hello! this one's…a very tumblr fic, more so than the others.
a little bit of background re my hcs: james sirius goes by jem/jemmy most of the time. lily luna is lily-lu or lulu (only to harry and sirius). al is al. jem is sirius' favorite bc of how much he resembles his namesake, try as he might to be impartial. sirius is called papa by all three kids (grandpa padfoot. papa).
i adore generational similarities and parallels and all kinds of cheesy stuff like that, so, ykno. this happened. for a character that was barely mentioned, i'm mighty attached to james sirius lol (is anyone surprised tho đź’€)
i hope u guys like it!
"Sirius."
"Hm?"
"What are you doing?"
Sirius opens his eyes, roused from the comforting doze he'd found himself in. "Napping."
"While my daughter is trying to climb across you like a bridge?" Harry stares pointedly at his youngest holding onto Sirius' shirt and trying to leverage herself onto his stomach with chubby fists and little legs. He shrugs in answer.
"Where's Al and Jem?" Harry asks instead, knowing that was as good as he'd get.
Sirius nods towards the kitchen door. "They're getting themselves a snack, should be here—" A fork clattering to the ground, the sound of running footsteps, and two black haired blurs dart into the living room. "—right about now," he finishes just as Al crashes into his father's knees—Harry has to hold onto the door to protect both of them from imminent descent—and Jem comes to a stop beside him, a comb of all things held in his hand.
"Papa, papa, papa!" he chants. Sirius replies with his own 'Jemmy!'
"Come on, come on, get up," he says, bending down to push at little Lily-Lu. Sirius immediately gets up, holding onto her protectively so her brother, who's always unaware of how much bigger he is and how much more fragile she is, doesn't accidentally hurt her in his excitement.
"Hey, hey, calm down, honey, you know she's tiny." He takes the moment to place Lily-Lu back on the carpet, bum side down, so she can crawl away to her next victim, er, that is—the cat, Sir Bartholomew. He isn't worried about the old thing, knows he can put up with a little toddler's poking and prodding, but still keeps an eye on that corner of the room. The other's on the hyperactive seven year old bouncing in front of him. "Now, what's up with you?"
"Can I do your hair p'ease?" Jemmy asks and Sirius is thrust back, many decades ago, to a moment when another James who owned half of his heart, said the same thing to him. He shakes it off quickly though—the act comes easy to him, all this time later, though doesn't hurt any less for it—because he's more confused right now.
"Where'd that come from? And who gave you the comb?" Because he could've sworn there wasn't one in the kitchen, which is the only place he could've gotten it from in the last five minutes.
"Mummy," James says. "She told maybe if I had one wi'f me, my hair would learn to behave quicker."
Sirius blinks, before hiding a snort into the palm of his hand. A Potter's hair behave? Not in this century. He can certainly appreciate the sentiment, though, even if it's doomed for failure. "Certainly an optimist, your mum—"
"Wha's an opt-opsimi-opsitist?" Jemmy cuts in, completely butchering the poor word.
Sirius flicks his nose. "Optimist. It means someone who always looks at the glass as half full." He deliberately chooses the vague definition, curious where the kid would go with it.
James Sirius doesn't disappoint. "Tha's stupid. The glass can be empty too. And what if it's full full?"
Sirius smothers another laugh at the completely serious tone he uses. "Then they're not an optimist." He uses the ensuing confusion to ask his original question. "Why do you want to do my hair, love?"
"Oh!" Jemmy gasps. "Because I saw daddy doing Lily-Lu's and I said I wanna but he said no 'cause I can hurt her and mummy's hair is too short now and you're the only one left."
Huh. That actually makes sense. He wasn't expecting that. He looks towards his kid, who has his own hanging off one leg now. Raises a questioning eyebrow. Receives a helpless shrug in return.
"Well, okay then." Sirius turns to face Jemmy properly, sitting cross legged. He doesn't like anyone touching his hair, much less playing around with it when they don't know what they're doing—but this is Jemmy, and Sirius is as helpless to his smile as he was to his namesake. So what James Sirius asks for, James Sirius gets. "How do you want to do this?"
"Um." Now that he's actually here, it seems like the kid hasn't planned further than just asking him. Though the confusion on his face and the way he chews on his bottom lip is funny, Sirius puts the little guy out of his misery by calling Harry over.
"Haz, why don't you help him out? Show him how to get started?"
Harry smiles, a wide, fond thing, and walks over to where they're sitting (or standing, in Jemmy's case). Al, who doesn't let go of his knee, is dragged along for the ride, but he seems to enjoy it, going by the grin on his face.
"Scoot back there, Siri," Harry instructs, pointing to the couch at his back, before turning to Jemmy. "We'll sit on the couch behind him, okay? You wanna be taller than the person's head."
Jemmy giggles loudly at that. "Papa's already the tallest, daddy."
Harry nods. "That's why we must confine him to the floor. Otherwise he'll take over the whole thing with his monstrous height." That just makes him laugh harder. Sirius only leans back, smiling indulgently at the sight. The couch behind him dips as the three Potter boys take a seat, Jem right in the centre with his father beside him.
