Homecoming

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I would like to thank my beta, Akisu, for his help in this chapter.

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21st December 1995, Hogwarts Earth 2

(Harry Potter POV)

It was with a heavy heart that Harry Potter had returned to Twelve Grimmauld Place; Arthur Weasley's attack came out of nowhere and it really shook they young Gryffindor. Cedric's death had been a horrific event, but Mr. Weasley's close call with Death was a wakeup call. This wasn't a game, people he was friends with, people that he was probably going to fight side by side with, are probably going to die.

This was a war, and he was one of the most important pieces on the board, even if he's barely more than a pawn. He could understand why the rest of the Order doesn't think that he's ready, even now, with Sayre's training, he didn't feel close to being ready. Though he could probably take out a few of the high ranking Death Eaters, especially since they're still weakened from their stint in Azkaban.

For the first time in his life, Harry had ridden the Hogwarts Express without Ron. It was a bit weird, just Hermione and him, but it wasn't that bad. Without Ron there, the constant arguing between his best friends was nowhere to be seen. Harry actually got a lot done in terms of studying for his OWLs, with Hermione's help. He still had a lot of catching up to do in Astronomy and History, two classes that he doesn't really expect to take a NEWT in, but he would still like to pass the classes. Sayre had, somehow, attained copies of his parents' OWL and NEWT results, and Harry could clearly see how much of a disappointment he was in comparison. His mother had even done a Hermione and taken all of the electives, although she hadn't had access to a time turner, choosing to self study Divination and Muggle Studies.

Even Harry's father, who was a prankster, had only failed History of Magic, and hadn't gotten a grade under an EE in the rest. Harry had taken a good look at his current grades, and decided that he needed to be better, if only to honor his parents, to prove to them and the world, but most importantly himself, that their sacrifice wasn't a waste, that he was worth the price. He would be the best damn wizard the world had ever seen.

The silence in the cabin got boring after a while. Harry wished that he could hang out with Daphne, instead; he really enjoyed her dry sense of humor. Unfortunately, Daphne had to stay with the other Slytherins who were going home, and her absence would have been noticed.

Now, though, Harry just arrived at King's Cross station, waiting for the Order to pick Hermione and him up. The train ride was spent in silence, with Hermione reading a very thick book on theories that he couldn't even attempt to understand. This was due to her little one sided rivalry with Sayre. The Defense Professor had confessed to him that she chose to be a little harsher on Hermione, because her pride would make the girl work harder just to one up her. From what Sayre commented, Hermione works hard, but she needs to be smarter about it, choose the right books. The books in the library aren't removed or edited after they're printed, meaning that half the theories in them have been disproved in other books, and Hermione had based a lot of her knowledge on pure academia, that she takes everything at face value, something that Sayre commented to be very bad for a logical mind such as Hermione.

It was obviously working; Hermione was getting so much ahead of the rest of the class, asking all her professors about theories so advanced that she surprised McGonagall and Flitwick a few times. Harry didn't understand how Sayre had been able to profile Hermione this well from the first lesson, but if it works, who was he to protest.

Harry looked around and saw Tonks' familiar pink hair in the back. He walked towards the Order member, who appeared to be in a riveting conversation with Remus Lupin of all people. They waved at each other and met up once more. Thankfully, this time, they only took the Knight Bus, instead of flying for a few hours in the middle of the evening. If that wasn't a breach of the Statute of Secrecy nothing would be.

Instead, they used the bus and asked to be dropped off at a street that was close to Headquarters, before putting on his invisibility cloak and privacy charms. Eventually, they were able to arrive to Twelve Grimmauld Place, where the atmosphere was quite somber; it's quite apparent that Harry is not the only one shook about Mr. Weasley's attack.

Harry said his hellos to the Weasley family, whose usual enthusiasm was missing. He walked up the staircase, to see Sirius, who was probably cooped up with Buckbeak.

When he went in, Sirius ran towards him and engulfed him in a hug, "I missed you, pup."

"Missed you too, Padfoot."

"So, tell me, how was school?"

Harry didn't know how to answer that exactly, "Fine, I guess. I was worried for a bit when that Umbridge woman had tried to meddle in Hogwarts stuff, but Sayre ended up kicking her out, somehow."

Sirius snorted, "couldn't have happened to a more horrible woman," at Harry's look of confusion, he explained, "She's a very strong bigot, opposes anything that she doesn't think is pure. Half giants, half goblins, centaurs, anything that isn't one hundred percent wizard is bad in her book. She's been especially horrible to werewolves and is responsible for half the laws stopping them from getting employment anywhere in the magical world. Moony has always hated the woman for the misery that she has caused him and other victims of lycanthropy."

Harry was disgusted by the woman, "I knew that she was horrible, but this… I'm happy that she's gone, at least. I can't imagine a woman like that being a professor. Thank Merlin that Sayre got rid of her."

Sirius snorted once more, "Yeah, she's a real smooth talker, that one."

"What? You know her?"

"Yeah, she's a real character, I can say that."

Harry hesitated for a second before asking him, "she said that she knew my parents. Is that true?"

Sirius tilted his head, "Yeah, she did."

"She said some stuff that I haven't had time to get my head around."

"Like what?"

Harry took a deep breath, "Were you and my father bullies in school?"

Sirius looked away in shame, "I don't think that we realized it back then. We thought that we were just some pranksters, spreading some joy in a dark time and chose to target the house with the most Death Eaters. I tended to go a bit too far; I didn't have a nice time at home, as you can probably guess by my mother's screeching downstairs, and I took out my aggression on these pranks. Moony was the one who held me back from going too far, but sometimes he didn't stop me in time, and I ended up making a lot of mistakes."

