Author's Note:

I expect some people are not going to like this chapter and I accept that. Maybe I am old-fashioned, but I do not see this as a bad punishment. There is a huge difference between spanking a child and child abuse and I want to make that clear here. I was spanked as a child and my life didn't end. It hurt for a minute and then I was over it. I also know that it hurt my parents more to punish me then it hurt me.

That's all I have to say and whether you agree or disagree with me on the subject, I don't care. I write as my heart desires and if you enjoy it great. But this is something I think is important and needs to be brought to attention both for the plot of my story and for the relationship that is growing between Sirius and Harry.

Thank you very much for reading and please, please review!

Your reviews give me life! They give me inspiration! And they make me want to keep writing for more than just myself! Thank you!


CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE:

Remus was making breakfast in the kitchen when Sirius came down the next morning with Harry. He smelt the bacon first and Harry rushed into the kitchen gleefully and shrieked in delight at the prospect of French toast and bacon for breakfast.

He watched as Remus kissed and hugged Harry good morning before turning back to his cooking. He accepted the cup of tea that his friend handed him and he took a seat at the kitchen table, sipping slowly.

"You were right," Remus said carefully as he took the last of the bacon out of the pan. "I am a little scared."

"Rem - "

"No," Remus said, interrupting Sirius. "Let me get this out." When Sirius nodded, he carefully scooped bacon onto the three plates with thick slices of French toast. "I'm scared. I'm really going to see myself if I take this potion, Sirius. See myself as the monster that I become and that scares me. Once I'm the wolf, it's like … I'm not really me anymore and I don't remember how much violence I do and how much I hurt myself. When I wake up, I just feel the result of it. But to - to be aware the entire time and know exactly what's happening and to be trapped in that - as the wolf and still be me; it's amazing and it terrifies me at the same time. What if I still can't control it, but I can still see it and remember it? Will that make it worse or better because at least now I know? I don't know and that scares me."

He put the plates down in front of Sirius and Harry and then brought a third plate over for himself. He poured three glasses of orange juice for them before he took his seat, his eyes meeting his friend.

"But you did this for me, Padfoot. You - you found out about the potion and you made it happen. I won't let you down."

"Remus," Sirius said softly, touching his friend's arm. "Moony, you can't let me down. I thought that this was a good thing for YOU. I thought it sounded like something that would help YOU, but if I'm wrong and it's only going to make it worse, than I bloody well don't want you taking it!"

"No bad words, Uncle Padfoot," Harry said sternly as he drank his juice.

"Sorry, Prongslet," Sirius said, grinning at Harry in amusement before turning back to Remus. "It's not for me, Remus, it's for you."

Remus smiled at him. "I didn't sleep a wink last night. I spent the whole night just pacing my kitchen and recalling old memories. My first train ride when I met Pete; the four of us becoming friends and the moment you guys found that hidden cavern on the fourth floor behind the big mirror where you changed my life forever."

"Always were a stupid git," he said affectionately. "Thinking we wouldn't want to be your friend anymore."

He smirked. "No, instead you made my life immensely better and I thank you for that."

Sirius shrugged. "Alright Wolf John Wolf, you're welcome. So are you going to try the potion or not?"

Remus grinned. "Yes, I am."

Sirius slapped his hands together. "Good. And this time, you won't be alone."

"What about Harry?"

Sirius smiled. "Don't worry, I got it figured out."

Sirius couldn't quite believe what was happening.

Harry was throwing a tantrum.

An actual temper tantrum.

On one hand, he was kind of thrilled that Harry was comfortable enough around him to do so, but on the other, he was being a little brat and he was even more annoyed by the fact that Castellanos had been right.

Harry acting out was definitely something that was coming.

It had started because Harry had asked if Ron and Ginny could come spend the day with them. Sirius had to tell him no. Sirius and Remus had some errands to take care of, including stopping by Hogwarts to talk to Snape about the Wolfsbane Potion as the full moon was only two weeks away. It killed him that he couldn't stay with his friend all night and this time he was determined to come up with a solution.

Sirius hated the fact that he couldn't stay with Remus while he transformed, but Remus was the only other person that Harry trusted enough to stay overnight with which meant that Sirius couldn't leave Harry alone nor be there for his friend. He knew that Remus understood, especially since he had been undergoing his transformations alone for over four years now, but it didn't make Sirius feel any better about it.

But when Sirius had told Harry that no, his friends couldn't come over, Harry had gotten angry.

"Yes, they can!" He shouted, his eyes wide. "You said they could come whenever I wanted!"

"Aye, I did," Sirius said carefully. "But we have plans tomorrow and Tonks will be here with you so it doesn't work. We can pick a new day for them to come over."

