Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Kingsley looked around, frowning. Every instinct he had as an experienced Auror was telling him that something wasn't right here. For one thing, this place was unnaturally clean.

For another...

"- telling your aunt and uncle not to worry-" He heard Remus saying to Potter, but wasn't paying attention.

"They won't." He frowned, paying more attention.

"That you're safe-"

"That'll just depress them." He looked at Harry, hoping that he was just joking.

"- and that you'll see them next summer." Remus finished.

"Do I have to?" Harry almost pleaded .

Kingsley's frown deepened when he looked closer at the Boy-Who-Lived, Heir Black, and Heir Potter.

Dark circles under his eyes (easily explained by a lack of sleep caused by stress and worry over everything going on with the Dementor attack) baggy and threadbare clothes (not so easily explained considering the obvious luxury the Dursley's lived in), messy hair (Potter family 'curse'), gaunt face (could also be explained by stress... he'd been told that the boy tended to stop eating if he was stressed enough) and bruises around his neck and on his face.

Wait.

What ?

Frown deepening, he reached over and pulled the rest of the shirt further off the boys neck area, causing him to flinch back in surprise, and the others to freeze when the movement directed their attention to what Kingsley had seen.

In the harsh kitchen lights, the bruising was highly visible.

"Cub?" Remus asked, visibly trying to stay calm despite the deepening amber in his eyes. "What is that?"

Harry's hand flew up to his neck and he flushed for a moment in realization. "Its nothing." He shrugged away Kingsley's hand and readjusted his shirt to hide the bruises. He could not hide the one on his face, though.

"Cub, who put those bruises on you?" Remus tried again.

"Nobody!" Harry defended.

"It was that uncle of yours, wasn't it?" Remus asked after studying Harry for a moment. The way Harry stilled and then swallowed told them all they needed to know.

"Remus, we don't have time for this, we need to go." Tonks cut in when it looked like Remus was going to hunt said uncle down then and there.

"Alright, we'll discuss this more later, cub. With Sirius." He gave the teen a look, and any possible protest died on Harry's lips.

"That's the signal!" Moody stepped in a moment later, although Kingsley noticed his fake eye was actually fixed on a point upstairs. When they passed the cupboard, nobody noticed his eye swivel to focus on the cupboard itself.

In the air, Tonks and Remus laughed when Harry cheered in glee before starting to do some (rather impressive) aerial acrobatics in celebration of his new freedom.

Moody let it continue for a bit (surprisingly) before he barked at Harry to calm down and get back in the middle of the formation.

Kingsley frowned again when the boy didn't display any typical teenage petulance over the order, and instead simply fell back in with the formation.

"Whoa." Harry muttered when the house came into view. Remus chuckled at the typical reaction. He was pretty sure he reacted the same way the first and only time Sirius invited the other Marauder's to his house for the day when they were younger (needless to say, that hadn't ended well, despite Sirius' best efforts). The house was pretty run-down looking these days, but its glory days were still visible.

He was pretty sure that the most fascinating part, though, was in how it appeared to grow out of the other houses.

"Come on, lets get inside." Moody stomped forward.

Harry followed them up the worn steps, staring at the door in fascination. It was shabby, and needed a new coat of paint. He idly wondered why it was in such horrible condition when they could fix it with magic, but the thoughts were thrown out of his head when the door opened and he saw the inside.

It was almost completely dark inside. The gas lamps along the ceiling were dirty, blackened with age and use, and covered in cobwebs, while the place itself smelled musty and damp, he could practically feel the rot in the air. People lived here? Even when the lamps were turned on, it didn't provide much more light, the lamp glass was too dirty. He could hear bugs and things in the walls and under the floor, and was really starting to wonder why they were whispering.

"Harry! It's wonderful to see you!" Molly whispered, lighting up at the sight of him, when she entered the hall. He grinned, happy to see her too, although she was thinner and looked more stressed than the last time he saw her. Her hug was still as rib-cracking as ever, though, despite that. "You're looking peaky, you need feeding up. I'm afraid you'll have to wait until dinner, though..." Neither Harry nor Molly noticed the looks exchanged by Harry's escort. "The meeting's started." She said to them, before starting to lead Harry up the stairs.

"Alright, now, you're sharing a room with Ron. Once the meeting is over, I will have dinner ready. And try to keep your voice down in the hall." She whispered.

"Why?" Harry asked, confused.

"We don't want to wake anything up." She grimaced, thinking about Sirius' wonderful mother.

Harry was more and more confused the deeper they went into the house. The snakes everywhere, the shrunken elf heads on the wall, the severed troll leg for an umbrella stand... Why were they here? This house clearly belonged to the darkest of wizards, so why was a family like the Weasley's here? Why weren't they at the Burrow? "Why are...?" He started to ask.

"Ron and Hermione will explain, dear. I must get back to the meeting." She whispered apologetically. She could see his confusion, and had an idea of what was most confusing right now. She really wished she could get rid of those elf heads at least... "Door on the right. I'll call you all down for dinner in a bit." She said, and hurried off down the stairs.

Chapter Text

Remus muttered something in Sirius' ear as he sat down beside his best friend, and it was only his hand on his shoulder that stopped the escaped convict from storming upstairs to see his godson for himself.

Sirius would have gone to greet said godson at the door himself, but he was in a heated argument with Dumbledore when the group came in about finally getting a trial for himself, again , and Harry living with him. Again.

No matter what Dumbledore said about the matter, Sirius had already decided that Harry wasn't going back to the Dursleys after this school year. What Remus just told him about the bruises cemented that thought. Plans started whirling through his head... how to get to Gringotts without being caught (by either the Ministry, Death Eaters, or Dumbledore's people), who to contact at the DMLE that might listen to him and he could possibly trust, and how to clear both his and Harry's names.

He didn't care what Dumbledore said about having done all he could. There was no way he was letting this sham of a hearing happen.

They started the meeting with the usual tedious pleasantries that Dumbledore insisted on that Mad-eye absolutely hated, before Dumbledore finally started to get to it, but before the meeting could properly begin, they were startled to hear shouting from above them, which was rather impressive seeing as the walls were thick and they were a couple of floors away from the source.

"... SO YOU HAVEN'T BEEN IN THE MEETINGS, BIG DEAL! YOU'VE STILL BEEN HERE, HAVEN'T YOU? YOU'VE STILL BEEN TOGETHER! ME, I'VE BEEN STUCK AT THE DURSLEYS' FOR A MONTH! AND I'VE HANDLED-" The shouting cut off suddenly, Sirius narrowed his eyes to see Dumbledore with his wand out, pointed at the ceiling, with a frown on his face. A few moments later, the charm seemed to fail, because they heard Harry loud and clear again. "BUT WHY SHOULD I KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON? WHY SHOULD ANYONE BOTHER TO TELL ME WHAT'S BEEN HAPPENING?" Dumbledore flicked his wand again, and this time the charm held, either that or Ron and Hermione managed to cut Harry off.

"I told you that locking him up in that house, like you did with me, was not a good idea. Neither was keeping him in the dark about anything." Sirius snarled, not at all happy with what little they'd heard. Especially not the way Harry spoke of his relatives, the people who raised him, with the same tone and scorn to his voice as he himself spoke about his parents. He'd been worried that something wasn't right at the Dursley's house, after all, what kid is so eager to go live with a complete stranger, one who escaped prison and looked as awful as he did at the time, rather than the people who raised him? Let alone one that, until thirty minutes before, he'd thought was an escaped convict out to kill him?

One that wasn't loved or taken proper care of in that house.

If they dared touch his godson... well, he would give them a reason to throw him in prison.

Tonks spoke up. "He's been desperate for any information he could find." She reminded them of how he'd been nicking any newspaper he could get his hands on, and had to resort to hiding in the flower beds just to hear the news.

"He's too young to be involved in any of this." Molly defended the Headmaster's decision heatedly.

Nearly everyone snorted. "He's been involved, he's been the main character in this whole mess, since he was fifteen months old, Molly! Whether any of us like it or not! In case you haven't noticed, we seem to be the only people who care that he's just a boy ." Sirius said, mocking the way she kept referring to Harry every time this came up. "Old Voldie certainly doesn't seem to care how old he is, now does he?" He asked, just as heated. Harry may be young, but that was all the more reason to not leave him out of it! It was like they'd all forgotten what it was to be young, and it was like they didn't know Harry at all. Either they told him what he wanted to know, or Voldemort made sure he found out by other means, or worse, he would go looking for the answers himself and land in trouble because of it.

"Enough." Albus finally said, breaking up the coming argument. "Bill..." He chose to start the meeting before anything else could be said about the topic.

Afterwards, Sirius and Remus were quietly speaking about what he'd seen at the Dursley's house, when Molly approached him again.

"Sirius, you know that he's too young to know." She said, frustrated.

"Molly, you have seven children. Have any of them ever just backed down, and stopped asking certain questions just because you said they were too young? Or did they go looking for the answers on their own?" Sirius asked her. "We know Harry is too young to have to be involved in this war, this is our war, after all. But Voldie dragged Harry into it when he was just fifteen months old, and Voldie will keep coming after him, regardless of his age. I would rather my godson not get killed because he didn't have all the information he needed, when he needed it, because somebody deemed him to be too young." He said solemnly and got up to go to his study, he wanted to get something before the kids came down for dinner.

He was glad he'd already made steps to retrieve this, but now he had to deal with making sure that Harry couldn't go back there.

On the stairs, he snorted when he overheard the kids whispering to themselves, and shook his head with a grin. Just like he told Molly, the kids were trying to learn everything they could, not at all pleased to be left out of everything. He relaxed when he saw his godson with them. "Harry." He called, softly, trying not to wake his mother's portrait.

Harry looked up and grinned. "Sirius." And rushed into his godfather's open arms. At the beginning of the summer, a dirty house-elf had appeared in his room with a letter, handed it to him, insulted him a few times, and left again. The letter basically said that Dumbledore had instructed everybody to keep him in the dark, and he was fairly sure that all the letters sent by owl were being read. He said that he was going to work on getting Harry to come stay with him, but couldn't go into more details in the letter, because he didn't particularly trust his house-elf with that information, either. And he didn't want to risk a lot of magic being used around him and drawing attention, either. So, could Harry please be patient, and he would tell him what he wanted to know as soon as he could? The letters exchanged between the two for the rest of the summer (by owl) had been full of 'getting to know you' information and stories about his parents, Harry could safely say that he felt like he knew his godfather pretty well at this point.

Sirius didn't try to initiate the hug, the bruising around Harry's neck and face told it's own tale, instead he let Harry decide how much physical contact he wanted.

Holding Harry away from him after a moment, he inspected his pup critically. Tired, thin, and bruised. But he was safe now, he was sure Molly would have him fed up in no time, and it wouldn't take much for him to at least get Madam Pomphrey over here. "Come on, I want to talk to you." He carefully draped an arm around his shoulders and started steering him towards the study. It was in the part of the house that nobody else could get into as they weren't of the Black family, it was also the only part of the house that was clean.

When he first moved in a few months ago, the entire house had been a wreck. When Albus started strongly hinting that the place would make a perfect headquarters for the Order, he'd known that there was no way he could really refuse, but he could make sure that none of them would want to stick around. So, he'd closed off most of the house and got the Family House-elves started on cleaning the restricted areas, instructing them to remain out of sight of any 'guests'. As far as the Order knew, the areas they could access was all there was to the house, and Kreacher was the only elf there. He'd instructed the areas the Order was in to be made safe, but otherwise to leave it alone.

He wasn't expecting Molly to move her entire brood into his house and start taking it over. More then once she or one of her children had had to be rescued because of their bumbling around in a Black House.

And she refused to listen when he tried to get her to stop because of the levels of danger presented to the underage children, especially since she was so strict about the underage wizardry laws. Even though he'd told her the wards would keep the Ministry from detecting anything, plus the fact that it was a wizarding house and the Trace didn't work in wizarding areas. 

Luckily his hidden elves were good at taking and hiding the things she was throwing away, as many of them were priceless family heirlooms, he just needed to get the entire mess to the Curse-breakers to make sure they were clean. Well, he supposed that cleaning that area of the house was good for keeping the kids busy and out of trouble… mostly, so that was something. The elves were equally as good at punishing Mundungus Fletcher every time his sticky fingers made themselves known.

"Whoa." Harry blinked, surprised when they entered the hidden area of the house. "What the..." He turned around, comparing the two sections of hallway. The side they were standing in was clean and well-decorated. There were no elf-heads, no snake related decorations everywhere, nothing to indicate that they were still in the same house.

Sirius grinned. "The Order aren't exactly welcome guests, not with how they just moved in." He explained. He was going to show Harry his room later. "I managed to close off most of the house to them before they arrived, and the House-elves have been working hard to clean the place. I didn't want them to feel like they were welcome to just stay." He shrugged. "As far as they can tell, that line between clean and dirty area is a solid wall." He explained. Harry was his heir, so he was free to move about the house as he wished, while Remus was keyed into the wards of the house.

"So what is this place?" Harry finally asked. All Ron and Hermione had said was that it was the Headquarters for the Order. Whatever that meant.

"My house. Well, my parents, but they died years ago, so..." He shrugged again. It was also the only home of the Blacks that Dumbledore knew the location of. He'd never been invited to the ancestral manor, and obviously none of the other homes or vacation villas. Whenever he had to visit to speak with a parent, the meeting was always in Grimmauld Place, no matter who's parent he had to speak with, not that it was often. If a Black was caught doing something bad enough that it warranted a home visit, well... something was very wrong with that picture.

(To Sirius' knowledge, the only legitimate visit (where the Black in question was not being framed or falsely accused because of their name) would have been after he accidentally sent Snape to be eaten by a werewolf. Except, of course, Albus Dumbledore let him off without even a warning. It was Minerva that tried to issue a punishment and visited his parents about it. To say they had been unhappy with him when he returned for that summer was an understatement. It was a few weeks later that he ran away to the Potters'.)

He silently thanked his families paranoia, at least now he wouldn't have to put up with demands for the other houses to be opened up, and he had somewhere to escape to if needed. If there was one thing that Peter's betrayal had taught him, it was that it was too easy to fool the Order and spy on them. And he really didn't trust Snape.

