Content Harry Potter Miscellaneous
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The morning after his birthday, Sirius Black awakened with a slight hangover, but a dose of the modified Pepper-Up Potion Poppy Pomfrey kept on hand for such things banished it, and he went about his usual morning routine feeling almost cheerful.

Which is as close as I come to happy, these days.

Of course, in his darkest times, four years before, he'd doubted he'd ever get back even to the level of "not miserable".

Given it's my fault Prongs and his Tiger Lily are dead, by association my fault Moony and Harry are missing, and I killed Wormtail myself, the damned little turncoat…about the only thing that could have gone worse with that would be if I hadn't cast first, because then there'd have been no evidence left that I wasn't the traitor, and they'd have tossed me in Azkaban quicker than you could say 'wand'…

But as he'd managed to get his spell off before his former friend could complete whatever he'd been about to do, there'd been twelve Muggle witnesses eager to swear that the strange little man in the dress had been waving about a funny stick behind his back when the taller man had shot a beam of green light into his chest. After examination of Wormtail's wand had discovered a mostly-completed curse of the blow-up-ALL-the-things variety, and examination of Wormtail himself had turned up a snazzy snake-and-skull tattoo on his left forearm, Sirius had been released from the Auror Office with apologies and thanks.

Thirty-six hours too late.

James Potter, as Sirius had already known, had been killed in the entryway of his home, though apparently not before wounding "Lord" Voldemort to some degree. Sirius had simply assumed that the destruction of the cottage's first floor and the lack of a Dark Mark over the place indicated that Voldemort, Lily, and Harry had all gone up together, and decided Wormtail merited a higher priority.

The more fool, I.

The explosion, as he'd learned only when he returned to the scene, indicated not a magical battle but the forcible destruction of the cottage's wards from the inside. Whatever had happened between Lily and Voldemort, it had happened in another location.

Which, they eventually found out, was the wreckage of Moony's kitchen…

The remote cottage Remus Lupin called home was in its usual pristine order when the Department of Magical Law Enforcement broke into it, all except for one room. There, amid shattered dishes and splintered furniture, lay the body of Lily Potter, along with a heap of dust which had held onto just enough magical coherence to be identified as the remains of the Darkest wizard in a hundred years. A single Apparition trace, showing enough extra spin in its vector to account for Side-Alonging a child Harry's size, had been traced to Hogsmeade, directly into the Shrieking Shack.

And there, the trail dead-ends.

All that the most experienced investigators of MLE had been able to determine (or rather, Sirius thought sourly, all that they were willing to share) was that Remus and Harry hadn't left the Shrieking Shack by any magical means, and as the doors to the outside showed no signs of being forced, they must have left by the tunnel leading to Hogwarts.

Either that, or they never left at all. One of the recurring entries in Sirius's nightmares was of Remus transfiguring Harry into a piece of furniture, or even Vanishing him, and then doing the same thing to himself.

Because as much as I want to say Moony would never do that, I would have said the same thing about Wormtail, right up until I found him gone…

Those images were not helped in the least by the fact that Remus's wand had been located under a decrepit sofa within the first day of searching, and had been immediately whisked away to the Department of Mysteries for testing.

Which argues for something weird, something esoteric, that he used on both of them. But why would he leave his wand behind, no matter what he'd done? Unless he'd decided to disguise them as Muggles, and he wanted to make absolutely certain he never slipped…his mum was a Muggle, he'd know how to blend in, but why not keep his wand for emergencies, like Death Eaters knocking on the door? And without magic, what was he going to do about full moons?

The questions, as ever, were unanswerable, and Sirius abandoned the line of thought with a sigh, as he'd done every time he took it this far for the last three and a half years. Shutting the door of his quarters behind him, he started down to the Great Hall for breakfast.

If Prongs and Moony could see me now. Assistant Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts, of all things…

But after he'd finally surfaced from the drunken haze in which he'd spent the first six months after the various deaths and disappearances which had shattered his world, Albus Dumbledore had sent him an invitation to tea, gently worded, but nonetheless amounting to an order. Sirius had considered refusing for about fifteen seconds, then shrugged his shoulders and headed out to get his hair cut and buy a new set of robes. It wasn't as though he had anywhere else to be.

And I certainly wasn't expecting him to confirm those wild stories we used to spin to each other about the Defense post being cursed!

Expected or not, that was exactly what Dumbledore had done, and then proceeded to lay out a proposition. If Sirius were willing to accept a lesser title and somewhat smaller pay than that of a full professor, and a workload which would vary depending on the capability of the hapless witch or wizard serving in the jinxed position each year, said jinx could be bypassed, since it was only on the Defense post proper. Thus Sirius would have steady work and a place to live, and the students of Hogwarts would receive a decent education in keeping themselves and their loved ones alive.

