Bonds of Blood 0021: Sirius Black

He went to his mother's favorite reading spot— The couch in the living room.

He started reading through the book. Though he was just giving some glances at the main points and not actually reading through each section.

'Magic flows through from the soul to the body. The soul is what contains all of a wizard's magical energy. Physical symptoms of magical exhaustion. Pathways of magic through the body.' Harry paused at the section and glanced at a bit more of the information from here, 'Nerves are used as the pathways for magic to travel through the body. The most magically sensitive nerves are the tops of the fingers. Hmm…' Harry started thinking, 'This might be Gabi's problem…'

'Let's read more first,' He started reading through the previews of the other sections, 'Blood as a conduit for magic. Curses that can be cast using Blood. Passive effects of magic on the body. Passive effects of the body on magic…' Reading through the sections, Harry realized that the thing with the Nerves was the most relevant to Gabrielle's condition. He turned back to it and started reading through it, 'What a pain…' He was bored after a couple of minutes and got distracted.

That was when he heard the sound of a loud crackling outside, 'It must be Mum…' Harry thought and continued reading the book, he wanted to impress his Mum by showing her that he was taking some initiative with his academics.

The door clicked open and a tall, well-built man came in. He had lustrous black hair and grey eyes that were full of light as he looked around the living room. The moment he noticed Harry reading a book he pulled something out of the holster at the side of his hip and pointed it at Harry, "Who are you and what have you done to my godson?"

"Hm?" Harry was confused and looked up from the book as he saw Sirius pointing an unknown contraption at him, "Sirius?" He asked with confusion.

"Stand back Lily, someone has probably stolen Harry's Portkey and used Polyjuice to disguise themself as him. He would never be reading a book in his free time." His words left Harry speechless.

At that point, there was a little flash of light and Sirius was instantly frozen in place and fell over due to his position in front of the main door. Lily deliberately stepped over Sirius' petrified form and said, "How dare you point a gun at my son, Sirius? Do you think I wouldn't know if he's the real deal or not?" Lily said to Sirius annoyedly as she walked up to Harry, "How are you, honey?" She cooed and hugged Harry tightly.

"Hey, Mum…" Harry had a wry smile on his face as he glanced at Sirius with suppressed laughter before melting into his mother's loving embrace.

Lily whispered in his ear, "And the next time you want to show me that you're studying, pick one of the books that has some spells. This one is nothing but unproven conjecture…"

Harry blushed embarrassedly at being caught and said, "I was genuinely curious,"

Lily pulled back and gave him an amused look mixed with skepticism, "About magical theory?"

"Yeah…" Harry had the decency to look away in embarrassment, "I wanted to know the connection between the magic and the body of a person…"

"Well this one's mostly conjecture without much substance, so you ended up picking up the wrong book, but commendable effort. Talk to me after Sirius leaves and I'll explain the stuff to you." She rubbed his hair lovingly.

"Thank god…" Harry didn't really want to read that stuff. He was already bored out of his mind reading a couple of pages for ten minutes.

"Did you have to be so rough?" Sirius asked after finally recovering himself from the petrification spell as he stretched his arm, "I was just having some fun…"

"You pointed a gun at my son." Lily said possessively, "You had it coming."

"Overprotective much…" Sirius whispered under his breath and Lily looked at him with narrowed eyes, "Hm?"

"I said that the safety was on." Sirius instantly changed his tone and looked at Harry, "How's everything going, Kid?" He asked.

"It's nice, Sirius." Harry nodded.

"Here, I got you an early birthday present. I won't be able to come then so I brought it for you right now." Sirius pulled a gift-wrapped item from his back pocket.

Harry took it and said, "Is this a book?" He asked.

"Yep." Sirius had a smile on his face that reminded Lily of the days when he and his gang went around pranking people and bullying Snape.

"Sirius, I swear. If this is something—" Lily had just started the threat when Sirius interrupted her, "I know. I know. Don't worry. He'll love the gift."

"All right Mum, take a seat," Harry guided Lily to her armchair by her shoulders and made her sit down, "I'll get some water. You should sit too Sirius."

Lily gave him a little smile and then turned to Sirius, "How's backpacking through Asia been?" She asked with amusement.