Harry turned to eye the dirty part of the hallway. "Sirius. I don't think I want to meet the rest of your family." He deadpanned, thinking of the elf heads.

Sirius barked a laugh. "I don't want you meeting them, either. Fortunately, there aren't many of them left. Let's see... there's Narcissa, she married Lucius Malfoy. Bellatrix, she's in Azkaban right now for torturing an Auror and his wife to insanity. She was a fanatical Death Eater. Andromeda, she's decent. She's Tonks' mother, she got disowned when she married a Muggle-born. I think a few of my aunts and uncles might still be around, too..." He shrugged. He might need to get Andy here to help him teach Harry what the boy should know as Heir Black.

"Come on in." He invited when he reached his study, he hadn't even bothered closing the door behind himself when he left earlier. Why should he? Remus was the only one who could even access this part of the house.

"Whoa." Harry blinked around. Sirius' study was decorated in black and silver, bordered by muted Gryffindor red and gold. Harry was immediately drawn to a picture on the wall of the Potter family, Sirius, and Remus surrounding a hospital bed. Lily looked exhausted, but was beaming with joy at the bundle in her arms while James couldn't stop staring in awe. Sirius and Remus looked equally awed and thrilled. Every few seconds one of the men would glance at the camera and wave at it.

"Remus had to make a copy of that for me, everything that wasn't in my Gringotts vault or my old bedroom here was destroyed either by the Ministry, or angry wizards when I was thrown in Azkaban." Sirius explained, smiling sadly at the picture.

"They look so happy." Harry murmured. That had always been a doubt of his, especially after growing up with all the lies Petunia told him about them.

"They were the happiest I'd ever seen them that day." Sirius said softly.

"I was terrified to hold you, you know, with my furry problem." Remus spoke up from behind them, making Harry jump. "Sorry." He gave a small apologetic grin.

"Harry..." Sirius said after a moment, going around to his desk and pulling something out of the drawer. "Has anybody told you about your family?"

Harry looked confused. "What do you mean? Besides the stories from you, just that dad played Quidditch, and that I look like him with mom's eyes." He shrugged. He'd enjoyed reading about them in the letters Sirius had written, with comments from Remus tacked on here and there. He'd never known any of that about his mother, everybody seemed to forget she existed in favor of his father.

"Not your parents, your family, the Potter Family." Remus waved off. They were going to have to rectify that, especially since he was just as guilty. He'd had an entire year while he was a Professor to approach Harry and talk to him, after all, especially during their private lessons.

"No..." Harry glanced between the two of them, even more confused.

Sirius grimaced. "That's what I was afraid of. I'll have to send a letter to Sharpaxe." He grumbled. "Well... you are the Heir to the Potter family as far as I know, although I think you can take the Lordship after the Tournament. I'm not sure on that part, though. But, when you were a baby, your parents wanted some extra protection for you, so I blood-adopted you into the Black family. That makes you my heir as well..." He held out the box he'd been playing with during the conversation.

Harry took it slowly, not sure how he was supposed to really react to all this. Opening it, he found a ring. "What..." He asked, inspecting it.

"That is the Black Family Heir Ring. I'll have to find the Potter Ring, it should be in the vaults somewhere." Sirius sighed and leaned back. "You are my Heir, regardless of if you put that on or not. That will just announce it to the world, which should afford you some political protection." Especially with the mess he was currently in with the Ministry for protecting himself.

"The Heir rings are also heavily enchanted to protect the one wearing them. Some families put more emphasis on different areas to protect from then others, I believe James said the Potter rings would protect him primarily from curses and hexes..." Remus said, glancing toward Sirius who nodded his agreement. "While the Black ring focuses more on mental protection. It will still protect you from curses and hexes, but not like the Potter ring would."

"And it won't just be mind controlling spells, it will include potions. Anything that can change the way you think or feel, including love or lust potions, will not work." Sirius added. Although he didn't know how those would work anyway, not on somebody that could throw off the Imperious with such ease. Harry was going to have to learn Occlumency, as well. The Ring would only protect against Legilimency so much.

Harry looked at the two of them, uncertain. "What exactly does it mean to be an Heir?" He asked slowly. Regardless, he carefully put the ring on, gaining a small smile from Sirius.

Sirius sighed. "It means that someday you will be in charge of the Black Family and the estate. Right now that doesn't mean much, there aren't that many of us anymore. I'll teach you more about that at a later time." He promised. He pursed his lips thoughtfully, but decided to bring up the bruising still on Harry's neck at a later time. Most likely directly after dinner.

"So. You want to know what's going on?" Sirius asked suddenly, putting the ring box away. He would return it to Gringotts later.

"Yes." Harry sat up and gave them his full attention.

Sirius snorted in amusement, while Remus just shook his head fondly. "Well, to be honest there's not much to tell. The Ministry refuses to believe that he's back, but we're trying to spread the word as best we can. We have to be careful, though, because Fudge is on the warpath. Arthur's job has already been threatened if he openly shows support for you, and he's been encouraged to help Ron break off all ties to you."

"What?" Harry demanded. Arthur could lose his job? They wanted Ron to stop being friends with him?

"Yeah. It's because everybody knows how close you are to the Weasley family. Don't blame yourself, though. Arthur is an adult. He knows what he's doing." Remus cut in sharply, giving Harry a Look. In fact, the way Tonks told it, Arthur was quite, ah... firm when he told the one sent to tell him Ron should break ties with Harry just what it was he could do with that idea.

"But..."

"Not your fault. All you did was tell the truth." Sirius shook his head. "Don't worry about Arthur. If he does get fired, we won't let them starve or lose their home." He assured Harry. For one thing, Arthur was a good man, he'd easily become friends with the Patriarch. For another, letting them be kicked out on the streets would be a poor way to repay the Weasley family for everything they'd done for Harry.

Harry frowned, but decided to come back to this topic later. "What else is going on? If the Ministry won't do anything..."

"Well, the Death Eaters have, for the most part, been laying low. They're rebuilding, gathering allies, just like we are. We've sent Hagrid to speak with the giants, Remus has been speaking with the Werewolves, and Albus is trying to set something in motion with the Vampires, I think. The goblins are determined to stay neutral, of course."

"How... Don't they know that...?" Harry was angry.

"They don't want to make things worse for themselves. If they side with the Death Eaters and lose, the winners could force an even worse treaty on them or impose more restrictions. If they side with us and we lose, the Death Eaters would try to slaughter them and raid the bank for all the valuables." Remus cut in before he could start a rant. "The leaders of the bank are doing what's best for their people."

"Mostly, though, we've been guarding something." Sirius sighed. "Voldemort is after a prophecy. Apparently it's what sent him after your parents. Well, he never heard the whole thing before going to your house. And now he wants to." He explained simply.

"A... Prophecy?" He asked, confused. After class with Trelawny for the past two years he felt that his skepticism was perfectly warranted. "What's it say?"

"We don't know. The only one who does is Albus, and he's not talking." Which was frustrating, to say the least. This was the prophecy that got James and Lily killed, that made Harry grow up without all of them. Although it was his own stupidity that kept him out of his godson's life up 'till now.

"Is there any way we can find out what it says? If Dumbledore won't tell you what it says." Harry asked, frowning.

"The Ministry keeps record of those things. Well, the Department of Mysteries, actually. But... if it's really about you, you could request to hear it." Remus explained.

" If it's really about me?" Harry asked, surprised.

"Dumbledore is the only one who knows what the entire thing says, and it's entirely possible that he misinterpreted it. Prophecies are notoriously difficult to interpret at the best of times. They are riddles that are full of double meanings." Sirius sighed.

"Is that all that's been happening?" Harry asked. He'd already been told about the smear campaign the Prophet was running at the Ministries behest.

"Pretty much." Remus shrugged, agreeing with Harry's disgruntled expression. There had been a couple of attacks they were able to stop, mostly on Muggleborn homes and a couple of Covens. Of course, the Ministry was denying that they even happened, even going so far as to further slash the DMLE's funding when Amelia Bones tried to do her job and investigate the attacks.

"But... you aren't trying to stop him before he can start hurting people again? You can't stop him before he recruits his army? You're just letting him do all that?" Harry questioned. It sounded to him like they were just sitting around, doing nothing.

Sirius snorted. "Believe me, we've had the same thoughts. We think that the reason Albus refuses is because of that prophecy. He refuses to reveal what it says, but he has no problem hinting at it every time somebody suggests dealing with Voldemort before he regains power."

"Then we need to find out what it says. If the Headmaster won't do anything, then we'll just have to do it." Harry said, determined.

"How?" Remus asked. "Harry, I'm a werewolf, we're not very welcome in society. Sirius is an escaped prisoner, currently the most wanted man in Britain. You are still in school. We can't exactly go out and wage a war, we don't even know where the enemy is!" It wasn't like they could go out and question people, either.

At the moment, it was assumed that he was hiding out in one of his followers' manors, maybe the Malfoy's, but they had no confirmation. Even Snape couldn't, or wouldn't, tell them where the Dark Lord hid out. They mostly met at the Malfoys, but sometimes they met at other places. They'd never found out, even in the days after the first war, if the Dark Lord had his own home somewhere or if he literally lived off his followers.

"Well... what about how he came back? What about how he survived trying to kill me? If he did it once, then what are the chances of him doing it again?" Harry asked. They could at least try to research that, couldn't they? So that they could make sure he didn't come back for a second time? "In the graveyard, he said that he'd gone further down the path of immortality then any other wizard. Surely we can figure out what he did and undo it?"

"We do have one of the darkest libraries in the world in this house." Remus finally said with a sigh. He didn't like the book selection, but knew that knowledge was important, no matter how horrific that knowledge was sometimes. He knew that Molly Weasley had tried many times to get into the library to ransack it for the books she didn't like.

Despite the library being in the section of the house that was open to the rest, the library itself was still closed off without Sirius' permission.

If there was any information about what kind of ritual Voldemort did to survive a rebounding Killing Curse, it would be in the Black Library.

"I can do some research." Sirius agreed, already regretting it but knowing that research was all he was going to be able to do. Remus knew him too well, if the large grin and chuckles that his oldest friend tried to hide behind his hand and pass off as coughs said anything.

"I'll help when I can. But Harry, I don't want you in that library." Remus warned the teenager. "No, those books are full of some of the blackest of magics, some of that knowledge is stuff that should never have been invented. You are very smart, and very mature for your age, but that's not stuff you need to know. We'll share what we find, but I don't want you reading through those books." He laid it down. And what they did share with him was going to be bare basics, with little to no details of just how it was done.

Harry was quiet for a few minutes, but finally agreed. "I just don't like feeling helpless, or like I'm not helping." He sighed. He hated not knowing what was going on even more. He supposed that at least this way he would know what was going on.

"We know, Harry. But you have to trust us to help, too." Remus smiled sadly.

"Masters, dinner is being ready." An elf popped into the room to inform them before the red-haired shouty woman started making a fuss about not finding them.

"Thank you Pixy. Can you take this to Madam Pomfrey at Hogwarts?" Sirius said, and stood up with a groan, handing her the short letter he'd written while they talked. She nodded and popped out again. "Shall we go?" Harry's stomach growling answered that, so Remus opened the door with a laugh at Harry's red face.

"Why did you send her to Madam Pomfrey?" Harry asked curiously as they approached the bad part of the house.

Sirius gave him a look. "I think that hand-print around your neck says it all." He said dryly. He didn't mention the bruise on his jaw, not yet.

Harry's hand shot up to his neck, and he uncomfortably adjusted his shirt again. "I'm fine, this was an accident." He tried to brush it off.

"Harry." Sirius and Remus stopped walking and Sirius gently gripped Harry's chin so he could look the boy in the eyes. "Being grabbed by the neck hard enough that it leaves that level of bruising is not an accident and should never have happened, no matter how angry somebody got or their reasons." Sirius said firmly, knowing that Harry's nonchalance about it did not bode well.

It didn't bode well at all.

Harry looked away as best as he could. "It's fine." He muttered, and kept walking, oblivious to the look Sirius and Remus exchanged behind him.

Chapter Text

"Harry! Good to see you again." Bill greeted him when he walked into the kitchen. His eyes immediately drifted to the bruising before he glanced at Sirius, who shot him a grim look as he took his seat.

"Hi Bill!" Harry said with a small smile, glancing curiously at the parchments still strewn around the table that Bill was still picking up. They looked like maps of some sort.

Molly saw where he was looking and bustled over. "This should have been cleared away directly after the meeting!" She snapped, and crumpled the maps up in her haste to get them out of sight. Sirius rolled his eyes when Harry glanced at him in question.

"Ron, Ginny, get dishes set out, get the silverware. Fred, take this-" The maps away, she got her children busy with setting the table while she finished the last of their dinner.

While she did that, Harry sat down near Sirius and Remus and looked around curiously. There was a pile of rags almost falling off the table at the other end, which he paid no mind to, until Sirius followed his gaze and grimaced in distaste. "You've met Mundungus, haven't you, Harry?" He asked.

The pile of rags grunted and jerked awake. "I agree!" He said sleepily, looking around. He waved a hand through the air, as if voting. Ginny giggled while the other adults exchanged exasperated looks over the teens heads.

"Meeting is over, Dung. Harry's here." Sirius said neutrally.

Mundungus blinked at Harry blearily. "So he is... you all right, 'Arry?" He asked, fumbling in his pockets for a pipe, which he filled and set ablaze with a jab of his wand, allowing a thick, acrid smoke to billow out and fill the room with the smell of old, burning socks. Harry wrinkled his nose.

"For heavens' sake, Mundungus!" Molly snapped and snatched the pipe out of his mouth, vanishing it with her own wand while Remus covered his nose with a canine-like whine and Sirius cast air-freshening charms in the room. "How many times have I told you, not at the table!"

"How many times have I asked you not to smoke in my house, period?" Sirius gave him a dirty look and glanced at Remus in concern.

