He had seen that before, the year before when he just came back from seeing the dragons of the first task with Hagrid.
"Sirius's head?" Hermione repeated confused. "You mean like when he wanted to talk to you during the Triwizard Tournament? But he wouldn't do that now, it would be too - Sirius!" She gasped the last part. Faith sat up, Ron dropped his quill, both gazing at the fire because there was, indeed, Sirius's head, grinning right back at them.
"I was starting to think you'd go to bed before everyone else had disappeared," Sirius said. "I've been checking every hour,"
"You've been popping into the fire every hour?" Harry exclaimed with a laugh.
"Just for a few seconds to check if the coast was clear," Faith shook her head at that. He loved the risk.
"But what if you'd been seen?" Hermione asked nervously.
"Well, I think a girl - first-year, by the look of her - might've got a glimpse of me earlier, but don't worry," Sirius quickly said when Hermione clasped her hand over her mouth. "I was gone the moment she looked back at me and I'll bet she just thought I was an oddly shaped log or something,"
"You're really something," Faith laughed, Sirius grinned back.
"Nice one, by the way, the 'I thought you were Harry', exactly what I'd've said," Sirius said with a wink. Harry looked from him to Faith, Faith now winking at Harry, before turning back, the fire lighting up his face covering the slight blush that appeared.
"But, Sirius, you're taking an awful risk -" Hermione began.
"You sound like Molly," Sirius just said. "This was the only way I could come up with of answering Harry's letter without resorting to a code - and codes are breakable,"
"You didn't say you'd written to Sirius!" Hermione said indignantly at Harry.
"We forgot," Harry motioned at Faith, which was more or less true but he also asked Faith not to say anything to Hermione. "Don't look at me like that, Hermione, there was no way anyone would have got secret information out of it, was there, Sirius?"
"No, it was very good," Sirius smiled at him. "Anyway, we'd better be quick, just in case we're disturbed - your scar,"
"What about -?" Ron began to ask but he got interrupted.
"We'll tell you afterwards. Go on, Sirius," Hermione said.
"Well, I know it can't be fun when it hurts, but we don't really think it's anything to really worry about. It kept aching all last year, didn't it?"
"Yeah, and Dumbledore said it happened whenever Voldemort was feeling a powerful emotion," He ignored the winces from Ron and Hermione at that name.
"So maybe he just stepped on a piece Self-Building Lego the night you had detention," Faith said with a cynical grin. The others looked at her. "What? He deserves that!" They couldn't disagree on that.
"Well, now he's back it's bound to hurt more ofter," Sirius said finally.
"So you don't think it had anything to do with Umbridge touching me when I was in detention with her?" Harry asked, just to be sure.
"I doubt it," Sirius said. "I know her by reputation and I'm sure she's no Death Eater -"
"She's foul enough to be one," Harry said grimly, the other three students nodded.
"Yes, but the world is not split into good people and Death Eaters," Sirius smiled. "I know she's a nasty piece of work though - you should hear Remus talk about her, or you mum," He directed the last part to Faith.
"You talked to her?" Faith asked surprised. Weren't only people from the Order allowed to know about him?
"Yes, she and your father came, thanking us for taking care of you during summer. Dumbledore reached out to them to ask if they wanted to join the Order, they refused but promised to help if we needed any," Sirius told her. Faith smiled. Her parents really changed the way they thought about the Ministry. Edith Diggory already had her doubts but after labelling Cedric's death as an accident, they lost all trust in them.
"And Remus knows her too?" Harry then asked after giving Faith a smile.
"No," Sirius said, "but she drafted a bit of anti-werewolf legislation two years ago that makes it almost impossible for him to get a job,"
If Faith could dislike Umbridge anymore, she did now.
"What's she got against werewolves?" Hermione asked angrily.
"Scared of them, I expect," Sirius smiled at Hermione. "Apparently, she loathes part-humans; she campaigned to have merpeople rounded up and tagged last year, too. Imagine wasting your time and energy persecuting merpeople when there are little toerags like Kreacher on the loose," Ron and Faith laughed at that but Hermione frowned.
"Sirius!" Hermione exclaimed. "Honestly, if you made a bit of an effort with Kreacher, I'm sure he'd respond. After all, you are the only member of his family he's got left, and Professor Dumbledore said -"
"So what are Umbridge's lessons like?" Sirius interrupted. "Is she training you all to kill half-breeds?"
"No," Harry said. "She's not letting us use magic at all!"
"All we do is read the stupid textbook," Ron added.
"Ah, well, that figures," Sirius said. "Our information from inside the Ministry is that Fudge doesn't want you trained in combat,"
"Trained in combat?" Harry repeated loudly. "What does he think we're doing here, forming some sort of wizard army?"
"That's exactly what he thinks you're doing,"
"That ridiculous!" Faith said. "He's scared of students doing their exams and actually succeeding?"
"Technically, yes, he's afraid that Dumbledore's making an army out of you to take down the Ministry,"
There was a pause until Ron spoke up what everyone was thinking.
"That is the most stupid thing I've ever heard, including all that stuff that Luna Lovegood comes out with,"
"So we're prevented from earning Defence Against the Dark Arts because Fudge is scared we'll use spells against the Ministry?" Hermione asked.
