A/N: This is Chapter 9 of this story. A month ago, I had put another chapter but immediately took it down after some...vocal suggestions of Harry deserving a fate reserved for a mad dog. To those who read it, Forget that chapter. It was a nightmare Harry had. Enjoy.

Chapter-9

Dear Hermione,

I am sorry for not replying earlier but its not easy being here anymore or doing anything at all. I guess taking up the parchment and quill was too much an effort for my lazy arse.

There's still no news of Mum and all of us fear the worst but no one is putting it into words or else, it might make this nightmare a little too real for our family to function. You see, Mum was the one who kept all of us fools in a binding, she was our thread, and that binding is under too much pressure of being torn apart. I am very afraid and you are the only one I am comfortable with saying this.

I really wish you had excepted the invitation to spend the rest of the summer here with us. It could have been a little bearable with you at our side but...

Dad is ALWAYS working at the Ministry these days, Bill and Charlie showed up for a day but returned, I don't care what hole Percy is lying under, the twins are cooped up in their room and Ginny has turned into a bloody Ghost who is haunting this already miserable place.

You asked about Harry. He is fine, but we don't spend much of our time together these days. For some reason, he has taken an insane interest in potions. He keeps brewing Merlin knows What day after day in his room and there's no one to put a stop to it. Sirius is about as opposite to Mum in that sense as one could be. He wouldn't stop Harry from jumping off a building without a broom if Harry just asked him to shut up. He'll just shake his head and jump after him.

I asked Harry once but all he says is that OWLs are coming. As if!

I am alone Hermione. I don't know anymore what goes on in his head. If you have any insight, do tell.

I hope to see you soon.

Yours

Ron

Hermione sighed and reread the letter.

She sighed again.

Harry Potter was sitting on his bed, eyes closed, and doing absolutely nothing.

Or rather, he was trying to do absolutely nothing.

Clearing his mind, some would say.

It wasn't long before a growl escaped his lips and he opened his emerald eyes to glare at the offending potion boiling by his bedside, as if it would suddenly bow down to his will and begin to brew itself as it should.

It had taken a long time for Harry to build up some defences for his overworked mind even after Voldemort's death. Occlumency was hard. It didn't stop him from trying and ultimately succeeding, but he found it extremely inconvenient that he was supposed to do all the hard work once again. Moreover, his study in the subtle magic of Potions wasn't going as well as he'd have liked.

For the past few days, Harry found himself worrying over the fate of a certain ring lying in a certain village holding the part soul of a certain madman. For all Harry enjoyed taunting Voldemort with his missives, he knew he was no Albus Dumbledore and even then, he hadn't forgotten the blackened hand of the venerable old headmaster.

Moreover, since he wasn't a horcrux anymore, there was complete and utter silence on the other end of his now broken link with the Dark Lord. Harry would admit that sometimes, that link had helped him a little too much in the past by giving him a front row seat to Voldemort's innermost thoughts. But now, he had absolutely no idea whatsoever how the hell the megalomaniac was taking his meddling of history. Hopefully, with too much overconfidence and a dash of idiocy.

He was trying to come up with something that would allow him to bypass Tom Riddle's defences without the help of Dumbledore but even after racking up his brain inside out, all he could come up with was Fiendfyre.

That method came with a couple of problems though. One, Gaunt Place was situated in a muggle town. He had no hope of muggles not noticing huge dragons made of fire eating everything in their path. That would raise a whole pit of worms he desperately wanted to avoid at the time.

But more importantly, and Harry was afraid to admit even to himself, he just wanted to keep the stone intact. He was very well aware that the Resurrection Stone held no more mythical powers, evident by the fact that his very own cloak worked barely above a disillusionment charm these days, but the stone held a special place for him. It was something that connected him to his doomed past. He did not want to let it go, no matter how childish the urge felt, even to himself.

And so, he was trying to come up with something before the summer ended and he was stuck at the castle. Though, he was beginning to have an idea around that problem.

