A/N: I know this is a bit short, but I wanted to get something posted. Enjoy!

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Chapter 34

"Loathe though I am to admit it, the Headmaster is correct," Severus said with obvious exasperation. "The mutt and I need to return to Hogwarts to prepare for tomorrow's lessons, if for nothing else. I should also check in on my Snakes."

London shrugged. "I can stay here though, right?" Tomorrow was more than early enough to return to the school for London.

"Sure," Sirius said. "It shouldn't take us more than a few hours to get ready. We'll be back in time for dinner."

"We will return shortly," Severus said, stepping toward the fireplace. London grabbed his arm and pulled him down slightly for a deep kiss. "See you then." Sirius and Severus stepped into the green flames and flooed away to Hogwarts, leaving London alone in the large sitting room at Grimmauld Place.

With another brief glance at the fireplace, London reached into his satchel and pulled out two books and a small stack of parchment, setting them down on the desk. He was left alone, and he fully intended to use the time practicing for his next reading lesson.

He pulled the books out hesitantly; pleased that she had changed the outside covers at least to make them look like sports books rather than reading primers. He had no idea what sort of sport was supposed to be displayed on the cover, but he figured that was the least of his worried. London flipped the first one open to the third page, which was all about the letter 'B'. A whole list of words were written on the page, all of them beginning with 'B', and each one accompanied by a picture of the word. He sighed and slowly made his way through the list. He hated this. But he hated not knowing how to read even more.

He pulled out a piece of paper and a pencil and started copying the words over to the paper slowly, trying to form each letter correctly.

Bee…Well, that word was easy enough. He glared at the picture of the smiling bumble bee, irritated by the cheery insect. E's were easy enough – there were a few in Sev's name, so he had had some practice with those already, which was good, because the curvy letter had given him plenty of problems three years ago when he had asked Marian to teach it to him.

Bat. 'B. A. T.' London smirked as he carefully wrote this word out, concentrating on forming the letters correctly. He had heard the students calling Sev a 'great black bat' when he stalked through the corridors in his dress. Robes. Whatever Sev liked to call them. He decided to practice writing that, too. It couldn't hurt. 'S. E. V. E.' he paused for a moment, trying to remember if the 'R' or the 'U' came next. He put down the 'U' before deciding it didn't look right. Luckily, he had left a bit of space and he could slip the 'R' in between without it being too obvious. Another 'S' and he was done. He smiled at the long name, pleased that he could still remember it so well.

Bag. Two letters the same as before; easy enough. He licked his lips and gripped the pencil more tightly, trying to finish the last letter. A quick glance back at the book confirmed that he had that one down right. Bike. London's mood darkened. This was stupid. When would he ever want to write to Sev about bikes? He slowly copied the four letters over onto the paper, although his irritation was growing by the minute.

Bell. Not a very useful word, London thought with a scowl. Bird. Another waste. He would have to tell Callie to get him a book that only had the important words in it. Honestly – when would he ever use words like this? Since he had no intention of using this skill in his everyday life, there was little purpose to learning words like this. He just needed to know how to read Sev's potion books. And he had seen them – not a one had words like bell or bike. He needed good words, not this shite.

Sirius tumbled through the fireplace and London slammed his book shut, sliding it over the paper. "You're early," he snapped.

"Remus did most of the work, so I decided to come back," he said easily, sitting down next to the desk. "What're you looking at?" he asked, grabbing the book from atop the stack of papers.

"Nothing," London muttered, turning the paper over so his godfather wouldn't see his child-like handwriting.

"Quidditch! I love quidditch!" Sirius exclaimed, flipping the book open to look at the pictures.

"Give me that," London snapped, ripping the book from his hands, but not quickly enough.

"That…that was a primer," Sirius stuttered. "For your letters."

London scowled and set the book back onto his small stack, straightening the papers compulsively in an effort to calm himself.

Sirius took a deep breath, trying to calm down and stop himself from saying anything stupid. He knew his faults well, and he was all too aware of his penchant for rushing into things and hurting people. This was his chance to begin a real relationship with his godson, and he'd be damned if he messed this up. "Does Severus know?"

"No," London bit out, his anger clear. "You'd better not fucking say anything. Don't think I won't fuck you up just because you're my fucking godfather," he threatened. "That means nothing to me."

Sirius leaned back in his seat, trying to give his godson some room. He knew that the anger was more embarrassment that actual anger at him. Part of him wished that Remus were with him, to help him know what to do. Remus always knew what to do. But at the same time, it was wonderful getting to have a moment alone with his godson, and as much as he loved his friend, he knew that it was better that it was just the two of them. "It's nothing to be ashamed of. I knew you hadn't had much schooling."

"I'm not ashamed," London said defensively, unknowingly betraying his shame more by his denial.

Sirius nodded. "I didn't mean that you were – just that if you were, that would be ok. Who's teaching you now?"

London sat still for a moment before deciding Sirius was unlikely to reveal his secret to Sev. "Callie Godson."

Sirius nodded. "Callie would be good," he agreed. He paused for a moment, knowing he needed to word this right or else he could ruin the still-shaky accord that had developed between them. "I could help, you know. I'm right at Hogwarts with you. We could meet up a lot more often, without anyone getting suspicious."

London paused for a moment, biting back his instinctual refusal of the proposal. Maybe this could work out better. He had only had the one lesson with Callie, and he could already tell it would be difficult to meet up with her regularly without avoiding suspicion. The wizards would all be thrilled if he started going out with his godfather a few times a week, asking for privacy. They would assume the two men were bonding, and would leave them alone. "You won't tell?"

