Disclaimer: See Part 1.
AN: The last part of the story. Thanks to everyone that reviewed – they encouraged me to finish this story. I hope you liked it.
Part 3
All is Right When the Pieces Fit
It was one day just before Christmas when it hit Sirius that there was a reason that he and Harry fit so well together. He had been watching Sev and Remus sitting together in the corner of the main parlor they had claimed for themselves. The two boys were deep in a discussion that Sirius had no clue what was going on, but it was their intense faces of concentration that had caught his eye.
The scene had made him think just how he and Harry actually acted when they were together. Each understood the other boy so well that they often could finish the other's sentences, almost to the point where people thought that they were twins with the other rather than their own, natural twins. It was only when strangers in town saw all of the boys together that they realized they were mistaken, often pointing out such a mistake to the boys and making them slightly uncomfortable. Sirius really hadn't wondered why until now just why.
He didn't want Harry to be his *brother.*
******
"So what do you think I should do?"
Sirius was hanging around the Gryffindor stables, watching as Roderick was grooming one of the tamer griffins the next day. He had been unable to sleep, and even after the nightmares had started, he had refused Harry's help in getting over them. Instead, he had spent most of the night down in the small library Lily usually resided in during the day. He had searched for some books that would tell him just what was going on, but nothing he'd found had helped at all.
The morning had come with no answers and a hurt Harry. Sirius had been unable to tell his friend just what was going on, and while it pained him, had told the other boy that he needed to be alone today. Still, seeing those green eyes filled with such sadness was breaking Sirius' heart even as he didn't know what to do with the rest of it.
He knew that Harry was going to spend all of the time that Sirius was away in his painting room. It was where he always went when he needed to lick his wounds.
When he got back, Sirius knew that it was going to take some time for him to explain to Harry just why he had needed to be alone, even if he didn't tell the other boy everything that was going on in his head. Maybe he would even enlist the help of Sev and Remus, the two of them owing Sirius a couple of favors when they had been hiding from Dumbledore when it was time for their lessons and they wanted a quick snog instead. Besides, who better to help Sirius explain things than Remus, who was the smartest of them all when it came to things like this. Sure, Lily was book smart, but Remus knew a lot more things about the heart than the rest of them.
"Sirius?"
He looked over at Roderick, who had finished taking care of the griffin and was watching him with a sympathetic expression on his face.
"Yes?"
"I think that you should tell Harry everything."
"Everything?" Sirius wasn't sure about that.
Roderick nodded. "He watches you, you know, when you're not paying attention."
Sirius wasn't sure where this was going. "Yes, and Sev does the same thing to me as well."
The Gryffindor boy shook his head. "No, you stubborn ass. He *watches* you, as if he would be lost if you ever left."
Shock ran through Sirius. Did Harry feel the same way about Sirius? He wondered if the two of them were trying to figure all of this out without help from the other and they needed each other.
******
Sirius made his way to Harry's paint room to stand on the outside of the door wondering if he should knock. He wasn't sure what he was going to say, and it made him nervous. The fluttering in his stomach seemed to exacerbate the feeling even more when he thought of just being with Harry.
Bracing himself, he knocked on the door. On the other side, he could hear a slight shuffling, as if Harry didn't really want to be disturbed. Sirius was almost at the point where he didn't want to interrupt his friend when Harry opened the door.
Sirius mentally berated himself at putting such a look on his love's face. And he did love Harry. After all, there were so many things that Sirius loved about the other boy. From the way Harry took the time to make sure that the others were happy, even when they didn't realize he was doing anything like that, to the way he gently handled the horses even when they were being their most stubborn, Harry had made his way deep into Sirius' heart to stay.
"Harry?"
The green-eyed boy gave him a cautious look before answering, "Yes?"
Sirius shuffled his feet before stepping slightly forward. "May I come in?"
Harry hesitated before pulling the door a little wider to let Sirius into the room. As Sirius walked in, he noticed a new canvas set up by the eastern window - the one that faced the field the two of them spent most of their time outdoors in. For a moment he was tempted to see what Harry was painting, but controlled himself. He knew that the other boy didn't really like it when other people saw his paintings before they were finished. Sirius could respect that, even if his curiosity sometimes drove him made for want of finding out the subject of said painting.
"I'm sorry about this morning," Sirius said when he noticed they had both been silent for a long, awkward moment. "I was just... confused."
"Confused?" Harry asked in a soft voice. "About what? And what about last night? I thought...."
Sirius moved towards Harry and gently brushed the other boy's cheek with the back of his hand. "And about those as well. Harry...." He broke off as he tried to think of a way to say what he wanted to tell him, but Sirius was drawing a blank.