"Ah, right. Sorry Molly, Sirius." Mundungus said, looking more put out that his pipe was gone then he did apologetic. While Molly finished their supper, Sirius and Harry sat and talked, ignoring Mundungus who seemed more intent on studying the goblets in front of him.

"Sirius, this solid silver, mate?" He asked, practically drooling over it.

"Yes." Sirius said, eyeing him and the silver in his hands. He glanced in the corner where a House-elf was hiding, watching Dung like a hawk to make sure he didn't take off with anything that didn't belong to him. They'd had to teach him not to steal several times already. Nearly every time he entered this house he tried to take off with something that didn't belong to him. "Finest fifteenth-century goblin-wrought silver, embossed with the Black family crest." Or at least, very good replicas.

But even the replicas were solid silver. The real ones were safe in the vaults and were only ever brought out on special occasions. Orion Black had the replicas made when one of his cousins tried to rob Grimmauld Place and almost destroyed what he was trying to get away with.

"That'd come off, though." Mundungus muttered to himself, ignorant of the fact he'd been heard and the three who heard him were not stupid.

"Fred- George- NO JUST CARRY THEM!" Mrs. Weasley suddenly shrieked.

Sirius glanced up before suddenly jerking backward, taking Harry with him while Remus leaned away warily. A moment later, the giant stew pot Molly had asked her son to take to the table came skidding to a stop, leaving a long black streak gouged into the wood. A tray with a loaf of bread on it came skidding after it, while the bread knife lodged itself where Sirius' hand had just been.

"Sorry, Sirius!" Fred said, cringing slightly as he stared at the knife, still quivering from it's place lodged into the table.

Sirius clenched his hand a few times and blinked at the knife. "Not a problem. Just fix the damage you caused." He looked at the twin responsible, who grinned and promised he would.

If there was one thing the Twins had become good at over the years, it was repairing charms.

"Anything we need to know about the table?" George asked, eyeing it warily. With something inside the House of Black, one never knew.

"Ask Kreature. He would know better then I." Sirius shook his head. He knew that it was some kind of special wood, but he didn't remember the details.

Hermione huffed and glared at Sirius for his casual remark, but didn't say anything about it. She didn't want to spark another argument about the matter, Sirius had well and truly lit into her the last time she tried to bring it up. She wasn't eager for another repeat any time soon. She would just have to deal with it on her own, since none of the adults seemed willing to try and help her.

Molly didn't seem to think the matter was settled, and made scolding or caustic remarks about her sons carelessness as she directed the others to put food on the table and while others started gathering.

"Molly, nobody was injured. It was an accident." Arthur said, grabbing her arm and leading her to her seat when she seemed determined to serve everyone, grumbling the whole time. When she was upset, she turned to caring for people, and the biggest way she knew to do that was by feeding people.

The meal was interesting. Well, every meal he'd eaten with the Weasley's was interesting, they were a very lively bunch, but tonight somehow seemed even more wild to Harry.

Arthur, Kingsley, and Moody sat at one end and talked quietly among themselves, from what Harry was able to overhear, they were worried about something going on at the Ministry. Dung was in the middle of the table, closest to the Twins, and occasionally chimed in on their conversation with their older brother, while Tonks spent the time entertaining Ginny and Hermione by changing her face into different animals.

"Oh, I was going to go speak with... him, about what we talked about later on." Remus said to Sirius, quietly, before going back to his food. Sirius nodded and focused on his own food, listening with half an ear to Dung's conversation with the Twins. He frowned, Dung was trying to scam them with his prices, he would need to have a word with the Twins if he heard the man succeeding, although so far they seemed adept at keeping the prices manageable.

He had to admire their guts, though, to be discussing something like this with three Aurors sitting at the table.

Not to mention their mother.

"What I want to know," He said quietly to both Harry and Remus. "Is how they got the money to afford that." He jerked his head toward the Twins.

"What do you mean?" Harry asked, curious.

"They've been buying restricted or hard to find stuff from Dung all summer, and they hinted at looking for a premises for their future store already." Remus revealed.

"Oh. Uh-" Harry fidgeted with his fork a little, drawing the Marauder's curious attention.

"Harry? Something to tell us, pup?" Sirius asked, a slow smile crossing his face as he realized where the Twins got the money.

"I gave them my Tri-Wizard winnings." Harry revealed in a hushed voice, glancing at Molly, who was thankfully too busy trying to persuade Bill to let her cut his hair to notice. "I didn't want it, not after-" Harry cut himself off and swallowed painfully.

"I understand, pup." Sirius said, laying a hand on his arm before going back to his food. "Maybe I can invest a little more into their shop, we're all going to need the laughs, I think." He said thoughtfully. And he could look over and make sure they had a solid business plan, that way he could ensure that Harry hadn't just thrown away a thousand Galleons. He was confident the Twins would succeed, and be very profitable, but it never hurt to have a more experienced eye look things over.

Harry grinned at the thought while Sirius went back to his food.

A few moments later, he looked up from his food when he felt the Floo in the front parlor go off. "Excuse me." He muttered. He wasn't expecting anyone else tonight except Madam Pomfrey, but it was a little early for her. "Andromeda. I wasn't expecting you tonight." He said, surprised when he saw who was there.

"I just wanted to update you on Harry's case." She sighed. As soon as he'd heard about the Dementor attack and the Ministries' response to it, Sirius had called her, knowing that her husband was both on the school board, and an attorney with some pull.

"And?" Sirius perked up.

"Ted has heard some rumors that Fudge is planning something, but doesn't know what, yet. Lucius has, however, been seen coming and going from the Minister's office, so it could be anything." She said tiredly.

Sirius cursed quietly, making Andy raise an eyebrow at her favorite cousin. Most ladies would scold him for such crass language around them, but she was a Black. She'd heard worse on a regular basis while growing up. She just wasn't expecting Sirius to start cursing in other languages.

"Just to be sure, Ted has scheduled a meeting with Amelia tomorrow, at one. He's going to take the memory of the event, and they are going to watch it with Amelia and an Unspeakable present, that way Fudge cannot try to claim the memory was tampered with. Amelia will then handle Fudge if he tries to kick up a fuss over it." She explained the current plan.

"I don't see anything wrong with that." Sirius said after a moments thought. He snorted. "If you're going to show them the memory of the Dementor attack, you might as well show the memory of the graveyard as well." He suggested. Andy nodded her agreement, but didn't mention that Ted had already suggested that, as well as the night in the Shrieking Shack when Harry found out about Sirius' innocence.

Somehow, if what Sirius told her about the boy was true, she didn't think that Harry would have any problem with that.

"Have him start getting the paperwork around to charge Harry's aunt and uncle with abuse." He said suddenly. "I'll have the Healers report to back it up soon, Poppy is supposed to be here any minute." He was pleased with the flash of protective rage he saw in her eyes.

"I will let him know. Actually filing the charges will have to wait until the morning, since the Ministry is closed for the night, though. He'll take care of it once he has that report." She mused out loud.

"Sounds good." He nodded his agreement, and smirked slightly when the Floo flared again before depositing the Healer in question.

"I better go. Ted will be here in the morning to get that report." Andy kissed Sirius on the cheek before going to the Floo, greeting the Healer as she went.

Poppy returned her greetings before turning to Sirius expectantly, who smirked. "Wait here while I go get Harry." He requested, and quickly returned to the kitchen. "Harry, Poppy is here." He said quietly to the boy, who seemed to be irritated by something. "Did something happen?" He asked, louder, once he saw the look on his boys face. Glancing at Remus, he was alarmed by the amber in his eyes.

"No, nothing happened." Harry muttered, glaring at Molly before leaving. When Sirius had left the room, he'd decided to test the waters, see how much he could find out from everybody else and how much they were going to follow Dumbledore in the information shut-down. Arthur, Mad-eye, and Kingsley seemed more willing to give him some information, while Tonks was more then happy to follow her mentor's lead. The Twins had been eager for some information after weeks of curiosity and no information.

Molly, however, had put her foot down, loudly. She'd then had the gall to bring Harry's parents into it and insinuate that Remus and Sirius only saw James when they looked at Harry.

"She's in the Floo room, why don't you take her up to your room for the exam?" Sirius suggested to Remus, looking between Remus, Molly and the door Harry left through suspiciously. "Remus, you know which one is Harry's." He didn't want the riled werewolf staying near the object of his anger longer than necessary. Remus' eyes flicked to him and he growled before shoving himself back from the table and going to find his cub to herd him and the Healer upstairs. Thankfully Remus knew what Sirius was doing, and had enough control in that moment to approve.

Once they were gone, Sirius turned to the rest of the room. "What happened?" He demanded, staring Molly down. She wouldn't look at him, though, and kept eating as though nothing were wrong. Arthur was still staring at her in shock, so didn't even notice that Sirius had asked a question.

Realizing that their parents weren't going to say anything, the Twins spoke up.

"Harry wanted to know what was going on."

"So he asked, and Professor Lupin was going to tell him,"

"Only Mom didn't like that."

"She gave the usual rant about Harry being too young."

"And how Dumbledore said not to."

"She seemed to think that you only see Harry as James Potter."

"Which we all know is ridiculous."

"Yeah, he's too scrawny for that." The Twins reported quickly and with only a small attempt to inject some humor into the situation. They couldn't believe their mother had said that any more then Harry, Sirius, and Remus appeared to.

Sirius stared at them for a moment before slowly turning his glare onto the Weasley Matriarch. "Excuse me?" He growled. "How dare you even begin to imply such a thing, and with Harry right there!" He barked, a little of his Animagus showing through.

Molly finally turned to look at him. "We all know that's how you see him." She said, slightly condescending. She stood by what she said, she knew it was true, he acted as though he had his best friend back and was going to go on these grand adventures with him, not that Harry was a little boy who shouldn't be involved in this sort of thing.

"Get. Out. Of my house." Sirius finally said after a moment of disbelief while his jaw worked up and down. "Your kids can stay, but I don't want to see you here again unless it's a meeting. I may not be entirely stable, but I am well aware of who my godson is, and who he is not . How dare you say such a thing to my godson." As far as he was concerned, this was the last offense in a long line of offenses.

First she comes in, takes over his house, starts throwing away family heirlooms and artifacts (pieces of Harry's inheritance!), insults him every chance she gets, and then she says something like that to Harry?

She sputtered. "I'm not leavi-"

"GET OUT!" Sirius roared, magic sparking around him, the Family Magic responding to its Lord's temper. The House groaned as the ancient wards came to life around them. "You have ten seconds before I make you leave." He promised darkly, glaring.

She huffed and stared at him, glancing around at her husband and children before sniffing when she found no support there. She glared at Sirius once more before huffing her way out of the room. The Weasley's stared at him, wide-eyed, but nobody said anything yet.

Sirius glanced at Pixy in the corner and jerked his head in a silent order for her to make sure the woman made it out and didn't just go and stay in her and Arthur's room to sulk, thinking that he would forget about it in the morning. Either way, he was sure he could expect a visit from Albus Dumbledore sometime in the next hour.

Once she was gone, he took a few deep breaths and turned to the rest of the Weasley's. "Like I said, I'm not going to make the rest of you leave, or you, Arthur. So long as you respect the fact that this is my house, and you are guests . More then that, you came as uninvited guests. Have a good night. Dung, if you try to leave this house with those goblets still in your pockets, again , I will fix your thieving habit. Permanently." He threatened, not in the mood to get a report from the elves about him tonight.

Mundungus squeaked at the sudden reminder that Sirius was a Black , and several goblets and pieces of silverware quickly found themselves on the table before he ran out. Pixy followed, just to double check that he had not 'forgotten' something in his pockets. Sirius snorted and left the room while everyone else blinked at the silver Mundungus had been trying to steal from their host.

Chapter Text

"Well?" He asked, entering Harry's bedroom. His real bedroom, not the one Molly wanted him to share with Ron.

"Well, the bruising on his face and around his neck is already healing, it's at least a few days old. I would say it's from the same day as the Dementor attack. The bruising on his neck is not deep, thankfully, which means that there was no great damage done to the soft tissue or skeletal structure in his throat. His jaw was not cracked or fractured, either. I've already fixed what damage there was. Now, I've also treated the residual effects of the Dementor exposure, I will include it in my report for that idiot of a Minister." She covered the more immediate concerns before she started going over her deeper scans, which showed some concerning patterns.

The entire time she spoke, Harry sat there, ashamed of what was being said. She was talking about stunted growth due to early childhood malnutrition, broken or badly healed bones, muscle tears and strains, and past head injuries.

Harry could pinpoint exactly what those things would have come from, and he could tell her what each and every bone break had been, including whether it had been from his uncle or cousin. Mostly, though, it had been his cousin.

"And all this is from before he even started Hogwarts." Sirius said blankly, the urge to go to the Dursley's house strong, but he held himself back by reminding himself that he was no good to Harry back in prison or dead.

"Yes..." Poppy said, pursing her lips while scanning through the results again. Somehow she didn't think he would be any calmer after hearing about the scans from after he started Hogwarts. Truthfully, she was angry with herself for missing all this. Not that it was entirely her fault since she was only allowed to treat the injuries she could see, and was not allowed to use the diagnostic spells that went back into the patient's history. It had actually been in her contract, hidden until after she'd carefully read and signed it. Taking a deep breath, she started explaining everything that her scans revealed from the time he started at Hogwarts, some of which she had already healed, and some of which she hadn't even known about, much to her displeasure.

But she wasn't here in her capacity as the Hogwarts Healer. She was here in a private healer capacity. So her Hogwarts contract wasn't going to interfere with her job.

"Harry?" Sirius asked, horrified. "How did half of those injuries even occur?"

Harry was quiet for a moment before he started to talk. "Some of the muscle tears from first year were probably from my first game." He started slowly. "Quirrelmort cursed my broom during the game, I barely managed to stay on." He hadn't even realized that it had been that bad, sure he was sore the next morning, but no more than usual... "Everything else was treated." Surprisingly he'd only ended up in the Hospital Wing once in his first year, and that was the whole thing with the Stone.

"How did you get those injuries?" Remus demanded. "And what do you mean by 'Quirrelmort'? Are you talking about the Defense professor that year?" His name was Quirrell...

