Summary: SSHG, AU, Sirius Black hates Severus Snape. When an ugly confrontation occurs between them at Grimmauld Place, Sirius throws an old Black family curse at him, only to have Hermione Granger attempt to stop him. She's hit head-on, and everything changes— starting with her. As her fellow students shun her more than ever, certain things thought long dead come to light, casting an ever-greater shadow over the champions of light.

Beta Love: The Dragon and the Rose, Dutchgirl01, Flyby Commander Shepard

Warning: Not canon, SSHG, HEA, probably crack

Heart of Stone

Chapter 3

You must be the change you wish to see in the world.

Mahatma Gandhi

Hermione watched Severus intently as he added various bits of ingredients to a small, silver cauldron, her nose sniffing in interest as her level of curiosity steadily increased. She tried her best not to blurt out a barrage of questions, but the effort it took to control the urge had her mane practically standing on end.

"I just have a feeling," Severus said as he dropped a few dried leaves into the cauldron.

Hermione sat down on her tail, wings quivering, biting her lip to curb her intense desire to go look in the cauldron, not wanting to get Severus irritated with her. He hated it when she interrupted his tasks with incessant questions, and he loathed that when she wasn't happy she pouted that she couldn't simply go and look up the answers somewhere.

Neither of them had ever questioned why they could read any more than they questioned why they could understand human language. All the other gargoyles could, so it seemed rather silly to quibble over such things.

Most gargoyles didn't like books like Hermione did, whether they could read them or not.

Most gargoyles didn't like tinkering with potions either.

Then again, every gargoyle seemed to have a special talent of their own, too.

Hermione's ability to concentrate magical energy and infuse it into gemstones was something unique to her. The other females could cut raw gems down into beautifully faceted (and tasty) works of art, but the sheer amount of raw power Hermione was able to put in hers was impressive even to the adults.

He, on the other paw, could pull raw gemstones out of other types of stone. Any kind of stone— even bland and boring old sandstone or shale.

And while he found he had a remarkable knack for the human art of potion-making, Hermione seemed to still be somewhat undecided as to what interested her the most from the human world.

Insatiable curiosity was hardly a proficiency in and of itself.

Then again, Hermione did have the ability to draw magic from seemingly thin air to make it usable to other gargoyles, and that wasn't exactly something to sneeze at, as Ædeweard said. It was a perfectly acceptable and useful gargoyle talent, to his mind.

Severus sniffed the cauldron and then nodded once with approval as the contents within turned a bright sapphire blue. He then took it up in his mouth by the handle and trotted off.

Hermione hurriedly scampered after him, eager to know what he was planning but so far refusing to discuss with her— not that he wasn't communicative enough, but sometimes he got into this "zone" of thoughtful focus where he simply didn't want to think about anything other than what he was working on at the moment. She privately admired that trait in him, but it really frustrated her when he wouldn't explain something that she was so very curious about.

He led her on a trail through halls and walls, leading the way outside of Hogwarts and down a path untrodden by human feet. He stopped at a dense patch of curling vines and pumpkins. He set down the cauldron and dug a little hole, placing the cauldron so it was level with the ground and then lay down, panting and licking his jowls.

The vines seemed to suddenly come alive with activity as large slug slithered with what must have been the only "hurried" pace a slug could manage—directly to the cauldron.

Within minutes, there were so many slugs that the potion was being pushed out as more and more slugs jammed themselves into the cauldron. An enormous mountain of writhing slugs formed as Severus calmly waited. Hermione's ears twitched in anticipation, wondering what on earth Severus was up to.

When the train of slugs finally trickled off to nothing, something seemed to happen.

Crackle!

Crackle!

The slugs became super plump and then—

POP!

Perfectly plump, slug-shaped sparkling gem figurines were the only remains of the garden's previous slug infestation.

Hermione's eyes widened. "That's amazing!"

Severus looked very smug indeed. His expression turned thoughtful. "Do you think you could infuse them too? Like the other gems?"

Hermione snuffled them, pegging a few with her tongue to test the flavour and texture. "I think so— they seem like normal gems." She nosed him. "If this works—"

"There would be food in a lot more places," Severus finished proudly.

Hermione bristled with pure excitement and drew a large mouthful of the gem-ified slugs into her mouth and concentrated. Magic seemed to swirl around her, the tendrils of magic ripped down her back like a mane, waving lazily back and forth like the tentacles of an anemone. Her entire body seemed to waver and quake in place.

Her mouth opened and a spill of highly energised gems spilt out. "The mixed flavours were a little strange," she commented.

Severus stared at the glowing pile of tasty gems, salivating. "You did it!"

Hermione pounced his head and tugged on his ears. "We did it. Together!"

Severus' smile spread from fang to fang as he wrapped Hermione up in his wings and purred happily as Hermione snuggled into him.

The next morning, Hagrid dropped the canister of slug repellant as his pumpkin patch had practically doubled in size— not a slug or evidence of them to be found anywhere.

Harry brooded over his predicament even as he pretended to pay attention in class. He hadn't been able to even take a piss alone, and the only time he was left alone now was when he was in class— by the Aurors at least. The other students whispered and talked around him, all of them concerned about their family's magic.

Like he had any control over that.

Ron wasn't exactly being particularly chummy with him, either. He had his own Auror shadow, too, and he wasn't at all happy about it.

They wouldn't just leave a tracking spell, either, since they managed to sneak out under the invisibility cloak that one time—

Ron said he should at least be happier now that Sirius was at least around to talk to as it was more than anyone had ever expected possible.

People talked about how it was so surprising that he was still alive considering they had fully expected him to kill himself rather than live the rest of his life without magic. The Wizarding World seemed to believe that death was kinder than a life without magic, thus no punishment could possibly be worse than that. Nothing, they believed— not Azkaban, Muggle prison, anything— was worse than having been born magical and then having it taken away.

