A/N: Harry learns what life is like when you live with your godfather. Warning - very long chapter ahead! It spans loosely and broadly over several years, so there's a lot to fit in!
There was even less room in Harry's cupboard with the addition of a giant black dog, but Harry would happily have slept standing up in exchange for Sirius' company.
He turned out to be brilliant fun, and just as kind and nice as he was in his letters. And he didn't mind at all if Harry used Padfoot as a giant furry pillow to sleep on.
"This is my room," Harry said, embarrassed, the first night he and dog-Sirius went into the cupboard and shut the door with don't you go trying anything funny in the night, you hear me? You're lucky we house you at all! The cheek to run away... Ringing after them in his Aunt's pinched voice.
Harry's stomach started to plummet again at the telling off (the seventh or eighth he'd received since the policemen dropped him back, dog in tow, Harry had lost count) but it stopped when he saw Sirius had changed back into a man and was moving his mouth along with his Aunt's words and pulling a silly scrunched up face that looked quite like Aunt Petunia.
Harry had to cover his own mouth as laughter bubbled up and he suddenly felt a lot lighter. Sirius' eyes were dancing and he winked conspiratorially at Harry and suddenly Harry couldn't care less what his aunt was saying because his godfather was sharing a private joke with him.
Sirius had to hunch over to stand up in the cupboard. He looked around, distinctly unimpressed, and forced on what looked like an attempt at a bright smile, though it came across as more of a grimace.
"Well, it's an improvement on my last place," he said false-airly. He spun around as much as he could move to take everything in - what little there was of it.
"Bit grim but we can brighten it up. Stick up a few posters, it'll be practically cheerful!" Sirius echoed, though Harry didn't know it, the words James Potter had said the first time he'd stayed over in Sirius' room at his parents' old house.
The next day Aunt Petunia told Harry he'd have to wash the dog himself which was great fun in the garden after dinner. Sirius splashed a lot and Harry kept remembering he was giving his godfather a bath and starting to laugh and blush a bit each time he thought it.
Harry was a little in awe of Sirius. He did look a bit scary and thin like he said he would, but as the months passed he put on weight with rest and food and care and began to look striking in a different way. He took long baths and cut his hair and shaved and at some point while Harry was at school managed to get nice clean new clothes.
Sirius' old clothes looked like pyjamas that were falling apart. In his new clothes, Harry's godfather looked like someone from one of the bands on Top of the Pops on telly.
More than even his looks, it was Sirius' presence and energy that made Harry feel a bit wide eyed around him. When they were alone in the house and he could be human, Sirius walked around with a confident strut that Harry immediately tried to imitate. Sirius lounged against things, leaning back in any chair he sat in so that the legs tilted off the floor. Harry thought his godfather might be the coolest person he'd ever seen.
Harry knew his Aunt Petunia wasn't old for an adult, but his godfather seemed so much younger. He seemed like he could walk right up and hang out with the oldest coolest most intimidating big kids at the high school next to Harry's school and he'd fit right in.
It wasn't just appearances either. Sirius knew lots of cool and useful things that he taught Harry, like how to stop Dudley and his gang from picking on him and how to make new friends. Soon, Harry wasn't dreading going to school every day and was coming home with stories to tell Sirius of the funny prank he and Tom and Ben pulled in the Geography storage cupboard and his team winning at Rounders because Harry caught the ball on every hit and the birthday party he'd been invited to at the swimming pool.
When Harry accidentally ended up on the school roof one day, all the other kids thought he did it on purpose as a joke and they cheered.
Sometimes his godfather thought about when he was in prison and got really sad. Harry didn't like that. Sirius would stare at one spot as though he was in a trance and Harry didn't know what to do to make him feel better. He felt awful not knowing how to help him when Sirius was so good at making Harry feel better. Luckily those grey moods happened less and less as time went by and as Harry grew more comfortable around Sirius he could usually get him to snap out of them by giving him a quick hug.
All of that wasn't even the best thing. There were two best things. Sirius told Harry all about magic, and Sirius told Harry all about his parents. If Harry thought it was great hearing about them in letters, it was something else hearing about them in person with Sirius as such a charismatic storyteller. Harry couldn't get enough of either subject, asking for stories every chance he got, listening raptly as though trying to memorise every word, asking for his favourites over and over again. Sirius was happy to oblige.
