Content Harry Potter Miscellaneous
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A silver dog bounded through the wall of Albus Dumbledore's office and play-bowed to him where he sat at his desk. "Tell Pomona don't panic," it said in Sirius Black's voice. "I've got her wanderer. Will return her shortly."

Dumbledore raised an eyebrow at the portrait of Phineas Nigellus as the Patronus-messenger dissipated. "Has Pomona misplaced one of the young witches she was taking on the tour, by chance?" he asked.

"If she has, she hasn't spotted it yet. Not that the Muggleborns are making that any easier on her." Phineas snorted. "Bringing them to Hogwarts that young will be trouble, Dumbledore, mark my words…"

"Someone else has just noticed the same thing," Dilys Derwent cut in, scowling at Phineas. "Lucius Malfoy is turning the ground floor upside down as we speak."

"Intriguing." Dumbledore got to his feet. "Perhaps I should go and assist him. It would never do for a child of one of the school governors to be lost at Hogwarts. Lucius's son is rather younger than our usual run of students, after all, and despite his upbringing, we cannot expect him to be knowledgeable about every possibility which can befall the unwary in this castle or on these grounds."

After straightening his hair and beard in the mirror hanging on the wall near the door, the Headmaster stepped out onto the revolving staircase, waving his wand idly behind him as he sank out of sight.

On his desk, a small, rustic-looking scroll spun three times and vanished.


Sirius was sitting at his desk, writing his first letter to Hermione, when his office door slammed open so hard it crashed into the wall beside it. He took a second to make sure his expression was suitably composed, then looked up.

"Afternoon, Narcissa," he said to his cousin, drawing his wand and closing the door behind her. Judging from her disheveled appearance and the fury burning in her eyes, this would not be a conversation he wanted broadcast through the corridors of Hogwarts. "What can I—"

"Where," Narcissa snarled over his words, "is my son?"

"Sorry, no idea." Sirius pushed his chair back and stood up, watching Narcissa warily. He hadn't expected she'd tumble to his involvement so soon, or be quite so fiery about it, and wondered uneasily if he'd underestimated her maternal feelings.

"Do not lie to me." Narcissa drew her own wand, planting her feet in a dueler's stance. "You restored the Muggleborn girl to her tour guide—"

"She was wandering around the castle, looking lost. I gave her a couple of sweets, showed her a trick or two, and handed her back to Pomona to finish out the tour. End of story." Sirius shrugged. "What makes you think that's got something to do with Draco? If he's anything like we used to be as kids, he'd have run screaming from a Muggleborn, not teamed up with her."

Narcissa glared at him, to which Sirius returned his blandest and most innocent look, the one he'd perfected through seven years of Professor McGonagall's searching gazes. Come on, Cissy, crack, he willed her, crossing the fingers of his wandless hand behind his back. Give me something, anything, human for once. Just the least bit of normal emotion, that's all I need…

The shift in his cousin's scent forced Sirius to hide a triumphant grin, and allowed him to reach for the box of tissues on his desk an instant before her first tearful inhalation. Got her.

"I—I was so sure," Narcissa said shakily, accepting the box Sirius levitated towards her, and the chair he trundled out from the corner of the room. "So sure you would know something, a place where traces of what has been lost at Hogwarts can be found, or some artifact that would allow us to search the whole castle and the grounds, all at once."

"Why are you asking, Cissy?" Sirius leaned against the corner of his desk, eyes, ears, nose all trained on the slender form before him. "Honestly, I never thought you cared that much about the kid."

Blotting her eyes, Narcissa managed a faint smile. "He is primarily his father's son to raise, as a daughter would be mine," she said. "So say all the years of custom in which we were brought up. But my heart…" She twisted the tissue between her hands. "My heart says otherwise. So I slip around our customs, as much as I dare. Draco likely does not think well of me, since I take up time he might be spending on his own entertainments, but I cannot help it." She exhaled a breathy, tear-filled laugh. "I love him, Sirius. As little as I would dare to admit it to any of my relatives but you, I love him. And if I must play the dutiful wife and the society lady much longer without knowledge of what has happened to him, I fear I may lose my mind."

