Chapter 43

Harry was quick the return Privet Drive, leaving Bones Mansion before the battle was completed properly, and it turned out to be the correct decision. He barely had the time to hide the Sword of Gryffindor in an expanded pouch and vanish the blood off his body before several members of the Order burst in, essentially kidnapping him. Harry couldn't help but imagine the legal case if he had responded to the bunch of unknown people with blasters, with Dumbledore sweating on the witness stand about the existence of his poorly-managed private army, but in the end, it was just a lazy thought as one of the Order members he barely recognized side-along apparated him to the Grimmauld Place.

Despite the late night, the house was very lively, people bustling around, trying to prepare an emergency response. Harry shook his head in disappointment. Even with the likely existence of Dumbledore's intentional delaying, the response was simply horrendous. A number of adult mages were bustling around, each trying to shout over the other as they tried to organize a response. However, it seemed that with both Mad-Eye and Dumbledore absent —likely at Bones Manor, fighting against Riddle— the utter lack of a command chain showed itself.

If it was a more important issue, Harry might have tried to slap down some of the worst offenders like Molly Weasley and Dedalus Diggle, trying to exert control by shouting even louder, while the others run around in their own mind. There were a few rare calm-minded people, led by Professor Lupin. Ex-professor, technically, but Harry was willing to call him in respect, as technically, he was the only Defense Against Dark Arts teacher that didn't actually try to kill him —he still almost killed him, but Harry was willing to let it slide since it was an accident. With his life, he doubted he would have any friend left if he were to stop talking with people just because they accidentally caused him to risk death.

His life was truly weird…

"Sirius," he exclaimed happily as he noticed his godfather watching the chaos with a mixture of derision and amusement; derision at their pathetic performance, jealous at their freedom to leave the place freely.

The moment he heard Harry's voice, however, his expression brightened. "Pup! You're finally here!" he exclaimed with an enthusiasm that made Harry felt guilty about not contacting him. After all, Sirius was arguably the only adult in his life that actually prioritized his interest —even though he usually failed to get any useful result due to his tendency to act excessively and without due thought.

It wasn't like Harry had any right to blame others for acting out, certainly not after using himself as bait for a very critical Death Eater attack. And considering Sirius had escaped an inescapable prison just because he saw Harry was in danger, he was willing to cut him some slack.

"Let's get away from this annoying cacophony," Harry offered after throwing one last dismissive gaze at the mess that was occurring in the living room.

"My thoughts exactly," Sirius countered, and after waving at Remus mockingly, he led the way, and Harry followed him closely. They climbed the stairs until they reached a smaller room, furnished expensively, but clearly hadn't seen a lot of use if the layer of dust was any indicator. "A private reception room for the family head," Sirius explained even as he waved his wand, removing the dust at one go, showing a great aptitude with the household spell. Not exactly a good sign of Sirius' mode, Harry surmised. "So pup, tell me, anything interesting?" Sirius asked enthusiastically. "Have you finally discovered the girls," he added with a teasing smirk, clearly intending to mock him in good humor. Understandable considering how hopeless he had been just months ago, but Harry had a surprise for him.

"Oh, yes," Harry said with a wide smirk, earning a genuine laugh from Sirius, who looked elated at the prospect. Though, considering some of the stories Harry had been able to dig about both Sirius and his father before he finally landed Lily, Harry decided he shouldn't have been too surprised. "Though I have to say, I owe the government a huge thanks."

"What?" Sirius questioned.

"Come on, Sirius, I'm sure that when you were a student, you have seen the liking girls can have toward a bad boy," he said, and Sirius grinned. Harry didn't doubt that the dark reputation of the Black Family, combined with his Gryffindor identity to give the girls just enough hope that he could be 'saved', Sirius never had a shortage of misguided ladies willing to try saving him. "With Fudge suddenly doing his best to frame me as evil and lunatic, I have benefited a lot."

"You dog," Sirius said with a laugh.

"No, you're the dog," Harry answered with a snicker, making Sirius explode in laughter. Sirius laughed far more than his feeble joke deserved —with a hysterical edge—, but Harry let it slide, considering just for how long Sirius had been stayed locked in Grimmauld place.

