Harry Potter and the Magic of Books Part 17

Albus opened the door of his house. “Ah Severus, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

Severus had to work to keep the annoyance out of his voice as he thought about Sirius Black. “I found Harry and Black.”

“Do come in.” Albus stepped back to allow Severus inside.

Severus walked inside and glanced around at the various charmed items then turned back to look at Albus. “One of my informants told me that Sirius was taking a pair of wild haired boys shopping along with three eleven year old red haired girls and a bushy haired girl that didn’t look like the others.”

Albus shut the door absently as he thought over the latest development. “Harry is well then?”

“He seems to be though he didn’t have the scar he’s known for.”

Albus frowned slightly as he thought about different ways that Harry’s scar might have been removed. None of the methods he could think or were particularly pleasant otherwise he would have dealt with it when Harry was a baby. “Perhaps that’s for the best, there are already far too many expectations on him as it is. And the other children?”

Severus scowled. “Black spun some ludicrous tale about Harry having a twin and about Lily being the ‘father’ of triplets via experimental potions.”

Albus raised his eyebrows. “I wasn’t aware that Harry had a twin, James and Lily certainly never told me about it. They also didn’t mention the fact that they swapped secret keepers so it might be possible. If anyone would know it would be Sirius Black.”

Severus snorted. “It’s far more likely that Black has finally cracked.”

“While that is possible he was rational at his trial. What can you tell me about the girls?”

“Not much, one the girls was named Lily and looked almost exactly like Lily Potter used to. The other two red haired girls, Anna and Beth look enough like Lily to be her children. He didn’t introduce the bushy haired girl that was with them then again manners were never Black’s strong suit.”

“What were they doing in the alley?”

Severus muttered, “Shopping for school supplies.” The idea of having five Potters in his classroom wasn’t a happy one, especially as Harry’s supposed twin looked exactly like James.

“In that case, perhaps I should check the student list. Did you give him my message about wanting to meet?”

“He told me to fuck off.”

“To be expected really, thank you for trying.”

“If Sirius wasn’t lying, who could he have had taking care of them?”

Albus frowned. “I don’t know, he certainly has enough money to have hired someone. I’ll look into it.”

“I should go, I’ve got potions I need to finish.”

“Of course.” Albus absently watched Severus leave as he tried to figure out how to get the truth out of Sirius. “I guess I’ll just have to send a letter.”

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Sirius nearly spilled his firewhiskey as Fawkes appeared in a burst of fire with a letter.  “Cheater.”

Fawkes dropped the letter on the kitchen counter, let out a trill that could have been laughter then disappeared in another burst of flames.

James glanced at the letter. “What do you bet it has all sorts of tracking charms on it?”

“I’m not taking that bet.” Sirius took another drink of his whiskey before setting the empty glass on the table. “I could always just vanish the damned letter.”

Lily laughed as she looked over from where she was working on repairing the stove. “Or you could just open it and get it over with.”

Sirius scowled as he opened the envelope. “Let’s see, blah, blah... blah, concerned about mental health and Harry’s safety and he’s curious about the other children. Yada, yada, yada… right, and he wants to stop by to chat. Like that’s going to happen...” he trailed off as the doorbell rang. “Damn it!”

Lily laughed. “You should just go talk to him.”

Sirius grumbled as he looked at his empty whiskey glass. “Fine.” He stood up and walked into the living room and over to the door. He drew his wand and opened the door, “What do you want?”

Albus raised his eyebrows. “Expecting trouble?”

“Just you,” Sirius muttered.

“Does that mean I can’t come in?”

Sirius grumbled as he stepped out of the way. “I reserve the right to set your robes on fire.”

“They’re quite fireproof.” Albus said cheerfully as he stepped into the cottage. “You’ve done some improvements.”

“It should have been repaired years ago or at least weatherproofed.”

“I quite agree but there were other things to worry about at the time.”

Sirius said, “I’m going to assume this isn’t a social call so what do you want?”

“Severus dropped by and said that he’d ran into you while shopping.”

“If you mean accosted then yes, I ran into the snake. Why, was he making up more lies?”

“The truth is an interesting thing. He certain certainly told an interesting story about twins and triplets.”

Sirius snorted. “Why does it matter? McGonagall handles all of the new students.”

“I’m concerned about Harry,” Albus replied.

“The fact that you can say that with a straight face worries me. If you were so damned concerned, you would have scared the Dursleys half to death about magical wrath if they so much as glared at him.”

“It’s not that simple.”

Sirius snorted. “It is to me.”

“I’d already told them the wards would prevent all magic users from coming there until after Harry got his letter.”

“Then you should have told them that you were immune as the caster or that you had a team of psychotic mercenaries that you could have called in or threatened them with Remus, he’s damned scary or you could just burn their house down from outside the wards.”

