Friends and Enemies


Draco pulled himself slowly to a sitting position, his mind racing even
as he struggled to get his body up to speed. He still could barely wrap
his mind around the sudden end of the pain, and of the residual aches
and shakiness he had anticipated.

This was the first time his father had gone as far as one of the
Unforgivables, which seemed terribly ironic to Draco, who had only short
weeks ago been defending his father against what he had believed to be
malicious slandering by Harry Potter.

Potter had claimed that his father was one of the Death Eaters summoned
to Voldemort's side, but Draco had known, without a doubt in his mind,
that that could not be true. All right, yes, his father had been one in
the first war, but everyone knew that he was under the Imperius at the
time. He was not responsible for the heinous things he had been forced
to do!

Or so Draco had believed. Now Draco was forced to face the truth.
Voldemort had been brought back, just as Potter had claimed, and his
father had fairly gloated over it. Given his father's actions of late,
particularly his claiming that Draco himself had been promised to the
Dark Lord as a Death Eater since his birth, Draco could not deny
Potter's claim of his presence at the post-rebirth gathering, but that
meant that it was all true. There was no time in there for Voldemort to
get to his father and cast another Imperius on him, which meant that
there had never been one.

Draco had always sought for his father's approval, even as he had
anticipated the approval and love of the wizarding world as a whole.
After all, was he not the son of one of the most powerful figures in the
world? Was he not rich, and pure-blooded, and handsome? When he had
heard that Harry Potter, Savior of the Wizarding World, was on the
train, he had instantly known that they would be best friends. Looked up
to by everyone, they were the same in so many ways, set above the common
rabble, the sort of wizards that others would look up to, and try to
emulate.

He had not expected the reaction he had received on the Hogwart's train.
Even before he had been sorted, everyone had known he would be in
Slytherin. He had bragged of it, knowing that it was the best house.
There had been no question of that in anyone he had known before the
train, but on the train itself, it seemed to engender respect only from
those who were themselves in Slytherin. The other three houses seemed to
instantly expect him to be evil.

Potter's reaction, when he had graciously offered to allow the scarred
boy to join with him, to take his rightful place at his side, had been
to reject him to take up with those horrid Muggle-lovers, the Weasley's,
a pox on the name of purebloods if ever there was one, his father said.
Draco's anger and disbelief had been deep and bitter at what he
perceived as a betrayal of the other boy's family and place in society,
and of those who held wizarding society together in the face of pressure
from muggles and muggle-born wizards.

---

Harry crooned for several minutes before Draco's eyes finally focused
again, his blank stare fading slowly. Harry flapped his wings slightly,
catching Draco's eye and drawing his attention before moving closer and
demanding petting.

He was startled by his own actions, realizing only after Draco responded
as intended and began stroking his rich feathers, that he had behaved
almost habitually. He had acted as though he were with Sirius. He had
vaguely understood that he was affection-starved, given the disgust his
remaining family had held for him all of his life, but he would never
consciously have expected Draco to be capable, much less willing, of
behaving so nicely.

When he heard Draco muttering curses and imprecations against his father
and Voldemort under his breath, he was reminded of his own relationship
with Hedwig, and Sirius' relationship with Harry himself. It seemed that
people were generally willing to be more open when not in the presence
of other people, which brought home to Harry the less obvious advantage
of being an Animagus.

To be sure, he had understood very well this year the danger of an
unknown Animagus, thanks to the spying of Rita Skeeter in her beetle
form, but it was only now that he really understood that he could spy
nearly as effectively even if he was not hidden. How many people had
disregarded Padfoot, or even McGonagall's cat form, he wondered? He was
reminded of the class' free discussion and interaction that first day in
Transfiguration, unaware that the professor was in the room, watching
them.

As Draco slowly calmed down, soothed by the repetitive motion of
stroking Harry's feathers, Harry was facing a fatal flaw in his plan. He
had believed Draco to be either a spoilt, arrogant prat who was unaware
of his father's true allegiances, or a spoilt, arrogant prat who happily
followed Voldemort and would become a Death-Eater when the time came, if
he was not already.

In either case, his plan had been dependent on Draco having basically
free reign to do whatever he liked, so that his invitation to Harry,
under other guise, would pass uncontested. It looked like this was very
unlikely at the moment.

