I had very specific expectations about how Harry would grow and mature following Sirius' death. However, I do realize that I'm probably going to be cramming a lot of character growth into a shorter period of time than I would like, ideally, because frankly if I don't I won't be able to convince myself that Harry is capable of fighting Voldemort and winning except via some contrived Deus Ex Machina. I simply abhor the old standby of the plucky but weak hero defeating the great and powerful evil by getting lucky. In the real world the "good guys" don't usually win that way and its always been my belief that stories shouldn't stretch credibility too far even when they're in a fantasy setting. I'm saying this so that hopefully as you the reader follow along through this story you'll know why I do some of the things I do. This note will make more sense when you read some of the later chapters.
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At some point Harry must have drifted off because the next thing he knew the clock was striking and it was early morning. Harry saw the faintest of light streaking across the morning sky as he jumped out of bed and threw on his tattered muggle clothes. Hedwig was sitting restlessly on her perch since Harry couldn't let her out to hunt at night like she was used to. He changed her water and put out some more food as he talked to her softly. As he glanced around his room for something else to do he suddenly realized that he had never actually explored all of Grimmauld Place. The previous summer most of the rooms in the huge mansion were locked up waiting for someone to clean them.
"Kreacher!" Harry called out into the empty room. Immediately the dour little elf appeared with a pop.
"Master is calling for Kreacher?" he said as he peered up at Harry with his huge eyes, then added in a perfectly audible tone, "Nasty usurper, oh how my Mistress would beat Kreacher if she knew."
"Yes, I did call," Harry pretended not to have heard his mutterings. Apparently Kreacher had gotten over the shock of not being punished and was now back to muttering insults.
"Kreacher is serving master however he can," Kreacher said.
"I wish for you to tell me about the house, I've not seen every room," Harry said.
Kreacher went over the details of the house floor by floor. Most of the house was simply empty rooms which were used as storage or guest space. Harry was intrigued by the mention of the dungeons and especially the library that Kreacher assured him was full of books.
"I want to see this library, lead me to it," Harry commanded.
Kreacher led him down the dark halls on the second floor to a pair of ornate double doors that had massive cobra snakes engraved along them. Thick layers of dust attested to the fact that this room had probably not even been opened, let alone cleaned.
"Why hasn't this room been cleaned already?" Harry asked.
"This room is hidden, only Master may see it," Kreacher explained, as if he couldn't believe that Harry didn't know such a basic rule.
"Can you un-hide it?" Harry asked.
"No, only Master can do that," the little elf squeaked in a scandalized tone.
Harry decided that Kreacher must have been expecting punishment for making him look like an idiot because he was cowering most pitifully, shaking quite visibly. Just how horrible had the Blacks been to their servant?
"I'm not going to punish you Kreacher. In fact I'm glad that you're here to explain these things to me. I grew up in a Muggle house and I don't know much about the rules of a wizarding place as grand as this."
Kreacher now looked thoroughly bewildered as if he didn't know whether to be mortified that his Mistress' house was now in the possession of a muggle raised wizard or to be pleased at what must have been a rare compliment.
"Let this room be seen to all," Harry said in what he hoped was an authoritative tone. The doors to the library slowly opened, but he couldn't see anything inside. A great cloud of dust boiled out and suddenly Harry began to have misgivings.
"Could there be things living in here?" he asked Kreacher.
"The room was hidden," Kreacher repeated again as if that explained everything, but then seeing Harry's puzzled look added, "it was hidden to all things, not just wizards."
Harry stepped into the dark room and immediately torches set against the high walls flared to life. The library was simply enormous and crammed with row after row of shelves. Harry decided that the library must have been magically enlarged because it was nearly as big as Grimmauld Place appeared to be from the outside. As his eyes traveled to the back wall and a large majestic staircase he realized that the library had two stories to it. Down the center of the room from the entrance was a long table that divided the shelves on either side that was aligned perpendicular to the table. The walls were also shelves that ran around the perimeter of the room. Kreacher apparently had gotten over his earlier shock because he abruptly interrupted Harry's thoughts with his mutterings.
"Master standing in Mistress' sanctuary, plotting no doubt, yes throwing away all of Mistress' belongings just like the rest of the house. Oh what would she say to poor Kreacher, all her treasures she worked so hard to collect. The shame!"
For a moment Harry couldn't comprehend what Kreacher was babbling about, but then he took a closer look at the titles over each section of the library. There were normal wizard books like those dealing with transfiguration, charms, and magical creatures. However, there was a very large section on potions and the wall shelves and several of the center shelves, which easily made up half the library, were dedicated to dark curses, hexes, jinxes, and other dark arts that he didn't understand. Kreacher was almost wailing about the library at this point and he appeared to be on the verge of punishing himself.