Which I was never going to pass up, not after what I'd just been through, and he knew it, the old manipulator. And then, the very next fall, he goes and hires on—

The object of his thoughts appeared from the stairway leading to the dungeons just as Sirius reached the top of the marble staircase leading down to the entrance hall. For a moment, they eyed one another.

I'd never have thought this castle was big enough for me and Snivellus Snape, but I guess miracles really can happen.

Even if he does think he could do my job—or rather, my boss's job—better than the person who's got it, and never fails to let me know about it.

Feeling generous, Sirius took his time strolling down the stairs, to allow Snape time to get into the Great Hall and up to his usual seat at the far end of the teachers' table.

Why can't Dumbledore give him what he wants? I'd put up with him being nominally in charge of me for a year, just to see what the curse came up with to get rid of him …

Pleasant images of Snape nibbled to death by grindylows, discovering one of the legendary Endless Staircases of Hogwarts by falling down it, or turned into a human-sized sea cucumber by his own curse reflected from a student's Shield Spell put a spring in Sirius's step as he entered the Great Hall, and a crop of lime green hair over a laughing face at the Hufflepuff table kept it there.

'Dromeda's girl, little Dora. Not so little anymore—second year and growing up fast, and top of her class in my subject, as long as she can keep from tripping over her own feet. If she survives Hogwarts with all her limbs intact, she'll be one of the best Aurors the Office has seen in years.

Thoughts of Andromeda led him inevitably to the sisters who'd bracketed her: Bellatrix, in her cell in Azkaban (good riddance was the politest way of phrasing Sirius's thoughts on that topic, though he'd rather his mad cousin's comeuppance hadn't been at Frank and Alice Longbottom's expense), and Narcissa, in her fine lady apartments at Malfoy Manor.

I never liked Cissy much, but that was more because she was spoiled and silly and selfish than anything else. It's possible she's changed, if only because I doubt Lucius stayed in her bed for longer than it took him to father an heir. What's their son's name again? Draco, that's right. Couple months older than Harry. Pulling out his chair, he scowled at a harmless plate of sausages. What is it with my family and the celestial object names? You'd almost think we were centaurs…

That line of thought mixed itself up with his earlier musings on Remus and Harry, until he had to stifle a snicker in his mug of tea as his mind painted their faces onto centaur bodies. Would Remus's horsehide be a sandy brown like his human hair, he wondered, or a silvery gray like his wolfish pelt? And how long would it have taken Harry to get used to walking with four feet, when he'd only just learned to handle himself with two?

Smiling, he stabbed two of the sausages onto his own plate, and served himself a spoonful of eggs to go along with them. So now I'm playing Moony transfigured them both into centaurs, which bypassed the werewolf thing because he couldn't be two types of magical creature at once, and they trotted off to the Forest to live happily ever after.

I think I'll stick with that going forward.

It's certainly a lot nicer than some of the other alternatives I've come up with.


Grasseye sniffed tentatively at the bulb-shaped vegetable roasting over a small fire fueled with tree bark, wrinkling his nose at the pungent aroma of burning resin. {What is this called?} he asked his teacher, who had folded her legs underneath her and was working with two pieces of stone, one carved to fit neatly inside the other. {On the fire, not in it.}

"Fennel." Alcyone did not look up from her work as she spoke. "And here, in my mortar, these are bilberries." She lowered the stone bowl to let Grasseye see the dark substance within it. "Or rather, they were bilberries, before I crushed them with the pestle. Now they are bilberry paste."

{I can't say all that,} Grasseye protested with a little whine. {Those are mouth-noises. They don't mean anything.}

"Which is why I will be teaching you how to read and write, and some of your fellow cubs with you." Alcyone set her mortar aside to fix Grasseye with a stern look uncomfortably akin to those his mother could deal out. "The world is much, much wider than your home trees, little cub, and you may think you have no interest in it, but what if it takes an interest in you?"

{Why should it?} Grasseye slapped his tail against the ground once. {Just because I used to be a twoleg—}

"Human," Alcyone interrupted firmly. "You were a human."

{It means the same.} Grasseye sat up, balancing on his hind legs, and pulled the knocked-silly face he used to send Ashtail into fits of helpless, tail-wagging, back-rolling laughter. {Walking around like they're going to fall over, wearing false fur because they're too stupid to grow a decent coat of their own, making mouth-noises at each other all day long. It's a good thing they're plant-eaters—they wouldn't last three days if they had to hunt for their food…}

"Can you fly, little cub?" Alcyone asked idly, retrieving the stick on which the fennel was roasting and setting it down on a wooden cutting board. "Fly through the air, like the birds?"

{I'm a Person, not a bird. So no, I can't fly.} Grasseye dropped back to all four paws, scuffling them into the comforting ground beneath him. {I can run fast, though. Very fast.}

"Could you make this stone lift itself into the air?" Alcyone patted a rock beside her with her hand. "Or this knife." She held up the blade with which she was coarsely chopping the fennel. "Could you make it sing and dance?"

