Harry kept his promise to his aunt, updating her every week or two about what was happening in his life. He sent a long letter the day after attending the trial. He was a bit surprised to get a response the next day.
"Dear Harry,
I'm very glad justice was finally done, although it had certainly taken way too long. I wish you had told me ahead, so I could be with you during the trial, yet maybe my presence there would not have been accepted.
As for this man, Sirius, and the other, Remus – I believe your mother mentioned them more than once. See if you can become close with them as they can tell you more about your parents than I can and maybe even help you in other ways I have no idea of.
Whatever you do, stay safe. I'll be waiting for you when you return.
Love, Petunia."
He had already made his mind to try and become close with the two friends of his parents. What surprised him, though, was her signature. Never before had she told him that she loved him. She may have acted lovingly, especially since Vernon started accepting him, but she had never said it before. He felt his eyes swell with tears at thinking of how she had helped him since that day he had started exercising. He then realized something else – he really loved his aunt now. She wasn't perfect, he knew, but was anybody? Still, without her help, he would have still been that frightened child who knew nothing and nobody. Due to her help, he was now the Lord of several houses, a rich man with power and knowledge surpassing many adult wizards. He promptly sat down and wrote a reply.
"Dear Aunt Petunia,
When I've read your letter I suddenly understood what a difference you made in my life and what your love meant for me. I feel thankful that we've found a way to each other despite our less than perfect beginning.
I feel that I can now honestly say that I love you too, Aunt Petunia. I'll follow your advice about these two men and I'll try to stay as safe as possible.
Love, Harry."
He still didn't know how to stay in touch with the two men, though. He wondered if he should write to them, if Hedwig could even find any of them without knowing the address.
He didn't need to bother. That weekend, soon after finishing breakfast, Percy came looking for him. "You have some visitors. They're waiting for you in Professor McGonagall's office."
"Can I take someone with me when I meet them?"
Percy shrugged. "They're your guests. You can do whatever you like."
Harry asked Hermione to come along. "Shouldn't we ask Neville to join us as well," Hermione suggested. "His help was very important in making Sirius free."
Harry gave it a thought. "Daphne and Susan were almost as important, but right now I only want you at my side."
He didn't understand why she smiled so brightly.
They found both Sirius and Remus waiting for them, chatting with Professor McGonagall. All three seemed to be in a good mood. They all turned their glance to the door when he came, letting Hermione in first. This made Sirius bark a laugh. "You're really your father's son, Harry, already having a beautiful lady with you."
Both children blushed. "Hermione is my friend since before I came to Hogwarts," Harry said, "and I wanted her to meet you too."
He didn't understand the bemused way both men looked at each other before they turned back to him. "In that case, I believe it would benefit us all to have a formal introduction. I'll go first, if you don't mind." His tone went pompous and quite funny. "Let me present Lord Sirius Black, last in the line of disreputable wizards and the only one to have enough sense to be sorted to Gryffindor, while my whole family was Slytherin."
His tone mellowed as he continued, "My good friend, Mr. Remus Lupin, is also eager to meet you, and you already know Minerva... eh... Professor McGonagall." It was quite evident that it was not a slip of tongue.
Harry still responded in a formal tone. "I have the honour of presenting Miss Hermione Granger, my best friend, and myself, Lord Harry James Potter."
Minerva gasped slightly, yet Sirius didn't seem to notice the title. He just stepped forward and hugged Harry tightly. A moment later he invited Hermione to join the hug, which she reluctantly did.
They disentangled the hug after a while. It was Remus's turn to hug Harry shortly and shake Hermione's hand. Only then did Minerva speak. "How come you're Lord Potter? I thought you needed to be of age first."
Harry smiled at her. "This should not be told to others, as it is a Potter house secret. According to the goblins, being the last of my line, I had the right to take my lordship and become emancipated at ten. I took my lordship soon after my tenth birthday, but decided that it was safer not to make it widely known. I've found some more reasons to be cautious since."
"You should have talked with the Headmaster," Minerva told him.
"He's the last I'd like to talk to about such things. He's using Ron to spy on me, he tried to use legilimency on me and my friends, and he didn't show any interest in me before I came to Hogwarts. I trust him even less than I trust Snape."
Minerva was shocked. She didn't expect such a harsh reply. If even part of it was true, then her trust in the old man was also unjustified. She felt she needed to think quietly of that.
It was just as well, so it seemed, as Sirius really wanted to be left alone with Harry. "I'll let you conduct this reunion without my presence," she said. "Just make sure to finish before lunch, if you don't want to attract attention. I'll come a few minutes earlier to remind you, if needed."
Sirius waited for Minerva to leave before asking, "Are you and Hermione..."
"We're just friends, at the moment, although we like to think that we're much closer than that. We're not dating yet," Harry said before the question was finished.
"But you plan on dating her, don't you?"
"I plan on spending the rest of my life with her," Harry said as if it was evident.
As much a Sirius would have liked to tease Harry a bit, it was not the right time. He felt he had missed too much of Harry's life and needed to make his way back and gain Harry's trust, at least, before he could let his Marauder side show. "Care to tell me about your life since that dreadful night?" he asked instead.
Harry wasn't too glad to tell about the early years, so he tried to skip over them very quickly. "I don't remember much of the time before I went to school. My uncle didn't like me due to some 'freaky' things happening near me, and he made my cousin act nastily with me. My aunt taught me to do some work around the house as a way to placate him. It didn't work too well. After learning to read, I started spending some time in the library..." He told almost everything since, only skipping over telling where he slept before getting his current room and about the snakes. He sensed that speaking about talking with snakes might not be helpful at this stage. He didn't tell about fading, of course, and certainly not about spending the nights together. None of the adults would even understand it, he was sure.
