Harry woke up with both of his legs painfully asleep. Sirius was snoozing across the foot of his bed and had pinned both his ankles flat. Thousands of little needle jabs made him wince as he pulled his legs free. They were numb and useless, so he grumbled as he rubbed some life back in them. Sirius woke up suddenly and looked around wildly for a moment before remembering where he was. Harry fumbled for his glasses and they blinked at each other groggily. Harry broke into a grin first.
“Good morning,” he said and Sirius nodded, stretching. All the tearing around Sirius had done the night before had worn him out. He still had the faintest itch in the back of his throat, but one little cough was all it took to get rid of it.
“What are you going to do today?” Harry asked him, getting up to look for some clothes. “We have classes all day. Do you want to stay here or run around on your own?” Sirius considered. He was still tired, but there was a lot he needed to do. He needed to locate Esme, talk to Dumbledore, and maybe sneak a visit to Buckbeak to see how the poor creature was recovering. On the other hand, he needed to avoid Snape and Mrs. Norris and it would be a dark day for Harry if either saw the boy with the mutt who’d given them such a run the night before. He sighed and made himself comfortable on the bed again.
“I see,” said Harry, kneeling to tie his shoes. The other boys were also shuffling around at that point. There was a crash as Vahn’s cot bolted as soon as he got out of it. Whatever force of magic that made the cots so active had not given them any concept of sight and they always ran full speed until they collided with something too big to knock over. In this case it was Jonah, who knocked it away with an exasperated sound.
Vahn and Jonah had liked dogs and had assumed Sirius was a familiar of Harry’s. One of the other two boys sharing their dorm had allergies and had spent a good while complaining about invisible dander, which Sirius was pretty sure he didn’t have. The fourth boy had paid him no attention and spent most of the time with his nose in a book., for which Sirius was grateful. Harry promised to bring him some breakfast and trotted out the door. Sirius heaved a sigh and settled down some heavy thinking.
‘See ya, Fumbles,” Ron called and then he was gone, too. The redhead caught up with Harry on the stairs and they waited in the common room for Hermione to show up. She was unusually late and bleary-eyed when she did arrive. Crookshanks was with her, now sporting a belled collar that he was obviously unhappy about. The large cat slunk out of sight with a faint tinkle.
“Up late reading?” Ron asked Hermione, grinning. She gave him an annoyed look and yawned before she could answer.
“NO,” she grouched. “That Raye is getting on my last nerve. I have never heard so much about so little, even in Professor Binns’ class.”
“What do you mean?” Harry asked, a little surprised, but relieved that someone else could bear witness to the strange girl’s quirks. Hermione rolled her eyes and swung her knapsack over her shoulder.
“She got caught sneaking out last night and Snape caught her,” she told them. They both grimaced. “He took her straight to Professor McGonagall, of course, and she got a chewing out that we all heard, but it didn’t sink in. She was all but dancing when she came back to bed and kept us all up for hours afterward, blathering on about how she finally has proof and giggling like a ninny. She’s supposed to report to her Headmaster today about it, but even that didn’t phase her.”
“ I told you she was crazy,” Harry sighed, a little amused. Ron grinned and nudged him in the ribs with his elbow.
“The pretty ones usually are,” he said, keeping an eye on Hermione’s reaction. “And Raye is darn near adorable.” A touch of flame lit in Hermione’s tired eyes, but she only snorted. Unfortunately, Draco Malfoy was going by at that moment.
“Part horse are you, Granger?” he sneered in passing. Hermione whirled to face him, blocking his path. She swung one hand around as if to slap him and he began to flinch. She stopped it an inch from his nose, though, and held it there..
“It’s been awhile since you’ve had a close look at the back of my hand,” she told him. “Hasn’t it?” Ron and Harry traded arch looks with each other. Of the three of them, Hermione was the only one to have connected with Draco in public. Goyle and Crabb also gave each other slightly frantic looks from under their heavy brows. They always seemed at loss at how to deal with Hermione. Apparently the Handbook for Young Goons and Thugs didn’t cover how to deal with brainiac girl classmates.
