Turn it Baby

Foreign Magical Regions
(Romance)​

On the eve of the Yule Ball, every boy who had looked for a girlfriend to take for a spin on the magical parquet had by now either struck lucky or out. Who were the belles of the place, those twirling human parasols glittering in the light of a thousand floating candles? Fleur Delacour, Cho Chang, Katie Bell, Daphne Greengrass; a host of unnamed giggling dames from Hogwarts; a few rough-shod beauties from impenetrable, dark Durmstrang; and, of course, the ever beautiful and haughty gals from Beauxbatons. A gathering of rich and beautiful all around, like you’d find it nowhere else on the world right then. And there, right there, sitting at the edge of the whole circus, twiddling his thumbs: Harry Potter—Slayer of Basilisks, Tormenter of Dementors, Acquaintance of Werewolves, Time Traveler, Freedom Fighter for Convicts, Lousy Chess Player, Unwitting Party to Tom Riddle’s Continuous Attempts at Resurrection, and so on and so forth. A list of accolades as long and tedious as the frilly robes Mrs. Weasley had sent Ron.

“Will you ask us to dance at all tonight?”

Emerging from his drifting thoughts, Harry blinked owlishly at the Patil sisters standing arms akimbo before him and Ron. Damn, he hadn’t even noticed them standing up. Ron was stammering out an excuse but by then it was too late. They’d taxed the goodwill of their partners too much. The girls regarded them with a last devastating glare, you know the kind, and vanished into the dancing crowd. Presumably they’d make some guys with more interest in them really happy today.

“Bollocks,” Ron said, leaning back with a sigh.

“Not our best moment.”

“Not by a long shot.”

But self-reflection or no, a moment later their respective glances went wandering again, filtering through the crowd until they got stuck at a particular set of girls. Ron couldn’t decide whether to glower at Hermione and Viktor Krum shaking it up on the dance floor, or stare besotted at Fleur Delacour, whose finger snap could send the boys around her into a love struck frenzy. Poor guy. From the dress robe to the girls, nothing had gone his way. Then again, neither had there been that much luck for Terminator of Dementors himself.

Seeing Cho lean with that big, love-struck smile against Cedric during the slow dance, Harry chose to find the answer to an unasked question in his cup of pumpkin spice wine. The Twins had spiked it in a moment of inattention. A genius concoction, too. Untraceable but with all the effects, or so they said. Sometimes Harry wondered if the teachers knew what was going on and simply let the Twins do these things because it was the only way they applied themselves seriously in the art of magic.

In any case, the tweaked wine was doing work. Depressing work. At least Skeeter wasn’t interested in him today. He’d seen her lurking around the dance floor trying to get compromising pictures from Hermione and Viktor.

Harry put down his cup and stood. “I’m done here.”

Ron looked up at him quizzically. “Where are you going, mate?”

“Somewhere. I don’t know. But I’m done looking.”

Ron thought on it, then shrugged and turned his gaze back on Fleur. “See ya later then.”

Well, that was that. Two thoroughly unhappy chaps, going their singularly unhappy ways. And it would perhaps have been the saddest end to a damn sad day if not for the surprise appearance of Professor Dumbledore. In the middle of a dark corridor, two stairways removed from the Great Hall, he appeared like a bushy with owl out of the shadows of a suit of armor, eyebrows quivering with all the excitement Harry couldn’t bring himself to feel.

“Professor . . .”

“I’m frightfully sorry, my boy, did I startle you? That wasn’t my intention. Nevertheless, it’s fortuitous that I found you just now and didn’t have to go looking for your at the Ball.”

“Shouldn’t you be there?”

You could search the world a thousand times over for a hundred years and not once would you find a smile as mischievous yet knowing as Dumbledore’s. “Oh, I am. Don’t worry about that.”

“Do you need me for something, Professor?”

“Indeed. Unsurprisingly, once it became known that you are a participant in the Tournament, an old friend of ours has disregarded any and all requests to stay far away from you.”

“You mean—”

“Indeed,” Dumbledore said, shushing Harry, “but I’d ask you to be quiet please. It wouldn’t do to attract attention now, would it? Now, if you follow me, I’m sure he’ll be happy to see you.”

With a swish of his lime-green robes, orange stars studding his beard, Albus Dumbledore swept past Harry, up and up the moving stairways, steadily away from the noise of the Ball and taking ever more remote ways to the outer reaches of Hogwarts. With giddy steps, Harry followed along. This evening might shape up to be something good after all.

#​

Sirius Black, convict and self-elected most dashing man in the world (twice at that), sat lounging in an oversized chintz armchair, his legs splayed out before him like a starfish. In his right he held an enormous cup with a straw, on his left, a floating file was doing his nails. Robe sleek, beard trimmed, hair untangled: he looked relaxed, taken care of, and that alone made Harry smile when he entered the room with Dumbledore. Only the gauntness of face was still there, but that too would go eventually. They had a lifetime to get rid of it.

When Sirius saw them he took a long drag from the Christmas tree straw before putting down the cup. He smacked his lips, banished the nail file, and leapt to his feet gracefully like a leopard, his grin stretching from cold old Scotland to Botswana and back.

“Every time I see you, you look more like James, Harry.”

The nostalgia in those words made Harry stand around awkwardly, but Sirius took the decision on how to go on out of his hands. Two steps, and the bear hug commenced under the smiling eyes of Dumbledore.

“I’m glad you’re looking better, Sirius,” Harry said when they broke apart.

“It takes more than a few Dementors to make this face look ugly.”

Harry laughed. “I can see that.”

“I believe you two have a lot of ground to cover,” Dumbledore cut in. “So if you’ll excuse me, I’ll leave you to it now. Please be careful not to be seen, though. With Rita Skeeter around, we can’t be too careful.”

“We’ll manage, Professor,” Sirius called after Dumbledore while pulling up another chair with his wand. “There, that should do it. Sit down and have a taste of this. It’s amazing.” A second straw appeared in the cup, elongating in a spiral across the room, right towards Harry’s mouth.

A sip later, Harry was coughing his heart out. “Strong,” he stammered, trying to get his bearings amidst Sirius’ belly laughter.

“That’s how it should be.”

“Should it?”

“Always,” Sirius said. “No fun if the liquor isn’t strong.”

“I don’t think that’s something you should tell your godson.” Then Harry couldn’t hold back anymore. He leaned forward, the strong taste forgotten. “Where were you? What is Professor Dumbledore having you do? Have you learned anything of Pettigrew? How about—”

Sirius lifted his hands in surrender. “Merlin, Harry, calm down and breathe. I’m not running away.”

“Sorry, it’s just, well . . .”

“No need to apologize,” Sirius said. “Just take another sip and slow down the questions so I can answer.” As Harry began coughing again, Sirius leaned over and slapped his shoulder. “Atta boy. Anyway, my life isn’t terribly exciting right now. I’ve been touring Africa for a few months getting healthy again. The wizarding community down there doesn’t care at all for European law, so I can walk out in the open without any trouble. Which is a freeing experience, let me tell you. And that’s pretty much all I’ve been doing. So now to the more interesting stuff. What’s going on in your life?”

“You mean beside the life-threatening tournament into which I was entered against my will?”

Sirius waved him off. “Forget the tournament for a moment. It’ll still be there tomorrow to cry over.” He leaned in close. “What about girls? Who did you take to the ball, and why didn’t it work out? You’re having me mightily concerned over here, Harry.”

“How do you know it didn’t work out?”

“If it did, you’d be snogging her senseless in a broom closet by this time, not sitting here with an old man like me. Or was it a him? Not judging, just asking.”