They stayed in Sirius' room for an hour, sharing stories, where Sirius shared some stories from his past, while Harry gave a modified accounting of his adventures, removing some problematic aspects like mind reading. After all, while he trusted Sirius to prioritize his interest, he didn't trust his ability to keep sensitive stuff secret and not blurt out in a moment of distraction. The talk got even livelier when Sirius finally pulled a bottle of firewhisky to spice up the mood.

"Do you have any more firewhisky?" Harry asked fifteen minutes later, just as they started to get tipsy. The drink had been nice, but unfortunately, they only had a quarter of a bottle available.

Sirius sighed. "Unfortunately, no. That shrill harpy dared to try throwing every bottle of alcohol from the house, including the wine cellar." There was no need to ask who he was referring to as the harpy. "I didn't allow it, of course, but then Dumbledore, with his infinite 'wisdom' decided to find the middle ground by magically locking the cellar and casting a spell on the door to prevent others from smuggling any. That was the last bottle."

"Fucking busybody," Harry murmured, not surprised that Dumbledore actually spending time on such a trivial issue. It wasn't like he actually had anything important to do, like fighting against a magical terrorist! "Then, let's go out for a drink."

"We can't," Sirius answered sadly. "Not since they have revealed my Animagus form."

He was tempted to reveal the demise of Snape, something that would no doubt entertain Sirius, but he kept that desire back, no matter how entertaining it might have been. Instead, he came up with a better offer. "We can just go to the muggle side," Harry said.

"I'm still a wanted man there, aren't I?" Sirius asked. Harry pulled his wand and cast a couple of spells, changing his hair color, adding a beard, and transforming his shabby clothes into a slick suit. "Do you think muggles care about wanted posters enough to recognize you under this, especially if we stick to darker bars?"

Sirius laughed. "You're the best, pup. James would have been proud!" Then, he stopped for a moment. "Do you have any muggle money, I don't think we can visit Gringotts for an exchange, not with Dumbledore's contacts there."

"Don't worry about it," Harry said even as he grabbed Sirius' arm and apparated away, leaving an empty room behind. A second later, they had appeared in the back street of a seedy area in London, a location Harry had scouted beforehand for good areas to appear. "Now, let's find us some money," he added, and walked for a while until he found some seedy characters, and hit them with a compulsion charm to go back to their base.

Sirius looked at him questioningly. "Be careful, pup. The ministry analyzes crime reports to identify magical criminals." Harry just smirked, as he had already analyzed the process of ministry just in case. Since the problem started with the reporting of the crime, the easiest thing was to make sure there was no crime to report, and the easiest way to achieve that was to steal from the criminals.

Five minutes later, Harry had arrived at the den of the criminals. A clever application of the invisibility cloak made sure that their drug money stash was several thousand pounds lighter. He also broke a window to make them suspect an ordinary criminal, and left, all under the impressed gaze of Sirius. Damn, pup. It was a smooth operation. We might make a decent prankster off you yet."

"Maybe, Sirius, maybe," Harry nodded indulgently even as he apparated once more, this time toward a more central location. Since they had the cash the burn, he wanted to give Sirius a night to remember in the muggle world, which was also going to be an apology for ignoring him for the whole year. Looking around, his first instincts was to find a top tier bar, where they might see whether they might find a sexy woman that Sirius could chat and seduce, but it was a bad strategy, mostly because Sirius' already tenuous grasp on the muggle culture had crumbed completely after spending more than a decade in Azkaban. There was no chance that he could maintain a discussion with a girl for an hour without revealing his true identity, even if the girl in question was a drunk airhead.

Luckily, Harry noticed a special high-class dancing establishment exclusive for gentlemen, provided said gentlemen came with a thick wallet, of course. "Let's go," Harry said with a smirk, dragging Sirius along.

"ID," asked the bouncer at the door, but Harry instead passed two hundred-pound bills to him, while also flashing the rest of the bundled cash. The bouncer pulled out of the way after a nod, more than happy to let a couple of big spenders, even though he had been thinking them as a bit shady —Harry checked his mind to make sure nonetheless. He still patted them down, of course, but ignored their wands after a simple mental nod from Harry, convincing him that Harry and Sirius was a pair of magic enthusiasts, not even important enough to register.

One good thing about tipping the bouncer generously that a sexy woman dressed in a professional yet sexy business suit walked toward them with a big smile. "How can I help you, gentlemen," she said with a warm smile that impressed Sirius quite a bit, if his sudden change of posture was any indicator.