"No. That's up to you, if you ever want to tell anyone. You're sure Severus doesn't know?" he asked, uncertain if someone could keep a secret like that for so long.

London nodded. "Pretty sure. He's never said anything about it. And if he knew, I'm sure he would have said or done something."

"Why did you decide to learn now?" Sirius asked, curious as to why it had taken so long for London to feel the desire to learn such a basic skill.

London shrugged and leaned back in his seat, a bit more of the tension leaving him. "Sev's pretty bookish. I figured he'd notice it sooner or later, now that we're at a school."

"How did you hide it before? Snape has published a number of articles in the past few years – didn't he want to discuss them with you? And I know you've worked on potions before; surely you needed the book for that?"

"Yes. I told him I wanted to take my time with his articles, and then Ana read them out for me. And when we worked on potions, I told him I remembered it better if he just talked me through it. And we work well together like that, so he never tried to change that."

"And now you've decided to learn for yourself?"

"Yeah. And I figured I might need a bit of reading later on, if Sev gets rid of me. I can hardly go back to the way things were before."

Sirius started at that. "Snape can't 'get rid of you'. You're soul bonded. You can never be separated again."

"I guess."

"Why can't you go back to how things were before?" Sirius asked gently.

"Look at me," London snarled. "Would you take a boy home who looks like this?"

Sirius studied London closely. He was right – he not only dressed like a thug but he was also a large, well-muscled young man – likely far stronger than most of the men who would be interested in him. Few men would be brave enough to bring someone like him into their home for a quick lay. "Alright. So we'll make sure you can read well. Not that you'll need it, mind – like I said, Snape can't ever leave you. Not to mention the fact that your parents left you millions so you won't ever actually need to work. But you might want a job at some point, and reading will certainly help."

London nodded, strangely pleased that the man hadn't tried to belittle his concerns. Sure, Sev and Sirius had both told him that he was bound to the potions master for life, but he didn't trust promises like that. He was all too aware that the rug could be pulled out from under him at any moment, and he needed to have a back up plan. He had grown so much since he was 14 and sleeping around for dinner and shelter that he doubted he could survive on that anymore. Simply put, he was too big, too tall and too old for that to work anymore.

"Can I see where you are?" Sirius asked, wanting to get an idea for how hard this was going to be.

"Page three," London said. "I know all of the letters in there, but I can't put them all together to make words too well. Callie called it something – dyslexa, I think?"

"Dyslexia," Sirius corrected him. "Ok, we can work with that. And writing?"

London paused for a moment before handing over his paper to Sirius, his shame evident.

Sirius studied the paper in silence, wanting to make sure his response didn't put the boy off. "Not too bad," he said, his eyes scanning over the large, shaky letters. "Most of these are spelled right, which is a good start." He hid his smirk when he saw a messy 'Severus' written in next to 'bat.' Looks like Snape couldn't escape the nickname James had come up with back in their third year.

"I copied from the book. Callie said it would help me with reading and writing."

"It will," Sirius reassured him. "But for someone with dyslexia, even that can be very difficult. You're doing well, London. We have a good foundation to start with."

"Can you get me a book that has better words in it? This one is useless."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't need to know all these words, just the ones for Sev's articles and those books. We can skip the rest."

"I'm afraid that probably isn't a good idea," Sirius said slowly. "You need a strong foundation in before you can learn the more difficult words. And if I know Snape, he uses plenty of ten-galleon-words in his articles." At London's obvious confusion he explained. "He uses big words, and obscure words. To get to where you can read his articles with at least a bit of ease, you'll need to start at the beginning. I'm sorry – I know it must be frustrating. It's a pity the muggles weren't able to help you more."

London shrugged, still uncomfortable talking about this. "'S not my fault," he said finally. "They wouldn't let me go to school much, and when I did go the teachers wouldn't help me. And then I stopped going at all when I moved to the city. Not much call to read when you're on the streets."

Sirius fought down his blind fury for the stupid muggles who had abused his godson and harmed him so irrevocably. And on top of the disgusting muggle relatives, to be so ignored and belittled by the muggle teachers who should have been looking out for him – it was inconceivable. He understood full well why Death Eaters existed, when he saw muggles like this. He calmed himself as quickly as possible. "I'm sure there isn't much need to read on the streets," Sirius agreed amiably. "And it is unfortunate that they couldn't diagnose your reading disability earlier, and help you move past it. But it doesn't matter: we're starting with it now."

"You won't tell Sev?" London asked again, uncertain about this new development.

"No," Sirius confirmed.

The floo activated and Severus stepped out of the fireplace and into the sitting room. "Finished early, Black?" he asked dryly. He knew the mutt tried to do as little work as possible, and his friend picked up most of the slack.

Sirius shrugged. "Just talking Quidditch with my godson," he said with a smile. "We need to go to a professional game sometime soon."

Severus rolled his eyes but didn't object. He was pleased to note that his lover was sitting near Black and seemed to be surprisingly comfortable. Typically London was so on-edge near his godfather that it made the whole room feel tense. Clearly, their little chat about Quidditch had done some good. Like father, like son, Severus supposed when it came to sports.

"Are you ready for dinner?" Sirius asked. "I was thinking we could go out to this great little restaurant nearby in muggle London."