Harry Potter :Diamond Heart

'Harry,' he grinned, enveloping him in in a hug. His godfather was looking surprisingly clean and well-fed for a wizard on the run. His robes no longer hung off him and his skeletal appearance had returned to the well-built, if lithe, figure he must have had before being sent to Azkaban.

'I managed to return to my family's home,' Sirius explained, seeing Harry's confusion in his appearance. 'I'd offer to show you, but it's under the Fidelius, and really not very homely. Perhaps in a year, when that miserable house-elf has managed to restore the place to a liveable standard.'

'Is it safe?' Harry didn't mind how dirty the house was if there was a chance that the Dementors might sweep in and take his godfather's soul.

'Fidelius Charm,' Sirius repeated. 'There's few things that are safer.'

'Who's the secret keeper?' Harry was of two minds about the Fidelius Charm. On one hand it was incredibly secure, only one person could give up the location, but on the other, his parents had been under the charm when Voldemort had come for them.

'Dumbledore is,' Sirius enthused. 'I'd like to see anyone try and get the secret out of him.' 'That's good,' Harry agreed, keeping his reservations about Albus Dumbledore to himself. The headmaster would keep Sirius safe. He did his utmost to keep everyone safe if they were innocent. Only Harry, the sacrifice, was meant to be risked and lost.

'I didn't come here to talk about how safe I was,' Sirius began, drawing back and speaking much more seriously. 'I want to know what's going on. There's no way to send an owl to where I'm staying without knowing the location and Dumbledore was adamant that he tell nobody yet.'

'Everything has changed,' Harry answered simply.

'It seemed that way. You were a boy last year, when I came after Pettigrew, now you walk and speak like you aged a decade in eight months.' He started back down the passage to the rotting building.

'I suppose I have grown up,' Harry decided. 'I wasn't strong enough, Sirius. Every year I've been thrown into some new situation and each time I've escaped by the skin of my teeth and because of others. That won't last.'

'You aren't meant to be strong at fourteen, Harry,' his godfather told him gently.

'I have to be,' he shrugged. 'My enemies are not fourteen, so I can't act like it either.'

'As right as you are,' Sirius replied sadly, 'I wish it were not true.'

'Wishes like that, they just don't come true,' Harry said bitterly.

'Are you stronger?' Sirius asked. 'Yes,' Harry declared, 'much stronger, but it isn't enough. The wizards I have to surpass are amongst the strongest ever born.'

'Power is not the only way to be strong,' Sirius remarked. 'Lily, your mother, told James and I that back when we were in our last year and the war was on the brink of beginning. I suppose she was right.'

'Being powerful will make me strong,' Harry countered half-heartedly. He did not want to argue with the words of his dead mother.

'Then be powerful,' Sirius exclaimed, 'but be strong too. Win this tournament you've ended up in, prove that you're better than everyone who turned their back on you. If your childhood has to be sacrificed then get everything you can in return.'

'I will,' Harry responded firmly. 'Good,' Sirius grinned. 'Now tell me what's happened since your last letter.'

'A lot,' Harry whispered, remembering the flash of green light and Peter Pettigrew's empty eyes.

'It doesn't sound like it was good,' Sirius said after a moment of silence. They reached the Shrieking Shack, climbing up into the building through the only intentionally made entrance. Most visitors came through the hole on the far side of the building.

'Some of it was,' Harry smiled. He was free of Riddle's soul fragment, had Salazar, and maybe Neville too. He clamped down on the line of thought before it took him to kissing Fleur in the Room of Requirement.

'I've learned so much more this year than any past one, my new wand has been perfect for me, I have goals, dreams, that I could not have before.' His face darkened. 'It cost me the friends who didn't understand why I had to change. I've been all but alone.' His voice cracked at the end, betraying Harry's feelings more strongly than he had intended to.

'I was alone in Azkaban,' Sirius' grin had vanished. 'There's nothing there to keep you from the inside of your mind. The Dementors keeping stirring your thoughts, pushing the most miserable, painful ones to the fore every time they draw near. It was enough to start eating away at my sanity, and I knew I was innocent, had something to cling to that they couldn't touch. The others; their screams were almost as harrowing as the cold of those creatures. You'll find something, an ideal, or a goal, to devote yourself to and that will be enough to stop it consuming you. Afterwards, when everything else has fallen into place, you'll find yourself surrounded by people and not so alone as you thought. I came out with only the goal of killing Pettigrew. Now I have you and Remus.'

'Things get better,' Harry paraphrased.

'That's the only good thing about hitting the bottom, you know that there's no further to sink. My mother said that to me when I was sorted into Gryffindor,' Sirius grinned. 'She hated having a respectable, unbigoted child.'

Harry snorted. Sirius Black's school days had been anything but respectable. He was joint holder of the record for the number of detentions received in a single school year.

'How's the second task going?' His godfather's eyes gleamed with excitement and pride. Harry knew instantly that he would have been one of those who had put in their own name.

'I'm going to transfigure myself. The task is underwater.'

Sirius beamed even more proudly.

'To be able to do such advanced transfiguration at your age is exceptional,' his godfather patted him firmly on the back, 'becoming an animagus requires lots of effort, but less understanding of magic than you'd expect. I'd imagine you could give it a shot soon enough. I wonder what you'd be, another stag, like James, or maybe a bird, you seem even better at flying than your father was.'

Harry listened cheerfully as his godfather launched into speculation about his animagus form, simply very glad to be able to talk someone who truly cared about him.

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