Harry glanced at them, surprised. Dumbledore hadn't told them about Voldemort's previous attempts at returning? "Quirrell was possessed by Voldemort that entire year. At my first Quidditch game he tried to curse my broom so that I would fall and probably die." Harry shrugged. "Dumbledore was hiding the Philosophers Stone in the school, at the end of the year Quirrelmort tried to steal it so that Voldemort could use it to get his body back. We went after them to stop them, but the Stone was destroyed afterward. He didn't get it." He tried to assure his godfather and uncle, mistaking the look on their faces.

"You went after Voldemort. Yourselves. When you were eleven. When there were at least five other teachers that you could have gone to for help when you learned that something was going to be stolen." Sirius said, trying to make sense of it.

"Well, yeah. And we went to McGonagall, all she did was assure us that the Stone was perfectly safe and nobody was going to steal it." Harry scoffed. If he hadn't gone after it, Voldemort would have been back years sooner.

"You couldn't have gone to somebody else? Dumbledore, Flitwick, Snape even?!" Sirius exclaimed, starting to pace.

"Well, Dumbledore had already left for the Ministry, and we thought Snape was the one trying to steal it. It was very shocking to see Quirrell standing there at the end of all the traps." Harry admitted. Flitwick hadn't even occurred to them, but his response would have probably been similar to McGonagall's.

"Traps?" Sirius froze and turned to him, very confused.

"Start from the beginning. The moment you first learned about the Stone." Remus instructed, leaning forward in his seat, chin resting on his hands, elbows on his knees. Harry blinked at them, but bit his lip and chose to start with his first visit to Gringotts, when Hagrid retrieved the Stone in the first place.

Needless to say, neither Sirius nor Remus were at all impressed with Harry's first year of school or the way the (so-called) responsible adults handled the situation. Sirius was contemplating whether or not he should move them all to America and send Harry to Ilvermorny for the rest of his schooling, or some other school. Unlike the UK, America actually had more then one school, after all.

"And second year?" Remus asked calmly, although his glowing amber eyes kind of ruined that image.

"The arm is from the game, Dobby the House-elf sent a Bludger after me, and it finally caught up. That idiot Lockhart decided that he was a medical professional and had the capability to fix a broken arm. Well he 'fixed it' alright." Harry growled, honestly still a little annoyed about that.

"That is the only set of bones in your body that is remotely as strong as it should be." Poppy muttered. Even it was showing the signs of nutritional deficiency, though, and he'd only had those arm bones for two years and a bit at this point. "The idiot vanished his bones, even the ones that weren't broken." She informed them crisply, just as annoyed as Harry.

"Right. And then all the students decided I was the Heir of Slytherin because I can speak Parseltongue, and, well..." He shrugged helplessly. "Then we found the Chamber and I fought the Basilisk."

"You're going to have to explain in a little more detail then that, pup." Sirius' voice was strangled as he tried his best to tear the sheets in his hands to pieces.

Harry sighed and started from the beginning again, starting with the visit from Dobby at his relatives house, although he left out what was essentially his imprisonment for that whole mess. Needless to say none of the three adults were very impressed with anything that happened that year, especially Poppy when she learned why she hadn't seen Harry in her lair, er- Hospital Wing after being bitten by a Basilisk. The Headmaster should have sent him to her immediately! Not kept him behind for a talk before sending him along to the feast as if nothing happened!

"Third year, I didn't actually get injured all that much, it was just everything with the Dementors." Harry shrugged, finishing up the recital. "And we all know what happened last year." He said, quieter.

"These scans might go a long way towards proving your honesty about what happened when you were taken from the maze." Poppy said quietly. "I wasn't allowed to do scans at the time, but these clearly show signs of torture, torture that if the Minister is to be believed, the only one capable of inflicting would have been Cedric Diggory. Even if he still refuses to believe it, it will at least cast doubt on the insinuations that you killed the boy." She huffed.

"Wait, what?" Harry burst out, head snapping around. Ron and Hermione hadn't said anything about that!

The other three all grimaced. "They're not coming outright and saying it, but there have been insinuations made that you killed Cedric in cold blood for the honor of winning, and that you came up with the Voldemort delusion to cover it up. It's just another way they're trying to discredit you." Sirius said distastefully. "I already have somebody on it, believe me, but it's slow going because everything being written is with the blessing and permission of the Ministry."

And enough people in the Ministry had deep enough pockets that they could pay anything to go away that they didn't like, or were in position to make paperwork conveniently disappear. Not to mention the Minister himself spearheading this campaign.

"Don't worry, I'm dealing with it as best I can." Sirius assured Harry. "I need copies of those scans for the report Ted is filing in the morning." He told Poppy, who raised an eyebrow and made the necessary copies, two for Sirius (one of them for Ted Tonks, one for his private records and just to have another copy in case the one being filed mysteriously disappeared), one for Harry's file at St. Mungoes, and several to go in various vaults at Gringotts, just in case.

"And here is your treatment plan, and potions regime. I will speak with Severus about brewing them, I might not even tell him right away who they're for." She muttered, scribbling away on a pad of parchment.

"Thank you, Poppy." Sirius said, echoed by Remus, who was struggling to gain control of himself with the news of everything his cub had gone through. With a quick mental command, the House was closed for the night to all visitors, the last thing they needed right now was the Headmaster being mauled by a protective wolf. "Pixy will show you out." The small elf popped into the room and nodded her agreement. Poppy nodded her farewells before following the elf out.

She needed to consult with some colleagues about what she'd been told regarding the Weasley girl. She'd only treated the girl for shock, because that was what she was told was wrong. She wasn't permitted to perform the deep scans that would have revealed a possession or prolonged contact with a dark artifact. Given how much time had passed and what little Harry had been able to tell her about it, she knew she needed to be careful when dealing with this, so she was going to consult somebody before proceeding.

As soon as the door was closed behind her, both Sirius and Remus were on either side of Harry, sandwiching the boy between them. They could not believe everything he had been through over the years, frankly it was a miracle he'd survived this long.

"Er, Sirius? Remus?" Harry squeaked in shock.

"I want you to promise me, pup, that you will keep your head down this year." Sirius pulled away enough to look his godson in the eye. "I couldn't handle it if something happened to you, and to now learn that I almost lost you... you need to be more careful." He shook Harry a bit to try and get his point across, but he made sure not to shake hard. Part of Poppy's report had shown signs of past neck trauma most commonly caused by being shaken back and forth.

"I don't go looking for trouble." Harry grumbled, but promised when Sirius wouldn't let up.

Remus took a deep breath in an effort to calm down further, it didn't work, and suggested the three of them go back downstairs. He wanted to find out just how much Arthur knew about what his youngest son and friends got up to in school.

Arthur sat in shocked silence when the three teens finished telling the adults about what had been happening at that school during the first two years.

When Remus and Sirius marched Harry back downstairs (from what he suspected was a secret part of the house, but what Albus and the others didn't know didn't hurt them), and demanded a house meeting, he'd been confused.

The fact that Remus' eyes were still glowing amber despite his visible attempts at calming himself down did nothing to inspire much confidence that what he was about to hear was going to be good.

And he was right.

The first thing Sirius had done was demand that Harry, Hermione, and Ron tell the group everything about their first year. When Ron had asked what he was talking about, Sirius leaned over him and almost snarled, "The Philosopher's Stone."

The Trio were the only ones that really understood what he meant, to his confusion.

The tale the three of them spun was both incredible and horrific.

And he had known nothing about it. Before anybody could demand answers at the end of their tale, Remus had demanded (with a growl in his voice and eyes still glowing amber) that they continue onto their second year. He'd already known some of this from being in the office after Harry saved Ginny, but somehow none of what Harry had said sank in. Now, though, now he was feeling all the horror that he should have felt that night.

"What?" Bill demanded at the end of their second year. He was looking between Ginny and their father in horror and anger. "This is why she was so quiet that summer? This is what you wouldn't tell us had happened." He demanded to know, already standing up and casting all kinds of diagnostic charms over his sister.

"Why didn't you tell us sooner?" Charlie added, staring at his youngest siblings. He'd arrived just before Sirius locked down the house, wondering why his mother had placed an International Floo call ranting and raving about Sirius. As soon as he'd gotten her to shut up for more then two seconds, he'd had her get out of the fire before he stepped in, determined to make sure nothing was really wrong with his siblings. Of course, the story he got when he actually arrived here was far different than the one his mother told.

Naturally.

"Mom and dad knew." Ginny muttered, shrinking back into herself, pale.

"You knew and you didn't say anything?" Bill turned on his father, furious. The results of the diagnostics were clutched in his hand, fist white. "Are you mad?" He demanded. "Ginny's core is damaged, there is a dark cloud over her mind, and she shows lingering signs of soul trauma! Are you insane for not getting her checked out?!"

"Soul trauma?" Most of the Weasley's all said at once. Arthur was alarmed, why hadn't Poppy said anything?

"Yes, soul trauma." Bill said shortly. "In fact, I'm going to need to get her to the bank right away, they're the only ones that can properly treat her now. If she'd gotten treatment soon after the incident, any Healer at St. Mungoes could have dealt with it quickly and easily, but now it's had time to fester. In fact, Harry you should probably come get checked out, too, since you had contact with the object. You'll probably be asked to provide a memory of it, so that the Head of my Department can study it to determine just what that diary was." He instructed. When nobody moved, he scowled. "Well? You going to sit there or get to the Floo?" He demanded, hauling Ginny to her feet and giving her a small shove to get her moving.

Sirius hauled Harry up and moved him towards the Floo, as well.

"Here." Bill tossed him a small object from the hidden pouch he kept at his waist at all times. "It's a Goblin glamour charm, it will keep people from realizing who's walking around until we get out of the public areas. And no, you can't keep it. You're not even supposed to know I have it." He said with an eyeroll when he saw the way Sirius' eyes lit up at the thought of being able to move around freely.

Not even Moody's eye could see past Goblin charms like this.

Sirius raised an eyebrow at the curse-breaker, but refrained from asking what a curse-breaker would need something like this for.

Throwing Floo powder in the fireplace, Bill called something in Goblin, motioned Sirius through once he was sure the Glamour was active, then motioned for Harry and Ginny to go through. To his complete lack of surprise, his father was next through the Floo after telling Charlie to look after his siblings. Bill only followed once they were all through, the Floo only closing when he was gone.

"I need a Healer and Department Head Grindaxe right now." Bill demanded, holding out his ID to one of the security goblins currently holding the members of his group at spear point, especially Sirius since he was wearing the charm. "They were both in contact with soul magic two years ago and never received treatment." The urgency of that statement got the goblins moving, and the group was quickly shuffled to the bank's hospital wing where they were met with a small team of Healers and curse-breakers. Bill handed over the results of his scans for them to compare with their own, just to see if he missed anything or not, and moved his father and Sirius out of the way.

"Mr. Potter can show you the memory of his encounters with the object in question, from what I was able to tell from his earlier explanations of it, it sounds like his memory of the event is a lot clearer then Ginny's would be." Bill told his supervisor, who grunted and went up to Harry, the Healers taking a respectful step back only long enough for him to take the memory in question before he moved to the side and placed it in a Pensieve brought in by another curse-breaker. Both of them disappeared into it quickly.

One of the Healers finally stepped away from Harry and hurried over to Sirius, drawing him to the side to speak with him privately. Whatever it was she had to tell him was not good, nor was the increase in the frenzied activity around Harry. Bill and Arthur couldn't tell what she was saying, but after a moment Sirius nodded rapidly, spoke quickly, and hurried to his godson's side before they were both hustled out of the room.

Chapter Text

Sirius' thoughts were spinning out of his control.

A soul piece.

There was a soul piece embedded in Harry's scar. Harry was a living pseudo-Horcrux.

All he could do right now was follow the Healers and curse-breakers to the ritual room to get the soul piece out of his pup, only then could they begin fixing any damage caused by it or the diary in Harry's second year. At least the Goblins agreed with Poppy's proposed treatment plan and potions regime.

When they reached the ritual room, he suddenly couldn't handle it anymore. The room started spinning, and he found himself leaning against the wall, unable to breath.

Healer Narg glanced back with a frown when she heard a choked gasp, and cursed when she noticed that the Lord Black appeared to be having a panic attack. "Get me a Calming Draught!" She barked, and her assistant quickly handed it over while she conjured a stool and forced the human to sit so she could force it down his throat. She should have known that it would all get to be too much for the man, after everything he'd been through only to learn something like this. As strong as the Black Lord was, everyone had their breaking points, especially when one was a parent.

And she knew that he was still recovering from his years in Azkaban, although the Potions regime he was on should have him further along in his recovery than he was right now. She shook her head, forcing herself to focus.

"Lord Black, listen to my voice. Breathe for me. Alright, I need you to breathe, let the potion do its work. In, and out. That's it. In, out." She led him in a short breathing exercise until his breathing had steadied before she looked at him critically. "Are you better now?" She asked.

"Yeah, sorry. Why does it always seem to happen to Harry?" He asked her, voice broken with despair, especially after everything he'd heard earlier that night.

She said nothing, not knowing the answer to that. Instead, she nodded for her assistant to stay with him while she tended to his godson, who was by now prepared for the ritual.

Sirius barely noticed when Grinder and Sharpaxe entered the room, having been alerted that their clients were here. "Lord Black?" Sirius started slightly and turned to find his account manager watching him. "Are you alright?" He asked.

"Yeah. Just... Harry shared some things with me earlier this evening, and then we get here and I get told that he has a piece of Voldemort's soul stuck in his head. It... got to me." He admitted, the potion was finally able to work as he started to calm down on his own. He was one of the rare few that actually had to be somewhat calm already or his magic would inhibit a Calming Draught from working as it should, which was quite annoying and why the Healer had to talk him down after giving him the potion. The potion would work to keep him calm from this point on, but it would not produce instant, false calm like it would for a normal person.

"Understandable." Sharpaxe muttered, watching as they started the ritual. "I wish to administer an inheritance test once the ritual is complete and he is back in the hospital area. There are some irregularities with his accounts that keep showing up, despite how many times I fix them. I need him to officially claim his vaults and titles so that I may be more... aggressive with protecting his interests." Sharpaxe informed the man.

