Hello

Beta: None, I took so much time writing it that getting it beta just now would be a crime.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

Thanks to all the reviewers: Sleepingdragon504; itachigurl93; autumngold; edus; DarkRavie; jc; HeartsGlow (X2); litlittledragon; RebeccaRoy; E.A.V; Kichou; Beloved Daughter; SennoTsubasa.

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Wearing Masks 6:

The Ghost and the old witch

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WM ~James Potter~ WM

The last thing James Potter remembered of his last day as a living being, was the ugly sneer on the equally nasty mug of one Voldemort – no, he would not fear the man's name now that he was dead and realised how utterly ridiculous he had been to fear a made-up senseless word – as the man pointed his wand at him and a flash of green engulfed his world. The next thing he knew he was in what looked like to be a cell with Sirius curled on a filthy cot placed in a corner and he was whimpering and shivering in a black and white stripped ill-fitted robe.

At first, he had thought they had been captured and he had tried to ask Sirius what happened, where were Lily and his Harry; but the mutt had refused to answer him preferring to curled into a tighter ball. James had been unbelievably angry at his friend for ignoring him. He had walked up to Sirius intending to give the mutt a piece of his mind. That had been when he had realized his hand which was a filmy milky white, had gone right through his friend. He had stood frozen in fear trying to process what it all meant for him.

He was dead. Dead. Dead. Completely and definitely dead. And he was a ghost, a ghost haunting his best friend.

"If anything happens to me because of one of your stupid idea Black, I will come back and haunt you, you hear me!"

James remembered quite clearly the day he had uttered those fateful words: They had been sixteen and Sirius and he had tried to climb up the oak to James' window on the second floor of the Potter's ancestral home because they had missed curfew. Sirius had been flirting with some muggle girls they had met while wandering in a 'beginning of summer festival' in the non-magical part of the town and they had totally forgot about the time or at least Sirius had because James did not need muggle girls since he had Lily – ok, he had not had her yet but it had just been a matter of time.

It had been Sirius' idea to climb up the tree whose branches came up just inches away from James' opened window to avoid punishment. Of course, Sirius had no problem climbing up through the window but came James' turn, his annoying glasses had slipped off his nose as it did so often when he forgot to reapply the sticking charm he placed on them, and in an attempt to caught them before they crashed on the floor, he had lost his grip on the branch and fall down and while he miraculously saved his glasses, he had broken his left arm. The noise of the fall had woken the elves, who had, in turn, woken his parents who had not been happy at all with their conducts. As punishment, his mother had refused to heal him and he had spent the two reminding months of his summer holidays wearing a muggle contraption called 'a cast' which was uncomfortably hot and unbelievably itchy while Sirius had been grounded to stay in the Potter property limit for the rest of the summer.

Those carelessly pronounced words when he was just a 16 years old foolish teenager where the reason why, a handful of years later, he had found himself, in all his ethereal handsomeness, haunting one Sirius Orion Black III in the dark recess of a dungeon.

It did not take long for James to understand what had happened. They had been betrayed and by the least expected person. Not that they had overly trusted Peter but... really? Peter? A Deatheater?

Come on! That had to be a joke! The guy was afraid of his own shadow! And magically, he was nothing exceptional! His O.W.L. Results had been low average and he had barely managed to get the N.E.W.T. necessary for his career of choice – or rather the career which his mother and his aunt Enid had chosen for him.

James had had no time to dwell on the rat's betrayal. He had needed to help his friend who had obviously been captured by the enemy, and he had desperately wanted to know what had happened to his wife and child hoping against all hope they were alive.

James had spent hours trying gather enough magic to form words to speak to his friend. But what seemed to be as easy as breathing for a nearly 500 years old ghost like Nearly-Headless Nick was horrendously difficult for a brand new ghost like him.

He was nearly there when he heard his friend whimpered, he looked around just in time to see two figures gliding over the cell cloak in black and a sense of dread filled James. He watched wide eyed as his friend began to moan and his shiver intensified. As the figures came closer and closer, Sirius' moan became louder and louder until they were screams of agony.