“No, it was a her,” Harry said. “But either way I’d have left immediately once Dumbledore found me. I wouldn’t miss this meeting for the world.”

Sirius snorted. “That’s so sweet, but don’t trouble yourself on my account. There’s a clear hierarchy of needs in a teenager’s mind. Lily once told me I never grew out of this phase, so trust me, I know all about it. Now stop deflecting. What went wrong?”

The grilling had some effect and in a morose tone of voice Harry reported his failed attempt at asking out Cho, and his last ditch effort of taking one of the Patil sisters to the ball, even though he’d barely spoken with Parvati and thought she’d probably only said yes because he had become famous (again) on account of the tournament and the dragon fight. Sirius winced when he came to the Cho part, and grew quiet when the Patil sisters were concerned.

“That’s it,” Harry said. “Pretty lame, huh?”

“Sure is,” Sirius agreed. “You cut a poor figure. That’s no way to treat a girl, or anyone for that matter. Especially not after you asked her out in the first place.”

Harry looked up. He could’ve really done with some encouragement, but Sirius didn’t look like he was offering right now.

“Oh don’t give me that wounded puppy look. That’s not going to help you with me.” Sirius laughed and took another long sip from the straw. “You dun goofed, my dear godson, but don’t you worry, Sirius Black is here to restore order to this chaos. We’ve all been there one way or another. Call it a rite of passage.”

“How do you mean?”

“All men screw up. It’s inevitable. So what you have to learn is how to make up for it.”

Harry raised an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t it be easier just to avoid mistakes in the first place?”

“And lead the most boring existence ever conceived? Hell no, Harry, mistakes and accidents are what make life interesting. They’re the honey-glazed rosemary chicken-breast to the everyday’s bland mashed potatoes. If that kind of feast comes your way, dive right in, no excuses. Shove it in your mouth with both hands if you must, gorge yourself on it like a savage, because you never know when shit starts to go south and you can’t enjoy yourself anymore.”

“That seems extreme.”

“Well, I’m Sirius Black. And I’m the best example, no? Look at how fast I went from dashing, smart and powerful to dashing, smart and Dementor-addled. You never know what will happen.”

Harry shrugged “True, I suppose. But I still don’t know where you’re going with this.”

Sirius blinked. “You don’t?”

Harry answered uncomfortably, “Not really. I mean I guess I wasn’t the best date, but I don’t think she was really interested in me either, so—”

Before he got any farther, Sirius had leaped out of the armchair and trapped his head to give him the noogie of a lifetime. Harry tried to shimmy out of the hold while Sirius kept chuckling and continued.

After what felt like hours of torture, Sirius finally let go. Harry held his head and looked warily at him. “Bloody hell. What did you do that for?”

“You were talking a lot of bollocks and I had to get all those cobwebs cleaned out of your brain. Took a deep cleaning too.” Sirius sat down and leaned forward, gazing at Harry as if to impart the hidden knowledge of a lifetime. “You made three mistakes. On their own they’re not so bad, but all together? Man, no wonder your night sucked until you came into my glowing presence.”

Still holding his head, Harry said sourly, “Can’t say my night has gotten much better now, can I?”

“Shush you, I’m trying to be a responsible godfather here, so listen. Mistake number uno: you thought Cho was the only one. Once that didn’t work out, everyone else became just a placeholder. Now, I get being in love and everything, but you never know where it comes from. You can’t just nail it down like that and put on the blinders to everything else. Today it’s Cho. Tomorrow it might be Ron. ”

Harry cracked a smile. “Goddamnit, Sirius.”

“Just saying. You never know. The point is that you shouldn’t have put Cho so far up that no one else can reach her in your estimation. Which leads right to mistake number duo.”

“Isn’t it dos?”

Sirius was unimpressed by the linguistic intervention. “It is what I say it is. Anyway, you assumed that Parvati was only after your fame and that she wasn’t interested in you. How would you know? You said you barely talk. You, dear godson, presumed yourself to be a headgazer when you’ve got the skills of Trelawney to back up your assumptions. And don’t think I’m talking from my ivory tower here. I’ve had my fair share of stupid mindreading, and I learned that universally what I think people think is at best distorted and at worst entirely wrong. So wrong in fact, that once a goat had to die for my sins, but that’s another story.”

Another sip. Sirius’ face got a red flush going. He was really getting into it. “Now, to finish up this diatribe, mistake number tres, my lovely godson, and perhaps the worst mistake of all: you’ve been shying away from the unknown. You assume that just because you don’t really know her you won’t be able to have fun. But how do you expect someone to be interesting if you don’t try to find out what makes them so? It’s totally alright to get into a date and notice that it isn’t going anywhere, but not even doing that first step? Not cool. I’d have dumped your head in the pumpkin wine if I were her.”

Sirius leaned back, crossed his legs at the ankles and had a cigar float out of a box over to him. It lit up on its own and then placed itself between his lips. He puffed a few times, observing Harry. “I’m not saying this to make you feel bad. I just want to help you. I’m pretty sure James would’ve had the same talk with you, if Lily hadn’t gotten to you first and spanked you silly.”

“I guess I did treat her badly . . .”

“No guessing about it. You don’t just ask a girl out and then pay absolutely no attention to her, gawking at another gal down the aisle. Imagine the roles were reversed. This Cho asked you out and then ignored you to swoon over, what’s his name, Cedric? Diggory’s son, right? So there you have it, not a nice picture, eh?” To hammer home the point, Sirius’s cigar smoke took on the shape of a guy and a girl, where the latter was looking at another guy down the street.

Harry watched the smoke morosely. “If you put it like that . . . I guess I should apologize to her tomorrow. It’s just that I only ever heard her talk about makeup and stuff, so I didn’t really think there is anything to talk about between us.”

“Let me stop you right there. First of all, what’s this with the apology? I said making up for mistakes is a rite of passage. Does apologizing sound like a rite of passage to you? Hell no. You’ve got to make it up, big time. Simple apologies don’t cut it. That’s not the Marauder’s way.”

“What do you mean?”

Sirius grinned. “We’ll get to that in a moment. I’m sure you’ll have a few ideas by the time we’re done talking. But you know, the name of that girl jogged my memory, so before we plan out how you can make up and hopefully out with her, let your beloved godfather tell you a story that might be interesting to you. Just not here. This room, while very pleasant, isn’t too conducive for our purpose.”

As Sirius rose from his armchair, Harry followed suit. “Are you sure we should move around Hogwarts with that many people nearby?”

“Sure? No, I’m Sirius.” A moment of silence followed this declaration, during which Sirius wore an immensely proud and self-satisfied smirk. Then he threw open the door to the room and left. “Don’t worry, Dumbledore will find us.”

#​

Sirius hadn’t lied. Dumbledore would find them sooner or later. How couldn’t he, when Sirius had taken them right to his office, using a hidden method to get past the gargoyle that involved tickling it under its left claw. The gargoyle moaned a little and made space for them. Inside the office, Sirius let out a long whistle.

“Not too shabby. It got even more cluttered than the last time I was here.”

“Have you been here often?”

“A few times. Mostly it was James’ haunt, though. My place has always been McGonagall’s side. She really loved me. Ordered me to her office twice a day, see?”

“What are we doing here?” Harry asked, looking around. This was fun, but also kind of risky. They had just broken into Dumbledore’s office, after all.

“Looking for this.” Sirius stepped over to a bowl with white liquid shimmering and swirling inside. “This is a pensieve. It lets you store and show your memories. Pretty helpful, I’d say, and just what we need. So strap in, because there’s a story to tell, and a few people you might want to see.”

