He is calm. He is utterly and completely calm. Heartbeat a quiet, background rhythm, he breathes in, and then out. Everything is an all-encompassing black, and the black continues on, and on. Sounds around him are distant, removed from Harry in his oasis of dark silence, and the next time he breathes in he tries to feel inside himself.

He feels a twinge of--

Something.

It's like a sudden breeze in the distance, or a whistle on the air, or a disturbance in the blackness around him: it's all of those things at once, and the excitement of feeling something makes excitement run through him, but he does his best to keep concentrating.

If he can just follow that feeling, get himself to feel it again-

There's a loud snap an inch from his nose, and Harry flinches back, glaring up at Snape, who merely arches an eyebrow.

"No meditation at the breakfast table, Potter," he says cleanly, seeming amused, and then he walks off to the staff table. Harry scowls, but Hermione comes into the room soon after, and she settles beside him at the Gryffindor table.

"What's put that look on your face?"

"I felt something," Harry begins.

"I can see why that would upset you."

"Shut up!" Hermione laughs. Her hair is constrained by a hair-tie at the back of her neck, but it looks like it might succumb to the sheer strength of Hermione's hair at any moment and snap. "I felt something. Here." He pats his sternum. "I was meditating, and, you know, for the Animagus transformation?" Hermione's expression becomes more curious, and she leans forwards. "Snape brought me out of it. No meditation at the breakfast table, Potter," Harry says in a passable impression of Snape's low tones, and Hermione laughs, reaching for some butter to spread on her toast.

The mid-October sky above them isn't sunny, but it's clear, and there isn't any sign of rain: there's a Hogsmeade trip today, and people are beginning to rapidly filter into the great hall for breakfast: Harry can see the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students are also filtering in from outside. Over the past month or so, it's been interesting having them around - some of them sit in with the NEWT students in their classes, but for the most part they have a few teachers giving them their own lessons. Harry knows Cecilia is teaching them some History of Magic as well as Defence, and Vector has been giving them a few lessons too.

They're lucky to have Cecilia as a teacher, he thinks: she has a way of explaining concepts that make them spectacularly easy to diagram, and Harry's notes for Defence are better than they've ever been. More importantly, she's actually really good at displaying the practical, and although he wouldn't rave about her teaching (decent as she is, she still doesn't compare to Remus), he's really glad to have her for the year.

Who knows what weirdo they could have ended up with if she hadn't joined the staff?

"Ah, it would seem the majority of you are here," Dumbledore says, interrupting Harry's train of thought, and he looks up to the top table. Dumbledore has a series of small ribbons braided into his beard, apparently to complement his robes, and the look is singularly distracting, but Harry does his best to listen to the man instead of just staring at his facial hair. "For the Hogsmeade trip today, please exercise caution. Various members of staff will be posted around the village, but do remember, children, that there are a number of prisoners from Azkaban still loose."

Harry frowns slightly, and Hermione chews pensively on a mouthful of toast before saying, "Do you think there'll be Order members too?"

"Probably," Harry murmurs. "Sirius said he'd come meet me, but that might be for protection, I suppose. You sure you're alright with me abandoning you?"

"I'm not a stray dog, Harry," Hermione says, making him grin at her. "The twins and I are going to pick up some different mail order forms, have a look at their formats and stuff. They've already started selling some of the stuff for their Skiving Snackboxes, but most of it needs refining." Harry nods his head, sipping at his drink.

"You think we'll be ready to start with the mail order from Wizarding Delights next month?"

"I think so," Hermione says, giving a nod of her head. "George said that it'll probably be better to offer after we sort out a customer base, and I think he's probably right." Harry laughs, turning his head away, and she furrows her eyebrows. "What?"

"Nothing, nothing," Harry says, "it's just that somehow when you say these things you make it sound like it's a real, proper business."

"It is a real, proper business." Harry leans back in his seat, watching the other Slytherins together. Daphne Greengrass and Pansy Parkinson are on the Ravenclaw table, speaking with a few Ravenclaw girls and two boys from Beauxbatons, and Draco is bent over something or other with Crabbe and Goyle. Theodore and Blaise are having a serious discussion - Harry can tell it's about politics, because Theodore looks furious, waving his paper around, and Blaise looks utterly impassive.

