Chapter Eight - The Way It Is II

Saturday 12th September, 1987

'I know, Thea, but you heard Padfoot say that we're going to be doing boy stuff all day. That's boring compared to you spending the day with Layla.'

Sirius smirked at Lily in the hallway as they listened to Harry placate his little sister masterfully. Truth be told, the 'boy stuff' he had planned for his day out with his godson was mostly there to distract from the main goal of the day. Exactly who needed the distraction wasn't clear to him just yet, but he hoped it'd serve its purpose for them both.

'Layla's coming round?' the little girl asked excitedly, all of her previous sulking leaving her in an instant.

'Better yet,' Harry replied, 'you're going to Layla's.'

Immediately following that revelation came the sound of small feet running as fast as they could towards them, and Thea shot out of the living room and into the hallway. The tiny clone of Lily looked up at her mother with the kind of excitement only a toddler could muster. 'Mummy, Harry said we're going to Layla's.'

'Did he now?' she asked, and looked up to find Harry standing in the doorway to the living room wearing a smile that very clearly said She's your problem now. Really, the boy had managed to master an impressive amount of his father's mannerisms in just seven years, and not just the good ones. Lily shook her head fondly at her son and returned her attention to her daughter, who was practically bouncing in anticipation. 'Oh, I remember now. Auntie Alice called yesterday and asked if we'd like to go around and play with Layla's new tea set. What do you think?'

Thea nodded rapidly, sending her thin auburn hair flying, and span around. Quick as a flash she'd got to the end of the hallway was grabbing a mismatched pair of shoes from the shoe rack.

Sirius laughed. 'Don't you think you should change out of your pyjamas first, petal?' Her eyes widened and she dropped the shoes to the ground in an instant and started towards the stairs. 'I'm sure Daddy will help you pick out an outfit if you wake him up,' he called after her.

Beside him, Lily snorted. 'He won't forgive you for a week.'

'Probably two, but that serves him right for going out without me on a Friday night,' he replied with a grin. 'Right, come on then Pup. We've got a day full of boy stuff to be getting on with.'

Harry nodded and hugged Lily. 'See you later, Mummy.'

'See you later. Be a good boy today, okay?'

'I will,' came the chorused response from both Sirius and Harry, and the boy looked up at his Uncle with a grin.

They left the Potter's house in Cambridge to the sound of Thea rousing James upstairs. 'Wake up, Daddy!' she shouted imperiously, and Sirius barked out a laugh at the groan James gave in response as the closed door behind them.

'What are we doing first?' Harry asked as they got into Sirius' car.

He hummed. 'Well, it might sound terribly boring to you, but I happen to have been invited to watch Puddlemere's practice at eleven.'

'Puddlemere's practice? Like, Puddlemere United?' Harry asked faintly, and Sirius nodded at him through the reflection of the rear-view mirror. 'How could that be boring?!'

'I thought you might say that,' Sirius chuckled, 'but it does mean floo-ing.'

Harry huffed as though offended that Sirius thought having to floo would make any difference at all. 'So worth it.'

-oOo-

Really, the state of the magical British night-life was practically unforgivable. Over the last few years, he'd visited a number of clubs and bars in Europe and had been blown away at the number of options he had available for him to make a complete and utter fool of himself.

One such night in 1983 had led to Sirius' 'legendary weekend' which still had James and Remus looking at him wistfully every time he spoke of it. He had been given the Friday off from training for his Transfiguration Mastery and decided that he would enjoy the extended weekend in France. On Friday afternoon he had bought an international Portkey to Paris and checked into La Conseil de la Nuit, one of the high-end hotels just off La Place Cachée - Paris' equivalent to Diagon Alley.

After leaving what little luggage he'd brought with him in his room, he set out for the street at the end of La Place, where he'd been told was the place to be on a Parisian Friday evening. The cobbled side-street was lit up by all manner of inviting, bright signages for the many bars and clubs that made up the frontages of La Rue Delage.