"Yep," Sirius stated. "Fudge thinks Dumbledore will stop at nothing to seize power. He's getting more paranoid about Dumbledore by the day. It's a matter of time before he has Dumbledore arrested for some trumped-up charge,"
That reminded Harry of what Percy had written in his letter.
"D'you know if there's going to be anything about Dumbledore in the Daily Prophet tomorrow? Ron's brother Percy reckons there will be -"
"I don't know," Sirius said. "I haven't seen anyone from the Order all weekend, they're all busy. It's just been Kreacher and me here ..." Faith noticed his tone. He hated it there.
"So you haven't heard about Hagrid, either?"
"Ah ..." Sirius began. "Well, he was supposed to be back by now, no one's sure what's happened to him," Sirius saw the expressions on the four students' faces. "But Dumbledore's not worried, so don't you four get yourselves in a state; I'm sure Hagrid is fine,"
"But if he's supposed to be back by now ..." Hermione said anxiously. Faith was nervous for Hagrid too. She always liked him, even though she didn't talk to him as a friend since the year before. She hoped with all her heart he was doing OK.
"Madame Maxime was with him, we've been in touch with her and she says they got separated on the journey home - but there's nothing to suggest he's hurt or - well, nothing to suggest he's not perfectly OK," The four weren't very convinced. "Listen, don't go asking too many questions about Hagrid, it'll just draw more attention to the fact that he's not back and I know Dumbledore doesn't want that. Hagrid's tough, he'll be OK,"
Sirius noticed they still weren't very cheered up.
"When's your next Hogsmeade weekend, anyway? I was thinking, we got away with the dog disguise at the station, didn't we? I thought I could -"
"NO!" Harry and Hermione said loudly as Faith shook her head.
"Sirius, didn't you see the Daily Prophet?" Faith asked.
"Oh, that," Sirius smiled. "They're always guessing where I am, they haven't really got a clue -"
"Yeah, but we think this time they have," Harry told him about their suspicions on the Malfoys. "If Malfoy recognises you again -"
"All right, all right, I've got the point," Sirius cut him off. "Just an idea, thought you might like to get together,"
"I would, I just don't want you chucked back in Azkaban!"
Sirius paused with a frown as he looked at Harry.
"You're less like our father than I thought," He said, at last, a cool tone in his voice. This surprised Faith a bit. "The risk would've been what made it fun for James,"
"Look -"
"Well, I'd better get going, I can hear Kreacher coming down the stairs," Sirius hastily said. "I'll write to tell you a time I can make it into the fire, then, shall I? If you can stand to risk it?"
With a soft plop, he was gone.
#
The second Faith woke up the next morning, she knew she was late. The beds around the room were all empty and neatly made. Faith grabbed in a rush her watch to see the time as her abilities fixed her bed-hair. The first lesson, History of Magic was supposed to end in five minutes! Why didn't she wake up by the time she was supposed to? Well, that was obvious, she had been exhausted all week. But why didn't Hermione or one of the other girls wake her up?
Faith jumped out of her bed and as quickly as she could, she dressed herself in the required school uniform, snatched her bag from the floor next to her bed and dashed off the stairs. Going to History of Magic was useless now, so straight to Snape's dungeons for Potions was Faith's plan. Going all the way from the Gryffindor tower to the dungeons was definitely a five-minute trip, and she already lost two by dressing up, so Faith went as fast as she could, dodging other students walking through the corridors. While running, Faith fixed the bags under her tired eyes, the part of her abilities she used almost every day.
Turning one more corner to the corridor that led to the stairs down, Faith bumped into three students.
"Sorry, I -" Faith stopped when she saw it were her friends. "Hey," She said out of breath.
"Faith! You're finally here, we were starting to worry," Hermione said with a soft smile.
"Yeah, why didn't you wake me up? I missed History of Magic!" Faith asked. The three looked at each other. "Well?"
"We ... er ..." Ron started. "You were exhausted yesterday, so we thought we'd let you sleep a little longer,"
"We thought you'd wake up in time for class," Hermione added. Faith sighed. She did have a good sleep, but she couldn't afford to miss classes when she could barely finish her homework without falling asleep at twelve.
Faith looked at them one by one, each having a caring yet worrying gleam in their eyes. She could tell they cared that she had trouble sleeping. She knew they cared when she downed a bottle of Sleeping Potion almost every night during the summer holidays. She knew they cared about those weird episodes she and Harry had. How could she be upset about that?
"All right," Faith sighed at last. "But you guys owe me notes for History of Magic.
"Oh, please, like you wouldn't be sleeping in class," Ron laughed as he nudged her. She rolled her eyes with a smile.
"Well, did I miss anything? Was there something in the Daily Prophet this morning about Dumbledore?" Faith then asked, remembering Percy's letter.
"Oh, yes," Hermione sighed. That did not sound good.
"Well, what is it?" Faith looked at Harry.
"Umbridge is now High Inquisitor at Hogwarts," He said, also not looking too happy.
"Umbridge - High Inquisitor?" Faith asked perplexed. "What does that mean?"
"It means that she will be inspecting every teacher to see if Dumbledore chose them well," Hermione told.
The Ministry is seriously interfering at Hogwarts. That's what it meant.
Here is number two, three more to go!