100 reviews for the main story! I thought I'd have some fun in this chapter, and answer a little question about Sirius. Takes place sometime after "The Best Birthday Ever" in the main story.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, and I'm not making money off of this. I'm only writing for my own entertainment and, hopefully, others'.
Near the end of his first week at Alder Cottage, Harry sat at the kitchen table and watched Sirius fixing dinner. For the first few days he had tried to help with meals, but Sirius had always ordered him to sit down, and after several near-accidents Harry had learned that the kitchen was really only big enough for one person anyway. So he contented himself with watching his godfather cook, and tried to ignore the strangeness of not being in the kitchen himself. So far his success had been limited.
Talking made things feel a lot less awkward, though, so tonight Harry decided to voice a question that had been on his mind for quite awhile now. "Hey, Sirius?"
Sirius was standing at the stove, stirring something that bubbled noisily and smelled delicious. When Harry spoke he turned his head but didn't stop stirring. "Yeah, Harry?"
"I was just wondering… where did you learn how to cook?" While Sirius's cooking wasn't as good as Mrs. Weasley's dinners or the feasts at Hogwarts it was a surprisingly close thing, and much better than Harry would have expected from a thirty-something bachelor who had spent the last twelve years in prison.
To Harry's surprise, Sirius chuckled, but didn't give an immediate answer. It wasn't until he had moved the food to the table and started serving it out that he said anything more.
"Your mother."
"Huh?"
"Lily. She's the one who taught me how to cook." Seeing that Harry was looking at him expectantly, Sirius sighed and set down the serving spoon. "I see that this is going to take a bit of telling."
"Well, what else do we have to do?"
"What else, indeed? Okay, I'll tell you if you promise me that the story won't leave this house."
"Wha-?"
"Just promise me, okay?" He lowered his voice in a way that was disturbingly reminiscent of Aunt Petunia when she was afraid the neighbors might overhear something about magic. "Please?"
"Okay, I promise."
"Good." Sirius leaned back in his chair. "All right, then. Once upon a time I was young, carefree, and out on my own for the first time. I hadn't the slightest clue how to take care of myself. Thankfully, I had a best friend whose parents had taken me in and treated me like a second son. They wouldn't hear of me going hungry." Harry couldn't help but smile, thinking of how welcome he'd been the first time he'd visited the Burrow. "So even after I left home, I was always welcome to Sunday lunch. Or dinner. Actually, come to think of it, I took meals there most every other day of the week as well…"
Harry laughed. Sirius smiled in return, though his eyes were tinged with sadness now. "James's mother—your grandmother—tried to teach me some basic cooking techniques, along with simple cleaning spells and a few other things she thought I'd need. I didn't pay attention, of course. I thought I'd be able to turn to the Potters if ever I needed help. In the end they were my parents, too."
"So what happened?" Harry had an idea already; he knew (or liked to think, at least) that if his grandparents were still alive, and if they had loved his parents and Sirius, they would never have left him to languish at the Dursleys'.
"Voldemort murdered them." Sirius's tone was flat, and for a moment the dead, haunted look of Azkaban crept back into his eyes. "It was Pettigrew that sold them out, though we didn't know it at the time, never guessed… I suspected Remus. He knew everything Voldemort would have needed to find them, knew James would inherit a fortune when his parents died and that he would have benefited… then he seemed so unconcerned when we heard the news…" Harry realized that Sirius was trying to justify his actions, to himself as much as Harry, and that he had probably asked himself again and again why he hadn't done anything differently. "I didn't realize that it was because he was in so much pain himself. When all the while it was staring me right in the face…" He looked away for a moment, and closed his eyes.
Harry had no idea what to say. Fortunately after a few minutes Sirius shook himself, and when he looked up again it was with the same expression of amused pleasure that he had been wearing before. It was almost unnerving, how quickly he could push his pain away.
"Where was I? Ah, yes. James and Lily got married shortly after that, and once things settled down I started coming over for lunch and dinner. Rather frequently. And uninvited, I might add.
"Lily was really good about it at first. I don't think she liked me too well then, but I was James's best friend and she put up with me for his sake. She'd always give me this glare across the room when James wasn't looking, though."
Harry was intrigued. He'd never heard of this side of his mother before. "Why didn't she like you?"
"Oh, a lot of reasons," Sirius said vaguely. "I was a real troublemaker at school, you know, and after she was made prefect I did everything I could think of to push her buttons. I think that from fifth year onward I got more detentions from Lily than from all the teachers and other prefects put together."
"So what happened?"
Sirius grinned. "She got pregnant. Inconsiderate oaf that I was, I gave them my congratulations and thought everything would keep going on like normal."
Harry gaped at his godfather. "You mean you kept on coming over and expecting her to feed you?"
"That I did." Sirius nodded sagely. "She still put up with me for awhile, bless her, but in the first few months you made her really sick—" Harry blushed, causing Sirius to bark out a laugh, "—and there came a time when I pushed her just a little too far.
"You see, one morning I came over and Lily looked simply awful. White as a sheet, dark circles under her eyes and all that. James told me later she'd been sick all night and most of the day before, and he'd about worked himself into a panic before things finally quieted down early that morning.
"So here I come bounding in through their front door, whistling at the top of my voice. There's Lily, lying on the couch, completely exhausted and still feeling sick, and James sitting beside her holding her hand even though he looks like he's about to collapse himself. And do you know what I did then?"
Harry could see what was coming. He groaned. "Sirius, you didn't."
"I did." Sirius nodded sagely. "Right at that moment I take a look around, and after I assure myself that they're still alive I go straight up to Lily and ask what's for breakfast.
"Well, she'd hardly been able to move up until then, but that roused her. At that moment she was up on her feet and waving her wand all over the place, and before I could blink every pot, pan, spoon, and ladle in the house had flown straight over to me and was beating me over the head. She had some cast iron pans in that house too." Sirius grinned idiotically, as if he could think of no better memory in the world than being beaten half to death by various kitchen implements. Harry resisted the urge to ask if any of the hits he'd taken had done him permanent brain damage.
A/N: This was originally one long chapter, but I decided to break it up into segments - it's not done yet! Sorry if the ending was a bit abrupt.
Yeah, I got the impression that young!Sirius was a bit of an idiot. Ah well, he grew up eventually.