A/N: I may be mixing up the timeline of the year a bit in this chapter with the invisibility cloak and the Mirror of Erised being discovered a bit earlier, before Christmas. Just go with it!

Sorry it was longer than usual since the last chapter. This one is a good long read, so settle in and enjoy!

For those of you who were looking forward to seeing how Snape feels about this version of Harry, here he comes...

Harry called Sirius regularly under the secrecy of his blankets at night.

They were used to whispering under blankets in the cupboard at Privet Drive but now that Harry was allowed to do magic, Sirius taught him the privacy charm and a charm to spell his drapes closed and they allowed their night-time chats to grow more animated.

Talking to Sirius that first night at Hogwarts, Harry described the strange professor who stared at him throughout the Welcoming Feast from the teachers' table, sneering like Harry was something stuck to the bottom of his shoe.

He looked especially hateful when Harry got out his Snitch and started playing with it under the table to amuse himself during the long speeches.

Harry had never seen someone glare at him with such obvious hatred. Not even Uncle Vernon, or Piers Polkiss back in the day, had looked at him like that. Harry was absolutely baffled what he might have done to anger the professor. Maybe the man had heard about his party on the train and was very strictly against train parties.

Harry held his head high, doing his best impression of Sirius' haughty untouchable confidence, and tried not to let the constant staring bother him, but the man didn't stop. Even during dinner, the glare continued. He barely looked down at his plate. The professor was concentrating on him so hard Harry was amazed he didn't miss his mouth with his fork.

Eventually it became too much of a distraction from the "Who do you support then?" and "I'm half and half, how about you?" and "When's the next party, Potter? Brilliant fun on the train today!" getting-to-know-you chat around him.

Harry lobbed a bread roll at Fred Weasley, who was gesticulating animatedly a few places down from him,

"Oi, Fred!" Harry called. "Who's that teacher at the head table? Far left?"

Fred turned when the roll bounced off the side of his head and Harry nodded to the glaring professor in question. He could have sworn the professor's eyes narrowed as he did.

"Impeccable aim, Harry!" Fred called back, taking a dramatically big bite of the roll.

"Which teacher would that be?" George, next to Fred, chimed in.

"On the end there….black hair, big nose...looking at me like he's about to kill me?" Harry couldn't help but smirk at stating the obvious. A few people around him overheard and chuckled, turning to look over at the professor in question.

The professor's glare intensified, as though he could hear them from across the room. Given what he knew about magic, it was likely he could, Harry supposed.

"That'd be Professor Snape," George supplied. "Don't take it personally Harry, mate, he looks like he hates most people."

"Not our biggest fan either," Fred added. "Speaks volumes for you that he doesn't like you already!"

He saluted Harry with the remainder of the roll.

Harry got chatting to a few third years he recognised from the train and found out the professor's full name was Severus Snape.

That was how Harry found himself in bed that night on the mirror, after celebrating his Official Gryffindor Status and regaling Sirius with full details of the train party and some of the more interesting friends he'd made, asking his godfather if he knew of any Severus Snapes and why the man might be so miserable, particularly towards Harry on sight.

Harry was in for a shock at Sirius' answer.

He was stunned to find out Professor Severus Snape was Snivellus.

The Snivellus, evil greasy git extraordinaire, who featured in so many of his godfather's Hogwarts stories. His dad's mortal enemy at school, the highlight of so many pranks and duels, inexplicably friends with his mum since they were little, obsessed with her, Sirius told him, like a stalker, even when her kindness and patience ran out and she decided she wanted nothing more to do with him because he'd clearly shown his true colours and gone over to the Death Eaters.

He'd hated Harry's dad for no reason at all, Sirius always said. Jealousy, if anything, but mostly just because he was a miserable git with Dark ideas. Harry's dad was the epitome of Light and beyond brilliant and there wasn't a single other student who didn't think so, Sirius assured him.

Sirius had waxed lyrical on this as a tangent to various stories over the years and naturally Harry agreed.

Of course his dad was brilliant. Sirius was brilliant and he was Harry's dad's best friend, basically his twin. Harry's dad must be equally brilliant, Harry knew. Sirius often implied Harry's dad was even more brilliant than him in some ways, though Harry couldn't imagine how that could be possible.

The fact remained, anyone who didn't like Sirius and his dad must be thoroughly miserable, as bad as his stupid Uncle Vernon. Harry knew that in his bones. The logic was flawless.

Besides which, according to Sirius, Snivellus ended up a Death Eater after all, very tight in with them. So his dad and godfather had been right about him being evil all along.

Not that they were ever wrong about anything.

The looks the professor gave Harry at dinner made sense now.

Snivelly must have recognised Harry as his father's son (Harry swelled with pride involuntarily at the thought), clearly hadn't gotten any less evil since his own Hogwarts days, and had decided to hate Harry for no reason, just like he'd hated his dad.