Perhaps, Harry should have been grateful for that mentality because it meant Sirius wasn't shipped off to Muggle prison to serve a sentence, but he just couldn't let go of the idea that he could somehow fix things and give Sirius his magic back.

Even if Sirius himself had said he didn't want it back.

How could he not want it back?!

They were supposed to be a family! Family did things together! They would ride brooms together! Practice spells together! Everything!

Sirius had said that magic had rejected him from the start because he couldn't trust it— couldn't allow himself to surrender to its ebb and flow. What the heck did that mean?! He said that Snape had been a target of his madness as much as his bigotry. Harry scoffed at that. Hell, Snape deserved to be punished for how he treated people!

The things he said— it was like Sirius had been replaced with some old guru on the mountain top. He sounded like an old person, a teacher.

That wasn't Sirius at all!

Harry wanted the real Sirius back, and he knew that Hermione was the key to making that happen: Hermione and that spell Sirius had accidentally cast.

Surely all he had to do was reverse it to put things back to rights.

Then he'd have the old Sirius back, and Hermione would be back and sorted, too.

He just had to figure out where Hermione was hiding and ditch that bloody Auror—

Hermione purr-rumbled as she thoroughly enjoyed Alastor's ear-rub, frozen in place from her gem-carving as a rain of small faceted gems dribbled out from between her teeth. For once, Severus didn't vacuum them up immediately as he finally relaxed enough to enjoy Moody's ear-rubs without suspecting some kind of trap or immediate harm.

The old Auror seemed to be quite happy to see them, and Hermione seemed equally happy to assuage the man's obvious loneliness in exchange for a highly pleasurable ear massage. They didn't mind how his fingers ran across their increasingly gem-encrusted hides, enjoying how he respectfully rubbed their heads and jaws.

They would stare at his "mad" eye with curious head tilts, and sometimes they would even indulge the Auror in a game of "Which hand is the gemstone in?". He would stare in amazement at the oddly slug-shaped gemstone figurines Severus would occasionally cough up, boggling at the shapes as if wondering if Hermione or Severus was taking up the fine art of gem carving on top of everything else.

Still, he never told anyone else about them, and that seemed to ease Severus' suspicion and paranoia more than anything else could.

"I like him," Hermione said as her eyes closed in utter bliss.

"He's growing on me too," Severus admitted, his ears flicking and his tail quivering in delight as Moody's talented hand rubbed around one of the encrusted gem-spikes on his hide.

They both ploughed their heads into the Auror's side at the same time, practically lifting Moody up off his chair. The man laughed, a low but genuine chuckle as they let him back down.

Severus collected the pile of gems that Hermione had created, gulping them down for safekeeping.

"Waste not, want not, hrm?" Alastor commented, a quirk of a smile on his lips.

As he stopped his rubbing and pulled his hand away, Hermione's tail wrapped around his wrist and pulled it back. Moody laughed, giving her what she desired. "Master manipulator, you are, lass," he said.

Hermione, if she agreed or disagreed, said nothing in response and simply purred in appreciation.

The end of class bell rang, and the two gargoyle pups disappeared in a flash.

Moody cracked his neck and sighed, waiting for Potter to exit the classroom.

The advantage to being a pariah was that people tended to ignore you as much as possible, and Harry started to see the benefits in that when he was forced to get a replacement DADA textbook from a dusty old storage cabinet, and no one cared that he was avidly reading the copious notes scribbled in the margins instead of the actual text.

Professor Hubert Hornbeam, who had stepped in when someone named Umbridge had inexplicably gone missing, seemed to be happy he was reading the book at all.

As it turned out, luck was finally with him, and Harry was overjoyed when the textbook he found turned out to once belong to one James Potter. His dad's old DADA book. There were three or four different sets of handwriting in the book, almost as if it were being shared between his dad and his best mates—

And there was one spell in particular that he couldn't wait to try: Expirare Sanguine, which had apparently been earmarked "for Snivellus."

The wand movement indicated was strange, even awkward, but—

He practised it assiduously under the cover of working on another spell.

Hornbeam clearly thought that he was the world's worst wand-waver ever, but Harry was getting more and more confident in the motion, practising it over and over with his finger while listening to the professor lecture as well as with his wand when he was supposed to be working on other practice spells.

Dumbledore had said Snape was the only one who could be around Hermione— something about emotional control.

Whatever.

He'd get bloody Snape out of the way, and then he could finally reverse the spell on Hermione. Sirius would get his magic back, and then he'd have his family back— a family with magic.

Tom Riddle was not having a good day.

His knights were scattered all over the floor, having futilely attempted to escape their sworn duty to keep him alive.

All of them were expendable. None of them mattered save himself.

As if the Marks on their arms weren't more than a mere Oath—

He still didn't feel very strong— not as strong as he should be, not even as strong as he had been upon his rebirth. It was absolutely maddening. He was Lord Voldemort. He should be everything and more.

Yet the magic— it was not sticking to him anymore. It was as though he were a cup, and every spell took a mighty gulp. He was full to bursting having drained his knights' magic and still he was like a man dying of thirst and there was not enough water in the world to quench it.

He had to act and act quickly. He had to find the damnable prophecy—

But his ability to access the Ministry was very limited, now. His knights, his greatest pawns of influence, lay dead at his feet.

He threw an ornate golden chalice against the far wall in a fit of pique, the dark blood-like wine splattering against the pristine white marble like a macabre mockery of arterial spray.

The Potter brat must be the key.

Thrice he had been defied by sodding Potters.

Well, it was high time the puling Potter whelp learned what it meant to defy the Dark Lord Voldemort.

He placed his hand on Nagini's cool, smooth scales. "Nagini. I need you to— fetch something for me."

The large serpent hissed as Voldemort placed a caressing hand on her head and closed his eyes.

Pfff-TTTTTHHBB!

Nagini disappeared as the spell immediately transported her to her master's chosen destination.

