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Assistant: Title: How to Train Your Animagus
        Author: cherrishish cherrishish 
        Chapter: 63/79 
        Summary: An Unspeakable mishap sends thirty-year-old Hermione Granger tumbling into 1993—straight into the path of a fugitive Animagus with a grudge. She takes him in. He tries to lick her face. It's a long story.Now, armed with future knowledge and one very grumpy Sirius Black, Hermione's got a second chance to fix everything...But changing history means trusting each other—and that might be the most dangerous part.
        Contents: Chapter 63: Hounding the Past
    

    


  

  
  
    
    The Monday session of the Wizengamot was mercifully short—some procedural amendments, a motion about magical transit updates, and a dismal proposal from Greengrass about increasing security in Muggle-heavy boroughs, which was batted down with rare efficiency. Sirius sat through it all with his hands steepled beneath his chin, barely speaking.He wasn’t here to speak today.By the time the chamber began to empty, Sirius was already climbing the stone spiral toward the administrative wing. He found Amelia Bones in her office, monocle gleaming, ink smudged on her sleeve, and several folders hovering mid-sort behind her.She glanced up when he entered. “No headlines today, Black?”He gave a half-smile. “Restraint. I know. It’s unsettling for everyone.”Amelia snorted, flicked her wand to suspend the files, and gestured to the chair opposite her desk. “Sit, then. What’s on your mind?”Sirius settled in, leaning forward. “I want werewolf attack data. All of it. The last couple of decades, if possible.”Amelia arched a brow. “That’s a tall ask.”“I don’t need personal files. Just aggregate data. Dates, regions, victim count. Anything that mentions bite radius, jaw size, whatever forensics you’ve got.”She studied him for a moment, calculating. “You’re laying groundwork.”“I want to prove a pattern,” he said. “My hunch is it’s not ‘werewolves’ plural. Not really. I think it’s one name, maybe two. Greyback. Maybe his immediate pack. But the narrative paints every infected person like a walking nightmare.”Bones hummed, reached into a drawer, and withdrew a thick, charmed binder that unsealed with a flick. “We don’t have complete data—most victims disappear off the grid, especially if they survive. Out of shame, fear, or both. But from what we  do  have?” She flipped to a marked section. “You’re not wrong.”She laid out a series of red-inked reports. Sirius scanned them, jaw tightening.“Most confirmed fatalities follow a particular bite radius,” Amelia explained, tapping a measurement with her wand. “Wide-set canines, deep pierce, asymmetrical jaw angle. It matches what we know of Greyback—his size, strength, speed, even his preferred hunting patterns.”She turned another page. “Secondary pattern—narrower, more erratic. Possibly one of his lieutenants—jaw size suggests someone younger, faster, less controlled. We estimate two to four ‘active’ aggressors account for over seventy per cent of all known fatal or mauling attacks in the last twenty years.”Sirius’s thumb tapped restlessly against his knee, absorbing it. “So the rest…?”“Scattered. Most of them stay hidden. Bite victims who manage their symptoms, don’t register, and don’t attack anyone. The way the public sees it, though—every werewolf is a ticking bomb. And every headline feeds it—another ‘monster in the night’ story, no nuance, just fear. It, of course, doesn’t help that we haven’t been able to catch Greyback.”Sirius leaned back, eyes distant. “So I shift the rhetoric. From punishing all of them to hunting the few who are doing real damage.”“Target the apex predators,” Amelia said quietly. “Turn the sympathy dial up for the rest.”He nodded once. “Ione’s legislation builds recovery programs into its bones. Safe housing. Wolfsbane subsidies. Support for victims who don’t want to disappear.”Amelia gave him a long look, then closed the binder. “If you can tie your bill to enforcement against the real threats, you might get enough traction to make it through the first round. Especially now that you’re riding the high from the elf protections.”Sirius gave a faint, sardonic smile. “That was Griselda’s win.”“She made them listen,” Amelia agreed. “But you started the conversation. Don’t stop now.”“I won’t,” he said, rising. “But I’m giving it one more week. Let the press cycle settle.”Amelia grunted in approval. “Strategic restraint. Merlin help us. You’re turning into a politician.”“Bite your tongue.”But he left with a clearer path forward—and, more importantly, proof that the problem had a name.And it wasn’t werewolves.It was  Greyback.The smell of old parchment hit Sirius the moment he stepped through the front door. Not unusual, not in a house like this—but the intensity of it, the sheer concentration of candlewax and enchanted ink, told him all he needed to know.He found her exactly where he feared: neck-deep in a fortress of books, scrolls, and loose parchment, one socked foot propped on the edge of her chair, the other leg folded underneath her. The library table was an organised nightmare—half a dozen grimoires open to competing pages, a Muggle cryptography manual wedged precariously between a Treatise on Temporal Syntax and something ominously labelled  Logics of Sacrifice. Her wand floated mid-air above one page, quill scribbling furiously behind it, parchment unravelling to the floor like a second carpet.And at the centre of it, like the eye of some very stressed magical hurricane, sat Ione Lupin—hair sticking up on one side, ink smudged across her wrist, and muttering softly in a tone that suggested she was either about to solve the puzzle of the century or combust.Sirius leaned on the doorframe. “Have you eaten today?”No response.