Vanishing the incomplete and purely wrong potion, he jumped up from his bed just as Sirius came barrelling into his room. Behind him, a disgruntled house elf was hopping on one leg frothing from his mouth.

"Sirius, what did you do to him?" Harry snapped irritably.

Sirius made slicing motions at his neck as he made himself comfortable on the space Harry had vacated moments ago. "I did not do this...I just washed his filthy mouth."

Harry glared at his Godfather. Sirius had found nothing to do with himself and the childish man had decided to start a prank war with none other than the demented house elf of the Blacks. "Reverse it."

To be fair, Sirius had expressly ordered Kreacher to put his head to good use and return the favour as creatively as he could, albeit in a non-lethal fashion.

They were coming to his room at least twice a day in various states of distress just for him to snap on one or the other and end their fight. It was getting to Harry even though initially, he was of the mind that they both deserved each other. He was beginning to suspect that more than annoying Kreacher, it was Sirius' way of getting some time with his one and only godson. Now that he was free, Sirius had let go of his fear of Azkaban and was trying to catch up for the lost time away from Harry.

Sirius waved his wand and immediately, Kreacher's leg grew up and all the soap in his mouth vanished. "Stupid blood-traiter master..."

Harry sighed. He had modified his orders to let the elf bad mouth Sirius when his Godfather had refused to listen to him and take up another hobby, instead of making the miserable old elf more so.

"Kreacher, please start preparing for dinner. Sirius will not disturb you at least for today."

Kreacher vanished from the sight but not before snapping his fingers and dropping a bucket full of tar like substance on a grinning Sirius's head and ruining Harry's bed.

Harry groaned.

Sirius immediately took out his wand and called, "Kre-"

"Sirius, STOP! That's enough."

"But that thing-"

"- did what you asked him to do."

Sirius sagged at that and allowed Harry to point his wand at him. It took a while but Harry was able to remove the tar with only minimal hair loss from his godfather's body.

"What the hell is your problem with him Sirius? I haven't seen you like that with anyone else, not even Dobby."

Sirius rounded on him and glared. "Dobby is ten times the – elf – that thing is."

"Oh come on! So he spanked you when you were a child. Big deal. I lived with the Dursleys you idiot."

Sirius spluttered, not in the least bothered by Harry's tone. "Ho-how the hell d-do you know about that?"

Harry grinned evilly. "So he really did spank you..."

It was Sirius' turn to groan. "You corrupt bastard."

Harry laughed and it was only a matter of time before Sirius joined him.

If there was one thing he liked about coming back to life, it was Sirius and his idiocy. Oh how he had missed the shaggy old dog last time...

After a while, they were both sitting up lost in their thoughts when Harry suddenly asked, "Sirius, you never told me..."

"What?"

"You know, my parents were quite young when they got married...were you also...seeing someone at the time?"

Harry had been thinking that he hadn't spent as much time with his godfather as he'd have liked last time. And even out of that precious little time, it was always about his problems, his life, his challenges...Harry himself knew virtually nothing about Sirius.

"Should I be worried that you are changing the subject from my supposed spanking to my supposed love life?"

Harry answered with his silence.

Sirius frowned, but then smiled. "Yes, yes, I was. And she was the most brilliant witch I have had the pleasure of meeting."

"Who?" Harry asked, his curiosity piqued.

"Amelia Bones..."

"Really?" Harry asked, wide eyed.

Sirius snorted. "You really are thick, aren't you my dear godson? If I were dating her, I'd have never went to that hell hole. Amelia hated the Marauders."

"Then who?" Harry asked again. It seemed too important a part of Sirius' life that he wasn't even reacting to Sirius' barb.

"Before her name, let me tell you how I met her. She was a Hufflepuff. Two years above me. You see, when we were young, we had this craving to explore the castle...we wanted to know everything about it...every damn thing..."

"So one day, we found ourselves in front of the Hufflepuff common room and said why not? Well, we were drunk – and mind it, we were only third years – and it was past 3 in the night, or morning, whatever you wanna call it."