Dementors! Those things torturing his best friend had been dementors.

He had tried to stop them, just to realize that, while contrarily to his best friend, he did not have to relive his worst memory, the dementors still affected him sapping his energy away weakening him to the brink of disappearing completely.

And James had wanted to scream, to vent, to curse but all he could do was watched as his best friend bawled like a baby reliving his worst memories again and again.

It had felt like hours before the creatures had their filled and moved on to their next victim but in reality, James was sure it had been but a few minutes. He had glanced to his friend to see him curled into a tight ball in his animagus form.

James had cursed: he had always hated the dememtors: those vile creatures should not be allowed to exist. They were dark creatures who would turn on them at the first occasion as he had reminded Dumbledore numerous times. And now they had joined Voldemort and their hope to win the war had dwindled down considerably.

It had been three days before James and by extension Sirius, saw any living being: Two guards in dark purple attired so dark one would have thought they were wearing black, hair cropped in a buzz cut, perfectly shaved sporting the official insignia of Azkaban guards.

James had panic for a moment: Could Azkaban have fallen in the hand of the enemies? Was all hope lost?

As he had followed Sirius through the sinuous corridors of the black prison, James had caught glimpse of other prisoners: Karkaroff was there begging to be heard: he had names he would give; Seaver was staring stubbornly ahead of him; Iver had spat at the guards. James soon realized all those people had one thing in common: they had all been 'suspected' Death Eaters.

If Death Eaters had been arrested then they had won the war. James' heart lifted in joy thinking that maybe his wife and son were safe somewhere.

But if they had won the war, then why was Sirius there, in Azkaban?

They could not possibly think that Sirius would betray them, could they?

And if that was the case, why did Lily not speak out to help Sirius?

And it finally had hit James like a wall of brick: they had won the war but in the process, his wife, his darling wife had lost her life and his best friend, his brother in all but blood, had been sent to what was certainly the closest thing to hell on earth.

That day, James had wept as much as a ghost can weep as they have no tear to shade.

And for hours, days, weeks, months, years, he had watched his friend being tortured by dementors and the heartless human guards of Azkaban.

James had done his best to help his friend. But he was a weak ghost in Azkaban barely surviving the too frequent visits of the dementors. The rare time he gathered enough strength to be visible to his friend, he would tried to nourish the hope that one day someone would get Sirius out of there because he was innocent.

And Sirius had to climb to that idea. He was innocent, and innocents certainly did not die in jail. One day he would be free again, one day soon. So Sirius had just had to keep up and stay alive for a little bit, just a little bit more until they get him out of here because he was innocent.

It had taken years and James himself had nearly lost hope that they would ever get out of this cursed place – but he would never let Sirius know about that. And when the trial, the long awaited trial, the one James thought would never take place finally happened, James nearly could not believe it and neither could Sirius. And just like that, after 12 years in hell, Sirius was free. And James was ecstatic because now they could began to look for Harry.

Being in the ministry with Sirius, surrounded by all this magic, had given James a boost of power, and as soon as Sirius had been freed, he had suggested in a ghostly whisper and not without a bit of guilt that they went to Grimmault place hoping that the magic saturated place would provide him with enough strength to become visible to Sirius and maybe others too.

Sirius had not put any resistance at the idea. He had nowhere else to go. He was penny-less –at the moment, soon he would receive an hefty sum for his wrongful imprisonment–, exhausted and in need of a very good meal away from the prying eyes of hypocrites and journalists thinking they could win the Flatworthy prize (1) out on his back.

James had just hoped that Walburga, if she was still alive – and he had prayed that she had not been – would have mellow in her older years and would let her son in their ancestral home. Turned out, that James' brief prayer were answered positively and he felt a twinge of guilt when he had realized that Walburga was indeed dead and they had arrived just in time for her departure.