A little part of his brain was wondering if he should just take the chance of kissing Harry and damn the consequences. And the more he thought about it, the more that little part wanted to do it. Sirius was torn between listening to that thought and feeling like a total dunce for just standing there as Harry fidgeted.
Toss it, Sirius thought.
He leaned forward and gently smoothed one hand down Harry's cheek to cup his chin. Sirius rubbed his thumb lightly over Harry's lips as they parted in confusion.
"Sirius?"
"Shh," Sirius whispered before leaning in further to brush Harry's lips with the softest of touches. "I just want - "
Another soft kiss.
" - you to know - "
And another.
" - that I - "
A deeper kiss this time. There was no way he wasn't going to give up these touches as Harry's lips pressed back. Sirius knew he was just going to have to let it all out.
" - love - "
Harry pulled back slightly before Sirius could kiss him again. "I love you, too, Sirius."
Blue eyes widened in shock for a second before the closed partway. "Love you," he whispered.
Sirius wondered if this was a dream for the briefest of moments, before Harry tugged his mouth back down to his. The touch of Harry's lips brought Sirius back to reality, and he pressed just a bit harder against the sweet mouth.
An hour later, Sirius and Harry were standing at the window, Harry in front and locked within Sirius' arms, the smaller boy's fingers entwined with his, looking out over the tree where they liked to sit. They had spent a great deal of time kissing, but they had each pulled back at the idea of doing anything more at the moment. Sirius knew that they weren't ready for it, and had been relieved when Harry had agreed, saying that they should figure out what they should do next.
Sirius had suggested they first start by telling their twins and their respective lovers that they were together, and go from there. They should be understanding enough to accept Sirius and Harry being together, and then the six of them would be able to tell everyone else from there. Before anyone else knew, however, Sirius wanted to tell Roderick. His friend had been the one to finally get Sirius to actually do something, and deserved to know the news before the rest of the village.
There was a loud bang from the floor below, a sign that Jamie had come home for the day from where he was studying with Roderick's uncle. It was only a matter of time before Sev and Remus followed, and Lily would drift out from her library, where she had probably been holed up.
The dinner chime sounded, and Sirius and Harry exchanged a glance as they finally moved. Sirius touched his forehead to Harry's for a second, studying his green eyes for an intense moment. Harry smiled tremblingly, reassuringly back at Sirius, who brushed his lips against the ones just below his own.
"Ready?" Sirius asked when he pulled back from the soft kiss.
Harry nodded. "As long as I have you beside me, I think I'm ready for anything."
******
Sirius didn't want to move. He was in a warm bed with Harry snuggled into his side, their bare skin touching and moving against each other in sleep and contentment. No, moving wasn't a choice Sirius was going to made, especially not with the sound of the wind blowing outside the window. A chill ran down Sirius' spine when he realized that the blizzard that had hit yesterday was still going strong, before he remembered that they didn't have to go anywhere today, and indeed, the rest of the week.
No, honeymoons were made for not moving from bed.
The road to this point hadn't been *as* smooth as Sirius and Harry had hoped. There had been some protests against their being together, more than what had been raised when Sev and Remus had announced they were a couple. Several of the village girls had complained that there should be a low that two such handsome young men couldn't be allowed to like each other. Plus, there was the family that lived at the outskirts of the village that said it was unnatural, and that their culture said they would go to hell.
Sirius had ignored them all, especially the family - he didn't like them to begin with, with their strange notions that magic was bad. He always thought that it was because they didn't have any themselves, and they were jealous that a lot of the village could use magic. The girls he thought were just being silly and jealous, since neither Harry nor himself had given any indication that they liked them.
Instead, they had focused on the family that surrounded them. Their twins had been enthusiastic in their congratulations, Jamie more so that Sev, but both of them had welcomed their twin's choice even more into the family they had been. It had been one thing when they were just close friends, but now there was something more to the relationship that made the bond they shared much stronger.
Roderick had also been effusive in his congratulations. He had spent quite a bit of time teasing Sirius on taking so long to confront his own feelings, and teasing Harry about not being as sure as *he* had been about Sirius' feelings. Then Roderick, with the two eldest of his younger sisters, had thrown the two their own little party. They had invited all of their friends, and, by the time the party ended, everyone that had arrived single had found someone - at least a date, and at most their eventual lover. Including Roderick.
Sirius had to grin when he remembered the look on his friend's face when he had shown up the week after the party with this huge smile on his face. It had been Sirius' turn to tease his friend on finding his feelings.