Harry couldn't believe there was an evil Death Eater teaching at his school! Snape's expression, like he wanted to kill Harry, could well have been literal!

He decided to brush up on hexes in case Snivellus planned to resurrect the full scope of rivalry he had with his dad, duelling and all, or revert to his Death Eater ways. He asked Sirius for all the Snivellus stories again, and they speculated on the horrible things he might be planning.

Harry's godfather, too, was astounded to hear old Snivelly was teaching. Harry was glad for the newly learned privacy charm when Sirius started ranting. His godfather's temper got away from him very quickly when he got angry.

"I can't believe he's allowed out! Among decent society! Teaching kids!" Sirius growled. From the blur behind him in the mirror, Harry guessed he was pacing.

"Thought he'd have been in one of the cells down from me in Azkaban! Wonder how he pulled that off. They've got a nerve letting him around kids, Ja...Harry, really. Filthy Death Eating scum," his godfather snarled, looking almost unattractive in his hatred.

Even with his chiselled face twisted up and sneering with loathing, Sirius could never quite achieve fully unattractive.

Harry managed to calm his godfather down a bit by talking about the food at the feast and asking what his dad's favourite had been to distract him.

He knew it was up to him to do something on the rare occasions Sirius got like this. Brilliant as he was in almost every way, his godfather was useless at managing his own temper. It was the downside to his godfather's magnificent passion and relentless energy - which of course Harry wouldn't change for the world. Harry had a temper of his own, after all, so he understood how it felt to lose control of yourself because of your strong feelings.

Harry didn't miss that his godfather was so wound up ranting about Snivellus he almost called him James.

Sirius did that sometimes, when his emotions were running high. It was almost like a reflex, a habit. It came out without thinking, the same way his barks of laughter and gregariously affectionate hugs and nudges did, and especially if they were talking about or doing something that reminded him of the past.

It happened less and less the longer Harry knew him, and Harry never minded. He still felt a proud thrill any time anyone at all compared him to his dad, let alone Sirius. But Sirius always felt bad about it if he noticed. Sometimes, like that night, he'd be so distracted he wouldn't even notice he'd done it.

When they'd talked about food long enough that his godfather calmed down, Sirius broke off from waxing lyrical on pumpkin pasties abruptly to look intently into the mirror, holding it with both hands.

He told Harry not to worry, that Professor Snape was just a snivelling little worm and Harry was worth a million of him. He promised if there was ever any real trouble he'd come right up there and sort it out himself.

Harry reassured Sirius he could handle it.

These were his Hogwarts years. He wanted to make his own stories of victory to share with his godfather, to make Sirius and his dad proud.

Besides, the last thing he wanted was Sirius marching up to Hogwarts in a fit of rage to defend him and getting caught and sent back to Azkaban.

Sirius could get very unpredictable when he was angry.

It wasn't his fault, Harry knew, and he never did anything really bad. He just didn't stop to think things through. Couldn't if he'd wanted to. Sirius felt so much it was like his emotions controlled him, rather than the other way around. When a strong emotion took hold of him, he was like a storm, a force of nature, completely unstoppable and irrational and something like the danger of being caught wouldn't even cross his mind.

It was one of the brilliant, compelling things about Sirius; how much he felt. When you were special to him, when Sirius cared about you, you felt that love and attention immensely, like nothing you'd ever known. It was wonderful and addictive and made you want to do anything for him and Harry felt bad for everyone who'd never felt it. He was so lucky he got Sirius as a godfather.

But Harry wouldn't be able to live with himself if he was the reason his godfather got caught and taken away from him.

So Harry promised he'd be fine dealing with Snivelly himself, made Sirius grin telling him how much the slimy git would regret it if he tried anything, brushed up on some of the best duelling spells Sirius taught him, and glared back at Snape defiantly whenever he caught him staring.

Sometimes Harry even exaggeratedly ruffled his hair and puffed his chest out proudly in his best impression of his dad just to spite Snape and see his face go tight and blotchy purple. Harry imagined his dad was watching and grinning.

While Harry would never antagonise someone innocent for no reason, in the way he'd been bullied once, he knew from Sirius' stories that Snivellus was unquestionably sneaky, mean and evil. A literal Death Eater, one of the group who killed his parents and so many others and tried to kill Harry himself when he was a baby.

Harry had no tolerance for evil people, just like his dad and godfather.

Not to mention that anyone who didn't like his brilliant dad and godfather definitely had something very wrong with them. He thought of Snape like a more severely evil version of Uncle Vernon. Someone so thoroughly unpleasant that it was okay to mess about with them to make yourself feel better if you were forced to have to deal with them.

Sirius guessed the git would have something sly and underhanded planned for Harry's first lesson with him and was determined to be one step ahead.

So Harry sat with the mirror in his lap for his first Potions lesson, trying not to laugh as Sirius pulled faces throughout Snape's big speech.