#​

This, Harry, is my memory. No, don’t fight the flow, that’s not how pensieves work. It might be a bit disorienting at first but try to relax. Yes, like that. Just let yourself be swept away by the experience. It’s much like a movie. You ever been to a movie with the Dursleys? No? I thought so. Yeah that’s good. Atta boy. Just relax, lean back, keep your eyes pried open wide. Let me do the rest.

There, just over there on the train station, next to the guy dabbing his hat and selling Daily Prophets, can you see them? That’s James and Lily, look at them all dove-eyed. Like they’d never had any fights at all in their lives. It always amazed me how well they got on after they buried the goblin axe. And there, just beside them and Moony, the one and only, the majestic, the utterly infallible—to get on with it? Alright, alright, so yes, that’s me, Sirius Black in the flesh, at that point not a convict just yet, only a man with dreams of greatness and a wish to see the world.

“You sure you want to do this, Sirius?” James asked. “That country is a corner away.”

“I’m dead serious.”

Look at them groan! Look at them groan! Isn’t it delightful? And there comes Moony to the rescue, ever level-headed: “We won’t be able to get your ass out of trouble if you get into it with the local law. Or at least not fast enough”—a secret signal between Moony and Prongs, the latter of which immediately clamped his hands over Lily’s ears—“before they neuter you.”

Shocked by his vulgarity, Harry? As you should. Don’t emulate him. Moony was the worst of all of us. But let me tell you, the girls really dug his gentle side, the professorial one. Moony, the foul-mouthed scholar. He had quite a reputation and none of it was based on wolfishness. Anyway, don’t miss the eruption of Mount Lily now. There it comes.

“James Potter! How dare you— “

Prongs always knew how to calm your mother, or make her more furious. There, see? A stroke of genius. He just leans in, like so, puts his cherubic lips on her enraged ones, and forgotten is all the trouble. She could never resist him. Except for the moments when she did, and then you had better pray for your father. That resisting, by the way, happened more often once you were in the picture and James had all kinds of funny ideas what to do with you. Lily wouldn’t stand for any of it. She’d rather face down a Hungarian Horntail than let James take you on one of his adventures. Sometimes he snuck you by her anyway. Speaking of dragons, I saw your broom maneuvering in the papers. You’re a damn natural. You should make that a career later down the line: the flying part, not the dragons. Dragons are bloody foul creatures. Cool, but foul.

A steam whistle called out through the station, announcing that the train would leave soon. “I’ll be going then,” I said. “You keep the fort here.”

And off I go, see, with that swish to my coat like in one of those dramatic movie exits. The ride was pretty boring until I reached Odessa somewhere in Ukraine. Lots of sleeping. My case had an anti-theft jinx on it, so no worries there. I had the cabin to myself. At Odessa is where the train leaves the tracks so to speak and starts flying to its other stations. Why? No clue. It’s just how it’s always been. And Odessa is also where a new wave of people usually boards the eastbound train on account of making for places like India, China, Japan and so on. Great places, been to all of them. Some are more dangerous than others, more so back then than now. Then again, I guess I look pretty chewy when I’m Paddy, so maybe I’ve always been on the safer side.

Anyway, this particular trip was taking me to India: land of cows, advertisement, and plurality. In Odessa new people came into the compartment. Two of them were Sikhs, big turbans, mighty beards. Tough guys with big cheesy smiles, though, that had a fantastic story to tell about hunting a shapeshifter which concealed itself as Ravana—Indian deity, known for all kinds of trouble—and literally brought the fear of god into the hearts of some local villagers. Fascinating stuff. See, the more you move away from Britain, the crazier the magic world becomes. It isn’t as clearly separated everywhere, and in India especially, it’s kind of enmeshed like a regular thing. Not everywhere, sure, but for the most part they’ve got so many deities and myths and legends, being magical fits right into all kinds of superstition. So anyway, somewhere over Iran the two Shiks left the cabin with a friendly holler, apparating out of the flying train. They were close enough to their destination now.

The train stopped again in Kabul, gliding onto a pair of lonely tracks as if it had never been anywhere else. A gaggle of people entered the cabin, one of them a woman about my age. There she is. The one with the red and white sari—a very fancy way of dressing, don’t you think? Looks great too. And see that little chain going from her nose to her ear? Does it strike you as significant? It didn’t seem very important to me either at first, except for her being exceptionally beautiful. But hindsight is everything. Oh, so she looks somewhat familiar to you? I wonder why that would be.

My destination was Bombay, but it had already gotten quite dark and the train lowered down to the ground and stopped right before the Indian border, somewhere between Lahore and Amritsar. I didn’t know if it was a scheduled stop but the people in the cabin got awfully tense all of a sudden. The woman in the sari was throwing anxious looks out of the window into the night. The old man next to her was gripping his cane a bit tighter, getting white-knuckled, like you do when you think you might have to use it in a way it wasn’t intended to be used. Were they preparing for an attack? I couldn’t say but it sure looked like that to me. From farther down the corridor we heard noise. Cabin doors were being opened. Rapid-fire questions asked in a language I didn’t understand. If you go with Muggle terms, Lily would’ve called me the typical tourist. Barely knew a word. But even if I did, I’d heard they’ve got so many languages down there, knowing anything wouldn’t have helped me either way. And luckily I’m a wizard on a magical train. What can I say, there are spells for everything.

When our cabin door was shoved open, a set of burly dudes in uniform scanned the compartment with critical eyes. Mustachioed, frowning, they looked pissed off, as if someone had shit in their soup—you sure know that look from Snivellus. It’s a delight for anyone targeted by it. They ignored me and glowered at the old man who had lowered his head, his hand placed on his cane. Then they spied the woman in the sari. Their posture grew more rigid. One put a hand on his wand.

“You better come with us now and make no more trouble.”

“I don’t know who you think I am,” the woman said sweetly, “but I’m sure you’re mistaking me for someone else.”

“There is no mistake. Come now.”

The second uniform added, “Think of what your poor Father-ji must think now, Nadia Bibi,” in a scratchy voice, the kind that spoke of too much tobacco. “To run away like this is very shameful.” They crammed closer into the compartment.

“As I said, there must be a mistake. I don’t know this Nadia girl. My name is Rajani Cashondelivery.”

“Enough of all this troublemaking.” They pulled wands, but the woman was faster and the first uniform slammed against the compartment door in a shower of sparks. The second uniform sent a brutal curse at her, then lunged forward, across the old man who managed to hit upwards with his cane. The cane hit the burly guy’s privates and he buckled with tears in his eyes. That was enough for me. See, I knew how these things worked. A swish, and the downed guy would call for reinforcements, and then they’d overwhelm them by sheer numbers. Officials are the same everywhere. They wouldn’t leave you well alone after cashing in on a beating. How I know that? That’s a story for another time.

“You should get the hell away from here now,” I told them. “They’ll be coming with more people.”

“We don’t know how to apparate,” she said, panic rising in her voice. “We wanted to get off in Jodhpur.”

One of those rats had already sent for help. My dog ears picked up boots thudding hurriedly down the corridor in our direction. The strong smell of too much cheap cologne was coming closer on the double. I could’ve left things well alone. The officials had no truck with me. But, you know, I wouldn’t be who I am if I did that.

“Grab my suitcase.”

“What?”

“I said grab my suitcase, lady, or you’re going to get taken by those guys.”

Whatever she thought was going to happen, she did as I asked and took hold of the suitcase. So when the arm of the law came rushing at us, I cast my most brilliant Lumos yet. In the light of that spell I took a hold of her, while she was clutching at my suitcase and the old man.

