Chapter 44
"Well, what do you think of my little gift, kid?" Sirius Black asked, teasingly ruffling my thick mane of hair. He sounded a bit internally anxious as he sought my opinion. Toward the middle of August, he had arranged a personal meeting with Mrs. Agatha Greengrass, and now he was showing off the fruits of his labor.
"This is... nothing like the original agreement," I remarked reservedly, trying to suppress my surprise. "You weren't joking when you said the Greengrasses would be willing to concede a great deal for this betrothal."
"I got lucky that your future mother-in-law has a specific fixation on powerful wizards. Seems her own husband doesn't quite measure up in that regard. A potioneer—what more can you expect?" my godfather gloated, not hesitating to shamelessly giggle at his own joke. It was decidedly below the belt, which made it not particularly pleasant for me to hear.
But I wasn't in a hurry to pay attention to such a minor detail, roughly understanding the underlying reasons for this kind of behavior from my guardian. Even his jab at potioneers became completely understandable and obvious, taking into account some of his stories about the lives of "my" parents and the adventures of a certain group of Marauders.
"That might be true, but I'm still surprised by her willingness to... accept a double surname for the heiress of the family," I said, shaking my head. Over the past few months, I had gotten a fairly good grasp of the many intricacies and peculiarities of the relationships between the families of the old magical aristocracy.
"Money, fame, political influence, and magical talent have always ruled this world. And you have plenty of all of that... or will have plenty, if you keep studying magic at this pace and maintaining the right reputation in magical society," the skinny, dark-haired man carelessly brushed off my surprise. "Though I really did have to rack my brains over this betrothal of yours. And for some reason, Dumbledore is unhappy with this idea of yours, which meant I had to wiggle out of it without his help, too."
"You asked the Headmaster for help?" I asked, slightly surprised, having not previously known about these particular adventures of my guardian. Honestly, Sirius was usually as simple as a stick, his motives clear to the point of ridiculous awkwardness. But sometimes he would pull something like this, and it immediately became clear that his upbringing in the Black family had left its mark on him after all. Even if my godfather would never admit it, not even to himself...
"Ah, don't worry about it," the former Gryffindor easily waved me off. "I already know you don't really like Albus much, but the old man is pretty cool in a lot of ways. He can help with a lot of things, and he often gives good advice. Though I personally wouldn't mind rearranging his face..."
"Right, but you're not in any shape for that yet," I snorted mockingly, hinting without any hesitation at his recent embarrassment during our pre-lunch training session.
Our series of not-too-serious duels with Sirius this time had ended with a victory on my part—even if it was only one. For the first time in several months of training, I had actually managed to catch my mentor making a mistake. I fried him with a jolt of lightning first, then paralyzed him, and finally knocked the wand right out of his hands. I knocked it out with a regular kick, which, if you ask me, was especially cool.
Though in reality, I didn't have much to brag about. Or rather, I did—after all, I was progressing in magic at a very fast pace, as always. And the duels themselves—or rather, just magical brawls and scuffles with my godfather—were more than to my liking. But... incapacitating an adult wizard who was ready for a fight—not a simple layman from a magical school, but someone like Sirius himself, a Hogwarts graduate with at least some combat experience under his belt—was still something I was unlikely to pull off. And if I could, it would only be with a great deal of luck.
I cast spells very slowly and somewhat awkwardly. I hadn't yet gotten the hang of the new spells, wasn't used to stringing those same spells into combat combinations, or constantly maintaining magical shields on myself while diluting them with Transfiguration and silent casting—a field in which I had only just begun to take my first real steps. Because of all this, my recent victory over Sirius was likely less my own achievement and more a result of the former Azkaban prisoner's weakness.
And this weakness wasn't so much magical as it was physical and mental. After all, during magical duels, contrary to some stereotypes held by ordinary wizards, you had to move and even literally jump around the platform with enviable intensity. For Sirius, exhausted by his time in Azkaban, this was still somewhat excessive, even taking into account the spells he knew that were aimed at improving physical capabilities.
Unlike me—a teenager just coming into my strength, who was also seriously keen on active sports and the self-torture practices of mental magic—it was hard for the skinny thirty-year-old wizard to dash around the training ground. My godfather compensated for this fairly well with magical skills and real combat experience, but... it was still far too obvious to me that he used to fight differently, relying precisely on his mobility and several specific physically-oriented spells.
Sirius had told me practically everything he knew about the latter, by the way, and had even dug up a few books on such magic in his own library. But I hadn't yet managed to learn such useful magic. And it wasn't like it usually was with complex spells—where it seems like something is working, but it's still far from perfect. No, it just hadn't worked out at all.
The magic, studied mainly by Aurors—and specifically those from among the most talented and well-born—was simply too complex, unfamiliar, and tricky for me. In this regard, my godfather's words that such magic is usually only taught after finishing the seventh year at Hogwarts turned out to be the pure truth.
But I wasn't going to give up anyway, especially since Sirius himself believed in my magical talents with all his soul, despite everything, sincerely encouraging and helping me on the path to mastering such specific magic.
"If you can pull off tricks like this in your third year at Hogwarts, in the future you'll definitely be able to push Dumbledore out of the title of greatest wizard," Sirius had told me recently, having caught me using mental magic at the same time...
