YES, I AM ACTUALLY STILL ALIVE! I apologise profusely for taking so long with this- I'd like to promise that the next one will be out sooner, but I can't. I have no idea how long it'll take, but I DO promise to get it out ASAP.

Well, here you all go. Chappie 14. Hope you all like it!

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When Harry woke up, it was still dark and he was still lying in the shadows at the edge of the deck. He opened his eyes slowly, still tired, just in time to see a pair of boots walk past and a voice shout, "HARRY? YOU HERE? HARRY!?"

Harry glanced up and saw the back of a very familiar head- Jack!

"No need to shout," said Harry quietly.

Jack spun around so fast he nearly fell over. "Harry?"

"I'm here."

Harry smiled and stood up slowly on shaky legs. "Just a bit tired. How long have you been here?"

"A minute or two. You alright?"

"Mostly. Bit tired. A lot's happened."

"You don't say." Jack looked around, surveying the bodies (in a pile not far away). He raised a hand. "What precisely happened here?"

Harry smiled sheepishly. "I... led a mutiny and got the Pearl back. Wasn't that hard. A good portion of the crew wanted you back anyway."

Jack stared at him rather incredulously. "You got on this ship from Port Royal, and managed to take over in a few hours?"

Harry nodded.

Jack grinned at him and slapped his back. "That's me boy!"

Harry grinned back up at him. "Thanks. We left Barbossa alive. He's tied up in the brig. We left him for you."

Jack raised an eyebrow. "Did you now? Thanks. I'll deal with him later. Now, I've got to go and sort things out from here."

Harry nodded and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. He wanted nothing more than to lie down and sleep again, but he had work to do and help Jack out.

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It was nearly morning by the time they got everything sorted. They had had to dispose of the bodies, sort out who was going to sleep where, move all of the stuff they needed from their old ship to the Pearl, figure out who was staying on the old ship and who was going to captain it now (because it was still a perfectly good ship) and by the time Harry collapsed into his new bed in his new cabin (after carefully putting his clothes away and hiding his book under his new mattress).

Jack never said what he did with Barbossa, and Harry never asked, as, truth be told, he really didn't want to know.

The next evening, when Harry wasn't as tired and had gone to his cabin, Jack followed, invited himself in and asked what happened.

And so Harry told him the entire story, from being knocked out, taken to Port Royal, the brand (Jack asked to see it. It was faded now, to a reddish-pink colour, and didn't hurt at all anymore. Jack inspected it and said it would probably take a few weeks for it to fade to white, like his.), his hanging, meeting Elizabeth, to getting onto the Pearl and sorting out the mutiny.

The entire thing took about twenty minutes to explain in full. Jack only made the odd comment during the tale, and sat in a minor state of shock after Harry finished.

Harry looked at him nervously and bit his lip. "Well?" he said.

Jack looked up at him. "Will and Lizzie have a kid?"

Harry burst out laughing, and Jack stood up, smiling himself, and gave Harry a brief, one-armed hug, and ruffled his hair.

"Now, go to sleep!" he said. "You're going to be up early tomorrow!"

Harry threw his pillow at him, but Jack just caught it and threw it back, still grinning. It hit Harry and a few feathers escaped and nestled in his hair. Jack laughed and ducked out of the room before Harry threw it back.

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It was a few weeks later that they made Port in Tortuga again, to stock up on more supplies, and just to let the pirates who stayed with them (Two from the old ship and the seven that fought for Jack in the mutiny) a chance to get onto solid land again.

Jack, however, had an ulterior motive for stopping there. Tortuga, while not the pleasantest of towns, was home to the best tattoo artist in the Caribbean.

But it wasn't himself that wanted the tattoo this time. It was Harry.

Jack had noticed his son looking at his tattoos, and although Harry hadn't actually said anything, Jack could read him like a book. Harry wanted a tattoo, and Jack was fairly sure that he had one (or two... or more) picked out already. He just hadn't asked yet.

Jack knew that Harry wasn't all that likely to actually outright ask if he could get one, he just wasn't that type of person. However, he had been dropping subtle hints, whether he knew it or not, and Jack was perfectly alright with Harry getting a tattoo. After all, he had been younger that Harry was he got his first one!

So, after Jack had moored in Tortuga and had worked out a guard rota for the next few days (just in case), he grabbed Harry's arm and pulled him into the maze of alleys and side streets.

Harry protested being dragged off, but after a few minutes he saw it was no use arguing and just let Jack tow him around, until they eventually stopped outside a dingy shop.

"Where are we?" asked Harry, a little miffed at being dragged through Tortuga.