As the months passed, Sirius decided staying at the Dursleys wasn't a bad plan for the time being. They were as decently off there as they'd be anywhere else while they were on the run. Now that Sirius was around to deal with the problem of the Dursleys making Harry's life miserable, it was a safe enough option for them while they came up with a plan to prove Sirius' innocence. You couldn't be on the run in all conditions with a six year old. Even if he was nearly seven and insisted he'd be fine.
The Dursleys weren't too terrible with Sirius around to growl menacingly at them whenever they pushed their luck. They still expected Harry to do most of the housework and sleep in his cupboard but Sirius helped make it all quite fun. As long as Harry kept out of their way and didn't talk to them much, the Dursleys mostly ignored him.
Harry was perfectly happy with this. He only wanted to talk to Sirius anyway. Most days he couldn't wait to get in his cupboard so Sirius could change back into a human and talk back to him.
While Harry was at school Sirius investigated the wizarding world, catching up on what he missed while in Azkaban, reading newspapers, going to Gringotts as Padfoot to access his vault. He frequently passed Wanted posters with his face on at first but as time passed with no sign of him, the immediacy of the manhunt wore off.
Sirius searched everywhere he could think of for clues to where Peter might be hiding, to no avail.
Sirius healed from the Azkaban damage slowly. Spending time as a dog showered with affection helped. Looking after Harry helped too. He quickly became Harry's best friend and confidante.
He taught Harry as much magic as he could without a wand. He went through all the books he could find in his vault, and all the old lessons on etiquette, wizarding history and societal customs he could remember from the tutoring in his youth before Hogwarts. It was sometimes hard to translate them without the fanatical pureblood bent. He'd hated those lessons back then but Sirius was glad to pass what he could on to Harry now so he'd be up to speed with other wizarding kids at Hogwarts.
Sirius shared with Harry what he gathered about the latest state of things in the magical world from lying low as Padfoot, who everyone of note was, and told him about everyone he remembered from the past as his memory recovered from Azkaban.
Harry blossomed under Sirius' guidance. He gained confidence and humour and playfulness. Sirius taught by example and with advice how to make friends, be confident and stand up for himself. How to be popular and charming and have fun. He helped Harry find his sense of humour and was delighted to find James' son was really funny.
If Harry thought Sirius was larger than life when he first met him, he became at least twenty times that size as he recovered from Azkaban. The voice that was loud when they first met became booming, his laughter huge bright barks. Harry had never seen someone so confident and sure of himself as Sirius. It was infectious. Once he got started on something he was going in that direction and you just followed, swept up in the momentum. He didn't even look to see if you were with him, he just knew you were.
At first it was the kind of confidence that made Harry feel smaller and a bit shy. But as he grew familiar with Sirius it started to become a part of Harry too. Sirius hummed with energy, relaxed and warm and sure. He had a sense of certainty in himself that you felt in yourself by association, of the potential greatness always around the corner, like everything was always exactly the way it was supposed to be and he could do whatever he wanted. Without consciously realising it, and despite his less than ideal circumstances with the Dursleys, Harry got used to just expecting things would go well for him. Any challenge was the next adventure to be tackled. Any problem wasn't a problem so much as a great new joke for them to share. Harry's energy enlarged to meet his godfather's huge presence and his natural friendliness became magnetic like his godfather.
Whenever Harry felt unsure or shy he would think what would Sirius do and mimic his godfather, acting like he was Sirius, doing his best version of that confident, fun, sure-that-things-would-go-his-way presence that made you want to take notice of him and listen to him and play with him. The effect was amazing. The more Harry did it the more natural it felt to him until he grew into a young boy as oversized and energetic and charismatic as his godfather. As his dad, at that age, even. The two of them were a dynamic duo, two of a kind, again.
Of course being too obviously happy and self assured wouldn't have gone down well with the Dursleys, who were generally against confidence or happiness where Harry was concerned. They were greatly distressed that Harry had become so popular it became impossible to stop him going to the parties of children in his class. When Harry said he couldn't go to Will Groves' birthday, Will changed the date of his party. After Emma Bryant, Andrew Donovan and Lucy Wilson did the same, his Aunt had to concede defeat on trying to curb Harry's popularity.
So he had to be careful how he behaved around the Dursleys so as not to annoy them even more. It became a great ongoing prank for Harry and Sirius to appease his aunt and uncle while secretly having as much fun as possible.
