Disclaimer: nothing you recognise belongs to me.

Graham Delany wriggled a bit in his seat and tried to get comfortable. While he could remember (with a shiver and a thanks to Merlin that his daughter was to young to) the dark days of the Great War, he couldn't help thinking that after everything in the wizarding world was pretty much put back together the Ministry of Magic might have done something about the chairs. Something about the ones issued to the Holding Warehouses seemed to be deliberately designed to make a bloke's bum numb on one side. Putting down his crossword puzzle on the table that sat beneath the spell-proof glass that separated him from the the corridor to the holding rooms, he checked the monitors that were fed from the Monitor Lizards in each of the warehouses. Aside from the mess that Sarah Osaka's kid had made in 3C not much had changed from five minutes ago; he was still stuck babysitting a lot of junk retrieved from a load of Death Eaters who were now cooling their heels in Azkaban.

Shame about Sarah, he thought absently, retrieving the pencil that had rolled under his newspaper. Nice lady, always had a "hello" and a smile. Didn't seem right that she'd probably be sacked for bringing her kid into the building. But then that was bureaucracy for you. The Malfoys of the world walked free and it was the "little" people who got a kicking by the Ministry. Licking the tip of the nib of his pencil he frowned at the black and white squares and the clues that were begging to be solved.

"Gambit." Graham smiled in triumph as one question gave up its mystery. "Opening move." Quickly scribbling the letters onto the paper he almost didn't notice when all the monitors went black, but the sudden feeling that something was wrong had him discarding the pencil and grabbing his wand almost without realising what he was doing. Instinct, he thought, with the strange irrational clarity of adrenaline. His daughter Katie's muggle school books didn't describe it nearly well enough when he'd helped her with her biology homework.

Down the corridor the lights blinked out one by one, and Graham forced himself to move. The panic button below his desk exploded before he could reach it, and stumbling backwards he raised his wand shakily. Darkness fell before he had even time to acknowledge the shattering light above him or feel the sting of the shards of glass that rained down, but in the last flicker of illumination he saw the man who stalked down the corridor towards him. Eyes blazing, flat nosed and terrifying, the man swept forward, what was left of what might have been a curtain wrapped around him. The face belonged in history books, not here, and Graham's scream turned into a whimper when Voldemort apparated into his little office and then everything really did go black.

"We'll be back as soon as we can."

Asking Charlie to.. well babysit a not-as-dead-as-he-was-supposed-to-be war hero was seriously pushing the boundaries of friendship, but it wasn't as though Sarah had many other options. Harry Potter had left, politely declining her offer of lunch earlier and promising to return soon, and so had luckily not seen her pathetic attempt at cheerfulness when the mail owl had arrived. Derek of course had seen straight through her as usual when she opened the letter from her employers and gave her a worried smile, but luckily Sirius and Charlie were too engrossed in their conversation to notice that her hands weren't quite steady when she shoved the letter in the kitchen drawer.

Sarah tucked everything from her muggle passport to her spare quill into her handbag. She had to collect the right forms from Diagon Alley to explain why she had taken her son into her place of work. Not to mention why she had taken an actual person out of it. Her employment record was immaculate, Derek had never been in any trouble . They'd be alright. Probably. But if she lost her job then what? There was the mortgage on the house, Derek's school stuff to buy, and it wasn't as though she had any family that would take them in if the worst came to the worst...

Quickly sorting out her son's duffel coat, that as usual he had buttoned up wrong making him look like an unfortunate urchin from Oliver Twist, Sarah grabbed her own coat and then Derek's hand.

"You two'll be alright until I get back won't you?" She asked Sirius and Charlie. From his position sprawled on the sofa Charlie raised an eyebrow and Sirius gave a weary but amused smile.

Yeah, two grown men with combat experience could probably cope for a couple of hours sat in her living room. Nice one Sarah,she thought.

"We'll be fine."Charlie gave her a searching look. "You ok?"

"Yep," Sarah kept her voice light and breezy and didn't quite meet his eyes. "Just some boring work stuff to do. I won't be long." When he babysat Derek occasionally she usually left with instructions about what he was or more relevant wasn't allowed to watch on television or eat before dinner, but looking at Sirius Black, big, handsome and watching her as though she might be a little bit mad, Sarah managed to stop her mouth running away from her and didn't give her friend any of the automatic instructions.

"See you later." Tucking Derek beside her she apparated before she could embarrass herself further.

"Sarah looked worried."

Charlie was a little surprised that Sirius had noticed. Sarah was good at hiding her emotions – having to take care of a scared little boy and deal with her husband's death probably explained it. He found her hard to read sometimes and he'd known her since they were kids.

