43

Sirius Black is not the innocent man he claimed to be!

Harry frowned as he read the headline of the Daily Prophet the next day. The hall was abuzz with chatter and speculation, both about the task the day before and this new revelation. Of course, all of the students had seen the ex-convicts illegal animagus form for themselves, and so there was no doubt at all in their minds about its existence. Instead, their gossip fell on the subjects of whether or not Sirius was a Death Eater, and whether Harry's new relationship with Draco Malfoy proved this point.

"Honestly," Hermione scoffed, reading the article over Harry's shoulder, "Have you read that quote? He's hardly helping himself!" Harry skimmed ahead to the quote in question and promptly burst out laughing.

When we managed to catch up with Sirius Black and questioned him about his crime he had this to say: "Oh piss off, the lot of you. I've got a fucking hangover and I need a slash. Oh, and camera guy, make sure you get my good side. Don't make me look too old or nothing, alright mate?"

Beneath the quote was a snap of Sirius standing in the doorway of a muggle house, wearing nothing but a pair of jeans and winking at the camera. A blonde girl who looked an awful lot like Ruby could be seen in the background, but she was blurry and Harry couldn't be sure.

"It isn't funny, Harry! He could be sent back to Azkaban for this, and he's hardly giving on the image of a useful member of society!" Harry frowned at the sudden image of Sirius in a suit and tie, carrying a briefcase that popped into his head.

"Why the fuck," he asked through a mouthful of toast, "Would Pads want to be a useful member of society?"

"Oh, Harry," Hermione exclaimed, "Don't you see? If he at least looked like he was integrating himself back into society they would be more likely to be lenient on him. After all, what use do they have for a rich pureblood that spends his time drinking and fighting? It's hardly any incentive to keep him out of prison, is it?"

"He's already spent thirteen years in the bloody place, Hermione, I think he's done his fucking time already, don't you?" Harry snapped, too angry suddenly to care when Hermione's face fell and she looked as though he had hit her.

"Harry... I didn't mean... of course I don't want him to go back to Azkaban, I'm just saying that-" Harry ignored her stammered words and got up from the table, storming from the hall.

As soon as he was alone, in a corridor on the third floor, he pulled the mirror he always carried with him out of his pocket.

"Sirius Black," he snapped at it, waiting impatiently as it fogged over before his godfather's face swam into view.

"Alright, pup?" Sirius asked, roguish grin stuck firmly on his face. Harry scowled.

"No I'm not fucking alright, mate. Why the bloody hell did you go and advertise the fact that you're a fucking illegal animagus? Now everyone thinks you're a death eater, you wanker!"

"Huh?" Sirius asked intelligently, "How the hell did they make the link between 'illegal animagus' and 'death eater'?"

"I don't know, maybe because they spent thirteen fucking years thinking you were one? I won't let you go back to that place again, Sirius, I fucking won't," Harry was pacing the corridor by this time, agitated, his anger dissipating and giving way to worry.

"Oh, come on, pup, I'm pretty sure I've already done my time, don't you? And if they try to throw me back there, I'll just escape again, won't I? I'm good at that," Sirius grinned up at his godson from the mirror, but it did nothing to relieve Harry's concern. "Look, stop worrying, mate. I'm fine! Besides, they can't even get into Grimmauld Place, so worst comes to worst, I'll just hide there, won't I?" Harry sighed; he should have known that this would be a pointless conversation. Sirius was, even after thirteen years of crippling depression under the control of the dementors, an eternal optimist. Harry ignored the fact that if it were anything but Sirius's safety on the line, then Harry would be right there with him, laughing it off.

"You're a fucking idiot," he told him, "And I've got to get to Defence." With that, he severed the connection on the mirrors and stomped off down the corridor, in an even worse mood than before the chat.

Draco smirked as he leant back in his seat in Defence Against the Dark Arts that morning. It was Moody's (the real Moody that is) first actual lesson teaching them, and they were watching as each member of the class presented the project they had been working on for the last few months. Idiots, he thought to himself as he watched another student rambling about the virtues of expelliarmius, as though that would be any good against a Death Eater.

"Alright then, Potter, you're up," Moody growled irritably from the back of the room. Draco sneered as his boyfriend stood up and swaggered to the front of the class. Harry began to talk about the ways in which muggle defence could be incorporated into a magical duel, an uncharacteristically serious expression on his face, but Draco did not listen. He simply leant back in his chair and glared.

What was I thinking? He asked himself, He's a muggle loving fool.

Harry found Blaise in the library sat at a table with, surprisingly, Neville. He coughed slightly as he sat down, unobtrusively announcing his presence.

"You alright, Harry?" Neville asked, looking up from his Potions essay. Blaise put his book down and simply stared at Harry across the table, his dark eyes boring holes in the other boy's head.

