"I'm hoping the next time we're back here, we'll actually have the baby outside." Harry said woefully. Sirius chuckled painfully from the bed and Harry took his hand.

"How's Regulus doing?"

"He's okay, released yesterday morning. He's going to come visit once Opal gets off work. She said that the healer's told her he should be able to walk on his own in another month or two."

"I'm so sorry, Harry. I should have known it was a trap." Sirius squeezed the hand clutching his own. Harry just smiled.

"It doesn't matter. You're going to be okay and anyone could have made the same, very stupid, mistake."

"He talked about you, said I had a very lovely wife..."

"I'm glad that surprises you."

"And that he would never guessed you were male. You never mentioned that he…"

"He didn't. I think he planned to, but from the way he reacted, I think he's gone off boys a bit."

"Or maybe you were just too old for his tastes." Sirius said dryly.

"I'm glad you're okay."

"Me too." Sirius replied and from Harry's reaction, the baby chose that moment to wake up. He kicked the hand Sirius put over him hard, as if saying hello to his father, who'd spent the last week unconscious in a hospital. "Both of you."

"Bloody hell. What happened here?" Sirius said as he looked around the remains of their living room. Harry didn't answer, but looked around as shocked as he was. "When did this happen?"

"I-I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know? You didn't notice our house was in tatters?"

"I haven't been here since a day after you got yourself half killed. I got a bag of clothes and toiletries and, in case you didn't notice, spent the past three weeks by your bedside."

They move slowly through their destroyed home, everything broken and thrown around. Harry didn't give much reaction but a sob when they found their wedding album on the floor of the upstairs hall, the pages torn out and photos ripped into tiny pieces.

"It's okay, love. I have the negatives hidden and if they got those too, Regulus should have the copy the photographer gave him." Harry nodded slowly. But Sirius himself felt like someone had punctured his heart when they looked on their dresser. Harry's jewellery had all been tipped out of its box, but what hurt him most, was the destroyed remains of a very special piece….

The only sounds in the deep midnight darkness were two crickets outside on a balcony rail, chirping slowly in the cold snowy weather. The balcony was connected to a flat, one of many in a big building. But in this particular flat, was a bedroom. And in this bedroom lay two people, one spooned in the other's arms, both breathing slowly, not quite asleep, but not fully awake either.

"I don't know how he could do this…" The younger of the two whispered to his fiancé, more tears silently leaking out of his eyes. The other man held him closer against his chest, letting him cry out the painful betrayal of his father.

"He'll come around, love, don't worry."

"What if he doesn't? It's only three weeks to the wedding."

"Then we have it without him. Yeah, we'll both be upset that he wasn't there, but you were the one who told me, remember? Whether he's there or not, it's our special day and ours alone. It's his loss if he chooses not to celebrate it with us. Harry nodded slowly.

"Love you." Sirius smiled and kissed Harry's head.

"Love you too." They lay together in silence again, strangely enough, Sirius's mind didn't drift to the perverse thoughts he would have had four months ago with anyone else. It didn't even occur to him that both were only in their underclothes, only a pair of lace hot pants and his own briefs separating him from his fiancé who, with some gentle prodding, would have given it up three weeks early.

He reached for something on the nightstand, causing Harry to move to see what it was. Sirius handed him the box and he looked at him strangely before opening it and gasping, mouthing the words of note quickly before lifting out the gift.

"To celebrate four of the best months of my life. Happy anniversary, my swan." Harry looked at him before looking closely at the necklace. Just larger than his thumbnail, the diamond-encrusted outline of what was clearly a swan, a single blue sapphire making the eye.

"It's… it's…" He stuttered to find the word.

"Perfect." Harry nodded slowly, finally dragging his eyes away from it to look at Sirius again. "It's to symbolize what our marriage is going to be like... just, perfect."

"Isn't this just irony?" Sirius asked as they lay on the floor in the charred remains of their nursery, Harry having finally broken down into tears when he had spotted it.

"What?"

"Remember when I gave this to you, what I said?" Harry nodded.

"Perfect."

"And we agreed that we'd be perfect." He loosened his grip on the swan and both looked at it. The diamonds were still visible, but the silver had melted into a large blob and the sapphire was missing. "Now look what we've become… so far from perfect it's not even clear what we've become. What our relationship's become…"

Harry nodded tearfully as he held his husband and the hand holding the swan.

"Please, no more fighting…"

A very deep chapter indeed. Thank you to those who reviewed.

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