Chapter 32

April 16th. Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Harry rolled his shoulders to get the heavy basilisk hide coat to settle properly. He hadn't worn it since the third task of the Tri-Wizard Tournament, but it still fit perfectly.

"You are not going without me." Fleur said in a steely tone. She was dressed in comfortable and sturdy clothing rather than the sexy type she preferred for casual wear. The knives that Harry had gifted her with were sheathed on her belt and in her boot.

Sitting nearby were Sirius and Luna, both dressed in similarly practical clothing. They shared Fleur's sentiment but were letting her say her piece instead of jumping in to agree. They too had their knives sheathed on their belts and boots.

"Fleur, we've been over this." Harry sighed in exasperation. "You can't use your wand without drawing the attention of the magical government, which is the last thing we want. Without it… well, I don't want to say that you'd be a liability, but you'd be a liability."

Fleur's nostrils flared in anger and her sky-blue eyes darkened to the color of a dark ocean, the first sign of a veela transformation. Maybe he shouldn't have said that.

"I still have my fire." She snapped, bringing up a hand to conjure a small flame. Her current emotional state made it rather more violent than she intended, but fortunately not violent enough to set anything ablaze.

"Yes, you still have your fire." Harry conceded. His own teachings had helped her attain greater mastery of the element and she could now throw it around at will instead of only when angry. "But we have no idea what the skinwalker can do and we don't know how useful that will be. And I don't want to kill him anyway."

"That is exactly the problem!" Fleur snapped again, looking as if she wanted to smack him. "You want to chase after a magic user of unknown power and ability, one who practices an art with an evil reputation, by yourself!"

"I'll be in the middle of a city and I doubt he'd attack me there." Harry scoffed.

"Then there is no 'arm in taking us with you, now is there?" Fleur retorted smugly.

Harry groaned, realising that he had just undermined his previous argument.

He tried a new argument. "None of you can fly."

"We have brooms and you can cast all the Disillusionment and Notice-Me-Not spells you want on us." Sirius piped up.

Harry threw him a short glare.

"What?" Sirius asked defensively.

"That's not going to be much use in the middle of a city, now is it? Unless you think we'll have time to get the three of you covered in all those spells before the skinwalker gets away if we have to chase him?"

"Well, we can at least stay nearby." Sirius continued to argue.

"Then what's the point of you coming in the first place?!"

"'Arry," Fleur said firmly, cutting through the brewing argument. "you 'ave spent the past two weeks flying everywhere and recruiting more and more ravens to search for this skinwalker, spending barely any time at all with us while we stayed behind and played tourist in this quaint little city."

Harry winced and rubbed at the back of his neck awkwardly. True, he had been a bit obsessive about finding the skinwalker now that he'd gotten a whiff of him and he had been a tad neglectful of his girls, but he was just so close .

Fleur paid no mind to his reaction and continued. "I didn't insist on coming with you to those because I knew you wanted to 'urry, but I am not staying behind while you go looking for dangerous things."

"Me neither." Luna added.

"Same here." Sirius finished off.

Harry felt a creeping sense of resignation at seeing their determined expressions. They weren't going to drop this.

"Fine." He sighed.

"I am glad you finally saw reason." Fleur smiled smugly.

"Reason my arse. Stubborn woman." Harry grumbled.

Instead of retorting, Fleur pulled him in for a kiss.

Sirius started humming to himself and inspecting his nails as the kiss dragged on for far longer than strictly necessary.

"I 'ave to be stubborn, mon chéri, or else you would have nobody to keep your British stupidity in check." Fleur purred once she ended the kiss.

Before Harry could respond to that, he got jumped by Luna, who extracted an equally lengthy liplock from him.

Sirius went back to humming and inspecting his nails.

"It'll be better with all of us, you'll see." Luna chirped happily after coming up for air. "We'll find the skinwalker, you can convince him to tell you all his secrets and then we'll come back and have lots of sex."

Harry's face developed a bemused smile. He rather doubted it would be that straightforward and had no idea where Luna got her optimism from.

"I hope you're not expecting me to kiss you too." Sirius commented.

"You're breaking my heart." Harry retorted sarcastically.

"It hurts, I know, but ours is an impossible love, for even your girlishly glossy hair is unable to make you attractive to me." Sirius said theatrically.

"What if I dyed it red?"

"Piss off, Harry."

Farmington, New Mexico.

As Fleur had said, Harry had spent the past two weeks recruiting more ravens to pin down the movement patterns of the skinwalker. Given that the information he got from them was always a bit out of date, he hardly had any choice in the matter. He had started out from the edge of the San Juan National Forest in southern Colorado where the ravens that had first spotted the skinwalker nested and moved southwards into new Mexico and Arizona. More than that though, he had also been creating an increasing number of magically hidden areas for those ravens where they could hoard food and nest safely.

Over time, this would, in combination with their increased intelligence, result in a plague of ravens spreading even more thickly across the Southwestern United States that nobody seemed to be capable of halting, but that wasn't relevant at the moment.

The group apparated in amidst some trees just outside the city limits and quickly got their bearings.

" I still hate this 'Apparation' of yours." Etalpalli hissed, flicking his tail in agitation.

" So you've said, repeatedly. " Harry replied blandly.

" Quetzalcoatl are not meant to be yanked out of the winds like that. " The feathered serpent mumbled mostly to himself, shrunk and promptly dove into Fleur's collar.

"'Arry." Fleur said in exasperation as the magical creature wrapped itself around her neck.

"It's not my fault if he likes the feel of your magic." Harry said with a shrug and a smile as they started walking.

" Warm." Etalpalli justified shortly, wiggling against the silky smooth skin of his perch.

Fleur shivered slightly as the cool scales of the quetzalcoatl slid along her skin, but she gamely ignored the stowaway.

"So, where are we heading?" Sirius asked.

"A pub."

"The skinwalker is in a pub?" Fleur asked incredulously. That just seemed so… normal.

"The ravens spotted him shifting in the wilds north of the city two weeks ago and then tracked him to the pub. Last week, he apparated somewhere they weren't watching, but he visited the same pub the next day. He doesn't seem to live here, but if my theory is correct, he goes to that pub every week after letting loose in the wilds."

"Anything we need to watch out for?" Sirius asked, getting serious now that they were walking into potential danger.

"I don't know." Harry said blithely. "There's all sorts of stories about skinwalkers floating around, a lot of them bad, but the only ones that would be able to tell us anything for certain are the few genuinely magical Navajo medicine men left and they're not talking. Even Etal doesn't know much about them."

" I only came this far north a few times. " The quetzalcoatl hissed defensively.

" I was only stating a fact, there is no need to be so prickly. " Harry hissed back, amused.

The feathery reptile gave the snake version of a disdainful sniff and hid deeper into Fleur's collar.