Sirius said it reminded him a bit of growing up with his brother in his parents' house. Harry didn't ask Sirius about his childhood, only listened whenever he brought it up. He got the feeling Sirius didn't like to talk about it much.
They conspired to move Uncle Vernon's chair a little bit every day so it was never noticeably different but he always missed his reading glasses when he reached for them, making him shout with rage.
Sirius helped Harry make the Dursleys breakfast every day. Each morning he and Harry grinned at each other and cheerfully spat into whichever pan they were using in unison before they began cooking. He helped Harry weed the garden and polish Aunt Petunia's photo frames and all the other housework Harry was delegated. Best of all he found ways to turn everything into games so they were more like fun than chores. It was like he was back in detention with James again, messy black hair bobbing around, as Harry would laugh and laugh at his antics and then join in with his own.
It wasn't just the fun things. For the first time Harry felt like he had family. Sirius took care of Harry, made him feel safe and loved and comforted. He looked after him when was ill or hurt. He hugged Harry when he woke up scared after a nightmare and sat up talking to him until he fell back to sleep. He told Harry he loved him, and that his parents loved him, and what good, kind, brilliant people they were. Harry could never hear it enough, his eyes lighting up every time.
Sirius celebrated Harry's birthdays with him, little parties of their own in the cupboard. The first year Harry woke up and saw Sirius had decorated it with balloons and handmade banners he could hardly speak.
And that was before he even noticed the presents. Having someone to celebrate with made Harry realise what all the fuss about birthdays had been.
When Harry was a bit older, Sirius told him how his parents died and why he'd be famous amongst the other kids when he went to Hogwarts. He told Harry he was special and important not because he was the Boy Who Lived, but because he was Harry Potter, James and Lily's son, and Sirius Black's godson, and he would do great things of his own. Harry nodded fiercely and looked determined to try and conquer the world if only to make Sirius proud of him.
Within a few months Harry fairly hero-worshiped Sirius, an admiration that only grew with time. He was parent, best friend, big brother, role model, hero, and the coolest kid in school all rolled into one. He made everything better and more fun and Harry loved him so very much he could barely remember what it was like without him and couldn't imagine how he got through a day without Sirius there to joke with and talk to and ask advice from and use as a pillow while he fell asleep.
The money from Sirius' vault came in handy whenever the Dursleys were being particularly miserable. Harry would head into his cupboard with his stomach empty and growling and find Sirius sat on their bed with five bags of McDonalds or a giant pizza or a big chocolate cake.
They were usually cold by the time Harry got to eat them because Sirius got them during the day while everyone was out but it was the thought more than anything and the fun of sharing the food with Sirius whispering on his bed that made Harry feel completely full up.
Sometimes they made proper food when the Dursleys were out. Sirius was a fairly rubbish cook but Harry wasn't bad and it was fun to see his godfather challenge himself with a curry or throw together a Sunday Roast while pretending to be a TV chef.
Harry even managed to keep his temper most of the time when his Uncle Vernon said bad things about his mum and dad. Mostly because before Harry even had the chance to say something Sirius the dog had bitten his uncle's ankles or growled so threateningly his aunt dropped a plate.
The Dursleys tried to get rid of the dog twice. Both times it reappeared no matter how much they tried to keep it out.
"Those funny policemen in the purple dresses said I have to keep the dog, remember? I don't think they'd be very happy if they found out you were trying to get rid of it," Harry said solemnly to his aunt and uncle, making sure his eyes were very wide. It was a game of his and Sirius' to see how much Harry could frighten the Dursleys with references to magical things without outright admitting he knew about magic.
After that his aunt and uncle and Dudley were even more scared of the dog and treated it with the sort of wary distance and suspicion you might treat a caged lion you thought was trying to trick you.
Sirius bought Harry as many toys as he could hide in their cupboard, although with Sirius there Harry found he cared much less about toys than he'd always thought he would. Harry didn't envy Dudley anything at all anymore. He was too busy having fun with Sirius.
Money wasn't the best thing to come from Sirius' vault. The best thing was the pictures of Harry's parents. The first Harry had ever seen. And they moved!
