Chapter three

After a hearty lunch, in which everyone took seconds and Sirius thirds, and all complimented Mrs. Potter for her fabulous cooking, they all headed into the living room by the fireplace to get ready to leave.

"Remus said that he'll meet us at home tonight," said Isabella, grinning at Sirius and James, "it should be fun, don't you think?"

Sirius' heart was hammering through his chest and nodded quickly. Isabella must have sensed that he was nervous as she took his hand and squeezed it tighty.

"Don't worry," she said to him, giving him a small smile. "It's going to be fine."

Sirius relaxed a little bit and smiled at her. This was what Sirius loved about her the most. He could be under the threat of strangulation, either from Mr. Filch or Professor Dunsworth or Snape, but she could always find a way to calm him down and ensure him, that no matter what will happen in the whole wide world, he will be fine and that she would always be at his side.

He nodded as he smiled at her. "Thanks, love," he said quietly.

Isabella turned to Mr. and Mrs. Potter and grinned broadly at them. "Thank you for the lovely lunch, Mr. and Mrs. Potter," she said.

Lily nodded eagerly. "Yes, thank you, it was really delicious."

James grinned broadly at his parents. "Isn't she just perfect for this family?" he asked eagerly.

Lily just shook her head, though Sirius was sure that there was a small smile playing on her face. Isabella must have noticed too, because she turned to him and her eyes were asking if he saw it too. Sirius just nodded, making Isabella grin widely and knowledgeably.

"We'll make sure that James and Sirius gets to the train for Hogwarts next summer, Mr. and Mrs. Potter," said Isabella.

Mrs. Potter smiled at her. "Thank you dear," she said, "And you're more than welcome to come over and stay for Christmas this year dear."

Mr. Potter looked at Lily. "You too, Lily," he said.

James looked eagerly at Lily and was nodding at her direction. Sirius thought that she was on the verge of saying no, so he nudged Isabella on the shoulder and pointed at Lily.

She must have gotten the message because she turned quickly to Mrs. Potter and said quickly, "we would love to stay for Christmas, Mrs. Potter, won't we Lily?"

Lily glared at Isabella, but she didn't have any time to answer, because James had been jumping up and down, all his dignity forgotten as he hugged Lily tightly.

Lily blushed and wriggled her way free from James' hold. "Let go, Po - James!" she said. Sirius thought that it was classy of her to not refer to James by his family name in front of his parents. James however, thought that this meant that his relationship, or lack of one, with Lily was progressively moving on, as he grinned wider and once again attempted to hug her, only for Lily to spot what he intended to do right away and moved quickly towards the direction of the fireplace. James just managed to make sure that he wouldn't fall by clutching onto the nearest chair his hands found.

She grabbed one end of James' trunk. "Help me out," she said to James. James took the other end and placed it in the already green fire. Lily gave a cheery wave goodbye, yelled "3 Civic Lane!" and disappeared with a whoosh.

James kissed his mother quickly and jumped onto the fireplace. "Love you mean it," he said as fast as he could, then, "3 Civic Lane!" and he too disappeared with a whoosh. Sirius sniggered. No doubt James wanted to spend some time with Lily by himself.

Isabella turned to Mr. and Mrs. Potter, and smiled. "Thanks again for the lunch," she said, "and for letting us take them away so soon."

Mr. Potter smiled. "You're welcome," he said, "just watch out for them, they can be devilishly tricky blighters."

Isabella sighed and looked at Sirius, and then turned to the Potters with a tired look at her face. "You have no idea." she said. Sirius nudged her playfully and she gave him a playful wink.

Mrs. Potter laughed. "Do take care of yourself, won't you dear?" she said, "Oh and Sirius, make sure that James doesn't cause too much trouble there."

"The same goes for you," added Mr. Potter.

Sirius grinned. "You can trust us Mr. and Mrs. Potter," he said broadly, "we'll be perfect little angels."

Isabella snorted, but said nothing.

Finally, after one last hug from Mrs. Potter, Sirius quickly followed Isabella back to her home, and gulped as he realized that in a few seconds, he was about to meet her father.

It was too late to go back.