"This doesn't look like a city." Luna noted as they passed a row of houses.

"It does have that suburban feel to it, doesn't it?" Sirius agreed.

"Yes, and it's probably also several times bigger than strictly necessary because of that. On the upside, at least we don't have to deal with crowds." Harry added.

That much was true. Despite being very close to what passed as the downtown area, there was no surplus of humanity clogging the streets.

"Clancy's Pub, an Irish Cantina." Sirius read aloud when they reached their destination. "I'll be damned, an actual Irish pub in New Mexico."

"Don't be too sure about that." Harry spoke up, grinning. "The ravens have been picking Mexican food and sushi out of the garbage, so whatever kind of Irish pub this is, it's probably not the type you'd find in Ireland."

Sirius worked his jaw for a moment in an attempt to respond to the strange mixture of cuisine before finally settling on a different response. "It's freaky how much you learn from those birds of yours, you know that?"

Harry merely smirked smugly at his godfather as they entered the place and took a seat. It wasn't quite noon yet and almost empty as a result. It was also painfully obvious that they didn't fit in with the few locals already present. Fleur alone generated a great deal of the customary male interest, but the basilisk hide coat that Harry was wearing was hardly inconspicuous either.

Sirius suddenly started snickering. "This place kind of reminds of this one time that James and I-"

"James and me." Harry interrupted with a smirk.

"Oh, come on!" Sirius complained. "Which one is it, me or I?"

"Depends on the situation, you just happen to use it wrong every time."

Actually, Harry had no idea if that was true or not. He'd stopped going to regular school at the age of ten after all and even the admittedly excellent tutors that Robert and Katherine had hired for him could not imprint all the minor minutia of English grammar on him in that time. For all he knew, he had it the wrong way around. That wasn't important though, what was important was to bust Sirius' balls over it. He would probably look it up one day when he remembered to do so, but would also continue to correct his godfather, even when he was right.

"I'm getting the feeling that you're just taking the piss out of me." Sirius said suspiciously.

"Excuse me?" Harry asked indignantly. "Which one of us actually attended a school that had English as a subject?"

Sirius grumbled, but had no reply. It was true that the British magical education made no provisions for anything besides magical studies. The purely wizard-raised were expected to pick up the grammatical rules of their birth tongue largely through osmosis. As one might imagine, this practice had… variable results.

A waitress chose that moment to show up and give them each a menu.

"Welcome to Clancy's. Can I get you anything to drink?" She asked with the perkiness that her job generally required.

They all ordered their drink of choice and started leafing through the menus.

"Should we order anything?" Fleur asked uncertainly, glancing around the pub surreptitiously.

"Might as well, it could be a while before he shows up. If he shows up." Harry replied with a shrug.

"What's this gluten-free stuff?" Luna asked curiously.

"That's for people with celiac disease and morons that think gluten is bad for them without knowing what it actually is." Harry explained absently, wondering if he dared give the enchilada plate with beans a try. His rune-enhanced intestine tended to produce a rather large amount of 'natural gas' over a relatively short time period in response to that kind of food. That was one price of his enhanced body that other people had to pay instead of him. Fleur had not been amused, though Luna certainly had been.

"I'm getting the sushi." Sirius announced with the air of a man about to attempt his first rail slide with a skateboard.

"Isn't that more like cat food?" Harry snorted.

"Dogs eat fish too." Sirius defended.

The four of them ate with deliberate slowness (five if you count the few morsels that Etalpalli demanded to try from their plates), all the better to give the skinwalker time to show up.

Their plates had still been cleared for a solid fifteen minutes already before he did so.

Harry saw him the moment he walked through the door, having positioned himself in such a way that he could see it. He was a Native American man that looked to be around Sirius' age or a few years older, though it was hard to tell for certain with magicals. Black-haired and dark-eyed, there was nothing particularly memorable about him, not his clothes and not his appearance.

At first glance not even his magic. It had the dangerous edge of a not very nice man, but that was all Harry could perceive at the moment.

The skinwalker's easy stride faltered as their eyes met and Harry took the opportunity to skim the man's surface thoughts.

No two minds were exactly the same, but this one was the most… unique, that Harry had ever touched. If he had to describe it, he would say it was like a beastiary full of pacing animals, snapping and growling suspiciously. He had only the briefest moment to interpret the mental impression before it felt as those many beasts suddenly all turned their attention to him.

Harry immediately disengaged the mental contact, but it was too late. The skinwalker was already glaring at him knowingly, before he stalked off to a table that offered him a full view of the room.

He kept a grimace off his face. I shouldn't have done that.

" Etal, do you have him? " He hissed quietly, making Fleur look at him in surprise at the sudden use of Parseltongue.

" Yes, his magic tastes of blood."

That was good. The quetzalcoatl could track magic better than a bloodhound could track scent. Now that he'd gotten a taste of the skinwalker's magic from up close, he'd be able to find him from halfway across the continent, or so Etal boasted.

"Come on, we're leaving." Harry said, putting enough money on the table to cover their order and to satisfy the weird American tipping custom.

"Why are we up here?" Sirius asked with a bored sigh.

"Because this large and tall-ish building is located conveniently just across the street from the pub." Harry answered, idly playing running a hand along Luna's back, making her humm in pleasure.

"No, I mean, why are we skulking up on this roof if you wanted to talk to the skinwalker?"

"Sirius, how would you react if you were into some shady crap and four unknown magicals showed up at your favorite watering hole?" Harry asked pointedly. Granted, Luna did not look at all threatening and Fleur wasn't exactly dangerous looking either, but that didn't mean much when magic could be used to drastically alter one's appearance and that skinwalker had been as tense as a steel cable.

"I'd be worried." Sirius admitted after a moment's thought.

"Exactly, which is why we're going to wait up here until he leaves and then I'm going to go talk to him. Alone."

"'Arry…" Fleur said warningly.

"Sorry, Fleur, but I don't want to spook him." Harry apologised. "He's already going to be suspicious and might bolt if he sees more than one person approaching him."

"And what if 'e is violent?" The veela asked pointedly.

"Unless he's a complete psychopath with absolutely no sense of self-preservation, he won't attack me in broad daylight." Harry assured her. "And if by some chance he is a complete psychopath with no sense of self-preservation, then I should be able to hold him off long enough for you to come to the rescue."

Fleur's disapproving frown eventually eased up and she nodded, though she still looked unhappy about it.

They passed a good half hour in idle conversation before the raven that Harry was using as a lookout croaked out that the target had left the pub.

"Show time." Harry said, standing up and briefly stretching to get the stiffness out of his legs.

"Be careful." Fleur instructed sternly, with Luna nodding along.

"Of course."