"Now, what you wanna do is take his hair," he demonstrated by doing the same, "and dividing it like this, in three. You get that, Jem?"
He hears an excited "Uh huh!" before a pair of chubby hands grabs hold of his hair and yanks hard enough that an 'oof' is punched out of him.
"Woaaaah, careful there, James," Harry warns, grabbing his wrists so he doesn't further agitate the hair grasped in them. "Papa's sensitive, you can't just go around pulling his hair like that. What if he gets a bald spot?"
"A bald spot? I'll show you—"
"And now you've to bend this one over this here, see," Harry continues, completely uncaring of his indignant godfather sulking. "The trick is to make sure it stays that way. I'll hold it, you braid, okay?"
"Okay!" Jemmy chirps before picking up the hair, much gentler this time thank Morgana, and carefully crossing it over the one below. "Daddy, daddy, see, like that?"
"Exactly like that, buddy," Harry praises. "Now, keep going, I'll hold onto this bit for you. Just like that…very good."
And to his credit, Jemmy picks it up remarkably quickly for a first-timer. His hair gets pulled around a fair bit, he knows there's a few strands less than when he started, but that's fine. It's a small price to pay for the sound of happy laughter he can hear, the gentle tones of Harry instructing him this way and that, the non-stop chatter of Al from his dad's other side. The only thing that's missing is—
A weight lands on his lap unceremoniously. Ah. There.
"Hello, my love," Sirius coos, lifting one hand to hold onto Lily-Lu, careful not to move his head. "And where've you been, huh? Terrorising the cat?"
"No!" she exclaims before starting an exhaustive one-sided babbled conversation. Sirius loves it, nonetheless. His eyes remain wide open, punctuating with 'uh huh' 'absolutely, princess' 'you got it, Lulu' whenever she pauses for a breath. He thinks he does remarkably well not giving the boys behind him any trouble for the state he's in.
"And done!" Harry announces a few minutes later and Sirius can feel his hair has been returned to him, maybe not in the same condition as it was given, but well enough.
"What do we think, Lulu?" he asks his granddaughter. "Looking good?"
"Yah!" She reaches up with one grabby hand, clearly intent on undoing all the hard work of the past half hour and before he can say anything, Harry's already intervened, gently holding onto her wrist.
"Baby, no," he says, "James put in a lot of hard work into that. We don't ruin other's art, okay?"
"Art, is it?" Al pipes in, snarky little shit that he is. Jemmy swipes at him with the comb and Harry's other hand is now stretching towards that altercation with a stern 'Boys!'
"Well, let's see this." Sirius summons his wand from the corner table, conjuring a small mirror for himself. He keeps it levitating mid-air so he can look at himself properly and is…pleasantly surprised by what he sees. It's not perfect, of course, Jemmy hadn't let his father do much more than hold onto sections of hair, adamant to finish the task himself. But it was still pretty, strands falling out the side, nicely framing his face. Sirius holds in a wince as he sees the amount of grey mixed with the black. What a disaster but no point worrying about that now. Instead, he turns around to face his boys, face softening at the nervous look on Jemmy's face.
"Oh, you sweet boy," he murmurs. "Come here." He shifts until Lily-Lu is on one thigh and Jemmy can sit on the other half of his lap. "That looks so good. You've a gift with your hands, did you know?"
"Really?" he says, brown eyes wide and innocent. Sirius' heart twists at the resemblance, the déjà vu, the painful reminder.
"Really." He presses a wet kiss to his cheek, knowing exactly the kind of reaction that'll garner. Sure enough, Jemmy squeals and twists away, not falling off but coming close if not been for Harry's hand mysteriously appearing behind him in support. Sirius only has time to grin sheepishly before Al, who'd gotten off the couch and behind him, politely climbs on his back, toes digging into his waist, hands curling around his head and the freshly braided hair. Lily-Lu is staring in fascinated wonder, clapping along to the mayhem and chaos, Jemmy is still giggling, Harry has joined in with his own chortles and Sirius' heart has never felt fuller.
"Do you know, your granddad used to braid my hair too?" Sirius asks, later, when they've all calmed down and it's just him and Jemmy sitting on the ground, his arm wrapped around the much smaller boy.
"Granddad Jamie?"
"Mhm." Sirius nods, eyes unfocused as he stares straight ahead. "He was the only one allowed to touch these luscious curls." He tacks on a teasing grin at the end of that, not wanting to bring the mood down with his melancholy.
"Not even daddy?" Jemmy asks, curious.
"Not even daddy," Sirius confirms. "That's never stopped him, of course, but that's less because I liked it and more because I have a lot of trouble saying no to those green eyes."
Jemmy giggles. "Is that why you always give Al extra cookies before bed?"
Sirius' eyes widen dramatically and he makes a hurried shush-ing gesture. "Pipe down there, Sherlock. You're gonna get me in trouble with your mum and dad if they find out." A mischievous gleam enters those hazel eyes at the thought and Sirius hastily moves the conversation along. "But yes, your granddad Jamie and on the rare occasion, great-grandmum Effie. That's it."
"Woah," Jemmy blinks before biting his lip shyly. "And now…me?"
"And now you," Sirius agrees, squeezing the arm around him.