Oh God Not Again!

Chapter Sixteen

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

After making a quick stop at the Room of Requirements to pick up Ravenclaw's Diadem, Harry stuck out to the Shrieking Shack to meet Sirius.

"Womtail's back?" Sirius cut right to the chase.

Harry nodded. "I think so. At any rate, the Chamber of Secrets has been opened and Mrs. Norris was petrified."

"Mrs. Norris?" Sirius looked confused. "Is that Filch's new cat?" At Harry's nod, Sirius grinned. "Excellent. I guess he's not all bad, after all. I mean, I will still attack him on sight, but at least I have this to mitigate the betrayal."

"You do realize that Pettigrew's being possessed by Voldemort, right?" Harry asked. "So really he petrified Mrs. Norris."

Sirius looked speculative. "You know, I never thought I'd say this, but maybe Voldemort isn't-"

"Oh don't even go there," Harry interrupted. "And besides, I unpetrified her almost immediately."

Sirius looked thunderstruck and not a little horrified. "Why would you do something so heinous?"

Harry rolled his eyes. "Look, Sirius, I get that you don't like Filch or any of his cats-"

"That the understatement of the year," Sirius muttered. "They are pure evil!"

"But look at it from my perspective. I purchased quite a bit of Mandrake Potions during the summer and if I didn't prove that they worked on the cat, no one else would have trusted me to use it on them given they thought I was the Heir of Slytherin at the time," Harry pointed out.

"I guess I see your point," Sirius said reluctantly. "But Merlin, Harry, only Lily was that prepared that she stocked up on cures for potential disasters."

Harry snorted. "To be fair, she did spend prolonged periods of time with you and your friends."

"Details, details…" Sirius said dismissively. His eyes widened. "Wait…they thought you were the Heir of Slytherin?" Harry nodded. "As in they don't anymore?" Another nod. "Details! Details!"

"I merely convinced them that I would have found some way to market my powers of petrifaction if I actually had any and apparently I've been spending so much time with Lockhart that they believe me," Harry explained, shrugging. "And let me tell you, I am really loving this whole 'not being suspected of attacking the Muggleborns despite my mother and best friend's status as Muggleborn.'"

"That's just…there are no words for that," Sirius said, shaking his head in awe.

"I know, I'm amazing," Harry said smugly. "But on to business: I retrieved the Diadem Horcrux from the Room of Requirements; can I assume you've mastered Fiendfyre?"

Sirius winced. "For the most part."

"Sirius!"

"What? Don't get me wrong, I can definitely destroy the Horcruxes with it and more or less aim it, it just takes me a little while to put it out."

"Dear God," Harry said, slightly annoyed. "You've had three months!"

"That's a lot of progress; I don't think you quite appreciate just how difficult Fiendfyre is to master," Sirius defended.

Remembering the first time he's seen it in action in a move that all at once destroyed one of Voldemort's Horcruxes, cost Crabbe his life, and made Draco forever indebted to him, Harry shook his head. "No, you're right. I'm sorry; it's just…uncontrollable fire on Hogwarts grounds? This sounds like a very bad idea."

Sirius shrugged. "Meh, it probably is, but at least there is very little risk of lycanthropy, unlike some of our other exploits."

"There is that," Harry agreed. "So is that all you've been doing all this time? Learning Fiendfyre?"