Sirius snorted contemptously at that, recalling how reckless Harry had been in the past when he was interested in something.

Harry ignored his godfather, walked to the edge of the roof and jumped off. A slight use of magic to diminish his momentum allowed him to land safely instead of breaking his legs doing that and a previously applied Notice-Me-Not kept potential watchers from really registering it.

Except for the skinwalker, who had stopped dead at seeing him and looked visibly tense even from a distance.

Harry continued to approach the man slowly, spreading his arms slightly with open palms in the nearly universal 'I'm not looking to start trouble' gesture.

Still, it didn't seem to be enough for the skinwalker, who turned a sharp ninety degrees and started walking away with as much haste as he could without running.

Harry cursed under his breath and picked up his own pace, not wanting to let the man get away.

" The taste of his magic has become stale, he is no longer here. " Etalpalli hissed from inside his collar no more than two minutes later.

Harry stopped and clicked his tongue with irritation. That probably meant Apparition.

" Looks like we're doing this the hard way. " He hissed to his reptilian friend.

" The prey always struggles. "

April 17th, early morning. Hotel room in Santa Fe.

Harry had become used to waking up and receiving a truly excellent blowjob before a word was spoken. Like most any man would, he found any disruptions to this routine disagreeable, but seeing Fleur looking at him with a serious expression first thing in the morning instead of sucking his cock made him sigh.

"What is it?" He asked softly so as to not wake Luna.

"You are going to chase after the skinwalker again today."

It wasn't a question, but Harry still answered it. "Yes."

"I am going with you." Another statement.

Fortunately, Harry had predicted this situation. "Fleur, if I take you with me, Luna is going to insist on coming too and this time it might actually be dangerous."

Fleur frowned and Harry could easily guess her train of thought. Of the four of them, Luna was the least combat able without a wand. Taking her into potential danger would be incredibly stupid, but she would not be happy with them if they left her behind all alone. She wouldn't get angry at them, that wasn't Luna's way. Instead, she would just look at them with big, sad eyes that would cut deeper than any amount of angry screaming.

"Sirius and Etal will still be with me and I'll keep in touch with the mirrors." Harry assured his lover.

"And you will not do anything stupid?" Fleur asked in defeat, accepting the fact that she would not be going along for Luna's sake.

"I'll do my best." Harry said.

But Fleur did not seem satisfied with that. " Non, 'Arry. I want you to promise me that you will not chase after the skinwalker at all costs. Whatever you might learn from 'im is not worth risking your life over."

Harry exhaled a little irritably. "This was always going to be dangerous, but I promise to be careful."

"You 'ad better, I 'ave invested a lot of time into you." She growled and promptly turned her back on him.

Harry blinked. "Fleur?"

A very French sounding noise of discontent was his only answer.

He carefully extricated himself from the still sleeping Luna and spooned his veela lover, nibbling gently on her ear.

"Talk to me, Fleur."

" Non ." She sniffed, admirably composed considering the quiver he felt going through her.

"Why not?" He asked, lightly tracing his fingers over the curve of her hip.

"Becasue… you did not promise what I wanted you to." She replied, a slight hitch in her breathing betraying her arousal.

"If I made that promise then I might as well not leave the bed today." Harry said teasingly, though most of his attention was on channeling a slow trickle of magic into the nerves in the shaved skin just above her entrance.

"Would that be so bad?" She purred, bumping her rear against his crotch.

"No, but I really want to talk to that skinwalker." He murmured, sliding his finger across the moist lips of her labia, slowly circling further inward…

Fleur abruptly rolled out of the bed with a soft gasp and turned back to look down at him imperiously from her new standing position, though it was somewhat ruined by her erect nipples, heavy breathing, shaky knees and the glistening wetness between her legs.

" Bien, go find 'im then. We can finish this when you return, so make sure you do return." She said with her nose up in the air and strode into the bathroom with an air of regal hauteur, where Harry had no doubt she would proceed to masturbate furiously to take the edge off her arousal.

Harry knew that she was more worried than truly angry and probably blue-balling him in an effort to exert some control over the situation rather than out of spite, the silly woman. This was no doubt harder on her than it was for him, but that didn't change the fact that his lower head was already complaining, quite loudly, about the lack of attention it was getting.

The sacrifices he made for magic…

Luna mumbled something in her sleep and started snoring.

Tsaile, Arizona.

"I don't know about you, Harry, but I'm getting the distinct feeling that we're not welcome here." Sirius noted.

"Gee, what gave you that impression?" Harry asked sarcastically. "Was it the suspicious looks or the fact that we're two strange white guys with no obvious means of transport walking through an almost exclusively Native American town in the middle of the Navajo Nation?"

Calling Tsaile a town was perhaps a tad generous, but the population was just high enough to merit being called a town. Barely.

"What's gotten you so crabby today?" Sirius asked, amused. "In the birdhouse with the missus?"

Harry stayed silent, causing Sirius' eyebrows to shoot upwards on his forehead. "Wait, really?"

"She wanted to come with us, but I guilt tripped her into staying with Luna." Harry finally grumbled.

"Ah, I was wondering why it was just us." Sirius nodded sagely. "You should get her something nice before we go back. Jewelry or expensive chocolate should do the trick, a few roses wouldn't hurt either."

"You know you live in a decadent consumer culture when bribery is the way to smooth over relationship trouble." Harry grumbled some more.

"You know you're an edgy teen when you complain about the consumer culture." Sirius mocked.

"You know you're a sheep when you call people edgy if they think instead of going along with the herd." Harry mocked back.

"You know you're a brat when you argue instead of heeding your wise godfather's vast experience in dealing with women."

"You know you're a fool when you claim to be wise."

"You know your balls will go purple when you'd rather be a stubborn idiot than buy some jewelry for your offended lady friend."

"You know your balls won't go purple when your lady friend is of succubus descent and isn't nearly offended enough to refuse a good fucking."

Sirius exhaled noisily in exasperation. "You've got it all figured out, don't you?"

"I have to have it figured out," Harry snorted. "if I didn't, then I'd have to rely on you for advice and that would be just sad."

"You grew up to be such a cunt, Harry. I'm proud of you. Lily probably wouldn't be, but I am."

"If you start tearing up on me, I swear I will punch you right in the mouth."

"Duly noted, now where in this backwater is our skinwalker?"

"A fine question." Harry said with a nod and started hissing in Parseltongue. " Etal, can you point the way? "

" Oh, are you two done snapping at each other? " The quetzalcoatl hissed from his collar.

" Yes, quite done. "

" Truly? Because it seemed as if you were about to fight. "

" That is how some human males show affection for each other. "

" Humans make no sense. " Etalpalli complained.

" Etal… " Harry sighed in exasperaton, a truly strange sound to make in Parseltongue. " The skinwalker? "

" That way. " The flying reptile hissed, wiggling his tail from the collar of Harry's shirt and using it to point the direction.