James had been stunned watching wide eyes the teenage boy standing in the kitchen, ordering the old batty elf Kreacher –the same one that would never listen to even one order from Sirius – for food and helping Sirius around. The boy was undeniably a Black with his thick-looking dark brown wavy hair and his strong jaw set, but he also had something familiar to him, something of a Potter. But James did not dwell on it because he was captured by those beautiful eyes the boy was sporting: green green eyes which were shinning like two emeralds in the dark. So beautiful, so familiar...

It was only when he heard Walburga's deranged tale about how she came to get her hands on his son and how she had made Lily's and his son somewhat, somehow Sirius' son too, that he realised those familiar eyes had been Lily's.

For a moment, James wanted to laugh as Sirius had been the quickest on the uptake. James had been too busy planning their next move to dwell on Sirius' bastard son: They had to find Harry and Sirius needed therapy and a new job and a new wardrobe...

James glanced at his friend who was talking to him but James' mind was reeling with what he had just learned trying to deal with his conflicted feeling. On one hand his son was safe away from Lily's jealous sister and dead-beat brother-in-law, and on the other, Walburga had tried to erase Lily from their son and an important piece of Harry was now missing lost forever to Walburga's disillusion. And James did not know if he should be angry or relieve that Harry was a Black, safe from those who would want to harm him and to use him.

He looked at his friend who had decided to laugh at the irony of it all. And maybe, just maybe, that was all there was to do about this. Because it was all done and there was nothing they could do to change it.

And James had watched as his friend had gone from hysterical laughter to tears of sadness for the godson who had become his son and who he did not know.

WM ~Harry/Antares~WM

Harry stood in front of his "father"'s room. They did not have time for his melt-down now. He needed Sirius to be up to date with his-their plan because they could not afford even the slightest mistake.

As much as he had mocked and ridiculed his Aunt Narcissa, he knew she was not someone they should and could underestimate. Grand-Mother Walburga had explained in details how much Mrs Malfoy desired the title and money of the Black and he, as the heir of the Black, could not let a secondary branch family member overtake the main branch, especially one married to a "half-breed" – Harry wondered why Grand-Mother insisted on being so narrow minded.

He raised his hand and knocked firmly on the door. Not bothering to wait for an answer, he pushed his magic into the door forcing it open before stepping inside his "father"'s room.

Harry took his first look at Sirius' room. It was the first time he ever stepped foot there since Grand-Mother Walburga had made it off-limit after Harry had found Uncle Regulus' journals and inquired about the man who Grand-Mother pretended to be his "father".

The room was tastelessly decorated with posters of half nude girl scantily clad in what looked like bikini in between the posters appeared cloth wall paper in that puke green colour Grand-Mother Walburga seemed to appreciate so much. Apart from that, the room was a mirror to his own: to the left was an imposing mahogany wardrobe sculpted with the Black emblems emblazoned on the closed double doors with crows carved at the top of the wardrobe looking down on them with beady glinting red eyes which seems to follow one's every move, to the right a semi-hidden door would lead to the en-suite bathroom, in the middle of the room stood an ebony four poster queen-side bed with green hangings the same shade as the wall-paper with a bed-side table of the same manufacture as the bed.

Sirius was sitting there looking straight at the ghost which was pacing back and forth babbling things at a speed that Harry barely could make out the words that were said.

Harry blinked at the ghost curiously. He had felt him the first time he had met his "father" but he had not been able to see him at the time. Now, it seemed like the ghost had finally gathered enough magic to be visible to all. Harry took his time to examine the ghost. The man in tattered black every day robe with wild chest-nut hair and equally brown eyes hidden behind round glasses, looked quite familiar to Harry but for the life of him Harry could not place him. Looking at the ghost just evoked that feeling of nostalgia he often got when he thought back at those fairy tales he used to tell himself. Harry felt something twist inside of him, like he should know this man because this man was important to him. He needed to know who was this man. But now was not the time.