“Ione?”Nothing.He stepped forward. “Hey, code-breaker. Sunshine. Love of my life.”Still nothing.Sirius narrowed his eyes, walked up behind her, and gently plucked the hovering quill out of mid-air. The charm fizzled. Ione startled, blinking up at him like she was surfacing from another realm.“What—? Sirius, I was—I’m onto something with the ordinal layer of the fourth volume, I think there’s a misaligned substitution matrix—”“Have. You. Eaten.” He said it slowly, each word its own patient beat.She blinked again, like she was having to remember what food was.“I... had tea?” she offered, half-hearted.He stared. She offered a helpless shrug.Sirius sighed, very dramatically, and without another word, reached down and picked her up out of the chair.“Sirius!” she yelped, flailing slightly as he carried her out of the room. “Put me down—I was mid-decryption!”“You were mid-meltdown,” he said firmly. “You look two minutes from yanking your hair out and hexing the table for smugness. Which I think means it’s dinner time.”“I don’t need coddling,” she grumbled, thumping her head against his shoulder. “I need a breakthrough.”“You’ll have one. But not while running on fumes and magical caffeine.”He carried her down the stairs, ignoring her muttered objections, and deposited her gently at the kitchen table. Kreacher was already there, polishing silver and muttering to himself in some ongoing argument with the salt shaker.“Kreacher,” Sirius said, flicking the kettle on with a wave of his wand. “Whatever’s quick and restorative. Something she won’t argue with.”Kreacher glanced at Ione—frizzed hair, glazed eyes, stack of notes still clutched stubbornly in one hand—and gave a long, suffering sigh.“Of course, Master Black,” he said. “Mistress Ione will eat. Kreacher will make sure.”“Good,” Sirius said, pulling up a chair beside her. “Because she won’t listen to me.”Ione glanced at Kreacher, then back at Sirius. “Did you just outsource my self-care?”“I absolutely did,” he said. “Kreacher is now in charge of making sure you eat, drink, and blink more than once every fifteen minutes. He’ll bring you food, water, and if you try to skip a meal, I’m arming him with guilt-inducing anecdotes about Walburga.”Kreacher, looking a little too gleeful about that last part, nodded solemnly. “Mistress Ione must not collapse from brilliance. Mistress must  sip and chew.”Ione buried her face in her hands. “This is an intervention.”“Yes,” Sirius said, plucking a loose scroll from her hand and rolling it up. “Yes, it is.”Kreacher shuffled off to make a quick soup and buttered bread, and Sirius leaned in, brushing a kiss to her temple.“You’re allowed to be clever and human, you know. One doesn’t cancel out the other.”She sighed, softer now, and rested her head on his shoulder. “I know. I just... want to get it right.”“You will,” he murmured. “But you don’t have to crack Ravenclaw’s brain maze in one sitting.”Kreacher returned with a tray and, to Ione’s eternal surprise, the soup smelled amazing.She took a spoonful, sighed, and whispered, “Alright. Maybe I was a little… intense.”Sirius just grinned. “You’re brilliant. And brilliantly loved. Eat your soup.”And she did.Tuesday afternoon, Sirius was halfway through drafting what he hoped might be a moving—or at least not wildly offensive—speech on werewolf rights when he heard a sudden clatter of footsteps pounding up the stairs outside his study.Not even a full minute later, the same set of feet came thundering back down.He blinked, quill frozen in mid-air.It could only be Ione. Kreacher didn’t make that much noise, and he Apparated anyway. Sirius waited for a moment, listening, as the pattern repeated—upstairs, downstairs, faster than any self-respecting, book-loving, post-transplant witch had business moving around a house.He set his parchment aside.Now, he knew she’d been cleared for physical activity. But he was reasonably sure that didn’t include a full stair workout across three floors. And what was she even doing? Testing for trick steps?He sighed, stood, and followed the sound.He found her in the corridor outside the second-floor linen cupboard, wand out, hair escaping its clip, and the faint fizz of magic thick in the air. A long, translucent thread of spellwork shimmered between the top bannister and something glowing faintly on the landing below. The rest of the house appeared to be holding its breath.She didn’t look up.Sirius leaned against the wall, arms crossed. “I see you’re taking a break from decoding?”“Shhh,” Ione said, not unkindly, eyes narrowed in focus. “Trying to concentrate. If this spell desynchronises by more than three seconds, the feedback loop’ll trigger the stasis charm in the wrong direction and freeze the whole landing.”“…Right,” Sirius said slowly. “So. Definitely not exercising, then.”“I  was exercising,” she murmured, waving her wand in an intricate figure-eight and muttering under her breath. “My patience. With how irritating Rowena Ravenclaw was.”“Ah,” he said, watching a runestone the size of a thumbnail float past his shoulder. “So what  is  this supposed to do?”“If it works?” she said, stepping over a pulsing thread of spellwork without hesitation, “It’ll create a warded relay that runs along the stairwell, tracking magical resonance spikes and archiving them into a simplified pattern array.”Sirius squinted. “So… a magical... echo net?”