Harry listened as Sirius slowly got absorbed in his story.

"Wormtail somehow holed his way inside and opened the door for us. So, we got inside and wondered what were we supposed to do? The common room was empty, save for a few dying embers of fire and a few vines groaning in a corner. Yup, they keep plants in there. By then, James was already smitten with Lily and taken a pledge that she would be the only girl in his life whether she liked him or not, so he utterly refused to even think about what we all, that is, Me, Moony and Wormtail were thinking."

"We decided to keep him on guard and took out a galleon. We all liked older girls. Moony got Seventh years, Wormy that shit got sixth years and I got fifth years. Shrugging my shoulders, I ran up the stairs-"

"How?"

"I'll teach you the spell later. Anyway, so we went up the stairs and went our separate ways. She was the first one I laid my eyes on. There she was, a pair of glasses on her cute little nose, she was still wearing them while asleep and there was a book in her hands clutched to her chest, and she looked so bloody innocent."

"As you can imagine, I was immediately floored. But still, I checked all the other girls...just to compare...and found them relatively unattractive. Returning to her, I sat on her bed, very gently removed her glasses and the book and snug into her comforter."

Harry gaped. "You just-"

"Oh yes. I was brash like that. And soon enough, she was snuggling into me as well."

"Really?"

"Well, she was asleep. But I have my charms indeed. Next thing I know, I wake up to a banshee screaming at the top of her lungs."

"So she kicked you out?"

"It wasn't her. It was Wormtail getting his ass kicked by some sixth year. But yes, it was enough to disrupt her sleep."

"What did she do?"

Sirius smiled. "Well, we were still snuggled quite closely together and she was resting her head on top of me. She woke up quite slowly but I saw the instant she realized something was wrong and looked at my face. Apparently, she knew me as I was quite popular at the time."

"I waited for her to shout or scream but she just sat up and kept looking at me. After a minute when I had almost had my throat in my lungs, she quietly pointed her finger towards the gate...and I ran."

Harry looked at Sirius' happy grin and realized that there we some memories even dementors couldn't take away. "What happened after that...did you...I mean..."

"Oh yes...it took me some time but she eventually came around and two years later, we made love in that same common room in front of those dying embers of fire. You do know what making love is, right?"

Well, Harry had heard enough and decided to ignore his question. "Who was she?"

"It doesn't matter, she..." Sirius said, an angry cloud suddenly coming over his relaxed face.

"Did she...?" Harry asked, feeling that he knew the answer.

"No." Sirius spat. "She is alive. Worse than alive..."

For some reason, Harry was suddenly beginning to feel afraid. Somehow, a nagging feeling was slipping into his conscious mind that he somehow knew who the witch was and he should have known beforehand. The anger Sirius had exhibited towards his demented cousin in his last lifetime before falling through the Veil might just have been a lot more personal than Harry had ever thought.

"Who...who, Sirius?"

Sirius looked at him. Hard. And then said a name. "Alice..."

Despite himself, Harry's eyes widened at the confirmation.

"Neville's mother?"

Sirius nodded, his mouth set in a thin line.

Harry remained quiet for a while, unable to take his eyes off his godfather's and just now realizing that he might never have known this man at all had he himself not died and came back to have a second chance at life. It took him a couple of tries to get out the words out of his mouth. "Then...why...why weren't you together?

Sirius sighed, his anger giving way to a sad wistful smile.. "You know Harry, I always ask myself that very same question even today. I loved her and I am pretty sure she would have loved me back, had I only asked. You see, while I chased her, I always told myself that she was just another girl and maybe she got the message too."

"But..."

"It was difficult for me to...accept that someone like her could care for me. Except that night. That was the only time, we both were honest with each other."

Harry nodded. "And you just let her go?"

"I was a teenager. I was confused, not like your dad. And she was gone by the time I could even begin to make heads or tails of my feelings. I had enough drama with my cursed family in my life to give her any time, even in my thoughts, after she graduated. And then, she found Frank among the Aurors and...well, he was a better man in any way that mattered and a good friend too...and I was...happy for her."

