Another Prisoner, Another Professor

For a moment, Harry thought his heart had stopped beating.

"Of course I want you to stay with me for the whole summer," Black said quietly, his solemn gray eyes searching Harry's face. "I'd never leave you with those people unless I absolutely had to. You're my godson, Harry." His hands were gripping the back of the chair so hard that the tips of his fingers were turning white. "You're James's son. You belong with me - you've belonged with me ever since your parents died, and I haven't let a day go by without remembering that. You don't ever have to go back to the Dursleys again." He swallowed and released the chair. "I live in London - it's a horrible rundown mansion, but you can pick any bedroom you like. We can get it fixed up however you want - "

"Pick a bedroom?" Harry echoed. Not a cupboard under the stairs, or Dudley's second bedroom, or a dormitory room shared with four other boys - for the first time that he could remember, he was going to have his own bedroom.

"There are six empty ones," Black said. As he walked around to the front of the chair and sat down again, Harry thought he could see his legs trembling slightly. "No one's cleaned them in years, but we'll fix that. I'm not sure what the summer's going to be like - I'm not sure if I'll be able to work here again next year, for one thing - but I'll probably be home most of the time. If they've caught Lupin by summer, we could go abroad if you want. I'm not sure where, but - "

"I'm not going abroad," Harry said, gasping faintly as he spoke; he'd just realized that he'd hardly taken a breath of air for the last several seconds. "Why would I want to go abroad when I'm going to be staying with you?"

Black looked slightly embarrassed. "I want you to understand, the house is on the verge of being an absolute wreck," he said. "I haven't lived there very often since I inherited it - the dust is almost unbearable in some rooms, and there's mildew in the kitchen - "

"Who cares?!" Harry nearly shouted. It was starting to feel real now, wonderfully real; he was going to go live with his godfather. "So what if there's dust - look, Sirius, I wouldn't mind if you lived in a soggy cardboard box - "

"If that's what I have to do to keep you safe from Lupin, we will live in a soggy cardboard box," Black said. "If he hasn't been caught by the end of the school year, I'm keeping you in the house until he is. Don't expect - " His voice broke off and he looked at Harry, bemused. "Did you just call me Sirius?"

"I guess," Harry said. "Sorry, it just slipped out - "

"No, no, no, don't apologize," Black said at once. "Of course you can call me Sirius, it would be ridiculous for you to keep calling me Professor Black." Something occurred to Harry; he tried not to smile, but it was no good. "What?"

"Malfoy," Harry said, allowing himself to grin. "Back on the train to school at the beginning of the year - he said it wouldn't be long before you asked him to call you Sirius."

"Apparently his mother failed to fill him in on nearly two decades of animosity between us," Black said, leaning back in his seat. "You said Snape knows that you know that I'm your godfather - what happened?"

Harry took a deep breath, and launched into the whole story of his breaking into Black's office and the confrontation with Snape. The only things he left out were that Ron and Hermione had been with him, and that they'd had the Marauder's Map. He was willing now to own up to all the rules he'd broken, but he wasn't about to get anyone else in trouble, especially when they'd just been trying to help him. "Then he said something like, 'Your father learned there are consequences in life when he trusted his life to a werewolf, and now he's dead and cold - '"

"I'll kill him," Black said. His voice was dangerously soft. "I swear to God, one of these days that pathetic, greasy-haired bastard is going to say the wrong thing on the wrong day in front of me and then I will not be held responsible for my actions." At last, he undid his cloak and slung over the side of the chair - a little too hard, Harry thought. "James was always worth a hundred of Snape. Breaking into offices and insulting a thirteen-year-old boy's dead father - that shows you what sort of level he plays on. It's not enough for him that James was murdered when he was twenty-one, is it? He can't even decide James got what he deserved and move on with his life, he's got to try to keep punishing a dead man through his son, and you know what the funny thing is? If it had been Snape who died when he was twenty-one, James wouldn't have thought of him again unless someone else brought him up. James had better things to do than sit around simmering in old hatreds - both your parents did." He stopped and looked at Harry. "And they'd be very proud of you, you know."

Harry shrugged and looked away; he could feel his face growing hot. "I don't do anything that great," he muttered, "I just - stuff just happens. I mean, I didn't try to hear the basilisk in the walls last year, I just did. I didn't mean to get into everything with the Stone either - I wasn't trying to be a hero or anything - "

"They would be proud regardless," Black replied. He took a deep breath and sighed. "And now we've got to try to get Buckbeak acquitted. I was hoping Hagrid could pull it off himself, but we're past that point now - the whole thing is going to get very nasty before it's over. I was at Brutus's office before I came back here, and he wants to call witnesses at the appeal - "

"I'll do it," Harry said at once.

"No," Black replied, "it can't be you - it can't be Ron or Hermione either, it's got to be someone without a discernable history with the Malfoys. That narrows it down to Seamus, Dean, Neville - "

"Not Neville," Harry said. "Malfoy's been a foul little git to him since the first week of first year."