"You can't do it otherwise?" Sirius asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I could. But only he may request a full audit on his accounts, and he cannot do that until he claims them. I can only fix problems that crop up and keep the investments flowing as per the last Lord's wishes." With the vaults sitting unclaimed for so long, they were beginning to stagnate, especially since these irregularities kept showing up, despite his best efforts.

An increase in urgency in the middle of the room caught their attention, and Sirius glanced over in worry. He relaxed when he noticed that Harry was alright, but he recoiled when he saw the black cloud that was still coming out of his pups' scar. The scramble from the Goblins was for the ritual to contain the soul piece back inside of something, in this case a small rock prepared for this very purpose.

Finally, everyone in the ritual circle relaxed. Sirius stood, and when nobody moved to stop him, rushed to his pup's side, wanting to see for himself that he was alright.

His heart ached when he saw the tear tracks and realized that he hadn't heard a single sound during the ritual. They'd said that the ritual would be painful because of how long the soul piece had been there, but he hadn't heard a sound from Harry, and yet there were tear tracks. They must have a silencing ward up around the ritual circle.

"You got it out?" He asked, reaching out and carefully carding his fingers through Harry's mop of hair. His scar looked angry-red, but that was to be expected with what just happened.

"Yes. It is completely gone from your Heir. He just needs rest, now. We'll take him back to the Hospital Wing to begin healing the damage from the soul piece. He is very strong, I expect he will make a full recovery." Narg reassured him.

"Ah, he has an appointment tomorrow at... one o'clock?" He questioned, trying to remember what Andromeda had just told him not... he checked the time. Three hours ago?! Narg waited patiently. "Yeah... one o'clock with my lawyer and Madam Bones."

She hummed. "We'll see where he is in the morning. If I am not comfortable letting him leave, then I will permit the meeting to be held here." She promised. Sirius nodded his thanks, then stepped back so they could take his godson back to the Hospital Wing.

"Harry!" Arthur exclaimed, alarmed from where he paced near Ginny's bed. "What happened?" He asked, concerned. Bill watched silently, taking in everything. His sharp eyes caught sight of the angry-red scar on Harry's forehead, and his eyes narrowed.

Sirius sighed and went to stand beside them while the Healers swarmed around Harry again. "He had a soul-piece in his scar. The magical signature is consistent with Voldemort's at the time of his defeat." He said quietly. Which implied that his magical signature might have changed since trying to kill a baby, possibly a consequence of the ritual he used to bring himself back to life a month ago.

"A soul piece?" Bill asked sharply, glancing at his boss, who was observing grimly. He'd had that expression ever since they came out of the Pensieve. He was only still here because he was waiting to question Harry about what he did with the diary after destroying it. The goblin beside him was responsible for ensuring the harvesting and profitable sale of magical creatures that died, such as the dragons and sphinxes used to guard the older family vaults. He probably wanted to speak with Harry about the Basilisk corpse currently sitting under the school.

Grindaxe nodded solemnly. The diary was, indeed, a Horcrux.

"We will use it to track the rest of them." He declared, glancing at Harry. " Healer Narg, when do you expect him to wake? " He asked, frowning. He needed to speak with the young human, quickly.

" He will wake when he wakes, and not a moment before. " She said sharply, daring him to suggest waking the boy just to interrogate him.

He barely hid his flinch at the Healer's sharp tone. "I need to question him, we are dealing with..."

"I am well aware of what we are dealing with!" She snapped. " But I will not wake my patient just so you can question him! Now go, I'm sure you have something else to keep you busy in the meantime." She shooed him off sternly. The other goblin wisely left, making a mental note to come back in the morning.

The Basilisk had sat down there for two years, what was another day or two?

"Well, she will be fine." The Healer seeing to Ginny finally stepped back. "She is in for a long recovery, and if she had sought proper treatment two years ago it would not have been so, but that is not the case." He eyed the girls father sternly.

Arthur winced. "We were assured by the Healer at Hogwarts that she would be fine." He protested weakly.

"Madam Pomfrey is neither experienced in these types of injuries, nor is she even allowed to perform the deep scans necessary to find them." Gorag frowned at the father of seven. "Next time something like this happens, take her to St. Mungoes, or here. We are not restricted in how we can treat our patients by that idiot of a Headmaster." He said bluntly. "Now, going forward, she will need to take these potions, the instructions will be included, and I am recommending a Mind Healer to help her cope with the experience." He wrote out the prescription and the name of the Mind Healer employed by Gringotts.

"I can't pay for any of this." Arthur said quietly, horrified. The last thing he wanted to do was cancel the treatments or not go through with them, but he had no idea where he was going to get the money to pay for them, not without putting the rest of his children out on the streets or pulling them out of Hogwarts because they couldn't pay the tuition.

Gorag pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes at the human, not pleased with the response. Bill motioned to himself and held up a Galleon, indicating that he would take care of that part. "Do not worry about it." Gorag finally told the father.

Arthur's eyes shot to him. "Wha-" He glanced at Bill and caught the glint of gold as his oldest put the coin away. "No, we can't let you-"

"Dad, don't worry about it. I'll take care of it." Bill cut his father off and would not hear of it.

"She will sleep the rest of the night, I will check on her in the morning, but she should be free to go home after breakfast." Gorag assured the humans before he left, trusting the monitoring wards on the wing and the night-shift medi-goblin to take care of his patient during the night.

"Thank you, Healer Gorag." Arthur said, grateful. He inclined his head in acceptance for the gratitude and left, noticing that Narg was still working on the Potter boy.

When the Healer finally left, Sirius spoke up. "What a mess." He muttered, and sat as close as he could to Harry's bed, unable to get any closer and risk the Healer's ire by getting in the way.

"Yeah." Arthur pushed a hand through his disappearing hair and sighed, moving a chair closer to his daughter and sitting in it.

"Dad, they're going to kick us all out soon." Bill glanced at the time. "They don't allow visitors during the night hours." Which was partially so that any visitors could get some sleep themselves, ensuring privacy or that you weren't disruptive was easy with magic, after all. It was also partially a security thing with the bank. The only reason they hadn't already been kicked out was probably because they were still working on Harry.

Arthur's shoulders drooped in resignation, but he didn't bother protesting. He knew better then to try and argue with the Goblins while within their own bank.

"Alright. I've done all I can. The rest will have to be left up to time. Good food, plenty of rest, and these potions." Narg pulled out the list that Sirius had given her earlier that Poppy had prescribed and added some to the list, adjusting a few others to compensate for the further Healing she'd done in the wake of the ritual. "I would also recommend that you take him to an oculist at the earliest opportunity. You may find that much of his poor eyesight will have been caused by the soul-piece sitting on his ocular nerves. At any rate, judging by how he was squinting earlier, even with glasses, I would say a visit is long overdue."

Sirius went to stand by his pup, carding his fingers through Harry's hair again. "But he will be alright?" Sirius asked, worried.

"Yes." Narg said firmly. Then she pursed her lips and ran her hand over Sirius, causing him to flinch back. "You have not been taking your potions as you should, nor keeping to the diet I set for you, and there is a clear lack of sunlight." She said sternly, frowning. He was still taking the potions, and he was much improved from when he'd first come to her, but he wasn't as far in his recovery as he should be. "Have you spoken with the Mind Healer?" She already knew that he had not, since the one she recommended was employed by the bank and she could check with him.

Sirius winced. "No, I haven't. This is the first time I've been able to leave my house all summer." He muttered bitterly.

She frowned and glanced at the other two humans sharply. "What is he talking about?"

Arthur and Bill glanced at each other. They hadn't known that Sirius had even seen a Healer. "His parents' old house... Professor Dumbledore ordered him to stay there, and not leave. He uh- he heavily implied that it wasn't safe and that it would be a shame for the Aurors to find him. My wife has been... almost fanatical about making sure he obeyed the Headmaster's instructions." Arthur explained.

"Your parents house..." She frowned when she couldn't say what street the house was on and scowled in annoyance when she realized why. "The one between numbers eleven and thirteen, here in London?" She asked instead, and ignored Arthur's shocked expression. Sirius nodded. She scoffed. "That house is the exact opposite of what I prescribed for you, which was plenty of sunlight and fresh air, healthy meals, and your potions." Going off what she knew of Walburga Black, she highly doubted that the house was any less than dark and dreary.

"I've had some family elves cleaning it up. Most of the house is fixed and everything." Sirius protested quietly. Although that didn't change the fact that he really didn't want to be there. Bill's eyebrows shot up at the information, but he didn't say anything about it. Arthur nodded, his suspicions confirmed. (His mother had told him stories about the ballroom, and the potions labs, and the gardens of Grimmauld Place, but when he got there, he didn't see any of it. That's when he first suspected that most of the house was closed off to the Order for some reason or other.)

"Hmm. Being in a place that holds nothing but bad memories will still do nothing good for your mental state." Narg said disapprovingly. "And your diet?" She raised an eyebrow.

"I can only eat what's put in front of me. I never mastered the art of cooking and Molly Weasley cooks what she wants, Merlin help you if you try and ask for something else." He rolled his eyes. "I've kicked her out of the house now... Mitts!" He called.

"Master asks for Mitts?" The elf asked, bowing when he saw the company her master was in.

"Healer Narg has a dietary plan for me, and most likely Harry as well. See that it's followed." Sirius instructed with a small smile. Mitts looked up, eyes wide.

"Mitts can cook now? Mitts has her kitchen back?" She asked hopefully. She'd been the main cook of House Black for over fifty years, she'd been quite put out when that red-haired shrieky woman arrived and claimed her kitchen for herself. Sirius had only been able to help so much by calling for tea and having her inspect the food for potions being slipped into it. She'd already stopped several prank potions from the red-haired Twins and compulsions and such by the twinkly-eyed old one.

"Yes, Mitts, the kitchen is yours again." Sirius chuckled at her enthusiasm. Mitts celebrated for a moment before she stood in front of Narg expectantly, determined to take good care of her master and the little master.

When Mitts was gone, Arthur groaned. "I didn't even realize until you said something tonight that Molly had, indeed, taken over your house. And even then I don't think I realized just how much it put you out." He shook his head, disappointed with himself. "I will try and talk to her." He promised. Not that he could promise much. Molly was stubborn and bull-headed.

Sirius shrugged.

Narg hummed. "You have an appointment in two days at ten in the morning with the Mind Healer I suggested. I gave you a chance to make the appointments yourself, you failed. Now I'm doing it." She told him dryly and ignored Sirius' protests about how it wasn't his fault. She noted everything down and looked up. "I will give you five more minutes, and then you need to leave for the night. You can come back at eight in the morning, not a second sooner." She glared at the two fathers, just to make her point, and left to file everything and make sure the memo was sent out to the Mind Healer.

"I didn't know you sought healing." Arthur commented, frowning. He hadn't even considered before now that staying locked up in that house might be hurting Sirius, especially after those years in Azkaban.

Sirius shrugged. "When I made the offer for Harry to come live with me at the end of his third year, I wasn't really thinking. I was in no shape back then to take care of him, mentally or physically. I'm a lot better now, though. Narg says that she would sign off on me taking official custody, even!" He flashed a quick grin. "But Harry wouldn't have been safe with me back then, not with the shape I was in. Do y'know, I had a nightmare while I was hiding out last year? I woke up and the cave was on fire. I'd grabbed my wand in my sleep and cast the first spell that came to mind in my panic. Thank Merlin it was regular fire and not Fiendfyre." He snorted bitterly.

"Is that when you sought out healing?" Bill asked.

"That's when I realized I wasn't safe for Harry to be around, it was Remus that got me into Gringotts to see Narg." Sirius sighed and kept carding his fingers through his godson's hair. That was a few months before the third task.

They spent a few more minutes with Harry and Ginny before Narg returned to kick them out for the night, even going so far as to give Sirius a port-key straight to the bank so that he could make his appointments on time and return the following morning for his godson.

"Come on." Bill steered both father's out of the bank and into the Alley and towards one of the side-alleys.

"Bill?" Arthur asked his son, curious about where they were going and really wanting to return to Grimmauld to check on his other children and reassure them that their sister would be alright, and then to go speak with Molly about her behavior as a guest in another person's house. (Forget about it being House Black!)

Bill didn't say anything, just continued leading his father and (cousin?) friend through the alley. Finally, he stopped outside a store that, for some reason, was still open even though everywhere else was closed. Opening the door, he called out, "Hey, Tony!"

"William Weasley!" A tall, blonde haired man about Bill's age came out from the back room to see who had entered. "It's been a while, last I heard you were in Egypt? What are you doing back home?"

"Family stuff." Bill shrugged. "Listen, do you have any of what I wrote about last week?" He asked, glancing at his father.

"Ah. As a matter of fact, I had just received a new order of the materials when I got that letter, and I finished preparing them today." Bill's friend grinned. Normally he would wait until a customer wanted them to do that, but he knew that Bill's letter of inquiry might as well have been an owl-order and that either Bill or somebody on his behalf would be in soon enough.

"Excellent." Bill grinned back.

"Come on back, I'll show you. I think you'll be pleased."

"Bill, what kind of store is this?" Arthur asked his son, looking around warily. There was merchandise out, but nothing that would let him pinpoint just what was sold here, it seemed to be a rather eclectic mix of things.

"Tony here specializes in protective amulets, and, well... anything to do with Runes, really. He would have had his Mastery years ago, but cannot find anybody to sponsor him within Britain and he cannot afford to Apprentice himself to somebody to gain their sponsorship." Bill clapped his friend on the back.

"Another question, why are we here?" Sirius asked, confused.

"Because I thought tonight was as good a time as any to stop by." Bill shrugged and followed his friend to the back room. "Oh, and I talked to my boss yesterday. You should expect an owl from Gringotts in the next several days."

Tony whipped around to stare at him. "He- you- a possible contract with Gringotts..." He breathed. He'd mentioned it in a letter to Bill a long time ago, he hadn't expected Bill to even remember or actually follow through. Bill hadn't even mentioned it since then. The Goblins would not work with any less than the best, and he knew that any contract he got from Gringotts would include a sponsorship for a Mastery. That was why he'd mentioned it in passing while complaining about not being able to find anybody willing, and the Guild wouldn't even look at you if an existing Master wasn't willing to vouch for you.