When Snape drawled, "Mr Potter. Our new celebrity," Harry probably shouldn't have asked Snape if he wanted an autograph.

But it was worth it to hear the muffled bark of laughter in his lap among the laughter in the classroom and glance down at the gleeful look on Sirius' face.

Snape really started in on him then, though.

Harry glanced down as subtly as he could for Sirius to mouth him the answers to the professor's absurd series of Potions interrogations. When Snivelly finally reached a question Sirius could only shrug at apologetically, Harry took a deep breath, looked up to meet Snape's eyes and said,

"I don't know, Professor. I think you're confusing me with my mum. She was the Potions genius, not me. I don't think she'd want you to forget that."

He made sure to keep looking Snape right in the eye, even as he saw the colour visibly drain from his professor's already pallid face. He became almost translucent.

What was the point of knowing you had your mum's eyes if you couldn't have a go at using them to your advantage on gits who were obsessed with her?

Sirius gave him a thumbs up in the mirror when Snape turned sharply away to start the lesson.

Harry should have left it at that, he really should have.

But he just couldn't help doing a fake cough and whispering "Snivellus" under his breath as Snape turned away.

It was something Sirius would have done, or something Harry would only do because Sirius was there, just to make Sirius laugh. Far more unnecessarily reckless and mischievous than Harry would have been by himself.

Harry put it down to knowing his dad and Sirius would have wanted him to, knowing Sirius was watching in the mirror, and feeling like he should do it for them because they couldn't.

The spit flying in his face as Snape screamed at him, so angry he was barely intelligible, and the detention, even though Harry stoically insisted throughout the telling-off that he was "just coughing, honestly Professor, careful there, you'll pop a blood vessel", and the renewed screaming after that, was all worth it when Harry saw how alight Sirius' eyes were with mischief and pride when he glanced down at the mirror.

Snivellus continued on his Harry-hating campaign with new vigour after that.

For a while Harry gave as good as he got, unwilling to back down an inch, no matter how hard Hermione tugged on his sleeve and rolled her eyes and let out exasperated sighs under her breath. He didn't know why she was so against it - Snape had hardly been nice to her either.

It didn't help that Snape picked on Harry's new friend Neville horribly too, for no reason Harry could decipher. Sirius couldn't remember him having any particular rivalry with Neville's dad. Harry speculated perhaps they'd run into each other when Snape was a Death Eater, and Sirius said it might be possible, but maybe Snivelly was just that mean and miserable to pick on Neville for the fun of it.

Harry hated bullies and couldn't help but stand up for his friends. He knew his dad was just the same and would be proud of him, even if he was technically getting himself in trouble.

But he soon found he was spending the better part of his first month of school in detention.

At first Sirius thought this was great fun and brought out all Harry's favourite detention stories. He insisted on Harry calling him from detentions when he could and had one of his softest most nostalgic smiles when Harry sat back on his heels, adjusted his glasses, and pushed his hair out of his eyes to look in the mirror after scrubbing a cauldron, cheerfully announcing it was just like old times.

Eventually, though, even Sirius thought the detentions were getting a bit much and Harry became fed-up-enough of having them all the time that he decided to take Hermione's advice and do his best to keep his head down and not provoke Snape. Unless the occasion really really called for it.

Snivelly was no nicer to him, but faced with the lack of response he couldn't hand out detentions for no reason at all and eventually they settled into a truce of mutual dislike, peppered with Snape's unpleasant comments and blatant discrimination against Harry and his friends, and occasional outbursts when Harry really couldn't help himself.

Harry complained during his night time chats with Sirius about the unfair treatment and Sirius told him all sorts of fantastic stories that made bearing the insults in class a little easier when Harry could grin to himself and imagine Snivelly upside down with his pants on show.

He imagined one day, in his last ever Potions class, he'd stage a recreation of that particular event. The thought made him smile when he was trying to ignore Snape's comments, although he had to be careful of smiling too much or too smugly and reminding Snivelly of his dad. He'd gotten detention for less.

In a stroke of genius, after how well playing on Snape's obsession with his mum went, Sirius taught Harry to imitate a distinctive scowl his mum used to do. Harry practiced the particular widening then narrowing of the eyes until Sirius said it was uncanny, really.

He tried it out on Snape after receiving an especially horrible insult. Didn't say anything, didn't answer back, just looked him right in the eye and did it.

Snape went pale again and still as a statue and didn't speak to Harry for a week after that. Potions was almost nice.

Harry threw his second legendary party before Halloween as it turned out.

He and the Weasley Twins got an impromptu one going in the Common Room when he found out about his surprise place on the Quidditch team.

Harry burst to share the news with Sirius. He wanted to sneak off from the party early and call him but kept being pulled back by people wanting to shake his hand and congratulate him, asking him to get out his Snitch again and catch it a few times.