"Heeeiirrr," Hermione crooned as she placed her head on the top of the counter. The shoppe was almost closed, and the shopkeeper had just dove behind the counter to find something that had fallen.

The shop seemed a little run down and forgotten, and the shopkeeper seemed distracted by cleaning.

"This is a horrible idea," Severus said disapprovingly.

"Well, we can't just not pay for things."

"But this is all human stuff. We don't need human stuff."

"I want to get something for him. He's been very kind to us."

Severus sighed. "Yes, but—" He nuzzled the side of her muzzle. "Just one thing. Then we leave, okay?"

"Okay," Hermione agreed, coughing up a flawless pink sapphire onto the countertop.

The pair sniffed around.

"Here." Severus whispered, poking his nose onto a shelf.

A beautiful silver flask sat on display in a gold velvet gift box. The surface had an embossed relief of magical creatures frolicking and weaving together amongst the detailed Celtic knotwork.

"That's perfect!" Hermione enthused.

She nosed the lid over the top of the box, and they tugged on the ribbon with their teeth until it was closed.

Hermione gently took the parcel into her mouth and behind her canines, and they both sank into the stone floor, disappearing with a pfft!

The shopkeeper came up from behind the counter and saw the perfect pink sapphire sitting in the middle of the countertop. Her hand touched it reverently, and the gem lit up with magical power, sending rainbows of shimmering light throughout the room. Her eyes went wide, and she placed it on the counter again, swallowed hard, paled, and promptly passed out in shock.

Hogsmeade Fine Quality Wizarding Silver Goods

We have recently remodelled!

Brand-new stock is now available for purchase at our flagship store in Hogsmeade. Full sets of silverware, cauldrons, flasks, and more await your perusal. We also accept custom orders. All of our silver is of the very highest quality, expertly crafted and enchanted to never tarnish or dent.

As the two pups placed the small package in Moody's lap, the old Auror couldn't hide his surprise. Of course, he had to stop rubbing their ears to open it, and he couldn't help but chuckle at the soul-sucking eyes he was getting from both gargoyle pups.

He gently tugged on the ribbon and lifted the lid and practically fell over backwards as he saw the most perfect silver flask sitting on a bed of golden velvet.

"Merlin's aftershave," Moody whispered, picking up the flask with reverence. "This for me?"

The dark gargoyle gave him a look that would have curdled milk.

Obviously, the expression practically screamed.

The sienna gargoyle licked the other upside the muzzle.

"Thank you," Moody said, smiling warmly at the pair. "What a thoughtful gift. And an Everfill™ flask too. These things are known for being of the very best quality and unmatched durability as well."

He tucked the flask in his Auror coat and tenderly rubbed their sensitive ears again.

Severus and Hermione immediately crooned, thumping their heads onto his knees as their tails wiggled back and forth in pure bliss.

They rumbled with pleasure as Moody indulged their desire for mind-numbingly good ear rubs.

The class bell rang, and the two pups bolted awkwardly, finally deciding to sink through the ground instead of darting away.

Moody sighed in disappointment, feeling a strange growing sense of bleak loneliness whenever the two gargoyle pups weren't around.

Classes were so bloody useless. What was the point when no one could tell him how to restore magic to Sirius?

None of them seemed willing to try.

None of his friends wanted to help.

Ron was stubbornly convinced that any attempt to do so would cause them all to lose their magic due to the backlash.

Seamus kept spouting that his parents didn't want him doing anything out of line.

Neville said his grandmother would kill him dead if he dared do anything to jeopardise their magic.

So much for Gryffindor bravery. None of them seemed able to fill the role.

Fine. Bloody fine. He would do it all by himself, nevermind the stupid cowards.

They just didn't understand why he had to do this.

He had a chance to make things better, and they'd take it too, if they had the opportunity.

If Neville had a chance to bring back his parents, wouldn't he do it without question?

It was hardly a complicated choice. He couldn't bring back his parents, but at least he could bring back his family in Sirius— the powerful wizard who had the guts to stand up for his real beliefs!

He needed allies to stand beside him against Voldemort, and surely Sirius could not be missing from that! He was a hero, and only the old Sirius understood him, not this peaceful, castrated squib that wore Sirius' face.

He convinced Professor Binns that he had to go to the infirmary, and at least in the infirmary he might be able to ditch the stupid Auror escort he'd been cursed with ever since— ugh.

As he quietly opened the door, he saw something that caused him to freeze.

There, sitting in a chair in the hall, was the accursed Alastor Moody himself, but—

There were these two beasts cuddled up to him, one the colour of pitch and one the colour of a dark, rich lager. They were all fangs and claws and wings with long sinuous tails, and all three of them seemed far too enraptured with each other to notice Harry watching them. The noisy songbirds and calls from outside the windows had made his stealthy exit from the History of Magic classroom go blissfully unnoticed.

He should have ignored them all in favor of sneaking by and quickly making his way down the hall in the opposite direction, but upon spotting the black beast, he was inexplicably filled with a feeling of undeniable rage and hate.

His scarred forehead pounded, burning like fire.

Harry's wand was in his hand in an instant, and he was casting his well-practiced spell before he even realised he was doing it.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl as his adrenaline surged. A strange, almost ecstatic joy came to him as he released the Dark spell, feeling his anger and hate rewarded as a surge of elated triumph swirled in his stomach.

Moody was suddenly on the move, and the beasts were scrambling. The black one went tumbling to the ground as Moody threw himself at the beast to get it out of the way, and the lager-coloured beast moved in between the spell and the Auror.

And just as the beast let out a soulful screech of agony, the spell slicing through the thick hide and sending pieces of what seemed like stone and gem shards in all directions, lava-like blood seeping from the beast's wounds—

The largest snake short of the basilisk from the Chamber of Secrets suddenly struck— a mouth full of dagger-like fangs going directly for his face.

Shhrrriikkk!

