{one}

we're a family now

Sirius stood outside James and Lily's destroyed house, barely keeping calm. As soon as he'd went to Peter's hiding place and found Peter missing, but no actual sign of a struggle, it hadn't taken much to figure out what must have happened.

And he could only blame himself.

The giant male, Hagrid wandered out of the house with Harry in his arms. Harry was wailing, obviously distressed. Sirius made his way over and said quietly, "I'll be taking my godson."

"But Dumbledore, he told me to take 'im to Lily's sister."

"Well, Hagrid, James and Lily and I discussed otherwise."

"Dumbledore wants me to take 'im to Petunia."

"And I'll deal with the old man in the morning. There's.. There's no time right now, really, to argue with you, Hagrid. Just give me Harry. Lily would not have wanted her son with that.. With her sister who hated her so much." Sirius said calmly, his eyes fixing on the giant man, his arms extended, waiting.

Hagrid eyed him a few moments and reluctantly, he placed Harry into Sirius arms. Sirius held out the keys to his flying motorcycle and said quietly, "Take it." as he nodded to the sky as if to indicate that Hagrid needed to leave.

Hagrid left and Sirius looked down at the little boy in his arms, sighing as he shook his head sadly. "You'll be safe now, Harry. I'm taking you to my home." as he looked up a few moments, his eyes catching on the destroyed second floor of his friends home. He felt his stomach knotting up, he felt the total brunt of the blame for the night, if he'd never told them to use stupid Peter Pettigrew as opposed to using him as a Secret Keeper.

"We'll find him. And he'll pay.. But for now, Harry, let's get you back to the house and out of this cold. I warn you, boy, I may not be the most conventional of fathers. But hopefully, with time, I'll be almost as good as James and Lily were. I know I can't ever replace them." Sirius stated quietly as he made his way back to 12 Grimwauld Place and stepped into his house, turning the fire up just a little higher, sitting down on the couch with Harry in his lap.

From behind him in the room, Carina, his four year old daughter asked quietly, "Daddy?"

"Right here, sugar plum."

"I woke up and you were gone. It scared me.. I thought.. And when I woke up the housekeeper, she got mad and told me to go back to bed, that you'd be back soon, that she had to watch me. She's so mean."

"Daddy's not going anywhere, sugar plum. And he'll have a talk with the housekeeper in the morning, promise.. She shouldn't be so mean.. For now though,come round here.. I have to tell you something, Carina." Sirius said quietly as he took a few deep breaths, prepared himself to tell his daughter what happened tonight.

It would only be the second time this year he'd had to try and explain loss to her, her own mum, Moira dying during an attack on one of the Wizarding villages where she owned a small cafe and bakery that catered to both Muggles and Wizards. Moira had been the love of his life.. Losing her had been hard on him.

And Lily and James had been great help to him and to Carina.. Now that they were gone, he and Carina would be the same to Harry.

"Why's Harry here, daddy?"

"He's going to be living with us now, sugar plum." Sirius said quietly, choking up just a little out of the blue. This, both of his losses combined, they hurt like hell.

And now, he was going to raise two children.

For a few moments he wondered to himself if he could actually do this, if he were actually what his daughter and his godson needed.. But he took a few deep breaths and then took Carina into his lap also and said quietly, "We three are all we have now, Carina."

Carina sniffled a little.. She'd gotten quite close to her 'uncle and aunt' in more recent months. She looked at Harry a few moments quietly and then asked, "They're with mommy now, right?"

And when Sirius had to answer her, it killed him to have to nod yes and say quietly, "They are. Mommy's probably helping them get settled in." as he hugged Harry and Carina both against him and then asked quietly, "What woke you?"

"I couldn't sleep, Daddy.. So I got up to come sleep with ya and you were gone and I got scared."

"I'm here and I'm not going anywhere." Sirius said as he turned Harry around to face him, looked at both the little boy and his own daughter as he said quietly, "I mean that. No matter what happens. We are a family now.. And I will always find my way back to the two of you. You two have each other.. I want you to be close too."

Carina nodded and said quietly to Harry, "I'll be your sister.. I can tell you things about your mommy and daddy, how they used to always come over and bring you, and spend time with my mommy and daddy."

Sirius smoothed his hand over Carina's wild mane of curly black hair and then said quietly, "In the mean time.. Maybe Dad should move your old crib int his room for the night.. So we all three can go to sleep?"

"Sleepover?"

"I'll finish reading you that book." Sirius said as he made his way down the hallway and into the nursery, putting Harry into the crib, gripping the edge of the crib for a moment as he wondered to himself just how much people were going to have to lose before this situation got any better for anyone.

He'd lost nearly everyone he cared about, and in light of tonight's events, he realized that he might have pushed away the one true friend he had left, Remus Lupin.

How the hell could he have been stupid enough to fully trust Peter? How had he not seen what Peter was before now?

He'd have to go to Remus tomorrow and apologize, admit he was wrong. Because he was going to need everyone he could get to help him keep Harry, to keep Dumbledore from demanding that Harry be sent to live with the Dursley family as Hagrid suggested Dumbledore had been planning to do earlier at the house in Godric's Hollow.

He was also going to need all the help he could get finding and hunting down that no good Peter Pettigrew. Peter had to pay for what he'd done, somehow.

And Remus, he was almost quite certain, would want to know that yet again, he'd been right about something. He could almost hear the git now, rubbing it in his face..

But sadly, of course. Because the events of tonight could all have been avoided if Sirius had just kept the secret as originally planned.

He'd have died before he allowed Voldemort or his followers find Lily and James and their son Harry.

The fact that Peter could turn on his lifelong friends so easily sickened Sirius.

But the focus for now, and for the rest of his life, was on the two children currently in his care. His own daughter needed her father.. And he would be the father that James could no longer be for Harry, he'd love Harry as his own son.

Everything else, he was quite sure, would work itself out in time.

For now, all that mattered was that they were a family.. They might be dysfunctional, not the typical one, but they were a family. They were not going to be split apart, not if Sirius could help it.

Footnote: I want to give a special thanks to the reviewer who pointed out quite a few messy mistakes that prompted me to take down the first chapter I had originally posted and just totally rewriting it. Hopefully, -fingers crossed- it makes more sense now, and it fits a lot more smoothly with the universe put forth in the actual canon verse. I went back and read what actually happened at Godric's Hollow, suffice to say, it gave me quite a few ideas on ways to have Sirius not wind up going to Azkaban, thus making this story possible..

But none of this research would have been possible without the one reviewer polite enough to step up and point out all the crap I'd gotten wrong previously. And again, I apologize. It's been a few years since I've read the series or seen the movies. Trust me. But I'm gonna check things out more closely from here forward, I promise.

Thanks to everyone following this currently. There's not going to be much in this story other than father/children moments with the remaining Marauders Sirius and Remus (who isn't in the story yet, but he will be, soonish) and Harry and my original person, Carina. I tried my best to actually make this chapter worth reading, hopefully it is.

The spin off story will be posted at a later date and it'll be more about Fred x OC, OC and her family relations (some harry appearances in there) and her times at Hogwarts with more of a focus on characters like the Weasley twins, Luna and a few others.