Even so, though he still considered Draco an arrogant prat, he could not
quite accept the idea of leaving him to his torment. He knew first-hand,
to his horror, what the Cruciatus curse felt like. Granted, he knew it
from Voldemort, and he did not know how the elder Malfoy stacked up in
comparison, but it hardly mattered. However much of a prat Draco might
be, he did not deserve that. Not even Snape deserved that, loathe though
he was to admit it. Lucius, on the other hand . . . well, best not to
think of that.

Several minutes of pondering produced an idea for a spell, which quickly
coalesced in his mind, a phenomenon that Harry knew he should not put
off trying to understand much longer. Holding that necessary
self-examination in temporary abeyance, Harry cast the spell on Malfoy,
feeling only a slight qualm about casting it without the other boy's
permission.

With a final parting trill, Harry spread his wings. When Draco drew back
in uncertainty, Harry vanished, reappearing in the air high over the
mansion. Looking down, he studied it, memorizing it so that he could
return even if Draco was not present.

Finally, Harry turned his attention to his plans, in shreds due to his
new discoveries about his perpetual rival. Though he did wonder how long
this treatment had been going on, and how much of it was due to his part
in raising Voldemort from his nearly powerless disembodied state, he
quickly turned to more immediately important matters.

Once again, he needed to come up with a place to stay at which the Order
would not think to look for him. Hogwarts was fine in phoenix form, but
he needed to get books to read, and he needed to practice as a human,
not to mention practicing changing his form, none of which were
particularly safe at Hogwarts given how much Dumbledore seemed to know
about what happened there.

The Burrow, the oddly constructed wizarding home of the Weasley family,
might be available, if the other Weasleys were with Ron at the Grimmauld
house, but they probably had wards to detect intrusions. After all, the
only reason he could think for them to have left the Burrow was a Death
Eater threat, and they would want to be able to counterattack. They
would not be satisfied, he hoped, with merely getting the Weasleys out
of harms way and leaving their house to be destroyed. No, it would be
protected.

The Shrieking Shack was probably still in use for Remus'
transformations, Harry guessed, and even if it was not, changes there to
make it more comfortable for regular living would probably be noticed by
the inhabitants of Hogsmeade.

He had stayed in the Leaky Cauldron last summer, for a while, but he had
not been the one paying for the rooms, and so did not know how much it
would cost. More to the point, he expected Order members probably passed
through regularly, going to Diagon Alley. He would also prefer not to be
so close to the hub of wizarding society in England, after all the
terrible things the Daily Prophet had printed about him while he was
trying to survive the Tri-Wizard Tournament.

It was a terrible thing, he decided, to have the power to go anywhere,
and have no idea where to go. Wait . . . that was it!

Harry vanished once more, reappearing in the sky over a small village.
Elation filled him as he realized that he had successfully brought
himself to a place he had never been, with nothing to guide him but a
single memory that included nothing beyond the frame of a single room.
Unless he was quite mistaken, his phoenix apparition, if that is what it
was, was much more powerful and flexible than normal wizard apparition,
even above and beyond being able to pass through anti-apparition wards
such as those around Hogwarts.

With wide, sweeping circles, Harry searched the small village of
Godric's Hollow. His heart leapt in his chest when saw it. He suspected
that aversion charms had been cast on it, when he found the ruins of his
parents' house here, the partially burned and damaged wreck looking
little different, he expected, from its appearance on the night of his
parents' death. 

Something in the spells that night, whether by Voldemort, or his
parents, or by the Death Eaters after Voldemort's fall, had shattered
the supporting walls, dropping the roof down, and started a fire. "I
should have died even if Voldemort didn't kill me," Harry mused, looking
over the damage. He supposed it was vaguely possible that it had been
later damage caused by vengeful Death Eaters. From the descriptions he
had heard of the celebrations, it certainly sounded like there would
have been a clear period where they could have acted basically
uncontested, as the rest of the wizarding world celebrated the fall of
Voldemort.

He felt his feathers lift, a sensation similar to the lifting of hair on
the back of his neck when he felt someone watching him at Hogwarts, as
he drifted down through the air. He had barely begun to glance around to
see if someone was looking in his direction, when he realized, without
quite knowing how he knew it, that the sensation had come from passing
through the wards that shielded the house.

He landed lightly on an upthrust board, shattered at the end, standing
like a blackened sentinel over the dead home. Harry felt tears well up
in his eyes at the sudden feeling of loss that overcame him, but he did
not let them fall. The magic of a phoenix's tears was too great to loose
on sorrow.