Moody's arm was in the great serpent's maw, forcing the serpent to writhe and twist as he wrestled the serpent down, bashing the snake's head repeatedly against the wall, the floor, and anything else he could smash it into. The hate and rage rising within Harry's body emerged as a foul cloud of blackness that spewed from his forehead even as a similar cloud emitted from the snake, all of it gravitating towards the brown beast.

The black one nuzzled her, whining, but then his jaws opened up to expose rows and rows of sharp crystalline teeth. He leapt upon the serpent with a bay even as innumerable other dark shapes flew out of the very walls.

Gargoyles—

Gargoyles of all shapes and sizes were there and wrathfully descended upon the serpent, ripping, tearing, and clawing it to pieces.

People were screaming.

Adults were yelling.

Teachers and staff scrambled to keep the students safely behind them.

The great beasts ripped and tore, snarling even as the largest of them—

The Headmaster's gargoyle himself landed upon the neck of the beast just below the head, great jaws clamping down like a spike-filled vice, and severed the snake's head from its madly thrashing body with a single decisive snap.

The snake's head bounced along the floor, separated both from its own neck and Moody's arm, landing at the feet of a terrified Hufflepuff. The young witch promptly fainted.

The snake's body continued to thrash as if still alive, beating itself against the walls and floor. An oily blackness poured out from the gaping neck even as a second stream of black came from Harry's head. It swirled around the amber-brown beast as glowing tendrils writhed from her back and seemed to wrestle with the foulness. The tendrils glowed brighter and brighter as a high-pitched masculine scream seemed to come from everywhere at once.

The black beast rubbed up against the other, leaning, and the magical tendrils emerged from its back as well, entwining with the others to strengthen the magic.

Suddenly, all the gargoyles tilted their heads back and bayed.

The cloud of foul darkness and Dark magic seemed to quiver and quake before it was overwhelmed by the brightest of purifying magic that both cleansed and devoured the stream of magic like one would slurp up a plate of spaghetti. The sienna gargoyle's body glowed even as the great gashes inflicted upon it meshed together, and ribbons of purified magic spread from her to each of the other beasts, sharing the spoils of a job well done… together.

Alastor lay gasping for breath on the floor, his arm mangled and greenish venom seeping across his flesh and wound.

The gargoyles gathered around him and hummed as one, the vibration of their croon shaking the portraits in their frames.

The sienna and black gargoyles whined and nuzzled him, laying their heads on his chest.

His hands weakly lay upon their heads as his eyes closed.

Shhffffffpph!

They all sank into the stone floor, and the body of Auror Alastor Moody disappeared along with them.

Then Harry Potter fell face-first onto the flagstone floor, the famous scar on his forehead fading away and vanishing as if by magic.

Alone and forgotten, Moody's beautiful silver flask lay in the midst of all the chaos, trampled and then kicked away into a shadowed corner by the frantic scurrying of so many panicked feet.

Harry awoke in the most familiar place in Hogwarts: the infirmary.

Sirius was sitting quietly at his bedside and looked up as he stirred. "Hello, Harry."

Harry rubbed his head habitually, but he realised the pain was different this time. For once, it was just a headache.

"What happened?" Harry asked wearily.

"You basically lost your mind, Harry," Sirius said. "I can only imagine that you must have found one of our old textbooks. Had Aurors here tracing the magic you'd cast. They couldn't very well blame me for it anymore seeing as I can no longer cast magic— but I knew the name of the spell well enough. It was a terrible, hateful spell from a terrible, hateful time."

Harry felt an odd heaviness around his wrists and frowned as he stared down at what appeared to be a set of shackles. "What?"

"Precautions," Sirius explained. "In case you actually have any magic left."

"What do you mean 'in case'?"

Sirius rubbed his chin with his fingers. "It was a very Dark spell that you cast, Harry. The second one after being warned not to perform any spells but those your teachers required of you. And now there is a good chance you won't have the ability to use magic anymore."

"But I was born with it!"

Sirius steepled his fingers. "We were both born with magic, Harry, but you gave the Wild Magick of the Black Family a way out— and with every Dark spell you cast, the magic within you aligned. It is why those who dabble in such things find they are no longer satisfied by typical spells. There are very few that can truly walk the path of neutrality. I could not escape the Dark and its inherent madness. Nor, it seems, could you, Harry."

Harry seemed confused when his usual anger and blinding rage didn't come directly to his beck and call. Instead, he felt impossibly weary, as though he hadn't slept in months. It was a strange, peaceful sort of revelation.

"It comes down to the fact that he attacked one of the gargoyles of Hogwarts with a Dark spell, Albus," Minerva's voice said, strangely quiet but firm. "And poor Alastor—"

Dumbledore's hand stroked his beard as he shook his head. "Whatever punishment he may receive from the Wizengamot, my old friend, will depend on if he has any magic left. Many will feel that the condition of having no magic is a greater punishment than anything we could come up with."

Dumbledore seemed to realise that Harry was awake again, and he seemed to glide toward them in a flow of lavender robes.

"Mr Potter. I see you are awake," he greeted.

"Yes, sir," Harry said, feeling rather uncomfortable under the headmaster's stern gaze.

"I fear you have committed a very grave error in going against my specific wishes, Mr Potter," Dumbledore said. "The only reason you are here and not on a Muggle train home right now is that somehow, you have managed to incapacitate the Dark Lord with your actions and because you had been under attack by Tom's snake— however there is some debate on whether the snake came first or after your attack on one of Hogwarts' residents."

Albus took in a deep breath. "Tell me, Mr Potter. What caused you to attack one of our gargoyles with Dark magic?"

Harry frowned, his brows knitting together. "I don't really know, sir. I felt so angry. There were two of the gargoyles with Auror Moody, and I immediately felt such rage. I wanted to hurt the black one. Punish it."

"Punish the gargoyle," Albus asked, "for what?"

