Chapter 8

Living back in Potter Manor after Azkaban had been an emotional experience for Sirius.

He'd nearly cried when Teeny had told him that she'd drawn him a bath and laid out a clean set of robes for him. He had cried when he took his first bite of food in twelve years that didn't taste like it had been scraped off a troll's arse or fished out of the garbage. It had taken him a good ten minutes to convince Teeny that there was nothing wrong with her cooking after that. The Potter house elf had always been an insecure little thing.

It was then that he had decided that there had been enough blubbering. Sirius Black was not some emotionally fragile preteen girl that kept bursting into tears at the slightest provocation. He was a manly man and would act like it.

That resolve had lasted exactly one hour, which was the time it took him to build up the nerve to go talk to Charlus and Dorea's portraits. He'd started bawling again as soon as they told him that they didn't blame him for James and Lily's deaths.

Sirius still felt responsible, but didn't argue. He'd never had it in him to argue with Charlus and Dorea.

Remus spent the majority of the Halloween feast staring at the son of his friends, still wallowing indecisively over how or even if to approach him.

Dumbledore had told him that the boy seemed to somehow know about him already. It would be so much simpler if Harry deigned to make the first move, but he couldn't put that all on Harry without being a hypocrite.

James and Sirius had always been the ones who made things happen in the Marauders. Charismatic James Potter and bold Sirius Black, getting in and out of trouble as easy as breathing. Remus had participated in their antics eagerly, happy to have friends at all with his condition, but he hadn't been a driving force like James or Sirius. Peter had been even more of a follower than him and couldn't even boast the same kind of intelligence and skill that would have made him their equal the same as it did for Remus.

Harry wasn't really much like James in temperament. Not nearly as social or boisterous and too studious by half.

But sometimes he reminded him so much of James that it was hard to keep from calling him the wrong name. Times like now, when Remus had heard that he'd gone to Hogsmeade with one seventh year witch and left it with two. Remus had once been terribly envious of his two friends' easy way with the opposite gender, something that he'd always had to avoid due to his lycanthropy even when the opportunity presented itself. Nowadays it was just another regret among many.

And speaking of regrets…

One of the larger ones was sitting at the same table as him, occasionally shooting a glower at Harry.

Snape had been a favored target for James and Sirius, no doubt a result of James' near obssesive infatuation with Lily and Sirius being the supportive best friend by backing him up. Severus' friendship with her had riled them like nothing else. Remus and Peter hadn't participated in picking on the dour Slytherin often, but they hadn't protested either.

It had felt too good to have someone that he, a werewolf, could feel pity for to do that and Peter had likely had a similar reason, minus the lycanthropy. A shameful realization about himself that had come far too late to be helpful. It was one of the main reasons that he didn't try to retaliate or defend himself from Snape's veiled barbs these days. He deserved them.

Not that Severus had been a helpless victim. He'd given almost as good as he'd gotten in many cases, which was particularly impressive since he had always been outnumbered. In truth, Remus had always strongly suspected that Severus was a more powerful wizard than any single one of the Marauders.

However much he enjoyed teaching, he found himself wishing that he hadn't accepted Dumbledore's offer. There were too many regrets and memories in this place, staring out at him either from the black eyes of a man too bitter, proud and resentful to accept his apologies or from the bright green of a teenager who looked at him with indifferent curiousity at best.

He couldn't wait for the feast to be over. The cheerful armosphere did not suit his mood.

A little further down the table, Snape glowered so darkly that not even Dumbledore attempted to bother him with his infuriatingly inane chatter.

Halloween always put him in a foul mood. Lily had died on this day and the innumerable twits infesting the world celebrating it grated on him. The fact that Potter had deigned to grace the Great Hall with his presence on this day for the first time since coming to Hogwarts made it worse.

Rumor had already reached him of the brat's neophyte forays into the philandering ways of his father and it curdled his opinion of the boy more than anything else could have, along with his mood.

He couldn't wait for the feast to be over. The last of the firewhiskey that Minerva had gotten him the previous Christmas sounded particularly appealing right now.

Oblivious to the regard of the two professors, Harry continued eating as he absently reached into the pocket of his robes to give the note it held a squeeze. The message it held made his blood boil even as it sent a nervous flutter to his stomach.

Come to the seventh floor after the feast, the opposite side of the corridor from the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy. We'll be waiting.

Bryanna had slipped him the note before she'd left, with Tiana following shortly afterwards. He felt almost as nervous as the first time with Zoe. How did threesomes even work?

But he also couldn't wait for the feast to be over. It would be fun learning how they worked.

One the feast was over Harry slipped away from prying eyes and made his way up to the seventh floor. It was less expansive than most of the castle, being as high up as it was, so there shouldn't be any trouble finding the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy.

Granted, he had no idea what it looked like, but he figured that someone that wizards titled 'the Barmy' would be doing something pretty fucking crazy.

Trying to teach trolls how to do ballet defnitely fit the bill. Why would anyone want to do that anyway?

But the ambitions of insane wizards were really of no importance to Harry right now. What was important was the door on the opposite side of the corridor. Harry cautiously opened the door and froze as soon as he stepped inside.

He hadn't been sure what to expect of this room, but what he got was not it. It was rather large, with several dozen floating candles giving it a warm orange glow. It was somewhat bare of furniture except for the exccessively large bed. Harry absently noticed the deep crimson bedding, but most of his attention was on the two women currently occupying the bed.

Bryanna and Tiana were laying on their sides, facing each other with their legs entangled, echanging languid kisses.

Harry had assumed that the Wizarding World would be as intolerant of homosexuality as it was about a lot of other things, but he was very glad to be wrong for a change. When thinking of it later on, he would eventually conclude that the contempt that magicals had for monotheistic religion was likely the main reason for this surprising tolerance, but he was entirely too distracted to be thinking about that right now.

The girls noticed him at that point and separated from each other.

"Looks like it's time for the main event." Bryanna said huskily, giving Harry a smouldering look.

"Finally." Tiana muttered under her breath.

The two of them had decided to get each other ready just in case Harry was one of those guys that liked to just get to the main event and fall asleep right after, like their first times had been. If he did end up being like that, then they'd at least be plenty wet enough for it to only be disappointing instead of unpleasant.

The only problem had been restraining themselves to just kissing and some light petting and not getting started without him. That would have run counter to the whole point. They weren't really lesbians or even bisexual, but there was nothing wrong with getting a bit of relief with a friend. Especially when the pickings among the male population were so slim.

Harry watched in entranced fascination as they got off the bed and walked towards him. Both of them were wearing sheer nighties that simply had to be enchanted. They looked as though they might have originally come out of a muggle lingerie store, but no regular fabric could shimmer so enticingly as it moved. It looked as though they were made of impossibly fine metal, with Bryanna's being bronze and Tiana's silver. They had nothing but bright blue and green panties under those, an amusing nod to the color of their Hogwarts houses.

He'd just taken in that interesting little detail when they reached him, one after the other giving him a deep kiss without preamble.

"You're overdressed, Harry." Bryanna whispered into his ear as two sets of hands started undoing his robes. "Lets fix that, shall we?"