"If you are finished talking with your ghost, we have important matters to discuss, Father." Harry let out staring at the ghost .

Both men turned to look at Harry, eyes wide as if they had been caught doing something they should not have been doing.

"You can see me/him?!" They exclaimed in one voice.

"Of course I can see ghosts! I'm not without magical power, you know! Grand-Mother Walburga says I'm pretty powerful for my age but I would not really know... She never lets me practice magic even now that I have a wand she only lets me do the most basic spells." Harry complained.

"A ghost?" Sirius wondered out loud. "You're a ghost, James?"

Harry watched fascinated as the ghost seemed to grew paler as if he had finally understand something of dear importance.

"You did not thought I was a figment of your imagination, did you?" James asked with a small nervous laugh that sounded quite forced.

"A very annoying one." Sirius answered.

Harry watched fascinated as the ghost and his "father" continued to banter back and forth for several minutes bickering about thing that had happened in a past Harry had no idea about. He wanted to ask, to know more about the ghost as he felt that that particular ghost was important to him. But unfortunately, he had no time to satiate his own curiosity.

"This is all well and all but, as I said before, we have important matters to discuss. The most important one being how to make sure Aunt Narcissa doesn't get her hands on the Blacks fortune and title." Harry interrupted them. "Grand-mother Walburga would never forgive me if that happened."

Sirius looked at him in a mix of disappointment and disbelief. Harry realized that he had miscalculated: he had forgotten the man had no lost love for his family but... it was the family honour that was in jeopardy. Grand-Mother Walburga was not have been the nicest person –and that was the least to say about her– but he knew she would never find peace if Aunt Narcissa Malfoy, a person she did not approve, gain control of the family and he would make sure that this would never happen.

"Listen!" Harry began. "I know you and Grand-Mother had your differences."

Harry glared at Sirius as he snorted in derision.

"But this family, its honour, its reputation were important for Grand-mother and I will make sure to honour her. I refuse to see what the woman who raised me, loved the most disappear because of your selfish wish to get your revenge over her by destroying what was the most precious to her." Harry spoke his tone getting more and more passionate.

He could just hope that this made an impact on the man but his "father" did not seem very enthusiastic. It was time to change tactics. He took a second to remember what he knew about the man named Sirius Black. Sirius Black had been taboo in the house of Black and the only informations on his "father" he could find, were the long tirades he would find in the journal of the man's bother. The passages were coloured by Uncle Regulus' opinion of his brother which was not the best, but they painted an interesting portray of the man: Handsome, charismatic, inconsequential and petty. From Uncle Regulus described Sirius as a rebel who hated the strict way he had been raised and anyone who approved of the old way especially his family. In school, the man had been a prankster especially targeting the people following the old way mainly Slytherin. He remembered reading that he particularly targeted one of his schoolmate named Severus Snape who had decided to follow the old way to better integrate in his "house" at the magical school, something that Sirius could not understand nor accept. Sirius Black hated the old ways and the Malfoy were the epitome of the old ways. Maybe, he could use those feelings to get the man to do what he wanted. Harry did not really like doing this but he was not doing that as Harry but as Antares. And Antares had no claim at manipulating people if it got him what he wanted.

"Look, if it bothers you that much to do something for your mother..." Harry began, looking straight into Sirius' eyes, a sneer on his lips. "See it as a way to get one over aunt Naricissa and her stuck-up husband, Lucius Malfoy."

"You don't know what it is like to have this harpy as a mother. It was hell! Everyday, hearing her rant about the old ways, about how I was not good enough for the family that I needed to be better that I had to honour the family. For her, my life belong to the Black. I had no choice, my life was not mine. It felt like I was living my life as a spectator not being myself, not having my own self: I was nothing, nothing but a continuation of the Black name. I was just like that stupid tapestry of the family tree, an other object to show off the power of the Black. I breathed Black, I dreamed Black, I existed no further than what my mother allowed me to, what I could gain for the Black's name." Sirius ranted, letting out years of frustration and resentment.