Harry winced. "For existing."

Minerva's face paled as Albus seemed to digest the words carefully.

"These spells, Sirius," Albus said. "Who were they originally intended for?"

Sirius' eyes closed thoughtfully. "We made them for Snape. I provided the base spell, but Pr— James and Peter tweaked the gestures and delivery. Remus found out about it and he threw the book out the window. It was gone by the time we went to get it. We thought it was lost. We didn't bother to find it later because we realised since I had provided the base of the spell, you had to channel Black family magic into it, so it would be useless as a dueling spell."

Harry's face twisted in utter confusion. "But my dad— he was a hero!"

Sirius rubbed one temple with his fingers. "I think in the end, he finally realised that other lives mattered. Yours mattered. Whatever things we may have been guilty of before then, in that moment against the Dark Lord, he realised that every life mattered. Had James survived the war, Harry— he may have realised that far more intimately."

Harry touched the place his scar had been automatically, realising with a start that it wasn't there yet again. "The rage isn't so bad anymore. The anger. Why?"

Dumbledore sighed. "I believe that you were tied in certain ways to the Dark Lord, Harry. The scar was only a physical manifestation of that. He sent his serpent, Nagini, to find you here. It was able to pass through the wards because it was— like you in ways that I am only now beginning to fathom. The serpent— like you— held a piece of the Dark Lord, which was both a part of his strength and yet his doom. Ever since that terrible incident in the graveyard, Harry, the Dark Lord was a part of you physically by blood, so when you attacked Professor Snape in the library that day and triggered the Black family magic, you bound him via the very same entanglement."

"Then," Dumbledore continued, "when you triggered the magic again with a different spell, it drew Tom into the rebounding drain again. Only this time—"

"What happened to Voldemort?" Harry blurted out, causing the older wizards to wince automatically.

Albus stroked his beard in a self-soothing gesture. "He is at St Mungo's," he said after a while. "Shrivelled and entirely unresponsive. Had his body not been so distinctively different— well, there is no doubt on who he is."

"So, it's finally over?" Harry asked, his voice seeming so small.

"Not fully," Dumbledore said truthfully, "but, there are a few other tasks that may be accomplished with considerably less strain."

"Will I ever get my magic back?" Harry asked.

"That I do not know," Albus said with a heaviness to his words that seemed to hang about him like a shroud. "A week ago, I would have said yes, had you restricted yourself as I asked, but now— I fear that only the Master Healers and perhaps the Department of Mysteries can possibly provide an answer. Regardless of that, I fear, there is the matter of what will be done with you, my boy. Even if your magic is returned to you, you would still face the consequences of attacking a teacher, one of Hogwarts' protective beasts, and endangering the lives of your fellow students as well as Auror Moody, who was sadly lost after the battle with the serpent. On top of that, you've knowingly cast Dark magic twice now that we know of, possibly even more if you have been practicing."

"I am truly sorry, Harry. This is quite a grave situation, but the fact that I had been forced to allow you to stay here the first time and had you choose to do it again will inevitably see me facing my own trial before the Board of Governors as well as the Wizengamot— regardless of the reasons— thanks to the disappearances of a teacher, a student, and an Auror too."

Harry stared down at his lap, shaking his head. "What will become of my family legacy without magic?"

"Perhaps you should have thought of that before casting such terrible spells, Mr Potter," Dumbledore said quietly. "We repeatedly tried to warn you, but you simply refused to listen."

"I just wanted my family back," Harry whispered.

Dumbledore's haunted expression went entirely missed by Harry.

Sirius, whose eyes had been closed in contemplation, spoke up, "It's not magic that makes the family, Harry, but it can tear it apart. I think many people forget when they are born to magic and that it is a gift. A gift that can help them through life or destroy it."

Harry stared at his hands, his face twisted as he was confronted by, the gravity of his actions.

The weight of the price of giving in to his anger and rage and obsession for the perfect family finally popped the carefully crafted bubble of idealism he had fought so hard to protect.

He was no better than Voldemort who believed that magic made one superior in every way to a common Muggle.

Thuuup!

Severus slammed a paw down over the leather-brown gargoyle pup to cease his enthusiastic begging for more tasty gems.

The pup whined and moaned over his fate of being pinned down.

Gytha chuckled as she plucked the pup up in her mouth and moved him over to tuck him under her wing, giving him thorough grooming before passing him a tasty amethyst geode to snack on.

Hermione gave Severus an amused nuzzle, rubbing her head against his neck. He rumbled in approval, forgetting the pup's annoying enthusiasm.

While the newest gargoyle pup hadn't a clue of the growth and evolution of his family, Severus and Hermione had gone through yet another growth spurt, their bodies having both enlarged significantly and had undergone a bit of an overhaul. Their hides had become more like the older adults, like stone and gemstone to the eye, but they had gained the proportions to stand on their hind legs if they so choose as well as more dexterous finger-talons instead of full-on paws.

Severus found this excellent for his brewing experiments, and Hermione enjoyed not having to open and read books by turning pages with her face. More mischief also awaited those with hands, and they didn't waste any time exploring such avenues.

Midnight snoggers found themselves tangled in curtains, tripping over things that hadn't been there before they arrived, pranksters found themselves rerouted right into the waiting arms of Mr Filch, and every so often Mr Filch would find a small precious gem waiting for him in the midst of Mrs Norris' collection of cat toys.

Mr Filch seemed very grateful for the windfall, and his mood improved along with his living conditions, now that he was able to afford some comfort beyond what he could previously on his humble salary. Mrs Norris seemed happy with the outcome as her stipend of catnip mice had improved to include a few magically enchanted varieties that kept her entertained with their lifelike movements and taunts that no self-respecting feline could resist. She even managed to bag herself some fresh food on occasion— something that truly made her the feline queen of her domain.

Whether or not the students noticed such details, however, remained to be seen as they were often too busy trying to avoid the man and his faithful cat's attention.

