A/N: Okay, here's another chapter. It's been a while. Hope you enjoy. And, though it's somewhat shameless, I just want to tell you guys – if any of you are interested in Transformers (the Prime iteration in particular), check out my story Pathfinder, because that category doesn't get a whole lot of attention in general.

Did a little editing to earlier chapters too, if you're interested.

Rekindled - Chapter Eight – A Crooked Log Makes a Good Fire

Harry wasn't quite sure what to think at the moment. On one hand, she was currently staring at someone who she'd been watching for some time, but had never actually seen in person. On the other, he was currently unconscious thanks to the combination of a sudden kidnapping by her friend and the unfortunate sight of her death.

She had sometimes imagined how their meeting might go when she finally returned to her original world, what with everyone (including him) thinking she had died, and all. She had never quite thought that the first impression she would leave him would include her actually dying (albeit temporarily) in front of him – much less that they would meet in the Mountains of the Sun, of all places, instead of their original world.

Mostly, she was just stunned at the overall situation – hence, her sitting motionless on the ground and staring blankly at the fainted form of her godfather.

"…Harry?" the cautious voice of Lilliandil pierced through the haze of her shock.

"Did you just kidnap my godfather?"

Lily ruffled her feathers, still a little miffed at the sudden drop from Sirius' shoulder as he collapsed. "I wouldn't call it a kidnapping, so much as it is a happy relocation," she said in lofty tones.

Harry turned to give her the stink eye.

"Did you or did you not ask him if he wanted to come?" she demanded. "Because from the look on his face when you two arrived, your little 'happy relocation' was about as expected as a dragon dropping a load on his head."

Lily looked an odd cross between sheepish and wanting to snort in laughter. She refrained from the latter if only because Harry looked like she'd truss her up like a holiday turkey if she dared.

"Not exactly, I suppose," she admittedly reluctantly. "But you'll see. He'll be happy here. And more importantly, you can talk with him – learn that animal magic thing. Maybe get back in touch with your human sensibilities and whatnot."

"That's what this is about?" Harry's eyes grew large in incredulity. "I don't think that's a valid reason to kidnap anybody, much less him! For one thing, I am not out of touch with my 'human sensibilities' – and even if I am, then any 'reconnection' can wait until my training is over!"

"Puh-lease," Lily scoffed, shooting her a look. "If you aren't out of touch with your human side, why have you stopped caring about things like your clothes – you do realize that they just combusted, right? Plus, even with your Mirror, you haven't been observing humans other than to check up on your godfather for years now!"

Harry's brow furrowed in consternation (though she did absentmindedly conjure up a shirt/dress thing to pull over her head), but before she could spit out any sort of rejoinder, a low groan interrupted them. She whipped her head around to see her godfather sitting up and wincing at the inherent brightness of the Mountains of the Sun. Either he had a naturally quick recovery rate, or the magical properties of Lily's voice had sped up his return to consciousness.

"…what hit me?"

Harry shared an awkward look with her phoenix friend, before tentatively opening her mouth.

"Sirius?"

The man's eyes sprang open and his spine snapped to attention as his gaze immediately homed in on Harry.

"Am I dead?" he asked bluntly.

Harry rapidly shook her head. "No, no! You've just been, er… relocated?"

"Happily relocated!" Lily chimed in.

The sound had Sirius' attention turning toward the phoenix, who he gazed at with only a little less incredulity than what he had aimed at his 'dead' goddaughter.

"A phoenix," he stated blankly. "A phoenix and my dead goddaughter."

He abruptly flopped backward onto the ground, resting the back of an arm over his eyes. "Something must have bit me in the rainforest. I'm clearly hallucinating."

Harry caught herself think that maybe she had lost touch with her human side, because she had no idea whatsoever regarding how to talk to Sirius – much less convince him that he wasn't currently high on bug juice.

A moment later, the dilemma was blessedly taken out of her hands. The near-silent sound of flapping wings caught her ear, and her eye turned to the sky to see pretty much the entire rest of the flock coming toward them.

Harry sighed in relief, and Lily very quickly lost her air of self-assured smugness when she saw the look Ramandu was leveling toward her as they landed.

"Liliandil, please explain," he said sternly.