Surprisingly, the two had, over the next year, agreed to be each other's best man at their respective bondings. The plan had been approved by both of their families, Sev understanding Sirius' reasoning. After all, Sirius had been Sev's best man when he and Remus had decided to bond a month after Harry and Sirius had gotten together. Sirius had been honored by being his twin's best man, and had enjoyed watching the peaceful smile that Sev wore whenever he looked at Remus. After the ceremony, he had known that this was what he wanted for himself and Harry, a little further down the road. It had further been reinforced when Jamie and Lily had held their bonding in the fall.
And it had happened.
They had bonded three days before, as the sun shone down and sparkled against the white backdrop of snow on the ground. The two of them had decided that they would hold the ceremony under the tree - their tree - at the time of year they had discovered it. They had stood underneath the snow-heavy branches as Albus conducted the ceremony with his brightly shining, pale blue eyes, and a grin under all of his whiskers. They were the last of his 'children' to bond. Sirius and Harry had smiled at each other, their faces glowing with happiness as Albus wove the ribbon around their clasped hands, whispering the words of magic that would bind them together.
Harry shifted against Sirius as his thoughts finally rested on the present. Sirius bent his head just enough to brush his lips against Harry's forehead, where his head was resting on Sirius' shoulder, his arm wrapped around his bonded's torso. As he did so, he ran over a list of just what they could do all day while the blizzard raged on.
Oh yes, honeymoons were good.
******
"It's a boy!"
Sirius laughed at the awestruck look on his friend's face. Roderick had been pacing the room for quite a while, having been thrown out of his wife's bedroom by the midwife delivering their first child. The other man had been a mess from the beginning of the labor pains, and had steadily gotten worse as time went on. It had taken them almost five years for Elina to become pregnant, before they had found a potion that would help with conception. Harry and Sev had helped Elina brew the potion, to ensure that it was made correctly. Potions was new art when it came to the general public, but Sev had been invited to study under a master who had wandered into the village several years before, and Harry had just been curious enough to watch. Now, the results of the potion had just been born.
Next to Sirius, Harry sat up, the midwife's jubilant shout waking him from where he'd been sleeping on Sirius' shoulder.
"Congratulations, Roderick," Harry said in a not-quite-awake voice.
Sirius nodded enthusiastically. "Yes, congratulations, my friend!"
Roderick still looked stunned. "A son?" he said, his mind still on what the midwife had told him. Obviously, his mind hadn't caught what his friends had said. "I have a son?"
"Master Gryffindor?" The midwife had come back into the room, her voice panicked. Blood was all down the front of her robe, and her hands were stained pink. "Mistress needs a doctor... I can't stop the bleeding!" she practically shouted. "I need help to stop it."
Harry jumped up from the sofa where he and Sirius had been sitting. Sirius followed a half-second later behind him and Roderick as they entered the room to find Elina Gryffindor passed out on the huge bed in the center of the room. Next to the bed in the newly set up bassinet, was her new son, his face red as he cried at the top of his lungs.
Harry immediately went and picked up the infant, making soothing noises to the child in comfort. Sirius went to Elina and touched her skin. It was clammy and cold, completely opposite of the woman's personality - which was warm and bubbly and friendly, but most of all loving. A shiver ran along Sirius' spine when he realized that the doctor would be too late, and that none of them here knew enough how to stop the bleeding.
The midwife came rushing back in, two house-elves running behind her with a thick stack of towels and a bowl of steaming water. The woman frantically tried to stop the bleeding as Sirius and Roderick watched, but the effort was futile.
Roderick finally stopped the woman when he realized his wife was dead.
"Thank you, Ronwyn, but it's...."
Sirius put a hand on his friend's shoulder as Roderick broke down. The other man fell to his knees beside the bed and picked up his wife's hand, holding it to his cheek as tears began to fall down it.
"Elina."
Sirius tore his eyes from his friend to rest them on Harry. His bonded was holding the infant to his chest as tears fell from his green eyes. He crossed the room to wrap his arms around Harry as they began to mourn the loss of their friend.
Roderick had finally pulled himself together enough to set in motion what needed to be done. As he did, Sirius and Harry stayed by his side, never giving him the chance to sink deeper into depression. The couple had also made sure that he took care of himself, as well as sending curious village folk back to their own houses. The news had spread quickly as the sun raced over the summer landscape, and the village had converged on the Gryffindor house for any further news. Sirius had turned most away, but for a few. Sev and Remus had come to offer support for their friend for a couple of hours before returning to their own house, to pack for the trip to Glastonbury, where Jamie and Lily had gone for the summer to visit Merlin's library.
Sirius and Harry now sat in Roderick's study on the large sofa. Roderick was seated in his favorite chair, the large leather covered monstrosity taking up almost as much room as the sofa in the room. A large cup of spirits was clutched in one hand, as the other ran over Roderick's face.
"What am I going to do?" he finally asked his two friends.