Overall, the population of Hogwarts seemed to thrive again, not that they had been terribly oppressed during the war, but the heavy cloud of mysterious menace had finally ceased darkening their every horizon, whether real or imagined. Some of the children had lost family to the war on one side or the other, but there was certain solidarity in the loss that seemed to bring the populace together.

The name of Harry Potter was no longer whispered worshipfully as being the Chosen One, but instead, as a warning that magic was something precious wherever it was found— and was to be treasured and respected rather than abused and taken for granted.

Perhaps, it was the united glue the world needed to bring two sides that had once thought themselves so apart from each other. That alone, was worthy of some respect and admiration.

While Severus and Hermione and the rest of the gargoyles didn't see the significance at the time, Harry Potter had been judged by magic to be unworthy of its continued blessing. The Wizengamot found him guilty of multiple counts of Dark magic, attacking of his teacher, injuring and disappearance of his classmate and his Auror escort, but the healers also found that his magical foundation had been emptied to the point where anything past a simple Lumos or Tempus charm was well beyond his ability.

Harry Potter moved along with Sirius Black to Brighton Beach, where they opened an innocuous little sweets shop that served Muggles and the occasional magical while they were visiting the area. It was said many years later that when Dumbledore decided to hand the reins over to Minerva McGonagall, he might opt to join them in the joys of ice cream and candy-making as well as the lack of a glaring spotlight.

Tom Riddle, the infamous Lord Voldemort, was found comatose and cocooned in silk by Acromantulas in the Dark Forest, having apparently fallen under their attentions when the death of Nagini and the subsequent magical draining took back everything he had stolen from his minions. His subsequent inability to die had apparently given the spiders an infinite feast— a feast they fought hard to keep when the Aurors came looking for him.

The Aurors, disturbed by the startling mutations in the Acromantulas, brought in the Department of Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures and had them exterminated due to their increased craving for human flesh and brazen wandering into the town of Hogsmeade looking for "tasty, tender children."

Hagrid could barely speak a coherent sentence for a month afterwards, choosing to wail endlessly while blowing his nose into a hanky the size of a tablecloth as he sulked around the grounds like an enormous snivelling banshee.

The gargoyle pups continued their lessons with their elders, attentively learning all they could while always making time for a game of hide and seek in the castle. They could never quite shake the leather-brown pup, however, no matter how hard they tried to hide.

It was no real wonder, however, considering his name was Vigilance.

Vigilance pounced on Hermione's tail, eagerly gnawing on the gem-encrusted and well-armoured appendage with enthusiasm.

Severus growled, thumping the younger pup away from Hermione's tail, but he didn't want to give up his favourite pouncing and playing target.

Hermione seemed amused by the entire ordeal, her tail curling back and forth and side to side to gather the pup's interest, much to Severus' consternation.

Severus sighed, flopping on top of Hermione, and she meep-growled, struggling under him until he groomed her ears. She froze, her eyes closing in pleasure, and melted into a boneless heap of gargoyle goo.

Happy with his accomplishment, he nuzzled her, and she crooned happily, snuggling into him with a contented whuff of contentment.

"What are you thinking?" Severus murmured.

Vigilance was trying to wrestle with Hermione's tail, and she used it to pin the pup down and flop him on his back. He growl-whined in protest at the indignity of it all as his play toys were not supposed to fight back. It just wasn't fair.

"Do you think he'd be mad at me?" Hermione asked. "At all of us?"

"Saving his life would probably be a forgivable offence," Severus said.

Hermione tilted her head. "He accepted it, but—"

"The Wild Magick chose him," Severus said. "It was its choice."

Hermione seemed to ponder that a bit before her tail released the protesting pup.

Vigilance pounced Severus' scruff and growl-tugged on his mane of protective tendrils. One of the magical ones pulled back and bopped the pup, seemingly growing an eellike mouth and hissing.

The pup pulled back, baffled and unsure what to do about the change in situation.

"You're right," Hermione said after a while. "I just keep playing it over in my head and wondering if my ability to harness magic and transform it took away his choices."

"If anything, it gave him more choices," Severus said. He scowled at Vigilance as the pup tried to growl snap at his mane. His "mane" dodged, but it only encouraged the pup to try even harder.

Severus grunted, using his foreleg to keep the pup at a distance by pinning him by the head. Vigilance's paws scrambled against the ground attempting to propel himself forward only to get nowhere. He tired quickly after that and flopped on his stomach to do his best bearskin rug impression.

Hermione chuckled as Severus' relief radiated from him now that, finally, Vigilance had worn himself out. She nuzzled him approvingly, earning herself a thrumming croon.

"It seems calmer here, now," Hermione said, hopping up to stand on her back legs to look out the higher window to the green outside.

Severus joined her, his tail carefully wrapped around the pup to keep tabs on him even when he wasn't looking directly at him. "You're right."

"Do you think we had something to do with it?"

"Maybe," Severus said with a shrug of his mane. "But if we did, that is what we do. Ædeweard always says that it is our very nature to protect our home."

Hermione smiled, her fangs glinting. Thoughts of learning always appealed to her, and now that they were older, the lessons came in rushes of thoughts and memories from all of the adults. Most of it took some time to decipher and digest, but they were getting better at it every day.

"Do you think we were like him— before?" Hermione asked, speculating.

"I've wondered," Severus admitted. "I've always been apt at potions even without lessons from the elders."

Hermione grinned at the thought. "You're brilliant."

Severus' brows knit together.

She licked his nose. "You are."

Severus turned a few shades redder under his dark skin. "What does that make you?"

Hermione seemed to droop a little. "I don't think I had a specialty before. I don't think I was especially talented at all. Not like you."

Severus snorted, clamping his mouth over her muzzle. "Don't be silly," he admonished. "Your ability to channel and redirect magic is something no one else can do."