When Sirius opened his eyes, he found himself facing a fairly large room that had all the windows opened to let the sun in, making the room very very cheerful. It's walls were painted a pale yellow, and the furniture complimented everything perfectly. He could see a set of chairs that were made of wood and a small coffee table with a lot of magazines in it. There was also a fair amount of lamps that were all made of wood and sitting in the biggest couch of all was a man who had his eyebrows raised in his direction.

Sirius stood up quickly and dusted off the dust particles in the fireplace before stepping out in the clean floor. He turned to his left and saw that Isabella, Lily and James were all looking at him, with a funny expression. James gave him a wink and looked towards the direction of the man.

There had to be no other explanation for it. This had to be Isabella's father. Sirius pictured him to be a lot bigger, with hair perfectly in place and - he thought with a snigger - a thick brown moustache. But this was not what the man looks like. He had sandy brown hair, Sirius thought that it looked like Remus' hair, only his was much longer and thinner. He also saw that he had green eyes, in exactly the same shape and shade as Isabella's and the same skin tone. When he stood up, Sirius gulped. He looked refined and in shape. Sirius thought that this is what the Minister of Magic should look like.

"Hello, Mr. Stonewall," said Sirius, trying to keep his voice casual. "I'm Sirius Black." He reached out for a handshake.

Mr. Stonewall didn't smile and took it. He looked at him up and down intentionally, and as if he made sure that Sirius saw everything that he was doing, making Sirius squirm more than ever. "Hello, Sirius," he said, his voice very low, and Sirius thought, very dangerous. "Isabella had told me all about you."

Sirius gave Isabella a look, at which Isabella gave an apologetic smile while Lily and James sniggered. Sirius thought that Isabella gave her father a glare of some sorts, that he just ignored. Sirius gave a weak smile, but resisted the temptation to keep his head low and willed himself to look straight at Mr. Stonewall's eyes. "I'll make sure that I don't disappoint her, sir," he said very politely, "nor you, sir."

Mr. Stonewall gave a curt nod, and turned to James. "James here tells me that you have a knack for causing trouble," he said sternly.

Sirius turned to James and gave him a glare, at which James returned a very innocent look.

"Is this true?" said Mr. Stonewall

"Er..." said Sirius.

"Dad, you're scaring him." said Isabella bluntly, her arms crossed over her chest and glaring at her father with a small pout in her face. "You promised not to do anything to him."

Sirius looked at Mr. Stonewall, who smiled at his daughter. The effect of the smile was enormous. Sirius thought that he looked quite intimidating, even without the uniform, but the smile made him look like the most caring father in the world, and at the same time, the most protective. Sirius thought that this is what a father should look like.

Sirius laughed inwardly at his thoughts. So far he's compared Mr. Stonewall to a proper Minister for Magic and a great father. Yeah, you're really setting yourself up well Padfoot, he thought, gulping and trying to hide a smile at the same time.

"I know, honey," said Mr. Stonewall softly, "I just want to make sure that the right person is with my beautiful and understanding daughter."

"You're sucking up, dad," said Isabella with a playful grin.

Mr. Stonewall looked at her daughter. "I don't like your tone, young lady," he said slowly, at which Isabella quickly lost her grin and quickly and sharply apologized. Mr. Stonewall nodded and then turned to Sirius with a small smile in his face. "Have you ever hurt my daughter?"

"No sir, I would never hurt her." said Sirius quickly, looking at him straight in the eye.

Sirius saw at the corner of his eye that James was about to say something, probably one of the many times that Isabella and Sirius had shouting matches that were sure to be legend all over school. But thankfully, Lily shot him a look that clearly meant 'shut up'. James clearly got the message and closed his mouth as Sirius sighed with relief.

"Well, we know they shout at each other a lot," said a voice that just arrived from the kitchens.

There were three of them, all boys that came out from the kitchen. They had to be Isabella's brothers. The first one, the one who spoke was the tallest among the three had the same brown hair as his father but he had different eyes, brown ones and a mischievous smile on his face. The other two looked almost identical, with the same hair color and complexion, but the second one had brown eyes and the third, green.

Sirius looked curiously at Isabella. She was the only one in the family that had black hair...