"Bloody hell," Harry whispered, as he looked away from Sirius' suspiciously shiny eyes. "I never tagged you for such an emotional cluster fuck Padfoot."

Sirius laughed. "Good words you are learning there kid. To answer the question, maybe it was James' influence on me. Not even Moony knew about her. Only James did. I just wish..."

"What...?"

"I wish I could kill Bellatrix with my bare hands," Sirius snarled. "That bitch kept ranting about how she tortured...Alice...and Frank for twelve fucking years and more than being Padfoot, that was what kept me from going insane. Revenge."

Harry nodded, knowingly. "Revenge is the greatest motivation. But she is dead now."

"I know," Sirius snapped. "But I don't like how she escaped justice. Azkaban wasn't enough."

Harry raised his hands. "Cool there Padfoot. I'm not her. Why don't you go and take a bath?"

Sirius nodded and went out the door without a word.

"Okay," Harry sighed. "Life just keeps getting interesting."

After listening to Sirius' even more morbid tale than he remembered, Harry decided that he quickly needed to do something because Sirius wasn't the only one who was angry. Alice Longbottom was his godmother, after all.

He found himself directly apparating to the graveyard of Little Hangleton. It occurred to him that not giving any thoughts to problems had always worked better for him than planning his way and regretting it later.

He would find a way to get to the ring and beat Riddle's stupid curse and all his stupid protections one way or another. With that in his mind, he called his wand to him appeared in his hand in a silver shimmer. It was a nice little trick from the Black library to avoid getting disarmed...similar to the one placed on Gryffindor's sword.

Making his way towards the end of the village and into the woods leading to the shack, Harry quickly went through what he knew about the defences of the dilapidated house. One, the ring had a compulsion that forced someone to wear it, much like the diary that forced one to write in it. Two, it had a withering curse that was enough to kill within minutes without the help of one Severus Snape, but for that Harry had already prepared a little potion in the form of a contingency plan if the compulsion actually worked in the first place. Three, the ring was hidden in the floor. Four, hundreds of snakes defended the ring. Five, there were surely wards he didn't know about.

As he neared the woods and saw the outline of the hiding place of one of Tom's containers, Harry couldn't help but feel a certain sense of dread on the back of his neck. Something felt wrong about the place. Maybe it was the overall energy or the horcrux or something he couldn't put his finger on, but he suddenly wanted to be anywhere but there. Though it was too late.

Just as he crossed the perimeter of the wards, he realized that there was no need to remember anything he knew of the defences of the place, because they were obviously changed.

Just as a dozen pops went around him in a circle, Harry realized that he had grossly underestimated Riddle's penchant for working things through in his mind. He prepared a flaming whip to slice through the masked goons but before he could blink his eye, one of them threw a coin in his direction and he felt a familiar tug on his navel.

He found himself facing the one he absolutely did not want to face right then and groaned.

Shit

The white face, the chilling smile, the red eyes...they were all so familiar to Harry...that he was firing curses before his feet had even properly landed but...

...his eyes widened in shock as absolutely nothing happened. No spells came out of his wand, no multi colours of light raining down his foe. Absolutely nothing happened.

He looked at his wand in anger and betrayal and the now laughing Dark Lord in terrible comprehension.

"Harry Potter," Voldemort hissed, "you finally grace my court."

Harry stood up and glared. "Too afraid now, are we Tom? You need a magic negating field to fight me."

Voldemort laughed even harder this time and stopped just as abruptly. "You are one to sspeak Harry. Travelling through time to kill your betters..."

Harry's face went absolutely still. There was no way it was more than a guess but a guess this accurate? "I am flattered Tom. Are you really saying that I am powerful enough to travel through time? That I have found magic you could only dream about?"

"You are a great liar Harry Potter...but not good enough." Voldemort said. "Tell me, how did you do it? Or shall I directly snatch this information from your feeble little brain?"

"Try." Harry challenged.