He and Blaise haven't been in a broom cupboard again, but Blaise and Harry have had a few moments here and there, snogging in corridors or in Harry's bed with the curtains drawn.

Harry absently bites the inside of his cheek - it's something he's going to ask Sirius about today, he's decided. Not Blaise specifically, or even men, but... Sex.

---

"Sex," Sirius repeats. He reaches up, stroking his hand awkwardly over his own jaw: there's a little stubble growing there, and it looks like he's considering growing out a proper beard but hasn't yet entirely taken the plunge. He doesn't know how he feels about his godfather with facial hair: he'd seen the horrible, patchy beard he'd grown during Azkaban, but even with a haler, healthier face Harry doesn't know if Sirius' beard will grow in in the full, dignified manner he's probably aiming for. They're walking together in the woods a little way out of the village, still in complete sight of Hogwarts and within the village's perimeters, but out of the way of the other students wandering around and doing a little shopping.

"Sex," Harry agrees. Sirius is thinking very, very carefully, shifting from side to side and looking mildly uncomfortable with the question. "You're thinking about what Remus would tell me," Harry says in a mildly accusatory tone.

"I'm not," Sirius argues, but after a moment he admits, "Yeah, I am." Harry had known Sirius had probably do this - Sirius has made a habit of looking to Remus for the "responsible" decision for him to make, and while it's endearing, it's not really what he's after at the moment.

"If I wanted advice from Remus, I'd ask Remus," Harry points out, not in an unkind tone. Sirius bites his lip, worrying the flesh under his teeth for a few seconds, and then he crosses his arms over his chest. The stroke to Sirius' ego does seem to motivate him somewhat, though, and he relents.

"What did you want to know?"

"When did you, er..." He hesitates. "I don't need all the details of the act. I just wanted to know when you... You know."

"When did I know what?" Sirius asks, frowning at Harry, and Harry suppresses the urge to huff.

"When did you do it? Shag someone?"

"Oh, right." Sirius coughs awkwardly, looking away. Harry had hoped he'd be a bit smoother about this, but apparently any guardian gets flustered over the talk of sex. At the very least, they do when it comes from their wards. "Well-"

"You're trying to remember what age Remus lost his virginity," Harry says, and Sirius gives him an irritated look.

"Stop doing that. You're meant to be learning Occlumency, not Legilimency." Harry laughs, and Sirius frowns, shaking his head and giving Harry a sideways glance before he shoves his hands into the pockets of his deep red trousers. They've got the same outdated flare as his ripped-up jeans, but worn with an embroidered waistcoat and a black shirt with ridiculously puffy sleeves, they actually look almost good. "I was fifteen when I actually shagged a girl, fourteen for some other stuff. But that doesn't mean-"

"Oh, good," Harry says. "We're about equal so far then." Sirius glances at him, and then his teeth show as he breaks out into a purely wolfish grin, ruffling Harry's hair and looking as proud of him as he ever could.

"That's my lad. What's her name? What's she look like? Is she pretty? Oh, take that back - she's probably about your age." Harry laughs, turning his head away: the transmission from responsible, sober father figure to "cool godfather" had been almost instantaneous, and Sirius lets out a little growl of noise. "You tricked me."

"I didn't trick you," Harry says. "Sex isn't evil, Sirius, you don't have to ban me from having any just because."

"You are young," Sirius says. "What'd do you do? Actually, don't tell me. I don't want to know the sordid details." Sirius wrinkles his nose, shaking his head slightly, and then says, "Don't tell Moony I'm proud of you. Tell him I gave you a long lecture. Tell Molly that too."

"I wasn't going to tell either of them I'd done anything, to be honest, Sirius," Harry says, and Sirius narrows his eyes slightly, considering this as a course of action before he nods his head. Harry breathes in slightly - he feels relief that Sirius had, uh, matured, at about the same age, and the fact that Sirius isn't staring at him in horror is a comfort. Of course, if Sirius knew it had been another boy instead of a girl, he supposes that might be different.

"Was it, uh, good? You're- I mean, what I mean is, nothing hurt, and it was all okay?"

"Didn't taste great," Harry admits, and Sirius nods his head sagely.

