Another night on the floor was more than enough, so Sirius, Harry and Barbara got new furniture for their new house the very next day. Needless to say, they brought Andromeda, because they needed someone who actually knew about home decorating. Harry thought Sirius secretly felt a little sorry for him, because he told him he was free to pick out anything he wanted for his new bedroom. Harry got a double bed, a dresser, and a plant. Sirius looked even more sorry after that, and Harry realized he had just gotten the very basics. So he had Andromeda pick out things he hadn't thought of, like sheets, hangers, a lamp, a bookcase, a vanity, pillows, and a writing desk that came with a chair, plus things for the bathroom. Harry got four bath accessory sets (one for each season), with towels and a shower curtain to match.

Barbara had an employee help her design a kitchen. The employee had a little ribbon on his nametag that said "Ask Me About Furniture," so they figured he was the right guy. It seemed like the only two rooms that really mattered to Barbara were the baby room and the kitchen, and the baby room was already done. Harry thought she was relieved about that. After Harry was done picking out his bedroom set, he helped Andromeda and Sirius design the other rooms of the new house.

Harry only cared about his room, his bathroom and the living room. They bought a huge coffee table and a couch. Then they packed everything into a truck (Sirius used a handy little shrinking spell, and none of the Muggles could figure out how all the furniture fit into one truck), and put it where it belonged. Regulus and Remus Apparated over so they could help. Andromeda pointed to where everything should go, and the men did what she said. Together, they made the house a home.

They did the bedrooms last. Andromeda came up to Harry's room with him and folded his clothes with her wand, then made them put themselves in the dresser drawers. Always before, Harry just stuffed his clothes into the drawers when they came out of the wash, even at Hogwarts. Of course, he had to wear a uniform during the school week, but on the weekends and over summer vacation he just grabbed the first shirt he found and a pair of jeans. Ever since Aunt Petunia stopped doing his laundry for him (and Sirius hadn't exactly been on top of this sort of thing) the clothes may or may not have been washed, and they certainly weren't organized. Andromeda taught Harry to sort all his clothes into separate drawers so he could find them easily in the mornings. She did a fresh load of laundry before she left, too, gave them a week's worth of groceries, and taught them the Laundry Song:

If it's white, and red it's not, keep the water doubly hot.

If your colors are bright and bold, keep the water rather cold.

Never mix your red and blue, if you'd keep your colors true.

If your whites are stained, then reach for a jug of chlorine bleach.

"What would we do without Cousin Andromeda?" Sirius asked nobody in particular, flopping back down onto the couch. He was sipping some water, and that was a good sign, because it meant he wasn't craving alcohol. If he was, he'd be drinking grape juice.

"Lose our heads, probably," said Harry.

"Lose our clothes, accessories, and furniture," Barbara added.

"Now we just have to get our fireplace connected to the Floo network, and get Vlad's friend to install our electricity," Sirius told them. "Then there's the people coming to make our kitchen open-concept."

"And don't forget, we have to plan our wedding!" Barbara chirped.

"Oh, yes," said Sirius, putting his arm around her. "That, too."

…

Actually, they were planning their wedding, in full swing, and knowing Sirius and Barbara, the engagement wouldn't last very long. Neither of them seemed to be big fans of planning—after all, Sirius's proposal hadn't been planned, and neither had their child. In fact, their whole relationship was impromptu and spontaneous. Harry wasn't obsessed with planning, either, but he was a bit wary of how this would turn out.

"The first thing we need to do is set a date," Barbara declared, as they all sat down at their new big dining room table.

"You haven't set a date yet?" said Harry.

"Hey, no judging," said Sirius. "We're financially ready…"

"Emotionally ready," Barbara added.

"Physically ready," Sirius said in a deeper voice, and she giggled.

"There are a whole lot of things you have to plan, though, aren't there?" said Harry. "I mean, I've seen weddings on Aunt Petunia's stupid reality TV, and they really go all out. The brides are obsessed with the dress, and they're always dramatic, and it's like the wedding is the only thing that matters to them. Everything has to be perfect."

Harry said the last word in a sort of mocking voice. He wasn't in a very good mood.

"Oh, it's no accident that they pick the most dramatic women," said Barbara with a smile. "If they picked normal women who had their heads on straight, the show wouldn't be interesting."

"It's still not interesting," Harry told her, and Sirius laughed out loud.

"Some people don't have enough going on in their lives, so they enjoy seeing drama in other people's lives," Barbara said by way of explanation, and Harry wondered if that was why Aunt Petunia liked to watch those shows (and why she spent so much time spying on the neighbors). After all, she was one of the most boring people Harry knew.

