Graham cancelled his silencing ward and smirked at Harry. "They're carved to look like us. Look me up sometime and read up on Valkyries as well for Merlin's sake. We do have a couple in the club, and they'd kill you if they ever learn you thought I was one of them."
"Really?" Harry smiled as he ran through the club members in his head trying to guess. "Thanks for the advice." Montague gave a dismissive wave behind him as he continued on in the direction of the Slytherin common room. Feeling much better, Harry made his way down the hallway looking for that window seat.
Harry left the Hog's Head pub in a hurry after the interest meeting for their new secret DADA club. He couldn't believe how many people had turned out. There weren't any Slytherins, but since it was mainly Ron and the Weasley twins spreading the word, that made complete sense. Neville, Luna, Eir, David, Brook, Colin, Dennis, Aurora, and Aurelius all attended the meeting from the Remedial Potions group. Harry was certain that Eir would have liked to bring Kara from Slytherin since they were really close even outside the club but being the only Slytherin would be daunting for the fourth year.
Harry hurried along until he was sure no one could see him where he was hiding by the shrieking shack. Quickly, he threw his invisibility cloak over himself and snuck into the rundown structure. As expected, a large, shaggy black dog was pacing in what passed as a sitting room in the small building, though it didn't have any furniture that hadn't been destroyed by a werewolf years before. Padfoot didn't seem to realize he was in the room surprisingly, so Harry checked that his aura was pulled as completely into himself as magically possible before throwing off the cloak. "Siri!" He yelled.
The black dog jumped into the air in surprise before falling over in throaty canine laughs. A tall, gaunt man suddenly appeared laughing in its place. "Oh Merlin, I'm losing my touch!" Sirius barked out in laughter. After a couple more laughs, he stood and suddenly hugged Harry. "I've missed you, pup!"
"I've missed you too, Sirius," Harry awkwardly patted his back, praying his aura was unnoticeable as tightly as it was pulled into him. "How's living with the Order going?" He finally asked when the animagus pulled away, a huge grin on his face.
Sirius wrinkled his nose in disgust. "At least the house always has people in it, but no manners the lot of them. How are you? Any exciting happenings this year so far?"
Harry pulled the sleeve over his mangled hand subconsciously and shook his head. "I'm not doing so well in Care of Magical Creatures, but there isn't anything major going on. I made a new friend, her name is Luna, and she's awesome. You would love her!"
The former prisoner gave Harry a very wolfish smile. "Oh realllly? So, you like her?"
Harry blushed and looked away. "Maybe…I don't know. I just know I like spending time around her, ok?"
"Yeah, pup. That's definitely ok," Sirius laughed and plopped onto the floor, pulling Harry down with him.
"Oh yeah, these are for you," Harry remembered and pulled out from an enlarged pocket in his robes a couple bottles of butterbeer and a handful of chocolate frogs. "As requested."
"Brilliant!" Sirius was opening a chocolate frog wrapper before they had all hit the floor in his excitement. "I can't convince anyone besides Moony to get me these, and he's been out on some sort of mission for the Order recently."
Harry looked at his godfather and got a thought. Here was someone who could help him with a problem that had just come up. "Hey, Padfoot, do you happen to know of a room in the castle large enough for about a dozen or more students to practice magic that can be warded or is secret enough that a certain High Inquisitor couldn't find it?"
Sirius choked on the chocolate frog. "Merlin! I'd heard about the ministry rat at Hogwarts from Snivellus, but they made her a High Inquisitor?! What's wrong with everyone?!"
Harry threw his hands up in exasperated agreement. "Well, she is, and she isn't teaching DADA at all. We're starting a secret club to learn it ourselves for OWLs, NEWTs, and obviously, to try not to get killed by Voldemort. We don't have a place to do it though. You know of anything?"
Unfortunately, they didn't have a faculty sponsor like Remedial Potions, so the room had to be one that no one knew about, and in all Harry's wanderings at night, he couldn't think of a single one that didn't have prefects or professors patrolling around it. "No, sorry, pup," Sirius said as he sadly opened a bottle of butterbeer and passed the other one to Harry. "You should ask the house elves, they know everything. Do you know where the kitchens are? Wait, what am I asking, of course you know where the kitchens are."
"I do at that," Harry smiled happily. "And I know just the house elf to help!"
"Hey, do you think you could sneak me in as Snuffles to watch the club sometime?" Sirius asked with a manic gleam in his eyes.
Harry thought about it. Sirius was a former auror, so he would be good to get some tips from. And no one outside of Harry's direct friend group, except for Dumbledore and Snape, knew about his animagus form, and they wouldn't turn him in…well, hopefully Snape wouldn't. If Umbridge caught him, he was a dog, she should just kick him out of the castle. If she did something more drastic, Harry could protect him. He slowly nodded. "Yeah…I think I could, but maybe after the winter holidays. I'd like us to get settled first and make sure our room is safe."
Sirius looked happier than Harry had ever seen him, causing his dementor side to react some, but the teen pushed it down forcefully. "Brilliant! You're coming to Grimmauld for Christmas, right? I can think up some good spells for you guys to learn. This is epic!"
"Yeah, that would be great, Sirius," Harry smiled at him kindly. "I'm looking forward to Christmas with you at the house. You know I think it's lovely, unlike some other people I know…"
Sirius shot him a glare but brushed it off. "Hey, speaking of, what'd you do to my elf?"
"What? Kreacher? I never even talked to him," Harry responded in surprise. "What happened?"
Sirius shrugged and unwrapped yet another chocolate frog. "He cleans the room you stayed in at least once a week, unlike anywhere else in the house. I even saw him put dead flowers in a vase by your bed a few days ago, and if anyone mentions your name, he gets really quiet and looks like he's just seen a boggart or something."
Harry's eyes almost got a bit misty at the elf putting dead flowers by his bed…the best flowers if his inner dementor was to be believed. "I really don't know, Sirius," Harry said honestly. He figured the elf knew what he was, but his actions were strange regardless. "I'll try to corner him and ask him about it over break, yeah?"
....
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