Harry's fourth day at Grimmauld Place dawned, rousing as soon as the natural light began to fill the bedroom. While he awoke he lay in the warm and comfortable bed for a few minutes. It was a little after seven in the morning, and though he knew he could take a long lie in if he pleased, today he didn't feel the need for it. The last few months dragging himself out of his warm bed to face the day had felt excruciating, and he normally clung to every minute he could get, even if it meant skipping breakfast. But right now there was no reason to dread facing the day. He wasn't at Hogwarts, and the only person here who glared at him was Kreacher - and occasionally Sirius when his smart mouth got away from him.

Feeling motivated Harry got out of bed and dressed, throwing on the now ruined t-shirt he had discarded onto the floor last night. He and Sirius had spent their time working through Grimmauld Place, neither of them entirely sure of what they were doing, and the process had wreaked havoc on his clothing. Mrs Weasley would be outraged by the state of him, by the dried wallpaper glue on the shoulder of his shirt and the hole in his jeans he tore when trying to pry a nail from a skirting board.

Sirius was still sleeping soundly - or should he say Padfoot? Sprawled out on the floor by the burning embers of the fire Padfoot was very comfortable and fast asleep. It didn't bother him that Sirius now slept in the same room as him, it wasn't like he hadn't done it before, but it felt strange to have it mandated. But, that was the compromise that allowed him to forgo Occlumency this week.

His stomach clenched at this thought…he was forgoing it for now.

Putting that thought out of his mind he headed downstairs, impressing himself with his motivation to get on with the day. It was nice to have something decent to occupy himself with, and to not be under the cloud of staring and gossip. Thundering his feet on the stairs he also relished that they no longer had to be deathly silent around the portrait of Mrs Black, which now silently resided in Kreacher's den.

Stopping at the place the portrait used to hang he ran his hand over the now dry plaster. It was probably time to sand it back now, ready to start painting or wallpapering, whichever Sirius decided to do.

He figured they would probably end up painting most of the house. Yesterday they had discovered the hard way that neither of them were very good at wallpapering, even when using magic. The dining room would have to be started over, the newly laid wallpaper unable to be saved from their ineptitude. But, they'd had fun in between all the swearing and moaning it took.

Kreacher was lurking around the first floor, inspecting what he called the malicious and disrespectful damage they were inflicting on the Noble House of Black.

'Good morning Kreacher,' Harry said as he passed him by.

It was a reflex, something he did automatically even though Kreacher openly despised him. This morning though Kreacher didn't say anything in response. It was progress. Silence was nicer than the usual verbal assault he would normally receive.

Downstairs Harry rummaged the cold pantry for something to eat, noting that although the Shepherd's Pie was almost gone there would be enough for lunch, but not enough for dinner. He was impressed he and Sirius had managed to make it last this long, and it was only the prospect of having to cook again that made them both resist the temptation to scoff it all. But it seemed Sirius was channelling Mrs Weasley these days, always encouraging him to eat second helpings.

Making himself a simple bowl of cereal Harry sat down at the table and ate quickly, keen to get started on the day. They had no plans for what they might do in the kitchen, it alone was the most comfortable room in the house, particularly now had Kreacher removed the cannonball and they'd fixed the ceiling.

As he ate breakfast he dimly wondered what might be in the Daily Prophet today, dreading the idea that they would have reported on his supposed suspension from Hogwarts. No doubt Umbridge would have made sure to gloat about it, to boast that he was badly behaved and deranged before taking credit for ridding the school of him.

Yet though he was dying to see the newspaper, he was also relieved that he couldn't. He didn't know what they were saying, which also meant he couldn't obsess over it. He couldn't dwell, couldn't feel disheartened or outraged. Here at Grimmauld Place it was like he was safely encased in a bubble, kept away from all things that added to his stress.

Sirius only received the Daily Prophet when an Order member brought it for him, and without them there were no updates. Tonks had stopped by again the other day, delivering some much needed hardware supplies like door knobs, and he suspected she had also slipped Sirius the latest issues of the Prophet. Yet unlike he had done at the Burrow last summer he did not go looking for them. Instead he was content not to know.

When he finished breakfast he eagerly made his way upstairs, resisting the temptation to start tearing down the newly applied wallpaper in the dining room. This was Sirius's house, it was up to him to decide what they'd do about that. Instead he went up to the first floor to one of the rooms they had worked on yesterday, where Order members usually crashed for the night.

They had made a serious mistake in here the other day, having arduously laid new carpet before admitting they really couldn't avoid fixing the walls. They had laid down drop sheets and charms to protect the carpet, but it seemed Kreacher had been in during the night and messed everything up - he was still doing odd things like that.