"Isn't that kind of pathetic?" said Sirius, thinking along the same lines as Harry.

"It's extremely pathetic," Barbara agreed. "But it happens."

"Whatever," said Harry, thinking he had enough drama in his young life to fill several books. "We need to make the date before Phoebe is born, and before I go off to school again."

"With enough time for a honeymoon," Barbara added.

"How about the eighteenth?" Sirius suggested.

"That's perfect, a little over two weeks," said Barbara. "Who cares about long engagements?"

"I don't!" said Sirius. "I'm impatient. I want to get married now!"

"Oh, me too!" squealed Barbara. "We really are meant for each other!"

They embraced, and Harry rolled his eyes. Obviously, Sirius and Barbara didn't think there was any planning they couldn't do in a single session.

"Next question," said Sirius, like they were doing one of those magazine quizzes. "Where will our wedding be?"

"Hawaii?" Barbara suggested.

"Why Hawaii?" said Sirius.

"I don't know, it's just where people get married, isn't it?" she said with a shrug.

"We should get married in London," Sirius told her. "If we were to be practical, I mean. Most of both our families live there."

"And we could get Regulus to cater!" Harry piped up, his mood improving.

"Absolutely." Barbara nodded. "We could have the reception in a hotel ballroom, but would you mind terribly if the ceremony was in a synagogue, with a rabbi marrying us? It would really make my parents happy, and, you know, yours are dead."

Tactful, that's Barbara, thought Harry, but Sirius didn't seem to mind. In fact, he thought it was a great idea. So they decided their wedding would be on August 18, 1992. Their reception would be in a hotel ballroom, and the ceremony would be at a synagogue in London. They picked out who to invite, then. They invited all the teachers, even Snape (they figured he would probably turn down the invitation), all the Weasleys, Holly's family, and the remaining Black family members, sans the Malfoys. They had debated over whether or not to invite "those pale, snobby pricks," as Sirius called them. It would be courteous, but nobody in the entire wedding party (except Regulus) particularly liked them. Sirius finally said Regulus could invite the Malfoys at his own wedding, and he would have Lucius Malfoy there over his dead body. They invited pretty much everybody Barbara knew, even Mr. Glacier.

They wanted to hire a live band, but since it was short notice, they would need to pay some money for that. Regulus had already agreed to pay for some of the wedding, help them out if they needed it, so they figured Regulus would probably pay for the band. They found wedding rings, and each said they would decide separately what to engrave on them. (Harry hoped Sirius would use "Put this ring back on right now, Barbara.") They decided to get Andromeda on board for the flowers and décor, and somebody they knew could take snapshots.

Barbara said her mother told her she should pick one of the groom's family members to be a bridesmaid, but since she had both Tonks women (Andromeda and Nymphadora), that was taken care of. Sirius remarked that she also had Sirius's future goddaughter-in-law, making Harry turn red, which made them laugh even more. Barbara said they needed to remember that a wedding was a happy occasion, and people who got stressed out over it were just too uptight.

…

Days later in August, Barbara seemed extra…sparkly, for want of a better word. Sirius and Harry were barely up, but she was fully dressed and ready to go at eight in the morning. Sirius stumbled out of his room in his underwear, and Harry stood at his door, ready to yell at them.

"What is it, Barbara?" Sirius mumbled.

"Today is a special day!" she said. "I'm going shopping for my wedding dress! My mother's coming, and so are all the bridesmaids, so they get to pick out their dresses, too!"

Harry remembered that Barbara wanted all her bridesmaids to pick out their own outfits. This was partly, she said, because that would reflect their different tastes, and Harry had to admit it would at least be interesting to see what they chose. Harry and Ron seemed to be hoping Holly would choose a low-cut dress. She didn't like it when boys stared, they knew, but her breasts were just so amazing, neither of them could help it.

"Oh," said Sirius, yawning and leaning over the banister to look at his fiancée. "Well, have fun with that. You can spend as much as you like on your dress, but the bridesmaids have to pay for their own."

Barbara flounced her way towards the front door, looking as happy as any woman could be, and slammed it shut behind her.

"Are you sure it's smart to tell her she can spend as much as she wants?" said Harry groggily. "She could run you bankrupt."

"It'll be a long time before that happens," said Sirius, turning to head back into the bedroom. "We're keeping the rest pretty thrifty."

…

Harry slept for a few more hours that day. Most of his dream was that he had to help Barbara shop for a wedding dress, which was more of a nightmare; he just wanted to see Hermione's dress (and Holly's) but he never did. Finally, Sirius shook him awake around noon.

"Whuh?" Harry mumbled.

"Barbara's getting her dress today, as you know," said Sirius. "I thought we could rent your tuxedo."

