Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters.

A/N: Thanks to MaeSilverpaws1, who is beta-ing this story.

Chapter Seventy-Five

Coming to Terms

Harry was grounded for another week once he returned home to a very worried Remus and a grumpy Sirius. Neither one seemed to be impressed by his escape attempt. However, again, Remus seemed to be much more understanding after he told Remus that he needed to talk some things out with his friend.

"I can understand why you might need to talk," Remus said frowning. "But that doesn't mean that I can let you get away without punishing you when you do something wrong."

"I don't blame you," Harry told him.

"Harry, if you would just talk to Sirius …" Remus started to say but stopped when Harry scowled.

"I don't want to talk about that," Harry huffed and then got up and walked out of the room. Remus shook his head, knowing that things would only get worse the longer that Harry and Sirius didn't talk to each other and decided that he needed to work on Sirius next, even though he knew it wasn't going to help. Those two were cut from the same cloth and were very difficult to live with when they were at odds with each other. Remus had tried to stay out of their stalemate so far but he couldn't let things carry on like it was. However, later that night when he found a chance to talk to Sirius it didn't go well, just like he thought it wouldn't have.

"Sirius, don't you think you've taken this too far," Remus grumbled at this friend after being ignored for the last five minutes. "Stop acting like a five year old, and talk to Harry."

"He's the one that's not talking to me," Sirius replied.

"You haven't tried to talk to him alone …" Remus tried to point out but Sirius interrupted him.

"Why should I bother when he's disrespecting …"

"Are you an adult or what?" Remus glared at his friend. "Harry needs to see …"

"Just keep your nose out of this, Remus," Sirius huffed and walked away from his friend, leaving the werewolf scowling.

If Sirius thought that Emmeline would be sympathetic to his plight he was disappointed to see that she thought Remus had a point. She didn't like the disruption she was causing in Sirius's life, and wanted to do something to lessen the tension in the house, though she wasn't sure what to do. She finally decided that it probably would be best to try and talk to Harry on her own, though so far she barely heard a word out of the boy since meeting him a week and a half ago. She had decided, however, that if he wouldn't talk to her, the least she could do was tell him about herself and hope that might be helpful.

"Em? What are you doing here?" Remus asked when she showed up on Friday afternoon. "Sirius said that he was meeting you at the pub?"

"That's what he thinks," Emmeline shrugged. "But I thought it was more important to come here. I feel really bad about what's been going on. Besides, I'm not meeting Sirius until five thirty and that's hours away."

"Shouldn't you be at work?" Remus then questioned.

"Are you going to keep taps on me or are you going to let me in?" Emmeline rolled her eyes and Remus smiled at her, stepping aside. She then walked into the living room where Harry was sitting, looking at her warily. "Hello."

"Hi," Harry said, trying to remember what Hermione had said to him four days ago. It probably was best if he got to know this woman that was so important to Sirius. Though, with the way that Sirius had been acting he was tempted to just act worse than he was, just to spite his uncle. He tried to push that thought away, as he watched Emmeline Vance sit across from him. He looked at her, really looked at her, for the first time since he met her nearly two weeks ago. She was tall, only a few inches shorter than Sirius was, and looked like she probably would have been a good Quidditch player. Her eyes were hazel and serious at the moment, but he could see there were laugh lines in the corner of her eyes.

"I was hoping that I would get a chance to talk to you alone," Emmeline said nervously.

"So how did you meet Sirius?" Harry asked; catching her by surprise … it was, after all, the longest sentence she had heard him say.

"I met him when I was a third year at Hogwarts and he was in his first," Emmeline said. "Though it wasn't until my fourth year that I got to know him better …"

"How come I've never heard of you if you've known Sirius for so long?" Harry interrupted her.

Emmeline grimaced, a little disappointed that Sirius had never talked about her and tried to brush aside those feelings. "I don't know; you'd have to ask Sirius."

