After reading HP fics for years, I finally found a pairing that I can actually write well enough. Yay! These two kill me 3

Hermione's cheeks had long lost the ability to flush when Sirius approached her from behind on the already-crowded platform, nipping gently at her earlobe. Instead, she accidentally shifted her weight back and onto his foot.

"Stop it, she'll be here in a minute. As will your godson, for that matter."

Ever the chancer, he snaked his arms around her front, pulling her flush against his chest. He found himself unable to keep from grinning at the little squeak of surprise she made. How he loved that sound. "I don't ever remember you shying away from a little PDA…"

Okay, maybe she had been wrong. Because her cheeks certainly turned a rather conspicuous shade of pink at that. It was at times like this that Hermione questioned her sanity in agreeing to marry Sirius Black in the first place. For all her outward disapproval, she had to admit that the heat of his body against hers was going a long way to helping keep away the bitter cold. "Feel free to stay where you are but keep your mouth to yourself."

"Fine, but I'm calling a rain check on that one."

Hermione was given no chance to reply to that as, just as she predicted, the Potters appeared. Lily and Albus sprinted ahead of their parents, much to Ginny's dismay. "Auntie 'Mione!"

Before she knew it, Hermione had the little red-headed minx wrapped around her legs. "Hello Sweetheart," she chuckled, stroking the girl's long, silky hair.

"Glad to see she doesn't have favourites…" Sirius quipped, giving Albus' messy hair a ruffle, much to the middle Potter child's great dismay.

Placing her hands on her hips, Lily frowned. "I love you too, Uncle Sirius."

Without a second's hesitation, he scooped her up into his arms and gave her a little twirl. "I know, Sweetheart. I love you, too."

"Feels like they've been gone for years, doesn't it?"

That was an understatement. "I might hold her hostage once the holidays end," Hermione said, only half joking. During her Hogwarts days she'd been too busy getting into trouble with Harry and Ron to realise just how much her parents must have been missing her. At the same time, she appreciated the space they had given her- she didn't know if she could ever receive enough letters from her daughter in a week. It was helpful that she had her husband on hand to remind her that none of them- his generation or hers- received letters from their parents every day.

A thrum of excitement crept up on her as she heard the familiar sound of the Hogwarts Express approaching. The parents and family members gathered on the platform began to bustle in anticipation as the train drew nearer and nearer until, finally, it came to a halt. Harry and Hermione exchanged a knowing look as their spouses, for all their apparent calmness, looked ready to pounce at any minute.

Students soon began to pile out onto the platform, pulling their trunks behind them, and it wasn't long at all before James Potter and his mop of hair that was just like his father's, appeared. He stepped down off of the train, waiting by the door as his cousin in all but blood handed him down his trunk and then her own. Once Charlotte had gracefully hopped off the train too, the two made in the direction of their parents, being met half way by a borderline hysterical Ginny and Sirius.

Hermione followed after her husband, laughing to herself as Sirius scooped his daughter up into his arms and all but squeezed the life out of her. It was at times like that that Hermione felt truly grateful that he got to have the relationship with Charlotte that he had been robbed of by his own parents.

Once he deigned to release her after making sure she understood just how much he'd missed her, the young girl, so like Hermione but more like her father, turned to face her mother. She paused for the briefest of moments before throwing her arms around Hermione, who returned the hug in kind.

"Lottie… we've missed you so much, you have no idea."

The raven haired girl pulled away and it was all her mother could do not to gasp when she saw just how like Sirius the smirk she had on her face made her look. Were it not for the honey brown eyes and the dusting of freckles across her cheeks, Hermione would have said she didn't get a look in.

"I'm pretty sure Dad just gave me a good idea."

After lingering just a little bit longer to catch up with everyone, the Blacks headed towards the apparition point, but only after agreeing to come for dinner in the Potter residence the following day. To say that Hermione was thrilled to have her daughter back home once again was an understatement, although she couldn't quite shake the feeling that there was something that wasn't quite right. Usually as vibrant as her father, Lottie had been unusually subdued, only getting the smallest of smiles from her when she'd reminded her that it was their annual Christmas decorating day and that she'd prepared all her favourite food for the occasion.

"Please tell me I'm not going crazy."