After a painfully drawn-out process (In which Lily's usual smooth-talking deserted her in the face of her leader's 'I-am-not-happy-with-you' face, Coriakin cackled very unhelpfully in the background, and Alambil and Tarva both peered down at Sirius' prone form – one in concern, the other with the fascination of one who has discovered a new toy, and Harry tried smooth out her frazzled composure), Ramandu had the general gist of the situation.

The leader looked like someone who was holding in a long-suffering sigh, but instead, he had everyone back up to give the wizard some space, and turned to address their unwitting newcomer.

"Sirius Black, I apologize for the rash actions of my flock member," he began gravely. "Her intentions were not malicious, and are easily remedied. You are not dead – rather, you are currently in a different world than the one you previously inhabited. However, before you decide to return to your world of origin, you should be informed about your goddaughter's presence here."

Sirius moved his arm slightly in order to peer at Ramandu, but in his eyes was complete incomprehension.

"He can't understand you, boy," Coriakin butted in with his usual amount of tact. "He's not exactly a hybrid like our Harry."

Ramandu looked almost embarrassed for a moment, but rallied rapidly. He turned to Harry and asked her to serve as a translator.

After Harry repeated the words in English, Sirius gave a harsh bark of laughter.

"'Another world' with a flock of phoenixes? Really? This stuff must be pretty potent if that's what I'm coming up with! Still, the birdsong is pretty relaxing," He carelessly wiped at his sweaty forehead. "I could do without the hot flashes, though."

Harry shot a helpless look at the others. Really, Sirius had lived in a world of magic all his life – was what she was telling him really so impossible that he would deny it out of hand?

"Is there any way we can convince him this is real?"

Ramandu regarded him thoughtfully. "Perhaps. Has the Hat taught you any sort of Mind Magic?"

Harry blinked. "No. He's been planning to start lessons soon, but that's not exactly helpful now, is it?"

"The Hat itself knows Mind Magic, though, doesn't it?" Lily suggested quickly, as though in hopes that being helpful would lighten her upcoming discipline.

Harry's eyes widened, and she promptly teleported (her skill was thankfully good enough for her to handle moving from one stationary location to another in the same area) to the sleeping cave, where the Hat was resting on a shelf. She snatched him up, ignoring his indignant exclamation, and returned to where her very confused godfather was languishing on the grass.

Carefully, she placed the Hat on her head so that he could get an overview of the situation.

'Hat, my godfather is currently in need of a reality check. Do you think you can help him?' she thought.

"Hmm," hummed the Hat.

"Can you?" she repeated, removing him from her head.

"Oh, I can do it all right. Sirius Black's mind is one that is already known to me," the Hat assured her somewhat pompously. "I'm simply debating method with myself."

Harry shot him a dubious look.

The Hat hemmed and hawed for a little longer before giving the go ahead to place him on Sirius.

"HOLY MERLIN!" Sirius bolted upwards with a scream. "Bad trip!"

Then he frowned, a look of tentative realization dawning on his face.

Harry didn't want to know what the Hat had shown him.

The man looked around himself, actually taking everything in rather than dismissing it as the Sorting Hat did his job. His eyes landed on Harry once more, and instead of grief, his eyes filled with a painful sort of hope. He stumbled to his feet and took a step or two toward her.

"…Harry?" he croaked.

"It's nice to meet you?" she replied awkwardly.

She was abruptly enveloped in a tight hug. It was pretty surreal, considering that the amount of hugs she'd been given in her first 12-or-so years could have been counted on one hand – and after that, she'd been in the company of birds. While fluffy, they just didn't have the arms or size for hugging.

The thought crossed her mind to reciprocate the gesture, but she wasn't sure if she'd accidentally rupture something delicate with her not-quite-controlled strength.

"'…nice to meet you' she says," Sirius muttered tearfully. He pulled away to shoot her a serious, yet humored look. "I'll have you know that I've changed your diapers. There's just no being strangers after that."

Harry's posture became a little less tense, and a small, but genuine smile spread across her face.

After at least slightly coming to terms with everything, namely his goddaughter being not-dead, Sirius became almost manically exuberant. He bounced around asking questions about the phoenixes, the Mountains, and most particularly, Harry. The Hat had apparently only given him the bare bones of the situation.

"What exactly does being a phoenix hybrid thingy even involve?" he asked with excited incredulity.

Harry watched him in concern, noting the increasingly large amounts of sweat that he was producing, despite the fact that they were sitting atop one of the mountains, where things were relatively cooler than elsewhere in the Mountains of the Sun. She hadn't realized how different the temperature might be from her original world.