Busy as he was kissing Tiana and running his hands over her thinly covered body, Harry couldn't respond, but he definitely wasn't going to object.

There was one thing that absolutely had to be done before things went any further though.

"One moment." He said breathlessly after separating his lips from those of the Slytherin girl.

Then he drew his wand and quickly cast two contraception charms.

"Protection, Harry?" Tiana smirked. "That's very responsible of you, but we're already on the potion."

"Better safe than sorry." He shrugged and eagerly leaned back to kiss her before she could respond.

They left a trail of discarded clothing on the floor as they stumbled towards the bed, by which time Harry had nothing but his underwear left on him.

Harry grabbed Tiana's legs when they reached the edge of the bed and lifted her onto it, covering her body with his own immediately after.

Guess I get to be first. She thought humorlessly when she felt him hooking his thumbs into her panties and pull them off.

Instead of having a male member of underwhelming size shoved into her, he had her gasping in surprise as he dived for her crotch mouth first, with every indication that he'd been dying to do just that.

Harry had in fact been dying to do just that, having developed something of an oral fixation with Zoe. Maybe it had been his desire to reach the coveted ten out of ten on the cunnilingus scale, or maybe it was the ego boost that hearing a woman panting in pleasure while he ate her out gave him. Either way, he wasn't going to miss out on a chance to do it.

Seeing her friend making sounds of pleasure that didn't sound faked, Bryanna made a facial expression somewhere between a smirk and a pout. Smirking, because it looked like Tiana's plan to fake their orgasms wouldn't be needed and pouting because she wasn't getting any attention.

Then her expression changed all the way into a smirk as she got an idea. First, she pulled off her own nightie and panties, then she tugged down Harry's underwear to get him completely naked.

With a critical look that she would've kept off her face if he could see it, Bryanna examined Harry's package and nodded to herself. It wasn't really anything to write home about, but it was impressive for a thirteen year old. At the very least it would do more than tickle when he put it in.

Running her hands gently over the exposed genitals, she leaned over to him and spoke in her most throaty voice.

"I'll be expecting the same treatment, so don't exhaust yourself too quickly."

Harry groaned his agreement into Tiana's crotch, incidentally making the Slytherin groan as well. His jaw was not going to thank him for it, but he fully intended to do just that.

One hour later.

Bryanna grunted as Harry sheathed himself into her from behind, the entrance being very easy due to her previous orgasm leaving her well lubricated.

Tiana was sprawled on her back next to them, the trickle of semen leaking from her attesting to Harry's own recent ograsm.

An orgasm that he seemed to have already recovered from.

Harry looked down at the witch he was thrusting into, feeling the familiar thrill of power that this position gave him. It was even more pronounced than it had been with Zoe. Unlike his muggle friend, Bryanna had a tangible power within her that he could feel when he was this close. A power that felt submissive to him when he took her like this.

Lost in the moment, he decided to see if he couldn't push things a bit further.

Bryanna leaned her head back eagerly when she felt a hand grabbing her hair. The combination of being taken from behind and having her hair grabbed felt good.

She didn't think much of it when he pulled her head a bit to the side and thrust into her hard enough to nudge her forward.

She did notice however when he started pushing her head towards Tiana's soiled crotch.

"Lick her." Harry ordered with a grunt as he pushed himself all the way into her and stopped moving. "We wouldn't want her falling asleep now, would we?"

Bryanna wanted to protest, but something about the situation made her inner walls clench with anticipation around his shaft. She wanted him to start moving again and damn if his commanding behavior wasn't hot.

So she gave in and set to work on getting her friend off again, ignoring both the taste of Harry's seed and the protesting mewl that Tiana made to the stimulation.

Seeing a witch four years his senior give in to his desire sent Harry hurtling over the edge of his second orgasm entirely too fast, but he didn't fight it and released into her with a drawn out groan.

Drawing in big gulps of air, he watched her arse sticking into the air and a drop of sperm trickle from her opening. He could already feel his arousal returning at the sight. He was going to be hard again in a minute.

He had something else that he wanted to do though.

Not bothering with a wand since neither of the two girls could see him, Harry focused on what he wanted and sent a cleaning charm at Bryanna's crotch.

The Ravenclaw girl jumped slightly as the spell removed not only his own leavings, but also the wetness generated by her arousal.

"Harry!" She gasped, sounding a mixture of scandalized and aroused. " Did you just cast a spell at my fanny?! "

"Get back to licking." He told her with a grin and planted his face in the aforementioned fanny. After all, he'd made her dry again and that just wouldn't do.

Bryanna groaned at having his tongue applied to her again. The spell had been like a jolt of cold power right to her privates, so his hot tongue was feeling particularly good right now. The position was also new and exciting to her. She'd never gotten licked from behind before.

And speaking of licking, she went back to flicking her tongue over the tired Slytherin's clitoris.

Harry had a point. Tiana had no business falling asleep already. Shagging the overly virile third year had been her idea and by Merlin she was going to help tire him out.

Two hours later.

Tiana opened her eyes blearily as she heard Harry groan and spurt out what couldn't be more than a few drops of sperm into her abused snatch.

She was currently lying on her stomach and mostly just happy to let the boy do whatever he wanted until he tired himself out.

Bryanna was already passed out next to her, having thrown her under the metaphorical bus earlier and told Harry to leave her alone and use the Slytherin to satisfy himself. The bitch.

Neither one of them had expected Harry to have that much damned stamina. Oh sure, he technically cheated by giving himself breaks and resorting to the use of his tongue, but at the end of the day, he was still the one that had exhausted them instead of the other way around. The after sex business proposition they'd planned was just going to have to wait until morning.

She felt the bed dip as a new weight shimmied between her and Bryanna. She hadn't even noticed him getting off the bed in the first place.

To her great relief, he merely pulled both of them close and settled down to sleep. If he'd tried going anywhere near her groin again, she might have just slapped him. If she could be bothered to lift her arms that was.

Instead she just settled into his side and took a deep breath, taking in the smell of food.

Wait… food?

He'd gotten himself a snack before getting back to bed?

The absurdity of his appetite made Tiana giggle sleepily as she fell back into slumber.

Harry raised an eyebrow a the weird giggle/snore hybrid that the Slytherin girl had just made, wondering what the hell she was dreaming about.

Eh, no matter. He was way too exhausted to really care. He'd almost been too exhausted to eat, but the gurgling emptiness of his stomach would never have let him sleep.

The morning after was greeted with parched throats, full bladders, terrible morning breath and sore nethers.

Fortunately, there was a bathroom attached to the room, the house elves were always happy to provide assistance with anything food related and minor healing spells could soothe the soreness.

Once all of that had been taken care of, they went back to snuggling on the bed.

"Where did you girls find this amazing room?" Harry asked with a sigh, sinking into the deliciously soft pillows.

"The elves call it the Come And Go room, or the Room of Requirement. Apparently you just have to pace across the hallway three times and think about what you want."

"And the castle just reads your mind and makes the room?" Harry asked incredulously.

"Looks like it." Bryanna shrugged.

