Harry Potter: The Golden Viper

"What's wrong?" Harry asked immediately with concern.

Like Sirius, Remus was one of his father's closest childhood friends and had taken excellent care of Harry during the majority of year he taught Defense Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts.

It was Remus who had taught him the most advanced defensive magic he had mastered so far - the Patronus Charm.

So far, the consensus amongst the students was that Remus had been an absolutely excellent Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. While his lessons may not have been quite as wildly inventive and unpredictable as the unorthodox Professor Watson's tended to be, Remus's classes more than made up for it by being exceptionally engaging and easy to understand, managing to bring even the driest subject matter to life.

Noticing Harry's worried expression, Hermione and Ron also hastily withdrew their wandering gazes from curiously scanning every nook and cranny of their new surroundings. They turned to look at Remus with matching expressions of concern.

Remus opened his mouth, clearly about to speak further on his troubles, but at that moment, Sirius came jumping back down the steps into the kitchen. He had led Harry, Ron and Hermione down into the basement kitchen to get settled before excusing himself to quickly run back upstairs. Now he returned with a wide, childlike grin on his face and his arms were full and clutching three brightly wrapped packages.

"Bah, it's all just boring, tedious grown-up nonsense, Harry. We can talk about later, I promise -" Remus smoothly cut himself off mid-sentence and sent Harry a gentle, reassuring smile, skillfully changing the subject. "Besides, I think you lot will be much more interested in the Christmas gifts Sirius here has gotten you. He's been chattering on about them for weeks!"

"I'd originally planned to just owl these to you at Hogwarts -" Sirius explained, his smile stretching even wider as he began distributing the three festively wrapped gift boxes to Harry, Ron and Hermione. "But then I realized that since I was going to invite you three to come stay and spend the rest of the holidays here with me anyway, I might as well save myself the trouble and give them to you in person instead."

Harry grinned back, feeling warmed by Sirius's obvious enthusiasm.

Last Christmas, despite still being a fugitive on the run, Sirius had still gone out of his way to purchase Harry a gift. And not just any gift - a brand new Firebolt racing broom, widely agreed to be the finest, most expensive flying broomstick in the world. Apart from Harry himself, no other student at Hogwarts, not even Malfoy, owned such a magnificent broom.

Although he had already anticipated Sirius' lavish style, Ron still gasped in surprise and widened his eyes in delight after unwrapping his gift from the box. "Blimey, this is-"

"A deluxe Wizard's chess set, crafted from the finest goblin gold," Sirius said, flashing Ron a warm smile. "I heard from Harry that you are very good at this, Ron."

"Oh, well, I'm alright I guess," Ron stammered, his ears turning red with embarrassed pleasure as he gazed down at the gleaming chess pieces. "It's just a matter of practice..."

But false humility aside, it was blatantly obvious to everyone present that Ron was absolutely over the moon about his unexpectedly attractive gift.

"A knife."

Harry had also unwrapped his gift at this time. What Sirius gave him was an exquisite and dexterous small knife. The handle was engraved with dense magical runes. Harry held up the small knife and examined it back and forth under the light.

"Er, thanks Sirius... But why exactly did you get me a knife? I mean, it's lovely, but...do you think I need it for Potions class or something?"

"This is not a simple knife, Harry -" Sirius had long anticipated Harry's confusion.

"This is a very powerful alchemical artifact. It can break many common magical wards and restrictions. If you want to enter somewhere and 'Alohomora' doesn't work, you can try using this -"

"Wicked" Harry said contently.

"And as for you, Hermione..." Sirius turned his attention to the last remaining wrapped package with a somewhat uneasy expression, absently scratching the back of his shaggy head.

"I don't have much experience when it comes to buying presents for teenage girls, but I reckon it's a pretty safe bet that you won't turn up your nose at a nice rare book, am I right? - especially one you can't find at Flourish and Blotts. Had to raid my family's library to dig this one out..."

"Oh, thank you Sirius!" Hermione exclaimed, her brown eyes sparkling with excitement as she examined the leather-bound tome entitled:

"Saving the Nearly Dead You— A Guide to Self-Healing from Mortal Injuries for the Mortally Reckless"

She hugged the book to her chest like a priceless artifact. "I can't wait to read it!"

The rest of dinner passed in a warm, pleasant blur. In addition to the sumptuous feast, which featured a juicy roast goose, plum pudding, and all kinds of sweet treats; Sirius exceptionally allowed Harry and the others to taste a few glasses of his father's treasured whiskey. Although Remus didn't quite approve, on this happy day, he didn't say much about it either.

The whiskey Sirius brought was not the same as the butterbeer Harry had drunk many times before. After drinking just a small glass, Harry already felt the world in front of him starting to spin. But he didn't dislike this dizzying feeling. With his godfather and Remus by his side, there was nothing to fear even if he lost his mind.

