(Tuesday Evening)
"Rita, is everything set for tomorrow?" he inquired, looking into the charmed mirror.
"Yes, my lord. We should be arriving tomorrow lunchtime."
"Good, I'll be at the Entrance Hall to meet you. Act as naturally as possible; I don't want to raise any suspicion that we are in regular contact with each other, nor that you work for me," he instructed, seeing Rita nod. "You said a couple of days ago you were having problems getting the editor to assign you to this story. How did you manage to persuade him in the end?" he wondered, recalling the earlier conversation on Friday night.
"I just told him that since I already had a good prior business relationship with Sirius Black, it made the most sense that I should cover the story rather than Mr. Root... I also just happened to use my womanly powers of persuasion to make the point," the reporter said, clearly not ashamed of her actions.
"Do I want to know?"
"Probably not."
"Well, since that's been settled, anything else I should know?" he asked, wondering if his reporter had managed to find out anything of importance.
"Not really, besides the new Minister taking to courting the chief editor here at the Prophet. Not really surprising, really; the last couple of Ministers have all done the same," she offered with a shrug of her shoulders. "But I do like the gift I received."
"Since that's everything for this evening, I'll see you tomorrow."
"Yes, my lord."
"Rita," he said suddenly, catching Rita's attention, "wear one of the outfits I picked out for you tomorrow."
"My lord, is that really necessary? Wouldn't I look more normal if I just wore my standard robes rather than dressing up?"
"Rita," he scolded forcefully, "my decision is final. You're representing me and my family, so you will dress the part." He lectured before smiling evilly.
"I can always ban you from wearing any clothes. You know if I order it, your magic would be forced to carry it out." Seeing the paling reporter nod at his remark, knowing full well that he could just do that if he desired and would do it to prove the point—he wrapped up the conversation. "See you tomorrow, Rita. Sleep well," before deactivating his mirror.
...
(Inside the Entrance Hall)
Waiting by the front doors of the Great Hall, looking down the path for the first sign of his godfather, Harry couldn't help but feel excited. Another one of his plans was coming together nicely; by the end of the hour, he was sure that he'd be at the top of the social tree. As well as a confirmed favourite amongst the Heads of Houses except Slytherin, but that was never going to happen. He would be fooling himself if he ever thought Professor Snape would suddenly like him.
At least the Potions Master had backed off since they'd returned for the new school year—not that the man could do anything with the current magical contract in place. Instead, the Slytherin Head seemed to turn more of a blind eye to his own godson's activities and had taken his venom out on the remaining Ravenclaws.
"Oh well," he said aloud. It wasn't his problem. And frankly, the other Ravenclaws, if they were half as smart as they claimed to be, should be able to find their own solution. After all, he did!
Time continued to pass as he watched the day go by. Hearing the 'pop' sound before seeing a group of individuals appear at the front gate, heading up the path to the school itself. *So the fun begins,* he thought cheerfully, whilst slipping into character.
"Hey, Pup!" his godfather greeted warmly, pulling him into a hug as he attempted to mess up his hair further; failing to make it any more windswept than it already looked. "Grats, I heard you made the Ravenclaw team."
"Thank you, the competition was formidable, and it was a pretty close call," he reported, playing the role of humble student. In truth, the tryout had been rather easy as soon as he was allowed to Seek rather than doing pointless drills. "Are you going to introduce me to these charming people?" Harry asked, gesturing toward the reporters, noticing Rita was wearing the light blue outfit he'd chosen while shopping.
"Ah, where are my manners? This lovely lady is Miss Skeeter. Miss Skeeter was the journalist from the Prophet that did those excellent articles about the miscarriage of justice that occurred to me. I swear, she could've had old Barty's head with the trouble she stirred up," he announced, smiling fondly at the reporter. "And these two gentlemen are Mr. Smith," he gestured to the man with a camera, "and Mr. Jones, from Quidditch Sports Magazine," Sirius explained, more for the gathering onlookers than his own, since he'd suggested the reporters.
"A pleasure to finally meet you. I thought I recognized you from the trial," Harry said in greeting before giving a short kiss to the knuckles, clearly surprising Rita. "Nice to meet you too, Mr. Smith and Mr. Jones," he said, shaking their hands.
"Black, what are you doing here?" the resident Potions Master spat as he appeared from the Great Hall, clearly investigating the disturbance and the gathering crowd.