"How come you have black hair?" asked James loudly, voicing out Sirius' thought.

Isabella smiled. "Mother's side," she said and that was enough. Everyone in the room knew that her mother had died a long time ago, while giving birth to her. It was only last year that she was able to let go of the guilt that she was feeling. She thought that it was all her fault that her mother died and that she was a bad daughter and should have died instead of her. Sirius helped her to let go of the guilt and soon afterwards, Sirius received a letter from her father expressing his gratitude for whatever he did and that they had never seen Isabella happier.

But this was different, this was meeting her father, face to face. Her father would be able to see him fidget, squirm and feel awkward, and Sirius was sure that Isabella's father didn't like anyone who was all squeamish and queasy around him or his daughter.

"Sirius," said Isabella, "these are my brothers: Jack, Jason, and Jonathan."

Jack, the boy who spoke, took Sirius' hand and shook it. "So, you're Sirius Black huh?"

Sirius nodded.

"Isabella's been talking about you all summer," said Jason, the second boy with brown eyes, "she was getting really annoying really. That's why you're here. We told her that we should meet you and see what she's been fussing about for the past two weeks."

"And she already warned us not to work on you too hard," said the final boy, with the green eyes. "Like we'd ever tortured any of her boyfriends." he added with a glare to Isabella, who stuck out her tongue.

"Well, there was that one," said Jack thoughtfully, looking at the ceiling. "The one who we thought was gay."

"And the one before that," said Jason mischievously, "the one with the long hair and the annoying laugh."

"Yeah, and the one after the first one," said Jonathan with a great big sigh and turned to his sister with disbelief in his eyes, "he was really annoying."

Sirius gulped, and made a mental note to chop his hair off, not laugh to loudly and be as manly as possible.

"Guys!" said Isabella indignantly. She held Sirius' hand. "Don't worry about them, they're just idiots." she said, "And don't cut your hair, I like it that way."

Sirius gave a weak smile, as the three boys looked at him and had their eyebrows raised, as if inspecting him for one thing or the other.

"He seems alright," said Jonathan slowly, eyeing him up and down checking for any damages in Sirius' exterior. Sirius felt like a mannequin.

"Not like that last one," said Jack.

"Yeah, that one was a nightmare." said Jason. He turned to Isabella. "Glad to see our sister's finally developing taste."

Isabella scowled at him, but smiled at Sirius. "You passed." she said.

"Passed what?" said Sirius. Isabella's brothers were already working on James, as they surrounded him, giving the odd comment or another, and most of it about James' hair.

"Can't you fix it?" asked Jason.

"Believe me, everyone's tried." said James.

Lily giggled.

Isabella and Sirius gaped at her. After a few more second, Sirius turned to Isabella again. "Passed what?"

"Their test." said Isabella. "My past boyfriends didn't pass in the first day and they had to leave the next day or be tortured by my brothers with no mercy."

Sirius gulped. "So will I be tortured?"

"Oh yes," said Isabella as if this meant nothing whatsoever, "but don't worry, they won't torture you until you run screaming for your mummy."

Sirius snorted, "Like I'd ever do that."

"Exactly."

"Didn't you say that you have four brothers?" said Sirius.

Isabella nodded. "My youngest brother is Dillan," she said, "well the truth is he's really our cousin and his parents died in an accident when he was little, so full custody went to us."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

Isabella waved it off. "Oh, that's okay," she said. "we haven't told him yet, since he's only 5, but when he get to be around 10 we'll tell him. He knows that his parents are gone though, and we made sure that he knows that his parents loved him and still does very much."

Sirius smiled. He loved this family, and couldn't help but feel and wish that his family was like this too. He absolutely loved the family dynamic.

"What?" asked Isabella.

Sirius shook his head. "Nothing."

They just looked at each other for a few seconds, a smile on both their faces, not realizing that her three brothers were not paying any attention to them anymore, nor that Mr. Stonewall was looking at them curiously, nor the fact that Jason and Jack had just started pulling on James hair, ignoring Lily's protests for them to stop. Jonathan merely insisted that they were doing the right thing and that it was for James' own good.