Harry Potter and the Black Grimoire

"Harry," yelled Aunt Petunia up the stairs, "get your ruddy arse outta bed!"

"I'm coming, I'm coming," muttered Harry, still half-asleep.

Harry threw off his blankets and searched for his glasses on the bedside table. Finally finding them, he pulled on some clothes and remembered that today was Dudley's 15th birthday and that he would be spending it at old Mrs. Figg's house. Mrs. Figg was a kindly old woman who had more cats than probably the whole street, put together.

Harry then remembered that he would be leaving the next day to go and see Ron, his best friend, and his family at the Burrow. He couldn't wait to get away from the Dursley's.

Harry had come to live with the Dursleys after his parents, Lily and James Potter, were killed by the dark sorcerer Lord Voldemort. After the deed was done, he tried unsuccessfully to rid the earth of Harry as well. This curse intended for Harry rebounded off the infant and hit Voldemort, reducing him to an almost non-living state. From that moment on, the entire wizarding world grew up knowing the name of Harry Potter, the boy who lived.

Dressed and ready, Harry bounded downstairs with thoughts of the Burrow in his head. He had his back slung over his shoulder, packed to the brim with schoolbooks and supplies. He figured he could catch up on his summer homework while he had nothing better to do at Mrs. Figg's house.

The Dursleys, who normally treated Harry worse than a caged animal, had been extra lenient with him this summer. Towards the beginning of the summer they had received an official letter from the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry stating that, under the current situation that the wizarding world was under, with Voldemort's return, that the Decree for the Restriction of Underage Wizardry had been lifted. This allowed Harry to practice magic with a freedom he had never felt before, which was an idea that frankly terrified the Dursleys.

Harry read in the Daily Prophet, the wizarding newspaper, (which he now got delivered by owl-post) that a week after the end of his fourth term, the body of ex-headmaster of Durmstrang Institute, Igor Karkaroff had been found stone dead on the steps of the Ministry of Magic headquarters. The Dark Mark, the sign of Voldemort, floated overhead, and a note pinned to the corpse read simply: "The Dark Lord returns." Karkaroff had been a Death Eater, which was what the followers of Voldemort were called. He had however failed to return to Voldemort when he had been restored to his body only a short while time ago. This was the Dark Lord's revenge.

"Everyone in the car now!" bellowed Uncle Vernon.

Harry obeyed his uncle and slid into the Dursley family car next to his fat lump of a cousin Dudley. Dudley looked much like his father with blond hair, fat, puffy cheeks and almost no neck. Aunt Petunia, on the other hand, was quite skinny and had too much neck under her head, which at that moment she had turned to look at Harry.

"You are quite lucky Mrs. Figg was kind enough to take you," she said.

"More like you're lucky"

"It was quite odd too. She seemed to be almost happy to take you. She sounded very excited, the old loon."

She hadn't seemed to have heard Harry's remark, or else was simply ignoring him, which the Dursleys often did.

"Figg probably just feels sorry for us for having to put up with him for the past however-many years," said Uncle Vernon.

"She probably feels sorry for me having to put up with you."

Vernon Dursley turned his large, beefy head around and glared at his nephew. They had arrived at Mrs. Figg's house.

"If she wasn't standing right there, I would..."

Harry got out and slammed the door, cutting off Uncle Vernon. He walked up to the house with his bag and rang the doorbell. She answered the door and ushered him in.

"Sit down dear, I think my roast is burning," she said, "I'll be right back."

Harry did as he was told and went to sit on the cat covered couch. Nothing had changed much, he noticed, as he looked around the room. All of the old, mismatched furniture was still covered in crocheted blankets, and the house still smelled strongly of mothballs. As well as the cats.

Mrs. Figg reappeared from the kitchen a short while later and went to Harry.

"Sorry about that dear, make yourself at home now. I'm making supper and

I'm expecting some old friends over later, "she said with a wink.

"Great," thought Harry, "that's just what I need; to be stuck with a bunch of old ladies all night."

He decided it would be best to just start his work and he went to the kitchen to take out his things. He watched Mrs. Figg bustle around for most of the day while he worked.

Harry had been working all day when he finally stopped. He was stuck on professor Snape's work.

Professor Snape, Harry's least favorite teacher, had not neglected to give his classes summer work, even with the tragic and hectic end of the term.

Snape had provided his students with a lengthy Potions exam for the summer. Harry had to list the ingredients and explain the procedure of making the long list of potions on the list. He was already done with two rolls of parchment when he got stuck on the potion for reducing toenail growth. He couldn't find the potion anywhere in the book. He had managed to get most of the recipe down, but he knew he missing one last ingredient. He couldn't seem to remember it.

"What are you working on dear?" asked Mrs. Figg, looking over his shoulder.

"It's my homework. It's err- chemistry," replied Harry, "I can't seem to find the recipe for this potion, and I mean mixture, in the book."

"Bad memory eh? Well mine is pretty bad as well but maybe I can help," offered Mrs. Figg.

"I doubt it; it's pretty advanced stuff. You've probably never heard of -"

"Pwca hair. You can't make your toenails grow backward without pwca hair! Trust me, I know!" said Mrs. Figg with a sly wink.