Fixing the drop sheets over the carpet and furniture he recast the repelling charms and then got to work, first discarding the empty Butterbeer bottles that had been left over from last night. Taking up a foam block and fresh strip of sandpaper he began manually sanding down the walls that had been stripped of paper and patched up. His hands and shoulders were still aching from yesterday, from the effort of pulling down the decades old wallpaper, but he didn't mind. Harry was not averse to manual work. In fact he'd been relishing in it, enjoying the physical demands that were such a stark contrast to the monotony and inactivity of his school classes. The last few nights when he had collapsed into bed with aching muscles and a weary body he had slept well.

There was something therapeutic about seeing the results of their labour, being able to admire the perfectly smooth walls and sight of new carpet on the floors. Now that they had started he couldn't stand the thought of not being able to see the repairs through to the end, hating that once he went back to Hogwarts tomorrow night Sirius would be finishing this on his own.

Most of the time Harry and Sirius worked in comfortable silence, neither of them feeling the need to fill the space with mindless chatter. It was an agreeable quiet, one that allowed him the time and space to mull over his thoughts, but also to let his mind lapse completely, to be blissfully blank and at rest.

It was this frame of mind he was supposed to be achieving in Occlumency, but he didn't allow himself to feel even a flicker of guilt about that. He had been saying for months that his lessons with Snape were a complete failure. His comparative ease in clearing his mind here at Grimmauld Place was a testament to that.

Occasionally he and Sirius would get to talking, but only when the conversation naturally arose. At times they talked about serious things, like the Ministry and the war, what Voldemort might be up to right now. Other times they talked about his parents, Harry relishing every tidbit and hanging on to each and every story, always craving the next piece of information and glimpse into his parent's lives.

Then other times Harry was the one who talked. He mostly avoided venturing towards the things that were truly on his mind, even though he knew Sirius would listen. But in a way those things felt inconsequential now, even though he knew that in just over a day he would be in the same position he was before, dealing with those problems all over again. Instead Harry talked about inconsequential things, bringing up the latest Quidditch match or asking Sirius questions about the homework they'd been doing together.

While he scanned the walls for the next patch of plaster that needed to be sanded, Harry reminded himself of what today was - his dad's thirty sixth birthday. That evening he and Sirius would raise a toast to his mum and dad, and Harry had been promised his very first taste of Firewhisky, something he was very much looking forward to.

It was a little after nine when Sirius joined him, and he had almost finished with the walls in this particular room, now giving them a quick brush down.

'You finished this quick,' Sirius acknowledged, giving an approving nod as he looked around.

'Quick? It took an hour,' he moaned, only half complaining.

'Take a break if you want.' Having looked around Sirius began to leave, downstairs. 'You can start that Potions homework, and your Transfiguration essay.'

Harry hastened to follow him out onto the landing. 'Hold on, I finished that yesterday,' he reminded him. 'You said it was good.'

'The one McGonagall told you to fix. You can do it again, get a better mark this time. And you're not putting off Potions any longer.'

Unexpectedly Sirius had turned out to be very committed to the assurance that he wouldn't fall behind on his school work, of which McGonagall had collated from all his teachers and sent along. Though he would have much preferred to work on the house from sun up to sun down, Sirius had been making him set aside time each day to catch up on the classes he was missing and the homework that was due. And being Saturday seemed to make no difference.

Disregarding the suggestion to finish his any homework Harry ventured to the next room on their agenda, another bedroom that had been stripped of wallpaper and patched up, ready to be sanded. But he lingered out on the landing, looking around at the six doors and fixing his attention on one in particular.

Of all the rooms in Grimmauld Place there were three he was not allowed in. The attic was filled with a number of potentially dangerous artefacts that Mad-Eye would take care of removing, and Sirius's childhood bedroom warranted a guided tour. But the third room remained a mystery for now, Sirius having made him promise to not go inside, but had refused to tell him why or what was in there.

When Sirius warned him he had just sighed, looking at the door with a now unquenchable curiosity. 'You know telling me not to go in there is just-'

'- going to make you desperate to go in,' Sirius finished. 'Yeah, I know you. I can trust you, can't I?'

Harry had hesitated, wishing he hadn't put it quite like that. 'You're not going to tell me anything?'

At this Sirius relented, though perhaps part of him was dying to share the secret. 'It's your birthday present.'

Birthday present? At this he blinked in confusion, looking at the door even more intently. 'You need whole room for a birthday present?'

In the end that was all the information he had been given, and Sirius made him shake hands to swear he would not look inside. As the days passed Harry's curiosity did not abate, and he wished that Sirius had never mentioned it in the first place, that he had just locked the room without any explanation. But Sirius had known exactly how to phrase it for just the right amount of pre-emptive guilt… 'I can trust you, can't I?'