Feeling a powerful urge to prove that he could build, that he could heal
what Voldemort had wrought, Harry came to a decision. Voldemort had
broken his home. Harry would rebuild it.

A touch of caution led Harry to study the wards. He feared for a moment
that he had erred greatly in coming here, that the wards would have
notified Dumbledore that they had been breached. To his amazement, his
eyes changed to accomodate his needs, and the wards became visible to
his eyes, a beautiful skein of colorful weaves that encompassed the
entire property. Slowly the meaning of the complex tapestry made itself
known to him, and he followed the design of the weave.

Dumbledore's touch was not present, that much he quickly discerned. This
was basically a muggle-repelling ward that projected the image of a
house much like those further up and down the lane. This similarity
assisted the repelling portion of the ward, which focused on ensuring
that no-one paid any attention to the house. It was fairly basic, and it
had an air of familiarity to Harry. He identified it eventually as being
similar to the feel of the wards that had been cast around the World
Quidditch Finals to prevent the Muggles from detecting the mass
accumulation of wizards and witches.

Barely realizing that he had actually begun to act, Harry deftly
adjusted the weave, vanishing into invisibility as he casually bound
the image of the property as it truly stood, combining it with a wizard
focused second half to the wards. When he finished, the muggle-repelling
ward was complemented by a ward that would quietly and unobtrusively
encourage wizards to take no notice of the property, even while ensuring
that if they did look at it, they would see only what they would have
seen before the ward was erected, no matter what happened behind it.

A third layer built up slowly, as Harry swept around the property in
something approaching a trance. When it was complete, nothing that
happened within the wards would be sensed magically, outside of them. A
final layer tied the three wards together, and integrated a recognition
charm so that none of the three layers would affect Harry, nor anyone he
chose, though he added no-one but himself to it as yet.

Descending to land on a pile of roof shingles in the center of what he
guessed was either a living room or a dining room, Harry returned to his
human shape. Looking around him, Harry tried to decide where to start.
He stared from one spot to another, but nothing was jumping out at him
as appropriate. A Reparo spell on the shingles beneath him might fix
them, but without repairing everything below them, they would just be
perfect shingles lying on the floor. As for what was below him, he could
not get at them without moving the shingles first.

Giving up momentarily, he focused on coming up with a spell that would
specifically repair a structure. Expecting to need multiple attempts to
complete the process, Harry decided to do as much as he could manage up
front. Closing his eyes, Harry focused on the fiery feel his magic had
taken now that he could find it. Steadily building up his power he
concentrated on the spell, to cast it in the new wandless fashion he had
learned, but in a new twist, he held back the final flow of power,
building it up as if behind a dam. The power built rapidly, ever faster,
and Harry's muscles began to tense up. It felt akin to trying to hold
back a sneeze, as an immense pressure accumulated behind his eyes. When
holding back the power began to actually hurt, Harry finally released it
with a scream.

It was a shame that there was no-one there to watch. A white light burst
out of Harry, passing over the house in an instant, erasing it from
view. It raced outward, filling the entire interior of the wards in an
intensely brilliant flare of magic. The wards bent outward under the
strain, and only the fact that the very nature of the spell repaired the
wards as they splintered held them together at all. Though Harry had
felt the weight of the magical power as he strained to contain it, it
seemed several times more potent as it washed around him. He could
literally feel the building coming back together beneath him, the
shingles beneath his feet lifting him up into the air as the rafters and
beams of the house beneath him were resurrected. Any happiness or
elation he might have felt was tempered by the extreme exhaustion and
emptiness that seemed to eat away at him as the magic flowed out,
seemingly leaving nothing behind but a great gaping hole.

Harry slumped to the shingles, barely maintaining his balance as he
collapsed. He could hardly believe the drastic extent of the
transformation. He had no idea at this point how much work remained to
repair the inside, but the exterior, so far as he could see from his
position on top of the roof, was completely rebuilt. The roof was
completely back in place. He dropped back onto his back, staring up at
the sky, breathing out heavily. The emptiness in his chest seemed to be
recedingly, but so slowly that he wondered if the hole would ever be
filled. 

He groaned and threw his arm over his eyes when the flat-bottomed clouds
that drifted past overhead moved out from in front of the sun, letting
it glare into his eyes. Somehow, it seemed wrong that the sun should
still be high in the sky. He felt too weak to try and climb down, much
less levitate himself down. He did not expect to be able to accomplish
the animagus transformation, as weakened as he was, but he tried it
anyway. To his considerable startlement, he transformed almost without
effort.