"Huh, that's interesting."

Very interesting. In fact, Harry was quite sure that he'd just found a new favorite room in the castle.

"So… Harry, what did you think of what we were wearing?" Tiana asked casually, dragging a finger along his chest.

"Those sexy nighties?" He asked with a grin. "I loved them. Where did you find those anyway? It doesn't look like something that you could buy in Diagon Alley and I could feel the magic in them."

"We made them." Bryanna said proudly. "Well, us and two other friends."

"That's quite a talent you've got there." He complimented.

"Thank you." Tiana accepted graciously. "We've been thinking of opening a clothing store that caters to more… modern tastes than Madam Malkin's, but it's hard to start up a business in the Wizarding World."

Harry smiled wryly, the realization dawning on him.

"So you hatched a plan to seduce an orphaned heir to a Noble House and get him to foot the bill." He said dryly.

Bryanna and Tiana exchanged glances and shrugged, giving up the pretense of casual conversation. This had been supposed to happen while he was still mellow from the sex and sleepy. They hadn't counted on him being able to wear them out, but they had to deal with the situation as it was.

"Yes." The Ravenclaw girl said with as much dignity as could be mustered in the situation. "So, will you do it? You said that you liked our work and we have plenty of other ideas for things, not just night clothes and underwear."

"Explain the whole situation to me and I'll think about it." He said, not keen to agree to anything just yet.

"It's fairly simple really." Bryanna began with a shrug. "All four of us are of the opinion that the Wizarding World could do with a fashion update and want to open a clothing store. The problem is that getting the start up capital is damn near impossible and the pureblood pricks running the Ministry start bleating protests every time someone tries to do something different."

Tiana took up the narrative from there. "You might have noticed that it looks like we just took some muggle clothing and enchanted it, which is fairly close to the mark. We haven't figured much of the sewing spells that are used in creating clothes because those tend to be professional secrets, but buying stuff made by muggles, enchanting it and reselling is simple enough if you've got the skill."

"The problem is that some pureblood could easily decide that he didn't like what we were doing, throw some money around and get it classified under 'Misuse of Muggle Artefacts' to make the whole thing illegal. So we were hoping that you would give us the start up gold and let us use the Potter name." Bryanna finished.

"How would using my name help?" Harry asked curiously.

"Lords of Noble Houses get all kinds of exemptions to the law, including the one about misusing muggle artefacts. If they made it illegal for you, then they'd be making it illegal for themselves too." She answered and continued with a mutter. "As if a bra was an artefact."

The two girls went quiet and Harry mulled over their words. He'd never much cared for the ungainly robes that wizards liked so much and was definitely in favor of having alternatives, but he had noticed how tradition obsessed the culture was. They weren't likely to turn a profit for years . In fact, the entire venture could quite easily just end up being a huge money sink.

That being said, it could also turn out to be spectacularly successful. The muggleborns would almost definitely like it, just as certainly as the purebloods would hate it. The halfbloods were a toss up. An important toss up as they made up anywhere between 60 and 80% of the population.

"How much would you need?" He asked after a few minutes.

"A few thousand galleons at least." Bryanna said with wince, knowing that it wasn't a small amount of money, but also knowing better than to sugarcoat it. They'd need that money to buy the space, build up stock and advertise, not to mention living expenses since they'd essentially be unemployed during that time. If he refused them, then their only other avenue would be to take a loan from Gringotts and only idiots borrowed money from the goblins. Their interest rates were ruinous.

Harry wasn't too bothered by the number. The basilisk carcass had sold for truly ridiculous sums, enough that he had no worries about running out of funds by the time he reached adulthood even if he became quite an extravagant spender. It wasn't as much as he had in his main vault, but it would probably be comparable to the fortune of a very minor Noble family.

"I'll give you ten thousand." He said, lips quirking at how their eyes widened. "BUT, I want majority ownership. 60%."

"Then you'd be the one owning it, not us." Tiana grumbled. She wanted to be her own boss, not an employee in someone else's business.

"I'm the one taking the risk here, not you." Harry pointed out. "If this idea of yours sinks, I'll be the one taking the hits."

"I don't suppose we could convince you to lower that percentage down to 49?" Bryanna asked coyly, hand reaching to fondle him between the legs.

"I have a better idea." He said with a grin.

"Really?" Tiana asked, clearly sceptical.

"I give you the money and keep the 60%, you wait for me to claim lordship before opening your store and focus on building up stock in the meantime, I keep your business afloat for as long as it takes to start turning a profit. Once it does start turning a profit you start paying back my investment, for which I won't charge any interest by the way. When however much debt you've accumulated to me is paid off, I turn over 20% to each of you."

The girls exchanged contemplative looks. It was, all told, a fairly good deal. They would have needed to wait for him to claim lordship in any case to protect them from any possible legal fiction concocted by the uptight purebloods. The part about not charging interest for the investment and turning simply handing them 40% of the business once it was repaid was particularly generous and not something they could expect to get from anywhere else.

"There are four of us though." Bryanna reminded him, taking note of the fact that she and Tiana would have majority ownership with this arrangement. Not an entirely displeasing idea, truth be told.

"Well I'm not seeing the other two here, so I'm not inclined to give them larger shares." He returned. "Speaking of which… how would you two feel about keeping me company for the rest of the year?"

The girls exchanged another glance at that, knowing exactly what kind of company he wanted. They hadn't really planned for any future trysts, but they didn't want anything jeopardizing their future either and were far too cynical to assume that Harry was a decent enough bloke to not take it personally if they refused, Boy-Who-Lived or not.

"I'm sure that something could be arranged."

Besides, even if Harry wasn't the most amazing lover ever, he was enthusiastic, had stamina and wasn't shy about putting his tongue to work to get a girl off. That mostly made up for his somewhat limited experience. Who knows, he might even learn a thing or two about properly using that cock of his eventually.

Molly read over the letter that her daughter had sent her again and frowned, still unsure how to reply to it.

Ginny had been so excited to have made friends with the Boy-Who-Lived last year and now this had happened.

Molly was well aware of how the heirs of Noble Houses tended to act during the later years of their Hogwarts education. She'd always been fiercely disapproving, but had kept it mostly to herself since it didn't concern her. Aside from that one fool incident with a love potion that Arthur had later forgiven her for, she'd held herself to a higher standard than both the witches throwing themselves at noble heirs and those selfsame heirs taking advantage of their status to bed them.

Now Ginny was asking for advice on how to regain her friendship with one of those types and if she was reading between the lines correctly, also how to catch his interest.

Ron had been rather uncomplimentary of him at the start of his first year, calling him rude and arrogant in his letters, but that had tapered off after that poor muggleborn girl had been killed by the troll. Her youngest son had never been quite the same after that, feeling partially responsible for her death as he did.

Harry had seemed like a nice enough boy when they'd met him at the train station at the end of the previous school year, if a bit terse and oddly tall for his age, so she figured that they'd merely had a rocky first meeting. She'd wanted to invite him to spend part of the summer at the Burrow, but had held off when he seemed to be in such a hurry.