“Yes. With tagging,” she added, as though that clarified everything.He watched for another beat as she darted down two steps to adjust a floating sigil. Her socks slid slightly on the polished floor. Her hair sparked faintly with static. The landing was now home to four flickering glyphs and a very nervous coat rack.Sirius nodded, backing away slowly. “I’m just going to… not interrupt whatever ancient Ravenclaw ritual you’ve converted into a stair trap.”“Appreciated,” she muttered, wand flicking again. “If I vanish, I’m probably in a resonance loop. Leave biscuits near the binding point and send Kreacher with a retrieval spell.”“Right you are,” Sirius said, disappearing back down the corridor. “Do try not to enchant the bannisters permanently.”Behind him, he could’ve sworn he heard her say, “Too late.”Later that evening, they sat at the kitchen table, the remnants of dinner scattered between them—roast beef, half a loaf of sourdough, and a pot of something that might have been an attempted pudding. Kreacher had long since retreated to the pantry, muttering contentedly about proper tea schedules and Mistress Ione’s excellent taste in cutlery.Sirius leaned back in his chair, swirling the last of his wine. “So. That little stairwell experiment of yours… was that meant to help with the Albanian valley?”Ione, who had been absently pushing peas into a perfect hexagon on her plate, immediately brightened. “Yes! I mean, kind of. The idea just  hit  me—if the valley is echo-locked, and if those echoes behave like magical resonance, maybe we could map out where the most volatile concentrations are and avoid them.”Sirius raised an eyebrow. “And you thought… Grimmauld’s stairwell was the best stand-in for an ancient, cursed forest?”“The bannisters mimic the structural interference of the trees,” she said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Not perfectly, but good enough to test whether a warded relay could track magical rebound patterns in real time.”Sirius blinked. “So… no actual decoding done today?”“None whatsoever,” Ione chirped. “But I did invent a rudimentary echo-mapping protocol. Priorities.”He rubbed a hand over his face. “So what does that mean for the stairwell now?”“Oh.” She picked up her goblet. “If someone casts a spell there, it’ll be recorded on a parchment in the library. The charm tracks how the energy rebounds off surfaces—like ripple mapping in water, you know? The spell trajectories will appear as shifting lines—light, wavelength, bounce direction. I even charmed it to annotate the velocity decay if the spell hits a corner.”Sirius set down his fork. “So. If our descendants ever decide to renovate the house and come across a piece of enchanted parchment drawing wave patterns every time someone sneezes near the stairs…”“They’ll think we were eccentric geniuses.”“They’ll think you were eccentric. I’ll be blamed by association.”Ione smirked. “As it should be.”He gave a long-suffering sigh. “Anything else you invented today?”“Oh! Yes.” She sat up straighter. “I finished that automatic addressing charm. It replicates my handwriting, formats the guest names, and seals the envelopes. I think it’s close to the one Hogwarts uses for the acceptance letters—auto-sorting, auto-updating, the whole works.”Sirius stared at her. “Why?”She met his gaze evenly. “If you want to hand-address two hundred wedding invitations, be my guest.”“…Never mind.”“Thought so.”Sirius raised his goblet. “To magical efficiency.”Ione clinked hers against his with a smirk. “And to not spending the next three weeks cross-eyed and cursing parchment.”The drawing room at Grimmauld Place no longer resembled the one Narcissa remembered. The suffocating curtains and velvet-draped gloom had vanished, replaced by soft grey walls, elegant ivory wainscoting, and wide windows enchanted to let in light that actually looked like sunlight. The air smelled faintly of citrus and magic polish.Narcissa sat perched on a reupholstered settee with the practised grace of someone who always made a room look like it had been designed around her. Her teacup hovered, untouched but steaming, on a delicate saucer of bone china.“I will admit,” she said at last, “Claire Fawley has done wonders. I scarcely recognised the room. There used to be a family tree tapestry here—ghastly thing.”Ione nodded, folding her hands in her lap. “Yes, that one caught fire. Tragic accident.”Narcissa raised a brow but didn’t press. “And the portrait in the hallway?”“Moved to the attic,” Ione replied smoothly. “Soundproofed, warded, still screeching.”Just then, Kreacher popped in with a tray of tea cakes and another round of Earl Grey. He placed the service with unusual precision, bowed, and turned to Narcissa.“Mistress Narcissa,” he said, his voice full of awe and loyalty. “An honour. It warms Kreacher’s heart to see a proper Black again.”Narcissa’s lips curved faintly in satisfaction. “You remember me, then.”“Of course, Mistress,” Kreacher said with a reverent bow. “But I serve Mistress Ione now.”The pivot was subtle, but unmistakable. He turned to Ione next with a look of complete deference. “Will Mistress need anything else?”“No, Kreacher. Thank you,” Ione said warmly.Narcissa blinked. Once. Her teacup hovered back to her hand automatically, but she didn’t sip. “He’s... changed.”Ione took a delicate bite of her lemon biscuit. “We’ve reached an understanding.”“Hm.” Narcissa examined the rim of her cup. “He used to be more... finicky.”“He still is,” Ione said dryly. “Just in more productive directions.”There was a pause, the teacups tinkling gently as they were set back down.Then Ione smiled—gracious but firm. “I wanted to thank you for your help with the guest list. Truly. But I do wonder if you might... ease back just a little?”Narcissa’s lashes fluttered. “Ease back?”