Harry Potter and the Forest of Shadows

Ginny pushed past the crowded common room. Everyone had been awoken by the pain-filled screams. Most faces now looked tired and some of the first years looked frightened.

When she reached the desolate corridor, a horrible realization came to her- she had no idea where Sirius' rooms, or, for that matter, no teachers' rooms were. Making a quick decision, she ran off down the hall, hoping a praying that someone, anyone (maybe even Filch) was still patrolling.

Panic overcame her as she soon discovered that no one was there. She was about to take desperate measures when a voice came from behind her.

"Ooh, an ickle student out of bed. Filchy will certainly want to hear about this."

Peeves sucked in a deep breath to start yelling, but Ginny stopped him.

"Peeves," she hissed, "I need you to help me."

"And why should Peevesy help Weasel?"

"Because I will personally make sure that you are chased out of the castle you damn poltergeist."

Peeves noticed the glint in her eye, straightened his back and saluted.

Ginny smiled. "I need you to show me where Professor Black's rooms are."

***

Harry had finally calmed and was lying quietly on the disarrayed bed. The only noises in the room were his labored breathing, Hermione's soft sighs of relief and exhaustion, and Neville's small whimpers.

With a tired heave, Hermione managed to pull herself to her knees to peer worriedly at her friend. It almost broke her heart to see him so drained and pitiful. She reached out and pushed a black lock off his forehead. At the touch he opened a bleary eye and gave her a weak smile which she returned.

"Need to see Sirius," he muttered, vainly attempting to push himself up.

Without much struggle Hermione forced him back to the bed. "You're not going anywhere. Ginny just went to get him."

Soon, a low murmur arose from the common room right before thundering footsteps came from the stairwell. Sirius, Daisy, and Ginny entered all looking extremely disheveled.

Everyone paused simultaneously. Sirius rushed forward. Daisy slowly made her way to the bed and stood behind Sirius and Ginny went over to Hermione who had backed away from the bed.

Before Sirius even had the chance to start asking him questions, Harry gasped out, "Paixe. Where is Paixe?"

Sirius stared at him for a moment. "France. It's a little town in France," he said looking at Daisy for confirmation.

"Harry," she said softly, kneeling beside Sirius so she was eye-to-eye with the boy on the bed. "Is that the village that was attacked?"

Harry nodded. "Yes. All of them are dead. So many. And I- oh God it's my fault."

"Shh, it's okay. It's not your fault," Sirius soothed, laying a gentle hand on his godson's brow.

"It is though. I-I was him. And the girl, she-" He cut himself off, letting out a dry sob.

"Drink this," Daisy said, slowly pouring a potion down his throat.

Harry took it willingly, recognizing the taste as a dreamless sleep potion. For the few moments he was still awake, he basked in the idea of having at least half a night of peaceful sleep.

Daisy lay in bed silently thinking. Sirius' back was turned to her but she knew that he too was awake. She gently started playing with a lock of his hair, making him turn on his side to face her.

"Are you going to talk to Andromeda?" she asked in a soft voice.

"Don't really have much of a choice do I?"

"Well you could just ask Severus."

Sirius stared at her with a raised eyebrow. "Don't even joke about things like that you sick person."

Daisy laughed, shifting so that she was leaning against his chest. He securely wrapped his arms around her.

"I missed you," he murmured.

She turned again so that she was facing him once more, noses almost touching. "And what exactly did you miss, Mr. Black?"

"Well someone's ego needs a little boost. Let's see, I missed the way your eyes light up when the moonlight hits them just right." She bit her lip. "I missed the way you bite your lip when you're getting nervous." She giggled. "I missed your laugh. And... I missed the way your hair smelled like strawberries." She laughed as he took a big whiff of her strawberry-scented hair. "And what about you Miss Evans, what did you miss about me?"

"I missed the way you used to play with my hair when we were alone." He began running a hand through her locks. "I missed your smile." He grinned. "I missed the way you would just look at me like the whole world could wait." He stared at her, his eyes full of adoration. "And I miss the way you would just kiss me at the most random mom-"

He had that one taken care of in a flash.

***

"Harry! Harry!"

Ginny ran into the Great Hall, clutching a letter.

Harry looked up from his breakfast. He had been one of the first to arrive at the table. He woke just at sunrise and went out to the Quidditch field to run and clear his mind. To his surprise it worked.

"You'll never guess what happened," she said, sitting down next to him and looking extremely excited.

"What?" he asked.

"I got a letter from mum this morning. She went to Diagon Alley yesterday to pick up some things and visit Fred and George- they said hello. Anyway, she had to go down to our vault-" Harry had to stifle the smile that was threatening to show, "-and there was about a hundred galleons in there."

He allowed himself to smile. "That's wonderful. Did the goblins say where it came from?"