"I don't want to go," Harry moaned, stuffing his face in a pillow. "Clothes shopping is torture."

"You have to come with, because you have to get fitted properly," Sirius told him.

"I'll bet I'm the same size I was last year."

"I'll bet you aren't."

"I'll bet I don't care."

"Har-ry!" said Sirius in exasperation. "You are driving me two thousand percent nuts! It'll only take, like, a half an hour! We can go out for ice cream afterwards if you like, if you're good."

"Okay, fine," said Harry. "But I'm not doing my hair."

"Whatever," said Sirius, and left the room. Harry loved using the new bathroom he had all to himself, and took an especially long, hot shower that morning. Nobody would be barging in, and he didn't have to deal with how bad Sirius's bathroom smelled, or Barbara's bathroom, which smelled good, but was like a booby trap what with all the cords from her hair appliances dangling out like trip wires. Together they had more hair products than a beauty salon, and they both left their personal items scattered all over the sink, floor and toilet. Maybe the two of them were meant to be, in the worst ways, but part of the reason Harry enjoyed having his own bathroom now was that he could keep things simple. Even the supplies he used when he did his hair belonged to Sirius, so he didn't have to keep anything in his bathroom except a toothbrush and deodorant, plus his cologne for "fancy" occasions.

Harry didn't like doing his hair, to be honest. Knowing there was a good way to make it look good was nice, but did that mean he had to do it every day? He would do it at school, and at the wedding, but on the weekends and summer vacation? No. Harry decided that as a rule, if he didn't have to wear a tie, he didn't have to do his hair, either. He wasn't the kid he was last year who ran a bubble bath and sprayed shaving cream all over the bathtub and in the water and on his face, but he wasn't an adult who had to style his hair and wear a tie every single day, like Regulus did. It was good, just being where he was. So after he got dressed he just rubbed his hair with a towel, then went downstairs. It still felt weird, having more than one story in the house.

There was another reason Sirius wanted them out of the house. The electrician was coming today. They would have electricity, which almost nobody in Hogsmeade did. Sirius said they could have a TV in every room and central air conditioning. Sirius had long ago gotten their fireplaces all hooked up to the Floo network. They were settling in.

They used Side-Along Apparition to get to the nearest Muggle town, although they Apparated into the woods nearby, because you couldn't have somebody just appear out of nowhere in the street if you didn't want the Ministry of Magic swooping down on you like vultures a moment later. Harry didn't used to like Apparating, but after using Muggle transportation so much recently, he didn't mind it at all.

"Okay, we're here," said Sirius, taking Harry's hand and walking him into town.

They walked into a bridal shop, and Harry thought how weird it would be if, by pure coincidence, they walked into the same one where Barbara was. But they didn't. When they got in, Sirius located a salesperson organizing a wedding dress rack, wearing a vest and a smile.

"Can I help you, sir?" she asked pleasantly, and all Harry could think of was this one teacher he had back in primary school who corrected everyone's speech, and would have said something like, I don't know, can you? But Sirius didn't say that.

"Yes, please," he said. "I'd like the best rental tuxedo you have for my godson, and I'd like it fitted properly."

Harry was glad he didn't say "junior's tuxedo" or anything like that. He wondered how "godson" sounded to the saleslady, like if she wondered why it was "godson" and not "son." But Harry knew Sirius would never call himself Harry's father, not because he didn't love Harry like a son, but out of respect to James. Harry didn't think he could ever call anyone else, even Sirius, "Dad." He sure couldn't address Barbara as "Mum." Maybe Sirius could just call Harry his "young ward" or something. "Partner-in-crime," maybe. Harry would like that.

When he was getting fitted, Harry was wearing a dress shirt, the one he wore for his school uniform, a far cry from what he wanted to wear, which was his new T-shirt with "I went to Hogwarts and all I got was this lousy T-shirt" printed on it. Sirius told him to wear a dress shirt, because it would be the closest to the type of shirt he would wear at the wedding. That was one of the times Harry was grateful to Sirius. He might act slovenly and chill overall, but he still knew the important things about "adulting," as Barbara called it. Uncle Vernon probably knew them, too, but he wasn't willing to teach Harry.

The saleslady had to do it the Muggle way, of course, which wasn't too different from the wizard way, except she was handling the measuring tape, as opposed to doing something else while the measuring tape measured on its own. She must do it all the time, Harry thought, because it seemed like second nature. She measured his chest, his arms, his back, his legs, pretty much all of him. Sirius was reading a newspaper, but he was watching Harry as well with a smile.