"Well, we can't have that." Sirius slid off the desk and conjured himself a chair beside his cousin's. "Listen, Cissy—no, don't talk," he corrected at her widened eyes, her sharp inhalation. "Just listen. You were right the first time, I do know something, but what I can tell you is limited. Magically limited. So hear me out, don't interrupt, and we'll work this through together. All right?"

Her knuckles white around her handful of tissue, Narcissa nodded sharply.

"First things first. Draco's alive, and he's safe. And the only reason I can tell you that is because you just proved you care about him as more than a status chip on your personal gameboard. So well done there. I—" Sirius stopped, stifled a sigh, and reached around to draw his silently sobbing cousin into an awkward embrace. "Hey, now," he said, patting her back. "It's not that bad."

"It could have been." Narcissa turned her head on his shoulder to make her words audible. "If you had any idea how many times I almost convinced myself not to come here today, how certain I was that you would simply laugh at me and send me away again, or share the story of my foolish Mugglish weakness with everyone I have ever known…"

"I don't play like that." Sirius kept his impatience muzzled by reminding it that most of the people in Narcissa's world would have done precisely this, with the added fillip that some of them would have tried to ensure Lucius never heard the story until it was so well entrenched that even his money and influence could not stop it from spreading. "But here's the next thing, Cissy. The people who've got Draco right now? They saved his life, and they wouldn't have had to if Lucius had been keeping an eye on him. And the way they're thinking, if his father cares that little about him, and his mother knows that but lets him go out with his father anyway—"

Narcissa stiffened, and Sirius knew his message had been received. "They want what's best for Draco, Cissy," he said carefully. "And right now, as far as they're concerned, that's keeping him. But I got them to agree, if you'd come here and talk to me, if you showed some signs of actually caring about him as a kid, as your son, instead of just as Lucius's heir and the proof you've done your duty, then they'd be willing to talk to you about it. About him."

"And if I had not?" Narcissa sat up, anger and hope warring in her eyes. "If I had never come, or if you had adjudged me insufficiently caring? How long would you have left me without news of my child?"

"Are you going to hex me for—ow," Sirius finished as a small fist drilled into his shoulder. "I'll take that as a yes, then, shall I."

"Just tell me." Narcissa exhaled a long breath, shaking her hair back into place on the end of it. "Since I have, happily, avoided the fate of being thought a completely unfit mother."

Sirius shrugged. "If they didn't think it was safe to let him go home, they were going to work on convincing you and Lucius he never would," he said carefully, watching Narcissa's face for signs of comprehension. "Bloodstained robes to start with. Grading up from there as needed."

"And you…" Narcissa breathed the words. "You would have agreed to this? To separate a child from his natural guardians with falsehoods, to force them to mourn for one who is not dead, to leave them forever ignorant of his true fate?"

"What do you want me to say?" Sirius demanded, his patience wearing thin. "I've been in that same damn situation for going on four years now, so don't even tell me I don't understand! At least you would have had an answer, even if it was a lie! I've got nothing, Narcissa. Nothing except an abandoned wand and a whole lot of questions that are probably never getting answered."

"But…" Narcissa blotted at her eyes again. "I don't understand. I was sure you knew something about him."

"Who? Draco? I just told you, I do—"

"No, not Draco." Narcissa waved this away impatiently. "If you tell me he is safe, I believe you. I am speaking now of Harry Potter. Lucius has been certain for a year that the answer to his whereabouts is here, at Hogwarts. It was about that he came to consult Severus Snape."

"And took his eyes off Draco long enough for…well. Yeah." Sirius shook his head, bewildered. "Lucius thinks Harry is here?"

"Or that some clue about him is. I know very little, only what I have overheard." Narcissa smiled faintly. "I will do my best to learn more. If you will use your vaunted powers of persuasion to argue that my son should be returned to me."

"Deal," said Sirius promptly. "As long as you're planning on paying better attention to him from now on."

Narcissa grimaced. "I doubt he will welcome it, but yes."