Harry gave a reassuring smile to Roderick. "First, you need to name your son, my friend," he said in his soft voice. "Second, you need to go and get some rest."
Sirius snorted. "Third, no more for you to drink, Roderick. I think four glasses of *that* is enough for you tonight."
Roderick held the cup up to his nose and took a giant sniff. He closed his eyes and was silent for a while. Sirius thought he had fallen asleep when he suddenly opened his eyes.
"A name?" he finally uttered in a miserably tiny voice.
Harry nodded. "He needs a name. I know Elina wanted to give her son or daughter their name, but you need to choose what you think she wanted."
Roderick shook his head violently. "I can't. Elina wanted..." He took a deep breath and shut his eyes tight. "You do it, Heron." Roderick opened his eyes and looked at Harry. "Please...."
Sirius looked at Harry to gauge his reaction. His bonded had surprise written all over his face, even as he agreed with Roderick's reasoning. Harry had been the closest to Elina of them all after Roderick, taking a shine to his friend's choice of partner. Harry looked up in question to Sirius, and he nodded his answer.
"Godric."
Roderick's head shot up from where it had been hanging against his chest. "What?"
"Godric Albus." Harry's face was kind. "Your son's name is Godric Albus Gryffindor."
Roderick paused as the name rolled over him. His young brother's name hadn't been spoken since he had been killed by one of the griffins the family raised the year before. The eleven year old had been trapped in one of the stalls when thunder had roared through the air, setting off a stampede in the stables. He finally smiled, his face touched with sadness.
"Yes," he said in a sad voice. "Godric Albus. My son is Godric Albus"
******
"Godric, slow down!" Harry laughingly shouted at the young boy who was racing across the field on his newly made broom.
Sirius laughed from where he was sitting underneath THE tree, watching as Harry and Godric played tag on their brooms. They had taught the boy how to make his own broom, and now Godric was testing out his creation with excited energy.
"Father?"
Sirius turned to find his five-year-old daughter, Elina, watching him with serious green eyes. In her hands she held a squirming toad.
"Can I keep him?"
He chuckled. "How about you keep him out here? He may have family that lives in the field with him, and he might get lonely if you take him into the house."
Elina nodded. "Yes, Father," she said, setting the toad back onto the ground. She watched a little forlornly as the toad hopped with great speed into the wildflowers that grew along the nearby fence.
Sirius pulled his daughter into his lap, fingers running up and down her sides. The little girl started giggling, temporarily forgetting her newly lost friend. After five minutes of the laughing torture he put his daughter under, he tucked Elina into his arm and watched as Harry and Godric sped back and forth across the field.
The potion that Elina's namesake had taken to become pregnant with Godric almost fourteen years ago had been taken by Sev and 'polished.' It had taken a couple of years before he had announced that he had modified it enough that a man would be able to become pregnant. Well, to their little group.
The village had become separated over the idea of two men sharing a life together, and adding a child to the mix would ignite the waiting bonfire. Instead, their group had slowly removed themselves from doings in the village, most especially Roderick, who had become overwhelmed by women wanting to take Elina's place, something he definitely didn't want. Soon, though, they would have to leave this wondrous place as more people came into the area with strange ideas about magic and those that could wield it.
When Sev had announced the changes to the potion, only Harry had wanted to try it. He and Sirius had argued quite a bit over Harry's using it. Sirius had been afraid that he would lose Harry like Roderick lost Elina in childbirth.
Harry had been tougher, though. Yes, the birth had been difficult, but Elina had been a welcome addition to the small family. Little Godric had been enchanted by the little girl, and had become a fixed part of the scene by his daily visits to the infant. Even now he was quite protective of her.
Sirius knew that Godric was destined for bigger things than this village. Lately he had been speaking of going down to London, to search out other wizards who wanted to band together before those without magic could successfully separate them. Godric wanted to build a school, because he knew that there were a lot of people who never got to be taught the things he had growing up. Jamie, Lily, and Sev had taught Godric most of what he knew, with the rest of them supplementing his education with things he would need to work with students.
Harry and Godric finally tired of their flying and came to sit down next to Sirius, Elina having fallen asleep in his arms. Harry flashed a quick grin at Sirius, who reciprocated the gesture before waving his wand and opening the basket that he'd been sitting next to.
The wind rustled the leaves of the giant tree, giving shade to the small party that sat at its base. Light filtered through the gapes of the leaves, shedding an ethereal glow to Harry as Sirius watched him with a content look on his face. His green eyes seemed to reflect the green leaves of their tree, lending him a not-quite human quality to his face. He knew that he would always be with Harry no matter what would happen, even centuries from now. A content smile crept over his face as Harry looked at him with love.
Fin.