" Thank you. "

"Pretty far out of the way." Sirius commented a while later, noticing that they were moving into the outskirts of a forest.

"I suppose that's the idea." Harry mused. "We know he can apparate, so getting to a larger population center wouldn't be an issue if he needed to and living as some kind of forest hermit would serve as a good excuse for why he wasn't home if anyone actually knocks on his door."

"What makes you think he lives alone?"

"That's the assumption I'm going with until I see proof indicating otherwise."

"Right, so are we just going to walk up and knock on the door?" Sirius asked as they came within sight of the skinwalker's presumed dwelling, a log cabin of all things, though it looked to be well made. It was just far enough into the forest to be invisible from outside of it.

As it turned out, they didn't make it to the door. The skinwalker opened it, saw them and bolted deeper into the forest like a startled deer.

"Hey, wait!" Harry called out, to no avail.

" He has apparated away again. " Etal hissed mere moments after the skinwalker had vanished behind the trees.

"I guess he doesn't want to talk." Sirius joked, smirking at his godson's scowl.

"That's too bad, because I didn't spend all this fucking time tracking that bastard down just to give up because he's feeling skittish."

Sirius sighed to himself as they went to check the point of Apparition to see if Harry could track the destination. This was going to be trouble, he just knew it.

Phoenix, Arizona.

The skinwalker had been clever. His first Apparition had been to another stretch of forest, from which he had run into an unknown direction and apparated again to keep them from tracking him.

Without Etal, that would have been the end of their day, but the quetzalcoatl could indeed taste the skinwalker's magic on the wind from as vast a distance as he had claimed. It took a little while for the wind to bring it to him, but it inevitably did.

That was why they were now in Arizona's state capital, getting a great deal of strange looks from people due to Harry's heavy basilisk hide coat. Not so much its appearance, but because it was entirely too hot to be wearing such a heavy garment. If it wasn't for the wonderful magic of temperature control, Harry would be sweating like a pig.

"Feeling cold?" A land whale of a woman with massive sweat stains under her armpits asked jokingly as Harry and Sirius paused by a bus stop to orient themselves.

Harry ignored the question in the way that a medieval aristocrat would ignore a dirty peasant. Or the way that an annoyed wizard on a mission would ignore the fifth would-be comedian to ask that question in the past hour. The end result was more or less the same.

" That way, he is very close now. " Etalpalli hissed quietly so as not to be heard by anyone that shouldn't hear him.

"This way." Harry said to Sirius, jerking his head in the direction that the quetzalcoatl had indicated.

"You're leaving a trail of offended people behind you." Sirius noted with amusement as they left, having caught a glimpse of the fat woman's expression at being summarily ignored.

"Then maybe they should stop trying to be funny." Harry snarked. "Do these people honestly think they're being original?"

" None of the humans that came into my forests were that big. " Etalpalli hissed musingly. " I wonder if I could swallow one whole? "

Harry snickered at the mental image of the quetzalcoatl flying through the air with his midsection bloated like some kind of scaly beach ball.

"They're probably just trying to make conversation." Sirius shrugged.

Harry's contemptous snort was the only response to that and they continued moving in silence into what was obviously a park. That they were getting away from the urban sprawl of the city did improve Harry's mood at least a little bit.

His mood improved further when they caught sight of the skinwalker again, sitting on a bench and apparently just enjoying the day.

"There he is." Harry said, his brows furrowed.

"Are you sure?" Sirius asked skeptically. "He doesn't look anything like the guy from yesterday."

That was certainly true. He looked more like a white guy in his fifties than a Native American in his thirties or forties, but the magic didn't lie.

As if to prove Harry's point, the man seemed to realise that they were zeroing in on him, got up and started walking away at a fast clip.

"Oh yeah, it's definitely him." Harry growled, speeding up himself and internally cursing the need to be inconspicuous. Chasing down a man at a full run was not inconspicuous in the slightest and he did not want to draw any kind of attention. Neither did the skinwalker apparently.

"Self-transfiguration?" Sirius asked.

"No, he has no spells active on him that I can see." Harry replied with a shake of his head. "If I had to guess, I'd say that our skinwalker lived up to his name, skinned a man and somehow used the skin to change his appearance."

"That's sick." Sirius said, looking more than just a bit nauseous. "Maybe we should stop trying to follow him and drop an anonymous tip to the Aurors instead?" And Sirius felt pretty damn weird being so responsible. That had been a statement worthy of Remus.

"Don't be ridiculous." Harry scoffed. "It's no different than wearing an animal skin, humans are animals too after all."

"I'd say that there's a pretty big difference between skinning a person and an animal." Sirius retorted sharply.

"That's because you're a hypocrite." Harry fired back instantly, never taking his eyes off the skinwalker walking in front of them.

"What?" Sirius spluttered.

"I said you're a hypocrite. Don't worry though, most people are in this case. Species bias, the notion that we're somehow better, more important and more valuable than other forms of life because of whatever arbitrary reason. It's virtually identical to the racial bias that is used to claim that one subset of humanity is better than another. It's also the same idiotic reasoning that purebloods use to justify their discrimination of muggleborns back home, cognitive dissonance at its finest. It's why all religions are exclusively focused on humans rather than ants for example and why hardcore vegans become misanthropic cunts as soon as they lose it, but I digress. A living being is a living being. We're all equally worthless sacks of meat; dog or cow or insect or human. The only reason you think skinning a human is somehow worse than skinning a deer is because you're human yourself. if we didn't have species bias, we would have the same psychological aversion to eating cows and pigs as we do to cannibalism and you wouldn't be making a face at the thought of man being skinned if you're fine with it happening to an animal. "

Sirius blinked once the mini lecture was over, wondering how the hells his godson's mind worked and if he had ever really understood him. Damned Ravenclaws.

"Why do you even know this stuff?" He demanded in exasperation.

"Understanding the psychology of the human mind seems a logical requirement when studying the nature of magic." Harry replied absently, picking up the pace a little more because he didn't want to lose sight of his quarry.

Sirius sighed. Damned Ravenclaws.

"So our skinwalker has no, what did you call it? Species bias?"

"Actually, it's far more likely that he's simply a garden variety cold-blooded murderer." Harry admitted.

"That makes me feel so much better." Sirius snarked sarcastically, watching the skinwalker's retreating back warily as the man ducked behind a large tree.

A moment later, Etalpalli hissed something and Harry swore viciously.

"He apparated away again?" Sirius guessed.

"Yes." Was the terse answer.

"Harry, maybe we should call it a day?" Sirius suggested. "He's obviously just going to keep running every time we try to approach him. Why not have a raven or even Etal drop him a letter or something instead of hounding him like this?"