"Grand-Mother Walburga, believe it or not, was my salvation. No matter how harsh Grand-mother's teaching may seem to you, it would always be better than the way I was treated before I went to her." Harry explained. "And I owned it to her to do my best for the family she loved."

"You don't own her anything!" Sirius denied. "Don't delude yourself, Harry! She did not do it for you. It was for this accursed family's name. She only ever loved power and reputation. She would have turned her back on you the first time you did not reach her expectation like she did to me."

Harry narrowed his eyes at his "father". Did Sirius think him stupid not to know that Grand-Mother would left him with nothing but the clothes on his back if he ever did something she did not approved of? He knew well that living up to Grand-Mother's expectations was an everyday challenge. But he also knew that it was better than to live in a cupboard under the stairs with spiders and dust and be treated like a house elf who had received clothes.

"I've been living with her for nearly a decade. You think I don't know her? I know exactly how she is... was." Harry narrowed his eyes angrily. "I'm not blind nor stupid."

Sirius had the decency to look ashamed as he muttered that he had never thought Harry to be stupid.

"Furthermore, if you abandon the Black family to Aunt Narcissa, you will give more power to Lucius Malfoy, finally getting him that hereditary seat to the wizengamot that his family has been fighting for since they came from France. With this power and their money, the Malfoy would be unstoppable!" Harry added as the ideas suddenly came to him to appeal to the vindictive, prankster side of his "father".

Harry smiled as he saw Sirius eyes darkened in worry, too much power in the hands of an ambitious narcissistic man like Malfoy could only lead to disaster.

"All you got to do, is make nice with the minster of Magic and the journalists I'm sure he will drag here with him." Harry added. "If you play this right, you would be the indisputable Lord Black. If you are in full control of the family and not just a titled puppet, you will be able to change anything you want: reinstate members of the family that Grand-Mother did not approve, excommunicate members of the family you disapprove. Imagine the chaos you would create, you the black sheep of the Black, head of one of the most powerful and influential ancient and noble family. You would be a wild card in the political checkers!"

Harry watched with a satisfied smile as his "father"'s eyes lit and his dry thin lips formed a mischievous smirk.

"What do you think James?" Sirius turned to the ghost with a winning smile. "Ready to turn the world upside down?"

Harry watched intently the ghost. The man nodded slowly a frown still on his translucence face as if he did not totally agree but could see some advantages to the plan.

WM ~Callidora Black~WM

Callidora Longbottom née Black entered the family hall of the Longbottom family home through the fireplace. She stood as tall as her hunched back allowed her to which would be barely four feet above the ground, adjusting her small round glasses on her crooked nose, she then swiped her small hands over her black cat-fur coat to straighten any wrinkles and push her black hat back in place on the top of her grey hair.

She narrowed her little black eyes as she took around her surrounding and frowned: the hall lacked the splendour that it had during the tenure of the wife of her husband's nephew as lady Longbottom. It looked faded, showing an unacceptable lack of care. She could understand that the current lady-dower Longbottom had known tragedies which would have broken the will of a lesser woman but she had though Augusta was made of the strongest wood. It seemed that she had slightly overestimate the woman seeing the poor state of the family hall.

She raised a brow as the lady of the house entered the hall, her grand-son, the young Neville trailing silently behind her. It was the first time she ever met the heir apparent of the Longbottom family. The young Augusta had hidden him away from all eyes even her own, especially her own. The rare family members who had had the chance to enter in contact with the boy, had described him as a near squib and Callidora could not have been more worried for the future of the most noble and ancient house of Longbottom. The boy's first steps in the wizarding world as an Hogwart student, had not been the most impressive as he was an average student barely managing an acceptable in Potion but apparently possessing an incredible talent in Herbology. At least, he had been sorted in Griffindor and not Hufflepuff.