Not knowing was killing him…what birthday present needed an entire room?

It wasn't long before Sirius joined him again, bringing him a cup of coffee he eagerly accepted. Already in a comfortable groove with one another they simply got to work again, Sirius taking up some sandpaper and starting on the other wall. Neither of them mentioned that last night Sirius had woken him from a dream of the Department of Mysteries corridor, Harry's numb arm stretched out into thin air as he reached for the door that always evaded him. They both knew what those dreams meant and the implications for him learning Occlumency.

As the morning progressed he reluctantly turned his attention onto his school work, both of them avoided the subject of his inevitable return to Hogwarts. Harry was positively dreading it, already feeling sick to his stomach any time he allowed himself to dwell on the prospect. It made his hands shake to think about walking back into that place again, returning to the scrutiny and daily ridicule that awaited him there.

Yet in the back of his mind was a small hope that lingered, a hope that he refused to let grow. Nevertheless it was there, the hope that maybe, just maybe Sirius could do something. Sirius wanted him to stay at Grimmauld Place a little longer, and so too did he. He'd never go back to Hogwarts again if he could help it.

Harry was sitting in the drawing room on the first floor, working at an antique table Sirius had found in one of the upstairs bedrooms. As soon as he finished up today's list of work he would be fully up to date once again, and he would be able to completely relax tomorrow, his last blessed day.

But as much as Sirius was an annoyingly diligent task master where Harry's homework was concerned, he was also supremely helpful. Though it had been two decades since he studied the O.W.L. curriculum Sirius didn't seem to think much had changed, and for the last few days had been serving as a proxy tutor, reviewing Harry's homework and explaining concepts and ideas that the textbooks usually failed to cover.

Though he wasn't one for writing notes Sirius was patient, often talking through things out loud much in the way Flitwick did. He also served as a significant boost for Harry's morale, particularly when it came to Snape's methods of teaching which he thoroughly enjoyed criticising. Sirius's tutelage had helped Harry fix the essay due to McGonagall, both of them reasonably confident he would even scrape an outstanding thanks to Sirius pushing him to figure out how the First Principle of Transfiguration applied even when it shouldn't.

Completing that essay had been a great relief, lifting a weight off his shoulders, but its completion left only one subject he had to catch up on. Though he had succeeded in managing to put it off until Saturday Sirius finally put his foot down, refusing to let him do anymore work on the house until he'd at least started his Potions homework. But the subject alone was enough to get him annoyed before he even started, even more so when Sirius pushed him to keep working on antidotes even though he didn't need to.

He had started brewing what had seemed like a simple enough antidote before things unravelled, and by mid-afternoon the subject he had been dreading became the first source of friction between him and Sirius. After four days of living in one another's pockets quite harmoniously they had argued, Harry losing patience with the subject while Sirius lost patience with him.

'It keeps saying negative,' he complained, showing Sirius the test kit he was using on his antidote. 'And these strips keep coming up positive for ammonia, which shouldn't be in there.'

'Yes,' Sirius agreed impatiently, consulting the test kit and then reading the antidote ingredients Harry had written down. 'Figure out why it's there.'

'It's not supposed to be there!' he insisted, angrily flipping through the text book. He was furious with the whole thing, having had a gut full of dealing with this rubbish. He had done everything he could with this bloody antidote, considered every possible angle and solution that he knew of, and still he could not figure out why the ammonia was there. 'The kit's probably old.'

'It's not the test kit,' Sirius insisted, shoving the Potions textbook back across the table to Harry. 'There are rules to follow in antidotes. You're getting ammonia because your elements are unbalanced.'

'You're unbalanced,' Harry snapped. He threw his quill down and slumped into his chair, refusing to even look at the textbook again. 'We're not even meant to be doing this kind of antidote until next year.'

'You need an O on your Potions exam to get into Snape's class,' Sirius explained through gritted teeth. 'Nailing intermediate antidotes will push you up a grade.'

He looked at Sirius in astonishment. 'You really are unbalanced. What makes you think I'm taking his class next year?'

Sirius got an annoyingly smug look on his face, and then he tipped his chair back on its rear legs. 'You'll take his class if you're going to be an Auror.'

Souring even more he looked back at his work…this very problem had been on his mind for weeks, and now Sirius had brought it up. 'Fine, I won't be an Auror.'

'Have fun at your office job,' Sirius said dryly. 'Maybe you can be a bean counter at the Treasury.'

Harry glared at him again, thoroughly tempted to kick the chair out from beneath him. 'So I'm allowed to be an Auror now?'

'I won't be proud of anything less. Learn your antidotes,' he lectured, clasping his hands behind his head. 'They might save your life one day.'