He always thought he'd be a Chaser, like his dad, but Youngest Seeker in a Century did have quite a ring to it.

Harry was even congratulated and patted on the back by people from other Houses who'd heard about the party and snuck in.

He spent a fair bit of time engaging in friendly banter with the Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff and Slytherin Seekers. He was especially pleased to see he'd be competing against his new mate Cedric from the train. The Hufflepuff Seeker was a great sport and exceptionally friendly and even suggested some inter-House practice sessions and unofficial Friendlies between matches, which sounded like a great laugh.

Ron, Dean and Seamus were amazed, almost speechless with excitement. Hermione and Neville were less bothered about Quidditch but very pleased for him, once Neville returned from the Hospital Wing. Harry could tell Ron was a bit jealous but he did his best to be happy for Harry, and after Harry introduced him at the party to everyone from the House Teams as his best friend, his mood was bordering on ecstatic-by-association, deep in chats with the players.

Even after the party, Harry was hardly able to stay up talking with Ron in his bed, planning the season and speculating on strategy, from his excitement at thinking how happy and proud Sirius would be when he told him, anxious to slip away and call him as soon as Ron nodded off.

A first year! Even younger than his dad was when he got on! Without even having to wait for the tryouts!

Harry wished he could tell his dad too. He could just picture his face!

Sirius was proud enough for the both of them when Harry told him though, cheering and shouting out things to Harry's dad as though he could hear them and making plans to buy Harry a new broom before he even had chance to unsubtly hint at wanting one.

The fortuitous turn of events came about because of what Harry liked to think of as his very own Hogwarts Snivellus (original Snivelly aside), Draco Malfoy, trying to pick on his friend Neville.

Just like Snape with his dad, the boy had decided to hate Harry and his friends from the beginning of the year for no reason Harry could discern. While they hadn't gotten on like a house on fire in Malkins, clearly destined for different houses, their exchange had been pleasant enough.

But for some reason Draco always had a muttered comment under his breath whenever Harry went by. Or if Harry happened to be near him and said something - cracked a joke or got congratulated by another student - Malfoy would turn to whisper to his gang of mates and they'd look at Harry and snigger.

Malfoy wasn't brave enough to say anything out loud, to Harry's face, at first. Not when Harry was so popular with most of the school, half of Draco's own house included. He wasn't stupid enough to make a show of it and confront Harry. But he was always muttering something, scowling miserably, looking resentful, though why Harry couldn't imagine as he'd been nothing but passingly friendly to the boy.

Harry would have been fine to just leave it. He was happy enough, had plenty of friends, and was used to ignoring muttered comments from his aunt and uncle while carrying on having fun with Sirius. Not to mention he had his hands rather full with tackling the original unpleasant Snivellus. Neville was fine to leave it too, being less inclined toward confrontation in general. Dean and Seamus followed his lead happily, both fairly easy going types and neither of them particular targets of Draco's ire.

But the comments really bothered his best mate Ron.

Hermione, too, was naturally confrontational and couldn't let anything go.

So when Draco started in on Harry's friends and they started back, he had no choice but to stand by them and make the fight his own. Despite no one knowing why it started, it became known that a rivalry of sorts had developed between Draco and Harry.

According to Sirius Malfoy's dad was another big Death Eater, so in all likelihood Draco would end up evil just like Snivelly one day, if he wasn't already. The language he used, especially about muggleborns, suggested he was well on his way.

The more Harry learned about Draco, and heard from him, the less badly he felt sending hexes or calling put downs at him whenever he bothered them.

Luckily Draco was so snobbily out of touch, and had surprisingly underdeveloped social skills for someone with a gang of mates that followed him around, it was fairly easy to make him look like a complete prat. He did most of the work himself.

Altercations usually ended up following a similar pattern: Draco made a petty comment about Harry or one of Harry's friends which got a bit of laughter from Draco's little gang, Harry replied with a much better put down that made everyone within earshot laugh at Draco, Draco got angry and drew his wand, Harry drew his in response, and they inevitably ended up exchanging a few hexes until a teacher came along.

It was quite exciting for Harry to put some of the hexes Sirius had taught him into practice, and he quite enjoyed duelling if he was honest, but it did get tiresome how Draco went on.

"Couldn't afford new robes Weasley? I hear your parents wear sacks around the house," Draco would say with a sneer and his two chunky mates and the pug-nosed girl who fancied him would snigger and Ron would get all red.

Then Harry would sling an arm around Ron's shoulder and, with the air of someone used to commanding a crowd and getting a laugh, shout confidently,

"All that money Malfoy and you're not happy unless you're bothering us. Shame you can't buy a new personality!" and everyone around them would laugh.

First years, third years, even passing sixth and seventh years who Harry didn't know yet would look over and chuckle. There were a few "Nice one, Potter!" and "Good one, Harry!"s called out.