{No, but who would want to?} Grasseye lay down in place. {Unless maybe you needed a safe place to climb up to, when the manylegs are coming. Or a noise to distract them, send them in another direction.}

"If some terrible catastrophe struck, and the prey in the home trees here began to die, would you know where to look for new hunting grounds?" Alcyone scraped the bilberry paste from her mortar and began to mix it together with the pieces of fennel. "Could you send a fast message, asking other People where there was still enough prey for your Pack to eat?"

Grasseye squinted until Alcyone's pale, oval face came into better focus. {Are there other People? Like us, I mean?}

"I don't know." Her two plants mingled to her satisfaction, Alcyone scooped them into a shallow bowl and picked up a handful of greenery with white flowers at the end of each leafy stem, spreading them out on her cutting board to pick through them. "But the humans would know, or could find out. They could do all the things I have mentioned, little cub…"

{I don't care if the twolegs can do things. And stop calling me 'little cub'.} Grasseye growled, sitting up. {I have a name. A proper name.}

"So do the humans." Alcyone's hands worked quickly, discarding some stems, breaking others in half and dropping them into her mortar. "It is always most polite to call people what they call themselves."

{Fine.} Grasseye turned his head away to groom down a bit of fur near his tail, and rolled his eyes while Alcyone couldn't see him. {The humans, then. I still don't care if they can do those things.}

"Not even when those things are useful?" Alcyone picked up her pestle again. "If the 'manylegs', as you call them, threatened your den-caves, would it not be helpful to have allies who could fly through the air and strike your enemies with heavy stones from far away? Or if your family was hungry, would you not want to know where you could find prey for them to eat?"

{Well.} Grasseye scuffed a paw underfoot. {Maybe,} he admitted grudgingly. {But only if we had to.}

"That will do for now." Alcyone used her pestle to transfer the ground greenery to the bowl where the other two plants waited. "Come and watch, Grasseye. This is the final step in making the magic which will help your eyes."

{It is?} Eagerly, Grasseye bounded over, being sure to give the fire a wide berth. He liked its warmth, but knew from his father's strict warnings just how quickly a spark could leap from its proper fuel to the fur of an over-interested cub, and how much the resulting burns would hurt. {What's that green stuff?}

"It is called eyebright." Alcyone laughed at Grasseye's pricked-up ears. "Yes, even the humans know what it is for. Now, watch carefully."

Using two sticks, she picked up a piece of burning bark from the fire and dropped it into the bowl. The three substances within, though damp, caught quickly, sending up a thick pall of smoke that made Grasseye back away a few steps, coughing. {Is that part of the magic?} he asked, burying his nose under one paw.

"Not in this case. Though it might be, if we were hoping to see the future, instead of helping you see." Alcyone watched as the fire began to burn lower. "No, in this case, it is the ashes we want."

When the fire in the bowl had gone out, Alcyone beckoned Grasseye to sit in front of her. "Sit very still," she warned him, dipping a finger into the damp ash. "I do not want to harm you by mistake. Now, then…"

Grasseye tried to pretend he was a rock and couldn't feel the tickly brush of finger on fur, or smell the sharp, green-and-black scent of burned plant, but it was hard, so hard, especially when that finger was moving around first one of his eyes, then the other, which meant the smell was right beside his nose, and now it was going over the top of his nose, he couldn't help it, he was going to—

"There," Alcyone said with satisfaction, taking her hand away. "Done."

The sneezing fit flooded Grasseye's nose and made his eyes well up uncomfortably. Whining, he shook his head back and forth, trying to get the goo to go away, he didn't like it, he wanted to be able to see

And as he blinked away the last of the tears and lifted up his head, he could.

{I—I can—wow!} Astonished, he spun in circles, staring around him. {The rocks have little sparkles in them! And the trees have so many leaves! And you—} He skidded to a halt and looked his teacher up and down, seeing clearly for the first time how perfectly her long pale-blond hair matched the fur of her hoofed legs, how she wore her quiver of arrows slung over one shoulder, how her eyes, a paler green than his own, shone with pleasure at this accomplishment. {You're pretty.}

"Thank you." The she-centaur smiled, holding out her hand to let Grasseye rub his jaw and side against it, marking her with his scent. "I think we will get along very well together."

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Author Notes:

As you can see, not quite DV (apologies for the delay in updating Surpassing Danger), but going far afield from canon already. Where will it end? Only time will tell. Let me know what you think, and what you might like to see!

Also, exciting news! I have finally finished my third original novel and sci-fi debut, Killdeer, and will be making it available for purchase on November 29, 2013! Watch for it on Amazon, Smashwords, or an e-book retailer near you, or if you prefer a paper copy, check your local Amazon affiliate or visit my Etsy shop!