That same night, Harry snuck out of the dormitory and to the seven floor corridor, determined to face the boggart, and start his search anew.
Actually facing the creature was another thing entirely, but he managed to hit it with the spell on the first cast. With a deafening crack! that echoed through the cathedral sized room, the boggart became taller and lankyer, with fiery red hair, and a long thin nose. In an instant, it was Ron who stood before him, a dark look in his blue eyes, and a sneer on his face.
Harry was ready this time however, and he cast the charm again, - Riddle-Harry appeared - and Harry knew he would never be able to defeat it on his own. He spotted an open desk drawer behind the boggart, and sent it toppling into it with a depulso. He flicked his wrist, and the drawer closed, the click of the lock was loud in the sudden silence, but was quickly followed by a bang! as the desk shuddered.
He was much more careful in his searching after that. Running into a group of pixies, and even a couple small creatures he was pretty sure were imps.
He did not find the diadem that night, nor the next, nor even after that. His sleep was still torn by nightmares, and his classes distracted his thoughts much better, now that he was back to sitting with Ron and Hermione. He would still sit with Neville on occasion, but now he pulled his best friends with him, rather then trying to avoid them.
As much as he longed to drop Divination, (and Riddle also insisted he should) he didn't want to leave Ron like that. They had both known Divination was a ludacris class, but had chosen to at least have one friendly person as their classmate.
Harry was really regretting his choice. It seemed that every class, Trelawney foretold his imminent doom, and he was tired of hearing the gruesome ways he would die.
Care of Magical Creatures had also fallen from favor with most of the class. While the first lesson had been interesting, and even exciting, the incident with Malfoy seemed to have dampened Hagrid's enthusiasm. Now every lesson was spent looking after flobberworms, which were some of the most boring creatures to ever live, and had to be force fed lettuce as they seemed disinclined, or possibly incapable, to even take care of themselves in the slightest.
The start of October brought with it cooler temperatures, and the start of Quidditch season. Harry was rather glad of the distraction from classes and his seemingly endless search for the diadem.
Oliver Wood, the Gryffindor Quidditch captain, was even more pumped then usual, giving the whole team a rousing speech at their first meeting of the season.
One evening, about a week into October, Harry returned from practice to find the entire common room abuzz with excitement.
"What's happened?" He asked Ron and Hermione, as he plopped into an armchair near where they were sitting by the fire.
"First Hogsmeade weekend." Ron said excitedly, looking up from his star chart that was due in their next astronomy class. "It's the end of October. On Halloween."
"Excellent." Fred chimed in, "I need to stop at Zonko's for some more stink pellets."
Harry felt his good mood slip away. The Hogsmeade trip would not interfere with his plans to search the Room of Requirement, but he would rather be with his friends enjoying the village.
He zoned out of most of the conversation after that, Hermione and Ron were arguing over if Harry should find a way to go or not, when suddenly Crookshanks, Hermione's cat, leapt on Ron's bag, digging his claws into the fabric as Ron snatched it up, trying to shake him off.
Scabbers came flying out the top of the bag, and Crookshanks quickly leapt after him.
"Grab that cat!" Ron yelled.
Seamus dove forward trying to grab the orange menace, just as George did the same. Crookshanks dodged them both, and the two boys collided, cursing as they nursed the spot where their heads met.
Scabbers scurried between twenty pairs of legs, and shot underneath an old chest of drawers, Crookshanks hot on his heels. The cat crouched down and started to swipe under the drawers, trying to reach Scabbers.
Ron and Hermione hurried over to pull them apart; Hermione grabbing Crookshanks, while Ron dropped to the floor and, with difficulty, pulled a squirming Scabbers out by the tail.
"Look at him!" Ron said furiously, dangling Scabbers in front of Hermione, "he's skin and bones! You need to keep that stupid cat away from him!"
"He doesn't understand it's wrong, Ron! It's a cat's nature to chase rats!"
"That thing has it out for Scabbers! And Scabbers was here first! And he's ill!"
Ron ignored Hermione's protests and platitudes, and stormed up the stairs to the boys dormitory.
T-M-R = H-J-P
Ron was still upset with Hermione the next day. And the next. In fact, he didn't speak to her without a frosty note in his tone for nearly half a week.
Harry was nursing a headache as they waited outside Transfiguration a week after the initial incident. He was glad that they were mostly talking civilly again, but his failure in finding the diadem was making him irritable, and it didn't help that October was quickly slipping by.
By the door to the classroom, Parvati was comforting a crying Lavender.
"What's the matter?" Hermione asked gently.
"It's her rabbit, Binky," Parvati spoke quietly, her arm wrapped around Lavender's shoulders, "he was killed by a fox."