Molly could admit to herself that she was also slightly disappointed to learn that Harry Potter would act like any other entitled lordling. She'd expected better from the boy who had defeated Voldemort. Dumbledore had told her before the start of Ginny's first year that Harry needed a friend, so she'd thought that he'd be a bit on the shy side. Apparently, that had not been exactly the case.

What was she supposed to tell Ginny? That Harry was likely to keep bedding a stream of witches that were no doubt hoping to become the next Lady Potter? That he was probably going to start receiving marriage offers at the first sign of acceptance? That it was entirely possible that quite a few of those witches would settle for being his mistresses?

That was another not spoken of practice among the Noble Houses that had always grated on Molly's more conservative sensibilities. Marriages in pureblood society were often based on social status or business deals rather than any kind of affection, which naturally led to both the Lord and Lady of a House having one or more lovers on the side. They'd produce the agreed upon number of children, attend social functions together and pretend to be a functional family, but ignore each other the rest of the time in favor of their respective dalliances.

She didn't want that kind of future for her daughter. She would always be grateful to Harry for recognizing the cursed diary for what it was, but she didn't find her daughter's crush on the Boy-Who-Lived cute anymore. She also handily ignored the fact that she had subtly encouraged said crush.

A dark corner of her mind whispered about the Potter wealth and how nice it would be to have access to it through Ginny, but she ignored that. There were more important things in the world than money, her daughter's happiness being one of those things.

Prongslet,

We didn't really get a chance to talk, so I decided to write you a letter. Not really sure what to say to be perfectly honest, the last time I saw you, you were turning James' hair green because he tried to make you eat broccoli and now you're practically grown up.

I should have been there for you. I should have taken care of you instead of going after Wormtail that night. Charlus and Dorea told me a bit about your life and the people you live with now. You could come live with me once this thing with Wormtail and my fugitive status is settled.

I say 'come live with me', but what I really mean is that I could take guardianship of you. The Black family home isn't any more cheery than Azkaban, so I wouldn't subject you to living there.

That was an interesting offer, but Harry wasn't sure if he would be taking the man up on it. Yes, Robert and Katherine were annoying, but they were familiar. He'd learned how to handle them a long time ago and his recent dabbling into compulsion charms made it almost trivial to keep them out of his hair. Not to mention that switching guardianship would likely involve quite a bit of legal wrangling that he was keen to avoid.

On the other end of the spectrum was his godfather. A wizard would certainly make for a more convenient guardian in many ways, but only as long as he didn't actually try to act like a parent. Harry had no more use for a parent, especially one that fancied himself as being responsible . Responsible guardians would not let their charges perform rituals of blood sacrifice or give them unlimited access to the more questionable reading material of the Black Library.

Harry had no real interest in becoming a Dark Wizard in the traditional sense, but he very much wanted to get at those books. The Potter family library was nice, but suffered a crippling dearth of anything that smacked of dark magic. The Black family was both several centuries older and far less hampered by morals.

Charlus and Dorea had obviously not said a word about his rituals, which was good. He hadn't had time to order them to keep quiet about those and it was nice to know that they knew better than to blurt out that kind of dangerous secret even if they thought it was for his own good.

On the whole, he was leaning towards rejecting Sirius' offer. He would have to think about it some more, but so far it looked like a lot of hassle for little gain. Sirius didn't have to be his legal guardian to open the Black Library after all.

I know that we don't really know each other and a letter isn't a very good way to change that, but needs must, so I'll just go and properly introduce myself.

I am Sirius Orion Black, also known as the white sheep of the Inbred and Most Pompous House of Black, and your dogfather…

After that mocking introduction, the letter delved into Sirius' first meeting and instant friendship with James Potter on the Hogwarts Express, as well as their meeting with Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew and some of their adventures.

The words were full of nostalgia and more than a small amount of hatred whenever Pettigew, and surprisingly Snape, came up. At least it explained where Snape's animosity for him was coming from, petty though it was.

… I'd like to hear about your own Hogwarts adventure, the friends you've made, the girls you've charmed.

Yours truly,

Padfoot.

P.S. Don't underestimate Pettigrew. He might not look like much, but he's as slippery as his Animagus form and can be dangerous when cornered. I know that your plan makes sense, but I'm still not comfortable with you going after him alone. Remus would help you if you asked him. Hells, even Dumbledore would probably help you.

Harry snorted. Like hell was he going to ask either a virtual stranger or a manipulative old man for help. He didn't know Lupin well enough to predict his reaction and giving Dumbledore any more information to work with was the absolute last thing he was going to do.

Sirius had spoken about Lupin at length, even talking about his werewolf status as though Harry already knew about it. That was somewhat careless of the man, but Harry did have to admit that the clues had been there.

He was still not going to approach the man, despite Sirius' waxing eloquent about what a loyal friend he was. Lupin meant nothing to him and wasn't someone he trusted, so he would be doing this by himself.

The rat would have no blatantly obvious reason to suspect himself hunted now that Sirius was safely in Potter Manor, which would make taking him relatively easy.

He couldn't take him too soon though, as he would then run into the problem of getting out of Hogwarts with the rat. House elves were exempt from the Hogwarts wards and could apparate through them freely, but they couldn't take passengers through them.

The Christmas holidays would provide the perfect exit, he just needed to grab Pettigrew a short while before then.

Harry supposed that he could have told the teachers about this, but he simply didn't trust them not to bungle it all up. He especially didn't trust Dumbledore. The old wizard should have had more than just an inkling of Sirius' innocence, so his inaction on the matter came either from incompetence or some darker agenda.

No, better to handle it himself and keep it quiet until it was too late for anyone to meddle. If word got out about this, he knew that the Ministry would react in the usual fashion of politicians everywhere. Namely, they would do everything in their power to save face and sweeping the whole thing under the proverbial rug was the simplest way of doing that. Innocent or guilty, Sirius Black represented a problem and an embarrassment for the Ministry.

Before he made any plans for Pettigrew however, it would behoove him to reply to the letter. If nothing else, he needed to get to know Sirius before he could decide on the matter of guardianship.

Somewhat contrary to Harry's thoughts about him, Dumbledore did not have any sinister agendas involving Sirius Black, nor was he even particularly incompetent in this case.

He had not been told that the Potters had switched their Secret Keeper. Hagrid, however big his heart was, did not have the brains to match. When the half-giant had taken Harry from Sirius, he had assumed that the man had given the baby up out of a desire to avoid fighting him right after losing his dark master and had reported that to Dumbledore.

Dumbledore had believed him. It would be pretty hard to fight while holding a baby after all. Furthermore, Black had not known the prophecy. Had probably not known about the measures taken by Voldemort to avoid death.

Dumbledore wanted to believe that Sirius was not so far gone as to murder a baby even if he had fallen into the ways of his family and betrayed his friends to the Dark Lord, so he did. It made him feel better to think that there was still a spark of good even in otherwise evil people.

Assumptions made by people with below average intelligence were dangerous. Assumptions made by optimists were equally dangerous. The entire scenario would have made markedly less sense without one or both of these things.