"We're celebrating my godfather's birthday. He's working as an engineer for a big project for the last several months, so we're looking for a night to remember," he added.

Manager's eyes fell on the impressive bulge in Harry's pants —for once created by the cash he carried rather than a part of his anatomy— and smiled like a cat who just cornered a canary. "I'm sure we can get you a nice booth," she suggested, and Harry nodded. A subtle check of her surface thoughts showed that she was trying to think of a good way to ask for money to make sure they actually had the cash to cover rather than posing for free entertainment, so Harry didn't waste time to pull about a quarter of the cash from the pile. "Three thousand pounds should be enough for a deposit, I don't want to deal with payment repeatedly," he said lazily, which made her smile even wider when she noticed his pile of cash didn't get significantly smaller.

He wasn't afraid of being shortchanged for two reasons. First, the place was one of the high-class places, so stealing from the customers was definitely off the table. Second, even if they skimmed up, it wasn't like Harry had to work a lot for the money. Criminals always had extra cash for him, after all.

"Let's go," he said to Sirius as they walked into the club properly, and a loud music hit them after they passed through an insulated door.

"Are we in heaven," Sirius gasped in shock loudly as he looked around, seeing four raised platform with four girls of various state of undress dancing at every single one of them.

The manager looked at Harry questioningly after seeing Sirius stumble. "He was in the middle of the wilderness for the last six months, so the view is overwhelming," he explained, earning an empty smile in return. The manager clearly didn't care about their circumstances, only checking to see whether Sirius was too drunk, which would have marked him as risky.

After they sat down in their booth, which was designed perfectly to hide them from the view of the rest of the club, the manager left after briefly explaining the rules, including the no-touching rule, but Harry had a feeling that the girls might be willing to renegotiate on that rule as long as they were impressed by their money. "This place is amazing, pup!" Sirius said enthusiastically as he turned his gaze to the podium, watching a lithe blonde removing her skirt, leaving her to rely on the insufficient cover of her black thong. "Why didn't I know about it before?"

Harry shrugged. "My father was also a pureblood, and from what I had learned about my mother, I didn't expect her to inform you two about the existence of such an establishment."

Sirius chuckled. "Too right. Your father might have been besotted with your mother, but she wasn't silly enough to tempt fate like that, just in case."

"Especially not with you always nagging my father, right?" Harry said, making Sirius chuckle.

"Too right, pup. Too right. Too bad that you don't seem to need my evil advice to get corrupted."

Before he could answer, two sexy brunettes stepped inside the booth, one dressed as a schoolgirl, the other as a nurse. "Do you mind if we rest here for a while, boys," said the nurse one as she leaned down, enhancing her already revealing cleavage.

"Of course not," Harry said, pressing the button to call the waitress, knowing that they would need drinks. The nurse sat next to Sirius, and while the other made the move to sat next to him, Harry shook his head. The girl looked a bit put out, until Harry gestured her to sit on the other side of Sirius. "Tonight is my godfather's birthday, so I'm hoping that you girls help him make it memorable."

"Such a thoughtful godson," she said mockingly, her smile back after realizing she wasn't being kicked. Harry had no illusions that her sadness was about missing the opportunity to hang around with a pair of hotties, of course, as they were more interested in the bulge his money created rather than his other bulge. Instead, he leaned back, watching in amusement as Sirius pulled one of the girls onto his lap while chatting animatedly with the other smoothly, extracting a genuine laugh from her. It seemed that even a decade in prison failed to destroy the charming bad boy in his soul.

Harry leaned back as he waited for the waitress to arrive, watching the dancers to find one to his liking. He was feeling rather horny despite the time he spent with Susan. The adrenaline from the combat had worked wonders to awaken his manhood again. However, before he could decide, the waitress arrived. She was wearing a deliciously-revealing maid costume, but it wasn't as attention-grabbing as the sudden gasp that escaped her mouth.

"H-Harry! H-Harry Potter!" she gasped, alarming the rest of the table as well. Sirius was shocked at being recognized, while the strippers alarmed, probably fearing that Harry was an abusive-ex or someone like that.

Only Harry was calm. "Hey, Penelope, long time no see," he drawled lazily, gesturing Sirius to calm down, even though he couldn't help but wonder at his luck, coming across the ex-head girl of Hogwarts who was also Percy's girlfriend in such an establishment.

The night suddenly got a lot more interesting…