It was funny watching the gears in Malfoy’s head spin. They could see the terrible need to make a horse remark about Hermione’s teeth thrash in Malfoy’s eyes. They could see the reflection of Hermione’s open hand in them. Crabb shifted, and Harry tensed to block his way. A dark memory of seeing the hooded fathers of Crabb and Goyle bowing to the newborn Dark Lord flickered in his head . Hot anger flared in him and he moved to glare Crabb in the eye. Ron looked at him in surprise. The silence felt thick.
“What are you doing with my girl, Malfoy?” a loud voice snapped. They all jumped and turned to look at Zachory, the Bantling student. He was giving Draco a look that promised pain. It was a bewildering change to see him looking so angry after their first impression of him when he had annoyed Chloe. His arrival had shattered the standoff, though. Harry glanced at Hermione who was looking as startled as they all did.
“He bothering you, babe?” Zachory asked her, putting an arm around her shoulders. She sputtered at him, probably too torn between confusion and anger to say anything coherent. “Now look here, Malfoy! If all your talk of having your pick of the Hogwarts girls is true you don’t need to hassle mine! Unless you’re LOOKING for a thrashing and you specifically want one from ME!”
They now had quite a crowd. Zachory was taller than Malfoy and a year or two older, but he was also too slim to be very threatening. They might’ve looked something alike if Zachory hadn’t been so deliberately ragged. He was not quite as pale as Draco and his blond hair was in a smooth mane around his shoulders. He had a hoop earring and under his robes, his jeans had artistic holes in the knees. Draco looked as neat and pressed as usual. They stared each other in the eye for another tense moment, but then Malfoy recovered and made a face.
“Until you can be serious, Farfield,” he sneered again. “Keep your mouth shut around me.” He turned to go and Zachory laughed out loud. The hostility dissolved from him in the blink of an eye, leaving him with the same grin they has seen when Chloe has first called him over. Since Draco was already gone through the puzzled crowd, Zachory stole another quick peck on the cheek from Hermione. She glared at him and he released her to bow elegantly.
“Forgive me,” he told her, still bent over. “ You were handling that beautifully, but my white knight instincts took over.”
“Hrmph!” said Hermione. “Well, keep them to yourself from now on.”
“I’ll make the effort,” he replied, looking at her through his bangs with a smile best described as impish. She sniffed and walked off with a toss of her head. Ron and Harry fell into step behind her and caught her glancing back at Zachory. Harry noticed Ron wasn’t too pleased with this, and pointed out Raye to distract him as they went into the Great Hall.
“We can’t sit there or she’ll talk us to death about the vampire conspiracy,” he whispered. “Come on Hermione, there’s seats over here.” At that moment, gasps and screams erupted from the students closest to the door. They all looked up to see a great black thing bobbing over their heads like a malformed balloon. The Elmskill students seems more amused than startled, which made Harry peer closer at the thing. It was more or less round, but it had a head and a pair of tyrannosaur-like arms sticking out of it. It chuckled as it bounced along, sailing over their heads.
As it passed, Harry saw a pointed face at one end and a pair of pointed boots at the other. He guessed that it had to be the Madame Yaga he’d heard about, the Elmskill Potionsmistress. She looked well into her 80s, and her hair was a shock-white tangled mane around her sharp face. She had jet black skin and as she laughed, they saw that she had black teeth as well. She greeted some of the Elmskill students kindly enough though, and had one give her a push towards the faculty table.
“There has got to be a hag in that woman’s family tree,” Ron whispered to Harry. Hermione heard him and she was drawing breath to express disapproval on such judgments when Hedwig swooped down with an envelope and a folded piece of brown paper for Harry. The brown paper had Hagrid’s handwriting on it, but the envelope only had Harry’s name in green ink. After a moment, he unfolded Hagrid’s message first and read it aloud:
“To Harry, I have good news for you. Bring Ron and Hermione down when you get a chance after class. Don’t tell anyone! Hagrid”
“I wonder what he’s got planned for us now,” sighed Ron. “Teaching manticore cubs to take a treat from our lips, maybe?”
“We aren’t done with the vulpipedes yet,” Hermione reminded him. “Who’s the other from?”
“Dumbledore,” Harry said , scanning the note. It was pretty much the same message as from Hagrid except that it wanted just him and Sirius right after breakfast. As they had Potions with Slytherin and the Bantlings, it would be a relief to miss as much of that as possible. Ron and Hermione were still waiting for more, so he added. “He wants to see me about ‘Fumbles’.” They both nodded wisely and started to eat.