That was why he had not protested too much when Barty Crouch had told him that Black had confessed and been thrown into Azkaban without a trial. There had been so much work to do then that it was far from the only procedural shortcut taken in the wake of Voldemort's death. If Sirius had in the end seen the error of his ways and confessed to his crimes, then there was no need to make a big procession of it.

Had Harry come to him for help with capturing Pettigrew, Dumbledore would have been ecstatic. Not only would he get to help an innocent man, but he would also get to show Harry that he could be relied on and trusted.

As it was, it never even crossed Harry's mind to tell Dumbledore anything and the old wizard himself spent his nights pondering other problems.

Like how to get Fudge to call off those blasted Dementors and how much truth there was to Harry's supposed 'relationship' with a seventh year girl. Possibly two seventh year girls.

He actually had a fairly good idea of what the truth really was. The broad strokes of it at least.

He could have tried to put an end to it, but frankly, it played into his own plans quite well. Harry getting suckered into a marriage to an ambitious young lady would perhaps be emotionally damaging to the young man, but it would give him the strong tie to Britain that Dumbledore had wanted to establish for some time now.

It might even allow the Potter family to produce a successor before Harry's inevitable clash with destiny, remote though the possibility was. It would be a shame for another old family to die out, so he was quietly wishing the ambitious Ms. Torres and her friends the best of luck.

"Things are progressing rather well, wouldn't you say, Fawkes?" He asked in a murmur.

The phoenix trilled sharply.

"I am trying, my friend. I am certain that I will be able to convince the Minister to recall the dementors before long." The old wizard soothed. He knew that the presence of the soul sucking horrors had not agreed with his feathery friend. Phoenixes and dementors didn't get along. At all.

"Were you planning to be a ward specialist or enchanter, Harry?" Professor Vector asked curiously as she examined his work.

Harry frowned thoughtfully. "Not really. Why do you ask?"

"Because you are quite advanced in the type of arithmancy required for that kind of work, much further than in the fields that deal with spell creation." She explained.

Ah, that would explain her assumption. Harry had needed to figure out the more rigid equations used in rituals and those had quite a bit of overlap with warding and enchanting, but had comparatively little interest in deciphering wand movements.

"I hadn't really thought about it." He answered semi-truthfully. "That type of arithmancy just comes easier to me."

"Hmm, we'll have to give spellcasting theory some more attention. It tends to pop up in the OWL tests more frequently than static magic."

Harry's lips curled brielfy in distaste. He didn't particularly care about a test score on a very stupidly named test. Knowing why this wand movement worked better than that one was of little interest to him. Wandless magic worked on a completely different principle that he was only beginning to understand for all that he had managed to get a few spells to work with it, but he knew enough to know that no arithmantic knowledge of it existed.

"I'd prefer to keep working on general theory and static magic." He said instead of voicing his distaste. "It's much more interesting and I'm sure I'll be able to pass the OWLs either way."

Vector looked uncertain for a moment but then nodded her assent. She'd offered him private tutoring exactly because Harry had been bored stiff in her normal class. He might not get a perfect O in his OWLs by neglecting spellcasting theory, but what he wanted to study featured more prominently at the NEWT level. Nobody cared about your OWL scores if you had a NEWT in the same subject, for better or for worse.

Ginny was dawdling and she knew it.

She'd gotten a response from her mother over a week ago, but had still not done anything about the ever widening gulf between her and Harry.

She'd been hoping that her mother would be able to tell her how to get Harry to go back to normal. A vain hope in retrospect, but one born of seeing her father usually abiding by the wishes of his wife.

Instead, the letter had essentially advised her not to get mixed up in whatever Harry was doing, with embarrassing extra emphasis on not trying to prove to Harry how grown up she was by trying to sleep with him. It didn't say that she shouldn't be friends with him, just that she should let go of any feelings she might have developed for him.

Not exactly what Ginny had wanted to hear, nor particularly useful as far as ways to get close to Harry again were concerned. She'd been angry after their last talk, but she still wasn't entirely willing to give up on him.

That was why she'd been procrastinating enough to put Ron to shame. She'd been stubbornly hoping that the situation would somehow resolve itself.

Surprisingly even to her, it seemed to have done so.

Harry wasn't spending so much time around that seventh year tramp anymore. They still seemed to be on friendly terms, but their interaction was noticeably less frequent.

If Harry was distancing himself from the older girl, then maybe he was seeing the error of his ways? Or maybe he'd simply gotten tired of humoring the gold digging slut. Either way, Ginny felt that this was the perfect time to go talk to him.

As she usually did when she wanted to talk to him privately, she woke up early and made her way to his room, knowing that he too had a propensity for waking up early. Their different schedules and his habit of disappearing at random meant that it was by far the best time to catch him alone.

Just as she was about to knock on the door, it opened.

And revealed the very gold digging slut that she'd thought that Harry had stopped associating with, still in the process of fixing her mussed up hair and crumpled robes.

The two stared at each other in surprise for several long moments before Bryanna carefully shut the door behind her.

"What were you doing in Harry's room?" Ginny demanded, anger leaking into her tone at the discovery that the truth was not as palatable as she'd thought.

Bryanna looked at the redhead incredulously, knowing that it was perfectly obvious what she'd been doing in his room.

Then she smirked, grabbed the younger girl's chin and leaned in close. "I was tutoring him, tutoring him all night long ."

Not really. She'd fallen asleep after he'd worn her out, only to wake up with his face between her legs again. His strange fascination with licking pussy was going a long way towards making their arrangement pleasant rather than demeaning. Men who enjoyed doing that were just so rare . And he was getting better at it too.

The redhead slapped her hand away, obviously fuming. That just made Bryanna laugh as she walked away. The Weasley girl had been acting kind of bratty since the start, so riling her up like this was terribly amusing.

Face burning with anger and humiliation, Ginny fled back to her own room. Before now, Harry's words had only been an abstract sort of thing. Seeing a girl coming out of his room early in the morning and all but admitting to having sex with him really made it hit home.

Pacing alone in the Room of Requirement, Harry pondered his Patronus.

He still hadn't managed to get more than mist out of it. Without a wand, he hadn't managed anything at all.

Perhaps casting such a difficult spell wandlessly was being overly ambitious at this stage. The only spells he had managed to get working without a wand so far were very simple in purpose. Spells to give light, levitation charms, minor compulsions, that kind of thing. Any spell that had more than a solitary component was exponentially more difficult to cast without a wand. He still hadn't managed more than the most minute changes with wandless transfiguation.

There was a certain structure to spells that made it enormously difficult to form them without the aid of a wand. The magic simply fell apart if he tried to shape the spell with nothing but his will.

But it could be done. His limited success proved it. And if it could be done, then he was damn well going to do it. He would unravel whatever mystery there was behind magic, and then he could do away with the use of a wand. The magical focus made him feel more like a cripple every day. How everyone else could be so attached to their wands escaped his understanding.

But getting back to the Patronus, he simply couldn't cast it. No memory that he could dredge up was powerful enough to call forth the guardian. Experimentation showed that he was correct in his original assessment; thoughts of protection and safety worked best. After all, you couldn't be happy if you weren't safe.