Let me just say this, Harry: when they tell you not to apparate side-along without preparation and training, they mean just that. We landed in a deserted backyard somewhere in Amritsar and none of us had made it out whole. The lady lay legless on the ground, her chivalrous old guard had lost his ear, and I had splinched off my arm somewhere in the process. I have to admit that I was getting somewhat panicky myself right then. This was thousands of miles away from Madam Pomfrey or St Mungos, see, and I was in a bit of a daze on account of having obstructed about five very official looking people. So much for not needing the gang to bust me out.

But I needn’t have worried. The woman held her wand aloft, said, “Accio missing body parts” and a bunch of limbs came flying to her from different directions. It looked grotesque as my arm hovered in front of her, but what is a man to do? What I didn’t expect was that she attached her legs herself, and that with barely more than a wave of her wand. She had some serious practice in the medical arts and it took her barely a minute to get us all fixed up and checked out.

Then we stood awkwardly in the backyard. From an open window came the snores of the owner of the place. Sounded like he was clearing an entire forest in there.

“So, that was exciting,” I said.

She glanced at the hem of her dress, then looked up at me. “Thank you for your help, Mr. . . .”

“Black, Sirius Black.”

“Thank you, Mr. Black. I’m sorry that you had to get involved in this. I didn’t think they would find me so easily.”

I was massaging my arm, marveling at the fact that it was wholly attached. I heard the worry in her voice. “Why were they after you in the first place?”

“I—”

“Pardon me, Nadia Begum, but we have to leave now,” her old caretaker said. “They will be coming soon. Paid dogs have good noses.”

I took offense to the dog part but she looked still quite anxious and that bothered me. She was running away from her father. That much I had gleaned from the conversation between her and the guards. I was about to ask her for more details, especially why the law was involved, but my dog senses were tingling and I picked up a sharp smell. Those jackboots really had to change their cologne if they wanted to be stealthy.

“They’re close,” I whispered to her and took my wand. We couldn’t risk apparating again. I wasn't sure the amount of body parts we lost the first time was an overall good or negative outcome for a botched side-along attempt with three people. I wasn’t going to chance it.

Why I got involved at all? Honestly, Harry? I mean look at her. She’s not only distraught, she’s also bloody gorgeous. That’s a combination I can’t resist. I’m a dog, remember?

“They must have traced the magic,” the caretaker said. He began fretting with his cane, pulling out a wand with arthritic motions. He was making ready for a last stand. He took up a duelists position, and looked almost regal for such an old man. “Go, Nadia Begum, I will keep them off. There will be no more of this following you around.” When she was still not moving, he smiled at her. “Go, child. You have made the winter of an old man’s life a bright affair.” Then he turned to me. “I do not know why you have aided us, but I accept your help gratefully. Now I must be presumptuous and ask this of you, sahib: please, take her away from Amritsar. She is the noor of my eye, and I do not wish to see her unhappy for the rest of her life. Please, see to it that she is safe. On the matter of compensation, she will talk with you afterwards.”

Then the stench of cologne became overpowering and the officials came pouring into the courtyard, their wands raised. The old caretaker turned to them with a flourish, let his wand dance, and unleashed a torrent of spells, curses that became darker and darker, as he used up his entire arsenal to stop their advance. I reckoned the woman wasn’t going to sit on her hands and watch the old man die, but I knew she’d be done for if we didn’t get out and stayed to help. So I honored his wish. I jinxed her immobile and then levitated her and the suitcase over the courtyard wall, leaping right after. For such a diminutive man, the old timer had an incredible array of spells. I was sure he’d hold them off a bit longer.

I ran through the streets at night, my mind straining from keeping up two spells at once, the levitation and the concealment charm. Around us the nightlife was beginning to take shape. Buzzing lights. On street corners old people were sitting and playing chess under lamps. Nightclubs were opening. It was hot even at night, at least 30 degrees if not more, and the more I ran the more my shirt stuck to my body. The smell of street food was in the air. I sniffed my way to a more populated street, hoping the charm would hold up and that we could lose our pursuers there. I didn’t expect the sudden explosion of smells as we came closer, though. Sizzling butter, hot spices galore, koftis, momos, chicken and coriander, all these things amidst the chaos of a thousand comingling voices. The translation charm was beginning to strain against the workload. So many languages, so many dialects. I had a few close calls when the suitcase nearly bumped the turban off of a Sikh, but overall we made it through the street alright. Still, at the next chance I turned into a more deserted alley with less light and noise, and there in a dark corner I finally set her and the suitcase down and undid the jinx.

Let me tell you, Harry, if not agreed on it beforehand, women don’t like being tied up like that. I thought it was necessary at the time, of course, but she still came at me like an enraged bull and slapped at my head and arms—basically anything that was in reach. The worst, though, was that when she stopped out of breath I saw her shoulders were heaving and then she began crying. I’m not good with crying women. I’m really not. I stood there like an idiot when I should have hugged her. Prongs and Moony would’ve endlessly ribbed me for that one and gleefully told me that’s why I’m still single. But blood hell, she was a strong lady. It took her only a little while to gather herself. Then she wiped off the tears and faced me with a resolute expression.

“Do you think he’s dead?” she asked me dead-on.

I wasn’t about to sugar coat it. “I think so. But I’m sure he gave them a hell of a fight before he went.”

She nodded, as if gaining strength from the thought. “That sounds alright. Umeed doesn’t look like it anymore, but when he was younger, he had been the back to back dueling champion in the Punjab. And that for several years, until they began apparating which didn’t agree with his stomach. It’s just, his age and . . . “ For a moment I thought she’d start crying again but there was no need for worry. “I’m sorry for slapping you, Mr. Black, I was distraught.”

“No worries, I got that. I haven’t caught your name yet, though.”

“I am Nadia Patil, daughter of Ameer Patil.” A strange silence followed, as if she was expecting a reaction. When I didn’t say anything about her old man’s name she got a vindictive and pleased look on her face, which was at odds with the sadness she’d shown because of Umeed. “I always told my father not everyone knows his name but he never listened. He is too far up his own ass to listen. He thinks the world belongs to him.”

“The police certainly do, if that chase is any indication. Say, Nadia—it’s alright if I call you Nadia right, what’s with all the rescuing—what the hell did you actually do? That looked like some serious business.” She didn’t notice the pun, but I sure did. Still held my tongue, though. This was serious.

She considered me for a moment. I knew that look. She was seizing me up to see if she could trust me. For all she knew I was still a stranger. A dashing stranger, but a stranger nonetheless. I did my best Paddy eyes, mostly because I was quite interested in the whole story. I wanted to get away from Britain for a while to gather my thoughts and have a bit of freedom from all that Black family bullshit that had been coming at me after graduation. Someone else’s problem was just the right thing to get my mind off of that stuff.

“My father does not tolerate dissent,” she said eventually. “I was to marry a toad called Saleem Raizada, who is double my age, thrice my size, and a stellar business partner of my father’s. The marriage was to consolidate one of their business schemes. I objected, of course, but my objections have never meant much to my father. Umeed was the only one who cared for me. He was my dueling coach. So when my objections weren’t heard, I asked for his help and ran.” She shrugged, then tapped her nose chain and the sari. “I had no time to pack different clothes, given that I ran out on the day of the wedding and Umeed managed to organize tickets only at the last possible moment. I thought if I took the train to Kabul, and then immediately doubled back to India, I’d throw them off. But not so. Maybe it was too much wishful thinking.”

“Your father has a lot of influence.”

“He has a lot of money, which is the same. Hands get greased very easy in this country, Black sahib.”

“Please, call me Sirius.” When she nodded acquiescence, I crouched down to my suitcase and opened it. A bit of rummaging and I had excavated a shirt and some tighter pants I had packed for an opportunity to visit one of the Muggle nightclubs. I’d heard pants like that were hot stuff. I handed both to her. “In any case, you can’t run around like that if it’s a wedding dress. You stand out too much.”