"It differs person by person," he says, "though there are some great novelty potions for that. I remember, in our seventh year, a lass in Ravenclaw took one that made her taste of cherries, and for the whole week-" Harry starts to laugh as his godfather trails off, and they walk together. He glances up at Sirius: he's grown a little over the summer, and he's hoping he'll beat Sirius by the time he's done growing: Sirius stands at five foot ten, only a little taller than Snape, and Harry's dad had looked about six feet in the photos he'd seen. "You, uh, you know spells for-" Sirius makes a whistling sound.

"What?"

Sirius coughs. "For..." He whistles again.

"What the Hell are you going on about?"

"Contraception," Sirius hisses, as if it's dirtier to say the word than telling Harry how a girl's nether regions tasted.

"Oh, right," Harry says awkwardly. He realizes he hasn't spared the subject a single thought. Blaise had, after all, been his only immediate concern, but he feels a bit of an idiot for having forgotten about contraception entirely. "No. Didn't really occur to me, to be honest."

"I'll send you some notes by owl," Sirius says seriously. "Nothing to take lightly, that. Not that you should rush into anything, but you should uh, know them in advance, Harry. I'll send you some others, too..." Sirius frowns, as if making a mental catalogue of all the sex charms he knows that his godson could benefit from. If he ignores the oddity of the situation, Harry finds his dedication touching. "You know any already?"

"I know one for lube," Harry says. He speaks frankly: he sees no reason to be embarrassed with Sirius now that the conversation is underway, and given that he'd asked about this for a reason. "And I know the Dead Arm Charm."

"Ah, an old classic," Sirius says fondly, patting Harry's back. "Where'd you learn it?"

"Theo nicked a book off his cousin. Sex Charms For The Discerning Solo Artist. You know, if you'd just let me pick a few books from that shop in Fargo Alley-" Sirius wavers for a moment, and then an expression of determined sternness appears on his face. Harry had known he'd probably say no, but he had to keep up the act - Sirius would only get suspicious if Harry abruptly gave up asking about the sex shop, and what Harry doesn't need right now is for one of the elder Malfoys or the Weasleys to find out what he's doing with Hermione and the twins.

They walk on for a little while, talking about virtually nothing - Sirius points out a few birds in the trees, mentioning the names of them: apparently he and Harry's dad had had a theory that Sirius would be a bird, but obviously they were a bit far off in their estimation. "You felt anything yet, where the transformation's concerned?"

"Yeah," Harry says eagerly. The sex talk had been a slightly uncomfortable necessity, but the Animagus transformation he's actually excited to talk about, and he looks at Sirius. "I've been doing some of the meditation exercises, and sort of combining them with my Occlumency stuff. A lot of the guidance for the beginnings of the disciplines seem to be pretty similar. This morning I felt- I felt something."

"Felt what?"

"It's hard to describe. Like the air moved, but the air inside my own head." Sirius nods his head, a small, appraising grin on his face.

"That's a good start, Harry," he says. "That's early, too - we all struggled with keeping our minds clear enough to feel anything until we were about four months into it. You probably have better mental discipline than we did, mind." Harry grins a little, looking at the footprints his and Sirius' feet are leaving in the mulchy, orange-brown mess of leaves carpeting the woody path. "I've got something for you."

"Really?" Harry asks, and Sirius gives him a wry smile.

"Don't look excited," Sirius warns. "It's nothing fun." He draws a set of vials out of his satchel before pulling out a bottle of clear, viscous potion. Harry recognizes it from the diagram in one of his Animagus books, and he picks it up, holding it up to the muted sunshine to examine. The liquid shifts thickly against the glass as he moves the bottle slightly, and then he takes the set of vials.

"So, this is the Priming Potion," Harry says, holding up the bottle. He'd been reading about this part of the Animagus transformation - the Priming Potion allows a person to digest certain magical ingredients raw in a way they wouldn't ordinarily be able to, and the five vials hold the ingredients he has to eat: some powdered Mandrake leaf, pixie wings, doxy eggs, some finely chopped daisy roots and...

"What's that last one?" Harry asks, frowning at the final bottle. He's become pretty good at recognizing ingredients on sight - some of the more focused potioneers in the seventh year can identify them by smell alone - but the last one is unfamiliar to him.