He strongly suspected that the popular formula of using the happiest thought you could muster was a direct result of the misery inducing aura of a dementor. A simplistic line of thinking that was in tune with the usually simplistic view that wizards had of magic.

Sometimes, he despaired over how mundane they managed to make magic. The only person in the Wizarding World who had so far kept magic actually magical was Luna. That was probably why he liked her so much.

In any case, he clearly needed to rethink his approach to the Patronus. The memory of his mother's sacrifice was tainted by grief and loss and ultimately unsuited for the purpose. But nobody else came to mind when thinking of protection, he'd always needed to look to himself if he wanted protection without any strings attached.

Himself… there was an idea.

It can't be that simple… can it?

Having nothing to lose by trying it, Harry decided to focus inward instead of outward when trying to call the guardian.

Sinking into the Occlumency trance that he had begun to use pretty much every time that something needed deep contemplation, he focused on the image of what he had seen in the Mirror of Erised during his first year.

He was sure that the mirror would show him something subtly different if he were to look at it again. He hadn't been able to determine the features of his companion then, but now he was certain that it would be a woman.

Luna would be there too of course. He'd gotten so used to the eccentric blonde and her spit-take inducing statements that it was hard to imagine life without her.

Ginny… ehhh, he wasn't sure about her. He'd been willing to let bygones be bygones if she could drop that stupid crush and start acting normally, but she hadn't. She still tended to either avoid contact or look at him as if he'd done something wrong, which he knew he hadn't. At this point, he'd be perfectly happy if she decided that their friendship was over.

No, Ginny would probably not be making appearances in the Mirror of Erised if he looked at it again.

Then there was himself. He'd be wearing something made of basilisk hide, Harry knew. He'd been eagerly waiting for the day when he stopped growing so that he could get some of that stored hide tailored into an article of clothing.

His appearance was secondary however. What really mattered was that he would have all the things that he wanted in life. The freedom to do as he pleased, the company of people he could trust not to attempt using him in their schemes and the power to protect it all, to keep it from being taken from him.

Yes, he would be powerful enough to keep the world at bay, but that was for the future. For now, he would be strong enough to hold off the Dark. He wasn't going to be a snack for the dementors. He still had so much that he wanted to do. They weren't going to take his future from him.

Harry focused on that determination, that desire to protect himself and the things he held dear and pushed it into the spell.

A luminescent raven flew forth from his wand, making a circuit around the room before alighting weightlessly on his shoulder.

He smiled widely at his success, all the while thinking of how very appropriate the animal was. He had always been fond of ravens.

With the Christmas holidays approaching, Harry decided that it was time to make a move on the rat.

He had pondered how to go about this for some time and eventually decided that keeping things simple was for the best.

"You said you wanted to talk to me?" Ron Weasley asked cautiously as he entered the empty room.

He'd received a surprising message from Potter with a request to speak to him privately.

He was wary and suspicious of this, as the Ravenclaw third year had never showed any inclination to speak to him since their first meeting on the train years ago.

Ron didn't trust Potter. Ravenclaws were a weird lot and that seventh year Slytherin girl he was sometimes seen with made him even less trustworthy.

Ron was also terribly jealous of the taller boy, though he didn't admit this even to himself. Potter had wealth, fame and most recently he also had a lot of good looking female company.

He'd encouraged his sister to break off ties with him. Ginny should never have been a Ravenclaw to begin with, she belonged with her family in Gryffindor. There was nothing to be done about her wrong sorting, but they could still get her some proper friends.

"I did." Harry confirmed, looking down at his redheaded yearmate. The quicker this ended the better. Weasley was a loud and opinionated little idiot at the best of times, so actually interacting with him more than necessary was a chore. He was essentially Malfoy-lite; slightly dumber, lazier and a less blatant waste of air, but just as prejudiced in many ways. "I want to buy your rat."

"Scabbers?" Ron blurted out in shock. "You want to buy Scabbers ?"

His incredulity was entirely justified. Why would anyone want to buy a mangy old rat?

"I do. Ten galleons."

Ron gaped some more. That was a completely stupid amount of money for a mere rat. You could buy a whole swarm of them for that much.

"Why?" He asked, getting some of his surprise under control.

"I've heard it's a very long lived rat. I'm curious." Harry evaded.

"I'm not going to sell Scabbers to you so that you can… dissect him or something!" Ron retorted hotly.

Harry sighed in exasperation. "I'm not going to dissect him. The worst I'll do is cast some diagnostic spells, but you can rest assured that I won't harm him." The dementors can do that for me.

"He's been with our family for twelve years." Ron said uncertainly, his greed warring with his loyalty to his pet.

"I know, that's why I'm interested. Look I'll give you fifteen galleons for a rat that probably isn't going to live much longer. It's a bargain any way you look at it."

Ron hesitated. "I don't know…" He was still reluctant to part with his faithful rat, but that was a lot of money.

Harry struggled to keep the irritation off his face. Deciding to help the redhead make a decision, he wiggled his fingers and tossed a few compulsions his way.

It's just an old rat, he'll probably die soon anyway.

That's a lot of money.

I want that money. I NEED it.

Ron still looked to be harboring doubts, to Harry's considerable surprise. The annoying little idiot must be more attached to the rat than he thought if he was able to resist that kind of temptation.

"That's more than twice what a new wand costs." He commented idly. "I've noticed that yours was looking a bit worn out. It seems pretty dangerous to me to be using a damaged and poorly suited wand. Probably makes your spells a lot weaker too."

Ron's resistance finally started crumbling at that. He'd always wanted to stand out and the sudden power boost of a new wand would certainly help him with that. He'd even have enough leftover money to buy a few other things as well.

"I'll… I'll go get him for you."

"Thank you." Harry said, waiting for the boy to turn his back. When he did, he pulled out his wand and sent a much more powerful compulsion at the redhead.

I better not tell anyone about this. I'll just tell everyone that Scabbers got lost somewhere.

Ten minutes later, Harry had stuffed Wormtail into a pre-prepared cage that was enchanted to be unbreakable, ignoring Ron's protests about Scabbers being house trained and not needing to be caged. If he tried to transform, it would kill him, which would not be as good as having him alive, but the corpse of Peter Pettigrew would still be useful as evidence and Harry was not inclined to be so charitable to the betrayer of his parents as to be overly concerned whether he was handed over to the Ministry alive or dead.

Remus looked on as the students boarded the Hogwarts Express, going home for the Christmas holidays.

Harry was leaving too. Remus had hoped that the boy would stay so that they could finally talk, but it looked like it wasn't going to happen that way.

Not that he was oblivious to the fact that he could have approached the son of his friends at any time in the past few months, but had kept putting it off instead. It was entirely possible that he would have done the same even if Harry had stayed.

Remus was actually quite ashamed of himself. He was waiting for a boy of thirteen to make the first move instead of plucking up the courage to do it himself. It was getting harder too. The longer he waited, the more awkward the whole thing became. By now he was actually starting to think that it might be best to just leave well enough alone.

"I take it that you still have not spoken to young Harry?" Dumbledore asked from beside him.