"But I don't think I did that before," Hermione said. "I wasn't special."

Severus wrinkled his nose, releasing her muzzle from his mouth. "Does it really matter that you didn't do it before when you can do it now to protect our home?"

Hermione's muzzle twitched. "I suppose not. I just— I guess I wanted to feel like I was special."

"You are special. So, if no one told you that before this life, then they are all a bunch of dunderheads."

Hermione grinned at him. "I love that fierce expression you get on your face."

Severus arched a brow at her.

"Hee." Hermione chuckled and rubbed her head against his chin.

"Hn," he said, muttering but privately very happy that Hermione liked things about him— or at least continued to like things about him. He was going to say something more to her, but Vigilance chose that very moment to catch his second wind, and he bounded down the hallway in the pursuit of—

Poor Mrs Norris.

Hermione and Severus sighed together and chased after to keep Vigilance from falling off the moving staircases or something equally troublesome.

"EEAAAGHHHHHKKKKKK!"

Sybill Trelawney screamed as the crystal ball she was trying to attune to the rare blue moon's lunar energy went flying out of her hands and down the hall as a startled gargoyle pup landed on her head and covered her eyes with his hindquarters.

The crystal ball landed in the hall and proceeded to bowl over a number of equally startled house-elves, sending them tumbling off in odd directions as the stumbling Trelawney landed hard on top of them, spreadeagle, having been knocked unconscious.

The dizzy gargoyle pup squeaked in mortification and made for the nearest wall, but he hadn't quite figured out how to phase through as effectively as the rest of his clan, and he barrelled headfirst into the wall with a loud THUUUUMMMMP!

The nearby curtains that framed some portraits came tumbling down.

The pup whinged and wriggled, trying to escape the thick curtain, but his duller baby claws were not quite up to the task.

Hermione tugged the curtain off the squirmy pup as Severus stood on his tail to keep him from getting into more trouble, but Vigilance was like a greased baby warthog, and he slid out from under and chased after that tasty, tasty globe of crystal.

"Vigilance, no!" Hermione cried.

Severus suddenly showed up next to Vigilance with a soft crack, his jaws moving to grab for the pup—

GULP!

The hungry pup's jaws dislocated like a snake's and he swallowed the runaway crystal ball whole.

"Strike!" Dumbledore cried as he took in the scene, only to cackle madly and continue on his way as Fawkes cheekily warbled Queen's Another One Bites the Dust from atop the headmaster's shoulder.

FOOOOP!

The two older gargoyle pups phased directly through the floor in absolute mortification, taking a full and now sleepy Vigilance along with them.

"Albus, did you really leave Sybill lying there face-first on the second-floor hallway?"

"Of course," Albus snorted. "There are only so many sherry-intoxication situations I can tolerate from her before I have to record the incident for the Board."

"You let her wake up on the floor with all the children going on their way to breakfast and having to walk right by her!" Minerva said, mortified that the children were forced to see one of their teachers in such a state.

"Minerva," Albus sighed, "I think it is past time I put my foot down regarding the situation, don't you? Now, there is no plausible deniability. No more excuses left to hide behind."

"But the children, Albus—" Minerva protested. "Surely there could be something that didn't involve the children seeing her that way!"

Dumbledore stroked his beard. "Alas, Minerva. Sybill has already been seen far, far worse by many an unfortunate child previously, but always before the threat of her being murdered or captured and tortured loomed overhead. Any attempt to discipline her before now would have led to her very likely death after all the information she could provide was wrung from her mind."

Minerva wearily sat in the nearby chair. "Merlin knows I have been trying to convince you to get rid of the charlatan for many long years, Albus, but I worry what stories the children will be telling their parents about the teaching staff here at Hogwarts!"

"As you well know, my old friend," Albus said wearily, "the secrets we would rather keep that way everyone has an eerie tendency of finding out about— and such stories will be told with or without our knowledge."

"But what purpose does doing it now serve, Albus? Why now of all times?"

Dumbledore played with an ornate gryphon quill that was sitting in a holder on his desk. A small smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. "The gargoyles believed it was time."

McGonagall's eyebrows knit together into one unit. "The gargoyles?"

"They showed themselves, and I think it was the sign I was waiting for."

"But Albus, we've always had gargoyles."

"True, Hogwarts has always had gargoyles—" Albus looked out his window, his hands crossed behind him. "But, I think they were being held back somehow but have now been freed to more fully interact with the staff as well as the castle itself. That should make things rather interesting, Minerva. I find I am rather looking forward to the possibilities, aren't you?"

Minerva seemed to ponder it deeply. "Quite some time ago, there were a pair of gargoyles in my chambers. Two young ones."

Dumbledore tilted his head to peer curiously at her. "Oh? Why did you not say anything before?"

"At the time I thought I had merely dreamt it," Minerva confessed. "It was quite a surreal experience."

"Well, if gargoyles are truly returning to their castle home en masse, I think the castle will undoubtedly be much safer for everyone. I dare say, it hasn't felt quite so peaceful since well before Headmaster Dimpett's time," Albus said, nodding.

"I only remember the large one in front of the stairs and the few scattered on the floors, but—" Minerva made a face. "They never moved before."

Dumbledore smiled. "Oh, I have a feeling they were always perfectly able to move. We just can't see them, usually."

"Because they normally move slowly?"

"Because they simply don't wish to be seen."

Minerva seemed to sprout cat ears on her head as she let out a surprised, "Oh."

The denizens of Hogwarts were often treated to the sight of Mrs Norris running very very fast down the hallways as if she was being chased. Her fur would be standing on end, her eyes very wide, and her tail fluffed out like a bristle brush. Yet— nothing ever seemed to be behind her.

Many blamed Peeves, as it was only natural for him to tease any and everything.

Unfortunately, when Mrs Norris jumped right through Peeves to escape her invisible pursuer, the baffled children had to come up with a new hypothesis as to the "crazy old moggie's" odd behaviour.