“We’re currently up to two hundred and twelve confirmed,” Ione said lightly. “And I did notice a few... strategic placements. Wizengamot wives. Beatrix Gamp’s cousin twice removed. At least four distant French relatives who may or may not be imaginary.”Narcissa inclined her head coolly. “Appearances matter. The wedding is an opportunity. The House of Black can step forward again—publicly. Properly. With dignity. You cannot buy that kind of repute.”“But it’s not a campaign,” Ione said softly. “It’s a wedding. Our wedding. And we won’t be leaving off people just because they’re not the right bloodline or name. Or to make space for people who frankly I don’t give a d@mn about.”Narcissa’s eyes narrowed slightly, but Ione didn’t yield.“I won’t cross off the Weasleys,” she continued. “Ron is Harry’s friend. They’re family to him, and if he’s invited, it’s only right to invite them all. I know you and Molly don’t share politics or aesthetics, but she’s not going anywhere.”A long pause. Then Narcissa, after a very dainty sip of tea, said, “...Fine. But if she insists on wearing orange, I reserve the right to sigh audibly.”“Noted.”At that moment, the Floo flared green, and Sirius stepped through, brushing soot off his cloak with a slight scowl. He froze mid-motion when he saw the tableau before him: his cousin, porcelain perfection; his fiancée, calm as the eye of a storm.“Am I... interrupting?”“Oh, good, you’re home,” Ione said brightly, gesturing to the empty armchair. “We were just finalising the guest list. Any additions you think we’ve missed? Because if not, I’m ready to start sending out the invites.”Sirius blinked. “Invites? I didn’t even know we had the designs yet.”“I did that Tuesday afternoon,” Ione said with a breezy shrug. “Along with the charm to automatically duplicate and address each one. I told you about that.”Narcissa straightened slightly. “Wait. You’re not hand-addressing them?”“Well—yes and no. The charm will replicate my handwriting, but I’m not writing out two hundred envelopes by hand. Magical healing or no, I’m not risking carpal tunnel for the sake of invitations.”Sirius bit his lower lip, trying not to laugh, because Ione would most definitely risk carpal tunnel for an intense research note-taking session, though.Narcissa looked scandalised, like she’d just been told the wedding cake would be store-bought, but also kind of impressed that she devised a spell like that.“You know,” Sirius added, grinning as he dropped into the empty chair, “the old Grimmauld Place wouldn’t have survived this conversation. A guest list with Weasleys, a charm for envelopes, civil tea between you and Narcissa? The curtains would’ve caught fire.”He leaned toward Narcissa conspiratorially. “But I’m glad you’re here.”She raised her brow. “Don’t get used to it.”“I never do,” Sirius said.And Ione just smiled, poured another round of tea, and thought—not bad for a house that in another life used to hiss at her when she walked past the curtains.The March air was brisk but tolerable, the sort of wind that whipped at cloaks and brought a flush to cheeks without freezing one’s bones. The stands of the Hogwarts Quidditch Pitch were already filling with colour and noise—scarlet banners clashing against sunshine-yellow, enchanted lions roaring periodically from Gryffindor corner while a badger-shaped windsock flapped loyally on the Hufflepuff end.Ione adjusted her scarf as they climbed the wooden steps. Her cheeks were pink from the walk, and she clutched a warm paper cup of cocoa that Sirius had insisted on fetching from the vendor carts, even if she wasn’t allowed to drink it in crowds yet. Nice way to blend in, he said. She suspected he just wanted two for himself and would steal this one somewhere down the line. He walked ahead slightly, as if making space without hovering.“You alright?” he called back.“I’m fine,” she said, smiling faintly. “It’s nice. Being here.”They found their seats just as the students began filing in below. Sirius spotted McGonagall in the staff row and gave a polite nod—only to realise the stern witch was already watching them, brows raised not with suspicion, but mild curiosity. Flitwick was waving. Sprout gave them a hearty smile. Remus, already seated, gestured toward the empty spots beside him.Ione’s eyes drifted toward McGonagall, who was flipping through a small leather-bound notebook.Sirius leaned in. “Do you want me to—?”“No,” Ione said, already standing straighter. “I want to say hello.”She moved down the row with composed grace and approached McGonagall with the air of someone stepping into a long-overdue conversation.“Headmistress McGonagall?” she asked politely.McGonagall looked up. “Yes?”Ione offered a hand. “Ione Lupin. I’m—Remus’s cousin. And Sirius’s fiancée. And I’ve long admired your work.”McGonagall’s eyes sharpened. “Ah. Yes. I’ve heard much about you.” She stood, shaking her hand. “It’s good to finally meet you. Are you enjoying Hogwarts?”“Very much. Though I suspect today’s seating chart will be less dignified than what I’m used to.” Ione’s tone was warm, slightly playful.A smile tugged at the corner of McGonagall’s mouth. “Quite likely.”Ione paused, eyes narrowing with academic delight. “May I ask—your Animagus form is a tabby cat, correct? With square markings around the eyes?”McGonagall blinked. “Indeed. You’re well-informed.”Ione inclined her head. “I’m a registered Animagus as well. Siamese.”McGonagall’s brows rose. “Siamese? Fascinating. Sleek. Keen-sensed. Territorial.” Her tone was approving. “And terribly loyal.”