His wings still felt weak, and he did not have enough confidence to try
flying, nor did he feel up to vanishing, but he could feel the emptiness
filling much more quickly. He had no real idea why, though it obviously
had something to do with being a phoenix, but he did not object. At the
rate his energy was now returning, he could believe that he would
actually recover.

Harry did not wait for full recovery, however. As soon as he felt
confident of success, he vanished into flame, reappearing on the porch
stoop. He became human again, with no more effort than had been required
to become a phoenix.

He stretched slowly, fighting the ache in his muscles, his eyes closing
as he rotated his back. When he gave himself a final shake and looked at
the door in front of him, he felt a surge of disbelief and fear. His
hand shook as he reached out and grasped the doorknob. A loud click
sounded, startling Harry badly. He turned the knob slowly, and pushed
the door inward.

Harry's knees quivered. He shook his head, staring at what looked like a
perfectly normal house. He stepped inside, his eyes darting from the
unshattered glass windows, to the pearly white crown moulding, to the
gleaming banister on the stairs. "Dumbledore himself could not have done
this much with one spell," Harry whispered, feeling once again the pain
of knowing that he was different, that he would never be normal. A
moment later his heart surged, as his perspective shifted, and he
realized that this was evidence that he truly might be able to defeat
Voldemort.

Harry's step firmed as he walked into the entryway of his parent's
house. He reached out gingerly to brush the frame of a wizarding
photograph of his parents. His mother was holding him, wrapped in a
white garment, and he marveled both at how small he was, and at how
tenderly they both smiled at him, before smiling out at whoever was
taking the picture. Harry would lay good odds on Sirius or Remus being
either the camera-man, or standing behind him, to elicit the half-smirk
that adorned his father's face when the messy-haired man stared out of
the photograph.

Moving as if drawn by something beyond his control, Harry drifted up the
stairs, walking without thought directly to the room where his mother
had died defending him. His eyes filled with tears as he stared at the
beautiful room. His spell had put everything back together, including
the baby bed, with its high wooden rails, and the toys that dangled from
the mobile. When he stepped into the room, one of the hanging toys made
a revving sound, drawing his eye, and a strangled laugh, as it began
moving through the air, spinning the mobile. It was a tiny black
motorcycle, much like the one in Harry's childhood dreams, that his
living relatives had so derided.

The other elements of the mobile were equally recognizable. The
lily-flower motif on the wood of the mobile clearly represented his
mother, while the other elements were the Marauders. Remus was
represented by a crescent moon, a somewhat odd choice, since it was of
course the full moon that truly defined him. But a simple circle would
probably have not been recognizable, while a crescent moon was
immediately identifiable, and represented the moon's phases as much as
the moon itself, so he supposed it was appropriate enough.

His father was the only one represented by his animagus form. The stag,
drifting slowly through the air as the mobile spun, was clearly a work
of magic, its legs slowly moving as if walking, though their movements
were not timed to match the rate of the mobile's spinning. It also had
an exact duplicate of Prongs' rack, which a random stag would not be
likely to have.

The fourth and last toy made Harry's hand itch for his wand. A
triangular hunk of cheese could represent no-one but Wormtail, the
betrayer. Harry resisted the temptation to blast the toy, knowing it
would unbalance the mobile. Had the toy been a rat, Harry thought, he
would probably not have been able to restrain himself.

He was drawn almost unwillingly to the side of the bed. Reaching into
it, he picked up the blanket. He laughed softly, even as tears dripped
down his cheek, as he felt its texture. Much like Dumbledore's robes at
times, it was clearly enchanted. The printed figures on it, dogs, stags,
wolves, and rats in a field of lilies, pranced and ran across it.

Leaving the room that had been his almost fourteen years ago, he
wandered through the house. He found his parents' room, and he lost
several hours when he found a small stack of photo albums in a trunk
that clearly belonged to his mother.

It was as he was staring at a moving picture of his mother holding him
tightly, while bawling out a repentant Sirius who was holding a broom,
that Harry realized for the first time that his spell had not only put
the physical objects back together, it seemed to have restored spells
that had been destroyed just as long as the objects they had been cast
on.

Dropping into the state of mind in which he had first seen the wards,
Harry examined the house, and nearly collapsed in laughter when he
realized that the Fidelius charm had been recreated as well. Once more
Peter Pettigrew held the secret of his family's location. Did Wormtail
realize it? Would he have felt the spell's return?