Bill quirked a grin and went back to studying the amulet in his hands. "As good as always." He huffed out a laugh.

Tony drew back, feigning insult. "Of course it is!" He kept up the scowl for a moment before laughing himself. "How many were you needing?" He'd been supplying Bill's expedition team off and on for years, usually the stuff that the Goblins didn't supply their employees, but that didn't answer why Bill was here now, not if he was home for a while.

Bill hummed. "Make it fifteen." He said after a moment's thought. That made one for each of his siblings and his parents, plus one for Harry, Hermione, and Sirius and a few extras.

"You got it." Tony said, and gathered fourteen of the amulets, took the one Bill was holding, and boxed it up. Bill was surprised when his coin purse was plucked out of his hands, handed off to his father, and then Sirius stood in front of him to pick the right amount of coins out of his own coin purse.

"Er, Sirius?" He asked, blinking in surprise. After a moment, his eyes widened and shot to Tony, who other then a slight widening of his eyes, didn't react to the name of Britain's current Most Wanted Wizard.

Sirius just raised an eyebrow at him, but didn't say anything as he settled the bill for the amulets. "Let's get back before I don't have a house to return to." He muttered.

"Charlie will keep them from going too far." Arthur sighed, although he wasn't really in the mood for lingering anymore than Sirius was. He just wanted to get back to reassure the rest of his children that their sister would be alright, and then go and deal with his wife. She was going to be a nightmare when he told her about Ginny.

"Harry asked me tonight what we were doing against Voldemort." Sirius said suddenly as they left the store, absently casting privacy charms around them as they went. "He wasn't impressed that we weren't even trying to take the fight to them, that we were just letting them build up their forces. Instead, he suggested that we find out how he survived that night, how he was able to survive as a wraith and eventually come back. If he did it once, what was stopping him from doing it again." Sirius snorted and shook his head. "I guess now we know." He murmured softly.

Horcruxes, of all things.

"Yeah. What do we tell the others? Albus?" Bill asked, sighed tiredly.

"... Nothing. We tell him nothing yet. I don't like the way he swept everything about the Chamber under the rug and didn't even seek help for Ginny. And Harry gave him that diary, he had to have studied it, perhaps even discovered what it was. He's said and done nothing about it in the two years since then." Arthur decided. "See how he feels about being in the dark for once."

So Arthur was feeling a little betrayed by the fact that Albus had done nothing to help his little girl. He was angrier with himself for taking the man's word for it, however.

"Tell Molly that Bill took Ginny to the Goblins for treatment after finally learning about her first year. Don't tell her about the Horcruxes." Sirius shrugged, knowing that Molly would probably blow her stack, but at least she wouldn't alert Dumbledore that they'd learned about the Horcruxes.

"Fun." Arthur said dryly, moments before they Apparated back to Sirius' family home.

Chapter Text

Albus glared at the house in front of him.

This should not be possible. He had woven his own wards so closely into the existing wards that he should never be locked out, not to mention he had no idea why he would be locked out. He was the leader of the Order after all, what kind of leader got locked out of their own Headquarters?

When Molly had burst into his Floo, yelling something about disrespectful men and getting kicked out, he'd been confused for a little while until he was able to piece together what she was ranting about. Naturally her entire rant painted Sirius Black as the only one who was in the wrong here, but knowing Molly Weasley, he was fairly certain that at least some of the blame for the situation could be laid at her own feet. He was not, however, able to get what was said out of her.

So he assured her that he would handle it, sent her home, and tried to Floo to Headquarters.

Only instead of Flooing into the kitchen, where he should have ended up, he was bounced out of the Floo and into some ladies bathhouse! He'd never been more mortified, or sore once the crowd of naked women made their displeasure at his sudden intrusion known. Once he was finally free of that, he'd Apparated to the square outside the house, not wanting to risk ending up anywhere else humiliating like that.

But he still couldn't get in! He'd been burned, shocked, and almost stabbed by the door when he tried to open it. The more he tried, the worse the house tried to injure him. Then he switched to spells. Every spell he sent at the house to force his way inside was sent back at him, even more powerful then when he first cast it.

He didn't understand!

"Albus?" He heard behind him.

Spinning around, he plastered a benign smile on his face when he saw Arthur and Bill there with some stranger. "Ah, Arthur. Yes, there you are. So sorry, but I seem to have gotten locked out." He said simply, glancing at the stranger.

Said stranger raised an eyebrow. "That would be because I locked down the wards." The stranger said.

"Locked down- Sirius?" He questioned, blinking in surprise. Who else, after all, could lock down the wards of the Black house? "What are you doing outside, dear boy? You know it's not safe for you." He chided.

"If even you couldn't see through this glamour, then I think I'm safe." Sirius said dryly.

"Even so, my boy, we should get you back inside." Albus tried to steer Sirius back towards the house, thinking that he could slip in behind him now, and then rework the wards from the inside. Clearly there was some aspect of the Black House that he hadn't really considered for his wards to not be working. He would have to figure it out.

Instead, Sirius stepped away, looking Albus up and down. "Having problems, Albus?" He asked pointedly.

Indeed, Albus' robes were burned, his hair was still sticking up with electricity, he had several deep gashes on his arms and one on his temple, and he had a forming black eye. The burnt areas of his robe were still wet from where he'd put the burning material out.

"Ah, the house appears to have closed itself to me for some reason. I'm sure it's just a misunderstanding of some kind, how about we finish this discussion inside?" He twinkled his eyes and tried to usher them into the house. None of them moved.

Sirius' eyes narrowed at how Albus called it the house.

Not your house.

The house.

To him, coupled with the way the Order had been treating his house for the last few weeks, as though it was theirs to do with as they pleased, the distinction was very telling. He ignored it for now, though. "I think I can guess what this is about." He said instead. "Molly came to you, didn't she? Truthfully I'm surprised she waited so long." He snorted while Arthur winced.

"I have yet to apologize for her remarks. I am truly-" He started to say.

"Don't worry about it, I doubt she listens to you any better than she listens to anybody else." Sirius muttered. Arthur snorted, but didn't say anything.

"Molly was... concerned with your behavior, yes." Albus said carefully.

Bill snorted. "Concerned. How loud was her 'concern' and how much blame did she try to pin on Sirius?" He muttered.

"I think I can guess what she said." Sirius said dryly. "I had every right to kick her out of my house, especially with how she has been treating me and after what she said to my godson." He spat, and started towards his door. "And I wouldn't come in right now." He shot at Albus when the old man started following him, almost on his heels. "Not unless you want to be werewolf food."

Albus drew up short, blinking. "I'm sorry?" He asked, sure he'd heard wrong.

"Harry mentioned some things that happened over the years at school. Remus isn't happy. So I'd stay out for- oh, the next few weeks, just to be safe." He said while Arthur and Bill went inside. Then he stepped in himself, snapping the door in Albus' face.

Albus Dumbledore stood there, blinking in shock. Wha-

"Sir?" He startled and turned around, eyeing the two Muggle men standing behind him, wearing some kind of uniform. Their car was sitting a few blocks away, where they'd parked it before walking to join him. They were both eyeing him warily. "I'm going to have to ask you what your business here is?" The one who'd gotten his attention spoke.

Finally, their uniforms clicked in Albus' mind. Muggle Aurors.

"I was simply waiting for a friend. He told me which house was his, but I'm afraid I've quite forgotten the number." He smiled disarmingly, fingering his wand within his sleeve.

"Sir, please keep your hands visible." The other officer requested politely, hand on the stick at his side. Albus released his wand handle and did as requested, knowing that his wand was close enough that he could get off a 'wandless' spell or two should he need to, and not wanting to create an incident right outside Headquarters. "Your presence is making the other residents nervous. We're going to have to ask you to please move along." He continued.

The call had come in from at least three residents on this street about a crazy-looking homeless man who kept waving a stick at the houses and somehow shooting streaks of light at numbers eleven and thirteen. They were scared to take their children outside with him around, worried that he might attack. The residents of eleven and thirteen had called, too, about the crazy old guy hanging out outside their homes. Every time he waved his stick, their houses would shake for some reason. The people on this street were used to strange things happening around numbers eleven and thirteen, but this was a little more than they were used to. Especially after how quiet it had actually been for the last several years.

"Ah. Yes, well, I will just have to get with my friend some other time, then. Good day." Albus decided to just cut his losses tonight and send an owl when he got back to his office. He would return tomorrow, hopefully Sirius would have seen sense by then. Since he couldn't just Apparate from right here, and the officers were watching him, he decided to walk down the street a ways and duck into an alleyway.

Inside Number Twelve, Sirius pursed his lips and turned away from the window after Albus left. He was going to have to do something nice for his neighbors, it seemed. They may not know what was really going on, but they had potentially just saved his wards from being attacked again.

"I can't believe- actually, I can." Arthur muttered to his eldest son as they went inside the house. Bill nodded in agreement as they entered the sitting room they'd had the house meeting in. "Where is everyone?" He muttered, checking his watch.

"At this time of night, hopefully in bed." Bill offered tiredly.

"You really think any of your siblings would let themselves be chivied off to bed without hearing how their little sister is doing?" Arthur asked his son dryly.

"... Yeah I don't know why I suggested it." Bill huffed a laugh, remembering all the late nights the few times one of them was sick or injured badly enough to require going to the hospital. All the times he'd tried to send his younger siblings to bed at the time his mother usually sent them off and ultimately failed to get them to even leave the living room. After the first two times he stopped even trying and instead would make hot chocolate for them.

"Charlie?" Arthur called, moving further into the house. They were far enough away from the portrait to not worry about it. "Fred? George?" He called, worried.

Finally, he heard footsteps coming from the stairs. "Dad?" Charlie peered around the corner, wand out and ready. "What did you say when I graduated?" He asked abruptly before Arthur could say anything else.

Arthur blinked, shocked. Then he remembered the state of Albus when they walked up and realized what was going on. He mentally cursed Albus Dumbledore. Of course those in the house would feel it when the wards came under attack. Of course that would scare them, or at least put them on edge. "I told you to follow your dreams, no matter how far they take you. And to let me handle your mother." He said softly.

Charlie relaxed. "It's safe!" He called up the stairs. "Sorry about that." He said, shoving a hand through his hair as the sound of footsteps started stampeding above them. "The entire house started shaking almost as soon as you guys left. A house-elf popped in and said that the wards were under attack and directed us all upstairs. We didn't know what was going on, I thought we'd been found by Death Eaters or something."

"Upstairs? Not to the Floo?" Bill asked, surprised.

Charlie shrugged when the rest of the house's inhabitants finally came downstairs. "Little guy seemed to think that the wards would hold, but felt we would be safer upstairs just in case they did get in. I suppose that if they did, we wouldn't have been right here for them to curse."

"Well, it wasn't Death Eaters. It was the Headmaster." Arthur informed everyone.

"What?"

"Why would he attack the house?"

"Why would he-"

"Whoa!" Sirius came in, holding up his hand. "I locked down the house so that nobody could get in after Harry told us about his Hogwarts years. I guess Molly finally got around to telling Albus about being kicked out, and he didn't take being locked out kindly. He's just been run off by the police, seems some of my neighbors called in to complain about him being out there."

"Why lock it down?" Hermione asked, confused.

Sirius smirked slightly. "Because I knew he'd be coming at some point tonight and didn't want him turning into a werewolf snack." He glanced at Moony, who'd finally started calming down slightly. Remus shrugged, oddly unrepentant.

"How did you know he would be coming?" Hermione asked, confused.

Nearly everyone snorted. "Because the first thing Molly would have done was go running to him to tattle." Remus rolled his eyes.

There was silence for a few minutes. "What about Ginny and Harry?" Fred finally asked, concerned for his younger brother and sister.

"They will be alright. Ginny will need a Mind Healer after what happened to her, but the physical and magical damage is being treated." Arthur assured his sons and Hermione.

"Harry will be alright, too. There was a... leech of sorts on his magic, along with binds and stuff. And I am fairly certain they will assign him a Mind Healer as well. There was some lingering damage from the past years that they will fix, too." Sirius sighed. He didn't mention everything Poppy had already treated and prescribed further treatment for.

The Goblins were just going ahead and starting it while he was there. And they hadn't said anything about assigning Harry to a Mind Healer, but if Sirius knew anything about Narg, that was in the future for his godson.

"You lot stay here, I'm going to go tell your mother." Arthur sighed, looking at his sons.

"Alright, dad." Fred said in an instant.

"Good luck." George added.

Arthur snorted and said good-night to his boys before going to the Floo.

"Alright, everybody to bed." Bill ordered his siblings with a pointed look at his watch. Hermione took one look at the pointed look on Remus' face before she turned and dragged Ron upstairs. Charlie dragged Fred and George upstairs, too. Charlie wasn't staying, though. He was going to see if he could sleep over at Bill's apartment.

There was no way he was going back to the Reserve tonight. He might call his boss and request a few days, even. He was entitled to it with everything going on with his sister right now.

"You coming up?" Remus asked his best friend, standing at the bottom of the staircase, looking at Sirius.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm coming." Sirius sighed, and followed him up, they retreated to their bedrooms quickly, needing the time alone to think. They trusted Bill and Charlie to make sure everyone got to bed and stayed there, even the Twins.

Chapter Text

"Molly?" Arthur called, softly, walking into the kitchen, where he knew she was since the lights were on. Instead of Flooing straight into the Burrow, he'd decided at the last minute to Floo into the Leaky Cauldron instead, and Apparate to the front gate of his property. That way he could have more time to think.

"Arthur! There you are!" Molly rushed into his arms, almost frantically checking that he was alright. "Where are the boys? Where is Ginny?" She questioned desperately, looking around and glancing at the clock. After Albus had failed to return, she'd been driving herself into a frenzy convincing herself of all kinds of things about Sirius and what he might be doing to her family since throwing her out of the house.