"Yeah, mate. Well, no. Not really. Fuck, I don't know," Harry muttered, running a hand through his already messy hair and automatically reaching for a cigarette. It was a measure of their concern that neither boy stopped him, though they both knew that they now only had a limited amount of time before they were kicked out of the library.

"What is it?" Neville asked.

"It's Draco. And Sirius. Well, Sirius more than Draco I suppose, but at least in Sirius' case I know what's wrong." Neville glanced at Blaise and was frustrated to find a look of understanding on his face, while he was sure that his own showed only his confusion at Harry's words.

"You might need to explain a bit more, Harry," he said gently, "Why don't you start with Sirius and we'll move on to Draco?"

"Yeah, okay. You guys saw the paper, right?" Both boys nodded and Harry continued, "He's gonna get himself thrown in Azkaban again! And he doesn't even care! Fucking hell, everyone thinks he's a bloody Death Eater again. I risked both of our lives getting him declared innocent the first time, and I'm pretty sure the same tactics won't fucking work this time. Seeing as he's technically guilty and all!" Harry's mouth kept moving, but no sounds came out. Blaise put his wand back down on the table and sent Neville a glare to shut him up.

"Harry, you're being stupid. They haven't even sent out an arrest warrant or anything yet, so don't get ahead of yourself. I know you won't believe me, but if I know anything about politicians then there's a strong likelihood that they'll just brush this all under the rug. He still has the ability to make a big scene about his false imprisonment, you know, so they'll probably be very reluctant to piss him off. They can just brush off the Prophet's claims as rumours and hearsay." Harry sat, silenced and (metaphorically) stunned. It was the most he had ever heard Blaise say at once; even when he was wasted he wasn't particularly talkative. And, annoyingly, it sort of made sense. Irritably, he gestured to his mouth and the spell was taken off almost immediately.

"Fine. But if he gets arrested then I reserve the right to say I told you so," he grumbled. Blaise smirked and Neville sighed with relief.

"So what about Dr-" Neville began but was cut off by an irate screech.

"Smoking in the library? How dare you? Get out, get out GET OUT!" Harry jumped up guiltily and the other boys followed suit, grabbing their books and parchment and legging it out of the library, leaving an extremely angry librarian behind them.

"So," Neville puffed once they had deemed themselves far enough from the library to slow to a walk, "What about Draco then? I thought you two were fine?" In all honesty, Neville wasn't too surprised that the couple had hit a road bump; they had spent so long as enemies that it was unimaginable that they would be able to make the transformation to lovers (though whether they officially were or not yet, Neville did not know, and had no particular desire to) as smoothly as they had appeared to.

"I don't know," Harry said petulantly, shoving his hands in his jeans pockets and slouching along between his two friends, "He's just acting weird, you know? He spent all of Defence glaring at me, and when I tried to catch up with him after he walked off in the opposite fucking direction. Is he avoiding me? Has he said something to you?" He directed this last to Blaise, but was disappointed when the Slytherin shook his head, frowning as he did so.

"He hasn't said anything. I mean, I know he was jealous over the whole lake thing, but nothing that would make him act like this."

"Lake thing? What lake thing?" Harry asked. Blaise sighed, and gave Harry a considering look as he wondered whether or not to betray his best friend's confidence.

"He wasn't happy that Sirius was chosen as your most missed object instead of himself," he said eventually, "But I spoke to him about it and he agreed, albeit reluctantly, that you had only been on decent terms with Draco for a month or so, whereas you had considered Sirius your only family for a lot longer than that. I can't imagine him acting like this over something so small though." Harry stopped in the corridor and turned to his friends.

"Right, fuck it, that's it then! I'll just go and apologise for that if it is that and if not then he'll tell me what's wrong and it'll all be hunky dory," Harry grinned, and oblivious to the matching looks of disbelief on the other boy's faces, he marched off through the castle. Neville and Blaise stood in silence for a minute, staring down the corridor where Harry had disappeared.

"Do you ever get that feeling where you just know something isn't going to go right?" Blaise asked eventually.

"With Harry around? All the bloody time."

"Father," Draco drawled. Lucius Malfoy, in all his multi-coloured glory, stopped skulking around the shadows of the clearing in which his son stood and stepped into the circle of light caused by the full moon. The older man carried his wand-cane in one hand and a bundle of cloth in the other.

"Son," Lucius copied Draco's tone of voice almost exactly, but managed to slip a bit of contempt in there as well. This was almost too easy. "I assume things are going well?"

"As well as can be, father. Where am I to take him once I have him?"

"My Lord?" Lucius asked, uncovering the first layer of blankets to reveal the face of the thing in his arms.

"The graveyard, Luciusss," it rasped, "You will make him a portkey."