Now, Harry, your godfather is a courteous soul, so I magicked up a shower curtain to shield her from view and put another concealment around us, and then waited for her to get done changing. She’d looked uncomfortable taking my clothes, even though they were fresh. I had the feeling she didn’t think it was proper, and I had to remind myself that this wasn’t Britain, and what was normal to me might be very strange in these parts.

She looked pretty cute in my clothes when the shower curtain parted, and the pants fit her very well. They had pockets too, which seemed a novel thing for her. But she still wore the nose chain. When I asked her about it, she said she couldn’t get it off and asked if I could help her, which I tried to, but I didn’t manage either. Then I got a sneaking suspicion and ran few a detection charms over it. I had seen McGonagal do these regularly on her food, which was one of the reasons why she and Dumbledore and some other hyper-aware teachers had evaded so many of our pranks back at Hogwarts. My suspicion turned out to be correct. There was a spell on the earring and the nose piercing that held the chain in place. A kind of magical lock that needed a specific key to open it. I tried Open Sesame but Nadia looked at me like I’m stupid.

“Is that common?” I asked.

“No. I bet it’s my father’s work. Or some kind of insurance that Raizada wanted.”

“It could be a tracker, too,” I said, eying the chain closely. “Though if so, not one that is too precise. They took a while to get to the backyard as well.”

Honestly, Harry, now that I watch the memory again I realize I might’ve been a bit too close to her right there while inspecting the chain. I didn’t even notice the strange look in her eyes, like a caught animal. But back then I couldn’t help myself once I’d spied the tiny runes etched into the chain links. What an elaborate scheme. I’d thought the chain kind of exotic and sexy at first, but it was getting uglier by the minute, given that it branded her like cattle.

The idea that she was being tracked via the chain sent a tremor of anger through her. “They’re on their way right now, aren’t they?” With an uncouth curse she drew her wand. There was a wild look to her. “I will send them running back to their mothers’ skirts, bawling their fucking eyes out.”

I was impressed by the cursing but had a better idea and I told her as much. “I doubt fighting them will do you much good. And wherever stupid stuff like this cursed chain exists, there ought to also be a way to remove it. We just have to find it. Now, I’m sure you’ve noticed that I’m not the best at side-along apparating but since we’re two now instead of three, I hope it’ll be better. You can fix us up anyway. Hopefully.”

“What do you—“

I had already grabbed her and the suitcase, and off we went. It worked better this time, somewhat. I lost the same arm again, but she was whole. The trouble was that with one arm I couldn’t defend myself and once she had solid ground under her feet, Nadia gave me a few resounding slaps that left my cheek stinging red and me nearly running away. She was saying something about men making decisions for her without asking and I realized that I made a mistake, but honestly I was getting a bit troubled on account of my arm. I didn’t know how long I could leave it unattached. There probably was a limit. If only I had paid more attention during the apparating lessons, I’d be better off now, but horsing around with James had been too much fun.

Nadia attached it soon enough and I apologized for my presumptuousness. She grudgingly accepted, though she told me to talk these things over with her before doing that again. After we came to that agreement we got our bearings. I hadn’t apparated us a huge distance away so we were still in Amritsar. We had landed in an empty plaza of some kind, where a huge obelisk-like block of stone, almost like a memorial stone, was ringed by a garden and a fountain. I’d chosen this place because I’d sensed a lot of magic here and thought maybe we could hide temporarily or confuse our pursuers, but honestly, I didn’t expect there to be such an easily felt dark influence in the area. I could feel that something had happened here, something big and ugly, and that even decades later the echoes of that ugliness still coated the stones. I didn’t like the place.

On the upside, these dark vapors ought to shield us from view for a while, so I asked Nadia where the less reputable sources of magic crafting and rune etching were located in this town.

“I don’t know about that,” she said, shaking her head. “I have been here only once before, to visit the Harmandir Sahib with my father. It is close by and leads to the magical parts of Amritsar.”

So we went there, and she was right, it was close by. It was a beautiful golden building in the middle of a small lake, illuminating the water through its reflections of light. Even at this time of night, many people were milling about the place, and I felt mightily out of place on account of not wearing a turban. Nadia didn’t feel too good either, but she led me confidently through the arcades until she sharply turned right, and dragged me right through a wall. I thought it was like Diagon Alley at first, but got disabused of that notion when she led me through a corridor right underneath the lake upon which the golden temple stood glowing in the night. From below I could see the water held in place above me. Right in front of the Harmandir Sahib, a set of marble stairs led up and through the water front and I followed her curiously as she stepped through it without hesitation or getting wet. When we emerged on the other side of the water, the surroundings of the golden temple had changed. Gone were all the Muggles. The arcades that had been peopled by them before now were host to a thousand and one magical shops. Though many of them had closed for the night, a few owners still sat outside in rocking chairs, smoking pipe, chewing beetle nut and expectorating the red juice into spittoons.

“I think it’s better if you stay back for a second,” I told Nadia. “They’ll sure notice the chain. Let me play up the tourist card, I think that’ll work.”

So I went up to two tough birds complaining to each other about their useless husbands, their wayward sons, and their slutty, uncontrollable daughters. They glared at me at first, but when I flashed them a galleon in the lamplight they got really still and then suddenly wore big, inviting smiles, as if they’d soon involve me in their husbands’ fruitful business ventures, have me befriend their steadfast sons, and marry their pure daughters. Looking at it now, I guess a galleon each was a lot. No wonder they reacted as they did. But back then I didn’t know better and was disinclined to think about it too much. In any case, they provided good service and explained in great detail the way to a rune smith not too far away. Nadia and I went there, and that man too, although disgruntled about being woken up that late, quickly changed his tune at the sight of money. He put on a pair of focus lenses and tapped them lightly with a ruby-studded, gold-encrusted and rune-etched staff that looked right out of a collection from the Black family vault.

I had noticed that they used all kinds of things here as a focus for magic. Wands, sure, but also diamonds, staffs, knives, canes, or other artifacts. See, in Britain and most of Europe we’ve got wand regulations in place on account of material rarity and beast protection. Here there are also regulations but they’re regularly circumvented by need and opportunity. Can’t blame them, honestly. You got to make the best out of what you have.

The man scratched his long salt-and-pepper beard and shook his head. “With this, I cannot help you, sahib. It is beyond the scope of what a rune smith can accomplish.”

At that, Nadia got first very still and then suddenly really loud, moving right into the space of the rune smith and glowering at him. “What does that mean? Is there something else besides tracking and not being able to take it off?”

“Aye, there is, lassie. It is a love curse. Brutal, unhappy magic. I do not know who did that to you, but it is a matter for the police, surely, and not my shop.” As Nadia processed that information I asked the man for more information, which he readily supplied. “It is like this, sahib, the marriage chain has been linked to a specific time—the time of wedding I presume. If this time is not kept, or stretched too far beyond its original point, the curse will take effect. Tricky work. Very tricky. I have not seen the like before. But if she does not get it off soon, then she will start to fall in love with the specified groom very soon. And if she is too far away, that love will consume her until nothing is left but a mindless husk.”

I felt the blood leave my face at that notion. “How do we get it off?”

“The only way is to know the keyword. You should visit the authorities immediately. There is no time to waste.”