"Sirius talked about her plenty, Em was the captain of Gryffindor Quidditch team in our fourth and fifth year," Remus said from the kitchen, where he had gone to give the other two some privacy … though obviously not that much privacy.

"Oh," Harry said, Sirius had indeed told him a lot about his captain Em over the years. He knew that Sirius had mention going to pubs after work something with some of his friends and he mentioned Em being there. He supposed that he should have realized that this was the girl that Sirius was talking about; it just never occurred to him that they would be the same person.

"Thanks Remus," Emmeline said to the chuckling werewolf, who was now walking to his room to give them real privacy.

"How long have you been dating Sirius?" Harry asked once the witch looked back at him.

"That's hard to answer," Emmeline sighed, not to mention it's not something I want to talk about to a boy that's not even fourteen yet, she added to herself. "But I've liked Sirius for almost … nineteen years now … Merlin, has it really been that long," she added the last part to herself in wonderment.

"How long has he liked you?" Harry asked next, his expression turning sad and thoughtful.

"From what he tells me, just as long," Emmeline smiled.

He wasn't sure why, but this thought didn't make Harry feel any better. Obviously, Emmeline was more than just important to Sirius if he cared about her for so long. He shook his head, trying not to think about that too much, or wonder why this felt like a bad things to him. So he tried to think of another subject to talk about. "You work in the Experimental Charms Department at the Ministry, don't you?"

"Yes," Emmeline said a little unnerved about the change in subject. She was expecting him to ask her more about her relationship with Sirius.

"You worked with my mum than?" Harry asked softly, this was another soar subject, but he would like to hear more about it all the same.

"I did … I actually was the one assigned to help her when she first joined our department," Emmeline said with a sad smile. It was hard for her to think of the witch, even harder for her to talk to Harry about it, but if he was able to bring it up, surely she could talk about it.

Harry was surprised to find that more than two hours had pass in just talking to Emmeline. After a few stories of his mum's first week in the Ministry (which he was surprise to find were rather amusing), they had moved on to the pranks she and his mum had pulled on Sirius and his dad. That lead to more humorous stories until Harry felt like he could share a few of his own stories that were amusing. Harry had to admit that he actually like Emmeline and he thought that she was a good match for Sirius.

His good mood, however, evaporated as soon as he noticed the cabinet door opening and Sirius walked into the room. Sirius had been scowling before and then looked at the two in the living room with raised eyebrows and a gaping mouth. He then turned to Harry in what was a hopeful expression that fell as soon as his eyes met the boy's.

"So, have you two made nice?" Sirius asked in what would have been a hopeful way if his tone wasn't full of doubt.

Harry didn't answer as he closed his mouth shut and cross his arm. He wasn't sure why he was doing this, but he didn't feel like talking to Sirius right now. Not when his uncle was still treating him coldly.

"Argh, Sirius!" Emmeline groaned. "What are you doing here?"

"I live here," Sirius huffed, still looking at Harry with a scowl. "What are you doing here Em, I thought we were going to meet at the pub?"

"We were, but I still had an hour before then … shouldn't you be at work?" Emmeline frowned, somehow knowing that she shouldn't mention to Sirius that she had actually been talking to Harry for the last two hours and he had been perfectly nice to her.

"I took off early," Sirius mutter and then stocked off to his room as Emmeline shook her head.

"That man is impossible," she muttered and smiled at Harry, who was still looking gloomy and didn't seem to notice her at all. She would not say anything when Harry was in hearing distance, but she was definitely going to have a talk with Sirius.

O

"Come in," Sirius said when there was a knock on the door. He had just spoken with Emmeline … or more like she had just call him out on how childish he had been acting the last few weeks in concerns of Harry and he had to admit she was right. His responses that he's only been acting this way because Harry had been rude proved how childish he had been acting.

"Remus said you wanted to talk to me," Harry said in an emotionless voice, coming into the room and closing the door behind him.