“If I’d realized how bad things were I would have. I’m not perfect, I let myself get blinded by the goal. Did you have anything to do with the Dursleys vanishing?”

Sirius said, “The last I heard they were going to move far away from England. Why what happened?”

“They were found dead, poisoned to death by chemicals.”

“It couldn’t have happened to a nicer group of people but no Albus, the last time I saw the Dursleys they were alive.”

“When was that?”

“When I had them sign paperwork to transfer guardianship of Harry to me. Thus, I’m both his magical guardian and his legal guardian. That means that he’s my responsibility to take care of.”

“And his twin? You and I both know that Harry doesn’t have a twin.”

“Really? I’m sure that you could find the appropriate records if you looked in the muggle department of records.” Sirius was sure of that fact mostly because Sarah’s friends had planted the appropriately forged documents for James and Lily and the twins.

Albus asked curiously, “And the girls?”

“What did Snivellus tell you?”

“That Lily knocked up one of James’ American cousins at a party.”

“Ah well, she always had a wild side. That’s our story and we’re sticking to it.”

“Why?” Albus asked.

“Mostly to annoy the snake you insist is a human being.”

Albus sighed. “Who are they really?”

“They’re family, other than that, it’s really none of your business. The last Potter that fell into your care ended up being raised by insane magic hating nut jobs. All because you couldn’t keep your damned mouth shut about what happened here. If you’d just said that you showed and killed Voldemort or disabled him then people wouldn’t know his name and expect him to be this grand hero.”

“You’re saying I should have lied?”

Sirius shrugged. “Or you could have just said that you didn’t know what happened that Halloween night.”

“They had a right to know he was at least temporarily gone.”

“Bullshit, the wizard world let me rot for ten years without a trial. I could stomach that if they hadn’t let dozens of Death Eaters get away with everything they did for some bribes. As far as I’m concerned Harry owes them nothing.”

Harry stepped into the room from where he’d been eavesdropping. “I’m going to find a way to kill Voldemort and make it stick, not because it’s the right thing to do or any of that crap. I’m going to kill him because no one will let me rest until he’s completely dead.”

Albus found his gaze jumping to the spot where Harry’s curse scar should be. “You removed your scar.”

“I liked it well enough but Sirius said that it would cause problems so I grabbed a knife and cut it off then healed it.” Harry chuckled when Albus winced.

Albus looked down his nose at Harry. “Curse scars aren’t that easy to remove.”

“I had a trained professional deal with the fragment of Tom Riddle’s soul and the curse.”

“Where did you hear that name?”

“From an expert on souls. I’m assuming from the stories I’ve heard and information patched together that Voldemort was Tom Riddle at one point in time. I’m curious why he didn’t die the night he killed my parents and why you haven’t told people that he’s less than a half blood by their reckoning.”

Albus said, “Harry there are some-”

Harry cut him off, “Don’t give me bullshit about being too young. He’s going to try to kill me which means that I need to be ready. That means I need the information that you have, he was a student of yours, thus spill.”

Albus looked over at Sirius. “He’s too young.”

Sirius said, “He’s responsible enough to walk around with a deadly weapon thus he’s responsible enough to hear the truth about why Voldemort came after him and how he even knew about the prophecy in the first place.”

“Someone overheard the prophecy and told him. I didn’t find out that someone overheard the prophecy until after the fact.”

“Who told him?” Harry asked.

“It was a terrible mistake made over a decade ago,” Albus replied.

Sirius glared at Albus replied coldly. “I’m going to ask one more time, if I don’t get a straight answer, I’m going to ask you to leave and I will tell everyone in the wizarding why Harry Potter isn’t going to Hogwarts and why James and Lily Potter died that night.”

“It’s not that simple.”

Sirius’ eyes narrowed. “It was Snape wasn’t it?”

Albus winced. “He made a terrible mistake.”

“Right, well, you’ll understand when I challenge to him to a duel and set him on fire, right?”

“I’m not sure that’s necessary.”

Sirius shouted, “He orphaned my godson! What part of this don’t you fucking understand!”

“He’s tried to make amends.”

“Bullshit, he’s just guilty that Lily died when he tried to kill James. He loathed James with the fiery passion of a thousand suns. Speaking of bullshit, you have a certain family cloak that I want returned to Harry or James by the end of the day, or else I creative.”

Albus twitched as several dozen worst case scenarios jumped through his mind. “Of course, I was simply holding it until Harry reached Hogwarts.”

Sirius opened his mouth to argue that he could have sent it to Harry’s vault with a note then decided that it wasn’t worth complaining about as long as it was given back. “Good, so tea?”

Albus said, “I could use some.”

“I’ll see what Lily has brewing.” Harry turned and headed toward the kitchen.