Now that she looked upon the boy for the first time, she could see what had led her informant to believe the boy was not worthy of the Longbottom. But, in all her years, if she had learnt only one thing, it was not to judge a book by its cover; and this Neville Longbottom was more than he appeared even though his lack of self-confidence was visible in his slight hunch of his shoulder, his face still rounded by baby-fat bowed and his ill-kept curly hair. She could only hope that he had the courage that had once made the grandeur of the Longbottom males.

"Augusta." She nodded curtly in her coldest tone.

"Aunt Callidora." Replied the old lady in kind.

The boy took a hesitant step forward, nearly tripped on the seemingly too big black robe he was wearing.

Callidora ticked, her left eye closing slightly as she took in the boy. Why on Mother nature green earth, would Augusta not see fit to have her grand-son in appropriate garment for his first outing in their world? Albeit, her Walburga's passing was not an official gathering, this would be the first time the young Neville would be presented as the heir Longbottom to the world.

"I'm Neville Franklin Longbottom, scion of the Longbottom, heir apparent of the most noble and ancient house of Longbottom. It's my honour, Great Aunt Callidora, to meet you." The boy answered with a low bow, softly kissing the woman's knuckles.

Callidora hide a smile at the perfectly formulate answer as she turned on her heels taking a pinch of powder and throw it in the chimney.

"Myddleton Arms (2)" Callidora articulated as she entered the green flames with her party.

The two women landed gracefully continuing walking without missing a step. The boy, on the other hand, stumbled a little on his feet. Callidora frowned unhappily at the clumsiness displayed by her grand nephew. They walked in silence until they reach their destination.

The vultures of the press were already crowding the steps of Grimmauld place snapping picture of everyone approaching the ancient home of the Black, their camera flashing left and right rendering Callidora nearly blind. Callidora climbed the seven steps leading up to the twelve Grimmauld place and knocked the customary three times, raising her chin up looking down at the closed oak door. She discreetly look at her left to her great-grand nephew who was rubbing his hand on his robe in an effort to calm his nerves as he tried to stand as tall and as straight as possible.

The door opened on the house elf who welcomed them as the tradition dictated and the door closed softly to the crackling of the camera's flash.

Callidora looked around the entrance of Grimmault place. She had only been in the ancestral house of the family once the day her marriage contract with Conrad Longbottom who had been, at the time, third in line to the Lordship of Longbottom, was finalized. The decoration was far from tasteful in total opposition to what it had been like under the previous lady Black. Her niece Walburga had always had questionable taste in her opinion. Her eyes landed on the figure stepping off the stairs.

"Welcome to the house of Black, Lady-dower Longbottom, Widow Longbottom, heir Longbottom." The young man said with a bow, kissing the ladies' hand.

Callidora's eyes widened as she took on the boy, a teenager who should be around the same age as the little Neville. Even though he only wore the traditional plain white dress, the boy had the air of royalty that only Black could exult. Was the boy the hidden son of one of Walburga's son ?

Callidora narrowed her eyes, observing the young Black carefully, trying to find the clues that would unveiled that new mystery.

The curve of his jaw, the form of his eyes, the curls of his hair screamed Black which one she would not know but the way he stood, the way his head tilted slightly to the right and his eyes sparkling with mirth reminded her strongly of her first love Charlus Potter.

"I'm heir apparent Antarès Black. I'm at your service." The young man finished his formal greeting. "I'll lead you to grand-mother. Please follow me."

'Oh Walburga, you little vixen...' Callidora did not know yet from where this boy came, but if there was something Callidora like, it was a good mystery.

She glanced at Augusta who was watching intently the boy talking to her only grand-son. Their eyes meet for a second. And Callidora knew things were just getting interesting.

Wearing Mask -chapter end- Wearing Mask

(1) Flatworthy: Name of the Daily Prophet's founder.. I imagine the wizards' world would have a Pulitzer prize for their journalist too.

(2) Myddleton Arms: This is a real pub in Islington, London. Islington being the neighbourhood in which is situated Grimmauld place. (I have absolutely no idea if it's any good)