Looking up from where he had been checking on the apple tart in the oven, cocking an eyebrow in amusement. "You're not going crazy."

Rolling her eyes, Hermione's gaze flicked briefly towards the door to the hall despite the fact that she knew Lottie was upstairs in her room unpacking. "She's quiet."

"Merlin forbid."

"Sirius," she warned, well aware that he was playing with her as he always did, "I'm serious. There's something wrong."

He stood again, kicking the oven door shut. That usually would be enough to warrant a very pointed comment from his wife but she was obviously choosing her battles. "I don't know. Sure, she's a bit quiet but it's a long trip down from Hogwarts, she could just be tired. But," he continued when she opened her mouth again, "we can test the waters a bit, see if there's actually something to be worried about."

"I know there's a chance that it's just the… separation and I'm looking for things that aren't there but…" Stepping closer to him when he opened his arms to her, Hermione rested her head on his shoulder.

"I know, love. Everything is going fine, don't worry yourself."

Easier said than done.

Opening the door a fraction when a very unenthusiastic "come in" could be heard after he'd knocked, Sirius stuck his head through the gap. "There's my little badger," he grinned, the sight of his daughter back where she belonged tugging at his heart. Much to his surprise, his glared at him and Sirius was beginning to think that his wife was not imagining things. "You ready to kick off this year's festivities?"

A sigh. "Do I have to?"

No longer willing to ignore the big pink elephant in the room, Sirius pushed the door open further and made his way over to perch at the bottom of his daughter's four-poster. The same place he'd sat many nights when she'd had nightmares and needed him to make her feel better. It had always irked his wife the slightest bit that their daughter turned out to be such a daddy's girl but Sirius just felt blessed; to have a relationship with his and Hermione's child that he never had with his parents was more than he could have ever hoped for. So he wasn't just going to sit around and let her mope.

"Okay, you going to tell me what's going on?"

Frowning, her eyebrows knitting together in a way that was purely Hermione, Lottie looked down at the duvet as she pulled her knees close to her chest. "Nothing."

"You see, I'm not inclined to believe you. Especially since you look like someone's after killing you owl. So let's try this again: you know you can talk to me about anything. Except maybe not boys," he gave her a wry smile, "because I'm liable to kill any boy who even thinks about touching my little girl. Go to your mother about boys."

"Dad," Lottie rolled her eyes but a smile began to tug at the corners of her mouth, "It's not boys. I'm eleven."

"That's my girl. So tell me what's wrong. I'm sure I can handle anything else."

Silence fell over them for a minute but Sirius was more than willing to give her all the time she needed. He didn't have to wait too long.

Her slender fingers pulled at the material of her jeans. "Are you and mum disappointed in me?"

Now that he had not been expecting. "Of course not! What on earth would make you think that?"

"Because I'm a Hufflepuff."

He really should have immediately dismissed that thought as ridiculous but it had surprised him so much that it took him a minute to fully recover. Revisiting his memories from September, Sirius searched for anything that would suggest that he and Hermione had been disappointed in their daughter's sorting and, naturally, found nothing.

In fact, his memories of her first night at Hogwarts were still very fresh in his memory. After dropping all the kids off at the station, he and Hermione had returned home to… have some alone time before heading to Remus and Tonks' that evening for dinner and to await the letters from Albus and Charlotte. Between the Blacks, the Potters and the Lupins, they had a pool going with bets on which houses the two children would be sorted in. The basis for those bets was a lot more scientific than he would have imagined.

Remus was sure that Lottie would be sorted into Gryffindor, considering just how Gryffindor her parents were. Tonks then argued that she would be sorted into Ravenclaw, given how frighteningly intelligent and bookish like her mother she was. Ginny conceded that Hermione could have very well been sorted into Ravenclaw but at the end of the day she had been a Gryffindor and the Gryffindor in her and Sirius would override the Ravenclaw. Harry, the voice of reason for once, reminded them that Lottie was her own person and wouldn't be sorted based on where her parents had been placed, shooting his godfather a knowing look.

None of them, however, had even so much as mentioned Hufflepuff.