As soon as Harry had polished off his breakfast, he filled another plate for Sirius and went back up the dorm. Sirius was there, still snoring softly on Harry’s pillow. He awoke with a jerk and happily scarfed down the food while Harry told him about Dumbledore’s note. Sirius nodded and hopped down after giving the plate a last lick. They walked quietly down to Dumbledore’s office, Sirius padding like a giant shadow at Harry’s heels.
To their surprise, a cloaked figure stood by the door. It looked enough like a Dementer to make Sirius freeze in his tracks. Panic and hate sang through him and he was distantly aware that all the hair on his back was standing up. Harry heard him gasp and looked quickly back at him. There was no dread in the air, however, so Sirius calmed himself as quickly as he could. The figure turned to them as well, and a low voice they both recognized floated out of it.
“We meet again, young man. If I had known you were famous, I wouldn’t have expected you to handle North.”
“Good morning, Ms. Zephyr,” Harry said softly. He had a feeling that she was testing him, and there was something about her that commanded courtesy anyway. Maybe hanging around Snape had given her a biased view of him, but he wasn’t about to have two teachers hassling him everytime he saw them. “I didn’t realize I was that famous either, but thank you. I like dogs, so North was no trouble at all. Are you here to speak to the Headmaster too?”
He managed to meet her eyes, green against the red, and to his surprise, a faint smile touched her lips. It turned bitter in the next second and she turned her head away from him again. Harry walked carefully up to her. Sirius was doing his best to stay out of sight behind his godson’s thin legs. It wasn’t working too well. He felt Lorelei’s eyes pass over him once, and thankfully they didn’t return. It unnerved him to feel the chill in her gaze from inside a hood that hid her face.
“No,” she said suddenly, answering Harry’s last question. “I am being spoken OF to the Headmaster. “
“Raye?” he asked in a fit of daring. Something was compelling him to speak to the forbidding woman, no matter what reason he had to be leery of her. Maybe being so near Dumbledore gave him some bravado. Ms. Zephyr only chuckled, a cold, unamused sound.
“So you’ve met the young Auror-to-be? That girl will have you jumping at shadows if you pay her any attention.” Ms. Zephyr sighed. “Heaven forbid she ever have a class with your Professor Moody. There could be some sort of explosion.” Harry couldn’t help but laugh a little at that. He muffled it in his hand and she looked at him more keenly.
“Everyone tries not to laugh around me,” she told him. Her tone was easier now, as if she was getting used to speaking to him. “Am I so horrible?”
“Oh no,” Harry was relaxing more too. “You just seem...sorry, a bit, well-” At that moment, the office doors swung open and the Elmskill Heandmaster Ficus swept out. His tall black cane smacked the floor right in front of Harry with a ringing sound. Both Harry and Sirius jumped. Ficus seemed as startled to see them and recoiled a fraction before spotting Ms. Zephyr on the other side of the doorway.
“Blast it, woman!” He snapped, his voice raspy. He had a smoker’s voice, and the faint smell of cigarettes hung around him. “ I spend an hour swearing up and down that you’re the model of white magic and virtue and then you go around dressed as a ghoul? You had better not be wearing those awful glasses. Take off that hood!”
“The light hurts my eyes,” she said softly. Harry could sense her distaste at being told what to do. He was a little aghast himself at how the Headmaster was fussing at a grown woman like a cranky governess.
“The dark hurts your reputation,” the old man barked back. He took her arm and began leading her away. “And eyes can be healed. Take off that hood and wear something lighter...perhaps not red, under the circumstances...Rose, then, or yellow!” They disappeared around a corner. Harry blinked after them a moment, then turned to find Dumbledore at his elbow, smiling in vague way.
“Never a dull moment,” the Headmaster said, looking down at him. “Won’t you two come in?” They followed him back inside and the door clicked shut behind them. Dumbledore offered them both a chair. Harry sat down and after a moment of hesitation, Sirius returned to his human form and sat in the other. He was clean and healthier looking than before, but his eyes were restless and burning again. He gave Harry a flash of a grin, but then focused on Dumbledore like a hawk.
