Chapter 6

It's the end of June, and the exams are finished. The students have packed their stuff and are ready to leave.

Harry and his friends are walking down from their common room, making their way outside the castle, where thestral led carriages await to take them to the train station.

They are in a sombre mood, it was announced this morning that Slytherin won the house cup, since Peter dealt with Sirius early, Harry never got his firebolt. Slytherin pipped them in the quidditch cup and house cup.

Harry's mind was occupied with a different issue, just this morning he was called to Dumbledore's office and informed that Sirius Black has asked to meet him. There's nothing stopping him, after he was cleared by the ministry all his previous positions were given back to him. Which includes being Harry's legal guardian. Harry had mixed feelings about his godfather.

At first there was hate and a bit of fear, thinking he betrayed his parents and now ran away from Azkaban to kill him. Then the truth came out, he didn't betray his parents. He was tortured and forced to give the location away.

Early on he was still disappointed in Sirius for giving away his parents but then common sense prevailed, anyone would break under Voldemort. What he must have gone through to be forced to tell the secret.

The man had suffered enough especially after spending 12 years in Azkaban being wrongfully accused. Now there's a bit of apathy and curiosity towards his godfather.

Thankfully this time he only has to stay a week with the Dursleys. Then Dumbledore himself will come to collect him to meet Sirius.

"You all right Harry" Hermione asks, seeing his sombre mood.

"It's about your visit to Dumbledore's office right" Ron says.

"Yeah, it is, I'll tell you guys on the train"

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As the students make their way to the train station, I enter the tunnel which goes to the basement of honey dukes in Hogsmeade. I've used this path before both in Peter's memories and myself when I decided to practice my leglimency on adult wizards, who are just as defenceless as the students in Hogwarts.

Mind arts are very rare and seldom do wizards practice them. Being more about talent than skill, a bit like divination. Although divination is strictly based on talent, mind arts can be learned with enough effort but it is so hard and mind numbingly boring to master that even if people know about it, they end up not practicing it.

I make my way out of the tunnel finding myself in Honeydukes basement. I appropriate a few cases of butter beer, shrinking them so they fit inside my mokeskin pouches.

I'm covered by the invisibility cloak so I easily make my way out. I travel outside the town a bit on foot, when I'm sure I'm far enough and no one is around I take off the cloak and stuff it inside the mokeskin.

I've fashioned a large black trench coat which reaches my knees, underneath is a white dress shirt. Paired with black suitably loose dress pants and a pair of comfortable black formal shoes.

One of the biggest things I'm vain about is looks and ever since occupying this body, its appearance was something which caused me great emotional pain. So, I've worked a lot on my appearance. Regular exercise, good grooming and yes fashionable clothes.

Taking a small stick out of my pocket, it is enlarged into a broom, a nimbus 2001 appropriated from Marcus Flint. I don't like that guy, that maybe due to the influence of old Peter as Marcus reminded him of a senior Slytherin who bullied him during his time at Hogwarts.

I have decided to make my way to London, my next destination on a broom, why not use apparition, well I wanted to enjoy the journey a bit. Try something different and exciting. Maybe I'll find something interesting on the way.

I cast the disillusionment spell on myself and the broom.

Getting on the broom I rise a couple hundred feet above the ground and start making my way south. Although Hogwarts as a whole is hidden from muggles, I know from my memories that it is in northern Scotland, somewhere inside the Cairngorms National Park.

The nimbus 2001 can go up to 200 kilometres per hour, with London being almost 900 km from here, it should take me about 5 hours.

I cast a light shield charm in front of me, to help mitigate high winds smacking my face and quickly increase my speed.

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The journey is quite picturesque if not a bit boring, the excitement of hurtling above ground at high speeds on a stick quickly runs down after the first hour.

Along the way I make a few stops, the first one in Edinburgh, visiting the Edinburgh castle and the St. Giles cathedral. Another quick stop is made in Manchester, solely for visiting Old Trafford.

By the time I reach London it almost night time. Thankfully I was able to keep up the shield charm throughout the journey, it again speaks volumes of how much my magic has grown that I was able to keep it up for so long.

I arrange for a room in a good hotel and after devouring a good amount of room service, I quickly go to sleep tired from the 900 km long journey.

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Next morning, I made my way to 12 Grimaud place, I learned it's location when I dealt with Sirius. Its where he currently lives after returning back to England.

Since Dumbledore hasn't yet cast the fidelius charm on it, I find it easily.

