cynicism was rubbing off on him.

They went into safer areas of conversation after that. Their friendship was still in some need of repair before it would be back to the state it had been in during their Hogwarts days.

"Heh, I never would have figured you for an adrenaline junkie." Tonks said with a wry grin.

Sitting next to her on a bench with one arm around her shoulders, Harry smirked back. "I may not like Quidditch, but I have always liked flying." He wondered if that had anything to do with his Animagus form. "Were you hoping that some of those rides would scare me?"

"Yes." Tonks pouted. "I wanted to hear high pitched screams of terror, but all I got was laughter."

"So sorry to have disappointed you, Dora." He replied with amusement.

"Dora?" She questioned with a raised eyebrow.

"It seemed weird to be calling you by your last name all the time." Harry shrugged.

Tonks gave it some thought before nodding. She could deal with being called Dora. The first part of her name was much more objectionable. "Alright, you can call me Dora."

"You're so kind." He said faux demurely.

They lapsed into a short silence, which Harry spent slowly mingling his magic with hers. She was a powerful witch and an interesting person. He felt as if he could spend days just doing this without a word being spoken and still know her better at the end of it than any amount of conversation would allow.

She shifted a bit and pressed closer to him with a content exhale of air. Harry's lips twitched into a smile.

He'd only tried this with Bryanna and Tiana post coitus before, and with Luna in their quieter moments when they just sat together. It was a shame that magicals had either forgotten or never learned how to properly do this. As far as being comfortable with other people went, he doubted that there was anything that could beat it.

Of course, he doubted that it would work with anyone that you didn't already like, but there wasn't any reason to be doing this with someone you didn't like anyway.

The very comfortable atmosphere was broken by the text message alert on his phone, causing Harry to huff with some irritation at the interruption. Dora's presence had tensed slightly at the noise, but not enough to expel him.

"What was that?" She asked curiously.

"Probably either Robert or Katherine being annoying." He grumbled and awkwardly pulled the phone out of his pocket, unwilling to let go of his date's shoulder.

As it turned out, the message was not from either of his foster parents, but from Zoe.

"Want 2 cum over?" Tonks read, amusement coloring her tone, but her magic snapping out of its relaxed state into something much sharper. The gentle empathic connection he'd created broke and even her hair darkened slightly towards red.

Harry winced. He hadn't contacted Zoe at all this summer, either because he'd been too busy or because he was more interested in his current date. Apparently she was feeling randy and had decided to take the initiative. Usually something he wouldn't have hesitated to take advantage of, but it was damned inconvenient right now.

"Zoe is a muggle girl I met last summer." He started explaining. "We have a 'friends with benefits' sort of arrangement."

"I see." She said neutrally. "You going to take her up on it?"

"Of course not." Harry denied instantly. Zoe might be pretty, fun and a simple way of relieving tension over the summer, but that was all she was. She might have been more if the circumstances were different, but they weren't. "That's only if both of us are single."

He conveniently ignored that Zoe had technically not been single last year and probably wasn't this one either. That was her problem.

Tonks gave him a scrutinizing look for a few moments, thinking about it. She couldn't honestly be upset about something that had happened before they'd even met. Realistically speaking, she probably had little enough business getting upset even if he did decide to boff this 'friend with benefits' of his, seeing as this was barely their second date.

She was still feeling a bit territorial though. Yes, getting romantically involved with the Boy-Who-Lived would no doubt bring up quite a few problems from both her job and her parents(or her father at any rate), but damnit, she liked him. She hadn't had a decent boyfriend since that little adventure with Charlie Weasley in seventh year and that was just sad considering the fact that he would have probably liked her better if she had scales and breathed fire, literally.

Harry was young, very young. Far younger than she would have been willing to look for potential boyfriends under most circumstances. If he hadn't gone after her first, she would never have even considered it. Men tended to be immature enough even when they were older than her.

But he didn't look or act his age and the pickings were slim enough that she was willing to go along with it despite her misgivings. She'd been planning to just let things progress as they would and see what happened, but it looked like she was going to need to stake a claim. A twenty-one year old woman of her good looks, personality and talents should not be having such an abyssmal social life and she wasn't letting perfectly good boyfriend material get away simply because he was a bit on the young side. She might have been more hesitant if he'd been completely green, but that message and his explanation made it clear that he'd been sexually active for at least a year already. Though now that she thought about it, she probably should have guessed as much on their first date to begin with.

"Oh? Does that mean that you consider yourself spoken for?" She challenged, pretending that she hadn't just spent the past few seconds making him sweat with her stare.

"I did place myself into your hands." Harry reminded her, nervousness dissipating as he felt her magic settle down a bit.

"That's true." The Metamorphmagus conceded. "I wonder what I should do now that I have you in my hands?"

"Please be gentle." He quipped.

She surprised him by pulling herself over until she was straddling his lap and leaning in to whisper into his ear. "But what if I don't want to be gentle?"

Harry shivered slightly, both at the feel of her breath tickling his ear and in arousal at having her so close. His hands reached out to grab her hips almost by themselves, just as his magic reached towards hers reflexively.

"I might have to lodge a complaint about Auror brutality." He countered, squeezing her hips and leaning forward to kiss her.

Tonks didn't bother to reply, instead just kissing him and groaning in pleasure as she felt the same heat spreading through her as she'd felt at their first kiss. She felt the bulge of his erection pressing up against her in short order and decided to grind her butt against it more firmly.

This time it was Harry who groaned. Maybe it hadn't been such a great idea to torture himself with a magical feedback loop again?