Remus heard the gentle admonishment in the Headmaster's words, but could only shrug helplessly in response. He'd meant to so many times, but lost the courage every time he saw Lily's eyes in James' face.

"I do not believe that he will reject you, Remus." The old wizard said softly.

"I just doesn't seem like he needs me." The werewolf replied.

"Harry is remarkably mature young man." Dumbledore agreed.

That was what worried him so much actually. Despite having made friends in recent years, Harry still gave off the feeling of being aloof and separate from the people around him. It would not do for the Chosen One to be indifferent to the fate of the people he was supposed to be saving. He needed to be invested in the fate of Magical Britain by the time of Voldemort's return.

Which was why Remus' procrastinating was starting to exhaust Dumbledore's patience enough that he was seeing fit to prod the man along.

"But one can never have too many friends or family."

"After the holidays. I'll talk to him after the holidays." Remus determined.

As he had done the previous year, Harry took the Hogwarts Express to King's Cross, but called Teeny for transportation to Potter Manor as soon as he was somewhere private.

"Sirius, you're looking better." Harry greeted when the man came into view.

Sirius really did look better. Not as gaunt or as pale, his previously matted hair cut to hang down to his shoulders and his beard styled into a neat goatee. Even his teeth had been repaired from their previously rotten state.

"Amazing what some good food and time away from the dementors will do for a man." Sirius replied jokingly, taking the opportunity to get a better look at his godson. "Have you gotten taller again?"

"I hear that happens a lot with teenagers." Harry replied with dry sarcasm.

"But you're almost as tall as I am!" Sirius protested.

Not that Sirius was hugely tall. He'd been the shortest of the Marauders after Wormtail, something that had always privately annoyed him. James had been a couple of inches bigger than him and Remus had been a veritable giant in comparison. They'd caught up eventually, but Remus had remained the tallest at six feet and two inches.

"Yes, I know." Harry replied with a smirk, rather pleased by that. He had no doubt that his growth would slow down soon, but for now he was going to enjoy the height discrepancy.

Sirius looked briefly torn between irritation and amusement before his expression turned grim.

"Do you have him?"

"He's in my trunk, safely locked in an unbreakable cage." Harry said with a nod.

"I need to talk to him before we turn him over to the DMLE. I need to hear what he has to say for himself." The escaped convict growled, everything in his manner speaking of murderous rage.

Harry knew it was probably a bad idea, but he wanted to hear it too. He might have gotten over the deaths of his parents, but he too harbored a deep well of anger for the one who had betrayed them.

They had Teeny strip one of the unused rooms bare to remove any possible hiding spaces. Then they sealed every exit to prevent any escape attempts.

Only once that was done did Harry take the cage out of his trunk, curling his nose in disgust the whole time.

He had not been overly diligent in either feeding the rat or cleaning up after him for the week that he had had him, so Wormtail was in a sorry state by now. He'd given him enough food and water to survive, but he'd taken quite a bit of vindictive pleasure in leaving him to wallow in his own filth.

Wormtail had been living in a state of terror ever since Ron had handed him over to Harry in exchange for a fat sack of galleons. The whole thing had come so out of the blue that there had been no time to think, no time to make decision. He'd been stuffed into a cage before he'd even properly registered the situation and hadn't been let out since.

Worse, he knew that Harry knew the truth. The boy hadn't really spoken to him, but the anger burning in his green eyes was a clear enough indication.

Now he was being unceremoniously dumped out of the cage, but there was no relief to be found in finally being released from his filthy prison. Not with his old friend Sirius in the room with him and looking fit to tear him to ribbons with his bare hands.

"I need a wand to force him back into human form." Sirius said, staring coldly at the cowering Animagus that apparently had no intention of transforming himself.

Wordlessly, Harry handed over his own.

A minute of Wormtail doing his level best to dodge Sirius' spells and Pettigrew was once again in human form for the first time in twelve years.

He was a sorry sight, and not just because spending so much time in his Animagus form had left him looking permanently ratlike. Short, fat, balding, ugly, shifty eyed. It was like someone had designed a human being for the express purpose of looking untrustworthy. His parents must have been really good at not judging by appearances, because Harry himself wouldn't have trusted someone like this to guard a chamber pot. Someone else's chamber pot at that.

"Sirius, Harry." Pettigrew simpered, as if greeting long lost friends.

"Why, Peter?" Sirius demanded angrily. "Why did you betray James and Lily?"

"I didn't mean to!" Pettigrew whined pitieously. "But the Dark Lord… You have no idea of the powers he possesses. Just ask yourself what you would have done in my place."

"I WOULD HAVE DIED FOR THEM! LIKE YOU SHOULD HAVE DIED FOR THEM!" Sirius roared, completely enraged by the insinuation that Wormtail had just made.

Pettigrew flinched back violently, knowing that he'd blundered by saying that. He still had the Dark Lord's wand on him as well as his own, but he dared not use either. Not with Sirius already pointing one at him. He'd never get a single spell out. He tried a different tactic instead.

"Harry, please! Your father wouldn't have wanted me dead. James would have shown mercy." He didn't really believe that, but he was desperate to survive.

"HOW DARE YOU SPEAK TO HARRY!" Sirius yelled again, interrupting any response from Harry himself.

"Don't let him kill me, please!" Wormtail begged, scrabbling towards Harry nearly on all fours.

"Get away from me!" Harry snapped in disgust and backed away. Pettigrew was by far the most revolting person he'd ever encountered, both literally and figuratively. The way that the rat was begging for his life was making him so angry that his Occlumency was threatening to be overwhelmed for the first time in quite a while.

Unlike pretty much every other Occlumancer, Harry had almost completely ignored the part designed for defending the mind from external intrusion. Instead, he had focused on enhancing his ability to control his emotions and to improve his memory.

This was generally a terrible idea, as it actually made it easier for a Legilimancer to rifle through a mind that was well organized but undefended.

Normally, an Occlumancer would first learn to clear their minds into blankness on demand. Once sufficient skill in that was reached, it was possible to create a wall of non-thought to keep Legilimancers out. Of course, a Legilimancer could force their victim to make mental associations by projecting their own thoughts and follow that thread of thought into their memories, leaving it up to the individual skill of the practicioner to decide the winner of the mental struggle. Those who were particularly skilled could even section off their minds to present a false front, duping the Legilimancer into thinking that what they saw was the whole of someone's mind and not just another front. That particular skill was pretty much a requirement for a wizard spy.

Only once that was mastered was it advisable for the Occlumancer to begin putting the chaos of one's mind to order. This had great benefits for emotional control and memory, but it wasn't a skill that could ever be mastered. Much like the actual defensive parts of Occlumency, it was an ability that had no real upper limit and needed to be practiced often lest it degrade.

Harry practiced his Occlumency almost religiously, knowing that he was much more at risk of losing control of his emotions than most people.

"Harry! Please!" Wormtail howled as Sirius cast what was essentially an upgraded version of a stinging hex at him, the only difference being that this one felt rather more like a hot stove than a hard slap.