It was apparently well known what pompous prats the Malfoys were and most people were delighted to see one taken down a peg or two. It seemed Ron's dad wasn't the only one Draco's dad had personally offended.

Harry would wink and grin at the receptive audience, ruffling his hair for show, and Ron would grin at Harry gratefully and, emboldened, say something of his own to Draco, and Harry would make a mental note to get Sirius to help him get Ron some new robes for Christmas.

He knew how it felt to have no money, horrible hand me down clothes, and stick out because of it, and wouldn't wish it on anyone, let alone his best friend. It clearly bothered Ron and the money made no difference to Harry. Between Sirius' vault and his parents' he had plenty.

With Sirius choosing the robes with his impeccable fashion sense, Malfoy's jaw would be on the floor when he saw Ron after Christmas, Harry grinned to himself.

Then Harry would be distracted from the admiring crowd by Draco throwing a hex and whip his wand out to fire his own at the same time as dodging. Draco knew a fair few hexes but Sirius had taught Harry plenty too and Draco's reflexes had nothing on Harry's.

Harry liked to think those hours of getting Sirius to throw things at him in the park had been practice time well-spent, but in truth it was a natural talent - even completely untrained he would have been excellently quick. He got that from his dad, he was sure of it.

Another time Draco said,

"You really should keep better company, Potter. Hanging around with a Mudblood? Are you really so desperate that you have to scrape the barrel for friends?" with a haughty sneer on his face. Although he had a similar fine bone structure to Sirius, Malfoy was definitely ugly when he sneered.

That comment didn't get as much of a reaction as Malfoy wanted, either.

Everyone knew Harry was already one of the most popular people in school, even as a brand new first year, so the attempted insult didn't make much sense and fell flat.

Still, Draco's handful of faithful minions dutifully sniggered like it was a great joke.

Harry felt disgusted when Draco used hateful language like that. He knew for a fact it was a word that had been used against his mum, who he also knew for a fact was just as brilliant as his dad and Sirius, who were purebloods.

Sirius had told him it made no difference at all and anyone who said otherwise wasn't a good sort.

Although he tried not to prejudge people, having experienced it unfairly himself, the more people Harry met at Hogwarts, he began to see why Sirius had the awful impression he did of Slytherins. He was certainly right about some of them, if not all.

Hermione's eyes filled with tears and her voice got very tight and high as she tried to hold back her emotion enough to tell Draco off - how horrible the word was and that he shouldn't use it - and Harry felt his temper rise instinctively in defence of his friend.

She was top of their class, clearly brilliant at every subject except for Flying, and perfectly nice to everyone. She could get a bit bossy but it was always with good intentions, and she'd helped Harry far more than she'd inconvenienced him with it. She was the last person who deserved that kind of name calling. Even if she hadn't been his friend, Harry felt his inner chivalry alarm go off, sounding a lot like his dad, or perhaps his mum - because he knew they both stood up for people who needed it - wanting to stand up for her. He felt angry on her behalf.

Harry did have quite a temper when he got angry. It wasn't as bad as Sirius', and Harry felt a lot less angry and more positive in general since Sirius had been around, a side effect of finally having a relative who loved and cared about him, but he had his moments.

Sirius loved to remind Harry he got his temper from his mum. Apparently there was no stopping her when she got furious and she could hold a grudge for months, where his dad could be angry at you one minute and forgive you in the next breath.

Harry smiled to picture his mum, red hair streaming behind her like fire, marching up to Malfoy and having a go at him. Sirius loved to reminisce on how colourful and creative she was with her insults.

Hoping his mum was watching and smiling, Harry turned to grin at everyone in the vicinity, addressing them like an audience, and shouting,

"Didn't anybody tell you, Malfoy? It's the 90s. Bigotry isn't cool any more."

A couple of murmurs of agreement came from the crowd, and they looked at Harry with admiration, which only mad Malfoy angrier.

Harry threw Malfoy an appropriately dirty look to go with it, doing his best impression of a condescending Sirius when he came across something he didn't care for.

Although he'd picked up so much of Sirius' behaviour over the years, the haughty superior look was one Harry hadn't quite mastered as innately as he'd taken on the charm and swagger. It was almost as though that was something in Sirius' genes, like his silky perfectly-in-place hair, and couldn't be taught.

In fact Malfoy, whose mum was Sirius' cousin, apparently had picked up the genes for it, and was doing a rather more impressive haughty look himself, curling his lip like he smelled something rotten while he said,

"You're delusional, Potter. One day Mudbloods like her and Blood Traitors like you will be sorry!"

"I don't think so," Harry responded, forcing down his temper and doing his best cocky grin, because he knew it would wind Draco up more and provide a better show for his audience.

He wanted everyone else on side, after all. He was in the right. He couldn't have someone going around spouting evil ideas and winning people over with them.