Harry was amazed. He couldn't stop looking. He sat with Sirius' arm around him listening to the story behind each one, watching young Sirius and his dad laugh and joke around like him and Sirius. He really did look extraordinarily like his father. There were even pictures of his mum and dad with baby Harry, looking at him with more love than he could ever have hoped for. Sirius was there too, slinging an arm around all three of them and grinning the grin that Harry loved so much he could picture it with his eyes closed.
Harry's eyes were so wide trying to take in everything in the pictures he didn't even realise there were tears in them until his vision blurred. Sirius let him have a good cry into his shoulder and had a fair cry himself in the process and even though he was still a bit sad, Harry also felt a bit happy. He definitely felt a million times better than when he cried about his parents on his own.
When Harry was older and allowed out by himself they ran around in the park a lot. Padfoot wasn't half bad at football. Even visiting Mrs Figg wasn't as boring when Sirius spent the day winding up her cats to make Harry laugh.
Harry learned all the rules to Quidditch as a matter of priority, of course. Sirius assured him it was the most important thing his dad would want Sirius to teach him so Harry listened raptly with as much attention as he could.
Sirius explained the positions and acted out all the complicated plays he remembered Harry's dad telling him using the action figures he bought Harry and Harry listened until he could repeat them back perfectly, Sirius' enthusiasm infectious again. Harry couldn't wait to get on his House Team and make his dad proud, couldn't wait to get a broomstick, to fly.
Harry was on the football and rounders teams at his muggle school. His aunt and uncle tried to have him removed from both teams when Dudley didn't get on to either of them but Harry was so good at the sports, and by then so well liked among his teammates besides, Mr Lewis the PE teacher absolutely wouldn't hear of it.
Sirius came as a dog to all the matches and barked so loud when Harry won Man of the Match and told Harry all the time how proud his dad would be of him. But Harry knew his dad would be especially proud when he got on the Gryffindor Quidditch team.
When, not if. He was James Potter's son and Sirius Black's godson, after all. It's not like he wouldn't get on the team.
Just to be sure Harry got Sirius to practice throwing around a football with him as a Quaffle substitute. He made a ball of rubber bands that Sirius said was the right size for a Snitch and tossed it around or bounced it off nearby surfaces whenever he had a spare moment. It became a bit of a reflex, something to fidget with. Harry even tried to get Sirius to throw bricks at him from the conservatory extension Mrs Figg was building to simulate Bludgers, but that was where Sirius drew the line.
Sirius' resolution lasted a good few minutes too, until Harry started cheerfully throwing bricks at him for persuasion until Sirius gave in. Then they both threw bricks at each other for an afternoon until they accidentally broke one of Mrs Figg's windows and decided they were good enough at dodging and had better retire from Bludger practice.
Unfortunately despite having plenty of money, Sirius couldn't do anything about Harry's horrible old clothes while they lived with the Dursleys without arousing their suspicion.
Sirius promised Harry he would have an impeccably fitting wardrobe in his trunk when he set off for Hogwarts. Meanwhile he showed Harry how to tuck his oversized clothes stylishly so they looked almost intentionally baggy. Between that and the confident strut and swagger Harry was picking up from Sirius he just about pulled Dudley's old cast-offs off as a style. A few of his friends in school even came in wearing oversized t-shirts just like Harry's sometimes. When they did Harry absolutely glowed inside, ruffling his hair and feeling proud to be a trendsetter, just like his dad.
Sirius had been living with him for nearly a year when Harry noticed Father's Day posters in the shops. For the first time ever they made him feel warm and happy, not sad and lonely. Harry wished he had money to buy Sirius one of those mugs. He settled for giving him the handmade card he had to make in school. Harry felt wonderfully ordinary for the first time ever that year making his card with all the other children, writing inside it all the reasons he was thankful and knowing he'd have someone to give it to after school who would be happy to receive it.
One day early in the first year living at Privet Drive Sirius was helping Harry clean the sofa cushions while the Dursleys were out and Harry, usually not much of a complainer, was in a particularly grumpy mood at having to do housework. He wasn't even cheered up by Sirius instigating bumper car fights with the sofa cushions.
"Cheer up, one day we'll have our own house and we can do whatever we want," Sirius grinned.
For a second Sirius remembered lying in the Gryffindor dorm with James, both squashed onto James' bed, a Snitch soaring around above them, daydreaming about the flat they were going to rent the moment they graduated, but he blinked and it was Harry again. He was with Harry in a muggle house in Surrey.
"Really?" Harry looked just as eager as sixteen year old James.