Without stopping to consider that it should be impossible, Harry tagged
the person at the far end of the spell so that he could find him again,
then tore the spell loose and reached out to Sirius, the one that should
have been his parent's Secret-Keeper, and tied it to him. He did not
worry about asking. His godfather had often bemoaned his foolishness in
not accepting the role as Secret-Keeper, so he should have no reason to
object now that it was his.

His magical gaze swiftly examined the rest of the house, and the
exterior, and discovered that nearly every room had something magical in
it. Each would doubtless be a completely different spell, and probably
one he did not even know. Beyond even that, the Fidelius charm was not
the only house-surrounding spell that had been resurrected. He could
feel powerful defense charms and older notice-me-not wards, probably
employed while the Fidelius was being prepared or discussed. 

He sat unsteadily on his parents' bed, trying to come to grips with what
he had just learned and done. The spell he had already gauged as more
powerful than Dumbledore, not that he had any true way to judge that,
beyond his gut feeling, was now seen to be several times more powerful.
The Fidelius charm was a very powerful magic, and should definitely not
have been resurrected by a simple structural repair spell, and like most
of the other spells, it was a spell he had not yet learned, not even
through the strange mental abilities he seemed to have gained from his
phoenix form.

Harry's mind raced as questions ran through his mind seemingly without
limit. He could not understand what was happening to him. Becoming an
animagus was supposed to be difficult. It had taken his father three
years to accomplish it. He had become an animagus without learning
anything, without even trying, and he had become a magical creature. He
had not believed that possible.

He had cast a number of spells that he had never learned, never been
taught. They had simply appeared in his mind when he needed them. What
is more, he had cast them without a wand and even without words. Even
after becoming human again, he had cast that massive repair spell
without saying anything, and without using his wand. And of course,
there was the unbelievable scale of the spell he had just cast,
restoring not only the structure, but the spells. How was it possible?

He was torn between concern about what was happening, and relief
that he was finally showing the kind of power that everyone seemed to
expect from him.

Finally, he shook off the confusion, and focused on what he was doing.
He had a place to stay now, so all that remained was to find a way to
repair his plan after Lucius threw a wrench into it.

Before he could begin to plan, he felt a tingling. When he focused on
it, he could feel confusion, fear, and deep sadness, and it tasted
strongly of Sirius. He focused deliberately on Sirius and the sensations
did not change, confirming his thought, and informing him that Sirius
was alone.

Discarding his concern over his unmade or inapplicable plans, he became
a phoenix, and vanished into flame.

---

"I think I'm losing my mind," Sirius whispered to the beautiful unnamed
phoenix. "I failed my friends, and now I've failed their son, my godson.
I had no idea how bad it was for him there, but I surely know what it is
like to be lonely. I should have ignored Dumbledore, ignored the danger,
and taken him in anyway. Now he's gone, and someone else is doing for
him what I should have done."

"And now, now that I've failed completely, I can feel a secret hiding
inside me, as if I was their secret-keeper, as if I had made the right
decision all those years ago."

Sirius wound down, sitting on the large stone that rose from the ground,
shielded from the view of the nearby path by an impenetrable thicket of
smooth-leaved yaupon, where Harry sat watching his godfather. Not
telling his godfather the truth, not transforming and revealing himself,
was taking more out of Harry than he could have imagined. He felt nearly
as wrung out emotionally as his godfather clearly was himself. He had
not realized that Sirius would feel the spell being attached to him.

It truly hurt to see the mischievous light missing from Sirius' eyes,
and once more Harry found himself searching for a spell. A moment later,
when Harry finally showed himself to his godfather for the first time
that day, he was carrying a letter clutched in his talon.

Sirius took it with a startled look that reminded Harry that he had
clearly thought him to be a wild phoenix. Harry chuckled at the thought,
remembering the discussions he had had with Hermione about Fawkes.
Phoenixes, he had learned, were native to mountains in Egypt, Greece,
and much of Asia. There were no native wild phoenixes in England, though
he supposed it was possible that some had been transplanted to the
mountains of Scotland. Ireland had a native variant, but no one could
mistake an augery for a phoenix, no matter the relation. 