The problem with trying to control your emotions was that the cause of said emotions was often still present and making things harder. In this case, that would be Pettigrew's incessant begging for mercy.

Sirius was quite clearly not getting any calmer either if his progressively crueler spell selection was any indication.

"Shut up." Harry ground out, wanting both of them to just stop until he could shift the fury he was currently feeling to the back of his mind where it could be dealt with later.

But they didn't stop. Sirius had a mad glint in his eye that didn't indicate self-control and was getting disturbingly close to the Cruciatus, heedless of the fact that Harry's wand would carry that spell history.

"I'm sorry!" Pettigrew sobbed.

"Shut up!" Harry repeated, louder and angrier this time. His runes felt like a thousand angry ants crawling over his body.

He was ignored again. Sirius kept on screaming a stream of vitriol at the cowering rat Animagus, intersped with moderate-to-severe torture curses. And of course, Pettigrew was in no state to consider the fact that his begging was only making things worse.

"Make him stop!" He wailed, somehow managing to sound even more pathetic than before. "Lily wouldn't have wanted this! Please make him stop! Do it for your mother, Harry."

Sirius looked about fit to explode with rage at that, pushed completely beyond rational thought at having the traitor invoke the name of the woman he'd betrayed to draw some mercy out of her son.

Harry wasn't much better off than his godfather. He'd been exerting monumental effort to not give in to his rage and join in, but everyone had limits and Pettigrew had just exceeded them.

"SHUT UP!" He roared, thrusting his hand out at the rat and willing him to stop his infuriating begging with his whole being.

Harry had long since noted that powerful emotions made it easier to use magic without a wand. He had also noted that they tended to twist the spells into something different. The more powerful and chaotic the emotion, the more the spell deviated from the purpose intended by its caster.

Harry had only wanted Wormtail to stop talking, but that last sentence had pushed him beyond the limits of his control. His spell came out powered by the full force of his rage and rage was not a precise emotion by any means. Whereas a normal silencing spell might be a scalpel, his rage turned it into a broadsword. This was further compounded by the fact that Harry didn't actually know how to cast a wandless silencing spell, so he had just brutally pushed his magic outward, furiously demanding that it do his will.

The problem was that Harry kind of wanted to hurt Wormtail too.

The spell roared out of his hand, tinted the fiery orange of a blasting curse. It streaked towards the traitor's mouth just as Harry had intended. It also silenced Wormtail just like Harry had intended.

Unlike what Harry had intended, it did so by blowing his head and a good portion of his chest into gory pulp.

The two still living wizards stumbled back from the explosion of gore that painted the whole room in bloodsplatter, expressions of shock on both of their faces.

Sirius looked to his godson and worked his jaw in an attempt to say something, but nothing came out. Wormtail's sudden death had snapped him out of the mad haze he'd been in, but now he was simply so shocked that words seemed wholly insufficient.

Harry was in an even worse state. The rage had gone out of him with the spell and the shock of the fact that he'd just killed someone left him reeling. The disgusting sight of a man's open chest cavity spilling pulped internal organs across the room didn't help. He quickly added to the mess by voiding his stomach on the floor.

I killed a man.

I murdered a man.

Harry felt something crack inside him at the realization and not in an entirely figurative sense at that. He could feel the change in his magic.

There was no way to describe it with words, no analogy that would suffice. The closest thing he could think of was a pane of glass or a mirror that had been hit hard enough to crack but not enough to break. He could practically feel the newly made cracks in his soul and magic spreading through him as the psychological impact of what he'd just done sank in.

He was distantly aware that Sirius was stammering something but it was all just so much noise. Teeny had showed up at some point too and seemed to be panicking about something. Probably the mess.

The absurd thought made him want to giggle. Judging by the worried looks he got, he might have actually giggled.

Then things somehow managed to get worse.

As the cracks kept spreading, another sensation became known to him. Arhain suddenly began to radiate cold. He barely noticed at first, but then it began to spread. First to Aul'El and Da'Roir, which were part of the same set, then to the other two sets with whom it shared weaker connections, fingers of cold creeping through the anchors of his magic.

And with the cold came the Dark. It seeped through the newly made cracks in his soul, grasping at him and his magic just like the dementor on the train had done.

Harry gasped at the feel of it and damn near panicked when he saw his breath misting as it exited his chilled lungs.

He ignored Sirius and stumbled out of the room at a sprint, wanting nothing more than to get outside. He needed to think and a room that reeked of blood, death, vomit and most recently, shit, wasn't helping with that.

He made it out the front door in record time, falling to his hands and knees as soon as he reached the outside. It was December and the Hogwarts Express had taken a long time to get to London, so the sky was already dark.

"Alright, don't panic. Think." He said to himself, staunchly ignoring the slow creep of Dark through his damaged soul and the chill of his breath that had nothing to do with the season.

It took a little while to force his mind away from the murder he'd just committed and focus on his more pressing problem.

He didn't for a moment believe that this was a normal reaction to a kill, not even to a murder. That meant that it had to be something to do with him and the only thing it was likely to be was his runes.

My runes, what did I do with my runes that would cause this? Does it have something to do with the dementor? No, it has to be earlier than that. Nobody else can sense the Dark like I can. They feel the effects of the dementors but not the Dark that makes them what they are.

There was only one rune he could think of that would be responsible for this.

Arhain.

Stealth. Secrets. Shadows. The Dark of Night.

He'd only used it for its association with secrets and stealth. He'd thought its association with darkness to be irrelevant. He'd thought of it of course, it was impossible not to, but he'd considered it to be just a pointless bit of fluff. It came out of a game after all. There was nothing scary about the night.

Now Harry looked up into the night sky and wondered how many stupid wizards had made the same mistake, accidentally dabbling with forces beyond all mortal comprehension.

Because now that his soul had cracked open, the Dark had found a way inside. It must have lingered around his magic ever since he'd carved Arhain into himself while thinking of the infinite void of space, just waiting for the day when something happened to put a crack into his soul. It could very well be the reason why the dementors had been drawn to him.

He could feel the Dark clearer now than he ever had and the sheer vastness of it threatened to undo him. It was everywhere, stretching across the whole of the Universe, it's hungry cold presence held back only by the raging fire of the stars. He realized with painful clarity that this must be the reason why magicals constantly kept braying about the dangers of Dark Magic. They had long since forgotten what the real Dark was, but the warning itself had survived.

He knew what he had to do now. Another ritual, this one invoking the Sun and stars, the Light. He'd already been preparing one, so much of the groundwork was already done. It would have to be modified, but not by much. He hadn't thought that the Sun had any noteworthy magic in it when he'd chosen it, now he had to wonder if it hadn't been some magical instinct that had made him decide to use the Avariel runes again, this time invoking an entity in direct opposition to the Dark.

Harry let out a half hysterical laugh. Every book on rituals that he'd ever read about had warned against invoking unknown or disparate forces, now he was deliberately going to do the latter as a counter to his accidental use of the former. It was an incredibly reckless course of action that had a good chance of killing him in a truly spectacular fashion.

But there was no choice. If he didn't do it, the Dark would consume him from within and leave him hollow.