Muggle-Raised Champion

A Game of Runes

Disclaimer – I solemnly swear that JKR owns everything Harry Potter. Whether or not I am up to no good with her characters is for you to decide.

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Muggle-Raised Champion a

Chapter 25 – A Game of Runes

2:10pm

Sunday, 5 March 1995

Harry's Quarters, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

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"Sirius! I didn't know you were coming today. What are you doing here?" Harry exclaimed as he opened the door to his quarters.

The old Marauder grinned at him. "Can't a Godfather come to see his Godson every now and again?"

"I guess so," Harry replied, not that he'd ever really thought about it.

In actual fact, Harry was still getting used to the idea of having a Godfather, let alone a person, an adult no less, who was interested in him and voluntarily wanted to spend time with him.

"Well, aren't you going to invite me in?" Sirius asked.

"Of course," Harry replied quickly, opening the door wide.

"How've you been, Harry?" Sirius asked as he gave him a brief hug.

"Good," Harry replied automatically.

Sirius' grey eyes stared at him searchingly.

"Really? 'Cause I had a visit from Amelia Bones the other day and she thought that you could use someone to talk to," Sirius stated.

Harry looked away. Madam Bones and his friends had had a long talk about everything that had been going on with the Tournament and, while he'd hidden a lot of what he was thinking, he guessed that it wouldn't have taken the head of magical police much to read whatever vibes he was putting out.

Glancing back, he saw that Sirius was watching him intently, evidently waiting for an answer to his question. In the end, the only way that Harry knew how to answer was to shrug, so that's what he did.

"How've your lessons been going?" Sirius asked.

Harry appreciated the blatant change of topic and latched on to it greedily.

"Okay. Good, I think," he replied. "Professor Flitwick's been pushing me pretty hard. He says that I've got all the first year Charms spells down now and has started teaching me a mixture of second and third year spells. I'm not quite as far as that in Transfiguration, but close. At least, I think so. Madam Walker says that I'm adequate with my Potions, whatever that means. And all the rest seem to be going okay."

"That's great, Harry," Sirius beamed. "At this rate, you'll be caught up to your year-mates in no time."

That was painfully close to what he'd been wrestling with for the past week.

"I'm actually working on my end-of-year Ancient Runes project at the moment," Harry said, having desperately sought for something to say to get away from the other topic. "Would you like to see it?"

"I'd love to," Sirius exclaimed.

"You know," he continued as Harry led him down into his workshop, "I took Ancient Runes when I went here. It was interesting but not really my bottle of butterbeer. Remus, now, he loved that sort of thing. Lily, too. I think it was in her top three favourite subjects, along with Potions and Charms."

Harry led his Godfather to the workbench in the centre of the room and allowed the man a chance to look it all over before he started explaining what he was doing.