Sirius plonked himself on the newly cleaned sofa and patted the cushion beside him in welcome. Harry came to sit by him, a little shyly, but he came. He didn't lean away, gravitating towards Sirius' natural warmth.
"If you could have any kind of house in the world, what would it be like?" Sirius asked, leaning back on the sofa with his hands behind his head and looking up at the ceiling.
Harry leaned back next to him and if Sirius looked only out of the corner of his eye at the messy black hair and blurry profile, he was lying next to James again. His heart broke and swelled with love at the same time.
"Hmm," Harry thought. "Big windows. Our own rooms. No cupboards under the stairs," he grinned.
Sirius found Harry a sheet of paper and a pen, prodding him to draw the house as he described the features.
"Go on, go on, what else?" at his urging and interested nods, Harry grew in confidence. Sirius found more paper for him as the house plans expanded into an elaborate design.
"And it'd have a roof that comes off so you can see the stars at night if you want to, like how cars have a sunroofs. A house sunroof," Harry pointed to his picture.
"Great, great," Sirius encouraged. "That reminds me, we should sneak outside one night and I'll teach you the stars. Give you a leg up for Astronomy at Hogwarts."
"Brilliant," Harry grinned. This was his response almost every time Sirius suggested something. In his defence, most of the things Sirius suggested were rather excellent.
"So a house sunroof then," Sirius traced Harry's drawing, smiling at the half size Harry and full size Sirius figures looking up through the roof. "What else?"
It became a regular project to get Harry to draw ideas and additions for their one-day house. Sirius used it to remind Harry they had something to look forward to when he was feeling miserable.
"I'm keeping all these, you know,' Sirius said a few months later, waving Harry's latest addition, a racing broom garage with space for Sirius' motorcycles.
"What for?" Harry asked.
His Aunt Petunia kept every stupid thing Dudley drew and stuck it proudly on the fridge. Sirius noticed Harry watching her do it wistfully once so he drew a fridge on the wall of their cupboard and pointedly stuck Harry's pictures on it, which made Harry laugh. Silly as it was, Harry still felt happy when Sirius would make a point of sticking his drawings on the pretend fridge. The imaginary house pictures were too big to fit there though, and there were too many of them.
"Blueprints. For when we design the house. When my name is cleared and we're fabulously wealthy and famously heroic and well pampered and we build the real thing," Sirius grinned.
Of course, every great plan needs an appropriately great name, and they named the house Harry and Sirius' Merry, Magical and Most Exciting House of Mischief Mayhem Marauding and Hugs .
Sirius promised as soon as they got a wand he'd join all the drawings together into one giant blueprint and charm them like that map he told Harry about.
The name was decided when Harry was seven. A few years later at the very mature age of ten, Harry took issue with the "and Hugs" part of the name one night as they were looking over the plans while Sirius tucked him in for bed.
"That bit's silly now, can't we take it off? It sounds better ending on Marauding."
"No, seven year old you was very wise," Sirius nodded sagely, a mischievous grin forming. "Hugs are very important. In fact I think I need one urgently right now."
Sirius tackled him with a hug.
"Sirius! I'm ten!" Harry blushed and tried to shake him off. Harry was heading into his self-conscious teenager phase and wanted so desperately to be as impossibly cool as his Godfather.
"And a stunningly handsome and talented ten year old you are at that, little Prongsy, my boy. Practically a man. Where do the years go? Any minute now you'll be tucking ME in," Sirius grinned.
"You want me to tuck you in, do you? Happy to Padfoot!" Harry attacked Sirius with the quilt, trying to wrap it around him and trap him in it. In the small space they very quickly ended up in a pile on the floor, giggling.
"What's all that noise down there?" Uncle Vernon shouted, throwing a slipper at the upstairs floor.
This set off them giggling again and Harry just about managed to call, "Sorry, Uncle Vernon!" between their laughter and shushing each other.
As mature as he liked to think he was, Harry still smiled, feeling warm and happy as always, when Sirius kissed him goodnight on the forehead before he turned off the light.
For his part, Sirius was happy he'd managed to get Harry to the point where he was eschewing parental sentimentality like any other almost-teenage boy. There were moments he'd worried Harry was too traumatised by his early childhood to go through adolescence at the same rate as everyone else.
Perhaps he was doing okay at being a godfather after all.