“Just so,” Ione said with a small smile. “I’ve always believed that Animagus forms aren’t just magical manifestations, but mirrors. Not of who we pretend to be, but of who we are at our most instinctive.”McGonagall’s expression shifted from polite interest to something far sharper. Focused. Alive. “Exactly. Most people assume Animagus transformation is about control. Mastery. But it’s more revealing than that. The form doesn’t lie. It’s not about what’s useful—it’s about what’s true.”“Yes,” Ione breathed. “It’s like... the body reveals what the mind would rather keep hidden. I never would have chosen a Siamese cat—too delicate, I thought. Too elegant for someone who prefers books and grit to beauty. But then I realised—Siamese aren’t delicate. They’re ferociously loyal. Clever. Impossibly loud when ignored. And yes, they bond hard. That’s... me. More than I wanted to admit.”McGonagall’s mouth curved, not into a smile exactly, but something warmer than usual. “I’ve always said a tabby suits me for the same reasons I’ve been underestimated. People see stripes and domesticity. But they miss the watching. The stillness before the pounce. The spine of steel beneath the softness.”They both laughed, quiet and knowing.“I’ve been thinking,” Ione said, lowering her voice slightly. “How many wizards misinterpret their forms completely? They try to shift into something grand, or useful in battle. But the magic isn’t choosing based on power. It chooses what we need to understand about ourselves.”“Yes,” McGonagall agreed, her eyes sharp as needles now. “Form follows truth. It’s like a magical subconscious. It doesn’t cater to vanity or ambition—it offers insight. And often, correction.”“And it never gets it wrong.”“Never,” McGonagall echoed. “But it takes humility to see it. To look at your form and ask, ‘What does this say about how I survive? How I protect? What I fear?’” She tilted her head, birdlike. “Most witches and wizards fail not because they lack talent, but because they lack the courage to face that reflection. Because what if your form says you’re prey instead of predator? Or worse—something clever, quiet, unseen?”Behind them, Sirius turned slowly toward Remus. “I feel like I just got replaced.”Remus didn’t look up from his program. “You did.”Sirius leaned on the rail and muttered, “Based on what I just heard, we should’ve known Peter wasn’t trustworthy.”“Mm,” Remus said mildly. “Hindsight’s twenty-twenty.”Their quiet exchange was interrupted by the soft rustle of black robes and a sudden shimmer of spellwork.Snape had arrived.He didn’t sit. Instead, he walked directly up to where Sirius stood and cast a discreet Muffliato with a flick of his wand. “If she’s here,” he said in his usual low, dry tone, “does that mean the decoding is done?”Sirius didn’t even blink. “Not even close. I practically dragged her here. If she spent one more minute hunched over those grimoires, Grimmauld would have folded in on itself from sheer magical tension.”Snape glanced toward the benches where Ione and McGonagall were still deep in enthusiastic debate, their heads tilted close, gesturing animatedly with half-empty cocoa cups.“You’re not wrong,” Snape said, almost resigned. “Her owl bit me yesterday. Twice.”Sirius smirked. “You probably deserved it.”Before Snape could retort, a sudden hush fell over their section.Sirius turned and realised that nearly the entire teaching row—McGonagall, Flitwick, Sprout—were all watching them.He was standing shoulder to shoulder with Severus Snape. And not hexing him.Sprout leaned into Flitwick. “Is that a truce?”“Must be a disturbance in the ley lines,” Flitwick whispered. “Or Jupiter’s gone retrograde.”McGonagall raised a brow at them. “Is the world ending, or just delayed?”Ione returned to her seat beside Sirius, clearly catching the last bit. “Severus and I have been consulting on some projects,” she said mildly. “Forced proximity can do wonders.”“Still unnatural,” McGonagall muttered, but her lips twitched.Snape looked skyward. “If I end up in the Prophet for ‘cordial conversation with Black,’ I’m throwing you both into a Pensieve of tedium.”“Too late,” Sirius said. “You’re already part of the bridal narrative.”Snape turned and walked away without another word. The moment the spell dropped, Sirius heard someone snort two rows down.He turned back to Ione, who was watching the sky. “You’re enjoying this.”“Enormously,” she murmured.A whistle blew far above. The crowd roared as the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff teams soared into view. The match was about to begin.And for now, Sirius decided, they could just enjoy the game. Even if their lives felt like an absurd, high-stakes farce written by a drunk Divination professor with a flair for drama.The final whistle blew to a cascade of cheers and groans—Gryffindor victorious, Hufflepuff gracious in their loss. The sky was a blur of red and gold as students spilled down the stands in celebration. Ione lingered for a moment, letting the rush pass her by, before making her way toward the shadows beneath the viewing platform.Snape hadn’t left. Of course, he hadn’t. He stood with arms folded, half in shadow, watching the chaos with an expression that could have been disdain—or tolerance by his standards.Ione approached slowly, scarf tucked tighter against the wind. “Brave of you,” she said mildly, “approaching Sirius in front of all your former professors. Public reconciliation is very fashionable these days.”Snape didn’t turn. “Lucius Malfoy wasn’t here. That helped.”She arched a brow. “He only comes to Slytherin matches, then?”