"They're fine, Bill and Charlie should have gotten the boys to bed by now. Ginny is in the Gringotts Infirmary." He revealed, deciding to get this out of the way first since she'd asked about the children. She wouldn't listen to anything else until she knew where her babies were.

"What? Why is Ginny in...? Why aren't you still there?" She burst out, bustling around to gather her bag and shawl.

"They're not going to let you in. They are very strict about their visitation hours." Arthur stopped her.

"We aren't going to leave her there alone!" Molly yelled at him, glaring.

"She's not alone. She is in the care of some of the best Healers in the world." Arthur shot back. "And Harry's with her as well. She'll be just fine, we can go see her in the morning, at eight and not a second before."

"Harry? Why is Harry there?" Molly's thoughts of getting to her daughter were derailed by this new information. "I knew that man would be bad for that boy! Not alone with him for even a few hours and he'd already put him in the hospital!" She exclaimed, feeling even more vindicated now.

"Enough! Sirius had nothing to do with it!" Arthur quickly disabused her of that notion, even though he knew that she was in no mood to listen right now. "Bill did a scan and found an issue that should have been dealt with fourteen years ago, that is all. And Ginny is there for the possession that occurred in her first year, that we never sought treatment for." He glared at nothing at that reminder.

"Wha- but she was fine. The Headmaster said she was fine, and Poppy never said otherwise." Molly dismissed the claim.

"Albus Dumbledore is not a Healer. And for some reason he doesn't allow Madam Pomfrey to run the deep scans needed for this kind of damage." Arthur scowled. "She had soul trauma, Molly! Her magical core was cracking!"

That brought her up short. "What?" She asked, shaken.

"That's right. The Goblin Healer said that if she'd reached her majority with that kind of damage, she could have ruptured her core and, if she was lucky , she would have lived as a Squib. As it is, it's been so long since the damage was done, that they said it was almost irreversible." He glared at the wall at the reminder. "They can fix it, but it will be a long, hard process because the damage is so old." The ruptures had 'healed' over and 'scarred', they'd had to 'reopen' them so they could heal it properly. It was a much longer, more painful process then if the damage had been healed on the spot when it first happened.

"All the more reason for me to be there." Molly bustled around again, getting her things.

"Molly, they are not going to let you in!" Arthur reiterated. "If you try and force your way in, all you will do is make the goblins angry with us."

"They will not keep a mother away from her child." Molly dismissed and left, leaving Arthur behind to sigh, resigned to the conversation he was probably going to have with the Goblins the next day.

"Ted." Sirius greeted his cousin's husband tiredly. He hadn't gotten much sleep the night before, not with Harry in the Gringotts Hospital Wing instead of in his room down the hall where he belonged. When his godson was finally brought to his home, he'd been excited and thrilled that Harry was finally where he belonged. Only for Harry to be chivvied to Gringotts by the sole Curse-Breaker in the Order, put through a ritual, and kept overnight for observation and so they could begin the treatments Poppy prescribed.

And everything Harry had revealed about his years at Hogwarts...!

The idea of pulling Harry out of Hogwarts and sending him to Ilvermorny instead was sounding better and better after every hour.

And he wondered about the irregularities Sharpaxe told him about.

"Sirius. You look awful." Ted Tonks informed his wife's favorite cousin, concerned.

Sirius sighed. "I didn't get much sleep." He admitted, and explained the situation.

"I see." Ted said slowly. "I'll get these filed, then, and let me know where the meeting will end up being." He said. "Sirius, we'll get him taken care of. You have my word." He assured the worried ex-convict.

"I know." Sirius smiled sharply. As if he would allow for any less.

Chapter Text

"So?" Amelia asked Ted when he entered her office for their scheduled meeting. She'd already received the reports and paperwork from him for this case, as well as Kingsley's report of what he saw when he picked Harry Potter up from his relatives the day before. This was supposed to be the meeting to collect the memories of the events in question. But Harry Potter was not with Ted.

As it was, both Madam Pomfrey's Healer report, and the Gringotts Healers report stated that Harry had been exposed to Dementors on the night he was accused of breaking the Statute of Secrecy, so she'd already dropped those charges seeing as his use of the Patronus was clearly justified and she'd assigned somebody to figuring out what a Dementor was doing in Little Whinging when they were all supposed to be at Azkaban.

Unfortunately, it had been long enough that the Dementor in question would have already long since returned, otherwise they could just do a count of them.

She had somebody else looking into his living situation at the Muggles while she handled the long list of injuries at Hogwarts itself. Including just where and when he would have come into contact with a Basilisk. Unfortunately she already knew where the Acromantula venom came from, one had been used in the Maze during the Third Task, although how they managed to get hold of one of those creatures was a question she would very much like answered, there had been no such request or paperwork to bring one into the country (like there had been for the dragons and the sphinx), which meant that somebody knew where a colony was. There was no record of such a colony within the British Ministry of Magic's purview.

But that was going to have to wait until later.

"We are going to have to move our meeting to Gringotts. The Healers aren't letting Harry out just yet, but he is awake and talking, so they're allowing this." Ted sighed.

Amelia and the Unspeakable glanced at each other. "Very well. Let's go." Amelia stood up and moved to her door. She did have other things to do that day, Ted had been lucky to be able to get a meeting with her at all within the next few weeks, especially on such short notice.

Upon arrival at Gringotts, they were quickly escorted to the Hospital area of the bank, somewhere that not even the Unspeakable with them had ever been. Amelia blinked at the sight of Ginny Weasley in a bed next to Harry, her father sitting beside her and talking to her quietly. Honestly, though, the sight of those two being here wasn't as shocking as the fact that Molly wasn't with them, kicking up a fuss.

Another surprise was the large black dog laying over Harry Potter's legs. It seemed somewhat familiar... She shook it off and stood silently while Ted introduced himself to his client, appearing oddly reluctant to say something... She frowned at him, but decided to get it out of the man later. She was on a tight schedule today, after all. And if Mr. Potter and Ted were just meeting today for the first time, then who exactly hired the lawyer on the boys behalf...? She shook it off for later and chose instead to study the boy in front of him. He seemed oddly... small, sitting on the hospital bed.

"Mr. Potter, I am Madam Amelia Bones, the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. This is Unspeakable Rouse." She introduced herself and her companion. When she glanced at the Unspeakable, though, he wasn't paying any attention to her or the boy on the bed.

He was staring at the dog. "Oh, that's how that happened!" He suddenly laughed. "We had wondered. The wards were not tripped, the cell was not opened, and the guards did not see anyone come or go... now the question is- why ?"

"What are you talking about?" Amelia asked him, absently noting how Harry, the dog, and Ted all stiffened when the Unspeakable started talking. Even Arthur and his daughter were looking at her warily. She glanced at the dog suspiciously.

Rouse ignored her. "Clearly it was not to harm him as was thought, not if you are both here, you are clearly protective of the boy. But then why did you escape? What prompted it now after all this time?" He mused to himself.

"Escape?" Amelia echoed. Then she looked at the dog again. The only escape she could think of that he could possibly be talking about was... No .

Staring at the dog, her wand was slowly removed from her holster, making the dog whine and try to hide under Harry's blankets.

Harry reached out and laid a comforting hand on his godfather's head, eyeing the Auror warily.

Ted cleared his throat. "That will be covered later on." He said, edging in between her and the fugitive. Arthur and Ginny were tense on the other bed.

"There will be no arresting anybody in my Infirmary." A Healer came over and looked at Amelia sternly. "Least of all one of my patients. Now, don't you have an interview to conduct?" Narg reminded Amelia pointedly.

Amelia eyed the group, and decided to trust the lawyer that he would explain. She also didn't want to cause an incident with the Goblins. "Very well. I have the reports of the Dementor exposure from the night in question, and I pulled reports from Azkaban. Two Dementors did leave the prison seemingly without authorization. I am digging to find out who ordered that. I also have the lack of reports of any visit being done on the night in question to make sure that no Muggles saw the Patronus, and the lack of any reports of the Muggle who did see being Obliviated. I just need your statement and the memories of that night."

"Well, the Muggle who saw it was my cousin. He already knows about magic, I live with him and his parents." Harry frowned.

"That's the breaking of the Statute charge I can dismiss." Amelia muttered, and struck it from her list. That was the big charge that was really giving Potter trouble right now. The underage magic was just a fine. Breaking the Statute, if severe enough, was prison time along with being expelled from school. Since he didn't have his OWLs yet, that would mean permanent expulsion from their community.

That also partly explained why the Obliviators weren't sent out. They still should have been sent to canvas the area, though.

"He also had a Dementor in front of him, trying to Kiss him, so I'm not sure how much he even saw. If he hadn't covered his mouth when I said to..." Harry shuddered. Did he like his cousin? No. Did he want something like that to happen to him? No. Would he be happy if he never saw his cousin, aunt, or uncle ever again? Oh yes.

Amelia and the Unspeakable stared at him in shock. "I think you need to start at the beginning of that night." Amelia said slowly, carefully, and set up her dictation quill before looking at Potter expectantly.

After glancing at Ted, who nodded his agreement, Harry began telling them all about that night. When he was done, Amelia only had one more question. "Where did you learn the Patronus at your age? And you say it was fully Corporeal?"

"Er- I learned it in my third year, I had a bad reaction to the Dementors around the school. And what's Corporeal mean?" He asked, confused.

"It has a clearly defined shape." She supplied simply.

"Oh, yeah, it's a stag. Always has been." Harry shrugged.

"Amazing." She murmured, then glanced at Narg. "I don't suppose he could demonstrate for us?" She asked the Healer.

Narg waved a hand over Harry and frowned. "He may." And stepped back while Harry grabbed his wand from the side table. He frowned at it, though, when he first picked it up. It felt... off.

Narg caught his look. "We released a great deal of your magic when we removed those binds. Perhaps a visit to your wandmaker when I release you from my care. It should be fine to demonstrate one spell until then." She suggested.

Harry kept frowning, but he waved it, anyway, and whispered, " Expecto Patronum." Prongs burst out of the wand, somehow brighter and larger than ever. Padfoot looked up and barked happily at the appearance of his best friend's Animagus. Prongs pranced around the room a little bit before standing protectively over Harry and Padfoot, nuzzling their heads before disappearing.

"Amazing." Unspeakable Rouse muttered to himself, having watched all of it avidly. He had to restrain himself from trying to get the young Boy-Who-Lived into the Department to do some tests on his magic. Not only would the general public not go for that, but it was the number one rule; No human testing.

"Indeed." Amelia murmured. "The only thing I need from you, then, is the memory of that night." She said, glancing over her notes of the interview.

"How?" Harry asked, curiously. While this had been mentioned to him before, and he had fallen into that memory during the last school year, it had never really been explained just how it was done.

"Just think of the memory in question, and I will do the rest." Amelia said assuringly. "It's a simple spell, it just requires your mental focus."

Harry nodded his understanding slowly. "Can I give you other memories, or just the Dementor attack?" He asked, eyes flicking towards his dogfather.

She followed his gaze and raised an eyebrow. "Other memories will be fine." She said slowly, wondering just what she was going to see.

Unspeakable Rouse stepped forward to take the memories, labeling them with the date the events in them occurred on (or approximate if the exact date could not be remembered), the location, and who they belonged to as well as the date they were taken and by whom. Amelia looked at the dates in question, and wondered which of them was her explanation for why the most notorious mass-murderer was laying across the boy's legs, the very boy he was said to be after! The very boy he was supposed to have been responsible for orphaning!

"Mr. Black, I don't suppose you would have some memories for us?" She asked on a hunch, slightly sarcastically.

Padfoot whined before nodding slowly and looking at Ted. "I must have your word that you will not arrest my client." Ted said, frowning.

"If I were going to arrest him, I would have done it by now." Amelia snapped, annoyed with him for thinking so little of her.

Ted had to admit she had a point there, and nodded at Sirius that it was alright. Narg looked at him critically when he turned human again, but didn't say anything, having already given him another look over when he first arrived.

Amelia raised an eyebrow. "You look good for a fugitive." She commented. Sirius didn't say anything, merely signaled to the Unspeakable that he was ready for the memories to be taken.

"He would look better if he hadn't been stopped from completing his Potion regimen and from following my diet plan." Narg grumbled off to the side, still sore about that. She made a mental note to pay that Weasley woman a visit later and make sure she was made aware of her follies.

"I need the memories of the night Peter Pettigrew was killed, as well as a memory of your trial, seeing as how the paperwork seems to have vanished." She finished dryly, knowing full well that there was none. But the Ministries official stance when she brought it up at the time of his escape was that it was a chaotic time, the paperwork must have gotten lost. The problem was, Sirius Black's file wasn't the only one missing vital paperwork, including trial transcripts and case notes from the time of arrest and following investigation.

"There was no trial." Sirius informed her blandly. "And I never killed Pettigrew, he's still alive."

She blinked. "Getting back to Pettigrew being alive later, the official stance is that your trial transcripts were among those that were 'accidentally misplaced' in the chaos of the war's aftermath. I cannot do anything about their nonexistence without hard evidence that there was no trial at all. Upon proving that, you would be eligible for some... compensation." She grimaced at informing him of this, but without that trial, he was technically a free man. Legally the Ministry could not touch him. Unfortunately they all knew how much the Ministry cared about legalities when it came to saving face.

Sirius Black's escape made them lose face big time .

But having the hard evidence that Sirius Black never got his trial could open the other cases and enable her to finally get them looked at again before ensuring those people, if they were still alive, finally got their day in court. She just had to word it right in the Wizengamot.

"Which memories did you give her, pup?" Sirius asked Harry quietly, sitting back on the bed beside him.

"End of first year, everything in the Shack and afterward, our talk before Yule in fourth year, the graveyard, and last week." Harry listed off.

Sirius nodded and turned back to her. "I'm willing to swear under oath or Veritaserum that I never had a trial, and that I never killed anybody, nor did I betray the Potter's location to Voldemort." He said boldly.

Amelia looked at him, shocked. Even if a person was being entirely honest and had absolutely nothing to hide, that was still a huge risk. But also a very large statement. She nodded slowly. "I will send you a message when I get everything set up." She promised. "I hope you feel better soon, Mr. Potter." She said, not knowing exactly why he was here, but knowing that he looked like he was recently run over by a Hippogriff.