"It won't do any good." Harry sighed. "If he's paranoid enough to run away without even bothering to learn why I want to talk to him, then he's paranoid enough to burn a letter rather than risk touching it. No, we'll chase him until he picks an isolated spot and then see if we can get close enough to actually get a word in before he runs away again."

It had been a long day and Harry was starting to get just a little bit peeved.

He, Sirius and Etal had chased the paranoid bastard all over the place, from cities to villages to random wilderness. The skinwalker had dodged into many a toilet stall, changing booth or bush and apparated away, forcing them to follow, much to Etalpalli's irritation.

Now they were back to where they started, the forests around the small town of Tsaile, but the sky was dark and visibility was piss poor. The entire situation would have screamed 'impending ambush' even if Harry hadn't gotten the sense that the skinwalker was feeling them out towards the end of the chase, which he had.

"Shite." Sirius cursed softly as he tripped over yer another tree root. "We're stumbling around blind here."

"You could turn into Padfoot." Harry replied absently. He was busy sweeping his eyes over the dark forest. In the gloom, the minute but ever-present glow of his eyes could be discerned.

"I was just thinking that." Sirius muttered and transformed into his canine form.

Using magic to make some light would be more convenient, but it would also be stupid since it would both expose their position and ruin what little night vision they had.

Unknown to the two Englishmen, they needn't have worried about exposing their position by using conjured light. The skinwalker was perfectly aware of where they were.

This forest was his home, he had spent many years exploring it and becoming part of it. he knew how to listen to the whispers of the earth and the trees that spoke of the two foreign wizards moving through it.

It wouldn't be the first time that Magical Congress sent out their people to look for any magic that wasn't under their control yet. These two were worryingly competent though. Usually they left empty-handed after attempting to investigate whatever rumor had brought them and getting only a clueless act for their efforts.

The one with the coat made from obviously magical hide had skipped that step altogether and seemed to already know what he was looking for, a problem that would have to be investigated in the future. First though, he needed to become the hunter instead of the prey.

Dressed in only a loincloth to keep his clothes from being destroyed, the skinwalker brought the wolf aspect close to the surface and began transforming.

It was fortunate that Etalpalli's ability to taste magic in the air was independent of the laws of physics and didn't actually require the wind to carry it to him. If not for that, they would have gotten blindsided completely.

" He comes! " The quetzalcoatl hissed urgently.

Harry turned to his right, which was where Etal had previously indicated that the attack would come from. Despite being ready for it, his eyes still widened in shock at the sheer speed of the skinwalker's approach. No land animal had any business moving that fast outside of maybe the faster great cats, especially not through a forest.

His Magesight didn't actually help illuminate his assailant, being merely a magical sense that expressed itself as vision rather than real eyesight. All he saw was a tall, dark grey-ish silhuete that looked simply wrong and its aura was far more savage than what he'd seen when the skinwalker was in human form.

The unexpected development sent any plans he'd had about how to do this flying out the window and it was all Harry could do to bring his hands up and form a blast of raw force to keep from being eviscerated on the spot.

It was still only barely enough to save him. Instead of the skinwalker being blasted away, it only halted his momentum and threw him off balance enough that the long claws hit him in the shoulder instead of shearing through his neck.

The tough basilisk hide did its job and kept the skin beneath from being cut open to the bone, but the force of the blow still dislocated the shoulder and sent Harry ungracefully spinning to the ground.

Padfoot had even less warning than Harry, as the skinwalker had placed himself upwind of them to prevent the dog animagus from smelling him, but he had been tense and ready and leaped into the attack the moment that his godson was sent to the ground, clamping his jaws on the extended arm.

Padfoot was a very big dog, large and strong enough to contend with a rowdy, if non-hostile, werewolf alongside Prongs. His bite was proportionately powerful as well.

The skinwalker roared in both pain and anger as the dog's teeth sank into his arm and raised his other arm, ready to shred the dog animagus.

Sirius saw this, but he was a stubborn Gryffindor and would rather take a mortal blow than allow this unexpectedly dangerous foe the opportunity to attack his vulnerable godson again.

Said godson had twisted around so that he could see what was going on as soon as he fell and prepared to fire another spell, but was beaten to it by an infuriated Etalpalli, who hadn't appreciated having his perch knocked around.

The quetzalcoatl reverted to his larger size and attacked, clamping his fangs on the biceps of the upraised arm before it could be brought down, making the skinwalker release another roar that sounded like a jarring mix between a man's scream and a wolf's snarl.

By then, Harry had summoned the focus required to cast a considerably more powerful and concentrated blast of force that sent the skinwalker flying into a tree. The sudden motion forced Etal and Padfoot to release their hold on him, which was fortunate as they would have gone with him otherwise.

The skinwalker looked dazed, but quickly shook his head and got back on his feet, only to take a stunner to the face for his troubles.

Harry panted harshly, preparing another spell, a Bone-Breaker this time, only to realise that it was over. The entire fight had lasted all of five seconds, if that, and his blood was still boiling from the massive adrenaline rush. It was an effort to calm down and let the spell go instead of hurling it at the downed skinwalker, but he was familiar enough with his own violent impulses to contain them.

For a long moment, all was silent and then Harry let out a pained chuckle that had more to do with relief than humor, though it was quickly cut off as his dislocated shoulder protested the movement.

" Why are you laughing?! " Etalpalli demanded, his hiss sounding a bit… off. " I lost a fang when you blasted him! "

Oh, that would explain why the hiss was a bit off.

" Sorry. " Harry said with a wince, climbing into a sitting position with as much grace as possible given that he had only one usable arm.

" Sorry will not give me back my fang. " The quetzalcoatl muttered sulkily.

Harry used a quick spell to pop his shoulder back into its socket instead of replying, grunting in pain as his abused tendons protested.

"Sirius? you dead?" He asked, looking towards his godfather.

"I saw my life flash before my eyes, but luckily it stopped during my last tumble in the sack with Rosie."

"The poor woman. Every time I think about that shapely MILF of a bartender being lonely enough to shag you, it makes me want to go comfort her." Harry said as he got back on his feet.

"Get your own MILFs, Potter." Sirius mock threatened. "You okay?"

"Shoulder is going to ache for a while, but that's all." Harry replied, conjuring a magelight and twisting around to look at the damage to his coat. There were four lines of discoloration where the claws had raked him, but the basilisk hide didn't look unduly damaged. It was strong stuff.

"What's with Etal?" Sirius asked, seeing that the quetzalcoatl was looking rather… irritable.

"He, err, lost a fang when I sent the skinwalker flying." Harry answered a bit sheepishly.

"Ah." Sirius nodded in realisation. "I have to admit, my own jaw isn't thanking you for that either, but at least I kept all my teeth."