"Ah...but you know I will have to remove the restrictions on magic in this room to attempt legilimency on you...a curious problem indeed, don't you think?"

Harry's mind was working in two stages in that moment. One part was focused on Voldemort and his obsessive need for a good conversation and the other was looking at his options. The other part, he was free to admit, was failing quite spectacularly at his job. According to that part of his brain, there were exactly zero options left to him.

"I know not Harry the method of travelling you somehow learnt, and thus, I cannot risk giving you the opportunity to run away this time..."

Harry blinked. So, Voldemort feared he could travel through time at will.

"But you cannot kill me either." Harry finally pointed out, making a bluff.

Voldemort looked at him with narrowed eyes, casually twirling his wand in his fingers and equally unable to do shit with it. "Why do you think so, young Potter?"

Harry smiled and pointed at his scar. "This is a Horcrux Tom. The one you never intended."

Harry knew it was shit because he was no more a Horcrux than the destroyed locket or the cup lying at the bottom of his trunk. But there was enough truth in his lie to stop Voldemort cold in his tracks.

"I see..." said the Dark Lord, after a while. "The idea never crossed my mind, I admit, but it is entirely possible. This...complicates things further. You knowing about my relics was bad enough, you being one..."

Then Voldemort grinned and Harry suddenly understood that he wasn't planning on killing him at all. Involuntarily, he shuddered.

"There it is, a trickle of fear...do not worry Harry Potter. It will be pain, Oh sso much pain, and then...nothing. I will own you."

Without explaining further, Voldemort closed his eyes and Harry watched as one by one, a gaggle of death eaters entered to witness his fate at the hands of their master. Then, Voldemort spoke.

"My dear friends, today we are here to welcome our esteemed guest Harry Potter in our midst."

No one spoke. Harry could almost hear the silence.

"He, I admit, is a worthy foe. He, a fifteen year old is courageous enough to think he could beat me. And I respect that courage. But I also mustn't allow such courage to harbour against this esteemed organisation."

Again, no one said a word as Voldemort took pause and Harry waited with baited breath.

"Alas, I cannot do magic for our friend here has an annoying tendency to find ways to run away when I try to kill him. But today he mustn't and I mustn't either. Oh yes, Harry, you are far too valuable to kill now. I will give you something much...worse."

With that, Voldemort signalled one of his death eaters who nodded before the door opened once again and two people brought something carrying between them.

It was a coffin.

"Tell me Harry, what do you get when you combine powdered root of Asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

Draught of Living Death. His wide eyes gave away the answer.

"Indeed Mr. Potter, full marks. Severus has taught you well."

Harry snarled. "How do you plan on putting it inside me you fool, with no magic? A fist fight, maybe?"

Voldemort was clearly enjoying his panic as he began moving towards him with a sick smile, putting away his wand. Harry readied himself in a combat stance and forgot about anything other than the door on the other end of the room.

Just as Voldemort was within his range, he jumped up and landed a fist on his nose and kicked his solar plexus with all his might.

Voldemort just laughed, and backhanded him.

"My strength isn't just my wand Potter. My body is equally, if not more, formidable."

Harry could only glower with impotent rage. He realized that plans were indeed necessary before charging through.

Voldemort came forward and grabbed him by the throat and pulled him up in the air, and Harry could only struggle for breathe, only to throw him away at the wall like a rag doll.

He did not stop at that and repeated it twice as all his funkies laughed uproariously and the utter humiliation of one Harry Potter.

Harry felt himself being raised in air once again but this time, rather than throwing him away, Harry felt Voldemort raise him above his head in a horizontal position and before he could even grasp the horror of what was about to happen, Voldemort had already brought him down on his knee and cracked his spine.

And Harry screamed and screamed and screamed.

Until he felt a potion being dropped in his mouth and oblivion took him.

For me, Sirius has the saddest tale in HP folklore. So, I decided to make it even sadder by giving him an incomplete love story and a reason for hating his cousin.

Hope you all like it. This chapter was entirely written on my Android because I am stuck without my laptop for the past couple of months. Review!