"It's quite a bit of fun, actually. If only I had a wand, It would be amazing." Sirius said as he leaned back on the couch and put one of his legs over the other.

"I guess you've been enjoying muggle culture then…" Lily said.

"Oh, you have no idea," Sirius said. As he was about to continue, Harry came along and said, "Here you go." He handed the glasses of water to Sirius and his mum, "What are you talking about?" He asked.

"I was talking about how much fun I've been having backpacking through Asia. It's fucking fire." Sirius said.

"Language, Sirius." Lily chided.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm sure Harry doesn't mind." Sirius said.

"I mind." Lily wasn't going to budge. Harry just laughed at Sirius' misery as the man continued his words.

"Muggles now have these things called TVs that can basically show the real world through the screen." Sirius said, "It's wild."

"What do you mean?" Harry asked. Lily might have been a muggle, but she'd sort of lost her touch with the muggle side of things. She still kept up with the major news out of habit, but Harry was completely clueless about muggle culture other than the basic information.

"You know how we have pictures right? How they can capture a moment." Sirius said. As Harry nodded he continued, "Imagine that, but it can last almost indefinitely. They can show as long of that moment in time as they want." He said.

"That sounds very nice…" Harry nodded with a glint in his eyes, "Can we get one, Mum?"

"No. You'll get distracted. You need to focus on your studies." Lily instantly rejected it. Just because she'd lost touch with muggles didn't mean she didn't keep up with some of the prominent news. She knew how distracting TVs could be. And they had much better things to do.

Harry didn't really mind and didn't care much about it, "What else?" He asked Sirius. He always told amazing stories.

"I ended up spending quite a bit of time in India this time around. And I found out that the magical society there is very focused on blood magic. They don't even use wands. They just cover the tips of their fingers in their blood and cast spells wandlessly. It's amazing." Sirius told him with fascination clear from his tone.

"How does that work?" Lily asked curiously. Magical India had very little contact with the outside world so she wasn't very aware of the magic system there.

"It is a very troublesome process actually," Sirius saw that he'd gotten Lily's attention with this and started explaining with some depth, "A wizard there has to coat the tip of his finger with a hefty amount of their blood. Then they have to cast a very troublesome ritual that will allow them to condense that blood on the tips of their fingers and they can use that blood-coated finger as the magical focus for around a month. But again, I don't consider it a downside. It allows them to cast magic wandlessly, at least technically." He told Lily.

"Fascinating… And why did you not try to use that? We have blood-replenishing potions. You can't have someone make a wand for you due to how highly wanted you actually are, but that doesn't mean that you can't use another focus." Lily said.

Sirius shook his head, "I already tried. They are very strict about who conducts the rituals and don't have a very high tolerance for foreigners. I couldn't even get the method from the black market."

"I see…" Lily had a thoughtful look as she said, "I'm guessing you'll be staying there for a while…"

"Yeah. It would be a godsend if they allowed me to use their focus. I don't mind trying for years." Sirius' desperation shone from his words, even though his expression and tone were nonchalant.

"So, Harry." Sirius wrapped his arm around Harry's shoulder and said, "How are things with you going? Any progress with your lady?" He asked with a gossipy tone.

"Everything's good with Fleur." Harry nodded.

"You guys do the deed yet?" He asked curiously.

Harry couldn't help but choke on the air and start coughing, "Boundaries man…" He wheezed out between coughs.

"What? I'm your godfather, it's not inappropriate." Sirius laughed.

"What about you? Did you find someone?" Harry asked, desperate to change the topic.

"Yeah… I completed 4 more countries on my bingo book— Japan, Vietnam, Philippines, and Indonesia." Sirius pulled out a book from his backpack's side pocket and started flipping through the pages. Each page had the name of a country with one or more names under each country. Reaching the end of the filled pages, Sirius showed a name in each of the four countries that he'd mentioned.

"This covers almost a hundred countries in the world," He said with pride shining in his eyes.

"You're a little messed up, you know that, right?" Harry laughed as he saw Sirius carefully stowing away his bingo book of women from different countries that he's had sex with.

"Eh..." Sirius shook his head, "Spending two years in Azkaban for a crime that you never committed can do that to a man." He said with a solemn tone.

Sirius' words brought the conversation to a lul as Harry didn't know how to respond.

***

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