"Then we're down to four," Black said. "Seamus, Dean, Parvati, and Lavender."

Harry sat back and thought for a moment. "I think Parvati might do it," he said. "Especially if she knows you're on Hagrid's side - she, er, sort of likes you - "

"I'd noticed," said Black. He was trying not to smile and failing at it.

"She's been reading the Daily Prophet articles on the Malfoys to the entire common room," Harry continued, "but I don't think they know that. Lavender'll probably start crying if you use her. Seamus and Dean would probably do it - I mean, no one in Gryffindor likes Malfoy - "

"That's one of the problems we're going to have to work around," Black replied. "It's too bad Gryffindor and Slytherin were the only houses there. The best thing would be to have a Slytherin testify against the Malfoys, but that's clearly never going to happen." He paused. "I'm not sure how many witnesses Brutus wants to have - "

"Hang on," Harry said. An idea was starting to form in his mind - an impossible idea, but an idea nonetheless. "I don't know what it's all about, but Pansy Parkinson had some kind of row with Malfoy, I think. She started this petition to get rid of assigned seats in Potions class - I'm stuck at a table with Malfoy, so he wouldn't want to move - and we even asked her if he knew about it and she did it anyway. I mean, she could just really, really hate having to sit next to Ron, but it was weird. She's always - "

" - fawning over Draco," Black finished. He looked intrigued. "I don't know, it might be worth looking into, even if it turns out to be a dead end. Anything we can find out about Draco might be good, actually - Brutus is planning to subpoena his school disciplinary records and enter them into evidence."

"Evidence of what," Harry asked, "general git-ness?"

"Basically, yes." Black smiled slightly. "We'll talk more about this later. On a different topic, if they catch Lupin, should I assume that you'd like a box at the Quidditch World Cup if I can get one?"

"You can get those?" Harry asked. "They must cost a lot - you already bought seven Firebolts for Gryffindor - "

"Don't worry about that," Black replied. "A couple of years ago I had to get a second Gringotts vault because the first one was full. Who would you like to take, Ron and Hermione?"

"Yeah," Harry said, imagining the look on Ron's face.

"Anyone else?"

Harry bit the inside of his lower lip. In truth, he wanted to take the entire Weasley family, but he couldn't very well ask Black to pay for that many people.

"A box is a box," Black said, as though he was reading his mind. "You pay the same amount no matter how many people are in it."

"D'you think we could take the rest of Ron's family? He's got five brothers and Ginny, plus his parents - I've never met the eldest two of his brothers, maybe they're already going with someone else - "

"Yes, I think we could manage that."

"Ron's going pass out on the floor when I tell him," Harry said. "Wait - I've just thought - am I allowed to tell people that you're my godfather?"

"Do Ron and Hermione already know?" Harry nodded. "I wouldn't advertise it, but I don't think you need to keep it a secret. Speaking of secrets, I want to make it absolutely clear that you're finished with sneaking out of school. I understand the urge to get out, and once Lupin's caught you can to go Hogsmeade when the rest of the school - "

"Hang on," Harry said. "You signed my permission form!"

"Of course I did," said Black, swinging his right leg up and resting its ankle on his left knee. "'Parent or guardian,' remember? But you're done with sneaking out of school, is that understood?"

"Yes," said Harry. Hermione was going to have to find another way to get that blood magic book from the basement of the shop. "What are we going to do if they still haven't caught Lupin by the World Cup? What are we going to do if they never catch him?"

Black took a deep breath. "I don't know. We'll deal with that if and when we come to it." He glanced at the clock on the wall, just above the photograph of Nymphadora. She was standing on her hands and wiggling her toes. "Now we've got to deal with getting through dinner with Draco's gloating. I think the best thing we can do is walk in smiling about something; with any luck it'll unnerve him and he'll think we've got some important secret."

"Great," Harry said, grinning. "Brilliant."

Dinner was just about to start; the corridors were mostly empty of students, except for a dreamy-looking girl with long blonde hair and a group of Ravenclaw second-years running by. "I'm not bad with dust, you know," Harry told Black as they headed down the stairs. "Of course, the Dursleys never had that much...I can cook, too."

"That's good to hear," Black said. "Kreacher's got to the point where he tries to fry things in the sink. It's too bad, he used to make wonderful meat dishes."

"When he wasn't sneaking chocolate in them, you mean," Harry said.

"The worst was the time he put a whole chocolate egg in - that reminds me, do you want to go with me to Andromeda and Ted's for Easter dinner? You could meet Nymphadora."

"Is that okay with them?"

"Of course it's okay with them." They had reached the doors to the Great Hall, and Harry could hear the clattering of plates and the sounds of people's voices inside. "Ready?" asked Black.

"I think so," Harry said.

"Thought of something to smile about?"

"I don't have to," Harry said. "If it weren't for Buckbeak, I think I could use today to produce a full Patronus." He closed his eyes for a split second, grasped the handle, and opened the door.