Sirius stared at the letter for a long moment, clearly wondering who
besides Albus Dumbledore could possibly send him mail by phoenix.
Finally he opened it. Harry watched as Sirius eyes tracked down the
familiar writing, Harry's handwriting, duplicated by spell, though
Sirius obviously did not know that. Tears dripped from his eyes when he
finally looked up, staring at Harry with an awed and hopeful gaze.

"You . . . you've seen him? You've seen Harry?"

Harry bobbed his head in an approximation of a nod, and Sirius smiled
tentatively. "He's safe? He's not in danger?"

Harry trilled affirmatively. Sirius nodded. "Well," he said sadly, "if
his protector has a phoenix as a familiar I guess that at least means he
isn't in the hands of someone Dark. No phoenix would ever consider
someone like Voldemort as a partner." Sirius stared down at his hands,
and realization burst in Harry's mind like an exploding star.

Sirius was lonely and feeling useless. Every job he did for Dumbledore
would risk his freedom. He was a remarkably skilled wizard, and he would
be beyond grateful for the opportunity to train Harry. There was no way
he could know less than Draco, and he had the same upbringing as a child
in a pureblood house!

The sound of someone approaching made Harry's decision imperative, and
he made it in an instant, once more diving impulsively into action. He
landed on Sirius' shoulder, grasping him tightly. They vanished into
flame just after Remus Lupin entered the clearing. Harry grinned at the
slack-jawed look of awe and surprise on Lupin's face as it vanished in
the flames.

---

Sirius stiffened in surprise when he felt the phoenix's talons digging
lightly into his shoulder. He heard a rustle in the brush just as flames
surrounded him, and realized that the phoenix was acting to save him.
Able to pay attention this time, as he was half-expecting the feeling,
he decided that being apparated by phoenix was like nothing he had ever
experienced. He felt wrapped in warmth and love, suffused and
invigorated by an affectionate regard that was vaguely familiar.

He stumbled when they reappeared. His hand reaching out for stability
caught on a banister and kept him from falling. His eyes widened as he
took in his surroundings, an overpowering sense of disbelief smothering
the lingering flames of love and warmth, as he recognized the walls of
his best friend's home, the home he had failed to protect.

He did not notice when the weight of the fiery bird that had brought him
here left his shoulder, so absorbed was he by the unbelievable sight of
this relic of his memories standing once more before him as if never
touched by Peter's betrayal and Sirius' failure.

A voice from the stairs shook him and drew his eye. 

"Welcome home, Padfoot."

Sirius stared at the figure risen from his dreams and nightmares, and
believed himself dead. "James? James, I'm so sorry!" Sirius could not
restrain the tears that fell as he looked upon the one person he would
have gladly called brother. His eyes darkened as the man shook his
familiar black mane.

"Sorry, Padfoot. Wrong generation." Harry grinned as Sirius finally
focused on his eyes, their brilliant emerald sheen no longer concealed
behind thick glasses. Lily's eyes looking at him from James' face could
only be one person.

"Harry?!" Sirius shook with an all-over shiver as he realized that he
was not dead. He raced up the stairs. Harry backed up several steps, but
held his arms open so that Sirius would not take it poorly. He simply
did not want the massive collision that came as Sirius reached him and
swept him up in a fierce bear hug to happen on the stairs. Sirius swung
Harry around, laughing through glad tears, and Harry felt his heart ease
as he realized that he had done the right thing.

At the same time, he got a slight sense of the kind of pain his friends
might be going through, and it worried him. He had never lost someone he
was close to aside from his parents, and that loss was old and dimmed
from memory, a loss that ached for what he would never know, not an ache
for what he knew and missed.

Finally Sirius set him down and looked around. "This . . . this is
James' house? But, how? I saw it burning. There was hardly anything left!"

He focused back on his godson. "And you, Harry? What's happened to you?
You're so tall!" He reached out and lifted the fringe of Harry's hair,
running his fingers over the smooth, unscarred skin there. It should
have made him suspicious, but he could not muster any suspicion. He had
been brought here by a phoenix, and they would not trust just anyone.

Harry frowned. "What happened to me? I was killed by the people
Dumbledore left me with, and made me go back to every year, for my
protection!"

"Just one more way for me to be like Riddle," Harry continued, turning
away to stare at the floor. "Seems I'm not so easy to kill. I felt the
bullet go in, Sirius." He turned back, his green eyes blazing as Sirius
felt his stomach turn as his godson described his own death. "Everything
went black, then I woke up again to the most terrible pain I have ever
felt. It even made Voldemort's Cruciatus pale in comparison. Didn't last
too long, but I had no idea what was happening then. I do now, though."