"I can't imagine her bosses are too happy with her at the moment." He tried to think of a polite way of saying that Sirius's miraculous return from the dead might have cost the woman who had taken him in her job.

Sirius saved him the trouble. Leaning forward he rubbed a hand over a slightly stubbled cheek in frustration. "Because of me."

"It's not like you asked for any of this to happen," Charlie pointed out.

"Nor did she." The idea that he might have hurt both her and Derek simply by being the recipient of their kindness made him feel slightly ill. "If she loses her job then I've got money..."

Charlie cut him off before he could continue. "She'd hex you if you tried. Seriously. If you want to piss Sarah off then let her think that you feel sorry for her; you've already died once, don't do it again."

Sirius couldn't help but laugh. "Why, would you miss me?"

"Fuck no." The red head shook his head. "Do you know how many crappy biographies there are about you because of the first time you died? Do it again and the publishing industry is going to go into meltdown. Mum's got a thing about biographies – every bloody christmas I get a load that she buys even though she knows most of it is rubbish. I was hoping for socks this year."

"Hmm." Sirius processed this new information. "There are books about me?"

Charlie rolled his eyes. "You have no idea. Actually you probably don't want to know. Some of the things..." He looked at Sirius thoughtfully. "Did you ever shag a mermaid?"

"What?"

"Thought not. I don't see how that would work anyway. Just stay away from Gulliver Brooke's writing that's all I'm going to say. Anyway, you'll probably be needing one of these." Charlie bent down and fished around in the extremely battered rucksack that he'd dumped beside Sarah's sofa.

Sarah would probably would be pissed off if he dirtied up the upholstery, Sirius thought. Charlie had also kicked off his trainers as soon as he had apparated into the lounge with a carelessness that spoke of habit. Sirius looked at them, big and well worn next to Derek's school shoes in the corner of the room and felt a sudden surge of irrational jealousy. Squashing the emotion down – what right did he have to get territorial all of sudden? Hell Sarah and Derek weren't his; he didn't even actually own any shoes of his own for Merlin's sake, it took a moment for him to realise what Charlie was holding out to him.

The wand was beautiful. Definitely Ollivander's work; no-one else could get that balance between practicality and aesthetics. The twisted dark wood practically called to him when Charlie held it out to him, and oh how good would it be to have some control over his life; to be able to protect himself and those around him? but the look in the younger man's eyes stopped him from taking it.

"Go on, it's yours." Charlie's voice was steady but he didn't quite meet Sirius's eyes. "You shouldn't ... I mean if you're going to be here.." Huffing in annoyance he practically threw the wand at Sirius who caught it by reflex. "Sarah can't do defensive spells for shit and Derek's likely to get himself hauled up infront of the Wizengamot before he even gets past his first year when the press find out that you're here. I can't be around all the time."

"He does seem to be a bit impulsive." Sirius curled his fingers around the slender piece of wood, a tiny part of him that he hadn't realised was dormant giving a short, sharp kick to his chest and making the wand quiver in his hand as though it too had been awakened. Swallowing hard, he looked at Charlie. The red head looked exhausted, his eyes fixed on the wand that he had given him.

Wands had owners – they chose them. Everyone knew that be they Order Of The Phoenix or Death Eaters. So this one must have belonged to someone... Sirius put the wand down on the small table beside him. For a moment both he and Charlie looked at it as though it might start talking and break the silence.

"This was your brother's wasn't it?" Sirius said quietly. "I read about Fred. I'm sorry."

"Yeah. Well." Looking away, Charlie eventually shrugged. "He'd probably laugh if he knew that you had it. The Marauders were kind of role models to him and George, anyway you helped make that map they had so it's fair trade really." Neither of them spoke for a moment, stuck in the limbo of being too familiar with each other to exchange empty platitudes and not friendly enough to exchange stories about fallen friends.

Sirius looked at the wand on the table. "Are you sure that George wouldn't want it?"

"No. He gave it to me right after the last battle. I don't think he wanted to..." Charlie realised that he had been systematically shredding a tissue that had fallen out of his backpack when he'd liberated Fred's wand and squashed the grubby paper in his fist. "George is in Tunisia anyway." At Sirius's incredulous expression Charlie shrugged. "That joke shop that they thought up really took off; you think that the Death Eaters grovelled to Voldemort ? You should see Gringots' goblins suck up to him. He keeps trying to buy mum and dad a new house- mum just gets pissed off and dad has all this.." Charlie rolled his eyes and tossed the bits of tissue into the bin by the fireplace. "You know how he likes muggle stuff? George got him subscribed to this shop called Argos. Dad calls the catalogue The Laminated Book Of Dreams from some comedian he'd heard of. Let's just say if I never see another kettle again then I'll be happy. He's got about thirty now, most of them in bits in the shed."