By which I mean that after all our training, my godfather somehow realized that I had been practicing this very magic for quite a long time and quite successfully... He had even gotten spooked and worried at first because of this, but... ultimately the man very quickly dropped it, muttering something about "stupid warnings from books," and fully approved of my efforts.
Black himself, by the way, didn't understand all that much about mental magic. Well, in theory, he at least had a weak grasp of it, but in practice... as Sirius himself admitted, he had only been able to survive for so long on the lower levels of Azkaban thanks to the combination of his Animagus form and Occlumency. The godfather had gotten truly serious practice in the latter over a whole decade next door to dementors, and he didn't hesitate to share his personal experience with me...
Though you couldn't call such instructions particularly frequent. Sirius preferred teaching me Charms and the tricky art of true combat magic. And my godfather simply loved running me ragged around the underground training ground-gym, even despite the fact that Sirius himself would very quickly run out of breath from the endless bouts, and all the bones, ligaments, and muscles in his exhausted body would start to ache.
My guardian suffered particularly badly from the latter, beginning to very acutely realize the loss of his own youth and former agility. And even though I could personally see perfectly well that he was gradually recovering his form, and youth for a powerful mage is a very flexible concept—Sirius himself admitted this, albeit answering some of my questions in this direction with a certain uncertainty—but... it was still hard for Black himself to come to terms with the lost decade of his life.
Fortunately, I didn't allow him to obsess over this too much. And the godfather himself would occasionally snap out of his depression. He had even started drinking a tiny bit less lately, which could safely be considered a good trend. I would have been glad to continue supporting it, but... the new school year was approaching.
Honestly, this time I didn't even have time to properly realize it—the summer flew by for me at some simply crazy speed this year. But... the owl that flew in from Hogwarts with the updated reading list for this year had a highly sobering effect on Sirius and me.
And to be honest, this time I was not at all happy about the impending need to return once again to the ancient castle full of magic and mystical secrets. I... didn't want to leave Sirius Black alone. I could see all too well that over the past time he had become seriously attached to me—he had grown so fond of me that without my company he could once again slide into deep depression and dead-drunk alcoholism.
I really didn't want that, but I couldn't do anything about the conditions of my schooling. Because of this, there was no clear possibility of spending time regularly with my newly minted guardian in the foreseeable future. Starting from the third year, of course, students were allowed to leave the castle on weekends, but... that was more of a permission for walks, not for a full-fledged trip home. The time for walks was too limited for me to hope to compensate my godfather for the lack of live communication through it.
And Sirius himself didn't really talk to anyone besides me... Except maybe for the local equivalent of lawyers and pettifoggers, who helped Black settle the issue with my betrothal for a far from modest fee, but... This communication was also rather forced and tied primarily to the mage's desire to help me sort out the problem.
Otherwise, Sirius led a very... solitary lifestyle, not particularly wanting to cross paths with old friends and acquaintances. The latter, of course, sometimes imposed themselves as guests on Black on their own—I even managed to meet Remus Lupin that way—but... there was no particular warmth in the communication between the two old friends. Lupin, who during a relatively recent meeting with Sirius let slip about his enrollment on the Hogwarts staff as the DADA teacher, felt too awkward under my godfather's faded gaze.
Sirius himself, even if he wasn't in a hurry to accuse "Moony" of anything, his attempts at casual conversation between the men looked too strained. Even a joint drinking bout didn't help in this case, even though I had hoped otherwise. I can't say that Remus Lupin is a particularly good friend, person, or simply wizard.
Honestly, he didn't leave a particularly pleasant first impression of himself. He's just too... faded and browbeaten? I don't know how to describe it, but the role of a gray mouse in some office team would suit him perfectly. Which isn't exactly bad, but... I don't know, I somehow subconsciously expected more from one of Sirius's and "my" parents' bosom friends. Look at Black, even Azkaban ultimately didn't break him, leaving him a very bright, lively, albeit not entirely pleasant to me personality.
*And besides, that werewolf mentioned Dumbledore too often in a very... servile-defensive tone,* I mentally highlighted the main reason for my not-so-pleasant impression of the wizard introduced to me. I'll figure out what to do with him over the next school year, anyway. I'll have time for a more thorough acquaintance with Remus—the main thing here is to keep an eye on the phases of the moon just in case, but...
At the moment, my main problem remained Sirius and his possible fall into the depths of drunken depression, from which he was currently being saved only by me and a fierce desire to be a "cool uncle" to his beloved godson. Should I harness him with some kind of task?
Well, so that, just like in the case with my betrothal, he would be busy with a task and simply wouldn't have an excess of free time for binge drinking? It's not the worst option, even if I'm not yet sure what exactly this overgrown slacker can be harnessed with so that he doesn't break down and make a mess of things... Well, really, I can't just leave him to sort out the Black family library and compile a required reading list for me, can I?
That, of course, would be extremely useful, but Sirius isn't exactly suited for such work, and leaving him to sit cooped up at Grimmauld Place 12 in general isn't a very sound idea. The local atmosphere only seems elusively pleasant and encouraging to me. Black himself doesn't really like his ancestral nest very much...
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