"Wow! That's quite a story, Pronglet. You must be very powerful to be able to use wandless legilimency and stop Dumbledore from penetrating your mind."
"Why do you call me Pronglet?"
Sirius looked sad for a moment. "Among ourselves, we had some names, derived from our animal forms. James was Prongs. As his son, you are Pronglet."
"You have animal forms?" Hermione couldn't refrain from asking.
Sirius seemed torn between bragging and keeping a secret. Eventually, the former won. "Yes, James and I became Animagii during our third year. My form is a large, black dog, while James was a stag."
"Can everybody turn into an animal?" Hermione asked.
"Very few do it, and not too many are even potentially capable of this. It takes many years of study or, as we've found out, the use of a very difficult and dangerous potion, to even find the potential animal in one, or finding there isn't one at all. Once one finds the inner animal, it's usually much easier to make the transformation, although it requires quite a lot of magic."
"Professor McGonagall is an Animagus. She can transform into a cat and back. We've seen it the first time we had a lesson with her," Harry commented.
Sirius smiled. "Indeed she is. It was her transformation that gave us the courage to try, but we needed Moony, I mean – Remus, to find and brew the potion."
Hermione seemed to drop the subject, as Harry and the two men continued their conversation, telling Harry some more about his parents and about the misdeeds of the Marauders – the group of friends that included the three of them. Unfortunately, they knew much less about Lily, as she only joined with James on their seventh year at Hogwarts.
Hermione seemed very pensive during lunch. Harry could tell that his good friend was contemplating an idea, checking it in her mind from various aspects before trying to reach a conclusion. "A penny for your thoughts," he said when he reached the deserts and she still hadn't said a word.
"I was wondering if we could also try to become Animagii," she said, still sounding a bit detached.
"And...?"
"I'll have to check some books, but I believe we can do it." Her tone became more vivacious. "Don't you ever feel like you could run very fast, or maybe soar on the wind, or any such weird feelings? Or maybe you dream about being a certain animal? I lately have a few such recurring dreams. Don't you?"
Harry gave it a thought. "I had a few such dreams lately. I lie low among the bushes, sighting my prey, and then I run fast and strike, killing the prey with one blow of my front paw or a strong bite of its neck. I must be some kind of predator, a large one, in those dreams."
Hermione gasped. "My dreams are about the same. I think I'm also a kind of large feline. Not a lioness, as they hunt in groups." She concentrated for a moment. "My paw is certainly feline and its fur has some markings, yet I can't remember them clearly." She grabbed her pudding absent-mindedly. "Let's check the library after we finish here."
Except for a few Ravenclaws, the library was quite empty. Hermione looked for some books about Animagii while Harry tried to find as many books as he could about large felines. They both reached "their" preferred table with only two small piles of books. "Let's see what we can learn about the Animagus transformation first," Hermione suggested. "I suspect most practical books about this are in the restricted section, though."
Harry thought she was probably right, as all the books they had found didn't give much detail about the process. All agreed it was very difficult to find one's animal form and then it required a lot of magic and even more internal discipline to achieve the transformation and keep it for any length of time. One book mentioned a potion that could help, only stating it was a very powerful and potentially dangerous potion and only accomplished potion masters should try brewing it.
"They must have found the potion's recipe in the restricted section, or maybe even in the Potter or Black library," Hermione noted.
"And yet we may probably not need it, if our dreams are any indication," Harry noted. "Shall we look at the other books?"
They only browsed through the books, looking at the images. None of the many pictures of lions made them feel anything, except for some admiration for the majestic animals. They also admired the cheetah and the panther, but they really gasped, feeling a strong stirring inside, when they saw the pictures of tigers. Unlike the other large felines, who only live in hot climates, the tigers can live almost everywhere. Some live in the tropics while others live in the cold arctic and others choose moderate climates. It was one of these kinds that made them feel the strongest reaction.
Harry used the spell he had learned at his vault and produced a copy of that book. They put all the books back in their places and left with the copy.
"What shall we do now?" Harry asked her.
Hermione shrugged. "We don't know the details, but all books state that finding your form is the hardest part. As we seem to have found our form, let's try to let our magic do the transformation."
She spotted a door that looked as if nobody had used it for generations. "Let's go into that unused room and see if we can transform."
Hermione first cast a few spells to make the door and the lock move smoothly, before Harry pushed the door open. The room they found was very dusty, with multiple cobwebs criss-crossing above it, yet a few spells cleaned it and made it sparkle almost like new. Without the dust and the dirt, it was just a small classroom with only a handful of desks.
Harry turned back at the door and cast a strong locking charm, also adding a silencing charm. They sat at one of the desks and opened the book. None of them felt any need to talk, as they were in perfect synchronization. Harry leafed through the book until he reached the page with the pictures of the tiger of their choice. They both studied the pictures silently for a few minutes, feeling that steering inside grow stronger. As if given a sign, both stood up and moved to opposite corners of the room, pushing some of the furniture aside, to make more room at the corners.
Harry concentrated on the inner tiger he had found, letting it come out. He was almost unaware of the changes that happened so quickly, before he was standing on all four limbs, feeling his muscles become powerful. Looking at the other corner, he saw a beautiful tigress standing there, her brown eyes looking straight at him.
They couldn't hold that form for long, though. A few seconds later they were back to their human form, looking a bit winded. They still looked at each other with big grins and shining eyes. "We did it!" they both said, and then started laughing.
They were still laughing when they reached the common room. "Why are you laughing?" Ron asked them.
"We just talked about something funny that happened during our vacation. It's something one has to see with one's eyes to realize how funny it is."
Ron grumbled. He didn't like being left out, but none of them was going to tell him any more, that was clearly evident even to Ron.