"Now, with that I might be able to help you." Sirius grinned, on firmer ground here. "Let me know when you have a free evening or two, and we'll begin your education on What Little Boys Like To Do…"


Moonfur lay atop one of the Stonehouse Pack's thinking rocks, watching as far below, his cubs romped with a laughing human boy.

I never thought any of this would happen. Moodily, he thwacked his tail against the surface of the rock, making the children pause and look up before returning to their game. The human world wasn't supposed to care what had become of me, or even of Harry, once it was established that Voldemort was gone. We should have been a nine days' wonder, superseded by the next oddity down the pike, relegated to footnotes in dusty old history books and "Whatever Happened To…" newspaper retrospectives by now.

Of course, he'd never expected to discover that Sirius Black had survived the whirlwind day of destruction which had led him to his irreversible decision.

Though if I'd known then what I know now, I might still have made the same choice…

A small grunt behind him, and a waft of a most familiar scent, warned him that Smokepaw had climbed up to this perch to join him. He flicked his ears once in acknowledgment of her presence, then went back to watching Lucius Malfoy's son being playfully mauled by a pair of wolf cubs.

Which I doubt I could have anticipated, no matter what I'd known back then!

{Love,} said Smokepaw, sitting down beside him. {What troubles you?}

{Nothing.} Moonfur snorted in bitter amusement. {Everything.}

{Far more the second than the first, I think.} Smokepaw swept her tail once back and forth in appreciation of the small joke, but her look was direct and her shoulders set at their no-nonsense angle. {You are unsettled and unsure about what you should do next, now that you know one of your friends is both alive and involved with the children ours wish to befriend. Yes?}

Moonfur glared at her. {Where are these mindreading classes held, the ones women always manage to attend and men never do?} he asked, sitting up to be more on a level with her. {And how do they manage to get the point across to every woman, no matter what she looks like?}

{I believe it is partly instinct, partly learning.} Smokepaw chuckled, her tongue hanging momentarily loose from one side of her mouth. {But by that, I take that I am right. You are feeling such things.}

{I…am. Yes.} Moonfur sighed, conceding defeat. {How am I supposed to face him, Smokepaw?} he asked, gazing out over the home trees, in the direction of the castle he'd once called home, the friend he'd unknowingly wounded. {How am I supposed to tell him what I did, and why?}

{If he was any true friend to you, he will be so glad to know that you and our son are safe and alive that he will care little in what form you come to him.} Smokepaw brushed her pads idly against the surface of the rock. {And if I remember your stories correctly, he has a form at his command which is very like ours, so that he will be able to be a part of both worlds. Something which you, my love, seem to forget you must do.} A soft growl underlay her last sentence.

{What do you mean?} Moonfur turned to face her, startled. {I left that world behind when I came here. When I came to you. This is my home now.}

{It is, but that does not wipe out the years you spent living as a human, or the ties you had to others then. Especially not when one of those others has finally come back within your purview.} Smokepaw lowered her ears, adding extra emphasis to her tone. {I am glad to have you here, and as you are, and as my mate and the father of my cubs. None of that has changed. But if you try to make believe that your first life, in the human world, never happened, your second life here with us will be forever incomplete. It is time to find completion, beloved. For all our sakes, but especially for the children. Besides.} Her eyes danced momentarily. {I have always wished I could have met your wicked friend Mr. Padfoot. Our senses of humor seem very much alike.}

Moonfur sighed and lay down once more. {I'm doomed,} he told the rock. {Absolutely doomed.}


When Sirius got back from his last class of the day, he found a scroll waiting on his desk, made from a thick and crackly substance he thought might be tree bark. Inside were two sentence, inscribed in an unrecognizably neat handwriting.

Meet me at the statue of the Fates, tomorrow night after sunset. Come furry, and come alone.

There was no signature.

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Author Notes:

So things are heating up a bit, no? More fun is on the way, so stay with me!

Thanks to everyone who's given this story such a lovely reception! Don't forget to check out my website to see what else I write, both fanfic and originals!