"No," Ginny said excitedly. "They just said a transaction was made over the summer. Can you believe it? Mum said that she was going to go buy all of us gifts...because she can!"

Harry laughed, happy to see Ginny's reaction.

"But it's very strange, don't you think," she said.

Harry turned back to his breakfast, passing her a plate of sausage. "What's strange?" he asked.

"I mean, who would do that for us?"

"Yes, it is all very odd..."

Quite suddenly a sharp slap was delivered to his arm.

"Ow! What was that for?"

"Don't act all innocent. I know it was you!" she hissed, faint traces of laughter in her voice.

"No idea what you're talking about," he said absently, reaching to pick up his fork but he was slapped again.

"Don't lie to me," she grinned.

"Alright, alright," he said as she threatened to slap him again, "me and Sirius moved a couple bags from my vault to yours. Please don't tell your parents though."

"Don't worry I won't," she said, smiling sweetly at him. "That was very sweet of you, Harry." She kissed his cheek and left the Great Hall leaving behind a very happy Harry.

He had just gotten finished with breakfast when Hermione dumped a pile of books in front of him.

"Were you in the library?" he asked, pushing the books aside.

"Yes," she said sharply as if daring him to say anything. He tried to not think about what Ron might say though.

"So, what are all these books for? You can't possibly have this much homework."

"Of course not. They're books on defense. You know, for us and the DA."

This statement hit Harry as a complete shock. He had almost completely forgotten about the DA. Now the idea of it fresh in his mind, he looked around the Great Hall. A considerable amount of the group had left Hogwarts.

"There's not going to be much of the group left," he said.

"Well it won't matter," she said matter-of-factly, buttering herself a piece toast.

"And why's that?"

"Well, anyone can join. And Umbridge isn't here this year to say what clubs can be and what clubs can't. We could hold the meetings in the middle of the Great Hall every morning for all Dumbledore would care."

After spending so much effort last year hiding the DA from Umbridge, the thought never occurred to him that with her gone, they would be able to meet with out all the secretiveness.

"Do you mind if for the first couple of meetings we just stick with the original group?"

It wasn't that Harry didn't want his fellow schoolmates ready to defend themselves; he just wasn't particularly keen on the thought of having possibly a hundred or so people looking to him to learn defense.

"I don't care. Whatever you'd rather do. I'll talk to everyone later and see if there's a time we can all meet that's coming up. Once we do get a date, we can just use the Room of Requirement again. It's large enough and had everything we'll need."

She took a final bite of her toast and stood up.

"Where are you going?" Harry asked as she piled the books into her arms.

"Back to the library, of course."

Harry gave a small smirk. "Okay. See you later."

"See you. Oh, and Harry..." She leaned down and said quietly to him, "Ron wasn't in the dormitories at all last night."

"I know," Harry muttered, viciously stabbing some egg. "That's because he was in France."

***

Sirius was already in the classroom looking disinterestedly through a large stack of parchment when the sixth years started arriving.

With some amusement, Harry noticed that most of his classmates were eyeing Sirius with a wary eye. Almost everyone jumped when he cleared his throat to start talking. It was like watching a crowd of people waiting for a ticking bomb to go off.

"I'm Professor Black," he said almost lazily, leaning up against his desk. "So you've all decided to continue with the lovely subject of History of Magic. Professor Binns left some notes of what you had been learning the past years-" Harry had a sneaking suspicion that most of what Binns had left to Sirius had something to do with goblin rebellions "-however I didn't see how any of it fit in the curriculum I had planned so it accidentally got dumped into the lake."

Everyone laughed and just like that the tension was broke.

"So, who can tell me when Voldemort-"

Most people gasped, a few let out small yelps, and some of the Slytherins glared. Then there were the sparse amount that just sat there. Sirius arched an eyebrow.

"If you are ever going to survive in war, you need to be at least brave enough to say your opponent's name. Now everyone say it."

The majority of the class stared at him like he was crazy.

"On the count of three. One, two, three."

Everyone muttered the name so that you could barely make out what they were saying. To Harry's immense surprise, the only person that said it normally besides himself, Hermione, and Melany, was Draco Malfoy.

"That was pathetic," Sirius said disgustedly. "Say it again."

It took three more tries to satisfy him.

"Now was that so hard?"

Most people looked extremely proud of themselves. Sirius had finally broken through the first barrier of getting people over their fears of Voldemort.

"Okay, back to history. Can anyone tell me when Voldemort first rose to power?"

Only Hermione and Malfoy raised their hands.

"We can tell you when goblin rebellions began," Dean Thomas said.

"Draco, when?"

"!971," he said quietly.

"Very good, five points to Slytherin. Who was the top auror at the time?"

No one raised their hands.

"Anyone know who the minister was?"

Silence.

Sirius let out a low whistle. "We have a lot of work to do."