"Aha! Youngest Quidditch player in a century. A seeker, too!" Sirius beamed as him and his godson marched through the door of his family home, Grimmauld Place. It'd been a lonely school term with Harry gone. Sirius was only amused with Remus for so long before even those antics became predictable. He wished for his godson.
Harry had been with Sirius and Remus since his parents' deaths, ten years before. They'd been betrayed by their childhood friend, Peter, who was lost that very night with James and Lily. It made Sirius especially protective of the young boy he raised as his own, never trusting more than a handful with his wellbeing, Remus being an obvious exception.
Now, Harry attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry as his parents and Sirius attended in their younger days. He glowed with pride at the memory of his own childhood within the castle walls.
"Your dad would be so proud," Sirius said softly, lost in the memory of James as he stared down at his face.
They shared the same wicked smile, always a taste for mischief, in a way that was exactly in his father's nature. Dark hair, unkempt in a way that chose comfort over style, even his walk was that of James Potter.
"Do you think so?" The young man looked up with a curious look. "I figured he'd wish me to be a Keeper."
Sirius snorted. "What would make you go think something as preposterous as that?"
"Well, um, I mean."
The boy struggled over his words. It wasn't often that his godson struggled to talk to Sirius about anything, much less Quidditch. He practically grew up on a broom!
"Out with it, son. What is it you're thinking?"
Sirius touched Harry's robes. They were ruffled from a long train ride home, no doubt shoved up against the glass from all the boys in the car. The innocence of the first year, the fun, was all too dear to the man who grew forlorn as the days marched on without his two best friends, James and Lily, to witness their son turn into a remarkable young man.
He didn't dwell on that now. Harry was home. That was more important than anything.
"All the Keepers are so cool," Harry admitted. "They save the games, get the girls. Being a Keeper is so much cooler."
Sirius scoffed. "As if a Keeper has ever been cooler than a Seeker. Harry, my boy, I've never met a Keeper that wasn't a complete git. That's who isn't tough enough to be a Chaser, or smart enough to be a Beater, or fast enough to be a Seeker. No, those gits take hits to their heads!"
He was going to have to write the school and complain about that conduct. A Keeper more popular than a Seeker? Who in their right minds thought that up?
Harry eyed Sirius closely before relenting. He moved his trunk up the staircase, letting it thunk against every single step on the way up in a way that Kreacher was sure to bellyache about the rest of the night.
That was when he noticed something amiss.
He leaned over the railing. "Where is Remus and that friend of yours? They did make it off the platform, didn't they?"
Harry shot him a wry look. "Distracted by a street performer. They're out on the corner. Doubt either will look away for another ten minutes."
Sirius smiled. His godson continued to amaze him with a sensible humor that always raised him from his lonely depths. It was more than good to have him home.
"I'll go fetch them before the wolf starts to encourage Remus to run off to the circus."
Sure enough, just as Harry said, Remus stood near a young boy with a worn-down trunk on the corner where a young girl with flowing locks danced, a boa wrapped around her midsection. The green snake hissed as an underlying bass as the woman sang.
Her pale eyes ignited with interest as Sirius stepped closer, giving him a careful look with a side smile.
He touched his friend's shoulder. "Moony?"
Remus stared as the woman's body began to gyrate the hundreds of silver sequins all over her. It elicited an excited exclamation from the young man at Remus' side.
"Bloody hell," the boy murmured.
"Alright, alright, you two. Let's go before you spend your entire vault on this woman's eccentricities which, frankly, I could do better," Sirius said, collecting both by the arm and tugging them away.
"Oh come on!" The young man groaned.
Remus was more quietly bothered. He walked along but turned his head more than once to watch the dancer summon others to be beckoned into her siren cast of weaker men. Sirius was disappointed in his friend. A lifetime of knowing the dangers of enticement left little impact when a girl as pretty as her danced. He was surprised the bleeding heart didn't invite her inside to live forever, free of charge.
That was the kind of man his best friend was. A darker man than when they were children, but gentle as ever.
Grimmauld Place welcomed the three with a burst of warmth, thanks to all the warming charms Kreacher placed. The ancient house was drafty. Bits of snow found their way in through window sills and the attic during the winter months, the House Elf worked tirelessly to retain the integrity of the ancient House of Black.
When he'd been tasked with the job of caregiver for his godson after the death of three personal friends, Sirius could have cared less whether the place burned down or rotted. Time ate away at the sentiment as he saw more and more of a dark-haired boy bouncing down the hallways rather than a heavily cloaked man with a permanent scowl on his face. The home was Harry's. A childhood locked within the walls, same as Sirius, but in a much more pleasant light. Kreacher still cursed the scuffs down the hallway from his first trunk, something he insisted on carrying himself.
Harry and his friend came down a time later, unpacked and ready for food. The other boy's stomach grumbled loudly.
"Sirius, this is my friend Ron."
His bright red hair glowed under candlelight. It was apparent which family he hailed from. No other in England bared that hue so brilliantly.