“He likes to win,” Snape said dryly. “Not that Potter gave them a chance at the last match.”Ione hummed. “Understandable. Sirius only turns out for Harry’s games.”They stood in silence a moment, the wind tugging at their cloaks, the pitch below still echoing with cheers and victory chants.Finally, Snape said, “The grimoires. I assume you’re stuck as well.”Ione sighed, tired. “Every time I feel like I’m getting close—like I’ve almost aligned the layers—it shifts the text again. It’s like trying to solve a Rubik’s cube where the colours change mid-turn.”Snape gave a low, humourless sound. “Lily used to do something similar. With her experimental potion notes.”Ione blinked. “Lily?”“She didn’t want anyone reading them,” he said, voice very carefully neutral. “So she encoded them. Magically layered encryption tied to intent. If you weren’t thinking in the right pattern—if your approach was wrong—it scrambled the output. Useless to anyone but her.”“She did that?” Ione asked, startled. “I knew she was brilliant, but...”“She was obsessed,” Snape said flatly, “with Turing. Enigma. Everything related to the Second World War. Said there was elegance in the simplicity of pattern disruption. I used to think she was just being contrary.” He paused. “I wish—well. It doesn’t matter. You can’t talk to the dead.”Ione’s breath caught.Guilt flickered like a candle guttering in her chest. “Give me a moment,” she said quietly.She crossed the pitch, letting the wind mask her sudden unease. Sirius was mid-congratulations, ruffling Harry’s windswept hair, his smile bright and loud.Beside them stood Cedric Diggory, handsome and dignified even in defeat, clapping Harry on the shoulder like a good sport. Ione’s throat tightened. The sight of him—alive and well, smiling in the sunlight—still undid her sometimes. She offered him a brief, grateful smile before turning to Harry.“Congratulations,” she said warmly. “That was an excellent match.”“Ione!” Harry beamed. “Did you see the Wronski feint?”Sirius laughed. “You’re assuming she knows what that is, Harry.”Ione scoffed. “I dated a Quidditch player back in my day, thank you very much. I know exactly what a Wronski feint is.” Sirius looked mock-scandalised at the thought of Ione with a Quidditch player, but she didn’t pay him any mind, and instead shot Harry a wry look. “And you executed it flawlessly. Though I could’ve done without the heart attack.”Harry grinned. “That’s how you know it worked.”Cedric chuckled beside him. “That’s how you know he’s insane.”Sirius smirked. “He gets it from me.”Ione laughed softly, but her eyes drifted back across the pitch, where Snape still lingered beneath the stands, a solitary black mark against the bright afternoon. Her smile faded—flattened into something quieter, more serious. She reached for Sirius’s arm, fingers curling just above his wrist.She hesitated. He had shared so much—trusted her with his grief, his fire, his ghosts. But this ghost wasn’t his to summon.“Don’t get mad at me,” she said, low.Sirius turned to look at her properly, brow furrowing. “Why would I be mad?”“I’m going to use the stone again,” she said.His expression didn’t change at once—but something in his posture tightened. Not with fear. With memory. “Why?” he asked, more measured now. “Who this time?”“The doe-hearted girl,” Ione murmured. Her gaze flicked to where Harry was talking animatedly with Cedric, not listening—but still nearby. She kept her voice soft, careful. “I think… she might be able to help with the codes.”Sirius’s eyes narrowed as he followed her glance back toward Snape. “Did he put you up to this?”“No,” she said quickly. “He doesn’t know yet. But when he mentioned how she used to encrypt her potions work—layered charms, intent-bound matrices—it felt familiar. Too familiar. If anyone could make sense of a shifting cypher designed to resist traditional decryption, it’s her.”He was silent for a long beat.She waited. Not pressing. Just letting the moment hang between them like a tightrope—centred between two ghosts.“Alright,” he said at last, the word not quite soft, not quite resigned—but real.Ione let out the breath she hadn’t realised she was holding.“But,” he added, eyes still fixed on Snape, “I’m staying close. I’m not leaving you alone with the pair of you summoning ghosts and finishing each other’s Arithmantic sentences.”That earned a dry laugh. “Fair.”She nodded, wordless. Grateful. Guilty. Steadier with him there.“Just give me a moment,” Sirius said, turning back to Harry. “Harry, sorry, something came up, we gotta run, but try not to dismantle the Gryffindor common room during the party, yeah?”“Tell that to Wood. He is convinced we are winning the cup this year.”“Pretty sure that’s a possibility if you don’t get caught up staring at Cho Chang’s eyes instead of the Snitch,” Sirius teased, and Cedric disguised an embarrassed snort as a cough.“Sirius!”“Sorry, pup. Godfatherly responsibility to embarrass you at least once in your life.”By the time they arrived back at Grimmauld Place, Snape was still visibly unsettled—though he would never admit it. He followed them into the drawing room with his usual composure, but there was an edge to his silence, a suspicion simmering just beneath his expression.Ione didn’t sit. Instead, she went directly upstairs and returned a minute later with a small, rune-sealed box, its lacquered surface humming faintly with layered protections. She placed it gently on the low table between them and unlatched the wards with a quick series of charms, the air in the room tightening like a held breath.Snape watched warily, his arms folded tight across his chest. “What is this, exactly?”“What I’m about to show you cannot leave this room,” Ione said. “In a way, this little thing is probably more dangerous than any cursed artefact in existence. Somewhere around the level of the Mirror of Erised… except worse.”“Worse?” Snape echoed, arching a brow.