"Well, from my experience, it mostly involves a lot of fruit-crushing and teleportation misses," she said honestly.

"Must come with some sort of heat resistance too," he remarked, swiping the back of his palm across his sweaty brow. "Otherwise I don't know how you could stand this place."

"Do you know any cooling charms?" Harry asked him. "I'd do it for you, but I'm not exactly the best with cold magic."

He barked out a giddy laugh and swished his wand. The air felt noticeably cooler around him, but it didn't bother her like she was half expecting, given her complete lack of affinity for ice and cold.

From what she had learned from the flock, the lack of natural talent with cold magic, which was diametrically opposed to her own fiery nature, was expected – but despite that, phoenixes also weren't bothered by experiencing environments that had a similarly chilly bent.

It was all apparently part of their species' status as universe travelers. Being able to survive in a variety of different places, no matter the extremes of temperature, was almost essential.

Well, she was fine bathing in lava. She supposed that bathing in the Arctic Circle having a similar non-effect wasn't that strange.

Sirius let the silence settle around them for a moment, simply gazing out over the clouds.

"It's gorgeous here," he said quietly. "Peaceful, too. Untouched, I suppose I'd call it."

Harry looked over the place that had become her home and smiled sappily. "Yep."

"Nothing like home," he commented.

"Definitely not," she said.

"You… uh," he stumbled over his words. He took a deep breath, then spoke clearly. "You aren't coming back, are you?"

"Huh? Oh no, I'll come back. At least for a bit," she said plainly. "Apparently there's some prophecy about me being the only one who can put an end to Voldemort, and he's quite mean. I don't think I'd want to leave everyone back in your home to deal with him forever."

He stared at her, slack-jawed.

"What?"

"Oh, you didn't know?" she asked, somewhat surprised. "Sorry for springing it on you like that, then."

"A prophecy…" he breathed, eyes shut in consternation. "It… certainly makes sense."

"Yes, I suppose it would," she said tentatively.

She thought for a moment.

"I could… show you?" she half-offered, half-asked.

"Show me?" he questioned.

"Well, yes. The reason I even know about the whole thing in the first place is because I was practicing my scrying, and I happened to ask my mirror to find the reason that Voldemort even went after me in the first place, because that had never really made a whole lot of sense to me, and so my mirror showed me the seer in the process of giving the prophecy and the fact that a Death Eater overheard it…"

Harry trailed off, seeing Sirius' somewhat bewildered face at the barrage of words. Huh. Apparently she hadn't known that she babbled when she got nervous. And boy, were her big and efficient phoenix-style lungs conducive to babbling.

"And the Hat showed me how to extract memories to share," she finished lamely.

A hint of a grin cracked open the corner of his lips, even as his eyes misted over with a memory of his own.

"You sound like your mother when she got going about one of her Charms," he told her.

"Really?" she perked up. "I've scryed for her and dad a bunch of times, but the mirror doesn't really come with audio. The only reason that I know the prophecy is because the seer enunciates really clearly when she goes into her trance – but right now it's still really hard for me to lip-read normal conversations."

"It's a handy talent, but you can't exactly have gotten a lot of practice around here," Sirius remarked. "What with the lack of lips your… friends have."

Harry nodded.

"And Hat's aren't really the same as a human's," she added.

"Well, we are absolutely doing the memory thing later – but right now, I'd like to continue the face-to-face thing," Sirius said firmly.

He paused to gather his thoughts.

"This … is all still pretty surreal for me," he admitted. "How... How are you here?"

Harry took that to mean both "here" as in location, and "here" as in alive.

"Well, the basilisk venom was killing me," she said, slightly concerned at the full-body flinch her godfather gave. "I'm almost certain it's close to something like acid, because Fawkes' tears didn't heal me – and the only time phoenix tears don't really work is when a body part is completely missing. It's likely that something vital had been… dissolved.

"So, Fawkes decided to do something a bit… more. Apparently, the feather in my wand was one of his, so we had a magical bond of sorts. He basically forced his energy down the bond to heal me," she explained.

She paused, taking a slightly deeper breath.

"He, uh… sacrificed his life to heal me," she said.

"And I'm very grateful to him for it," Sirius said hoarsely.

Harry shot him a wan smile.