"NO! I WANT THEM TO COME OVER TOMORROW!" Harry exclaimed, his arms crossed in front of him.

"Harry, they are not coming over tomorrow," Sirius told him. "But if you are good for Tonks, maybe they can come over on Sunday."

Harry glared at him, but he had seemed to agree especially once be realized it would be the last time that he would be seeing Tonks for a while. She was going back to school next week.

But the same thing had happened two days later when he had insisted that he didn't have to eat his vegetables if he didn't want to. He argued and yelled at Sirius until Sirius had caved and let him only eat the potatoes and chicken for dinner, not touching his broccoli.

When Sirius brought it up to Althea that Monday afternoon while they were lying in her bed afterwards, she had laughed.

"Sirius, that's great to hear!"

"Why on earth is that great? He's being a little brat," Sirius told her in frustration.

Althea smiled, resting her head on her hand as she turned to smile at him. "He's being a child, Sirius. He's not afraid to ask you for things; to tell you no; to tell you what he likes and doesn't like. That's a really good thing."

"I think he's been spending too much time at the Weasley household and hearing them complain," he mumbled under his breath.

She laughed. "He's testing you, Sirius. He trusts you and he's comfortable with you, but now he needs to see exactly how far you'll let him go to get what he wants. And you caved like a marshmallow over an open flame, you didn't even make him eat the broccoli."

"He's never complained about the broccoli before," he insisted stubbornly. "Though he did tell me that he doesn't want the cauliflower because it looks like ghost broccoli, but I know that's Moony's doing," he said as Althea chuckled.

"Ghost broccoli? That's actually hilarious," she said with a grin. "But as to Harry, you'll have to start thinking about how you want to discipline him when he misbehaves."

"Merlin, that's not something that I want to think about. He's had enough discipline to last a lifetime!"

She had only smiled. "One step at a time, Black. You've got this. Discipline goes hand in hand with rules. And you know that discipline is not even remotely the same thing that abuse is. You need to establish order and an environment he's comfortable in that includes rules."

The moment of discipline came two days later and neither one of them had been prepared for it.

A series of unfortunate events had occurred.

Mrs Morrison had knocked on the door looking to borrow some ink; Harry had opened the front door to her and Marauder had escaped, followed by Harry running after the puppy, who then saw a rabbit and took off after it, barking gleefully. It had taken a full two minutes for Sirius to realize that Harry was gone as Mrs Morrison had rushed into the house to tell him and the panic in his stomach knotted so tightly that he felt sick.

He bolted out of the cottage, yelling Harry's name and once he was out of the sight of his neighbour, transformed into Padfoot, hurrying after his scent. The whole situation took less than fifteen minutes, but Sirius was terrified and downright pissed off.

When he found Harry by the woods in the backyard of the Morrisons' house, the first thing that he did was grab him by the shoulders.

"HARRY JAMES POTTER! DON'T YOU EVER RUN OFF LIKE THAT AGAIN!" He yelled and watched Harry's eyes go wide and then to both their surprise, Sirius lifted his hand and whacked him twice on the bum.

Harry simply stared at him, mouth slightly agape and then he began to cry.

"Oh shite," Sirius said, falling to his knees. "Prongslet, I'm sorry."

Harry's bottom lip quivered, but he let Sirius wrap him into his arms. "I'm sorry I ran away! I was looking for Marauder."

"I know, Prongslet," Sirius said, kissing his cheek, his own eyes watering. How could he have spanked him after everything that he had been through? "I'm sorry I yelled. You just scared me so much! I love you and I was so worried something was going to happen to you! You can never just run off like that. You need to always tell me where you're going. Always."

Harry nodded, wiping at his tears. "I know." He held his arms out and Marauder vanished with a loud pop, re-reappearing two seconds later snuggled in Harry's arms. "Good dog." He said, burying his face in the dog's neck as he held on. "Good dog."

Sirius' eyes widened slightly. Harry had just summoned the dog to him, he realized. He watched the boy cling to the dog, eyes full of tears and his heart broke. He was the cause of those tears, he thought, guilt swimming in his gut. "Let's go home, Prongslet." He held his hand out to Harry, smiling gratefully when the boy took it, still wiping tears from his face, and they headed home, Harry holding tightly to Marauder's leash. Both of them full of guilt for how they had treated the other.

When they got back to the house, McGonagall was sitting in the living room.

"Auntie Minnie!" Harry exclaimed, rushing over to hug her.

McGonagall smiled warmly and returned the child's hug as he crawled up into her lap and hugged her back tightly. "Hello, Harry, where were you and Sirius coming from?" She asked, looking at both of their tear-stained faces in alarm.

"Marauder got excited and ran away and then I ran after him and Uncle Sirius had to come find us and he was mad and he spanked me and then we both cried!" He exclaimed, eyes wide.