Ah screw it.

With that resolution, he pressed his hand to the small of her back and pressed down, bringing her even closer and sending a stream of stimulating magic into her nerves. He felt her shudder at the invading magic, but instead of rejecting it, the intensity of her kiss only increased.

"You go, girl!" A drunken sound of female enthusiasm came, causing Tonks to jerk out of the kiss.

Both of them breathing heavily, they looked around for the source of the yell and quickly noticed a group of tipsy looking teenagers giving them a thumbs up.

Bemused and not sure what else to do, Harry returned the thumbs up despite being a bit annoyed by the interruption.

"Still want to lodge a complaint about Auror brutality?" Tonks asked when the giggly group of teens moved on.

"You can brutalize me anytime." Harry smirked, still gently rubbing his fingers into the small of her back.

"Now there's a tempting offer, but the paperwork would be horrible." She sighed and slid back into place next to him, much to Harry's disappointment.

"That bad?" He asked, going along with the subject change into cooler waters even though he wanted nothing more than to get her in bed right now.

"You have no idea." She groaned dramatically. "I thought being an Auror was going to be all about action and catching the bad guys, but I spend most of my days filing reports for inappropriate prank spells or illegal Portkeys or something."

"That's what you get for selling your soul to the Black Order of Bureaucracy." Harry said unsympathetically.

Tonks burst out laughing at his name for the Ministry, which she had to admit was appropriate at times. "Not going to get a Ministry job when you graduate then?"

"Not a chance." Harry snorted.

"What are you going to do then?" She asked curiously.

"I was thinking of travelling a bit and seeing the world." He admitted.

"That sounds nice."

There was a moment of silence and Harry was seized by the sudden urge to ask her to quit her job and come with him. He wasn't that impulsive though and abandoned the idea as being premature. He could always ask later, once they knew each other better, which was something that he had high hopes for.

"Aren't Aurors the DMLE's elite though?" He asked instead, backtracking a bit. "Shouldn't the Magical Law Enforcement Patrol be dealing with all that small stuff?"

"They do." Tonks grumbled. "Thing is, Bones doesn't get along too well with Fudge or his backers and our esteemed Minister is worried that she wants to replace him, so any time that the Ministry needs to make a budget cut, we're the ones who take the hit."

"And now the DMLE is so understaffed and underfunded that even Aurors have to deal with the small stuff." Harry finished.

"That's about the size of it." Tonks confirmed. "And speaking of work, I should probably go home. I've got the morning shift tomorrow."

"And I've got my Ancient Runes OWL." Harry added, easily hiding his diappointment that the date was over. On the upside, he had the sense that his relationship with the pretty Metamorphmagus had now gone beyond that 'maybe/maybe not' stage where nobody could say whether they were together or not. "Want me to come visit while I'm there?"

"Might be better if you didn't." Tonks admitted. "Bones and Scrimgeour aren't too fond of personal visits during work hours."

"Alright." Harry consented easily. "But only if you agree to go on another date with me."

"So that's how it is? I go out with you or you'll get me in trouble with the boss?" Tonks asked teasingly, inwardly very relieved that he was being mature about the no visits thing while she was working. A couple of her past attempts at a relationship had gotten a bit shirty about that, though in that case it had still been training rather than working. Moody had been even less tolerant of 'emotional hogwash' getting in the way of CONSTANT VIGILANCE.

"Damn straight." Harry confirmed. "If you don't agree, you might find me paying the DMLE another visit and lurking over your shoulder while you try to do paperwork."

"I guess I've got no choice then." Tonks sighed theatrically. "With you twisting my arm like that, i'll just have to put up with you for a bit longer."

"You'll get used to me." Harry chuckled and leaned over to steal another kiss.

Though a bit surprised, she quickly started to respond and almost gave in to the urge to climb back into his lap by the time they broke apart.

"I should go." She said softly, biting her lower lip as she stared into his bright green eyes.

Harry nodded and escorted her to a secluded spot that she could apparate away from.

"I'll be in touch." He said once they arrived and gave in to the urge to give her lips another quick peck. "Goodnight, Dora."

"Goodnight, Harry."

Harry stared wistfully at the empty spot where she'd been standing just a moment ago.

"Nice going Potter, first you decide to avoid serious relationships and then barely a week later you get infatuated with an Auror that will probably be obligated to arrest you if she finds out about some of the things you're doing." He muttered to himself. "That's pure genius right there."

Sighing, he pulled out his phone again and stared at the message from Zoe. As had happened on the last date with the Metamorphmagus, he was horny as hell. Unlike the last time, he had a girl that would be more than willing to help him with that.

Instead of accepting, he sent her a reply to let her know that he wasn't going to be available for any more fun in the foreseeable future. Getting into a relationship with Tonks was dangerous beyond doubt, but then again, he had developed a bad habit of doing dangerous things ever since he'd entered the Wizarding World.

Appearing inside her flat, Tonks let out a deep breath and began pulling off her clothes in preparation for a shower.

She'd very nearly invited Harry to come with her back there, seven years younger than her or not. It was sometimes hard to remember his age when he didn't look or react like a boy in his early teens. It didn't help that she felt so comfortable with him or that his kisses made her want to stick her hands down his pants.

She had seen the same desire in his face plain as day and if he kept being so damned attractive, she might just have to do exactly that. She'd never been particularly uncomfortable with her sexuality anyway, even if she didn't drop her knickers on the first date.

But for now, Mr. Purple would be pressed back into service.