"That," Sirius says, "is Boggart blood." The stuff is bubbly and black, but when Harry holds it to the light it begins to shimmer into one colour and then the next, shifting in the light.

"It never listed any of this stuff in my book," Harry says, thoughtfully. "I think it was a Phoenix feather, some powdered unicorn hair, some beetle eyes... The ingredients don't matter, though, right?" The Priming Potion's actual function seems simple enough to understand: when someone drinks a little of it before consuming whatever ingredient they need, it allows the body to try and digest some of its magical properties, leaving someone more able to try transformations later on.

"Yes, and no," Sirius says. "Virtually anything will work for this, if you use it in the right combination. Kids in some of the Central African schools take potions like this before they even start using the sort of magic you learn when you start at Hogwarts, but the ingredients they use are usually much less potent, and their effect is cummulative over a few years. It's an easier process that they follow."

"That makes sense," Harry says. "Why don't we do that?"

"We haven't got the right sort of ingredients, to begin with," Sirius says, shrugging his shoulders. "And then there's the fact that we learn theory of magic with wand usage to start off, whereas those kids will start earlier on with wandless magic. It's a different culture, a different way of teaching, you know? You'll find that wherever you go, where magic's concerned. We used gillyweed instead of Mandrake leaf, but... Well. We ended up having to chuck James in the lake when he grew gills and stopped breathing." Harry sniggers despite himself, shaking his head.

"The properties your body is going to try and take on are to do with transformation, latent magic and animal magic," Sirius explains, and Harry feels so much more comfortable asking questions now - he'd been a little less certain talking about sex, given that it'd been a conversation he wanted to have more out of necessity, but this is more stable ground.

"Aren't daisy roots a stabilizer?" Harry asks. He's used them in a few potions so far, but he knows they're especially important at NEWT level, where potions ingredients are more volatile and more likely to go wrong.

"You take the daisy roots on the third day out of three. As a stabilizer. It's just a precaution, because you should be fine, but it's recommended to take a stabilizer in the middle of your routine. The full moon is Thursday. The day of the cusp, you start your little prescription - a gulp of the potion, then the Mandrake. The next day, the pixie wings, and so on." Sirius is fairly sober as he speaks, crossing his arms over his chest and looking down at the set of ingredients Harry neatly sets into his bag. "The potion's not difficult, but it needs fiddling with at odd times, so I thought it'd be better to do it for you rather than making you hide it in some toilet."

"Thanks, Sirius," Harry says, honestly, and he leans into it as Sirius pulls him into a hug, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. "You're a great godfather." Sirius lets out a satisfied sigh.

"Yeah, I know."

"And modest, too," Harry quips. "So, I've got a week of drinking a weird potion and putting strange shit in my mouth, then."

"Bit like being a working boy on Knockturn Alley, really," Sirius says philosophically, and Harry groans, pushing the other man away.

"You're disgusting, Sirius," Harry complains as Sirius lets out his loud laugh, tossing his head back and laughing like it's the greatest pleasure in the world.

"Yeah," he agrees fondly, trying to ruffle Harry's hair even though he dodges out of the way. "I am."

Harry adjusts his bag on his shoulder, and he and Sirius turn and head back into the village. Harry sees McGonagall and Celia together, talking quietly, and Harry gives them a wave as they walk back onto Hogsmeade's main path. "Any trouble?" Sirius asks, and McGonagall gives a shake of her head, but her expression is serious, her lips twisted into a small frown.

They walk into the village again, and Sirius leads the both of them into Honeydukes. Sirius murmurs quietly to Harry about a trapdoor that leads into Hogwarts from the basement of the shop as he picks out a few bars of chocolate for Remus, and Harry considers this as he picks up a box of eight Chocolate Frogs. He's been toying with the idea of trying to build up a proper collection, trading cards with other students at Hogwarts to build it up - Theodore has a collection of four hundred, ordered obsessively neatly in alphabetical order in a specially decorated album, with no duplicates, and while Harry doesn't want to go that far, it looks like a fun hobby.

He turns his head to ask Sirius if he has any, but there's a loud scream from outside, and Harry drops the box before even thinking about it - brown frogs bounce animatedly over the floor as he rushes outside, leaving them wandering on the floor behind him.