Harry smirked and turned to the feathered serpent. "Will your fang grow back? "

" How should I know?! " The quetzalcoatl hissed, his crest of feathers shivering angrily. " I have never lost a fang before! "

" I am certain it will. " Harry said confidently, lying through his teeth. He had no idea either. " You are a quetzalcoatl after all. "

" I want a turkey tomorrow. " Etal sulked, opening and closing his mouth, poking at the space where his fang used to be with his forked tongue and sounding generally inconsolable.

"I will get you the biggest, fattest turkey you ever saw. I will even de-feather and de-bone it for you. " Harry promised and moved the magelight over the downed skinwalker.

"Damn he's ugly." Sirius said as they finally got a good luck at their catch. "Even Moony at his worst didn't look this bad."

There was definitely truth in that. The skinwalker was ugly. The lupine snout was too short and looked like the unholy lovechild of the world's ugliest man and the world's ugliest wolf bitch. The neck looked somewhere between human and wolf as well, too thick for a man and too long for a wolf. The arms looked mostly human, but too long, as did the legs. The elbow and knee joints were human, as were the hands for the most part, but the ankles had canine joints, which gave the skinwalker an unnatural and awkward appearance, though you wouldn't know it by the way he was able to move. The claws were far too long and looked almost like bone knives jutting from the fingers. A shaggy dark grey pelt failed to cover up the human looking musculature that seemed unnaturally stretched over the nearly seven foot tall bipedal lupine body, though the hunched back made it appear shorter. The only thing that didn't look like it was stuck somewhere between wolf and man was the tail.

"Ugly, but powerful." Harry replied with a nod. "He would've torn us to pieces before we even knew what was happening if Etal hadn't warned us."

"He nearly managed it anyway."

"Quite." Harry agreed and recalled something rather important. He knelt down beside the unconscious skinwalker and carefully extracted the quetzalcoatl's fang from where it had gotten lodged in the skin. " Etal, is your venom going to kill him? "

Etalpalli did the Parseltongue version of indistinct mumbling, which was pretty much just indistinct hissing.

"What was that? " Harry asked.

" I said I have no venom! " The feathered serpent hissed huffily, turning away in a manner eerily reminiscent of Fleur when she got into a snit.

" Oh. " Harry blinked, surprised. What exactly was the point of all those fangs if he had no venom glands? Sometimes, magic made no sense.

Harry also got the distinct feeling that Etal was a bit sensitive about his lack of venom and decided to avoid the topic in the future. Heh, venom envy. Freud would no doubt have had a thing or two to say about that.

He cast a few quick healing spells on the wounds that Etal and Sirius had given the skinwalker. They weren't all that bad, certainly well within his ability to fix.

"Come on, help me move this big lump over to that tree." He said to Sirius once he was done, pocketing the fang. "Maybe he'll finally talk to me now."

They managed to move the unconscious skinwalker without difficulty, putting him in a sitting position up against a tree with his arms pulled back around the trunk, where Harry used some low level Transfiguration to move the wood around so that it bound them. Unless he was stupidly, hilariously strong, the skinwalker shouldn't be capable of breaking free.

Once everything was triple checked to make sure there would be no more surprises, Harry turned towards his godfather.

"Alright, remember to let me do the talking." He warned. "The last thing we need is him getting prissy because he has no sense of humor."

"I still think this guy is bad news." Sirius groused.

"Probably, but I'm not trying to make friends with him." Harry shrugged in an unconcerned fashion.

"Let's get this over with then."

Harry smiled wryly and ennervated his captive.

The skinwalker woke up with a jolt and tensed as if to attack, only to discover his predicament. The amber eyes flicked over to the quetzalcoatl floating at his side with no small amount of shock, but he remained silent.

Harry watched carefully for any sign of aggression and only started speaking once it was clear nothing would come of it.

"Firstly, allow me to apologise for all this." He said, waving a hand towards the tree that the human/wolf hybrid was bound to. "I only wanted to talk to you, but you didn't make it easy. Second, I've had a lot of time to think about why you might be so determined to avoid me and I can assure you that I'm not a bounty hunter or an agent of North America's Magical Congress or out to harm you in any way. I don't care what kind of magic you use or for what purpose. What I want is to learn Skinwalking and any other unique magic you might know."

Contrary to Harry's hopes, instead of calming the man down, it only seemed to make him more angry.

"Haven't you done enough damage already?" The skinwalker growled, his words barely understandable. "Your people ruined us and now you want our last secrets?"

Harry sighed in aggravation before replying. "I personally never did anything to you and to be quite blunt, I don't care about the past. What happened to your people is no more significant to me than what the Nazis did to the Jews, what the Japanese did to the Chinese, what the Turks did to the Armenians or any number of other genocides and atrocities that happened over the course of history. I was not there, I was not involved and it means nothing to me aside from its historical impact. I spent weeks tracking you down solely because you know an interesting bit of magic that I want to learn, now are you willing to bargain for that knowledge or not?"

The skinwalker was silent for nearly a full minute, eyes flicking once more to the silent quetzalcoatl, before closing his eyes and slowly shifting back to human form, losing size and fur until he was just an average sized man of Native American descent, dressed in nothing but a loincloth.

"You think you can simply buy the knowledge of my ancestors?" He asked, accusingly but less angrily than before.

Harry knew how stiff-necked and stubborn traditionalists could be and would not usually expect to achieve anything that went against their silly principles, but he was betting on Skinwalking not being a socially acceptable hobby, which would force its practicioners to be more pragmatic.

"While giving you money in exchange for magical knowledge would be convenient, I never expected it to be that easy. I was thinking more along the lines of either trading some of my own knowledge for it or doing you a favor of some kind, though if you're willing to take payment in cash or goods it would definitely simplify things. I won't share it with anyone else if that makes you feel any better."

That was a lie. He would share it with Luna, Fleur and even Dora if they wanted to learn, but there was no need to tell the skinwalker that.

"And if I refuse to share my knowledge?"

"I'm not going to kill you or try to torture it out of you if that's what you're asking. I'm not that desperate or petty."

Another long silence ensued and Harry was content to wait for the skinwalker to think it over.

Etal… not so much.

" How long are we going to stay here? " He complained.

"Already missing Luna's pampering? " Harry grinned.

" No, I am merely bored. " Etal retorted with dignity.

" There is no shame in admitting it. " Harry went on, still grinning. " I will be the first to admit that I am looking forward to returning to my mates. " Especially since he still had to demonstrate the consequences of blue-balling him to Fleur.

" This human obsession with mating makes no sense. What is the point if you are not fertilising her eggs? "

" Pleasure. Much of what humans do is in the pursuit of it. "

" Humans. " And with that hissing scoff the Parseltongue conversation was ended.