"Yeah," Sirius said, his lips twitching a little, for he had not told the werewolf any such thing, but it was true all the same … he did want to talk to Harry. "Look, I'm sorry Harry."

"What?" Harry said looking at him in shock, Sirius couldn't blame him. He wasn't known for his apologies.

"It really annoyed me that you didn't even give Em a chance before you acted so coldly towards her," Sirius sighed. "It didn't help that I can't even remember the last time that you've ever acted that rudely to someone. You usually like to give a person a chance before you decide whether to like them or not."

"I never said I didn't like your girlfriend," Harry pointed out. "I was just shocked … you never even mentioned her before … at least not that you liked her or anyone else."

"I know," Sirius sighed. "She hasn't been my girlfriend for long you know …"

"Yeah … she said as much," Harry said.

"You really did talk to her," Sirius smiled at that and Harry nodded his head.

"I thought it would be nice to get to know her."

"Why did you react like that?" Sirius asked, "When you first met her?"

"Not sure really," Harry frowned. "I just didn't expect it."

"That's not the really reason," Sirius said, sure there was more to this, but Harry didn't seemed to want to say more. "For myself … I think I was treating you more like you were my friend or brother, than a son."

Harry looked into Sirius's eyes then looking sad and apprehensive.

"I don't like talking about this much, because it feels wrong in a way," Sirius sighed. "With James in the hospital it feels almost like I'm taking you away from him or something. But I raised you, and I love you as much as I would if you were my own flesh and blood."

"You do?" Harry said, trying not to let himself get too emotional about this.

"Yeah," Sirius said. "It's funny though, the older you get, the more you remind me of James … not just in looks, but in the way you act too. Did you know that when your dad and mum started dating, I moped around the common room and wouldn't talk to your dad for weeks? He got fed up and stopped even trying to talk to me."

"That sounds familiar," Harry said.

"I know, doesn't it," Sirius chuckled. "I was terrified that he wouldn't need me anymore now that he finally got the girl of his dreams."

Harry's brows furrowed at that and Sirius sighed.

"You reacted just like I would expect James to react to the news if we were still kids," Sirius sighed. "I didn't even think about the reason why you would react this way … you can tell me you know."

"I know," Harry said, trying for a teasing smile he normally would have used when Sirius said something like that and Harry refused to give him the answer he wanted. Sirius just looked at him patiently and Harry knew he couldn't leave it at that. "I'm not sure why I acted like that. I mean, part of me was happy for you Sirius, because you were happy. But …"

Harry looked at a loss for words, not because he didn't know why he reacted the way he did, but because he couldn't seemed to say it out loud. Not to Sirius.

"But …?" Sirius prompted.

"You don't need me anymore," Harry whispered as he bowed his head and looked at the floor. "You can have the real thing now."

"You are the really thing, Harry," Sirius said crossing the room so that he could pull Harry into a hug. "Didn't I just say that you're my son?"

"But …" Harry tried to protest, though he didn't try to get out of Sirius's grasp.

"No matter what might happens in the future, nothing could ever change the way I feel about you," Sirius said. "You can't be replaced … our family will only grow."

Harry didn't say anything to that … the majority of his fears being extinguish by those words.

O

Harry felt a little foolish for his fears in the first place. With only a few more times of Emmeline coming over to the house, it was clear that he wasn't going to lose Sirius because of her. In fact, it was more like what Sirius had said, it seemed like their family was growing to include her. He was glad that Sirius had released him early from his punishment from running off to Hermione's house and he was able to talk to his friend again. Ron had written to them, inviting them both to the Quidditch Cup, saying that they had prime tickets, which Harry was ecstatic about. He wasn't sure if he would have been able to go otherwise, because Sirius and Remus weren't allowed to take him. He was also happy at the fact that he was going to be able to go to the Burrow for a few weeks and that Hermione was going to come too. He was sure that this was going to be a fun summer.

That was until the morning that he woke up with his scar hurting.