"Welcome, Ron. So glad you could join us."
Ron offered up a weak smile. "It was either this or Hogwarts. And, I was afraid that'd mean more school work."
Sirius laughed, slapping the boy on the shoulder happily. "There is always room at our table for another survivor of Hogwarts homework and the blasted library. How I hated that place."
Both the boys groaned in agreement. Their sounds the very same that Sirius and James made to the Potters when they asked how it was the first time. Some things never changed with time.
"I see you already know the place," Sirius stated.
Kreacher rang for supper. The four slowly made their way to the back where the kitchens and table was, fit for fifteen people once the elite of the magical community, now just a simple broken family of those who barely survived the first war. Sirius kept Harry sheltered from the life that once was his, a dark mark on his conscious.
The Dark Lord was gone, vanquished thanks to Lily's sacrifice. There was no need to add to the weight of the boy's suffering, the boy's sacrifice even if it was for the world. Lily and James meant more to everyone than that. They were beloved family. A part that Harry completed for them, for them all.
For now, Harry remained ignorant of the fact that he'd faced the worst wizard of all time and lived to see the next day. The only one.
Harry and Ron rushed to their set places, eyes wide with hunger as puddings and pies and roasts littered the table.
"Our other friend drags us there all the time," Harry explained as he loaded up a roll with butter. "She practically lives there. You should see the books she reads."
"For fun!" Ron added, clearly disturbed by the fact.
"Yeah, for fun. She reads all about Hogwarts and magic." Pumpkin juice was poured into Harry's goblet. He then offered some to his guest. "I've never heard of most of the things she knows."
Ron munched happily on a slice of steaming mince pie. He looked thrilled to have so much food, a fact that he took full advantage of. The porcelain of his plate was barely seen under his mountain of food.
Sirius was happy to see the boys so content. He noticed his friend even perk up at their great enthusiasm. So close to a full moon left Remus in a depressing mood, worse when Harry was around.
Grief was his struggle, more so than Sirius'. Remus suffered James and Lily's loss every month when he shed his werewolf form into human and gained his memory once more.
"She knows a bunch for a Muggle," Ron commented offhand.
The comment caught Sirius' notice. "Muggle? At Hogwarts?"
"Ron meant Muggleborn. Hermione has Muggle parents," Harry said. "But she's really smart. She beats everyone in class. Answers every question before a Professor can even ask."
"A gifted friend to have," Remus piped in.
A night with Remus Lupin's input was a good one. Sirius was glad for a blessed Christmas; already given all the happiness he could have.
"She's alright," Ron grumbled. "Bit of a Know-It-All."
Harry shrugged. "I like her. She thinks of things we don't, and it's important to be friends with people like that, isn't it, Sirius?"
A bloom opened up in Sirius Black's heart to see a child so confident and well mannered. Although it didn't seem like it, Harry did listen as Sirius rattled on about things, he'd wished he'd known as a young wizard. It took many hard lessons to understand just what the way was to be a better man.
"That's correct."
Ron scrunched his nose. "Why's that? Don't pixies of a feather flock together? It's hard to be friends with someone not like us."
"Harry? Can you tell him why we need variety?"
Sirius raised his wine goblet to his lips. The bitter red tasted sweeter as his son glowed with pride as he educated his friend on what he'd been taught.
"Because otherwise we are too narrow to experience. If I had only been raised in magical England, I wouldn't know pizza or cars or movies. And all those things are awesome. We need friends different than us so we can be better people, understand things, have more fun."
The night was the first in a long while that Grimmauld Place was spent in great cheer, lit up well into the night as the boys told of their first year and all the fun they'd had. Ron spoke of his siblings – there were many – in a of relief that he didn't have to share his holiday with them. Apparently, he had a nasty set of older brother twins that always hid Ron's Christmas presents in the garden beneath their mother's beloved vegetables.
It took ages for either boy to start to appear worn down. He was nodding off in his chair when their scrambling feet echoed up the staircase like a herd of cattle.
"Merlin, they go on," Sirius mumbled as he stood up from his crouched position. His knee popped below him. "Ah, just like that. I'm reminded of how much time has stood against me these years."
Remus stared into the crackling fire, motionless, lost within thought.
Sirius observed the distance in his friend's eyes. All too well, he knew the hurt there. Harry was Sirius' Godsend, but he was Remus' cursed reminder. They were all that remained of their childhood friends, so few left of the original Order of the Phoenix, a part of themselves never made whole. They were forced to carry on in a world that enabled their friends to be forced into hiding and eventually hunted down and murdered whilst witches and wizards turned a blind eye to the horrid acts the Dark Lord did.
Darkness. It was a cloud over their minds. It never left. A world descended into accepted chaos for the sake of a cause so bitter and impure.
His friends were brave to the very end. Harry's parents faced down the greatest evil the world ever knew without doubt it was the right thing to do. That trait carried over into their son who grew more stubborn and decided as the days burned on. He was a force to be reckoned with.
A reckoning, Remus and Sirius, hoped would never come.