“Because with this, you don’t just see what you want most. You speak to it. You touch it.”She lifted the black stone from the velvet-lined box. It was small and unremarkable at first glance, save for the faint engraving of a circle within a triangle. But the magic around it thrummed like a living pulse.Snape frowned. “What is it?”“The Resurrection Stone,” she said simply.He blinked. Then blinked again, slower this time. “The  Tale of the Three Brothers? Really?”“Yes, really,” Ione said calmly. “It’s not a fable. Or rather, it is—but one rooted in truth. This is one of the Hallows.”Snape’s eyes narrowed. “And you’re just handing it around like a trinket from Borgin and Burke’s?”“No,” she said. “But I think… it’s best if Sirius summons her.”His brow knit. “‘Her’?”Sirius accepted the stone with both hands. For a moment, he only stared at it. Then he exhaled—long and quiet—and turned it three times.“Lily Jane Potter.”The air in the room shifted.The shadows deepened, and then pulled back like a tide retreating. A shimmer formed—pale, luminescent—coalescing into the unmistakable shape of a woman.Lily stood before them, red hair falling around her shoulders, green eyes shining with awareness and more than a bit of indignation.“Finally!” she snapped at Sirius, arms folded. “Honestly, you summon James and leave me hanging for months? Not even a ‘hi’? What was I to you? Chopped liver?”Sirius blinked, utterly caught off guard. “Er—sorry?” he offered weakly, because what else was there to say? She had always been a fiery one.Then Lily’s gaze shifted—sweeping the room, the warmth in her expression faltering slightly.She looked at Ione, taking her in with a flicker of confusion.“Hi. I’m sorry, have we—?”Then her eyes landed on Snape.Everything froze.“Sev,” she breathed.The name broke through the air like glass cracking under pressure. It held shock. Hurt. And beneath it all—something quieter. Something wistful. Unresolved.Snape’s breath left him like someone had punched him. He stared at her, pale and completely unguarded in a way Ione had never seen. His mouth opened. Then closed again. No words came.“I didn’t think,” Lily said softly. “I didn’t think I’d see you again like this.”Still nothing from Snape.“I—” she faltered, the fire in her fading to something uncertain. “You look... tired.”He gave a short exhale, barely audible. His voice, when it came, was rough. “You haven’t changed.”“And you have,” Lily replied gently. “But not in the way people think.”Silence settled over them again, thick with years of regret and grief. Ione didn’t interrupt. Even Sirius didn’t speak, though his fingers tightened subtly around the edge of the sofa cushion.At last, Lily turned to Ione. “You brought me here?”Ione nodded, voice low. “I think you can help us.”Lily’s eyes sharpened. “With what?”“The kind of magic that hides itself,” Ione said. “You used to write your potion notes in ways no one else could read.”A smile tugged at the corner of Lily’s mouth. “Paranoid, weren’t we, Sev?”Snape gave a breath that might’ve been a laugh. Or a sigh. “You always made me work for it.”“I’ll make you work for this, too,” Lily said, and turned back to Ione. “Alright. Show me the code.”The library was quiet but humming with restrained energy. Ione had already cleared the table and summoned the grimoires from their protective wards, laying them out with a reverence usually reserved for ancient relics or volatile spellwork. Lily stood beside her, very much present—not translucent like a memory, but solid-seeming, real enough that Sirius had to remind himself she wasn’t alive.Snape hadn’t moved far from the door. He stood with his arms crossed tightly, his usual composure visibly fraying at the edges, eyes flickering to Lily whenever he thought she wasn’t looking.Ione passed the first open volume to Lily, flipping it to the page that had given her the most trouble. “We’ve tried Arithmantic reduction, intent-binding sequences, mirror logic, even Muggle frequency analysis. Nothing holds. It changes when you look too long.”Lily scanned the page, eyes narrowing. “That’s because it’s not meant to be read directly. It’s reactive. Clever.” Her hands ghosted over the surface without touching. “There’s a matrix embedded here—intent-bound, like you said—but it’s layered with… sentiment? That’s new.”“What do you mean?” Ione asked, leaning in.“She encoded it with emotional memory anchors. Like mood-based occlumency triggers, but inverted. The cypher adapts to the reader’s state. Calm, curious, respectful? You get something closer to the truth. Angry, rushed, desperate?” Lily frowned. “You get nonsense. Or worse.”“Like a magical Turing test,” Ione murmured, half in awe. “It judges the reader.”Lily nodded. “Exactly.”Sirius, watching from a nearby chair, exhaled. “So can you break it?”Lily hesitated.“I can feel how she built it,” she said finally. “It’s like having a recipe in your mouth but not knowing how to write it down.” She ran a hand through her shimmering red hair in frustration. “I keep thinking I’m about to get it—and then it slips. The page realigns.”Snape’s voice came low and sharp from across the room. “Try the harmonic series.”“I did,” Lily replied without turning. “Then I tried the inverse harmonic progression, and then your old rotating sigil trick from fifth year. It backfired.”Snape gave a reluctant nod. “She always layered her work too tightly. I warned her not to bind formulae to emotional thresholds. She called me rigid.”“You were,” Lily said mildly. “But you were right.”Sirius sat back with a faint frown. “You’ve been here a while.”Lily looked at him, then at her own hands—translucent now, just slightly. She flexed her fingers and watched them fade back to solidity.“Yeah,” she said, and smiled faintly. “James didn’t last this long. Nor did Regulus.”