I flicked a galleon over to him and we left the store. I thought Nadia would murder that innocent rune smith on the spot if we stayed any longer. My original plan had been to get a room and then sleep it over while hiding in this massive amalgamation of magic where no tracking would prove wholly effective. But with these new time constraints that wasn’t an option anymore. We sat down on stone dais looking out at the Harmandir Sahib and for a while said nothing. This was a hard hit to Nadia. Her fists were clenching and unclenching and it seemed like she was fighting off waves of anger and disappointment. I heard her mutter, “My own father . . .” a few times.

If you wonder why I was still involving myself in her life, even after this kind of dark turn, well, let’s just say that I knew well how badly family could ruin you if you let them. My own mother wasn’t any better, Harry. That old bag would’ve cursed me into compliance just as easily if she could have done so. I wanted to help, but I didn’t know how. I had no clue about the country, except that they had some marvelous legends and also beasts and magical species you wouldn’t be able to see anywhere else. My first aim had been to go on a mountain trek somewhere in Uttarakhand and find one of the rumored djinns living there, but then I’d met Nadia and Umeed and I guess the rest is history.

I was sunken in my own thoughts when Nadia suddenly got up with a resolute expression on her face. “I’m going back to Bombay.”

“Isn’t that where the marriage was supposed to take place?”

She nodded, and there was a crazy look in her eyes now. Full of fire and anger, and from what little Indian lore I knew, I thought watch out Bombay, Shiva is coming to remake the world, and he’s a she now, out to salt the earth. If I’d played a main role until then, that kind of determination firmly relegated me to a side character. But I’m fine with that, honestly. From the side you sometimes have a bloody great view, so I’d much rather record what happened and be elephant-headed Ganesh to the story of Nadia Patil.

I asked her, “What’s your plan?”

And she said, “My father is involved in many businesses, and few of them are on the up and up. If he thinks he can sell his own daughter like cattle, then he has lain out for too long in the heat.”

She didn’t say much else and since I was curious and thought the djinns in the mountains can wait a little longer, I promised to keep helping her. When she started to question my motives, I shrugged and said I knew about family trouble, which is the reason I was escaping Britain in the first place. I also told her that if she wants to make this a trade, be my guest, she sure got connections in magical India and can later provide me with experiences that no normal tourist would ever be able to get. That soothed her pride and we were off again. I told her that I didn’t fancy us apparating straight to Bombay and asked how else beside a train you could get around India. She said there is a magical bus that is pretty fast but it makes many stops and takes strange routes. Also, if the police stopped it, no one would even think of going against their will. So we landed on a somewhat slower but much more exciting method: carpet riding. She told me she would give me back the money later and we bought a carpet before setting out.

Now, I have to say that I thought carpet riding would be pretty slow but she corrected me real quick and showed me otherwise. There’s a spell shielding the carpet from the wind pressure and depending on the threads used you could get pretty respectable speeds out of a rug. The night landscape flew by and I couldn’t help marvel at the vastness of the place in comparison to good old Britain. At one point though, I think we were close to Jodhpur, I fell asleep. When I woke up the night sky had changed to the steel gray of morning with fringes of purple emerging in the east, and wads of clouds drifting by.

She said we’d taken a strange bend, leading past the Rann of Kutch, because we had to evade some airplanes, but now everything was alright, we were past Ahmedabad already on our way to Bombay. On our right, the Gulf of Khambhat became visible. I won’t bore you with all the other places we passed, we were close to Bombay anyway, but if ever you get the chance to go on a cross-India carpet ride, Harry, go for it. That’s the best advice I can give you. And don’t forget sunscreen. That’s important too.

Anyway, we reached Bombay in the morning and she expertly sold the carpet making sure we only lost a few sickles. The chap wanted to swindle her but she slammed that kind of huckster maneuver down real fast. Overall, prices were dirt cheap, though. And if you are less of an idiot than your godfather, you could stretch out a Galleon pretty far, I’d say. I’d never been there before and the sheer size and mass of people gave me a bit of a shock. I thought I’d be prepared on account of having lived in London before, but somehow Bombay got even that beat. We had landed somewhere, don’t ask me where exactly, but Nadia later told me that we were walking down a pretty long stretch of Juhu beach because she liked the scenery and after all that sitting walking would do her some good. Also, she began describing her plan to me while the water lapped at my feet and I worried to be cooked in that unfamiliar sun.

“My father is a loose-lipped man when he has drunken too much, and ever since my mother died and Uncle Hanif took his life, that djinn of gin has always had him firmly in his grasp, dragging him down the bottle every night. Sometimes he cursed at the portraits of our ancestors, or used magic on the vases and trees when something annoyed him too much. Once, when I was eight, he threw a chair at the window. But there were also times when he was trying to be sweet. He would sit outside my door with the bottle and tell me of my mother. There was real pain in his voice at the memory. Too much of it. Then he would drink even more, and the stories of my mother became stories of his business, and what he was doing to give me a good life. How I would manage once he was gone, which would happen eventually. I was always afraid of those nights. More so than the ones when he threw things or used magic. But I know his business. And I know where he keeps his secrets. And if he isn’t willing to lift this curse, I will spill them to the world and see his legacy undone.”

Nadia was set in her way, and so I couldn’t do much more than nod and say, okay let’s get on in with it. We were walking right into the lion’s den. Imagine you’d be walking straight up to Malfoy’s home, Harry, demanding he stop in his ways. Yeah, that’s how I felt, too. But it was her life, so I thought it reasonable we should go with her plan.

She was kind enough to offer me an out though. “This is my family’s business, Mr. Black,” she said to me when we were coming off Juhu beach. “It doesn’t involve you. I appreciate all the help you have given me so far, for who knows which reasons, but I cannot in good conscience let you go further.”

I shrugged, as you do. “I’ve got nothing else to do, so let’s liven the place up. I do expect a magnificent tour of India for this, though. Once the dust has settled.”

She seemed kind of relieved that I’d keep accompanying her, and I mean who wouldn’t? It’s always better to have someone serious in your corner.

Now, I would’ve loved to see the magical districts of Bombay, or at least one of them, there being several, but time was of essence. She hailed a cab like a Muggle and then we sat in it while the driver was talking to us and she was giving noncommittal answers. I was glad I knew of cars from London and Lily. I still wasn’t fully prepared for the entire weight of the Indian advertisement machine, though. Large placards and lights were everywhere. A kid called the Kolynos Kid was showing me a large smile while he squeezed out toothpaste from a tube on a massive billboard. Around us cabs and cars were honking, and the occasional scooter and bicycle would roll by daringly. Despite the closeness to the sea, there was a sweltering heat about the city. In the All India Radio came an announcement that two days earlier a dam had burst in Gujarat, killing a lot of people by flooding. Also, The Great Gambler, a movie directed by Shakti Samanta was coming to the screens. The program then went over to an interview with some curmudgeon lamenting the loosening of morals in modern society and lamenting the end of Indira Ghandi’s reign. The Emergency, so he said, had served a purpose of societal beautification. I had no idea what he was talking about, but the interviewer quickly cut him off and sent it back to some music. Which was for the best. Nadia and the cabdriver both had tensed at the mention of Indira Ghandi and now relaxed again.

When we later got off at the Sadhubella Temple in Mahalaxmi West, Nadia gave the cabby a few rupees and off we went, down Warden Road. Somewhere after a gated pool area called the Breach Candy Swimming Club we took a corner and she pulled me into the shade of a banyan tree. “This is it,” she said. “Methwold Estate. That up there, the uppermost house, is where I grew up.”

I was a bit confused because I saw that some of the other rich estates in the area had been torn down, replaced by large metal constructions that were lifting stones and other materials high up in the air, like giant metal scarecrows. Her home looked out of place. “All business,” Nadia said with an angry tilt to her voice. “Rich people bought up the estates and now they pull up their fancy sky scrapers. Shady deals, too, and workers working themselves to death while being treated like ghosts, but there at least my father has been resolute. When these people came to him, he told them off. And he later said to me, ‘Good luck to these Muggles trying to find my home. If they do, let them have it.’”