Dumbledore appeared not to notice. He steepled his fingers and looked at them with that same odd smile. “Strange things are most definitely afoot,” he said very calmly. “What brings you here, Sirius?”
“I’ve been in the Forest,” Sirius replied. “With Buckbeak. He was hurt by something and I had to bring him here...I had help. I met a woman in the Forest and she helped me bring him here. She’s here too, somewhere. I caught up with her once, but she got away from me. I...think she might be dangerous. I could smell it in her. It’s there, right under the skin. I can’t explain and I don’t know it for a fact. She’s done no harm to ME or anyone else that I’ve seen, but I, I don’t know what to do about her. ” He spit it all out in a rush. Telling Dumbledore was a relief. There was so much he didn’t know and it was frustrating. He had lived by his wits for so long he hated being puzzled.
“She gave Neville a bracelet,” Harry added. “It blinks and its been a good luck charm. So far.” he added, glancing at Sirius.
“That would explain why poor Argus is in such a state,” Dumbledore sighed. They both stared and he tapped his brow with his finger. “Mrs. Norris knows her business. She’s no ordinary cat and like any good familiar, she lets her master know what’s going on. Her kittens should be quite remarkable. A strange witch cavorting about the corridors? I suppose it explains why that apple fritter I left out disappeared.”
“That would be her,” snorted Sirius, rolling his eyes. A reluctant grin split his face again. “ I’ve caught her stealing snacks from the teachers’ desks already.”
“What do you intend to do?” Dumbledore asked suddenly.
“Protect Harry,” Sirius replied, grin vanishing. “He’s the only family I have left.” Harry opened his mouth to say something, but closed it again, embarrassed. He could feel himself blushing and had to very careful not to look at Sirius. On one hand, he didn’t think he needed to be protected as he had beaten The Dark Lord no less than four times by himself. On the other hand, he’d never had a family he remembered either, and it was sort of a nice feeling to be looked after for once. A loud knock at the door startled Sirius back into his dog form and Dumbledore sighed again, this time sounding truly weary.
“That will be the Magical Malady representative,” he said, getting back to his feet. “Headmaster Ficus was perhaps TOO adamant. Oh well, Harry, you’d best get to class. Perhaps Sirius should wait in your dorm.”
They both nodded unhappily and trudged out. A matronly-looking woman with a horribly fat black rat on her shoulder was standing at the door when they passed. The rat was wearing a jeweled collar that said Ophelia. Dumbledore greeted her and she stepped up to wave a scroll at him while nodding politely at Harry. The rat just grunted. The door shut again, leaving Harry and his godfather alone again.
“Well, I’ll take you back through the painting before I go to Potions,” Harry sighed. “Unless you’d like to trade? I’ll stay in the room all day and you can go explain why my sleeping potion isn’t the right color.” Sirius snorted a woofing kind of laugh, and looked at the boy fondly. The Fat Lady painting swung open with the new password, rhododendron, and they parted ways. Sirius, heavy with thought, climbed the stairs. Just as reluctant, Harry turned to go down the corridor to the dungeons.
By the time he got there, the class was in an uproar. It was easy to slip to the table with Ron, Hermione, and Jonah unnoticed. He saw that Vahn and Lavender Brown were now sitting together nearby. Hermione quickly passed him a sheet of paper and pointed quickly to the number three. It said ‘Discuss alternatives to powdered blood in an antidote to The Seventh Venom.’ He didn’t know what the ‘The Seventh Venom’ was but he was pretty sure no one near him was discussing it.
Jonah was doodling on the back of his parchment. Hermione was bickering with Ron over something. Neville was waving his paper in a frantic way at Seamus who was flirting with Raye, who was ignoring him. Every student in the crowded room was yakking away. A little incredulous, Harry peeked over a few heads to see what Snape was doing. The Potionsmaster was paying no attention to the class that Harry could see. He was scribbling away on a stack of papers. He still looked like Death eating a cracker.
“What’s going on?” he whispered to Ron, who shrugged, obviously not caring. Out of the corner of his eye, Harry watched Snape stand up and elbowed his friend to shut up.
“Eponine Attwater!” Snape nearly shouted. The chatter faded and a Kyllonen girl stood up carefully. Snape handed her one of the papers in his stack. “Read it aloud, if you would.” Puzzled, the girl looked at the paper, then blushed a bit. She shifted her feet and Snape snapped at her without ever looking up from what he was doing. “Read it aloud, if you CAN, Miss Attwater.”