"Thank you, ma'am." Harry said quietly.

She nodded. "I will see you when I set things up." She promised again, and left, followed by the Unspeakable.

When she returned to her office, the first thing she did was send a memo canceling all proceedings that had to do with the Underage Magic charges the Minister had so gleefully laid on Harry Potter, and then she personally went to the underage magic office to rake them over the coals before burying them in the pit for not following through with an investigation before charging somebody. Then she went to the Obliviators office and yelled at them for not investigating if they were needed after such a large and obvious burst of magic in a Muggle area. Then she went to the ones that wrote up such an incomplete report of the incident in question, leaving out quite a bit of important information.

After that, she paid a visit to the Minister's office after he tried to go around her and reinstate the hearing date and reverse the charges dismissal.

The second thing she did was pull Sirius Black's files again and push through a trial date for the fugitive based on new evidence that he truly did not receive one. And if she pulled all the files that were missing trial transcripts and other important information to have them ready... well.

It was a very good, if not headache inducing, day. Thankfully everybody that she had to cancel meetings with were too afraid of her bad mood to protest too much for being canceled.

Chapter Text

"Arthur! Finally!" Molly said in relief. Her voice was sore from her constant demands to be released and to see her daughter, the Goblins guarding this area of the bank had ignored her, however. To say she was annoyed with her husband for having left her here was an understatement.

"Molly." Arthur sighed. "I told you they wouldn't let you in to see her. It's bank policy that all wizards be out by a certain time. We were already allowed to stay longer then we should have because of the late hour Harry and Ginny were brought in and because they needed to discuss treatments with me, as well as the paperwork I needed to fill out." He said, exasperated. As soon as Ginny and Harry had been settled and the Healers had everything they needed from him and Sirius, they'd only been allowed five minutes before being kicked out.

"I am her mother! They can't-"

"Gringotts Bank is sovereign territory. If they want to keep somebody out, they are well within their rights. Not only that, but you know full well that Gringotts banks are the most secure buildings in the world! There is nowhere safer that Ginny could have been. And it's not like she was alone, Harry was there, as well." Arthur cut across her. "I don't know what has gotten into you lately, but you need to calm down and stop smothering our children. I was going to make arrangements for your release, but now I think staying here will give you the time you need to think." He ignored her shrieks and walked away, stopping by the guards station on his way out.

"Well?" The guard asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Is there any way you can send a Mind Healer in there? I'm afraid she's regressing a little with everything that's going on, I haven't seen her like this since just after her brothers were killed." Arthur requested. He didn't know how he would pay for it, but he knew that she would need a professional this time. He'd barely been able to help her before, it was really only the end of the war and the fact that her babies were still so young and therefore she could actually keep them at home and smother them without being obvious.

Now her babies were grown up, three of them didn't even live with her anymore, and the youngest two had already been in their share of danger.

The guard looked at him before glancing towards the cell in question. Judging by the silence, he guessed that one of the others had finally had enough and Silenced the cell. "I will call for one." He said, and pressed a rune on his desk.

"Thank you." Arthur bowed slightly and allowed himself to be led out of the area, back to where his daughter was being checked over one last time before being officially discharged. She was on a number of potions, and was scheduled to see a Mind Healer twice a week, but Healer Narg deemed her fit enough to go home. Well, in this case back to Grimmauld Place. Sirius had already set the House-elves to clean her room properly, but the rest of the house he had opened to the public was going to remain messy and dark.

Kingsley stood in the office, stoically listening to the Headmaster rant and plan to himself.

He wondered why he'd ever agreed to following this man, to listening to this man. Sure, the alternative was an insane Dark Lord bent on killing everyone, and at the time Albus had seemed like the ideal solution (it helped that he was the one willing to fight against said insane Dark Lord), but the way he was talking right now...

He glanced down at the piece of parchment in his hands, the parchment detailing the location of Number Twelve Grimmauld Place written in the Secret Keeper's hand.

The parchment he'd just been ordered to ensure made its way into Amelia Bones hands so she could arrest Sirius.

The Headmaster, evidently, felt that Sirius had become too unstable and therefore was a danger to both the Order and to Harry Potter. Therefore, the only solution was to hand him over to the Ministry for his immediate execution via Dementor, since the Kiss on Sight order had yet to be rescinded.

The thought made Kingsley sick. Instead of getting the man help, like he should have done instead of locking him away in that vile house, he was going to kill the man. Dumbledore knew Sirius was innocent, and instead of helping him, he was just going to hand him over to die. He managed to remain quiet, though, until the formerly respected Headmaster dismissed him, then he went straight to Amelia Bones.

"Amelia, can I talk to you?" He asked his boss, frowning in thought. He was nervous about admitting to her that he'd known where Sirius Black was the entire time while still sending Aurors off on wild nargle chases to Thailand and Australia.

"Kingsley." Amelia greeted, glancing at him and noticing the tension in his body. "Come in. I can only give you five minutes." She set down the folder she was reviewing and gave him her full attention.

"I have something to confess..." He started, fidgeting with the parchment in his hands. Amelia caught the glimpse of Grimmauld and suddenly she knew what this was about as she suddenly remembered the near-infamous London home of the Black Family.

"Is this about you knowing where Sirius Black was all this time and not reporting it to me?" She asked, leaning back in her chair and enjoying the shocked look on his face. She had figured it out when she realized that Sirius Black was draped across Harry Potter's lap in his animagus form of a dog. Kingsley had been the one to report the possibly abusive situation to her, which meant he had been in close contact with Harry Potter recently, contact that Sirius Black was also clearly in. And then Harry told her in his statement that he'd been removed to a safe location after the Dementor attack. That parchment in his hand was clearly a Secret Keeper's revelation, given that she had not remembered the property's existence until she read part of it.

"Er-"

"Relax, I know he is innocent and was wrongly imprisoned. Nevermind how I found out." She waved off his questions. "Given the way our esteemed Minister behaved over the whole mess with Lord Black, I don't even blame you, Tonks, or Moody for keeping quiet on the matter. You were protecting an innocently persecuted man from the corruption of our government. What I want to know now... is what changed?" She tilted her head and gave him a Look.

Kingsley looked down and relayed the conversation with Dumbledore.

"I see." She said quietly, controlling her rage with long practice, then she looked at him and relayed the visit she'd had with Harry Potter and his godfather. "You are being reassigned from searching for Sirius Black, to protecting Sirius Black." She said. "He is to make it to his trial alive, unpotioned, uncompelled, and under his own power. Do I make myself clear?" She said pointedly.

"Yes, ma'am." He said gratefully.

"Good. In the meantime, you can also act as owl between him and myself. I've managed to sneak a trial date into the docket for him." She handed him the notice that she'd been debating with herself on how to ensure it reached it's target. "Burn that." She pointed at the parchment he was still worrying between his fingers, which he took great pleasure in setting on fire with the tip of his wand. "You are already familiar with his case file, of course. Refamiliarize yourself with it, including the new information I have. If you have any questions, I suggest you go through his lawyer, Ted Tonks, even if you happen to be sitting at the table with Black at the time." She dismissed him with a wave of her hand and a, 'Send Tonks, Moody, and Weasley in here, would you?'

Outside her office, Kingsley paused as he processed that he still had his job, had not been arrested for his part in misleading the investigating and aiding a 'fugitive', and he'd actually been reassigned to doing what he'd already been doing!

"Guess what!" Remus called into the kitchen of Grimmauld Place after having been gone all morning.

"What?" Arthur asked, frowning at the werewolf as he held out his daughter's morning potions for her to take. On the other side of the table, Harry and Sirius were both knocking back their own potions with grimaces. In the three days since his release from the Gringotts infirmary, Harry had barely left his godfather's side except to sleep and use the bathroom. Harry's mind-healer had already assured him that that was normal and was to be expected given what had been found out.

"The Board of Governors for Hogwarts has just hired me back for the year!" Remus burst out. "Not all of them were happy about it, of course, but they hired me! There will be more safety measures this year, of course, but they said that my qualifications were too good to ignore." He grinned. He was nervous about going back, of course, but Sirius had happily forced him into seeing Harry's mind-healer as well, and she'd already encouraged him to take the job and stop letting his fears rule him.

"But... at the end of third year, you said you resigned before parents could hear about it and-" Hermione started, confused.

"Yes, well, the Board assures me that they will deal with the parents. This time, I have to be off school grounds to transform, I can't just take my potion and curl up in my office. We've also set it up so that I can't forget my potion like that again." Remus grimaced at the reminder of that night.

"That's great!" Sirius yelled, ecstatic for his oldest friend.

"The ones that objected because of my condition were reminded that they'd loved my qualifications until they were told about my issues, and they were forced to agree by the rest of them." Remus' huge grin was back on his face.

"That's amazing, Remus!" Arthur smiled, glad for the quiet and intelligent werewolf. He was also glad that he knew his children would get a proper education in Defense this year, and have somebody else at the castle to watch out for them.

"We have to celebrate!" Sirius called, grinning wildly. "Fred, George, go get the Butterbeer out. Mitts!" He called, and the little elf popped over from her spot in the reclaimed kitchen, head tilted in question. "We need a cake, and party food." He instructed. She grinned and popped back over, the pans and bowls she would need popping into existence beside her.

Hermione huffed, but didn't say anything.

"Pitts!" He called again. "We need the dining room decorated for a party." He instructed the other elf, who nodded seriously and popped back out again.

"You don't need to-" Remus started to say, smile never leaving his face.

"Of course we do." Harry dismissed his protests, giving him a stern look before dissolving into laughter at the put-out expression on the werewolf's face.

"You looked far too much like your mother right then." Sirius mumbled, eyeing Harry warily.

Chapter Text

"Letters are here!" Sirius called up the stairs two days later. With the cooperation of the other elves, Kreacher had been forced to a long visit with the Centaurs for healing, and the portrait of his mother had finally been removed, so he didn't have to worry about staying silent anymore. He also had yet to reopen his house to the entire Order, only Moody, Tonks, and Kingsley had been allowed back in so far. And, of course, the Weasley children were still here.

"About time!" Hermione huffed, reaching him first and taking her letter, barely resisting the urge to snatch it away in a hurry. She'd been going frantic the longer they went without getting their supply lists. How was she supposed to go over her material in time? There were only a couple of weeks left!

"Well, they only got the Defense post filled two days ago, didn't they?" Ron pointed out, frowning at her.

"I wrote my lesson plan and picked a suitable book as quickly as I could." Remus said mildly, raising an eyebrow. Granted, he'd also made it clear his plan was a rough outline. He was going to have to see what the students had covered with Crouch Jr. the year before, but for the most part he was going to be able to pick up where he'd left off at the end of Harry's third year. Hermione at least had the grace to look sheepish.

"Well, looks like we're going to Diagon today... hopefully it won't be too packed since there are still a few weeks left." Sirius mumbled to himself, looking over Harry's list. And since Bill had yet to take his glamor charm back, Sirius could go with Harry and the others.

"I need to get some money out of Gringotts." Harry shrugged.

"Yeah, no. I'll handle it." Sirius immediately denied. "I have fourteen years of buying you things to make up for! And as your godfather it's my job to provide." He shrugged.

"But I have-" Harry tried to protest, thinking of the account information and the numbers Sharpaxe had gone over with him after Amelia Bones and Unspeakable Roust left following the interview. He rubbed the Potter ring on his finger almost unconsciously.

"I'm aware." Sirius cut him off. "That doesn't mean you have to spend it, though. Don't worry, it will still be there when you graduate. And hopefully it doesn't take Sharpaxe long to track down the missing money." Harry frowned, but didn't protest anymore.

For now.

"Alright, everybody finish eating and we'll go..." Sirius trailed off, glancing at Ron and Hermione suspiciously. They hadn't said a word since opening their letters, and were now staring at something in shock. "You two ok?" He asked, frowning.

Ron nodded slowly and held out what was in his hand. A Prefect badge.

"You too?!" Hermione suddenly cried, excited and holding the same thing in her hand. "But wait, I thought for sure that Harry..." She trailed off. "Not that you won't do an amazing job!" She hurried to say. "I just meant that... you know, with the whole 'Boy-Who-Lived' thing..." She shrugged.

Harry seemed to recover. "Nah, I cause too much trouble." Only Sirius and Remus seemed to notice the strange tone in his voice.

"Ron is usually causing trouble with you." Ginny pointed out, eyebrow raised.

"Yeah... but Harry usually starts it somehow! Or it comes to find Harry and I get dragged along for the ride." Ron muttered to himself.

"Oh, yeah, you've always seemed so reluctant to go." Hermione pointed out dryly. Ron's face flushed bright red. Sirius noted that Harry seemed to have brightened, but he was still down about something... Oh. Harry probably expected to get the badge. Or at least some part of him.

"We still need to get you to a wand maker, too." Sirius commented quietly to Harry, who grimaced as he thought of his poor wand, which he really didn't want to replace. Hopefully the creepy wand maker would have another solution.

He missed the part where Sirius didn't specifically name Ollivander. 

"Ok!" Arthur finally said, cutting off the argument forming between Ron and Hermione with practiced ease. He shook his head. "Everybody go get ready to go, we leave in ten minutes. If you are not by the front door in ten minutes we will leave without you!" He declared. This was the most effective method he'd found over the years of getting his numerous children ready and out the door so they weren't late somewhere. He absently wondered why Molly never did it, but shook it off.

The Weasley's quickly scattered to grab what they needed or finish getting dressed.

"Hey, there is nothing wrong with being disappointed." Sirius murmured to Harry when they were alone again in the kitchen. "So long as you don't let it get in the way of your friendship."

"I know. And I'm happy for him, I am! I didn't even remember that Prefects were chosen in fifth year until he held that badge out. But... would they be disappointed that I didn't get it?" Harry finally asked after a bit.

"Disappointed? Oh, Harry. They would be very proud of you, badge or no badge." Sirius assured him, dragging him into a hug, going slow enough so that Harry could avoid it if he wanted. 

"Now come on, let's go get your stuff for the year." He said, pulling away after a moment.