Alright, so we made ready to get inside. Now, she wasn’t very good at being covert but she knew the place. And I in turn was a master at sneaking around but had no idea where to go. I thought we made a banger team, and it didn’t take long until we had circumvented the servant quarter—humans, by the way, not elves . . . I don’t think I’ve ever seen an Indian elf—and were on our way to her father’s study. It was an enormous place. Clear English influences, though, as if the place had been mixed and mashed until a new form emerged, half-Indian half-English with a dash of whatever else fit in. There were huge moving portraits at the walls, with mustachioed and turbaned patriarchs looking down at the newer generations. Some seemed like religious leaders, others like conquerors, one or two, the more recent ones, like big money businessmen.

I suddenly started to get a bad feeling. This house reminded me too much of the Malfoy estate, which I had grown to loath during family affairs. I thought something bad was going to happen soon. But we made it to her father’s study alright, and there she had no trouble finding all the documents she needed. Maybe I’d just been paranoid. But you know that feeling, don’t you? When something just doesn’t add up? You feel your skin tingle, as if you missed something, and your mind starts going into overdrive figuring out what is wrong.

I smelled the danger before I heard it. Cheap cologne, sure, but also good one now. The door to the study burst open. A group of uniformed thugs rushed in, led by two old men, one fat and balding, with sweat dripping down his brow and curly locks, the other with dark bags under his eyes and a familiar fire in his expression. Nadia’s old man, no doubt. That made the fat one her spouse to be, Saleem Raizada. Never mind the curse, on account of his looks and smell I’d have run the hell away too.

Well, this was a pickle.

“Daughter,” her father said harshly, “I see you have returned.”

“This damn chain left me little choice now, did it?” Nadia spat, clutching at the papers in her hand. “Give me the key. Take it off!”

“I have not reared you to be a spoiled and disobedient child. I thought Saleem’s concerns uncouth and invalid, but apparently his precautions were necessary.”

I quipped, “He’s probably got experience with women running away from him. I mean, have you looked at him? Is that really what you want for your daughter?”

“How dare you!” Saleem Raizada shouted, stepping forward with sparks at the tip of his wand.

Nadia’s old man headed him off with a raised hand. He turned back to me. “Who are you? A mercenary?”

I decided to have a little fun, even though I thought I was about to wet my breeches to be totally honest. I mean, look at that situation. We were so outnumbered it wasn’t even funny. But that’s the thing. This kind of daring calms me, see? So I said, “My name’s Sirius Black Dumbledore, and if you know what’s good for you, you better step back a bit, friend.”

The name cast a glint of recognition into the eyes of Nadia’s old man. “I know the Black Family,” he said slowly, “and I know of Dumbledore. I never knew that he had a son, though.”

“Grandson,” I said. “Given that I was conceived out of wedlock, the Black side of the family disowned me, and gramps preferred to rear me in secrecy to avoid unnecessary fallout.”

“Gramps . . .”

I was about to get away with it. I could see that the names and the potential fallout meant something to Mr. Patil and that he was weighing his options not to engage in violence. But that little toad Raizada had other plans. “And if he’s the incarnation of Buddha himself, I don’t care, Patil. Is this how you run your household?”

Before Nadia’s old man had time to respond, Raizada let fly the first curses, dark orange lights that flicked at me with surprising speed. I answered them, but my Mahatma-like plan of non-violence had failed and in the chaos the uniformed thugs got into it as well. At least they weren’t a coordinated unit. The majority of their spells actually hindered each other or went wide, and I quickly turned a blasting charm at the ceiling. The chandeliers exploded in a shower of shards, raining down on them, and in that confusion I grabbed Nadia and we ran like the devil was on our heels.

Past the servant quarters, through the garden: we were nearly out of Methwold Estate when a curse from Raizada clipped me and sent me spinning through the air, right against the banyan tree. Nadia took up position in front of me, but her wand arm was shaking. Umeed had probably taught her dueling, but not against her own father. I could see that she was much more at home in the healing department anyway.

“End this farce now, daughter,” Mr. Patil said. “This marriage will happen.”

“How could you do that?” Nadia asked. “How could sell me like a pig at the market? Am I worth that little to you?”

“This deal is to provide for you, daughter,” Mr. Patil said, trying to enact a conciliatory tone. “You might not like Saleem today, but love is an evolving thing, and you will find his good qualities in time. Learn to love him, piece by piece, and you will have happy and fruitful days in front of you. I promise you, Nadia.”

“What kind of promise is that?” I asked, getting to my feet. “Love him piece by piece? There’s no end to him, how long do you expect that’ll take? Besides, it takes a mother to love that kind of personality anyway.”

The curse Raizada swung at me was a fetid dark purple. I had no idea what it was, and the translator only gave me gibberish for it, but damn it looked dark enough to make Snivellus green with envy. I dragged Nadia to the side with me and the purple streak missed us barely, boring into the banyan tree and setting of a cascade of rot and decay where it hit.

“Saleem,” Mr. Patil’s stern voice called out. “What are you doing man, that is my daughter. You are to wed her, not murder her.”

“I wasn’t aiming at her,” Raizada said with a nasty grin.

“If you aim a spell like that at her direction again, I will call this wedding off and castrate you, Saleem Raizada, have no doubt.” Damn, that mustachio was twitching like mad. But honestly, this protective side of Mr. Patil didn’t jive with what I knew of the curse on the nose chain. Could it be that old man Patil didn’t know about all details? This was also what had been bugging me before. Her old man was harsh. He clearly expected obedience. And from Nadia’s story, liquor made him unpleasant company, sure enough. But it hadn’t sounded like he’d harm her, which the curse on the nose chain would actively do. No, that kind of magic stunk more of a crazy desperate guy with thoughts like ‘If I can’t have her, no one can’. Raizada seemed much more the type. Was that also why the toad had started firing so soon, instead of letting us talk?

“You say you’re providing for her,” I addressed Mr. Patil. “But then you go and curse your daughter with the foulest black magic imaginable?”

“The foulest . . . What are you even talking about? A tracking charm is by no means considered—“

“I’ve had enough of this!” Raizada stabbed his wand forward, and sparks exploded from its tip. His language had become harsh and guttural as the dark spells began to flow from his lips, and I thought for a second I was done for, given that I knew none of them and had no idea if my Protego would hold. Then Mr. Patil blasted Raizada off his feet, throwing him against a nearby statue of one of the Patil patriarchs. The uniformed thugs didn’t quite know how to behave. None of their protocols said anything about their two bosses fighting, and so they were caught in their indecisiveness.

While Raizada was still groaning at the bottom of the statue, Mr. Patil was glowering at him. “I told you not to use these kinds of curses close to her. What are you, deaf and stupid? I am really beginning to have my doubts about this relationship, Raizada.”

“Now?” Nadia burst out. “Now you have reservations? Hypocrite! I told you that he is revolting. And you allowed him to put this despicable curse on me. How could you? Don’t play the innocent party now. I will never marry him. And if I die because of it, it’s your fault too!”

“Curse? I just kept him from cursing you, daughter. What are you talking about?”

“The nose chain,” I cut in, because I thought in their anger and pride they’d keep talking past each other, as family often does. “We had it verified at a rune smith. There’s a love curse on it. If it isn’t unlocked soon, she’ll be consumed and left a mindless husk. I guess from your expression, Raizada didn’t tell you about this particular detail, huh?”