Sirius turned to watch Harry leave the living room. “Thank you Harry.” He turned back to look at Albus. “I’m distinctly unamused with your claims that Snivellus is a decent person. He was a petty small minded bastard in school and I doubt he’s changed much.” He held up his hand when Albus tried to interrupt him. “Save your redemption bullshit for someone that cares. If you try to screw with Harry or the other children, I will make your life a living hell and do everything in my power to ruin you. Do you understand where I’m coming from here? A simple yes or no will work Albus.”

Albus sighed. “I understand that I made choices that turned out much worse than I was expecting.”

Sirius opened his mouth to shout then closed it when Lily and Harry walked into the living room carrying tea. “Right, now that we understand each other, let’s talk shop. I have it on good authority that Voldemort split his soul at least once.”

Albus glanced at Lily in surprise. She really was the spitting image of Lily Potter. “Is this the right place for this?”

“They already know most of it. Harry’s scar had a fragment of Voldemort in it. It stands to reason that the only way for a fragment of his soul to split off was if it was already damaged and the easiest way for that to happen-”

“Was if he’d previously damaged his soul on purpose.”

Lily handed Albus one of the cups of tea she’d brought. “Which means we’re looking for things that he would have stuck his soul in.”

Harry handed Sirius a cup of tea then took a sip of his own.

Albus studied Lily’s face as he took a sip of the wonderful tea. There were a couple of differences but she did look remarkably like Lily. “Delightful, thank you.”

Sirius prompted, “Voldemort.”

“He was obsessed with Hogwarts and being magical. He also grew up poor which means there might be a soul fragment in Gringotts as it’s the premier bank of the wizarding world.”

Harry asked, “Isn’t that remarkably stupid? I mean he could put these anywhere, right? On a mountain, at the bottom of the sea, under a salvage yard or even in a forest a hundred feet down with digging spells or well, the places he could stick them are nearly endless.”

“If he was saner I’d agree with you but no one ever accused him of being sane. I believe his ego and paranoia will prevent him from placing such important pieces of his soul in such mundane locations as you’ve described. He’d also want to be able to watch the locations or at least check on them now and then.” Albus took another drink of his tea.

Sirius said, “That’s more information than we had before.”

Lily asked as innocently as she could, “Did you know my father Lily? ”

Albus considered the question for a couple of seconds. “I considered Lily Potter to be a friend. She was exceptionally talented and had a kindness about her that I’ve rarely seen.”

“I’ve heard a few stories about her time at Hogwarts but I was curious.” Lily worked on drinking her tea.

Albus finished his tea. “Thank you for the tea. I should probably let you get back to your evening.”

Sirius’ smile didn’t quite match his eyes. “Thanks for dropping by, if you find out anything, feel free to drop me a message.”

Lily walked over and opened the door for Albus. “It was nice to meet you professor.”

“Thank you again for the tea.” Albus turned and left with more questions than he’d started with and arguably less answers as his belief that Sirius had been simply pranking Severus was in tatters.

Lily snickered as she snuck over to the peephole and watched Albus leave. “That was way too much fun.”

Sirius laughed. “I can’t believe you asked him about your ‘father’, that was priceless.”

“I’d have more sympathy if he hadn’t stuck Harry with my sister,” Lily replied.

Harry said, “We should probably use the mirror and see if we can locate his soul anchors.”

Sirius blinked. “It can do that?”

“Maybe. I won’t know until I try.” Harry pulled the scrying mirror out of his backpack. “Let’s see, Voldemort.”

An image of the back of an ugly purple turban appeared in the mirror.

Lily frowned as she studied the imagine. “I’m not sure that worked quite right.”

Sirius asked, “Can you pull the focus point back a bit?”

Harry focused on the image and pulled the focus point back then around so that they could see the man’s face. “There.”

“That isn’t Voldemort but he seems to be talking to someone that isn’t there.”

Lily said, “Try looking for bits of Voldemort’s soul.”

Harry focused and the image once again moved to the back of the turban. “It just moved back to the turban. Maybe it doesn’t work.”

“Or he’s possessed,” Sirius replied.

Lily said, “Try looking for other fragments.”

Harry relaxed and thought about other fragments. The image in the mirror shifted to darkness for a couple of seconds before he pulled the focus back a bit which revealed a mossy overgrown wooden floor. He pulled the focus back more and saw an old overgrown shack. “Okay, this might actually work.”

Sirius piped up, “Or it would if we had any idea where to find that particular shack.”

“We can probably look around and walk the image until we find something that gives us a location.”

Lily asked, “Are there more?”

Harry focused and the mirror shifted to another dark location. “Yay, more darkness,” Harry said sarcastically. He spun the focus around then pulled the focus up until he reached a tunnel with enough light in it to see. “Where is that?”

“Looks like a goblin tunnel.”

Lily pulled a notebook out of her pocket and started writing things down what they knew of each location. “Jump to the next.”