"How well did that go for your dad's mate Voldemort?" he called back pointedly and a few people gasped at the name.

A real crowd was gathered now, watching in awe as the Boy Who Lived said You-Know-Who's name.

"You shut your mouth about my dad! You don't know what you're talking about! You think you're so clever, Potter," Draco spat, face red, contorting in embarrassment and rage, because he was as defensive of his precious dad as Harry knew he would feel if anyone ever dared try and say something about Sirius.

Luckily no one knew about his godfather as far as he could tell, so he didn't have to worry about that.

"Oh, I know I'm clever, Malfoy. I sacked your dad's mate off without lifting a finger when I was a baby, didn't I?"

Impressed murmurs went around the crowd. Harry knew everyone there would be telling their friends at dinner how they heard the Boy Who Lived talk about defeating You Know Who, so he made sure to make it good.

Generally Harry brushed it off or changed the subject with a joke whenever anyone tried to bring this topic up, not wanting to be known or liked just because of that. But this felt like a worthy occasion to make the most of it.

"So don't think I'm about to let you run around school spouting the same old fashioned rubbish, Draco. If you don't watch it, you'll be going the same way," Harry threatened, fingering his wand, and Draco looked genuinely scared.

"You're just jealous Hermione's beaten you on every test," he added for good measure, and to see his friend Hermione smile proudly.

"Then again, I bet the giant squid could beat you," Harry added that one for his mum, who he hoped was watching proudly.

Sirius had told him at least twenty times the giant squid had been one of her favourite go-to insults.

Everyone laughed, and the crowd was big by now, a circle of people around them two or three deep, with more clusters of passers by stopped further back and peering over to see what was going on. Harry was surprised a teacher hadn't seen them yet.

Draco didn't even try to duel that time. He was too frightened to have a go after what Harry said about defeating Voldemort and his threat, eyeing him warily, especially with everyone surrounding them, waiting for Harry's next great move. Malfoy pushed through the crowd, who parted to let him past, and stormed off, muttering to his little gang.

He looked so scared Harry almost felt bad for him, and if he hadn't overheard Malfoy mutter the word Mudblood again, Harry wouldn't even have sent a trip jinx at his back and sent him sprawling across the stone floor, making him cry out in terror, and everyone laugh.

Hermione frowned at that, but plenty of other people clapped him on the back for it, compliments ranging from "Good show, Potter!" and "Quite right, horribly outdated stuff," from some of the lads to enthusiastic, "That was wicked, Harry,"s and shy, impressed looks from some of the girls.

Harry knew those looks. He'd seen them directed at Sirius on the rare occasions they snuck away somewhere in the Muggle world, like a footie match, with his godfather in human form. They meant a girl fancied you.

Harry had noticed them since the start of school from girls in his own year as well as girls in older years. There had even been some in primary school after Sirius had arrived and shown him how to put down bullies and make friends.

Harry wasn't really interested in girls yet, beyond making new friends. He was perfectly interested in girls as half the population of his school, but not that bothered about capital-G Girls, as romantic prospects. The main things on his mind were usually Quidditch, his friends, magic, and Sirius.

Even though he no plans to do anything about it yet, Harry was pleasantly surprised that the interest was there.

Besides being the most fun and interesting person ever, Harry knew his godfather looked like someone out of a boyband. He was the most undeniably attractive person Harry had ever seen in real life. Girls fancying him made perfect sense.

But Harry's own hair was messy, his face long where his godfather's was sculpted, and he was skinny and short for his age. Not to mention, he was a first year. The blonde Hufflepuff who said, "You're something else, Potter," and squeezed his shoulder, must have been a fifth year at least!

He thought about his dad turning his messy hair into his trademark and everyone copying him. He remembered Sirius' stories about all the girls who fancied his dad, even though he only had eyes for Harry's mum. He knew he looked almost exactly like his dad. He'd heard it enough times, not just from Sirius now he'd met other people who knew his parents too, and had seen the pictures for himself.

Perhaps being confident and doing your best with what you had was enough, Harry thought. Maybe being self-assured enough, acting like you looked like Sirius, having fun like you were the next brilliant thing, convinced everyone that whatever you were was as great as you said it was.

Even with this revelation, Harry was very aware that he didn't have a clue how to talk to girls in any way beyond normal friendship.

Due to Sirius' unfortunate fugitive status making a social life impossible, that was one thing he hadn't been able to learn by example from his godfather. He would have to think of a non-embarrassing way to ask Sirius for advice when the time came that he wanted to do something about those looks from girls.

In the meantime, Harry got plenty of advice on dealing with Malfoy. He bemoaned the walking attention fog horn and spewer of unnecessary insults that was Draco Malfoy, the blonde tosser from Malkins, to Sirius in their nightly chats.

He told his godfather how Malfoy seemed to hate Harry and his mates for no reason.