Shooting Sirius a look that said, *Don't take the bait* before he could do anything, Harry relaxed as he saw Sirius give a begrudging nod.
"Ah, it's good to see you again, Severus. The years appear to have been kind to you, unlike myself. Oh well, how have you been?" his godfather greeted, like he was meeting an old friend.
"What are you doing here?" Snape demanded coldly, ignoring Sirius' warm behaviour.
"Ah, I'm here on official business. After all, I'm a Head of House now and everything, hence I need to be responsible and everything. I'm sure you understand you yourself are a respectable gentleman now: a world-class Potions Master and a Hogwarts Professor. How very responsible of you. But if you wait for a couple of minutes, I'll tell you what my business is here. After that, we can catch up, my old friend, over a butternut beer. What do you say? I'll buy."
Watching the exchange, he was almost cracking up with laughter; he could see Snape would have preferred drinking his own blood to anything Sirius offered.
"I'll decline," Snape growled, barely civil, realizing Sirius' game as Rita's quill moved rapidly.
"Lord Black," the Deputy Headmistress greeted, clearly concerned about the old foes facing off against each other.
"Minerva, how good to see you again!" Sirius greeted with real affection, pulling the stern woman into a hug, getting laughter from the crowd as the older woman was lifted off her feet.
"Sirius Orion Black! Put me down this once or I'll transfigure you into a mouse!" she threatened, getting even more laughter from the gathered students.
"Nice to see you too," Sirius smiled happily as he lowered the stern woman before turning to the students. "She's been threatening to do that to me since my first year."
Intervening before things went too far off-script, Harry advised, "Maybe we should get on with the announcements, since lunch will be ending soon?" He got a suspicious look from the Potions Master, clearly sensing something was afoot.
"Thanks, Pup. Shall we move along, Minerva? Rather than keeping the students waiting in suspense?"
"Mr. Black, while I'm teaching I would prefer you address me as Professor McGonagall," she ordered, trying to save some of her reputation amongst the students.
"Of course," his dogfather said, grinning like a madman the whole time.
Entering the Great Hall with the reporters in tow, "Students, students, please quiet down for a moment. I'm sure you must all be interested," the Deputy Headmistress announced.
"Twins, behave yourselves; I won't have you embarrassing Gryffindor in front of our guests." She stalked the tables. "Ron Weasley, chew with your mouth closed," she scolded, eyeing up any of her lions for any sign of embarrassment. "10 points from Gryffindor due to bad table manners," she said before Ron could come back with a retort, preventing the table from being sprayed with food. Frankly, that silenced the entire Hall immediately, making it clear the Deputy Headmistress wasn't messing about!
All too soon, the Great Hall was silent as other Heads of Houses joined in, quieting their own respective Houses. "Good, now that we have your attention Ron Weasley, stop eating for one minute and listen, or I'll have you in detention for the rest of the month with Professor Snape!" McGonagall snapped, making Professor Snape's head snap around, his eyes locking on Ron's a gaze that seemed to promise suffering.
Ron just gulped, clearly not wanting to spend the next couple of weeks washing cauldrons.
"Lord Black, the floor is yours," she said after being satisfied, before shooting a final warning look at Ron and the twins.
"Thank you, Deputy Headmistress. First of all, it's nice to be back in the school, but many of you are wondering why I am here, and why these reporters are here from the Prophet and Quidditch Magazine," he began, gesturing to the group, getting the students' interest at the word 'Quidditch.'
"Many of you have probably read about my wrongful imprisonment over the summer. However, the one thing that kept me going through that hellhole was the fond memories of this place: playing pranks, charming girls, playing Quidditch," he explained, smiling fondly and studiously ignoring Snape's sneering.
"The war and Azkaban stole many of my dreams. One of them was playing Quidditch professionally as a Beater with my godson's father. However, the war denied us this—denied us the chance to chase our dreams."
"So when I heard this summer that my own godson was following in his father's footsteps, I rejoiced, happy that Quidditch was still an attractive activity as it had always been, bringing people together. But then we—my godson and I heard of one House receiving new top-of-the-line brooms, while the rest of the Houses did not. This, in my opinion, is not in any way fair. It ruins the sanctity of Hogwarts Quidditch; how many dreams will be lost because the other students have better brooms, preventing the real talent from shining through?"
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