Really, Sirius should have known this was going to happen after she had kidnapped a niffler from Luna and Rolf Scamander's house when she had been there for a playdate at the age of six. It really had been a bit of a shock for his wife when she opened her extension charmed bag and a living creature popped out. Sirius had been tasked with disciplining their (or his as she was for a brief time after that incident) daughter but he hadn't been too successful, being too impressed by the fact that his six year old daughter had managed to wrangle a niffler into a bag and smuggle it home to do much giving out. After that particular incident, they'd given in and gotten a kneazle.

"Charlotte Black, don't you ever think that we could be disappointed because of the house you were sorted into. To be perfectly honest, I'm proud that you were placed in Hufflepuff. The world would be a much better place were there more Hufflepuffs."

"But you and mom and Uncle Harry and Ron and Ginny and Remus were all in Gryffindor and you're all heroes. I'm not clever like a Slytherin or intelligent like a Ravenclaw."

Sirius couldn't help but feel a little bit culpable in all this. Of course, this was the first time he had seen his little girl since she departed on the Hogwarts Express for the first time but he should have made more of a point of reassuring her without being asked to in his letters. Scooting closer to the little Raven haired witch, he smiled as he placed comforting hand on her knee. "In a way you're right but you also couldn't be more wrong. You're not a Hufflepuff because you lack those things, you're a Hufflepuff because you have all of those things. And you don't think Hufflepuffs are brave? Don't let Dora hear you say that. You do know that she had Teddy and went to fight Voldemort afterwards?" Lottie's eyebrows knitted together at that. He was getting somewhere. "And what about Cedric Diggory? You should ask Uncle Harry to tell you about him tomorrow."

"The Seventh years told us that Hufflepuff has produced the least dark wizards of all the houses…"

"That is absolutely true. Lottie, I'm so sorry that you felt this way and we didn't realise. Your mother and I… we just didn't think that you would ever think like that. I guess we should have tried harder to make sure that you knew."

She released her knees, a shake of her head causing her curls to ripple. "It's not your fault."

"You know, I understand more than you think. I was the first in my family to ever be sorted into Gryffindor, just like you're the first Hufflepuff. Who knows? Your son or daughter might be the first Ravenclaw." Climbing to his feet, Sirius held out a hand that she willingly took. "Let's go downstairs before your mother reports us missing to the aurors…"

He would never grow tired of hearing her musical laugh.

Hermione arched an eyebrow when her husband and daughter finally decided to grace her with their presence in the sitting room, mouthing a silent 'thank you' at Sirius when she saw that Lottie seemed more like the joyous girl that she knew and loved more than anything. As per tradition, she'd set out platters of food on the coffee table for them to nibble on as they transformed the place into a winter wonderland, and Sirius made his way over to grab a mini quiche while their daughter made a bee line for the boxes of decorations.

Before he could even take a bite, Hermione stole a quick kiss. "I love you so much, you know that?" She couldn't imagine anyone in the whole world that would be a better father than Sirius was to their daughter.

Discarding the mini quiche haphazardly, he gave her his trademark grin as he wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her flush against him as he attacked her with kisses. "Love you, too."

Sifting through the (immaculately organised) boxes of decorations, Lottie frowned and looked up at her parents, unable to keep from grinning herself when she saw completely in love they were. Even after all those years. "Sorry to break up the moment but where are all the red baubles? I think the charm may have worn off…" As per usual, half the decorations were gold but the other half she didn't recognise at all.

Exchanging a sly look with Sirius, Hermione twisted towards her daughter though her husband's arms remained tightly wrapped around her. "We decided to go with a different colour scheme this year, isn't that right, love?"

"Absolutely."

"But the decorations are always red and gold, because you're-"

Oh.

Slowly peeking into the boxes once again, Lottie's eyes widened when she finally caught on. For a moment she didn't know how to react. They'd obviously planned this, even before she and her father had had their conversation. They were both Gryffindors; it had always been Gryffindor. And yet…

Slipping as many gold and black baubles onto her fingers as she could manage, she clambered to her feet again, already trying to decide what pattern would be best.

Lottie had often been told stories as a young girl of how Uncle Harry's mother's love for him had been so great that it saved him from what should have been a certain death. Casting one look over at her parents, seeing the pride on their faces, she realised that she would have been saved too.