"Oh, I'm glad to be here," she reassured him. "I just don't like the cost of it falling on others, I guess."

He smiled wryly. "Understandable."

There was a moment of silence, wherein both of them simply stared, drinking in each other's presence.

"Earlier, you said the Sorting Hat teaches you?" he asked, curiosity overtaking the darker memories behind his eyes.

"Yep! Hat's great," she beamed. "He's been on so many heads that he knows a whole lot. That's how he knew how to help you realize what was going on earlier."

Sirius grinned sheepishly, but seemed a little uneasy.

"And he's been... sharing what's in other peoples' heads with you? I can't imagine that's a feature the students' parents would have been too happy about."

"Huh? Oh, you mean the secrets thing. He couldn't really do it back at Hogwarts," Harry explained simply. "Back there, he had a magical bond to the castle that made it impossible for him to share any of the information that he gathered."

"But it no longer has that restriction," Sirius half-stated, half-asked. "And you still put it on your head? I mean, I get that there aren't many people here for it to share things with, but doesn't it feel like an invasion of privacy?"

"Not really?" Harry said awkwardly. "I mean, he doesn't have the bond to Hogwarts anymore, but he's got one to me instead. I was the only one around with the kind of magic he needs as a life-source, and it kind of… reset his functions."

Sirius furrowed his brow.

"Meaning?" he prompted.

"Well, when he was bound to Hogwarts, his purpose was the well-being of the school and its occupants, which included keeping the students' privacy. Now, he works for my benefit – and I really needed a teacher for wizard things. So he shares whatever's useful," she said with a shrug.

"Huh. And it…" he hesitated slightly. "He's been on how many heads?"

"…it's been about a thousand years since Hogwarts was founded, right?" Harry thought about it for a moment, wracking her brain for the trivial facts that she'd absorbed from the Hat's habitual blathering about her old school. "And what, about thirty to forty students per house each year when the population levels are normal and not post-war?"

"Sounds about right," Sirius stated, eyebrow half-raised at her knowledge.

"So that's around one hundred and forty thousand eleven-year-olds, assuming that the rate of students has been steady. And that's not even counting all the Headmasters and teachers he's chatted with over the years – though I suppose there's probably loads of overlap."

"Merlin," Sirius blurted.

"Although, it's not like most of the information is all that interesting, given that so much of it comes from kids," Harry shrugged again. "He condenses it. And he still doesn't know everything."

"Neat, I guess," he said, still somewhat bemused.

Harry dithered for a moment inwardly, but decided to bite the bullet.

"Actually, that's one of the reasons that Lily – the phoenix who, uh, kidnapped you – decided to bring you here. Because the Hat is limited in what he can teach me," she said slowly. "I mean, she really wanted me to get some human interaction – something to do with clothes – and she knew that I'd been watching you and was really interested in meeting you."

Sirius grinned at her as her voice sped through the last sentence, though his eyebrow was raised at the mention of a clothes issue.

"But she also knew that you're an Animagus," Harry said, trying to get to the point quickly. "Phoenixes aren't really capable of shapeshifting – the whole immortal thing doesn't really lend itself to change. They really wouldn't have the first idea how to be a watcher for someone attempting the Animagus transformation – and Hat doesn't really have the body for it. But I told Lily that I wouldn't try it without having someone supervising."

Sirius looked thoughtful.

"And this… Lily wants you to become an Animagus – why?"

"Well, my animal form is basically guaranteed to be a phoenix," Harry explained. "And phoenixes basically think of themselves as having near-perfect forms – probably another reason why they don't shapeshift. Lily finds my current body to be limited because of the lack of wings and talons and such."

Sirius snorted.

"Bit snooty, are they?"

Harry paused.

"A little? I mean, they are basically near-perfect from a certain perspective. They're built to survive in pretty much any environment, because of all the travel they do."

"The dimensional stuff, you mean," Sirius said, still not sure what to make of that particular bit of knowledge.

Harry nodded.

"Do you want to learn it?" he asked her.

"Of course!" Harry said, slightly surprised that he had to ask. "I mean, I was the one who researched the possibility of it in the first place – after I scryed you and dad. Transforming, I mean."

She paused for a moment.

"Plus, well. I end up in open air enough that the ability to fly would be really useful."

Sirius went a little green around the gills, remembering his first glimpse of her upon coming to the Mountains, and immediately agreed to begin teaching her.