The skinwalker had been observing this interaction with great interest. "You can speak to the quetzalcoatl?"

"I can speak to all serpents." Harry answered.

"Who are you?"

"Harry Potter, at your service." He replied, a slight mocking lilt entering his tone towards the end of the sentence. He was interested to note that his name elicited no spark of recognition. While not as well known outside of Britain, the story of his survival of the killing Curse had been a topic of interest in all of the magical world, which probably meant that this one didn't have much interaction with mainstream magical society. There had to be some level of interaction, as Harry was fairly certain that Apparition was a skill that had developed primarily in Europe and then been spread across the rest of the world, but he himself was living proof that you could easily learn it in ways the government didn't approve of. "And this handsome fellow is Etalpalli."

"And I'm Sirius Black." Sirius piped up, apparently unable to resist. "Sorry for nibbling on your arm, but you were kind of trying to kill us."

"I am Ahiga." The skinwalker said with a defient lift of his chin, barely even looking at Sirius. "Release me and we will see about making a bargain."

"Excellent." Harry said and moved to do so.

"Are you sure that's wise?" Sirius asked. "He did try to kill us not even five minutes ago."

"I think we're past that now." Harry said dismissively and undid the wooden shackles.

"You use magic without a wand." Ahiga commented, standing up and rubbing his forearms.

"That I do." Was all Harry said in response.

For a moment, it looked as if the skinwalker would press the topic, but in the end he decided not to. "I would know why you are interested in Skinwalking before we speak any further."

"I'm interested in all magic, especially rare or unique magic." Harry shrugged. "Modern magical society may have accumulated a lot of knowledge thanks to its organisation, but all the governmental regulation that comes with it has also made things a bit stale and dull. Magic isn't supposed to be stale and dull."

"No, it is not." Ahiga said thoughtfully. "Very well, I will teach you how to Skinwalk… for a price."

Harry nodded and made a 'get on with it' gesture.

"Your knowledge of wandless magic."

Harry made an expression somewhere between a frown and a grimace. "That could be a problem. Without a wand, magic is far less uniform. It could take weeks or even months before I even figure out how to teach you, much less actually teach you, and I won't be in America that long."

"And did you think that Skinwalking could be learned in an afternoon?" The skinwalker near-demanded. "There is no use in teaching you if you have no time to learn."

"I'm willing to take the risk that the time I have to learn will be enough to get me started enough that I can muddle through it myself later." Harry countered. "You can of course take the same risk with wandless magic, but don't say I didn't warn you if you end up with nothing to show for it. I'm currently teaching it to three young women and it still took me several weeks to find a teaching style for each, despite knowing them very intimately."

Ahiga once again remained quiet for a long while, obvioulsy thinking. When he spoke again, it was with the grudging tone of someone settling for something of less value. "If wandless magic is not an option then I want several things and I will not teach you until you bring them to me."

"Alright, lets hear it." Harry nodded.

"First, a high quality Re'em Blood Potion."

Sirius whistled and Harry agreed with the sentiment. Re'em Blood Potions were, obviously, made from the blood of a re'em, a magical cousin to the now extinct auroch. Whoever drank it would see their strength increase tenfold. The effect was temporary for the most part, though some of the enhanced strength was permanent if the potion was brewed skillfully enough.

Re'em blood was highly coveted and the creatures were nearing extinction due to the constant threat from poachers. The only surviving herd was actually in North America and there was an entire governmental sub-department dedicated to guarding them every second of every day, a sub-department that had carte blanché to execute trespassers on the spot. Whatever re'em blood made it to the open market went for extortionist prices.

Harry opened his mouth to say that he couldn't possibly get his hands on something like that in any kind of reasonable time frame, but then he remembered a certain albino vampire hinting at a connection to the black market.

"That… might be possible." He said slowly. "I would have to talk to someone first to see if it was feasible, but lets assume for the moment that I could get it for you."

Ahiga looked surprised by his answer and Harry could sense his aura shifting from dismissive to interested. He had a feeling that the skinwalker had just been humoring him up to this point, but was now going to see how much he could get out of him.

"Two hundred thousand dollars in cash."

"I didn't bring that much with me from Britain." Harry said with a frown. The money itself meant nothing to him and he wouldn't have hesitated to pay twice as much, not that he was going to tell the skinwalker that. "I'd have to jump back to get it, but other than that it isn't a problem."

It was fortunate that most people considered trans-continental Apparition to be extremely dangerous and didn't think to guard against it. It could be done safely, if you knew how to compensate for the curvature of the planet, the position of the Sun and if you didn't get caught up in the mindset of distance being important.

Ahiga nodded in acknowledgement before moving on to his next item. "A feather from your magnificent quetzalcoatl."

" What? " Etal hissed, the mention of his species drawing his attention again.

"That isn't mine to give." Harry said, frowning again. That feather could be used for any number of things, ranging from potions to foci to simple decoration. Didn't Native Americans have a thing for feathers? Of course, it could also be used to harm Etal, but he wasn't getting that vibe from Ahiga.

"Please convey my request to Etalpalli then." The skinwalker said politely, not knowing that the quetzalcoatl could understand him just fine.

" Harry, what request? " Etal asked impatiently.

"He is apparently so impressed by you that he would like to have one of your feathers. " Harry explained.

The feathered serpent preened vainly. " What does he want it for? "

" I will ask. " Harry said, pleased to have an excuse for doing so. "He wants to know what you want it for."

This time it was Ahiga who frowned. "What do you know of my people's beliefs?"

"Barely anything." Harry admitted. He had done a little research, but it was almost exclusively focused on the skinwalker legends.

Ahiga nodded, apparently expecting that. "It would take some time to explain and I suspect you are not truly interested, but suffice to say that feathers hold great meaning to us, especially those of magical creatures."

Ah, so decoration it was. Harry couldn't help but feel like that was a terrible waste of a powerful magical reagent. He certainly wasn't planning to keep Etal's fang as a memento. Of course the skinwalker could be lying… his aura didn't have the shifty feel of a liar, but he couldn't be certain of that without physical contact.

In the end it still wasn't his decision whether to give a feather or not.

Etalpalli had been listening and after much thought, came to a decision. His wings shivered until a single golden feather detached itself and began drifting to the ground. An inexplicable wind carried it over to the patiently waiting skinwalker, who gently took hold of it and ran his finger over it with a look of wonder on his face.

"Thank you." Ahiga said, bowing deeply to the quetzalcoatl, unknowingly sending the mythical creature's already large ego to new heights.

"Will that be enough?" Harry asked. He was willing to go to considerable lengths to learn Skinwalking, but not to the point that he would let him list demands for the rest of the night.

"Almost." Ahiga said. "I also want you to teach me the serpent speech."