“In the interests of Self-Improvement: For asinine chatter better-suited to a primate house than a classroom, you are assigned the research and preparation of a Deodorant Potion. “ she said, blushing darker. The class was now silent, while everyone eyed the stack in Snape’s hands. Eponine was sent back to her seat and Snape read out the next name.
“Lavender Brown!” was next and her sentence was to make a cure for nausea, ‘in the event her so-called ‘charms’ should develop further.’ Hermione winced as Lavender went back to her seat in tears.
“He’s going alphabetically,” whispered Ron. “With a class this big, he’ll never get to Ws before class is over!” He clasped his hands together in prayer. Jonah (who’s last name was Yansley) smirked a bit too, but it didn’t stop them from watching in tense silence. One by one the students were called up to read aloud their assignments. Hermione’s turn came and she took a deep breath to brace herself.
“Hermione Granger and Ron Weaselly!” Snape spat. Ron paled. He and Hermione looked at each other in blind panic, then slowly walked up to the glowering Potionsmaster. He handed Ron the paper. Ron handed it quickly to Hermione without looking at it. Hermione raised her chin and read it aloud with as much dignity as could be expected of her.
“In the interests of Self-Improvement: For bickering like an old married couple of magpies who can’t agree on which end the egg comes out of, a joint project. Research and prepare a Tongues Tonic. Supply three types of birds to test it on.”
Harry couldn’t help but think that their insult wasn’t as bad as some, but then changed his mind when he saw the raised eyebrows and expressions on his classmates. Ron and Hermione were in for some teasing later. They came back to their seats and the assignments continued.
“What the heck is a Tongues Tonic anyway?” Ron asked in a whisper. Hermione looked at him as if he was hopeless.
“Later,” she hissed back.
“Drew McCaven!” roared Snape.
“Ma’am?” Drew replied sweetly. His fellow Bantlings managed to keep straight faces. The rest of the room found themselves frozen in various rictuses of horror and amusement. The sudden stillness in the room was eerie. Snape tilted his head just enough that the full impact of his best baleful glare hit the poor boy in the eye. Drew stood, ready to walk up. He looked calm from the front, but Harry saw a trickle of sweat on the back of his neck. The look he was getting from Snape should’ve blasted him to ashes.
“See me after class,” Snape said softly. Drew nodded and sat down. The list went on. Eventually, Harry was called up too. As he had missed the first part of his class, Snape didn’t have much on him. His assignment was to make Dragon’s Breath Potion, ‘to keep back his hordes of adoring fans.’ At close range, he noticed that Snape’s hands appeared to tremble from the weight of the paper.
The rest of the class went by quickly. Jonah was assigned an ink removing potion somewhere towards the end and then the class was over. There was the usual scuffling to leave. Ron and Hermione got into another argument before they were out the door and Harry was too frazzled to care. Raye fell into step beside him as they left. He tried not to flinch noticeably.
‘I need to talk to you,” she said quietly. “Will you sit with me at lunch?” Harry looked at her carefully. There was an unpleasant gleam of obsession in her eye and he groped for an excuse.
“I have to take care of my dog,” he said, a little to quickly. “I’m supposed to take him out to, uh, Hagrid’s to be checked out.”
“Then I’ll go with you,” she said, giving him a smile that was mostly steel. “This is important.” she added as he started to protest again. When he didn’t have a ready reply to that, she went on ahead of him with a smug toss of her braid. Harry felt his teeth grind. He stomped towards the Griffyndor tower, following the sound of Ron calling Hermione a know-it-all. He left them in the common room and went up to throw his backpack on his bed.
Sirius was there, laying with his head on his paws. He didn’t move when Harry came in, just wagged his tail a bit. Harry looked at him curiously. There was a keen glint in his godfather’s doggy face too. There was a scrap of paper under one paw. Sirius was holding as still as if he was trying to be calm. Neville and Vahn had come up with Harry, so he couldn’t speak to Sirius as he wanted to. He carefully picked up the paper and glanced at it and then back at Sirius, who was staring holes into his head. All the note said was: “I have a plan.”
Story and art by me!