The Hogwarts choir began to notice that when they really got into their songs, the room would thrum with a sort of crooning that no one could ever quite explain. It would start when they sang and stop as they stopped, never happening when they could stop and trace where it came from.

Flitwick seemed to enjoy the harmony, stating that it was like the Earth itself was singing along with them.

The children couldn't help but feel safer whenever it happened, and many began to feel like their choir wasn't complete with it.

As to what it was—

No one really knew.

Some lazy students who fell asleep in class awoke to find their shoelaces damp and knotted together like some cat had decided to make a yarn ball out of the cord.

Teachers tried to keep straight faces when the napping students would startle awake with the class bell, attempt to leave quickly, and promptly discover their shoes were lashed to the chair leg.

There was a great increase in class attentiveness through Hogwarts much to their teachers' joy and the students' resignation that they just might have to actually pay attention in class.

The horror.

The Whomping Willow greeted Professor Sprout with a number of equally whompy seedlings scattered about the green, much to the distress of a few unwary students that had been punched squarely in the nose, smacked on the ankle, or bashed in the kneecaps by the cranky seedlings.

"Goodness!" Pomona gasped as she measured the seedlings. All of them ranged from knee-high to past the shoulders of an average young wizard. "I think someone must have been dipping into my extra-special fertiliser!"

The adult willow did not seem overly impressed by Pomona's fussing with her babies and took a few quick swings at her. The experienced witch, however, dodged deftly.

"This is great news!" Pomona announced, joyfully running back to her greenhouse.

She didn't notice the older gargoyle pups watching as Vigilance tried his level best at mauling the whomping end of the willow's burl-like branches in his attempt to help release the trapped buds. Half of the buds had broken free thanks to his tenacity, but he hadn't quite figured out how to properly break them open in a linear fashion or at least a thorough one.

Worse, the fuzzy velvet buds tickled his sensitive little nose, and the poor pup started sneezing uncontrollably, blowing gem dust out of his nostrils with the power of his rapid-fire nasal barrage.

Hermione and Severus, half-covered in amethyst and ruby dust, eyed Vigilance with united annoyance.

As Dumbledore watched from his office, he saw a number of students tripping and staggering about as something invisible appeared to plough by them only to make one, two, three splashes into Black Lake shortly after.

Albus popped a lemon sherbet into his mouth and smiled widely.

When Vigilance found the trampled, forgotten flask in a hidden nook, he immediately took a shine to it and wouldn't let it out of his sight. He carried it with him everywhere, dutifully protecting it from everyone and everything that might steal it from his care. During bathtime, he'd hold it in his mouth, determined not to be separated from it.

Yet, when the elder gargoyles tried to figure out what made the newest pup so attached to a human object, the feisty little pup wasn't exactly inclined to tell.

He really wasn't much of a talker, but Ædeweard said every gargoyle had something unique about them. Vigilance, short of his lack of desire to communicate in words, was a perfectly healthy, well-adjusted pup.

Severus would comment that he was a dunderhead, always finding trouble nose first as if he were a trouble magnet. The adults seemed to think it was a great skill for when he was older and went looking for trouble to stop it from happening.

"Oh, sure, so in the meantime, he can just tumble off the staircases and land on random teachers," Severus muttered.

"Some would say it would be an improvement," Edolie said, her tail looping with her growing amusement.

All of them had already heard about Trelawney's public disgrace on that particular morning, and no gargoyle elder was going to admonish the pups over that incident due to how wonderful it was now that the daft witch was being detoxed and no longer throwing up in odd corners of the castle, groping statues, and bemoaning the loss of "her lurvely Severus."

Severus wrinkled his nose at the very thought of someone like her taking a shine to him. "Past life or no, I think I'd remember if I were attached to someone like that," Severus sniffed, shaking his head adamantly.

"More like she was very attached to you," Hermione said, slightly disturbed by the thought. Though she loathed admitting it, she felt the sting of jealousy that someone else might hold his affections, past life or no.

"There is no one for me but you, you know this, yes?" Severus' voice broke through her musings, and she immediately preferred to be murdered on the spot. She covered her head with her hand-paws, the gargoyle equivalent of "Nope, can't hear you, la la la la la!"

He wedged his nose under her arms and licked her cheek. "Why are you hiding?"

"I'm so embarrassed!"

"But why?"

He seemed to slump. "Don't you like me?"

"Of course I do!" Hermione blurted and then her eyes got really wide as she suddenly realised just what she had said.

His wing nestled around her, and she immediately snuggled into him, burying her nose into his warmth and scent. "I just— I just don't want to disappoint you," she whispered.

Severus gave her a tender nuzzle, grooming her ears. "You could never disappoint me."

"Never is a long time," Hermione said speculatively.

"I'm not saying we'll never disagree," Severus said. He lay his head over the back of her neck. "We can always talk things through and be better for it."

Hermione rolled on her back and play-batted at his muzzle, a grin spreading from one side of her muzzle to the other. "You always make me feel better. I'm so glad you're here with me."

He snuggled her, drawing her into his winged embrace. "Always."

Vigilance chose that moment to barrel into them, run up Severus' back and flop into the crevice between his wings and Hermione, filling in the space like a cork in a wine bottle.

Severus sighed heavily. "I'm going to murder him."

Hermione chuckled, nosing Vigilance under her wing as Severus fed him a citrine cluster.

The little pup shoved his flask under Hermione's wing to hide it from "harm" and then took the offered gemstone into his mouth and crunched it happily before falling into a snoring slumber shortly after.

Severus rolled his eyes, but as he lay his head down next to Hermione's, she snuggled into him and all those murderous thoughts fell to the wayside.

Life was good.

Even if the leathery miscreant refused to leave their side for long.

End of Chapter 3

A/N: Stay safe out there, everyone, as you shelter at home and try to restrict that social life to the 'net.