At the end of the fitting, Harry got to try on something that fit his measurements. Maybe Sirius was right about getting fitted, he thought. The tuxedos he tried on didn't wrinkle or bunch up or squeeze or hang loose like the ones he'd rented in the past, where Sirius had basically just guessed at his sizes. The two of them exchanged a look and a grin, and Harry was pretty sure he knew what Sirius was remembering: the first time Harry had ever had to rent a tux, which was important because that was the first time they had eaten dinner with Barbara's parents, and it was a disaster.

Harry remembered how he'd spent the evening at the old playpark nearby Magnolia Crescent, the one with the cement and the rickety aluminum playground equipment, with a gate any teenager could jump, and he'd watched a young woman catch a little girl as she slid down a slide, and he wondered if his mother would have done that for him, if she'd lived. And then Sirius later told him Lily did take him to the playpark, and he didn't even know if that made him feel better or worse about it.

Most of all, of course, he was remembering how getting ready had been sort of a disaster in itself, and Sirius had been Harry's escape hatch, as usual. Harry had spent too much time at the playpark, feeling lonely for his parents, and remembered he had to get ready for dinner too late. How he'd rushed home to wash his hair. How he didn't have deodorant, but he sure wasn't going to borrow Uncle Vernon's. How he was sure Sirius would be angry with him for being late, but instead his godfather had gotten another laugh out of the whole ordeal.

Back then, though, Harry had been afraid, all the time, that he would do something that would make Sirius abandon him, or hate him, or yell at him, or maybe even hit him. Anything, Harry was convinced, would set him off. He just couldn't accept that there was someone who would look at him the way Aunt Petunia looked at Dudley, someone who could, who would care for him not just when everything was going well, but when he was sick, hurt, scared, angry or bratty. Even when Harry had the flu, Sirius gave him a handy magical throw-up pot that cleaned itself.

Once they rented the tuxedo, the lady behind the counter put it in a bag and handed it to Harry, who swung it in a carefree way as they left the shop.

"You know what this reminds me of?" said Sirius.

"The first time we met Barbara's parents?" Harry grinned.

"Yes! How did you know?"

"That's what I was thinking of, too."

…

They did go out for ice cream later, just as Sirius promised. Now that Harry wasn't as sleepy, and he'd seen how good he looked in his rental tux, he wasn't feeling as bad about shopping. They were going to touch base with Barbara later, and Sirius knew he wasn't supposed to see the dress until the wedding day.

"It's going to be a maternity one, though," he was saying as he dug into a huge chocolate-fudge sundae.

"I know," said Harry. "When is Phoebe going to be born, anyway?"

"September 12, remember?" Sirius raised his eyebrows.

"Yeah, but it still feels like it's been so long," Harry said. "I know she's my sister, not my kid or anything, but still…"

"Sometimes I envy Barbara a little," Sirius admitted. "I mean, I guess I shouldn't, but she gets too be much closer to Pheebs than I may ever be. And as for the baby fat, I could stand to put on a little weight."

It was true. Even a year out of Azkaban, Sirius was still so thin.

"You'd have to go through labor and childbirth, though," Harry reminded him.

"I did already, at the birthing class," said Sirius. "Barbara gets to take that potion, remember? She was the one who had to deliver the doll-baby, anyway, and all I can say is, I may have had to give birth to a fake baby, but at least I'll never have to deliver one."

…

The seventeenth, the night before the wedding, was rapidly approaching, and Harry realized he was going to have Ron and Hermione over for a nice quiet evening while Sirius had his bachelor party and Barbara had her bachelorette party. Sirius was puttering around the house, and Harry noticed he didn't look the least bit nervous, maybe because things were happening so fast.

"I've seen bachelor parties on TV," Harry told him as Sirius went around the drawing room, picking up empty bottles and cans. "It's going to be wild. You're going to end up slipping a C-note into a lady's thong by the end of the night."

Sirius stared. "When were you watching that?"

"Love and Lust," Harry explained.

"Well, I'm not sure I'm going to be doing that, anyway," said Sirius, shaking his head. "Maybe if James was the best man, but for this wedding, Moony and Regulus are in charge, which means it will be quite the sedate affair. Barbara is the one who has to look out—with Holly and Tonks on board, she could very well end up in another continent."

"Andromeda will keep them in check," Harry said. "Isn't she, like, the ultimate mum?"

"Yeah, right," said Sirius. "Are we talking about the same person here? Andromeda got herself disowned for running off with a Muggle-born boy. Not that I don't admire that."

"Either way, I have to entertain my friends somehow on the seventeenth," Harry told him, "and I don't want to just be sitting around in front of the TV all evening."

"Why don't you ask Reg?" Sirius suggested. "If Andromeda is the ultimate mother, he's the ultimate host."