"Oh. I'm sorry Lavender." Hermione said softly.
"I should've known!" Lavender wailed, "it's the sixteenth of October!"
Harry felt a chill down his spine.
While he didn't put any stock in Trelawney's abilities, the reminder that Divination was taken so seriously made him uneasy.
Somehow, the encounter ended with Harry playing buffer between Ron and Hermione's renewed feud for the duration of Transfiguration. He loved his best friends, but sometimes he wished they wouldn't fight so much.
By the end of the day, all three of them were sitting apart, and not speaking to each other. Harry had done his best to persuade his friends to talk it out, but ended up snapping back at them when they started arguing again.
He was very exhausted by the time his dorm mates had all fallen asleep, but he pushed himself out of bed, donned his invisibility cloak, and hurried to the seventh floor corridor.
Nearly two hours into his search, he finally found it. In an ornate wooden box lay a crown of silver, the metal twisted into delicate swirls and carved with intricate patterns; small sapphires were inlaid in some places where the silver curled in on itself, and in the very middle, in place of pride and prominence, sat a sapphire the size of a silver sickle. The gem was beautifully cut, the light shining off of it almost enticingly, as if it wanted to be worn.
The dark shadows within the gem seemed to flicker and swirl, and Harry could almost swear he heard a voice whispering to him. The longer he looked at the diadem, the stronger the desire to wear it grew. Across the bottom were words carved elegantly into its base; Wit beyond measure, is man's greatest treasure.
Finally. Riddle said, startling Harry from his trance, well done, Harry. You'll need to keep it close, to acquaint it with your magic before Halloween. You found it faster then I thought you would.
Harry scowled, but placed the diadem in his pocket, turning to leave the large room. He only got lost twice, and once he was by the door, he threw the invisibility cloak around his shoulders.
As he headed back towards Gryffindor tower, he could feel the diadem in his pocket; it was a thick presence pulling on his magic and making his skin crawl.
He was a corridor away from the portrait hole, when a tapestry ahead of him shifted, drawing his attention to the black dog that slunk out from behind it.
"Sirius?!" Harry hissed, gaining the Grim's attention. The animagus stared straight through Harry, his head tilting back, the moonlight from the window glistening off his nose as he sniffed the air. Remembering the invisibility cloak, Harry glanced around furtively, before dropping the hood from his head, giving Sirius' gray eyes something to focus on.
Sirius' ears perked up as he caught sight of Harry's seemingly floating head, his tail slowly beginning to sweep back and forth as he crept forward. Harry quickly closed the short distance between them, Sirius lifting his head to nudge against Harry's arm as his hand went straight to his scruff.
Harry fisted the Grim's fur, pulling the wizard currently turned dog into the nearest classroom. Sirius didn't make a sound at Harry's rough hold. Though his body did stiffen, he didn't fight at all, as Harry ushered him through the door, turning to close it behind them. As the latch caught, Harry was too distracted to hear the lock click, but Sirius did, as he shifted from beast to man, with an ease that spoke of his decades of practice.
"Harry," he began, his voice low and rough from lack of use. Before he could say any more, Harry turned to him, the invisibility cloak slipping from his shoulders.
Harry could almost hear the diadem in his pocket whispering to him, he wasn't sure why, but as a wave of anger crashed over him, he didn't fight it. He caught sight of Sirius' hopeful expression, as Harry closed the space between them, and he saw it quickly morph to surprise, as Harry brought his fist back.
Sirius didn't dodge the blow, even though he saw it coming. He let Harry's fist hit him, sending him stumbling into the desk behind him. He knew he probably deserved it.
As he looked up at his godson, he thought he saw a flash of red in his emerald eyes. But as Harry straightened, half glaring at him, his eyes were the same bewitching shade of green as Lily's had been, not a trace of red to be found, and Sirius thought he must of imagined it.
"I'll admit, I deserved that." He rasped, raising a hand to his stinging cheek, "damn good arm you've got."
"Shut up." Harry hissed, conflicting emotions waring inside him. Part of him wanted to hug Sirius, to bask in the feeling of safety this escaped mass murderer brought out in him, the other part wanted to keep hitting him. Wanted him to feel even a little bit of the hurt Harry had felt over the years. Instead, he folded his arms over his chest and glared.
"Why are you here?" Harry's tone was frigid as ice, "Shouldn't you be running away from places you might be found. Being an escaped mass murderer and all."
Sirius grimaced slightly, as he sat down on the desk he'd been leaning on.
"If I was guilty, yes. I would be running. But I'm not. You're in danger, and I needed to make sure you are safe."
Harry's glare intensified,
"Explain."
Sirius let out a breath, and nervously ran a hand through his matted hair.