Sirius tried and failed to picture either of the Weasley twins as being anything other than lanky and ginger. There were lots of words that could be attributed to the family but "rich" or "intimidating" wasn't one of them.

But then there were a lot of things that he had apparently missed. He tried to picture Fred without George or George without Fred and couldn't. The two came as a pair. They were just kids anyway. Kids weren't supposed to get killed in wars.

Feeling slightly sick, Sirius looked at his tea. The motif on it proclaimed that the owner of the mug was not keen on mondays. Sirius was inclined to agree with the sentiment, although what was the actual day? He glanced at the calender on the wall before realising that without a newspaper he wasn't sure what he had to check the dates against or what good it would do anyway.

"It's not all bad news though." Charlie gave a half-hearted smile. "We have Harry Potter Day now. It's on the second of january so people get to sleep off their hang-overs for an extra day after new year. If you ever really want to piss of your godson then go down Diagon Alley at Christmas. They have these charmed little flags with his face on. Mum put them up as a joke last year when he and Ginny went over to theirs for Christmas. Bill actually had to talk Harry out of hanging himself with the scarf she'd knitted him."

Sirius stifled a smile. He'd only met Molly Weasley a couple of times but had liked her a lot. Her I'm-going-to-do-whatever-I-think-is-best-and-don't-you-argue attitude had reminded him a lot of cousin Andromeda. He'd been too young to apparate or portkey to the wedding between her and her muggle boyfriend but he had sent her a card by owl and patted the burnt out patch that had been her face on the family tree that had been pasted on the wall of Grimmauld Place each morning.

Now according to the book that he had read she was a grandmother. Moony had pulled his head out of his arse, hooked up with Tonks and brought a son into the world. Good for you, Remus, he mused.

Realising that he had been drifting off into his thoughts a little, Sirius glanced at the front door. Sarah and Derek would be back soon. Aside from Charlie who probably wouldn't look presentable even after a dozen of his mother's hair straightening spells the house looked fairly tidy. Picking up a cushion that was slightly squashed, Sirius paused when Charlie laughed.

"She won't notice, mate. Dez'll wreck the place in two minutes anyway."

"You seem to be the expert on her." The words came out a little sharper than he had intended.

Charlie paused, half way to the porch, his discarded trainers dangling from his hands. "I'm her friend."

"Sorry." Sirius rubbed a hand through his shaggy hair. "If you two are... Together... I mean not that I have a chance with her but I wouldn't..."

"I'm her friend," Charlie repeated. "We'd be perfect in theory but we don't work like that. I'm cursed with two sisters; Ginny and Sarah and on top of that I'm Derek's godfather. Just to make things clear though, if I thought that you would hurt them then Sarah and I would be discussing spells to bury a dead body in the back garden." Tossing the shoes into a pile of wellington boots and a discarded kite, Charlie shut the door to the porch firmly and locked it. "You know for someone who was supposed to be the sex-god of Hogwarts you're pretty crap at reading the signals she's been giving you," he said, rummaging around in his pocket for some Floo Powder. Coming up empty he snagged his duffel bag and gave a smile of triumph when he came across a little packet of powder. "I'm not her dad or her brother, but I know she hasn't smiled like this for a long time. Give her a chance. "

The sound of the key in the front door made them both jump. Sirius reached for the wand he had been given automatically and Charlie tucked his away as soon as he heard Derek arguing with his mother about charming the birds in their front garden in to different colours.

"Wasn't joking about burying you in the back garden," the stocky red-head warned. Throwing a handful of Floo Powder into the fireplace he made an almost perfectly timed exit, blowing Sarah a kiss and giving Derek a wink as the pair entered their house.

A/N for non Brits Argos is like a big warehouse that sells pretty much everything from jewellery to chainsaws. You flick through the catalogues in the front of the shop, write down the item number that you want on a bit of paper, pay for it, wait for ages and then go to the counter when some poor (often tired looking student) person fishes it out of the warehouse when eventually your purchase turns up. It's a bit of a mad idea for a shop really but works in Britain because we quite like queueing for some reason.

The "Laminated Book Of Dreams" line is shamelessly pinched from a very funny Comedian called Bill Bailey. Some of his stuff is on youtube; if you like daft, funny stuff by a bloke that looks like he fell out of The Hobbit then he's your guy :)

As always thanks for reading, and cheers reviewing shaped people.