"We," said Jack proudly, "are outside the shop of Inky Black!"

"And who," said Harry, rather suspiciously, "is Inky Black?"

"Only the best tattoo artist in the Caribbean! He did all of mine for me. Thought it was about time you got one! Or two! Or seven! Whatever floats your boat!" He grabbed Harry's arm (the one without the brand on it), and dragged him into the shop.

Harry grinned. He was going to get a tattoo!

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Harry walked out of the shop five hours later with a very sore shoulder and back, but with a beaming smile.

"Thankyouthankyouthankyou!" he said to Jack excitedly.

Jack laughed. "Calm down. We don't have that long before we have to get back to the Pearl, and I got some things to pick up."

As Jack led him through the streets, Harry thought about the new designs on his back and shoulder.

On his left shoulder, Harry now had the same tattoo as Jack had on his right arm- a sparrow flying over the sea, into the Sun.

The one on his back had taken hours! It was thin, but very long, stretching down from the end on his neck to the small of his back. The design wasn't complicated, but it was so well done and detailed that it had taken ages.

It was a noose, dark brown rope dangling down his back, and so detailed you could practically see each fibre, twisting around each other.

Harry had thought that it was appropriate- a sign of death, when death had been such a big thing in his life. He liked thinking that it was also a symbol that he was still alive- despite several close shaves.

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Sirius sighed. He was in the Gryffindor first year dorms with five other Aurors, searching the place-again. The other aurors had apparently searched it in the days just after Harry disappeared- and hadn't found anything. And Sirius was also not finding anything. Typical.

All of Harry's things were there- his broomstick, his books, his owl, his trunk, everything- except a wand and a pillow. The wand, well, fair enough, if Sirius was plucked out of bed in the middle of the night, he'd fight tooth and nail to bring his wand too. But the pillow? That being missing was just plain weird.

The only other thing they had found was a trace of magic on the bed- but, whereas usually it could be easily found out what that magic was, this time, nobody had a clue. The spell that showed the last few pieces of magic within a certain area had always worked before, had always said what the spell used was. But, this time, all it was throwing up was gibberish.

Which still meant that they had no idea where Harry had gone.

The only other place to get a lead was with Harry's friends- the three guys he'd been hanging out with that day.

The two older ones- twins- had been interviewed several times and had their memories of the day copied and put into a pensieve. The younger one- Harry's best friend, apparently- had only been interviewed once, not that long ago, as he was pretty shaken up. He hadn't given any memories yet, as he just wasn't up to it.

However, his mother had been in contact. She said he was getting better- the pain hadn't faded, but he was learning how to deal with it. He'd be giving another interview later today.

Sirius hoped that they'd find out something, anything, about where Harry was, or how he was doing. But they needed a decent lead first, and this was their only chance to find one.

He glanced at his watch. There were another two and a half hours until it started. Sirius was conducting it (or, rather, he'd said he was conducting it and nobody had objected.). Until then, Sirius had other work to do. He had to watch the past interviews in the pensieve again, and, if he had time, the ones of the day Harry Potter went missing.

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Sirius sighed. Ron hadn't revealed anything that they hadn't already known, (Well, as first glance, anyway. He had people working of the memory not five minutes after Ron had left.)

"The night he disappeared," said Sirius, "Did you notice anything strange? Anything out of the ordinary?"

Ron thought about it. "He went to bed early, and that's not like him. I don't know if he seemed tired or not, but a little while after he went up, there was a bang upstairs. We thought he'd just dropped something heavy. Then when I went to bed later, his curtains were closed. I don't know if he was behind there or not."

There was a pause for a moment. "Was there anything else?" asked Sirius, "In the few days beforehand?"

Ron frowned. "Yeah," he said after a moment of deliberation, "About a week before everything happened, Harry was out at night. He found this room, an old classroom that had a mirror in it. When he looked into it, he saw his family. Like, his Mum and Dad and everything. He took me to see it the next night, but I didn't see my family. I just saw myself, but I was older and head boy and quidditch captain. After that, we went back to bed.

"I didn't go back, but I think Harry might have snuck out another few times."

Sirius had already known that, as Dumbledore had mentioned he knew Harry had found it and knew what it was. However, Dumbledore hadn't told him what exactly Harry saw- just that it showed your deepest desires. It wasn't really a shock to learn that Harry's deepest desire was to see his parents, but it still twisted a knife inside Sirius.

He shook it off, and got up. He was going to go and search Harry's dormitory again. There wasn't much else he could do, but he needed to be doing something.

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So, that's another one done! I'll start on the next as soon as I possibly can, but please bear in mind that real life continues to get in my way!