“Why?” Ione asked quietly.Lily shrugged. “Sheer bl@@dy stubbornness.”That made Sirius snort. “Always was your defining quality.”“Yours too,” she shot back.The air warmed with that shared levity, but the parchment remained unchanged, stubborn in its silence.Lily closed the book slowly. “I’m sorry. I can’t get in. I know how she thought. I can see where she was going. But the final key isn’t here.” She looked up at Ione. “It’s with something—or someone—she trusted more than herself. This book doesn’t want a reader. It wants a partner.”Ione’s brows drew together. “You think it’s waiting for a specific magical signature?”“Or a kind of resonance,” Lily said. “She may have linked it to someone’s presence. Or someone’s loss.”Snape said nothing, but his posture stiffened.“I’m sorry,” Lily said again, this time to both of them. “I wanted to help.”“You did help,” Ione said gently. “You’ve given me a whole new angle.”Sirius exhaled. “You can stay, if you like.”Lily gave him a look—fond, teasing, edged with melancholy. “You can’t keep me. You know that.”“Can’t blame me for trying.”She stepped back slightly, her image flickering now in and out of focus, like sunlight through water.“I’ll pass on a message,” she said quietly. “To James. And to Regulus.”“Tell them…” Sirius hesitated. “Tell them we’re trying.”“I will,” she said. “You’re doing better than any of us ever could.”Then, softer still, to Snape: “I’m glad you chose the right side in the end, Sev. Do try to enjoy life a little, though, yeah? Not everything starts and ends with me.”Snape said nothing. His gaze dropped, not to the floor—but to something inward, something unreachable. Whatever he felt, it stayed locked behind the silence he’d mastered since boyhood.Lily didn’t wait for a reply.The moment she vanished, the room felt noticeably colder. The silence after her departure was the kind that pressed in on the lungs.Snape stepped forward, his eyes fixed on the closed grimoire, clearly occluding Lily’s last message away until he could process it in solitude. “She was right. It’s not about logic. It’s about connection.”“Then maybe,” Ione said, closing the box around the stone with reverent care, “we need to stop treating it like a code. And start treating it like a conversation.”The room remained suspended in silence long after Lily vanished—her presence collapsing like a spell’s final note, leaving behind the faintest shimmer of residual magic. The air still held her somehow, charged with memory and something like the scent of ozone and lemon soap.Snape hadn’t moved. He stood rigid by the table, his eyes locked on the grimoire she hadn’t been able to solve. Whatever hope had sparked when she’d first appeared was gone now, smothered under a familiar weight of unfinished words and unmet glances.Ione, hands careful and steady, closed the warded box around the Resurrection Stone. Her touch was reverent, like she was folding away not just a relic, but the heartbeat of something unbearably human. The click of the clasp felt too loud in the quiet.Sirius remained by the edge of the table, arms crossed, his mouth a taut line. But his mind was clearly spinning. The room felt full of unspoken questions—until he broke the silence, sharp and sudden.“Wait a minute.”Ione looked up. Snape glanced at him warily.Sirius’s brow was furrowed, but his eyes were alight with the sharp gleam of sudden, unwelcome logic. “If Rowena designed this to be readable only in the presence of a particular magical resonance—something emotional, attuned, possibly inherited…”“Sirius—” Ione began.“No, hear me out.” He pushed off from the table, pacing. “We know Helena Ravenclaw—the Grey Lady—guarded the diadem’s location. She told Riddle where it was. He wouldn’t have found that echo-locked valley in Albania without her.”Ione’s breath caught. “You think she could read the grimoires?”“It’s the only thing that makes sense. She was Rowena’s daughter. Her blood. She’d been to Albania. She’s the one who told Riddle about the place in the first place. Why not assume he convinced her to help with the grimoires as well?”Snape exhaled slowly, with all the weariness of a man resigned to complication. “Oh joy. More cryptic ghost conversations.”“Good thing you already have a rapport with her,” Sirius said, smirking. “I bet she loved hearing we’d destroyed the diadem.”“She did, actually,” Snape said, tone flat. “She was furious it had been defiled by the Dark Lord. Her words.”Ione stepped in gently, her voice thoughtful. “It’s worth trying. If this is emotional magic—coded to bloodlines, grief, guilt, whatever Rowena layered into her protections—we’ll never unlock it without the right resonance in the room.”Snape was silent for a moment. His expression folded into something tight, brittle, but resolved.Then, grudgingly, “Agreed.”Ione glanced at the closed grimoire. “Then we go to Hogwarts.”Sirius met her gaze. “Tomorrow?”“Tomorrow,” she said. And this time, no one objected.For a long moment after the words settled, no one moved.Snape’s eyes drifted to the small warded box now sitting quietly on the side table, the Resurrection Stone sealed once more inside. His gaze lingered—not with longing, but with calculation. Possibility. Memory.Whatever he was considering, it flickered across his face and vanished.He turned sharply on his heel, cloak whispering behind him like a final page turned too quickly, and left the room without a word.Ione watched him go. Sirius did too.But neither stopped him.Not this time.'
User: Summarize the chapter based on the content provided, ensuring to follow the set format and emphasize key aspects within the specified length.
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