The house has a worn set of front steps leading to a battered front door. On the door was a silver knocker in the shape of a twisted serpent but it had no keyhole, handle, or anything else that would indicate it to be a door.

Taking a deep breath, I walk up the steps and use the silver knocker. It's time to use my occlumency and put a good bit of acting on.

There are sounds of muffled shouting and shrieking coming from inside, probably from Walburga Black's portrait.

A few seconds later the door opened. In front of me stands the old Black house elf, Kreacher.

"Who are you" there is a bit of venom in his voice, the dude seriously has some problems.

"I'm here to meet Sirius Black, an old friend of his" I reply.

He looks at me closely, not recognising me, "Blood traitor master is not expecting any guests, you shou..."

He's about to move inside the house when another person walks into view.

"Who is it Kreacher, you better not be..." Sirius Black looks a lot better than when I previously saw him but still not the same like he was before Azkaban, He's still quite thin, not dangerously so but still more than before. In short, he looks like his movie counterpart.

"Who are you?" he asks, not recognising me completely.

"You forgot me huh, Padfoot" I ask with a small smile on my face.

The combination of my voice and his familiar name, which only a few people know is enough to connect the dots in his head.

His face looks like it's seen a ghost, shocked but slowly he starts to process the information. Tears start welling up in his eyes and he jumps towards me. Engulfing me into a big hug.

"Peter it's you, it's really you" he croaks out. I'm probably the first friendly face he's seen since coming back, as Lupin is yet to meet him and with the memories, I planted in his mind he's really happy to see me.

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'MYSTERIOUS MAN SEEN ENTERING SIRUIS BLACKS RESIDENCE'

*Picture of Sirius hugging a man outside Grimaud place*

Yesterday Sirius Black received his first visitor since coming back to England. The new Lord Black has been in the country for over a month. He was yet to receive a visitor before an unknown man showed up at his house yesterday, early in the morning. They had an emotional meeting as Sirius Black hugged the unknown man outside his house and they quickly moved in. Who is this mysterious man? An old friend. A new acquaintance. Some people speculate him to be Remus Lupin, an old friend of Black who just yesterday also announced his retirement from the post of the defence against the dark arts professor at Hogwarts, others speculate that it's someone else as the man in the picture doesn't look like Professor Lupin. Some even say that Peter Pettigrew the man who tried to save Black from death eaters all those years ago has returned.

The British wizarding world holds its breath awaiting Sirius Blacks next move, who is yet to fill his seat in the Wizengamot since returning to England.

More on page 3

Sirius puts the paper down with a bit of force.

"I can't believe it; they were camped outside the house taking pictures"

"It's okay, we were looking for a way to tell the world about me so this gives us a good avenue"

"But still Peter, they were spying on me"

"You were part of the Aurors, Sirius, you know there are always one or two spying on high profile wizards, there is probably none with a higher profile than you at the moment in all of England"

"I am pretty great aren't I" Sirius smiles.

"There's a difference between great and high profile" I smirk back at him.

Sirius looks at me closely, "I still can't believe how much you have changed Peter, it's like I'm talking to a different person"

I raise one of my eyebrows at him "You have changed a lot to Sirius, things were bound to change after 13 years"

"Yeah, but my change has been all negative while you look a lot better" he says bitterly.

"Hah, the vain Sirius Black, notorious ladies man admits another man is better than him, never thought I'd live to see the day"

"Yeah, yeah just you wait, I'm on a strict recovery diet, soon I'll have my old looks back, then we'll see who gets more women" Sirius smirks.

Both of us are sitting in the kitchen at Grimaud place, having breakfast.

We had a long talk yesterday. I allegedly told him about what I have been doing for the last 13 years.

Now Sirius believes that after I took a majority of the death eaters away from him all those years ago. I was gravely injured but somehow managed to get away.

I went into hiding and only came out after half a year, when all of my extensive injuries were taken care of. Finding that he was in Azkaban and the dark families like Nott and Malfoy already had the ear of the new Minister fudge, who we knew were death eaters. They might have saved themselves giving the excuse of being imperioed but we knew the truth.

Nor did I trust Dumbledore as he himself had put Sirius in Azkaban, so with no other options or personal strength to do anything.

I went back into hiding and bounced from place to place mostly staying in the muggle world.

I also told him that I researched Voldemort a lot, telling him that I'll inform him later about what I found. I needed someone with me to take out the Horcruxes, can't do it all alone after all.

We talked a lot more; he told his stories and me mine.

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