"Kreacher," Harry said sharply, "I want you to clean the dust out of this library and restore it to how it was when your Mistress owned it."
"Master?" Kreacher said hesitantly, disbelieving what he had just heard.
"You heard me Kreacher, I want this place cleaned up. I need to go talk to my houseguests so if anyone comes in here before I return you go find me immediately. Under no circumstances should any books or other materials be thrown away." Harry said.
As Harry left the room he noticed Kreacher was already sweeping away the years of dirt that had settled onto the books. Apparently Sirius had been right about him; he could do something if he wanted to. That library full of dark magic had been part of the reason that Sirius had fled his home. Harry vowed that he would use it now to avenge him.
Harry decided it was still too early to wake his friends up so he headed on down to the kitchen. Molly was already up fixing breakfast for the Order members who had been up all night doing whatever it was Dumbledore had them out doing. Tonks was there, her hair was green and drooping like a plant that had been sitting in the sun for too long without water. Arthur Weasley was there too, but he didn't look as if he had been up all night. Harry decided that he must have come to Grimmauld Place to be with Molly before he had to head off to work at the Ministry.
"Wotcher Harry," Tonks said, feigning a chipper attitude.
"Harry dear, you're up early," Molly said kindly.
"Yeah, it's been difficult to sleep," he said. Molly looked uncomfortable.
"So Harry, big day planned then?" Arthur asked, trying to be easy going in the face of Harry's obvious distress.
"Actually, yes, I've just discovered the Black family library and I figured that Hermione, Ron, and I would start going through it," Harry said, and added as an afterthought, "and I need to talk to Professor Lupin too."
"What do you mean library," Molly asked, "I've been through every room in this house, there isn't anything more than a few shelves in the study."
"The library was a hidden room," Harry explained, "I asked Kreacher to give me an inventory of the house. He is cleaning it up right now."
"Harry, that place could be dangerous," Tonks said, paying close attention now, "the Blacks probably had tons of dark books."
"Oh yes, I was just there for a few minutes, but I saw hundreds of dark books on topics that I'd never even heard of before." Harry said.
"Knowing my relatives there are books in there that should never see the light of day," Tonks said vehemently, "I'll go with you and tell you what to throw out."
Harry shot Molly a glance before responding.
"We don't want to be hasty, some of those things might be useful."
"Dark books are never useful!" Tonks exclaimed, uncharacteristically venomous.
"Tonks, you're tired and you need to rest. I'll go with Harry and when Remus arrives he can supervise," Molly said in a placating tone.
Tonks seemed a little surprised, Molly usually was the first to rail against anything that smacked of Dark Magic and insist that it be destroyed as hastily as possible. She just nodded, her hair seeming to wilt a little more, satisfied that nothing harmful would come out of the library. Arthur finished his tea while mumbling something about having a hectic day ahead of him before giving Molly a quick peck on the lips and disapparating away with a crack. As Molly began serving up breakfast Harry considered going to wake up Ron and Hermione when he heard heavy footfalls on the stairway. He grinned as Ron busted into the kitchen, still in his pajamas. Ron would never miss a meal.
"Mornin' Harry," Ron said between mouthfuls.
"Yes, good morning Harry."
Harry spun around at the sound of Hermione's voice. She had entered the kitchen much more silently than Ron had and she had already dressed in her muggle clothes. She took a seat next to Harry, her ever bushy hair brushing up against him as she turned her head. They sat in silence as they all ate their food, something that Harry was thankful for since Ron had a tendency to spray his food about if he tried to talk and eat. Harry ate quickly, eager to get started on the library. His face must have betrayed his excitement for Hermione kept looking at him all through the meal.
"What is it Harry?" Hermione asked finally.
"It's a surprise," he grinned. Harry knew Hermione would love his library.
After they had finished eating Harry and Hermione waited patiently in the hallway for Ron to dress. At long last he emerged, grumbling something about his owl, Pig, getting its beak stuck in its cage again. Harry led the way down the hall to the huge double doors.
"Where did those come from?" Ron asked.
"This was a hidden room," Harry said.
"Oh, I read about those, its how wizards protect their houses from snoopy guests," Hermione said.
Harry gave the doors a tug and they opened slowly. He heard a sharp intake of breath from Hermione and he had to admit that Kreacher had made the place look pretty impressive in such a short period of time. The walls and floor was no longer dust covered, but had a polished gleam in the torchlight. The books were more colorful now that they were no longer dust covered either.