The doorbell rang and she went to get the door, leaving Harry behind, quite bewildered.

"Sirius! Remus! How great it is to see you two again!"

Harry came out of confused stupor quite quickly and whipped his head around.

There, standing in the doorway, were non other than his old professor Remus Lupin and his godfather Sirius Black.

"Harry! How good to see you again!" said Remus, catching sight of Harry.

Sirius stood back with a grin broadening on his face, no doubt over the look of extreme confusion on Harry's face

"Wha- how- why?" stammered Harry.

They all laughed heartily and came to greet him in the kitchen. He shook hands with a smiling Remus Lupin and Sirius gave him a very fatherly hug. Although Harry was quite dumbfounded over their unexpected arrival, he was nonetheless extremely overjoyed and relieved to see them. The last time he had seen Remus was a little over a year ago while he taught Defense Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts. It was then that they learned that Sirius was not in fact guilty of the crimes he was accused of committing. It really turned out to be Scabbers, Ron's old pet rat, who as an Animangi.

An Animangi is a wizard to who is able to turn into an animal form.

Peter Pettigrew, or Wormtail as his friends called him, had faked his own death after turning in Lily and James Potter to Voldemort.

When they finally caught Wormtail and made him confess, he managed to escape and return to his master. It was then revealed by Professor Snape that Remus was a werewolf and he felt it in his best interest to resign.

He had recently seen Sirius during his last year at Hogwarts while he oversaw him and gave him advice during the Triwizard Tournament, A competition between the three biggest wizarding schools in Europe.

"Come Harry, lets all sit down so we can explain," said Remus.

"I'll go bring the food and tea," said Mrs. Figg.

Lupin, Sirius, and Harry went to sit on the long sofa while Mrs. Figg disappeared into the kitchen.

A thought had just occurred to Harry.

"Sirius! Why did you show up in human form?! Couldn't somebody have seen you?"

"That was one of the first things I was going to tell you Harry," said Sirius, smiling at the look of concern on his godson's face. "I've been cleared!"

"What?! How?! When?!" asked Harry excitedly.

"Just yesterday Harry. An Auror spotted Wormtail last week. The ministry reviewed my case and cleared my name because I obviously didn't kill him. So with a little help from Remus here and Professor Dumbledore, I am now a free man! The whole story will be in the Daily Prophet tomorrow."

"That's great! Do you know what this means?!" yelled Harry.

"You can come stay with me as soon as I get my life up and running again."

"Yes!" said Harry, lying back on the sofa.

Harry was elated. With this bit of news, it seemed that his life would definitely take a great upturn. No more Durlseys! He would know become a free man as well as Sirius.

"This is just great! I don't know what to say!" said Harry.

"Just tell me you're happy we came to surprise you."

"I can't even tell you how happy I am!"

At this time Mrs. Figg came back into the room carrying plates of food and drinks. They sat down to eat in the living room when another thought came to his mind. He had been thinking about Mrs. Figg when he recalled something Dumbledore told Sirius just before the end of term.

"Arabella Figg..." muttered Harry. "That was you wasn't it? You're Arabella Figg Mrs. Figg?" asked Harry.

"Yes dear, my name is Arabella," said Mrs. Figg, laughing at the awkwardness of his sentence.

"I remember Dumbledore telling you to alert Remus, Arabella and Mundoogle something..." Harry said to Sirius.

"Mundungus Fletcher," Sirius replied chuckling. "And yes, he did. You have a great memory."

"So all this time, there was another wizard living just two streets away from me?" asked Harry, astonished.

"We figured it would be better not to tell you, Harry dear. The fact that I live so close allowed me to keep and on you these past years. Dumbledore thought it would be better this way," said Mrs. Figg. "And do please just call me Bella, dear. Mrs. Figg just makes me seem so damn old!"

"Okay, I'll be sure to do that," Harry said, chuckling.

He knew that it was only meant to benefit him and that they had had the best intentions, but Harry still felt he ought to have been told earlier.

"So how do you know each other?" asked Harry, spooning some mashed potatoes into his mouth.

"Well we were all friends at Hogwarts Harry. Along with your parents as a matter of fact," said Remus.

"Oh. I thought it was just Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs."

"Well we did have other friends!" said Sirius. "You make us out to be such losers!"

"Oh I would never do something like that!" said Harry innocently.

"And we're going to take you to the Weasleys' tomorrow on our way to Fletcher's," said Sirius.

"Great! I won't have to go back to the Dursleys' tonight then!"

"Nope. We already got your stuff, too. It's upstairs," said Lupin.

"Yeah. We met your uncle at the amusement park earlier and told him we would be taking you for the rest of the summer," said Sirius. "I think he recognized me from the tele."

"Ha Ha! I wish I could have seen the look on his face!" said Harry.

"Yeah, it was quite classic," said Remus.

"Well, you better finish eating dear and go to bed," said Mrs. Figg. "We have to get up early tomorrow."

They ate and chatted happily for a few more minutes before they all went to sleep.

Harry lay awake in the guest bed later that night, staring at the ceiling, thinking about his day. It was quite overwhelming.

As he closed his eyes for the last time that night he thought to himself: "Life is good."