McGonagall's eyebrows rose in surprise as she looked at Sirius. "You spanked him?"

Sirius dragged his fingers through his hair. "Harry, why don't you take Marauder into the backyard and play?"

Harry nodded, jumping down from McGonagall's lap and hurried out the backdoor as Sirius collapsed next to McGonagall.

"I'm the worst godfather ever! I spanked his bum, Minnie! Twice! I should still be in Azkaban!"

McGonagall patted his arm affectionately. "Sirius, you're not the worst godfather ever. Punishing a child is never easy. I think that it's hardest on the parent and you should hardly be in Azkaban for it."

Sirius buried his face in his hands. "I made him cry, Minnie! He looked at me and he fucking cried because of me!"

"I'm sure that he did," she told him reassuringly. "But then he came in here all smiles when he saw me and he told me what you did and there wasn't any animosity in it. He knows that he did something wrong and he knows that you were forced to punish him for it. Now, whether spanking him was the right course of action or not is something that you need to decide for yourself."

Sirius simply stared at her. "It can't be the right course of action! He was … he was fucking physically abused by those tossers and the first time that he does something - fuck! He scared the shit out of me, Minnie," he admitted, looking into her eyes. "All of a sudden he was just gone and I had this image of him getting hit by a car or eaten by wild animals or kidnapped by the circus!"

"The circus, really, Sirius?" McGonagall said in laughter.

He ignored her, still rambling hysterically. "I just panicked, Minnie and by the time I found him I was so relieved to see that he was perfectly fine and so angry that he had just taken off and it all culminated inside of me and I just snapped."

"That's understandable."

"I should never have spanked him. After everything that he's been through and I - Merlin, what if he thinks that I'm going to start hurting him now? What if he's scared of me?"

"Uncle Sirius?"

Sirius looked up at Harry in surprise. "Prongslet, I thought that you were outside."

"It's raining," Harry said quietly. He shuffled across the room and climbed into Sirius' lap. "Are you mad at me?"

"No!" Sirius exclaimed, smiling in reassurance as Harry snuggled into his arms. He kissed the top of his head. "I was so worried and scared that something bad had happened to you and I'm so sorry I spanked you, Harry. I love you so much."

Harry smiled up at him. "I love you too, Uncle Padfoot." He put his hands on either side of Sirius' face. "And I'm not scared of you. Don't worry, I know how good of a dad you are." He kissed Sirius' cheek gently and Sirius' felt tears in his eyes again.

He cuddled the boy close, grinning from ear to ear as he looked at McGonagall. "I won't ever hurt you, Harry."

"I know," he said simply. The stress of the day getting to him and he was soon sleeping soundly wrapped in his godfather's arms.

Sirius held him close, breathing in relief as McGonagall smiled at him.

"I think that you got your answer, Sirius."

"Minnie ... I don't know what I did to deserve this little boy, but he's a gem."

McGonagall smiled at the two of them. "Punishment is never easy, Sirius. You and Harry will figure it out together. Time outs or grounding him or taking away something that he loves to play with until he learns how to behave; you will decide that based on what he does. That boy loves you and has clearly just proven to you that he knows the difference between what you did and what those Muggles did. He knows, Sirius."

Sirius smiled at her, breathing in the scent of boy and nodded. "And I'm thankful for that. But I won't spank him again. Not ever. I won't be that parent."

"Then you won't be," she said simply.

"Minnie, why are you here?" Sirius asked her, realizing that he hadn't even questioned her presence in his living room when he had seen her.

McGonagall smiled and reached for the handbag that she had brought with her. "A friend of mine gave me some tickets, but unfortunately it's for the first week of school." She pulled an envelope out from her bag and put it on the table in front of her. "I thought that maybe you'd like to take Harry since I won't be using them."

"Tickets to what?"

She grinned. "Quidditch."

Sirius' eyes widened. "Really?"

McGonagall nodded. "It's the Wimbourne Wasps vs. the Appleby Arrows. One of my former students works in the Department of Magical Games and Sports and occasionally snags me tickets. The game got pushed back due to a player injury so now I won't be able to attend. I thought that you and Harry might enjoy it."

"That's aces, Minnie, thank you!" Sirius told her with a smile. "Harry would love it and so would I. I haven't been to a Quidditch game in ages. Since before James and Lily got married at least."

She smiled, standing up. "Good. Enjoy yourselves then."

"You won't stay?"

She smiled as she headed towards the fireplace. "I think that you and Harry should be alone today." Surprising Sirius, she kissed his forehead. "And for the record, you're doing a wonderful job with your son, Sirius."

Then she was gone and Sirius stayed where he was, curled with a sleeping child and lost in thought.