Harry sighed, then grinned up at Sirius. "You're going to have to help
me come up with a Marauder name, Padfoot. I can't believe you still
haven't named me."

Sirius shook his head, plainly confused and not following the course of
Harry's conversation well at all. "We can't name you until you have an
Animagus form, Harry. You haven't been trying to do that on your own,
have you? You should have asked me or Moony!"

Harry shook his head, still grinning. "You don't quite get it, yet,
Padfoot. I woke up from a terrible burning to find myself in a pile of
ash. I saw Vernon going into my room, and I knew he was going to hurt
Hedwig. I wanted to be there more than anything, to protect her, and in
a whirl of flames, I was. It did not occur to me at that point to stop
and think about how I could fit in her cage. I just stupefied him and
got out of there."

Harry's grin widened as he saw Sirius' eyes light up as he figured out
the clues. "You . . . you little scamp, you little rascal!"

Harry backed up a step, holding up his hands as if to fend his fuming
godfather off. He laughed. "I couldn't change back at first, but I
wanted to be near you."

Sirius nodded, the humour of it getting the better of him. "So I've
known where you were the whole time, almost. Where were you when you
weren't with me?"

"The one place where I could feel sure that Hedwig would be safe, the
Owlrey at Hogwarts."

Sirius laughed aloud, delighted. He surged forward, brushing aside
Harry's guarding hands with little effort as he lifted his godson into
another hug, then set him down and ruffled his hair. "Well, that was a
worthy prank, and no mistake! I'd say you've more than earned your name,
but I'll have to think on it. I suppose it was me telling the little
birdy about finding out that Harry was dead that pushed you to figure
out the transformation?" Harry nodded, and Sirius continued, "So you
sent a letter. Why didn't you return? And what in Merlin's name is
this?" He gestured wildly at the house around them.

Harry sighed. "Dumbledore wants to protect me, and for a long while, I
agreed with him. I didn't want any of this, not the fame, and certainly
not a violent madman out to kill me, so I was happy to be protected,
even if I hated going back to the Dursley's. He told me in my first year
that I'm protected by my mother's sacrifice, so I guess living there
with her sister must help the magic, or something like that. And the
Dursleys' certainly never tried to kill me before."

"But I've managed to do a number of things since I was changed, starting
with casting a wandless, wordless stupefy on Vernon."

"And a disillusionment charm on me," Sirius added, realizing with a
start that it had been Harry who had cast that spell. "How the devil did
you learn that?"

"That's what I'm getting at, Sirius. I've never learned it. I just
needed it desperately, and it came. The same with transforming back. As
long as I was fairly happy . . . and I was. There is nothing quite like
flying under your own power, you know. As long as I was happy, there was
nothing, but when I really needed to change back, the spells just came
to me. For the first time, I really believe that I might be able to
fight Voldemort and win. I've already seen three people die at his
hands, one of them in person. I've faced him, I know what I'm up
against, and as fast as I've been able to learn spells, and as much
power as I can feel in me now . . ."

"You know, when I . . . well, when I burned, I guess, one of the pains
was like something shattering. I thought at first that it was the wards
on the house, but I could sense it, like a great shell of green glass
shattering, and I would swear it was inside me. I think that some of my
power was blocked off or something. I've always been just average in my
spells, except every now and then, when I do something I shouldn't be
able to, like casting a Patronus in my third year. I think I must have
been reaching beyond that barrier, somehow. And now, the barrier is just
gone. Spells are so easy now, and I have so much more power!"

Sirius looked a bit uncertain at this, and Harry hastened to prove his
point before his godfather could interrupt. "You asked about this house,
and it's the perfect example! As I'm sure you've guessed, this is my
parents' house in Godric's Hollow. I apparated, or whatever you call it,
here without ever having seen it or been here, at least in my waking
memory, and I brought it back, including the spells on the photos, and
everything else, with a single structural repair spell, with all my
power behind it. I built it up like a dam and let it loose all at once."

Harry stepped forward, putting his hand on Sirius' chest, feeling the
magic within him. "It even brought back the Fidelius, Siri. It was still
attached to that rat, and I couldn't handle it, so I tore it out of him
and put it in you instead." Harry looked up at his godfather, his green
eyes burning into Sirius' soul. "I can trust you with my secrets, can't
I, Sirius?"

There was only one answer that Sirius could give to that.