Looking back at his cauldron and notebook again Harry wracked his brain, desperate to figure out what he was missing so he could be done with the whole thing. He knew the element that was ruining his antidote, but he just couldn't figure out why it was there.

'It's wrong!' he blurted out, pushing his book away for a second time. 'That ammonia isn't supposed to be in this antidote!'

'Harry, i-'

'No, it's not an ingredient! It's not a compound of other ingredients, so why is it there?'

Sirius lowered the legs of the chair back to the floor with a great thud, looking for a moment as if he'd very much like to bury his head in his hands. With a great flourish he shoved the textbook back in front of Harry for the second time. He paused there a moment, his hands resting on the book as he carefully considered his words.

'It follows the elemental rules,' he said solidly. 'Every element in this antidote has followed the rules. Look up the rules on ammonia.'

'I did, but-'

'It's a compound! Follow the trail.'

Harry spluttered, about ready to chuck it all in, Auror career be damned. 'What trail?'

'There are element that follows the rules, made up of other elements that follow the rules…and maybe some of those rules cancel out, or clash, or form new compounds, and that's why your antidote won't balance.' He straightened up now, gesturing to Harry's cauldron. 'This antidote is an anti-don't.'

For a moment Harry had been managing to follow along, but any gains he had made were quickly overshadowed by second-hand embarrassment. He cringed, setting his quill aside. 'Don't make stupid puns. You're better than that.'

'I'm really not,' Sirius grinned, and as if he hadn't just been on the edge of losing his temper he was tipping his chair back again. 'Go on. Look up the rules ammonia has to follow and figure it out.'

Determined he would sulk enough to make Sirius regret pushing him to do this he did as he was told. He was seething on the inside, hating every minute, hating that his final Saturday afternoon with Sirius was spent doing this. And it wasn't just any Saturday afternoon…on his dad's birthday he was doing homework for their mutual enemy.

He was relieved when Sirius left a few minutes later, leaving him alone to seethe in frustration. Harry didn't blame him for going. He was surprised Sirius stuck around for that long given how much of a pain this Potions homework had become for them both. Throwing a glare at Sirius's empty chair he flicked through the textbook to the index so he could look up the properties of ammonia - again. But as he found the right section and started reading through he wished Sirius would come back. Just like Hermione, Sirius had a knack for explaining things better than the textbook.

The door to the drawing room swung open, and Kreacher crept in carrying a tea pot and cup on a tray. 'Tea, for Master Harry,' he grumbled quietly.

'Did Sirius send that up?'

'Kreacher sent it,' Kreacher answered. He looked up at him with his beady eyes, and though there was no hint of friendliness nor was their malice. 'Master Harry is working hard.'

Still suspicious he looked at the tray as he took it from Kreacher and set it onto the desk. It was the fine china that Sirius normally didn't get out unless someone like Dumbledore or McGonagall was coming around, and though it had come from Kreacher without warning it looked clean and…he hated to think it, but it looked safe enough.

He looked at Kreacher, unsure of how to phrase his question so that it was polite but thorough. Months ago Sirius had ordered Kreacher to obey Harry as his master. 'Is there anything about this tea that I wouldn't like?'

Kreacher shook his head. 'No. Would Master Harry like milk, or sugar?'

Trusting the answer, he found himself pleasantly surprised. Kreacher had just brought him tea, for no particular reason? 'Black is fine. Thank you, Kreacher.'

Without another word Kreacher began to shuffle away, and Harry lifted the lid on the tea pot to peer inside. He wasn't sure what he was expecting to see, Kreacher had after all been asked a direct question by someone Sirius had named as belonging to the Black family. Seeing and smelling nothing other than tea he poured a little, though he thought to himself he might have much preferred a Butterbeer to finish the day off.

'What's Sirius doing?' he asked, his question an afterthought.

Kreacher stopped in the doorway. 'Entertaining a guest.'

Slopping a little tea onto the saucer he looked up in surprise. There was someone else here? 'What guest?'

'Kreacher is not supposed to know…but Kreacher knows.'

Getting to his feet Harry abandoned all thoughts of tea and homework. 'Kreacher. What guest?'

Kreacher looked at him, and this time Harry knew he was relishing the answer, and the effect it would have. 'Professor Snape.'

A/N Hope you enjoyed the slice of life glimpse into how Harry and Sirius are getting on with one another. Next chapter is the meeting with Snape, and then after that it's the last Sirius POV where he and Snape talk.

I've also just written two chapters from Ginny's POV - entirely unexpected plot that came out of nowhere, it could very well be no good at all, but I had to write it and I hope you enjoy the sub plot it creates.

Thanks for the reviews guys, and especially to guest review (who signs off with 'stay safe dear writer'), all the reviews are really encouraging and it's so great to read about the bits and pieces you're enjoying from the story. Thanks!