"He's jealous, I bet. It's the curse of being perfect, like us, mate," Sirius declared, tossing his hair dramatically and grinning.

"The burden of excellence!"

Harry laughed and did a dramatic ruffle of his own hair sighing,

"Alas, you're right, Pads! So hard being this beautiful!" to make Sirius laugh.

It couldn't be that simple, could it?

But then it couldn't be just that Draco was a Slytherin and Harry was a Gryffindor because Harry was friendly enough with the few Slytherins who'd joined his compartment on the train.

It wasn't the world's greatest friendship, they didn't have much in common, but he'd shout "Alright Warrington, Pucey, Burke?" if they passed and they'd nod cordially or give a wave.

He met the Slytherin Seeker and two of their Chasers at his common room party, too, and now they exchanged a bit of cheerfully competitive Quidditch banter and good natured shoving whenever they crossed paths.

They weren't exactly friendly lads, Harry wasn't in a hurry to get an invite over to theirs to play or anything, but they had the sport in common and were fine to exchange a few words with, as long as you confidently held your own.

He didn't know their thoughts on blood purity but they certainly didn't go shouting unsavoury things around the hallways like it was okay, so as far as Harry knew, they were decent enough.

Harry hadn't expected much from Slytherins anyway. He was pleased to have made a few friends there at all.

Sirius had warned him enough times about Slytherin to make him wary, but Harry tried to keep an open mind just in case they were misunderstood, knowing Sirius was understandably coming at it from his experience with his Slytherin family and knowing from his own experience how horrible it felt to be judged immediately before someone knew you at all.

But he knew Draco enough to know he really was an annoying plonker. And increasingly spouted things that sounded unpleasant at best, borderline evil at worst.

Luckily Harry was well accustomed to being hated for no reason by the Dursleys, and now Snivellus too, and the worse Draco became, Harry fell back on his familiar Sirius-inspired tactics of trying to annoy him as much as possible for fun.

Sirius gave him plenty of commiseration and ideas for revenge and lots of excellent gossip on Malfoy's family that Harry could throw at Malfoy when they were trading insults.

"On about money again Malfoy? I'm surprised you have any left after your dad had to buy his way out of Azkaban. I wouldn't go reminding people if I were you. Someone might change their mind and stick him where he belongs," was one he was really looking forward to using the next time Draco brought up Ron's family being poor.

He spent many delightful hours giggling with Sirius over coming up with particularly inventive names to call Draco and inventing creative insults especially for him.

Sirius told Harry his cousin Cissy, Draco's mum, was horribly ticklish, which Harry happily plotted to try against Draco in future altercations. Sirius helped him adapt Rictumsempra into a new, more powerful, tickling jinx.

After years being raised on stories of the Maurauders' inventions, Harry felt immeasurably cool co-creating his first modified spell. Full of inspiration and enthusiasm, he tried to get his friends into doing some too, but it wasn't as fun as doing it with Sirius.

Ron wasn't bothered about inventing new spells and was happy just to shout things. He wasn't good at planning future insults though because he got huffy whenever Harry brought up Malfoy and they ended up having to change the subject.

Hermione was keen on coming up with new spells and found some useful books with suggestions, but she didn't want to make anything that could be used against someone in a fight because it conflicted with her morals, and was more interested in modifying useful charms. Harry wasn't against that, and they came up with a few great ideas he wouldn't mind trying, but none of them were of use with their Draco problem.

The books were also very dense and Harry struggled to get into them as much as Hermione did. As naturally as his reflexes came to him, research came to her.

Harry wished he could be like Sirius and just somehow know everything in the books without having to work hard at it. He supposed a lot of it must come from being a pureblood from a very old family, but even so, it felt like Sirius' natural brilliance somehow. Given the choice between forcing himself to read and not keeping up with his godfather he'd do the work, of course, but he didn't relish it the way Hermione did.

As for Neville, he didn't want to fight or shout things at Draco, because that just wasn't the type of person Neville was. Harry didn't hold it against him. He'd been friends with all sorts of people in primary school and enjoyed each of them for different reasons - naturally his Hogwarts friends would be the same. For his part, Neville seemed happy just to be included in the group as long as he didn't have to do anything that scared him too much.

Seamus and Dean shared Ron's opinion on preferring to shout an insult in the heat of the moment over research and planning. They allowed Hermione to assign them tasks but they often got distracted chatting to each other about other things and rarely got much done, much to her dismay.

Every time Draco bragged about his father Harry had to bite his tongue to keep from bragging about Sirius who was easily a million times cooler than Draco's stupid Death Eater dad.

It wasn't worth risking Padfoot but Harry thought one day when Sirius' name was cleared he'd get his godfather to fly over the grounds on his motorbike just to see Draco's face.

The funny thing was, with his grey eyes the exact same shade and sharp cheekbones and the aloof attitude, Draco sometimes reminded Harry of Sirius.