"Not long after we found out Lily was expecting, Dumbledore told us that there was a high chance Voldemort would be after their baby. To make sure they, and you, would be safe, he set up a powerful spell on an old cottage owned by the Potters, called the Fidelius Charm. It's complicated magic, but to put it simply, the spell hides a location within a single person, and without that one person telling where it is, no one can ever find the place. The person is called the Secret Keeper. And Lily and James wanted me to do it."
His gaze fell to the floor, and Harry broke in before he could continue.
"You knew my parents?"
A small, rueful smile pulled at Sirius' lips.
"Yeah. James and I were best mates from the moment we met on the train to Hogwarts. We were both from old wizarding families, but the Blacks didn't associate with Wizards like the Potters. It only made our friendship all the better to me." He grinned up at Harry, his teeth sharp looking even in the dull light, "I didn't get on with my parents much. They especially didn't like when I got sorted into Gryffindor instead of the family tradition of Slytherin."
He said the name with quite a bit of disgust, and Harry wondered for a wild moment, how Sirius would react if he told him the Sorting Hat had very nearly put him in Slytherin.
Harry pushed the thought aside, and instead indicated to Sirius to go on.
"We had two other friends at school, the four of us were nearly inseparable. James, me, Remus Lupin, and Peter Petigrew."
Harry startled at Professor Lupin's name, but didn't say anything from the way Sirius growled the last name.
"When they asked me to be their Secret Keeper, I was beyond happy that they trusted me so thoroughly in such an uncertain time. No one know who was lying, or merely bewitched. I would've gladly taken the secret to my grave if it meant they'd be safe. But I was an idiot. I was afraid something would happen to me, and the Death Eaters would find them anyway. Everyone knew James and I were close, I was the first person they'd go after."
He heaved a heavy sigh,
"So I suggested Peter be the Secret Keeper. He was a coward, and often times a complete idiot, but he was like a brother to us. We both trusted him. I never thought, for the wildest moment, that Peter would ever betray them. Betray us."
Harry dropped his arms to his sides, the anger drained out of him almost entirely as he took in the sight of Sirius looking so defeated.
Sirius cleared his throat, clearly trying to pull himself together,
"Obviously we were wrong. And I'll never forgive myself for suggesting it."
Harry still didn't quite understand.
"But why come to Hogwarts?" He asked, "you said I'm in danger, but from what? And how did you know, if you were in Azkaban?"
"I was sent to Azkaban for killing Petigrew, and supposedly blowing up a street full of Muggles. But what no one knows is that Peter isn't dead. In our fifth year, James, Peter and I managed to become animagi. We were underage, and never registered, so no one would've considered the possibility that Peter blew up the street, cut his own finger off, and fled down the sewers as a rat." He reached into his tattered robes and withdrew a folded bit of parchment, "one that showed up in the Daily Prophet quite by accident this summer."
He held out the decrepit looking piece of parchment to Harry, who took it gingerly.
Unfolding it as delicately as he could so as not to further ruin it, Harry stared at the newspaper clipping; it was the same one Ron had sent him during the summer, and was predominantly a black and white photo of the Weasleys, waving happily at the camera. And perched contentedly on Ron's shoulder was Scabbers, an old, plump rat whom Harry knew to be missing a toe on his front foot. A common garden rat that had been with the Weasleys much longer then his species lived.
It made sense. It all fit too neatly to be a lie. But was it the truth? Or had Azkaban done more damage to Sirius then appeared?
Harry needed to think.
He handed the newspaper clipping back to Sirius,
"I haven't decided if I believe you. So get out of here, before I turn you in."
Harry snatched up the invisibility cloak, and threw it back around his shoulders, grabbing the door handle. When it didn't budge, he scowled at it, a prickle of the anger from earlier reigniting in his gut.
"Alohomora." Harry didn't even realize his wand was still in his pocket, as he grit out the unlocking charm. His next attempt to open the door succeeded, and he pulled the hood of the cloak over his head without a backwards glance at his godfather, vanishing completely as he headed towards Gryffindor tower, intent on getting some well earned rest.
Behind him, a large black dog slunk out of the classroom and slipped behind the tapestry he had emerged from minutes earlier.
I feel bad about writing all that out, but summing it into 'sirius told him what's up' or some variation there of didn't feel right. So we got a bit of a story dump.
I wasn't sure I wanted Sirius to tell Harry everything, but I couldn't think of a way to avoid it without complicating things further for myself.
But on a different note, Harry found the diadem! How do you guys think it will change the story? I love hearing your ideas, even if they don't necessarily fit the general idea I have for where this is going.
Hope everyone enjoyed, and has a lovely rest of the holidays!
Bakeku67