"Speaking of which, Remus, what trouble did you run into exactly?"

The drunkenness made Harry's face constantly carry a lazy smile. He said to Remus, who was exchanging views with Hermione on the champions' performances in the first task of the Triwizard Tournament.

"Oh, just some tiresome issues with product licensing and promotion,"

Remus obviously didn't want to bring work pressure to them.

"Goblins have a strong influence in the European Wizarding world. Our promotional work here has been going very smoothly. Many wizarding families and organizations are very interested in the alchemical machine developed by Bryan. We have already begun to supply them one after another."

"But the American Magical Congress is another story," Remus continued. "They've been sitting on our permit application for months now, demanding all sorts of performance and safety evaluations on our products before they'll allow us to expand into their market. I've already submitted-"

Here Remus stopped himself, shaking his head with a chuckle. "But look at me, whining on about bureaucratic headaches while I have the three of you here in front of me! I'm sure you have much more exciting things on your minds, like the Triwizard Tournament."

He smiled at Hermione. "Speaking of which, Hermione - have you worked out your plan for the Second Task yet? Something to do with that golden egg clue, if I recall?"

As Hermione launched into an explanation of how she had deciphered the riddle concealed within the egg's eerie wailing last night- which seemed to hint at an underwater rescue mission involving merpeople - Remus and Sirius listened with clear admiration.

The second task was most likely to take place under the Black Lake. The champions had to find their most precious treasures that had been taken away within an hour, otherwise, the champions would lose their treasures forever.

Not to mention the obstacles that must exist in the search process, Hermione had not yet figured out how to survive underwater for an hour.

"The trick will be finding a way to breathe underwater for an hour," Hermione concluded after her explanations as, her forehead creased in concentration. "That's the part I haven't quite cracked yet."

"Well, actually," Sirius said slowly, raising his eyebrows meaningfully at Remus, "that's not as tricky as you might think-"

"No, don't tell me!" Hermione interrupted frantically, slapping her palms over her ears. "I appreciate you trying to help, but I really must figure it out on my own myself!!"

"Alright, alright," Sirius said with amusement, throwing up his hands in surrender. "No more clues from us, then. You're on your own, clever girl!"

Harry and the others hadn't seen Sirius for some time, and the last time they saw Remus was during the summer vacation. So, they all had endless topics to chat about with each other.

They described to the two men in detail the spectacular Christmas ball last night, especially the magnificent ice castle created by Professor Watson and Professor Dumbledore, which made Sirius and Remus yearn for it.

Sirius also told them about some of his experiences as an Auror in the past six months. His thrilling adventures in hunting down some dark wizards and lawbreakers also made Harry and the others, who lacked experience, feel exhilarated!

Of course, they were also eager to hear more about the alchemy workshop Remus and Bryan had founded with goblins, and the product to come out of it. Remus promised they would pay a visit to the shop together on their next outing to Diagon Alley.

The dinner and talks stretched long into the late hours, until finally, a rather tipsy Sirius insisted on taking the three yawning teenagers on an impromptu tour of the entire house, from the basement kitchen all the way up to his own bedroom on the topmost floor.

As they climbed the dim stairs, Hermione couldn't help but notice that despite Sirius' statements about having thoroughly scoured away all traces of his family's past from the house, a few unpleasant relics still remained.

Most unsettling of all was a row of mounted house-elf heads lining the stairwell wall. Their wrinkled, bat-eared faces seemed to sneer down at her in silent malice. Had it not been for the arguably even more gruesome house-elf head examples she had seen during their adventure in the Hogwarts kitchens, Hermione likely would have let out a scream at the sight.

She reckoned Sirius had decided to leave his ancestors' cruel interior decor scheme intact taking Kreacher's feelings into consideration, although he always said he was very impatient with it.

Ron, on the other hand, was far more preoccupied with envying the posh Manor his best mate's godfather had inherited than with analyzing its questionable aesthetics. He let out a dejected sigh as they reached the second-floor landing stage.

"Compared to here, our house is like a broom shed -" Ron muttered gloomily.

"I don't think so, Ron. I love your home," Sirius answered, punctuating his words with a hearty burp. "It reminds me so much of the house where James and his parents took me in as a boy. No place ever felt more like home than that. Until now, maybe."

He draped a heavy arm around Harry's shoulders, drawing him close.

"Speaking of home," Harry said eagerly, "I'd love to hear more about what my dad's—"

But his question went temporarily forgotten as Hermione let out a muffled squeak beside him, pressing her fingers to her mouth as she pointed a hand at the nameplate fixed to the nearest doorway.

"Well spotted, Hermione," Sirius said softly after following her gaze. His face took on a closed, shuttered look. "Yes, this was my brother Regulus' room."

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