The shock on his face was visceral. He wheeled around to Raizada who was slowly getting to his feet. “What have you done, you fool? I agreed to a tracker, because I knew my daughter was unsure about you. But this? Are you out of your mind, Raizada? A dark curse on your fiancé? Is this the kind of valued tradition your house holds dear?”

“I did what had to be done,” Raizada spat, wiping blood from his lips and using the statue as support. “You knew as well as I that she would run. Do you think I will do business on the basis of such a flighty deal. Think again.”

Before Raizada had even finished talking, Mr. Patil had turned to his daughter and uttered a word under his breath. After a moment of silence, he said, “Why isn’t it working?” Then his eyes turned narrow. “Raizada, tell me the key.”

“I don’t think so, Ameer. She’ll stay bound by it. And you can be sure that this isn’t the end of it. My family will hear of this. As will all the other main families. You have overstepped your bounds today. This will have consequences.”

If Nadia’s old man was impressed by that kind of threat, he didn’t show it. But there was a kind of steel entering his eyes now, and a resoluteness that spoke of a man who once could’ve been considered great if he hadn’t let his shadows rule him. In two steps he was in front of Saleem Raizada and had put his boot on the man’s chest, pushing him onto the ground while pointing his wand straight between Raizada’s eyes. There was no hesitation at all.

“Legilimens.”

It didn’t look like Raizada had any training in the mental arts, and the way Mr. Patil ripped through him left the toad writhing on the ground with foam bubbling up at the corner of his lips. A few seconds later, Mr. Patil stepped off of him. Raizada’s eyes were vacantly staring at the cloudless sky. He had become what he’d threatened Nadia with, nothing more than a mindless husk.

“Get him out of my sight,” Mr. Patil said to the thugs. “Burn him and scatter him somewhere out on Pawai lake.” Then he whispered a word, and Nadia’s nose chain finally came off. I could see the elation in Nadia’s eyes, and perhaps also a kind of relief that her father, while still a bastard, wasn’t quite as much of a bastard as she’d first assumed.

But there was still no hearty reunion between the two.

“I am sorry, daughter. I did not know to what level of depravity he would sink.”

“You would’ve known had you bothered to ask me for my opinion.”

Mr. Patil bowed his head, accepting that rebuke, but then rejoined: “I promise to do better with the next suitor I choose for you.”

That was evidently the wrong thing to say. “No, father-ji, there will be no suitors anymore, not if I didn’t choose them first. I’m done with this. If you want to have anything to do with the grandchildren you might one day have, you’ll stop trying to control me. It ends here.”

“Daughter . . . you can’t just—“

“I can and I will,” she growled, holding up the documents she had liberated from his desk. “If you don’t leave me alone, I’ll have these published in every major outlet around the world. There’ll be no place on earth where your name will hold any weight afterwards.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Watch me.”

And before her father could say anything else, Nadia took my hand and stormed off with me and the documents in tow, leaving a flustered Mr. Patil behind. Now untraceable, we took another cab and got some samosas to eat, and then relaxed on the beach. That was where the really fun part of my stay in India began, Harry, but I don’t think you really want to see those kinds of memories from your godfather. Suffice it to say, she showed me around India pretty well, and when a proper Indian gentlemen came along that she took to immediately, I said goodbye, excused myself, and made back for home. Far as I know, she came to Britain a few months later. Another dispute with her father. This time I didn’t get involved, though. I don’t think her husband would’ve liked that very much.

#​

When Harry and Sirius emerged from the pensieve in Dumbledore’s office, the grandfather clock at the wall showed that not much time had passed.

“That’s the marvel about these things,” Sirius said, tapping the stone basin, “but also the danger. Some souls can get terribly old re-watching their memories.”

Harry was still shell shocked by the pensieve experience and tried to get his mind and thoughts in order. “That was Parvati’s mum?”

Sirius made an appreciative noise in the back of his throat. “Pretty lady, huh? Now don’t go falling for her, even if it’s difficult. Older women only make things harder for a young man like you. She’d eat you alive.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Harry said.

“No shame in thinking about it, though,” Sirius added. “Still, I hope you got what I wanted to tell you.”

“Nothing is like it seems?”

“Close enough. There’ll always be uncertainty, Harry. Always, and in pretty much everything you do. Maybe a girl is boring, maybe she isn’t. Maybe she likes you, maybe she doesn’t. The point is, you won’t know until you have a go and try to find out. Are you willing to find out?”

Harry nodded. “I did treat her pretty badly.”

“Then let’s find a way to make up for it. And don’t even start with apologizing to her tomorrow. That won’t cut it. That’s not the Marauder’s Way.”

Standing in the middle of Dumbledore’s office, the pale glow from the pensieve illuminating the otherwise dark space, Harry thought feverishly on what he could do until his eyes got caught at the knick-knacks on Dumbledore’s shelves. One in particular, an old pocket watch, caught his attention on account of its familiarity. “I think I know what to do. Do you think Professor Dumbledore will mind terribly if I borrow one of his, um, artifacts?”

Sirius shrugged. “Take it, I’ll cover for you. Always easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.”

“Alright.” Harry took the time-turner from the shelf. “Hopefully this works.”

“Harry,” Sirius asked.

“Yes?”

“Come over here for a second.”

Harry did, and Sirius straightened the bowtie on his dress robe before messing his hair up a little more. “There, that’s better. Now go and have some fun. I can’t promise I’ll still be here tomorrow, but I think we’re going to see each other more in the near future.”

“I hope so, Sirius. This was great.”

Sirius clapped his shoulder and with a grin lightly shoved him out of the office. “Go, kiddo. You’ve got a girl to woo.”

#​

“It’s always easier to ask for forgiveness than permission . . . really, Sirius?”

Sirius Black, dashing former convict, turned to Albus Dumbledore who came into his occupied office with an amused shake of his head.

“It is,” Sirius said.

“I see you’re covering marvelously for him.”

“Aren’t I? Really, he needs to have some fun. I think what’s with all the tournament stuff, he’s earned it. I dare you to disagree.”

“I won’t, although time is quite a dangerous aspect of magic.”

Sirius shrugged. “So is fighting dragons. If you don’t step in during that, I don’t see why you should bother here.”

“Point taken, I suppose,” Dumbledore said, lighting a few candles in his office. “Tea or something a tad stronger? I suspect we still got a few things to discuss for the future.”

“Sure. Stronger please. Those memories have put me in a peculiar mood, to be honest.”

“Indeed. Pensieves have a way of doing that.”

#​

Time turned the other way around, going on tippy-toes back to the moment where it all began. From behind a column in the Great Hall, Harry watched his past-self vacate the ball, leaving Ron alone to stare at Fleur and Hermione. He waited until past-Harry had left the hall entirely, then, hands a little sweaty because suddenly things got real, he dove into the thronging masses, looking for the Patil twins.

When he found them a moment later, he wasted no time. He’d beaten a bloody dragon, he’d get it together for a few dances. And he’d also see if he could get Ron into the mood to do the same. Couldn’t have his best mate sitting sullenly at the sidelines now, could he? The way Sirius had just set out and got himself into an adventure had set something loose inside him. If the old man could do it, so could he.

“Hey,” he said, trying his best not to get discouraged by the combined glare of the Patil twins, in which he now could see a familiar shade of fire that had also burned in Nadia’s and old man Patil’s eyes. “Listen, I’m sorry for all that. I’m still a bit rattled by the whole tournament thing, so I wasn’t thinking clear. But I’m going to make it up to you, you’ll see. So, how about it, a dance?”

Heart thumping, he held out his hand. This was it. Moment of truth. And the worst and best thing, he had no idea how the coin would fall.

The End​