A very blonde, boring, more stuck up, much less fun Sirius.

He had that intangible haughtiness, that impossibly straight and graceful posture, that disinterested cold flashing of his eyes Sirius got whenever he talked about his family, except that Draco had it most of the time.

Harry knew he shouldn't be surprised, knowing their families were related. He wondered how odd it would be if he knew the rest of Sirius' family, to see how similar yet different the notorious Blacks were to the godfather he loved and idolised.

It was strange to Harry to be reminded of his favourite person by someone who annoyed him so much. If only Draco were less of a prat, Harry wouldn't mind being friends.

Having Sirius a mirror call away was incredibly useful during his first term.

Harry called Sirius to ask questions about homework, got tips to perfect charms and transfigurations and jinxes. He found out who Nicholas Flammel was in one easy conversation. Hermione was amazed, accosting him with questions. Harry found it funny that because no one knew about his godfather, he must have seemed as effortlessly all-knowing to his friends as Sirius did to him. If only.

He complained to Sirius about the pain in his scar and Sirius promised to research curse scar pain and look into Professor Quirrell's background and Harry felt a thousand times better already.

Harry glowed with pride when he spotted Padfoot in the stands at his first Quidditch match.

He laughed himself silly when Ron, Hermione, Neville, Dean and Seamus told him afterwards how a big black dog had jumped on Snape so violently while he was cursing Harry's broom that it had knocked over Professor Quirrell too. The dog escaped before anyone could stop it and Snape was walking around with a huge bite mark on his enormous nose for weeks.

When Harry told Sirius Madame Pomfrey thought it might scar, he sounded just like Padfoot when he bark-laughed with glee.

Harry was determined have his own Hogwarts adventures to make great stories just like his dad and Sirius had, and told his godfather all about his new friends and their attempts to break in to Filch's office to get the Marauder's Map to help them find out more about the third floor corridor.

Sirius laughed his head off at the story of the Troll on Halloween and made Harry reenact the whole encounter for his benefit.

Harry did such a good impression of a Troll with a wand up its nose Sirius got him to repeat that part at least five times, both of them howling with laughter each time.

Sirius encouraged just the right amount of mischief and caution, and was a great help with his memory of secret passageways in the castle until Harry could get his hands on the map.

When Harry found the Mirror of Erised he had a particularly teary call with Sirius. Harry brought Sirius to see it and asked him what he saw and they both described the exact same thing – Harry, Sirius, and the Potters. All together and alive and happy.

"It's not that I'm not happy or that I want them instead. You're amazing. I don't not want you. I just miss them." Harry sighed.

"I know I don't really remember them. But I feel like I know them from you. And I just...miss them anyway."

Even when they were in their less than ideal living circumstances and had the Dursleys as a constant miserable reminder, Sirius had taken care of almost everything Harry could have wanted from parents or family, in his own unconventional way.

Now at Hogwarts Harry could usually go quite a long time not feeling sad about his parents, or even thinking about them at all, without realising it, distracted by new classes and new friends.

Very occasionally, Harry was enjoying himself so much he even forgot to think much about Sirius.

He always felt really guilty when he'd be nodding off to sleep and hear Sirius' muffled voice calling from the mirror under his pillow, scrambling to answer no matter how tired he was. Sirius was his favourite person, the voice in his head, and he always wanted to talk to him. He felt bad forgetting a call because he'd been busy having fun when his godfather must be so bored stuck hiding on his own somewhere on the run. But at the same time it felt wonderfully normal to be so happy and well-adjusted at school that he'd forgot to worry about calling his family.

Since Sirius had turned up it didn't even feel like his parents were really dead sometimes.

His godfather brought them to life so passionately and affectionately with such vivid detail and wonderful familiarity (even mixing up past and present tenses sometimes in his enthusiasm) Harry often felt his parents could walk around the corner any minute, laughing at everything Harry and Sirius had gotten up to while they were away.

But sometimes, it couldn't be helped. Sometimes it crept up on him. Sometimes Harry missed them even though he hadn't really known them and felt sad he would never have his mum and dad back.

"I know, mate. I miss them too," Sirius sympathised as they had a little sniffle together.

Harry didn't cry in front of anyone else but it was okay to cry with Sirius.

"At least we've got each other, eh? We'll be okay," Sirius grinned encouragingly. If he was here in person he would be punching Harry's shoulder, Harry could just tell.

Harry's vision blurred as he smiled "Yeah, we will."

"As long as we stick together," Sirius' smile was infectious. Almost as good as his hugs. Harry wished he was here for a hug now but he felt loads better already.

He was so grateful for Sirius. He couldn't imagine how much worse his life would be without him.

They'd crept away under the invisibility cloak, whispering a game in which Sirius gave clues and Harry tried to guess his Christmas presents, before Dumbledore even arrived.