A young woman in front of him stumbled as her heel slipped on the cobbles and he smirked at the stumble, though as his gaze travelled up her notably long legs, the smirk gave way to a satisfied smile. It was around then that he'd realised that he was most definitely in the right place.

He had decided to start his evening in a small but lively looking bar at the top of La Rue called La Tite Goutte, wherein he'd bumped into another Englishman with a similar plan for the night. As it happened, Jacob Hathway was the newly named reserve Seeker for Puddlemere United who was in Paris to celebrate his placement on the team. While the pair got to know each other over a handful of drinks each, a couple of the local men had approached them, despite the language barrier, and decided to take it upon themselves to give them a tour of the street.

Sirius could only barely remember drinking copiously at the following two bars, before the rest of the night became prohibitively hazy in his memory. The next thing he could clearly remember was waking up in a hotel room with Jacob. A hotel room that wasn't his, mind, nor even in Paris, nor France. With absolutely no recollection between the two of them as to how, they'd managed to make their way to Switzerland, with more money in either of their coin pouches than either had started the night with.

With neither Sirius nor Jacob being the kind of man to inspect a gift Hippogriff's hooves, they resolved to freshen up and spend their Saturday night doing it all over again in Geneva's wizarding district. The second night running of which he had no clear memory, but he figured that that was the mark of a night well spent.

All of this formed part of the long-winded explanation as to why Harry Potter was currently wearing the signed practice jersey of Puddlemere's now star Seeker Jacob Hathway.

Sirius shepherded the exhilarated seven year old to a booth in Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour and had to practically force him to sit down. Using the practice of Harry's favourite Quidditch team had worked even better as a distraction than he had expected - it wasn't until they had parked up in central London that Sirius had even remembered why he'd brought his godson out for the day.

He sighed and shook himself for putting it off. He was a grown man concerned about having a conversation with a seven year old for Merlin's sake. 'Harry,' he started, before he found some other way to delay.

The boy in question almost instantly raised his head and looked at Sirius with an almost eerie level of focus. 'Yeah?'

'We need to have a grown up conversation, if that's alright?' he asked a bit hesitantly. Really, he was starting to really hate the fact that he'd let Lily talk him into doing this himself. They were Harry's parents, surely she or James could have handled this?

Harry cocked his head slightly. 'Would that be better with Daddy?' he asked, somewhat echoing Sirius' thoughts at that exact moment.

He exhaled sharply through his nose and smiled. 'No, I think we can handle this on our own, don't you?'

The young lad looked a bit unsure but nodded a little shyly anyway and sat up straighter in his chair. One thing every adult in Harry's life quickly learned was that if you gave him even the slightest amount of responsibility he'd take it as seriously as possible. He was never bossy, mind you, but he had an unequalled determination to not let anyone down. It created a tough standard to live up to, to be honest, particularly because Sirius felt like he was about to let him down.

'The thing is Pup-' he stumbled over his words a bit. 'What I mean to say is-' Again he halted and caught Harry's patient eyes in his own travelling gaze. He closed his eyes and scrubbed his hands over his face, sighing deeply. 'Me and Heidi aren't together anymore, so we won't be seeing her from now on.' His words spilled from him in a tumble, as though to escape him before he could put them off any longer.

Sirius found that he daren't re-open his eyes and look at his godson. Gryffindor's biggest coward, he berated himself mentally. It wasn't so much that he was worried about his reaction to not seeing Heidi anymore; the boy liked her well enough, but she only really visited the Potters with Sirius a few times a year. The problem he found himself facing was that for all that Harry had inherited James' gentle cheek and charisma, he'd also inherited Lily's curiosity, and in this conversation Sirius had - for the first time - brought up the topic of girls.

Eventually, he plucked up the courage to open his eyes and found Harry staring at him curiously. 'Why?' the boy asked him almost as soon as he made eye contact.

Harry didn't sound upset or accusing, which was a big win. The rampant curiosity was mostly missing from his tone too, and instead there was practically pure confusion behind the question. Sirius raised his eyebrows, shocked. I can't believe it's going to be this easy. 'Well, if Heidi carried on coming round, it would just be awkward for-'

He stopped as Harry shook his head rapidly. 'No. Why aren't you together now?'