"Like getting Snape almost killed by a werewolf?" Harry looked angry saying that.

"Yeah, I really do regret that one. I don't know what I was thinking. James and I let up on him for a while, but Snivellius was just very hateful. He admitted to practicing the dark arts, and Lily was still very close to him. James was getting a bit worried from the rumors about him, plus James had always been jealous of his relationship with Lily. After Snivellius and Lily stopped talking, James stopped targeting him at all, and I slowly stopped too. We started to grow up a little bit, and by the time your parents started dating, James was pretty much a new person."

Harry tilted his head, thinking about Sirius admission. The man looked ashamed of his actions and twelve years in Azkaban was more than enough to deal with schoolyard bullying.

The Boy-Who-Lived nodded to Sirius, who smiled relieved, "So, what got Sayre to talk to you about that?"

Harry shrugged, "she said something about me putting my parents on a pedestal, and that they were real people with issues and flaws. She said something about how my mother was brilliant but hardheaded and stubborn. Apparently, she also had a bit of a temper," Sirius visibly snorted at that, confirming the information, "and well, you know what she said about my father. She said that they were good people, but that was it, they were people and that it would be better to hear the truth about them, than to just keep listening to overly romanticized stories."

Sirius nodded, "I get the idea. Alright, I have to know, what do you think of Sayre?"

"Well, she's powerful, like crazy Dumbledore powerful, she's been teaching me how to fight, and damn, I know she's holding back, like a lot, but I still haven't landed a single hit on her. She knows so much about magic, stuff that would blow your mind, with just the simplest spells. She's what I imagine Dumbledore would be like if he was teaching, to be honest. You should have seen her in the dueling club."

Sirius gasped in shock, "someone brought back the dueling club?"

"Yeah, Sayre did, and she's running it with Flitwick. You should have seen their demonstration duel. They used nothing that a NEWT student shouldn't know about, but it was by far one of the greatest displays of magic that I've ever seen. I swear it was like art, the way they kept going back and forth, slowly countering each other with a different method every time."

Sirius looked like a little kid, "So, who won?"

Harry snorted, "Sayre, of course. She was barely breaking a sweat when they were done. Flitwick admitted to me later that she had wiped the floor with him."

"Flitwick? He's one of the fiercest fighters after Dumbledore, he was some big Dueling Champion before he started teaching. People from all over the world kept pestering him into teaching them but he always refused. And she beat him? Just like that?"

"Just like that. She's been teaching me some of the moves she used, but apparently, a duel and a fight are very different, especially in the mentality."

Sirius nodded sagely, "Yeah, in my Auror days, I could have taken any duelist in a fight, but probably wouldn't last a minute against them in a duel. It's a way of thinking, Dueling is an art, it has structure and rules, but a serious battle is chaos, there is no place for rules or honor, your main priority is taking down your enemies, nothing more. If you stop to think about rules, or try to be honorable, you won't last long, I can guarantee that."

Harry nodded, going into details about his lessons with Sirius looking more and more impressed the more he spoke. After he was done, the dog Animagus whistled and exclaimed proudly, "That woman is really putting you through the wringer. We'll have to duel sometimes. There's a dueling room in the basement, give me a few days to get it into order and to renew the protection enchantments, and I'll see if you can back up your little claims."

"You're on, old man."

"Old man, I'll show you how old I am when I kick your arse in a few days."

Harry chuckled, "Dream on, Padfoot."

Sirius genuinely laughed for the first time Harry had ever seen him. There was always this defeated air to him, probably ever since he went to Azkaban, and lost the closest thing he had to a family. The young Gryffindor was glad that life started to slowly return to his godfather.

Sirius straightened up, "Oh, right, I'll get started on the room. Kreature!"

Kreature popped immediately. The elf looked healthier somehow, younger maybe, what the hell happened while they weren't there, "Do you mind cleaning up the dueling room in the basement and tell me when you're done; I want to take a look at the enchantments and see if they're still holding up."

Kreature bowed, "as you wish, Master."

Harry was gaping at the disappearing elf, and then looked at Sirius' grinning face, "What the hell happened while I was gone?"

"Ah, that, let's just say that Sayre is a smooth talker, a smooth talker indeed."

Harry snorted, "Seriously what's up with Kreature?"

"She did something nice for him that's been eating him up for a long while. She showed me how much I resented the little elf, and how that was such a stupid thing to do. So Kreature started to clean up the apartment properly."

Harry shook his head, "I didn't see anything different…"

Sirius shook his head, "I told him to avoid the common rooms, he still doesn't like the rest of the order and I'm sure that the feeling's mutual. If you're up for it, I can show you the rest of the house. The little guy even cleaned up the library, and even reordered the books. I told him to put the really vile books in a hidden room, in case Hermione finds a way there somehow. There's still a lot of dangerous stuff there, but some of the stuff was so horrifying even the books radiated dark magic and probably cursed the readers or corrupted them."

Harry nodded, "maybe later. I need to ask you something first."

Sirius nodded, "you can ask me anything, Harry."

The last Potter steeled himself, took a deep breath and asked, "What was Mr. Weasley doing when he was attacked?"

Sirius shook his head, "That's confidential Order stuff, Harry, I can't tell you that without Dumbledore's permission. No matter my hesitations towards him, he's the one who assigned the mission and is in charge of the Order. So, I'm respecting his decision not to tell anyone outside the Order about it."

Harry exclaimed, "Please tell me that he didn't almost die because of that stupid prophecy!"

The Boy-Who-Lived was met with silence and wide eyes.