"This is fantastic," Hermione said as she went to the nearest shelf and began pulling down books, "Its like the library at Hogwarts only with no off limit section."
"Wait, Hermione," Harry said, "before you get carried away I want us to look for something specific."
Harry led the way over to the transfiguration section.
"You want us to look for books on becoming animagi," Hermione said.
'Er, yeah, how did…"
"Why else would you suddenly become interested in transfiguration?" she asked coyly.
"Wow, animagi," Ron said, "This'll be so cool."
"I already talked to Professor Dumbledore about it, but we can't register and we can't let anyone know that we can transform, not even our families." Harry said.
"But what's the point of being able to do something that cool if you can't show it off," Ron said dejectedly.
"Honestly Ron, you can show off after we've beaten Voldemort," Hermione said. Ron shuddered and Hermione sent him a scathing look. "This library is simply perfect, we can get the books we need without arousing suspicion at school," she continued.
The three fanned out, each taking a different shelf, and searched for books on the process to becoming an animagus. Harry returned with a big green book entitled "Unleashing the Beast Within," Hermione had a thinner book called "Wandless Shapeshifting for Fun and Profit," while Ron managed to find a book with moving diagrams called "Anna's Animagus Advice for the Archmage."
"We should take these back to the main study," Harry said, "I don't really care to have anyone else sifting through this place right now."
Harry recounted the discussion with Tonks when she had discovered the existence of the library. Hermione looked a little mortified that anyone would consider destroying a book, but she did caution Harry to be careful with anything containing dark magic. Harry took out the key that Dumbledore had given him and carefully locked the library up. Hermione looked at the doors wistfully.
"I really hate to leave this so soon," she said, "It's so magnificent."
"Trust Hermione to think a library is the greatest thing ever," Ron said with a snort.
"I'll have you know that when I was little my parents left me at the local library all the time. I felt safe there, like a sanctuary, or a haven." Hermione said.
"That's actually a good name," Harry said with a smile as he pointed at the plaque above the doors, "I should have Kreacher change this room's title to "Hermione's Haven" instead of gloomy old Black Archive."
The three teens gaped in surprise as the words above the door rearranged themselves into the new title that Harry had given the room.
"That was sorta creepy," Ron said as they walked back to the study, looking slightly cross. Hermione just beamed in silence.
The trio sat down in the large squishy chairs in the old Black study and began to read. Harry could tell that Ron was getting frustrated because he kept sighing and shifting his position every few minutes. Ginny, who was taking a break from the odious chore of cleaning out the various magical creatures that had taken up residence in the house came in and sat down around lunchtime. The three had quickly stowed their books away to prevent her from catching on to what they were doing. Ginny seemed pretty unhappy at being stuck at Grimmauld Place doing such nasty chores. Hermione tried to cheer her up, but she seemed more interested in listening while Harry and Ron discussed Quiddich than pay attention to Hermione's pondering about whom would be teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts next term. They were saved by Molly who brought up a platter of sandwiches and a pitcher of pumpkin juice. Molly told Ginny that she needed help cleaning up another Doxy infestation in the pantry after lunch, but Harry was pretty sure that she was just telling her that to let the trio continue their work undisturbed. After they had left Ron coughed uneasily and looked over at Harry.
"I'm not really getting much out of this book," he said, "If its alright with you two I think I'll go help mum with those Doxys."
"No one said this would be easy Ron," Hermione said crossly. Harry suspected that even she was having trouble understanding the complex theory behind the spells and potions needed for animagus transformations.
"Its ok Ron," Harry said sympathetically, "We'll try to figure it out and then we can give you the short version."
Ron flashed him a relieved smile and hurried out of the room.
"There is only so much we can do for him Harry," Hermione scolded him, "If he is to become an animagus he will have to do a lot of this work for himself."
Harry just nodded as he returned to studying his book. Hermione had been driven to study for as long as he had known her. He supposed that it was just her natural desire to want to learn like it was his natural desire to fly. Sirius' death had wrought a deep change within him though. Whenever he felt his attention waning he would see Sirius falling through the veil or Hermione crumpling to the floor from that terrible curse. Ron on the other hand had no innate desire to learn and thankfully he had no dreadful motivators either. He knew Ron had been fond of Sirius, but it hadn't been nearly as hard on him as it had been on Harry, despite how Harry tried to conceal it. It couldn't be helped though; Harry needed his best friend so he'd just have to find some way to help Ron keep up.