Ah, Sirius cursed himself, you had to go and say it would be easy, didn't you? Clearing his throat, he began as confidently as he could. 'See, this is something that you're not going to have to worry about until you're much older.' He smiled a little proudly at his deflection, but the pride quickly fell away at the sight of the unsatisfied frown that graced Harry's face. 'But I'll explain what I can now,' he added hastily, mollifying him.

His mind raced as he realised just what he'd managed to get himself into - how do you explain dating to a seven year old, even one as mature as Harry?

'See, your Mummy and Daddy have set a fantastic example for you, but that's not what it's like for many people. Your Mummy was the only person your Daddy ever loved, and even though he was a bit daft, she only ever loved him too.' He paused for a second and Harry nodded to show that he'd understood. The boy had been told bits of his parents' schooling, but he didn't know how far that went.

'For most people,' he continued, 'the person that they'll love forever isn't the first person they'll ever love.' Harry scrunched up his brow in confusion, so he racked his brain to find a way to explain himself better. 'People love people in different ways, Harry. You love Mummy, right?'

'Uh-huh.'

'And you love Thea, too. But it feels different, doesn't it?' Maybe he was better at this than he'd given himself credit, Sirius thought as his godson nodded with understanding. 'When you get older, you find that you love other people, too - people who aren't family - and it's a bit like your favourite teddies. Who's your favourite teddy at the moment?'

'Corvus,' the boy answered without hesitation.

Sirius smiled - he'd bought that one. 'Right, but she wasn't always your favourite was she? It's called dating, and it's kind of like that. You have a person that you love the most at the moment, your favourite person, but over time you find someone that you like even more - like when you got Corvus - or maybe you just realise that this person isn't actually your favourite person anymore for another reason.'

'And that's why you and Heidi aren't… dating now?' Harry questioned and Sirius beamed.

'Exactly. We just aren't each other's favourite people anymore, and that's okay. That's just the way it is. Thank you, Mr. Fortescue,' he said as the parlour owner placed two irresponsibly sized ice-creams before them with a wink. 'Now, you're a young lad, so you won't have to worry about this for a long while, but eventually you'll go through the same and you might love many different witches before you find the one you want to love forever. Or wizards, for that matter, if that's who you like.' Harry screwed his nose up and Sirius snorted. 'Maybe not.'

'Definitely not,' Harry said stubbornly. 'I'm not going to date, Padfoot.'

'You might feel differently when you grow up, Pup.'

He shook his head stubbornly. 'I won't. I'm only going to love one girl - the Raven's daughter,' he declared matter-of-factly. 'I dream about her sometimes. I don't know what she looks like, but I know she's really pretty, and really clever.'

Sirius stared at him for a moment as he just continued to casually eat his ice-cream, as though he hadn't said anything out of the ordinary at all. 'And- I suppose these aren't normal dreams, are they?' Harry shook his head, spoon still in mouth. 'Right, of course not. Well, your Mummy and Daddy were different too, so it's not that strange, I guess.'

His godson smiled at him innocently and carried on getting chocolate sauce all over his lips while Sirius' lunch sat forgotten in front of him. He wasn't entirely sure what had actually just happened, or how the conversation about his break-up with Heidi had managed to get to Harry's visions of his future wife, but he was definitely sure of one thing - he was never letting Lily Potter talk him into something like this again.

A/N: Sorry this chapter took a bit longer to come. I struggled to get the conversation between Harry and Sirius right, and truth be told, I'm still not entirely sure about it.

Either way, I've posted it now, so it's too late. This story continues to be unbeta'd, so do let me know if you notice any errors or inconsistencies in this, or any other chapters.

Thanks so much, amidland.

Edit: Thanks to studley24 for pointing out a minor error at the beginning of the chapter! It's fixed now, but please tell me if you spot any other mistakes.