"That likely isn't possible." Harry said, shaking his head. "I inherited it from one of my ancestors, but it usually requires a snake Animagus form to learn. It could be possible, depending on how your Skinwalking works, but don't hold your breath on it."

A small lie, but it was better than explaining the truth.

"I see." Ahiga frowned thoughtfully. "I will see about acquiring a snake skin for myself before you return."

"If that's all…?" Harry prompted.

Oddly enough, Ahiga began to look awkward and even… embarrassed?

"There is one more thing I would like." He said shiftily.

"What?" Harry asked warily, wondering what he could possibly ask for that was worth getting embarrassed over.

"… Amortentia."

Harry blinked. Well, that was unexpected. Better than quite a few alternatives, but still unexpected. Not particularly difficult to acquire fortunately. While a banned potion in the Americas, Ophelia could surely get some for him if he had interpreted her hint about black market connections correctly. Alternatively, he could also brew it in Britain and bring it here.

"What do you want that for?" Sirius piped up again, his tone heavy with suspicion.

"Sirius." Harry said warningly before anything more could be said. "Don't ask questions that you don't want the answers to."

"But, Harry-" His godfather protested.

"No buts, for all we care he's going to use it to water his plants." Harry cut him off.

Of course, he knew what had Sirius so bent out of shape. There weren't a whole lot of uses for Amortentia, certainly not in gardening. British magical law might be hilariously lax in regards to the substance, but anyone with more brains than a dung beetle could see that it was entirely unethical. A witch or wizard would eventually fight off the effects, but a person with no magic of their own, which was the more likely target of Ahiga's attention, would remain under its effects forever unless the antidote was administered to them. There were lesser love potions out there, with effects ranging from mild to severe, but Amortentia was in a class of its own.

An insidious, immoral things, but Harry was quite familiar with insidious, immoral things. Narcissa came to mind, as did Dora, Bryanna and Tiana. It wasn't exactly the same situation since Narcissa had been a stone cold bitch in desperate need of an attitude adjustment and he hadn't really been aware of what he was doing with the others, but he wouldn't make excuses for himself.

He ignored the disapproval radiating from Sirius.

"Most of that should be easy enough, including the Amortentia." Harry said. "Would you be willing to accept a substitute for the Re'em Blood Potion if it turns out that I can't get it though?"

"Perhaps." Ahiga said noncommittally. "Find out first if you can, we will discuss it further if you cannot."

Making sure I don't go for the substitue first, hm? Clever bastard.

Late at night. Streets of Santa Fe.

Sirius Black was not a happy wizard. This unhappiness was due entirely to his godson. More specifically, to his worry about Harry's actions. He could ignore a lot of things out of love for James and Lily's son, but a line had to be drawn somewhere.

Harry seemed indifferent to all the blatant indications that the skinwalker they'd been chasing, Ahiga, was an evil man and that was worrisome. Sirius didn't want to see his godson lose sight of the difference between 'interesting' and 'evil ' in his pursuit of magic and knowledge. That he didn't seem to care if his actions ended up causing harm to people was not a good sign.

"If you brood any harder you'll summon up a storm cloud." Harry's voice snapped him out of his thoughts.

Best just jump into the issue then. Gryffindors charge forward and all that.

"How could you agree to get him Amortentia? You know what he's going to use it for."

"What it's meant to be used for no doubt." The younger wizard said with an uncaring shrug.

"Harry…" Sirius growled.

"What, Sirius? You want me to care about someone I don't know? There's billions of women on this planet and a lot of them suffer things far worse than being potioned to fall in love with someone. He didn't strike me as a sadist or a rapist at least if that makes you feel any better."

It didn't.

"That's not an excuse."

"No, it isn't. I'm just pointing out that you seem remarkably concerned over the fate of this one hypothetical woman over all the others."

"I'm worried about you, Harry! I'm worried because you don't seem to care that you agreed to help that, that… man turn some poor woman into his love slave."

"Why should I care? It doesn't affect me or anyone I care about in the slightest."

"You can't just-" Sirius spluttered, genuinely shocked by this coldness. He'd known that Harry wasn't the most sentimental of people, but this?

"Tell me something, Sirius, how many halfbloods in Britain do you think are the result of some lonely, socially inept witch or wizard slipping some Amortentia to a muggle that caught their eye?"

The abrupt question derailed Sirius' train of thought quite effectively. Now that he thought about it, with the way things were in Britain that number could be pretty high…

But he wasn't going to be distracted!

"That doesn't justify-"

"I'm not trying to justify anything, I'm trying to make a point." Harry cut him off again.

"And what point is that?" Sirius asked sarcastically.

"The point that you didn't even think of that before now. It didn't matter to you until I was tangentially connected to it. You were Lord Black, you could have lobbied for stricter controls to be placed against the use of compulsion spells and potions on muggles, but you went 'ewwww, politics!' and started looking for your next shag. You're a wizard of above average power, you could go fight against injustice like a bloody comic book superhero, but it never even occured to you outside of fighting Voldemort and his band of bitches. You know why that was? Because it didn't affect your life, just like me helping Ahiga get his hands on some Amortentia doesn't affect it. Either dedicate your life to a crusade against all the evils perpetrated by people against other people all over the world that has absolutely nothing to do with you or stop bitching about this one thing which also has nothing to do with you, but be fucking consistent."

By Merlin, why did arguing with Harry have to be so bloody frustrating?

"I just don't want you turning evil on me, okay!" He nearly yelled, lowering his voice when it echoed across the empty streets.

Harry looked amused. Amused!

"Don't worry about that. At worst, I'll occasionally facilitate minor evil with my indifference. Actively being evil sounds much too exhausting, just like being actively good. For a given value of good and evil."

"You could be just a little more good." Sirius grumbled, slumping in defeat. "At least to spare your poor godfather from getting grey hairs worrying how you'll turn out in the future."

Harry grinned arrogantly and spread his arms in a grand gesture. "Gaze upon me and see the most honest face of mankind."

Sirius snorted. Damned edgy teens.

Sirius was still not happy about how today had turned out. He still thought that it would have been better if Harry wasn't so hellbent on learning new magic that he was willing to allow other people to be hurt by his actions. He wasn't happy at all, but he was at least assured that his godson wasn't going evil, he was just a lot more indifferent than Sirius had thought he was. He wished that Harry wasn't so cold, but Sirius knew that wishing for something wouldn't make it happen.

"Wait a second, I totally forgot to ask how you're even planning to get the Amortentia and Re'em Blood Potion in the first place."

"Funny that you should mention that. I suppose I should tell you about… them. "

"Tell me about who?" Sirius asked, a feeling of dread growing in his heart. What else was Harry mixed up in?

"Well, it all goes back to that Christmas party that Adrastia took me to…"