Harry focused on Riddle’s other soul anchors. He frowned as he saw a creepy looking creature snuggling up against a locket. “What the hell is that?”

Sirius blinked in surprise. “That is a house elf, his name is Kreacher.”

Harry raised an eyebrow. “How do you know that?”

“Because the little bastard is my family’s house elf.”

Lily asked, “I guess this means a trip to visit your father.”

“Thankfully he’s dead. Dealing with my grandfather will be a lot easier than dealing with my father would have been.”

“Do we have a way to destroy it once we find it?”

Harry said, “Yes.”

“What is it?” Lily asked curiously.

“The lady that fixed the soul fragment in my scar should be able to destroy the rest of the soul fragments.”

“Good, let’s find the rest of the fragments when talk to James about ideas on how to retrieve a bunch of probably cursed objects.”

“That sounds good to me.” Harry went back to trying to find the rest of the soul fragments.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Kreacher glared at Sirius. “What does nasty blood traitor want?”

Sirius glared at the demented house elf, it wasn’t that he hated house elves, far from it, he adored the elves at Hogwarts that had always helped with a late night snack, he just hated his mother’s house elf. “I’m here to see my grandfather.”

“Master doesn’t want to see nasty blood traitor.”

Arcturus Black coughed then called out barely loud enough to reach the door from the dining room, “My hearing still works well enough Kreacher. Let him in.”

Sirius glared at Kreacher as he stepped inside Number 12 Grimmauld Place. He walked into the dining room. He frowned as he looked at his old worn grandfather. “You look like shit.”

Arcturus laughed then coughed a couple of times. “You’re just as blunt as you ever were. Why are you here? I doubt you’re after gold.”

“No, I’m after a locket that is in the house. It has a fragment of Voldemort’s soul in it and needs to be destroyed.”

“You’re sure it’s here?”

Kreacher said, “No, I won’t let you take it.”

Arcturus glared at Kreacher. “Explain.”

“Kreacher was supposed to destroy the locket. Regulus made Kreacher promise but Kreacher couldn’t.”

Sirius asked in surprise. “Regulus wanted it destroyed?”

Kreacher nodded. “Yes. Regulus realized that He Who Must Not Be Named was insane and needed to be stopped. Sadly, he died in a cave. Kreacher should have been there to help but he told me to leave and destroy the locket.”

Arcturus snorted. “You’re saying that bastard cost me Regulus?”

Kreacher nodded.

Arcturus looked at Sirius intently. “Can you destroy it?”

Sirius said, “I can do worse than that. I didn’t see eye to eye with my brother but the only person that was supposed to kill my annoying pain in the ass little brother was me.”

“Worse than destroy it?”

“I’m going to feed it to a demon.”

Arcturus laughed painfully. “Your mother was wrong, you are a Black. More so than she was, stupid idiot. I’m still not sure why my son married her.” He coughed then wiped the blood off his mouth with his handkerchief. “Cursed you see.”

Sirius asked, “Who?”

“Probably Lucius Malfoy. That little French rat bastard has been after my money for a while.”

Sirius smiled slightly as he thought about the temple. “Actually, I might have a solution for that. How you you feel about living another eighty to a hundred years?”

Arcturus asked suspiciously, “What would it cost me?”

“I need Lucius Malfoy dead. Once that’s done, I need something from a secret compartment under his drawing room floor.”

“Is that all?”

“I’d really like to burn my mother’s portrait.” Sirius said hopefully.

“I’ll get the marshmallows.”

Kreacher stared at Arcturus in horror. “You can’t!”

“Ah well, tell you what, you have two days to get that bitch’s portrait off my wall before I burn it. If you can get the password to the sticking charms then you can have it. Otherwise I’m taking out the wall and burning the portrait. She was a shrill bitch in life and has only gotten worse in death. Bring me the locket now.”

Kreacher vanished with a pop.

Sirius asked, “I was always curious about something, that Order of Merlin, how did you really get it?”

Arcturus sighed. “I killed a couple of dozen of Grindelwald's enforcers which saved the then current Minister from a messy scandal, the guy was such a ponce that I didn’t want to admit to saving him so I just told everyone I loaned the ministry some gold.”

Sirius laughed. “You’re not nearly as bad as I remember.”

“If you’ll recall every time I got to see you or Regulus I had to see your mother and there is only so much of that I could put up with.”

Kreacher popped back in with the locket and held it out toward Arcturus. “Here.”

Sirius pulled out a lead lined box out of his bag. “Just drop it in this.”

Kreacher asked, “It will be destroyed?”

“I’ll see to it.”

Kreacher dropped the locket in the box and muttered under his breath, “Nasty blood traitor might be good for something.”

Arcturus asked, “Now what?”

“Now I go back outside and get my godson to take us where we need to go to get your curse broken and destroy this piece of crap.”